I Belong to the King - Del Delker Lead Kindly Light - King’s Heralds Thy Word Is Like a Garden - King’s Heralds Give Me the Bible - King’s Heralds

I Belong to the King - Del Delker Lead Kindly Light - King’s Heralds Thy Word Is Like a Garden - King’s Heralds Give Me the Bible - King’s Heralds

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Voice Of Prophecy

H.M.S. Richards

They Killed the Witnesses


Lift up the trumpet and loud let it ring, Jesus is coming again. Cheer up you pilgrims, be joyful and sing, Jesus is coming again. This is the voice of prophecy, a voice crying in the wilderness of these modern days. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Coming again, coming again, Jesus is coming again.

From our Voice of Prophecy studios in Los Angeles, California. We welcome you to this half hour of inspiration and music with the King's Herald's Del Delker, Brad Braley and the Voice of Prophecy speaker HMS Richards, a Seventh-day Adventist minister. To begin our program we hear from Estelle Delker, our contralto soloist. I belong to the King, I'm a child of his love. I shall dwell in his palace so fair.

For he tells of its bliss in yon heaven above. And his children its splendor shall share. I belong to the king. I'm a child of his love, and he never forsaketh his own. He will call some day to his palace above.

I shall dwell by his glorified throne. I belong to the King, I belong to the king. I'm a child of his love. And he never forsaketh his own. He will call me someday to his palace above.

I shall dwell by his glorified throne. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for all who listen today. Bless those who are sick and troubled, those who may be separated from loved ones. Remember the men and women in national service around the earth and especially we pray today for all ministers of religion those who preach the gospel of Christ.

Give the world a message of Jesus love, we pray in Christ's name. Near to the heart of God, a place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God. O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, sent from the heart of God, Hold us who bow before Thee, near to the heart of God. Amen. Lead kindly, light amid encircling bloom.

Lead thou me on. The night is dark, and I am far from home. Lead thou me on. Keep thou my feet. I do not ask to see the distant scene, 1 step enough for me.

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still will lead me on, O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent till the night is gone, and with the morn those angel faces smile, Those angel faces smile, which I have loved long since and lost awhile. The Word is like a garden, Lord, with flowers rich and rare. This beautiful poem by Mr. T.H. Gill is combined with an old anonymous melody.

We hear it now as sung by the King's Heralds. Thy word is like a garden, Lord, with flowers bright and fair, and every 1 who seeks may pluck a lovely cluster there. Thy word is like a deep, deep mine, and jewels rich and rare are hidden in its mighty depths for every searcher there. Oh, may I love thy precious word. May I explore the mine, May I its fragrant flowers gleam, May light upon me shine.

O may I find my armor there, thy word my trusty sword, I'll learn to fight with every foe, the battle of the Lord. Here now is HMS Richards, the voice of prophecy speaker, whose subject is, They killed the witnesses. We have all heard of criminals who have attempted to destroy the evidence of their crime by killing or trying to kill the witnesses who might condemn them. We find an example of this even in the Bible in the 12th chapter of John, the 10th and 11th verses. Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead and the enemies of Christ planned to put Lazarus to death because his testimony regarding this greatest of miracles caused many to follow the Savior.

These wicked men were willing to go to any extremes to stop the work of Christ. But we turn now to the eleventh chapter of the great prophecy of the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. Here we find these words, ìAnd I will give power unto my 2 witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand 203 score days, î that is 1260 prophetic days, literally 1260 years, ìclothed in sackcloth, these are the 2 olive trees and the 2 candlesticks standing before the God of the Earth. Remembering that the Book of Revelation is a book of symbols and symbolic prophecies, it's evident that these 2 witnesses of God are the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Scriptures. They bore witness or testimony to Him down through the long 1260 years of Church and State Union aggression and oppression, they bore their faithful testimony.

Jesus had declared of the Scriptures, They are they which testify, or bear witness, of Me. John 5.39 It is always through the Holy Scriptures that the oil of divine grace pours forth into the human heart. For the Scriptures are the word of His grace. Acts 14.3—Here they are likened to 2 olive trees. The reference, no doubt, is to the prophecy found in the fourth chapter Zechariah where the prophet saw 2 olive trees and the candlestick of gold.

The oil from the trees flowed into the lamps of the candlestick, supplying a continual light. According to verse 6, this represents the word of the Lord saying, Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord of hosts. In spite of persecution and neglect and of being largely hidden in an unknown tongue, these 2 witnesses kept the light burning through the long dark ages of their sackcloth ministry. We read further concerning them in Revelation 11, 5, If any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, have power over waters, to turn them to blood, smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

It was the word of the Lord spoken by his prophet Elijah in the days of old hath shut the heavens from rain. The word of the Lord spoken through Moses turned water into blood, smote the earth with plagues. It is the same living word of these 2 witnesses, which in the last days just ahead of us will condemn all who fight against it. Jesus said, He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words hath 1 that judgeth him. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 12 48.

How important it is for us to treat with great respect these 2 witnesses, the Old and New Testaments. In spite of the opposition of men and the neglect of men, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments bore their witness and did not die through long dark ages. Power was given them, they did endure. Their enemies could not destroy them. For they were and are the word of God which liveth and abideth forever." 1 Peter 1.

We are told that in the days of Bible burning in old Hungary, a certain count gathered the Bibles and Scripture portions from all the homes of his estate. He burned them in his courtyard, but as he watched the flames leap upward, suddenly a gust of wind caught 1 of the curling leaves and dropped it, the edges blackened right into his lap. As he looked down upon it, here are the words he read, All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever." Isaiah 46. Wycliffe, the morning star of the Reformation, translated the scriptures into the English language and started a work for God which has never ended, even to this day.

Next we find Tyndale translating and printing the scriptures, multiplying them so rapidly that their circulation could never again be stopped. But still it was unsafe to read the Bible at times. On July 8, 1546, the English Parliament passed a proclamation that from henceforth no man, woman, or person shall, after the last day of August, next ensuing, receive, have, take, or keep in his or their possession the text of the New Testament." Think of it, a law forbidding the possession of the Holy Scriptures. In the Episcopal Register of Lincoln there are indictments found against Bible lovers as follows. First against John Barrett because he was heard in his own house before his wife and made their present to recite the Epistle of St.

James, which epistle with many other things he had perfectly without book. Here is an indictment against William Halliday who was detected for having in his custody a book of the Acts of the Apostles. And there are many others along the same line. Surely we can thank God for our freedom today, for our religious liberty and our separation of church and state which grants freedom to all to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, or not to worship, if they so choose. It's left with every human being to decide his own communion with his Maker.

Just as God's 2 witnesses, the Old and New Testament, were coming out of the darkness of those troubleless times, a new onslaught was made upon them from the most unexpected source. Let's read about it here in this strange prophecy of Revelation 11. We begin with the 7th verse. And when they shall have finished their testimony, that is in their sackcloth condition during the 1260 years of the prophecy which ended about 1798 AD. The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, overcome them, kill them.

Their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. The same hour was there a great earthquake and the tenth part of the city fell. This is a striking symbol of the great anti-church, anti-religious revolution which took place in France and spread over the world and which is still at work in certain parts of the earth. Historians have often spoken of it as the earthquake of the French Revolution, the very word used in the prophecy. This prophecy evidently symbolizes the rise of some atheistic power emerging as it were from the abyss and making war upon the Christian religion.

Did such a thing happen? Did it occur near the end of the 1260 year period of prophecy in 1798? Indeed so. Originally the Revolution in France was intended merely to support and assert the rights of the third estate, the middle class, against the first and second estates, the nobility and the clergy. But when the clerical leaders refused to conform and condemn the new constitution on March 10, 1791, the revolution became anti-church, though it was still not anti-religious.

In fact, favors were granted to some church organizations by the National Assembly. It was not long, however, until a power passed from the moders to the extremists, as it usually does, and in 1793 those who hated religion and God himself gained control. The first atheistic act of this National Assembly was to pass a law inaugurating the so-called Republican calendar which did away with the ancient Bible week of 7 days, putting its place at a 10 day period, every tenth day or rest day. By the way, friends, it is interesting to note that an effort much like this has been made almost every time anti-God forces have been in control of nations, but in the end they have always failed. The next act was to do away with the Christian era, inaugurate the so-called revolutionary era beginning with the founding of the Republic on September 22, 1792.

So the year 1 would begin at midnight that night and extend to midnight September 21, 1793. All documents were to be dated according to this new era. The next act was a prelude to the abolition of Christianity. On October 14, Chaumey, leader of the anti-God forces obtained a resolution that ministers of no religion should be allowed to exercise their worship out of the temples appropriated to it. All religious signs were suppressed in cemeteries.

All outward signs of religion were entirely abolished. Then on November 7, a number of Roman Catholic ecclesiastics and Protestant ministers were persuaded to go before the Bar of the Assembly and abjure their Christian faith. Following this, several of the leaders and their associates in the assembly appeared at the same place and declared that God did not exist, that the worship of reason was to be substituted in his stead. The next step was to requisition the great Cathedral of Notre Dame and convert it into a Temple of Reason. We were going to have a Festival of Reason held there every 10 days.

At the inaugural ceremony on November 10, the Mayor of Paris, all the municipal officers, public leaders went to the cathedral with a congregation of citizens and a woman who was to represent the goddess of reason. And she was exalted on the high altar and proclaimed the real god of the new age. The final act came on November 24 when the Commune of Paris decreed that all the churches and temples of every religion and sect which existed in Paris should be closed immediately. If anybody should ask for their reopening he would automatically be arrested as a suspected person. It seems that the height of desecration was reached according to Joseph Galloway of London who with other Christian writers was watching the events as they were taking place.

He said that commissioners of the National Convention dressed up a donkey and loading it with the symbols of Christianity led it in mock procession with the Old and New Testaments tied to his tail, and burned them to ashes amidst a blasphemous shout and acclamations of the deluded multitude. Here were the witnesses, dead in the midst of the great city. The change came according to prophecy of Revelation 11, 9 and 10. And they of the people, and kindreds, and tongues, and nations, shall see their dead bodies 3 days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. They that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and so forth.

For they tormented them that dwelt upon the earth. Truly the Holy Scriptures do torment those who do not follow them. Their testimony continually condemns their lives. 3 days and a half prophetic, symbolic time would be 3 and a half years. Dating from their killing, November 1793, 3 and a half years would bring us to about the middle of the year 1797.

Without the Word of God and the Christian faith, matters went from bad to worse. Finally the leaders, not religious themselves, Robespierre particularly, decided that if there were no God, they'd have to invent 1. And so a change came about. The Revolutionary Convention came to an end, the directory was inaugurated in its place. On June 15, 1797, Camille Jordan introduced into the council a celebrated report on the revision of the laws relative to religious worship.

This report stated that all citizens might buy or hire edifices for free religious worship, and that all congregations might assemble at the sound of bells, and no test or promise of any sort would be required of Ministers of religion, which were not required of other citizens. They could enter their places of worship freely. That all other laws concerning religious worship should be repealed. The effect was spectacular. By the next month public services were restored in 31, 214 communes of France and 41 churches in Paris were crowded.

The Church and the Bible had indeed been slain in France from November 1793 to June 1797. But then the 3 and a half years ended and God's 2 witnesses, the Old and New Testaments, arose us from the dead. The prophecy continues, and they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies beheld them. That's the 12th verse of Revelation 11.

Immediately there began 1 of the greatest eras of Christian missions in the history of the world. The British and Foreign Bible Society was founded, the American Bible Society followed, mission societies were founded everywhere. Multiplication of the Holy Scriptures began on a scale hitherto undreamed of. New translations were made and this has continued to our day until now. These 2 witnesses, the Old and New Testaments, bear their testimony in over 1, 300 languages.

Yes, they killed the witnesses, but the witnesses lived again and are alive now and will live forever, condemning the sinner, comforting the saint, and preparing the way for the return of the living word, the Lord Jesus Christ from Heaven. So we all can say in our hearts today, thank God for the Holy Scriptures, and as for me, Give me the Bible, star of gladness gleaming, to cheer the wanderlorn and tempest-tost. No storm can hide that peaceful radiance beaming, Since Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Give me the Bible, holy message shining. Thy light shall guide me in the narrow way.

Precept and promise, law and love combining, till night shall vanish in eternal day. Give me the Bible when my heart is broken, when sin and grief have filled my soul with fear. Give me the precious words by Jesus spoken, hold up faith's lamp to show my Savior near. Give me the Bible, holy message shining, thy light shall guide me in The till night shall vanish in eternal day. The Bible is God's letter to us, so then let us read it, look up, and go forward in faith.

Have faith in God. Be strong who once were weak. Have faith in God. The holy scriptures seek. Have faith in God.

His witnesses still speak. Have faith, dear friend, in God. We hope this program of ours has brought you spiritual blessing for the week and that you will remember the voice of prophecy daily in your prayers. Also remember that to us your letter means a lot. We invite you to listen in again next week for another broadcast brought to you by the Voice of Prophecy.

And now we say, The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. Amen.

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They Killed the Witnesses

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