The Ring of Truth is Unmistakable When Its Present!

Often in earthly human affairs there is a sense of anticipation of what is to come. Most of the time it is less than dramatic, like the bell announcing the end of a school day. After a long and restless tour, the children greet their freedom impatiently, rushing into the arms of carefree idleness. Workers respond in kind when the clock strikes 5 pm and they are freed from the shackles of their enduring serfdom. Many drown the day’s troubles with the strong fermented taste of wheat, barley, or rye.

Sometimes, events are rare and dramatic; the sense of what is to come brings with it a deep foreboding. The winds of war can be felt rustling the mundane leaves of life long before the first shot is fired. The watchman on the wall notices the slight movement of the distant underbrush when there is no wind and knows that his vigilance cannot waver. Even the dumb animals sense the tremors of the earth before the quake disrupts life for those in its path. Their panicked march distracts the careless, if only for an instant.

Beyond those occurrences are the extremely rare moments when prophesied earth-shaking events are about to happen. Those events are not discernible with human perception alone. Fortunately, those events are preceded by divine pronouncements. Those pronouncements are declared over decades and centuries. God warns His people by His word and His prophets. He whispers it to us individually in our quiet and thoughtless moments. He foretells it in our listless dreams and in our waking fears.

Noah declared God’s intentions for 120 years, and only his family paid him heed. Noah preached present truth, that the carefree and godless living in which his world was absorbed was about to end abruptly and with finality. The people scoffed at him and called him foolish, and then the rains came. Instead of mockery, Noah heard the screams and cries of desperate souls seeking salvation only to be greeted by a divinely sealed door. Regrets came too late for most of humanity. Noah could only wonder what he might have done differently.

As I think about our present world, wherever I look, I see signs, hear whispers, and feel the tremors of stupendous change. Yes, there are mockers and unbelievers, but many others feel it too. MAGA loyalists expect a “Golden Age,” while their evangelical brethren wait to be raptured. Religious zealots expect the coming of the Messiah or Mahdi that will restore their lost tribal glory. Still, others expect the Externalization of the Hierarchy and a New Age of ascendant masters coming to guide a hapless humanity. Even secularists await UAP’s (Unidentified Aireal Phenomena) carrying alien saviors—manufactured media deities gifted to us by Star Trek and Star Wars. Whatever they call it, it all adds up to the same thing: the end of this current age.

In the din of these confusing voices, the unmistakable ring of present truth is absent. The power and authority of Absolute Divinity are lacking in every one of the aforementioned proclamations. They ring hollow because they are man’s fabrication. God’s trumpet alone will capture our undivided attention; His alone is the pure chord of present truth. The Bible declares.

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Revelation 18:1-2 KJV

Present truth, God’s warning, has great power and is proclaimed with a strong voice and its light has brightened up the world with God’s glory. Has that trumpet sounded; what is present truth? Yes, and I will expound.

The angel of Revelation 18 was preceded by Three Angels in Revelation 14. Those Three Angels sounded their messages, beginning in AD 1844. Their messages were a solemn warning to America in particular and the world in general. Those messages rang loudly in northern and southern battlefields as rebels and loyalists died for cause and country. They pierced the air with cries of pain and suffering as widows and orphans asked for mercy and sought comfort. And they rang as a sweet chorus of freedom spirituals shattered two hundred and fifty years of rusted chains.

That civil conflict was but the first chord of the trumpet’s sound. The second chord was heard in the founding of a church. To be specific, the formation of a completely new church, uniquely American yet profoundly anti-slavery. That was the Seventh-day Adventist Church formalized on May 21, 1863. This institution, fashioned in the cauldron of conflict, opposed chattel slavery, preached righteousness and repentance, and warned of God’s coming in great power and with justice bridged with judgment. It was granted a prophetic mandate.

So then, civil conflict and church renewal were the means God used to herald His anger and warn of His impending justice. America’s bloody and protracted civil war was partial judgment for her original sins—Native American genocide and chattel slavery. God’s displeasure was visible for those who understood the character of His justice. Abraham Lincoln understood, and as America’s presiding president during the war, he confessed America’s guilt. Abraham Lincoln said.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

‘Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!’ If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?

Lincoln’s words were historic and prophetic. Historic, because they articulated the true “offence” for the conflict; men’s avarice expressed in their complete subjugation of other men, and demonstrated God’s “woe” over a country granted His greatest material blessings. North and South were equally complicit in slavery and genocide and their suffering was and will be proportionate to their sins. His words were prophetic because he foresaw the end of the civil conflict and the unrepentant hearts of his countrymen which could only result in God’s final recompense – an eye for an eye. Lincoln concluded his prophecy.

“Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Indeed, all the wealth this nation piled on the backs of enslaved Africans, without acknowledgment or recompense, must be remembered by the Almighty because His judgments are “altogether righteous.” God’s sword has not been sheathed and His judgment not yet complete over America’s sins, Revelation 18 assures us of that.

During that great conflict over the souls of men, enslaved and free, and in the century that followed, the clear second note of the trumpet was heard in the signal voice of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. That church, small and inconsequential in numbers at its beginning, would swell to nearly thirty-million people world-wide today and touch every country on the globe. In a scant one hundred and fifty years, its hospitals, schools, and institutions would be second only to those of the Catholic Church’s, a denomination with a 1500-year history! Like the echoes of Noah’s warning, she proclaims – “Come out of her my people.” A 180-years is a long time to preach the message of repentance and judgment. How much longer will grace plead with men?

The third and final note of God’s trumpet is blaring now. The Ark is complete and the door remains open. We are in the eerie silence before the deluge. The Present Truth is clear for all to hear. Enter into God’s grace while you still can!

Additional Resources

For a deeper understanding of the topic I just discussed, please read Chapter 12 of my book: My Story His Glory (Book 2) Decoding Daniel, Revelation, and America’s Destiny.

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