The Purification of God’s Church takes place at the Sunday Law. At the Sunday Law, probation closes for Seventh-day Adventists. We can demonstrate that from the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. These truths connected with the close of probation and the Sunday Law and the purification of God’s church, have been lost sight of in the years of Adventism. One key passage that we started with is:

"The events connected with the close of probation and the work of preparation for the time of trouble, are clearly presented. But multitudes have no more understanding of these important truths than if they had never been revealed." The Great Controversy, 594.

The understanding of the close of probation is something that is clear in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. It’s spoken of throughout the parables of Jesus, throughout the Old Testament prophets, and the Spirit of Prophecy talks about it a great deal. But many people today in Adventism do not recognize that the close of probation for Seventh-day Adventists, and its connection with the Sunday Law, is one of the most important understandings God has for us in this day and age.

To begin this presentation, I’m showing different places in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy where the Close of Probation is illustrated, starting with the testimony of Ezekiel. What we’re going to look at in Ezekiel, Sister White in more than one place calls the last work for God’s church. We want to start with a principle here that you can find in Selected Messages, book 3, 338, where sister White says, "Each of the ancient prophets spoke less for their own time than for ours, so that their prophesying is in force for us."

So if each of the ancient prophets spoke more fore our day than the day in which they lived, then there’s an important prophetic understanding that comes out of that statement; all the ancient prophets were telling the same story. If they all spoke for our day, they had to be telling the story of our day, and there’s certain things that are going to take place in our day—there’s a list of them—but there are only so many. It’s our job as students of prophecy, line these prophetic testimonies up with end time events and when we do so, overlaying one prophet’s testimony on another prophet’s testimony—lining them up correctly, end time events come into clarity. We’re going to do this in relation to the close of probation and the purification of God’s church. The first prophetic testimony we’re going to start and build upon is Ezekiel 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.

Manuscript Releases, vol. 18, 236: "Study the ninth chapter of Ezekiel. These words will be literally fulfilled; yet the time is passing, and the people are asleep."

So Sister White tells us that the ninth chapter of Ezekiel will be literally fulfilled, and the ninth chapter of Ezekiel is defining the sealing of God’s people; but it’s impossible to separate chapter 9 from chapter 8—they go together—so we can expect that chapter 8 will be literally fulfilled too. When we look at those two chapters we find that chapter 8 is giving us a description of the people in God’s church that will receive the Mark of the Beast at the Sunday Law, which is clearly portrayed in chapter 8 of Ezekiel.

Chapter 9 defines those that will receive the Seal of God. This will be literally fulfilled. The church is going to be purified by a Sunday Law, some of us will receive the Seal of God, others will receive the Mark of the Beast. Chapter 10 is also part of this testimony; it confirms that God is in control of these events. He is leading these events through His providence and that the Sunday Law test is part of God’s providence. The purification of God’s church is clearly identified in chapter 10. So the purification of God’s church in connection with the Sealing of God’s people and the Mark of the Beast and the Sunday Law is all set forth in chapters 8, 9, and 10 of Ezekiel.

Chapter 11 shows those people that have been driven away from God’s church, alienated by the leadership of a corrupt church not receiving the testimony they gave. The promise is in chapter 11, that during the purification process, He will gather those people who have been scattered in Adventism during this crisis time. He will gather them into unity to finish the work.

Chapter 12 tells us what happens to those men that, by rejecting light, have allowed disunity to exist in the church. All of this story is the same event. Ezekiel uses a rule that you find in prophecy over and over again, a prophet will give a sequence of events and get to a certain point and then he’ll give another view and that other view goes back to the beginning of the first view and it tells something else about the same sequence of events. We find this in chapter 8, describing who’s going to receive the Mark of the Beast; chapter 9—same time sequence—who’s going to receive the Seal of God. Chapter 10 tells us that God is in control of these events—same sequence—but the Sunday Law is going to purify the church. Chapter 11 tells us during this purification process those who are sealed come into unity, and chapter 12 tells us what happens to those that do not come into this unity. It’s all an overlay of visions, speaking about the same time period.

Sister White says these words in chapter 9, will be literally fulfilled and the emphasis of chapter 9 is the sealing of God’s people. In the Seventh-day Adventists Bible Commentary, volume 4, 1161 we’re told: "Just as soon as the people of God are sealed in their foreheads—it is not any seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved—just as soon as God’s people are sealed and prepared for the shaking, it will come. Indeed, it has begun already; the judgments of God are now upon the land, to give us warning, that we may know what is coming."

The judgments of God are giving this warning because, as the Sunday Law test is applied, National Apostasy is followed by National ruin and there’s a little time of trouble that takes place while probation for the world is closing. When probation for the world closes and Christ finishes His work in the Most Holy Place, then the seven last plagues are poured out and the great time of trouble begins.

What is coming for us is the judgments of God. The judgments of God that are taking place today in our, are warning us that we are on the verge of an increased time of crisis. This increase in the crisis begins at the Sunday Law, and in God’s providence, emphasized in Chapter 10 of Ezekiel; He’s bringing His people to a mature experience to coincide with the Sunday Law test. When the Sunday Law test arrives, those people that are sealed through the providence of the Lord will have been settled into the truth both intellectually and spiritually. This takes place prior to the Sunday Law.

This scenario of Ezekiel 8-12, is emphasized in the Spirit of Prophecy as trying to show us the work that’s going on in the heavenly sanctuary, and the crisis corresponds to the Most Holy Place work that Christ is doing. Other passages in prophecy that are identifying the Sunday Law do not necessarily emphasize what’s going on in the Most Holy Place. In our next presentation, we will look at Daniel chapter 3, which is clearly a passage showing the Sunday Law test, but it is not identifying Christ’s work in the sanctuary, it’s identifying the effect of the message that goes at the Sunday law test.

Each of the prophets, that have recorded something about the Sunday Law, describe the same time sequence of events, but they take it from a different perspective. In Ezekiel 8-12 the perspective is what Christ is doing in the Most Holy Place as this final work is culminated.

Testimonies to Ministers, 430-432: "He who presides over His church and the destinies of nations is carrying forward the last work to be accomplished for this world. To His angels He gives the commission to execute His judgments. Let the ministers awake, let them take in the situation. The work of judgment begins at the sanctuary. ‘And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar.’ Read Ezekiel 9:2-7.The command is, ‘Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary.Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.’ Saith God, ‘I will recompense their way upon their head."

The crisis corresponds with what’s going on in the sanctuary and the judgment begins with the sanctuary and even more specifically, it begins with the leadership at the sanctuary.

Testimonies, vol. 5, 211: "Here we see that the church—the Lord’s sanctuary—was the first to feel the stroke of the wrath of God. The ancient men, those to whom God had given great light and who had stood as guardians of the spiritual interests of the people, had betrayed their trust."

So Ezekiel 8-12 is talking about God’s church. The sanctuary symbolizes God’s church and the people that are going to be judged. Judgment begins there and it begins with the leadership.

Now just so we don’t get too critical of the leadership of God’s church, here’s another passage to ponder. This is from Review and Herald, May 21, 1895. We’ve read two passages where Sister White is saying they begin with the ancient men and she has already defined that as those to whom God had given great light and who stood as guardians. The ancient men, where the judgment begins in the church are the leadership of the church, but listen to this quote:

"‘Then they began at the ancient men [men of responsibility] which were before the house. "I am much distressed because there is such manifest neglect in the home in the matter of training the children and the youth. Even in professedly Christian homes, where fathers and mothers would be supposed to be diligent students of the Scriptures, in order that they might know every specification and restriction in the word of God, there is manifest neglect of following the instruction of the word, and of bringing up the children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Professedly Christian parents fail to practice piety at home. How can fathers and mothers represent Christ’s character in the home life when they are content to reach a cheap, low standard? The seal of the living God will be placed upon those only who bear a likeness to Christ in character."

Now when Sister White or Ezekiel say that the judgment begins with men of responsibility, every one of us has a responsibility; and we can’t become ‘holier than thou’ and look at the leadership of this church. Parents have a responsibility that they’re going to be judged for. We all have talents that we’re going to be judged for. So we can’t fall into looking at this message as us vs. them because we’re not in the leadership of this church—we all have responsibilities.

One of the lessons that come out of this study is that judgment is progressive. It begins at the leadership of God’s church and it works down through God’s church until the final decision has been made and the church is purified. Then that purified church takes the message of Sabbath/Sunday to those out in Babylon that have never known the truth and they will be tested by the Sunday test just like God’s church is. So it’s a progression of events, that’s one of the understandings we need to see about the close of probation and the Sunday Law. Judgment has always been described in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy as progressive.

The Great Controversy, 483: "As the books of record are opened in the judgment, the lives of all who have believed on Jesus come in review before God. Beginning with those who first lived upon the earth, our Advocate presents the cases of each successive generation, and closes with the living. Every name is mentioned, every case closely investigated. Names are accepted, names rejected."

Judgment begins with the dead. Some place in time it moves to the living. When it moves to the living, it’s going to move to God’s church, because judgment begins at the house of God. It will begin with the leadership and it will move down to those of us that aren’t in leadership. And this final illustration of where we’ve stood in the judgment, will be made manifest at the Sunday test. When it comes to the judgment time, whether we’re going to receive the Seal of God or the Mark of the Beast, the clear testimony is that no one receives the Seal of God that has sin in their lives.

Testimonies, vol. 5, 214-216: "Not one of us will ever receive the Seal of God while our characters have one spot or stain upon them. It is left with us to remedy the defects in our characters, to cleanse the soul temple of every defilement. Then the latter rain will fall upon us as the early rain fell upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost. ...

"What are you doing, brethren, in the great work of preparation? Those who are uniting with the world are receiving the worldly mold and preparing for the mark of the beast. Those who are distrustful of self, who are humbling themselves before God and purifying their souls by obeying the truth these are receiving the heavenly mold and preparing for the seal of God in their foreheads. When the decree goes forth and the stamp is impressed, their character will remain pure and spotless for eternity."

Now she talks about two groups, people preparing for the worldly mold and people preparing for the heavenly mold. And when the decree, the Sunday decree, goes forth, their character is set for eternity, either for heaven or for earth.

The issue of the seal of God is what Ezekiel 9 is about, you can’t separate the sealing of God’s people from God’s people receiving the Mark of the Beast, it happens at the same. It’s when the ‘decree’ goes forth, the Sunday Law decree that this is implemented upon God’s people.

This next passage is interesting because this is one where certain words are italicized, to emphasize what she’s saying in this passage.

Review and Herald, April 27, 1911: (Emphasis in the original)

"If the light of truth has been presented to you, revealing the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and showing that there is no foundation in the Word of God for Sunday observance, and yet you still cling to the false sabbath, refusing to keep holy the Sabbath which God calls ‘My holy day’, . you receive the mark of the beast. When does this take place?—When you obey the decree that commands you to cease from labor on Sunday and worship God, while you know that there is not a word in the Bible showing Sunday to be other than a common working-day, you consent to receive the mark of the beast, and refuse the seal of God. If we receive this mark in our foreheads or in our hands, the judgments pronounced against the disobedient must fall upon us. But the seal of the living God is placed upon those who conscientiously keep the Sabbath of the Lord."

At the Sunday test, we either receive the Mark of the Beast or the Seal of God. At that point our characters either have the heavenly or the earthly mold forever. In other words, our probation is closed and that’s what’s being described in Ezekiel 8-12.

Here’s another passage that’s very important in this study that’s similar to that, and this is from The Great Controversy, 604-605:

"With the issue thus clearly brought before him, whoever shall trample upon God’s law to obey a human enactment receives the mark of the beast; he accepts the sign of allegiance to the power which he chooses to obey instead of God. The warning from heaven 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, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation.’ Revelation 14:9-10."

The only way we receive the Mark of the Beast is when the Sabbath/Sunday issue has been set before us. When the Sunday test comes, Seventh-day Adventists are the ones that have had the light on Sabbath/Sunday issue so they’re the first to be tested by that issue. You may say, ‘well, the way the church is today, maybe some people in Adventism don’t clearly understand Sabbath and Sunday and that may really be so, but we’re not judged only by the light that we have, we’re judged by the light that we could have had if we had availed ourselves, and there’s no excuse for a Seventh-day Adventist not to understand the issue between Sabbath and Sunday. It’s the very heart of the three angel’s message; it’s what Adventism’s all about. So when the Sunday Law comes to Adventism, it is the ordained means by God to purify His church.

The Gospel Herald, January 1, 1900: "Please read the ninth and tenth chapters of Ezekiel. Should we not seek to understand the work which God requires us to do? Its results are sacred and awful. If one thread of selfishness is woven into God’s service He is greatly dishonored. Unless those who have knowledge of the truth are sanctified through the truth, their profession counts for nothing, and their condemnation will be proportionate to the light granted them, which they have not honored by walking in the light as Christ is in the light. Truth as it is in Jesus is the creating power of Christ. Those who claim to have advanced light must reveal the influence of that light in their words, their deportment, their voice, their actions, at all times and in all places."

We must understand what God wants us to do is to enter into a sanctified experience where we have victory over all known sin. That’s the work that is illustrated in chapters 9 &10 of Ezekiel.

In Ezekiel 8, there are four abominations that Ezekiel is taken to see. The first one is in verse 3, where Ezekiel is taken by a lock of his hair and he’s brought to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.

And in verse 5, this image of jealousy is in the entry. You can look for a definition of what this image of jealousy was and there just isn’t any clear indication that you can lay your finger on exactly which pagan statue was being referred to. There are many ways that you can come to understand what that image of jealousy may have been, but it doesn’t really matter. The Lord has left that obscure for us. He is trying to say something that is not so much identifying the literal statue that was in that gate as what was transpiring as these abominations increased.

Now we’ll look at the other three but I want you to note that there are four abominations that Ezekiel is shown and four in Bible prophecy means worldwide. I’ll read you one quote, but you can see this in your concordance if you look up four, over and over again you’ll find that four symbolizes worldwide. This is Manuscript Releases, volume 19, 280

"Local disturbances in nature are permitted to take place as symbols of that which may be expected all over the world when the angels loose the four winds of the earth." See also Matthew 24:31; Revelation 7:1.

When we see four abominations listed in Ezekiel 8, what prophetically we’re being told is that the corruption that’s taking place in the church here is world-wide. It’s not simply at General Conference headquarters, it isn’t at one church—it’s throughout the whole church. The whole church is being confronted with this very disturbance that leads up to the Sunday test. These abominations that Ezekiel is shown, increase—read the story, the Lord keeps telling him after the first one, I’ll show you greater abominations than these.

In verse 9, he sees the second abomination, ‘And he said unto me, go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw and behold every form of creeping things and abominable beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the walls round about and there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.

8:12 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.

After Ezekiel saw the image of jealousy, he’s shown the leadership of God’s church in the secret chambers and on the walls are all these abominable things. This is the second thing. And then the Lord says I’ll show you something even worse that this. And you drop down to verse 14, and he’s shown the women weeping for Tammuz and Tammuz is the reincarnation of Nimrod. He has many names in pagan idolatry and he was associated, among other things, as the one that brought all the plants back to life after the winter was over and he died when he was forty years old so they had forty days, a day for a year, prior to his resurrection, where they would weep and their tears would water the ground in hopes that when he was resurrected that he would bring with him an abundant crop at the beginning of the year. Tammuz was Nimrod’s resurrection; it was Semarimis’ illegitimate son that fulfilled that resurrection. Today in the world this celebration is Lent and Easter. Here we see in God’s church, the pagan reflection of what we know today as Easter.

In verse 16 we see the fourth abomination; twenty five men facing towards the east with their back to the temple of the Lord and they worship the sun towards the east. These men are worshipping the sun towards the east. When can you worship the sun towards the east?—In the morning. They’re having a sunrise service here, because the sun rises in the morning. In connection with Easter we do find Easter sunrise services.

Commentators on these verses will tell you the literal things they stood for but Sister White doesn’t apply these things in the literal, she does it in the spiritual sense. I think that’s how in prophecy we should understand the literal testimony in its spiritual setting. As we look at some of those things, I want you to recognize that these abominations increase. This world-wide apostasy of the church in chapter 8, is going to grow to a point where finally it reaches the height of apostasy at God when the leadership of God’s church are portrayed as bowing down to the sun.

That’s the Sunday test and the very next thing in Ezekiel after that is a description of who’s going to be sealed. There are many other places where Sister White is clear that the sealing and the Mark of the Beast take place at the same time. Chapter 8 is telling us about those in Adventism that are preparing for the Mark of the Beast. Chapter 9 is telling us those in Adventism that are preparing for the seal of God.

Let’s look at how Sister White applies some of these abominations, the first one being the image of jealousy. She’s speaking about the publication work in this passage, about the rivalry that was going on between Pacific Press and the Review and Herald in her day and age. Listen to this:

"Warnings have been given me that the publishing house upon the Pacific coast should not, in thought, word, or deed, depreciate the office at Battle Creek, neither should the publishing house at Battle Creek look with envy and jealousy upon the instrumentalities the Lord has established upon the Pacific Coast. Plans should be carefully considered in Battle Creek, that they may in no case militate against the work in Oakland. But the image of jealousy was long ago set up, and has provoked to jealousy, which has grieved the Spirit of God." Selections from the Testimonies, 20-22.

Jealousy, Sister White identified in the setting of Adventism, was when one institution began to be jealous of another institution and began to bring in division. This increasing abomination in Ezekiel’s testimony is giving us the sequence of where men in this church begin to go astray.

In Signs of the Times, November 2, 1888, she says, "Jealousy leads a man to suspect another of seeking to deprive him of advantages and position."

The men that are being portrayed in Ezekiel 8, somewhere along the line began to be jealous of someone, and when you’re jealous of someone you start thinking about that situation. Then the next logical step, the next abomination in Ezekiel was about the secret chambers and the abominations that were on the walls of the secret chambers. And we’ll look at that in a moment, but let’s continue considering jealousy: Evangelism, 633:

"There is nothing that so much retards and cripples the work in its various branches as jealousy and suspicion and evil surmisings. These reveal that disunion prevails among the workers for God. Selfishness is the root of all evil."

Selfishness is the root of all evil. Jealousy is the very starting point of the divisive spirit that will lead somebody right out of the kingdom of God into the kingdom of darkness. In Evangelism, 370, Sister White was speaking about a time when Paul was not having the ability to share the hard truths of the gospel and she tells why. "It was impossible for the apostle to reprove wrongdoing without some who claimed to believe the truth becoming offended. The inspired testimony could do these no good; for they had lost their spiritual discernment. Jealousy, evil surmising, and accusing closed the door to the working of the Holy Spirit."

These people in Ezekiel started at the image of jealousy. Accepting jealousy into your experience closes the door to the working of the Holy Spirit and if the Holy Spirit isn’t working in your life, there’s no way you’re going to be sealed.

Jealousy is a very fundamental principle that takes people away from God. Signs of the Times, February 5, 1879:

"Cain and Abel represent the two classes, the righteous and the wicked, the believers and unbelievers, which should exist from the fall of man to the second coming of Christ. Cain slaying his brother Abel, represents the wicked who will be envious of the righteous, and will hate them because they are better than themselves. They will be jealous of the righteous, and will persecute and put them to death because their right-doing condemns their sinful course."

The Faith I Live By, 67: "Lucifer was envious and jealous of Jesus Christ. Yet when all the angels bowed to Jesus to acknowledge His supremacy and high authority and rightful rule, he bowed with them; but his heart was filled with envy and hatred. ...Why should Christ thus be honored before himself?"

The very beginning point in Ezekiel is identifying that in God’s church, those that receive the Mark of the Beast are going to stumble over jealousy, the very starting point of Lucifer, and of Cain. That’s what’s taken place in our church. This is a solemn thought for all of us if we see jealousy coming up in our experience.

Now after the image of Jealousy is described in Ezekiel we see the chamber of images, and from Signs of the Times, December 18, 1901, Sister White says this:

"God created man with affections capable of embracing eternal realities. These affections were to be kept pure and holy, free from all earthliness. But human beings have lost eternity out of their reckoning. God, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the One who holds in His keeping the destiny of every soul, is forgotten. Supposing themselves to be mighty in knowledge, men have let themselves down to the lowest level in God’s sight. The mind of man has become earthly. In the place of revealing the impress of divinity, it reveals the impress of humanity. In its chambers are seen the imagery of earth. The debasing practices which prevailed in the days of Noah, placing the inhabitants of that age beyond hope of salvation, are seen today."

Now she’s talking about Noah’s day and the close of probation, and she’s saying that what leads men to that is when they begin to think the thoughts of the world. When they begin to place in the chambers of their mind, images of the earth and it shuts the door to the images of heaven working to their favor.

Remember in our first presentation that we read from The Great Controversy, 393, "The parable of the ten virgins of Matthew 25 also illustrates the experience of the Adventist people." We’re going to look at a passage about these chambers of images, imagery again, but in the context of the ten virgins. The wise virgins are those illustrated in Ezekiel 9 that are sealed and the foolish virgins in Ezekiel 8 will receive the Mark of the Beast.

"Jesus desires to efface the image of the earthly from the minds of his followers, and to impress upon them the image of the heavenly, that they may become one with himself, reflecting his character, and showing forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvelous light. If you have been permitted to stand in the presence of the Sun of Righteousness, it is not that you may absorb and conceal the bright beams of Christ’s righteousness, but that you may become a light to others. The enemy has men in our ranks through whom he works, that the light which God has permitted to shine upon the heart and illuminate the chambers of the mind may be darkened. There are persons who have received the precious light of the righteousness of Christ, but they do not act upon it; they are foolish virgins. They prefer the sophistry of the enemy rather than the plain ‘Thus saith the Lord’. When the blessing of God rested upon them in order that they might become channels of light, they did not go forward from light to a greater light; they permitted doubt and unbelief to come in, so that the truth which they had seen, became an uncertainty to them.

"Satan uses those who claim to believe the truth, but whose light has become darkness, as his mediums to utter his falsehoods and transmit his darkness. They are foolish virgins indeed, choosing darkness rather than light, and dishonoring God. The character we cultivate, the attitude we assume today, is fixing our future destiny. We are all making a choice, either to be with the blessed, inside the city of light, or to be with the wicked, outside the city. The principles which govern our actions on earth are known in heaven, and our deeds are faithfully chronicled in the books or record. It is there known whether our characters are after the order of Christ or the order of the arch-deceiver who caused rebellion in heaven. Are we wise virgins, or must we be classed among the foolish? This is the question which we are deciding today by our character and attitude. That which passes with many for the religion of Christ, is made up of ideas and theories, a mixture of truth and error. Some are trying to become good enough to be saved. They continually complain of their sins. The Lord says of them, And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.’ ‘Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?"‘ Review and Herald, August 19, 1890.

Ezekiel 8 is saying that if we will accept jealousy into our experience, the automatic thing that happens when you’re jealous of someone is you begin to think evil thoughts of them. You begin to fill your mind with images of evil instead of images of Christ. People that have done this, the foolish virgins, begin to have a religious experience that is a mixture of truth and error, they are before the altar of the Lord with weeping and crying, but He says, "I don’t receive that worship."

In Ezekiel’s testimony, the third abomination was a group of women that were weeping for Tammuz; they were in a religious experience that they believed was genuine. They were weeping but the Lord would not hear their prayers, He would not honor their requests. Because they were mixing truth with error, the chambers of their mind were not filled with heaven. They were filled with wickedness.

One of the characteristics of these people, these foolish virgins, is that they don’t believe that God hears. If you read Ezekiel 8-12 over and over again, verse 6 says, when speaking about the wickedness that they were doing, "that I should go off from my sanctuary", these people thought that God had left His sanctuary. In verse 12 Ezekiel is told ‘the Lord seeth us not’ ‘the Lord has forsaken the earth’. These people don’t think the Lord is around; this is just what Sister White is talking about in this false Christian experience.

Ezekiel 9:9 says, "For they say the Lord has forsaken the earth and the Lord seeth us not." The characteristic of these people is that they are not aware of the Lord’s presence any longer. Ezekiel 11:5 is speaking about these people, ‘Oh house of Israel for I know the things that come into your mind every one of them.’ The Lord knows what’s going on even if they refuse to acknowledge it.

Ezekiel12:2 says, "Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house which have eyes to see, and see not, and they have ears to hear and hear not, for they are a rebellious house." These people are not hearing the Lord, they don’t think He’s around any more, they’re not seeing the Lord, and He’s definitely there.

The experience that’s going on in this time period, between the righteous and the true followers of Christ, is the confrontation of the righteous identifying the sins in the church. That’s why they are sealed because they are sighing and crying over the sins of the church. This confrontation that takes place brings both characters to development in the book of Ezekiel.

Let’s look at a passage in Testimonies, volume 3, 266, where Sister White clarifies this.

"The true people of God, who have the spirit of the work of the Lord and the salvation of souls at heart, will ever view sin in its real, sinful character. They will always be on the side of faithful and plain dealing with sins, which easily beset the people of God. Especially in the closing work for the church, in the sealing time of the one hundred and forty-four thousand who are to stand without fault before the throne of God, will they feel most deeply the wrongs of God’s professed people.

"This is forcibly set forth by the prophet’s illustration of the last work under the figure of the men each having a slaughter weapon in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side. ‘ And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. ,

"Who are standing in the counsel of God at this time? Is it those who virtually excuse wrongs among the professed people of God and who murmur in their hearts, if not openly, against those who would reprove sin? Is it those who take their stand against them and sympathize with those who commit wrong? No, indeed! Unless they repent, and leave the work of Satan in oppressing those who have the burden of the work and in holding up the hands of sinners in Zion, they will never receive the mark of God’s sealing approval. They will fall in the general destruction of the wicked, represented by the work of the five men bearing slaughter weapons. Mark this point with care: Those who receive the pure mark of truth, wrought in them by the power of the Holy Ghost, represented by a mark by the man in linen, are those ‘that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the church. Their love for purity and the honor and glory of God is such, and they have so clear a view of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, that they are represented as being in agony, even sighing and crying. Read the ninth chapter of Ezekiel.

"But the general slaughter of all those who do not thus see the wide contrast between sin and righteousness, and do not feel as those do who stand in the counsel of God and receive the mark, is described in the order to the five men with slaughter weapons: ‘Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary."‘

The experience described in Ezekiel 8 & 9 is the people that are developing the character of Christ and the people that are developing the character of Satan. What it is that so infuriates those who are developing the character of Satan, is that those that are following the Lord are identifying the sin in the church. It is such an abomination to them that they could not be restrained from identifying it. In this environment we see the maturation of wickedness brought to the point where in Ezekiel 8:16, the Sunday Law identifies those people bowing down to the sun. Ezekiel 9 describes those who are sealed.

Chapter 10, is where the purification of the church is identified. The 1888 Materials, 1303: "We are amid the perils of the last days, the time will soon come when the prophecy of Ezekiel 9 will be fulfilled; that prophecy should be carefully studied, for it will be fulfilled to the very letter. Study also the tenth chapter which represents the hand of God as at work to bring perfect method and harmonious working into all the operations of his prepared instrumentalities. The eleventh and twelfth chapters also should receive critical, thoughtful attention. Let these prophecies be studied on your knees before God; unless you take up the stumbling-blocks which by your own perverse spirit you have laid in the way of many who have been connected with you, God will turn His face utterly from you and your associates."

Now she’s saying not 9 but 10, 11, and 12 and she specifies that chapter 10 is talking about how God is going to take the control of his work, after the church is purified. He’s going to bring perfect method and harmonious working in, she says. Chapter 10 is a vision of Ezekiel seeing the cherubims amidst the wheels, and with the hands under the wings of the cherubims. You need to read that and look at what Ezekiel is seeing in this vision of the sanctuary. Sister White tells what some of those components of the vision represent. If you read chapter ten closely, you realize that those wheel-like items are alive. Sister White says what those wheels are.

Education, 178, "As the wheel-like complications were under the guidance of the hand beneath the wings of the cherubim, so the complicated play of human events is under divine control. Amidst the strife and tumult of nations, He that sitteth above the cherubim still guides the affairs of the earth."

Those wheels and all those things that were going on in that vision, symbolize that God is in control of everything. Even in the crisis going on in His church that culminates in the Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast, He’s in control. Chapter 10 talks about the time that He will take control.

In Ezekiel 10:2, we see how He takes control: "And he spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubims, and scatter them over the city. And he went in, in my sight."

Remember, this vision is corresponding with chapter 8 & 9. An angel said, "Go and grab some coals off the altar and throw them into the city; throw them into Jerusalem; throw them into God’s church today; throw them into the church. What’s the focus taking place in God’s church? The Sunday Law test. Chapter 8—Mark of the Beast; chapter 9—the sealing, and you see some coals thrown into the city. What do those coals symbolize?

"There are many ministers of the gospel who need to have the live coal from off the altar touch their lips, and sanctify their tongues and hearts, till their souls are purified, ennobled, refined, and wholly given to the work. The humility, meekness, and lowliness of Christ, must characterize their lives. Their energy is represented by an angel flying through the midst of heaven. The Lord will give to the consecrated workers a new and enlarged commission, and will say, ‘Go into the harvest field. Lo, I am with you to work with human effort.’ The live coal is symbolical of purification. If it touches the lips, no impure word will fall from them. The live coal also symbolizes the potency of the efforts of the servants of the Lord." Review and Herald, October 16, 1888.

The live coals in prophecy represent purification and in Ezekiel 10:2 we see an angel take those live coals and throw them into the city, which means God’s church is going to be purified. It’s going to be purified in the Sunday Crisis. That’s God’s ordained method, and in Chapter 10 where the purification of the church is illustrated, the story of the cherubims, the wheels and the hands under the wings, is the story that symbolizes that God is in control of all these things. It’s in His providence to purify His church under this Sunday Law crisis.

Chapter 12 is talking about the rebels that are going to receive the Mark of the Beast. Ezekiel is told in the first few verses to give them a sign. Verse 6 says ‘I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel, verse 11 says; I am your sign, like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them, they shall remove and go into captivity.’ Ezekiel is told to, in their sight, leave the city, pack your luggage on your back and head out of the city. And what Ezekiel is illustrating to them is that the wicked are going to be removed from the city. The wicked are going to go out of the church. It’s not the righteous that are going to go out of the church and start a new church; God is going to purify His church and the wicked are going to be removed.

Now in verse 14 speaking of the wicked, it says; ‘I will scatter towards every wind all that are about him to help him in all his bands and I will draw out the sword after them. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall scatter them among the nations and disperse them in the countries.’ The wicked are going to be removed from the city. In the Laodecian testimony, they are going to be spewed out of the mouth of the Lord.

The testimony of Ezekiel is this, Ezekiel 8 is describing increasing abominations that are world wide, there are four of them, they culminate with the Sunday test in verse 16, when the leadership of God’s people bow down to the sun, which is clearly symbolizing Sunday worship. Chapter 9 is describing those who are sealed during this time and chapter 10 is telling us that God is in control of all these things and He intends to cast coals into the city at this time and purify His church.

Chapter 11, we didn’t look at closely, but it talks about Him bringing those who during this crisis time have been scattered, into unity. If you look at verses 17-20, you’ll see the unity that comes as they form a complete and total covenant with the Lord, and He gives them a new heart. And chapter 12 describes further how the wicked are going to be removed from the city.

The events connected with the close of probation have been clearly revealed in the prophetic word. This is just one outline that we’re going to build on as we continue this series. Every day we get closer to the Sunday Law and the more this becomes Present Truth. We have to ask OURSELVES do we have the ‘seat of jealousy?’ Is that ‘seat of jealousy’ bringing on wicked thoughts about another or another’s position or another’s place? If it is, it will lead eventually to a type of worship, that we think is correct but isn’t correct, and our probation will close on the wrong side of the issue.

At this time in earth’s history, we need to make sure that we are those that are being affected by sin in the way that is illustrated by sighing and crying. Sin has to become exceedingly sinful unto us and we must be motivated with the character of Christ, to take it out of our life, because no one will be sealed that has sin still in their lives. ~