The book of Revelation reveals that before Christ returns, the world’s governments will repudiate the principles of truth, love, and liberty; will become abusive, authoritarian, and controlling; and will ultimately coerce the consciences of people to reject the principles of God’s kingdom and practice the principles of the world. As a Bible student, you may also recognize that this theme has been the core of the long-standing war between the forces of good and the forces of evil, a war that will culminate in a worldwide confrontation over which principles, law, and methods—God’s or Satan’s—that people will settle into, a choice that reveals what kind of character they have formed.

That is, every person will decide—by the way they treat others, by what law they embrace and practice—what character they are sealed into and, thus, they will either be sealed to God by choosing to trust Him, and embracing and practicing (via the enlightenment and empowerment of the Holy Spirit) His methods of truth, love, and freedom; or they will embrace their fears and selfishness and pursue safety through human governments, choosing to practice the methods of imposed law, enforced mandates, and coercion of others, thus marking themselves as beastly and as members of Satan’s kingdom.

The book The Great Controversy portrays this cosmic conflict between Christ and Satan from the time of the apostles to its final completion with the earth made new. In this book, the author describes the apostasy of Christianity and the abuses of the church of the Dark Ages; explains how the Holy Spirit inspired the Reformers to go back to the Bible and its truths; and reveals the ongoing battle between the principles that led to the Reformation (liberty of conscience and liberty of person) and the last-day formation of the beastly system that will trample upon human liberty, seeking to control hearts and minds through deceit, intimidation, and force.

Near the end of the book, the author describes the rise of the beastly power of Revelation, the power that will persecute the saints and coerce consciences. Ultimately, the book concludes that even the United States, though founded upon the principles of religious and civil liberty, will betray those principles and become part of the beastly system of religious intolerance, something many think to be impossible given the U.S. Constitution. The author writes:

Heretofore those who presented the truths of the third angel’s message have often been regarded as mere alarmists. Their predictions that religious intolerance would gain control in the United States, that church and state would unite to persecute those who keep the commandments of God, have been pronounced groundless and absurd. It has been confidently declared that this land could never become other than what it has been—the defender of religious freedom (p. 605).

In 1909, the same author wrote in Testimonies to the Church that when the final events start, this conflict escalates quickly:

The agencies of evil are combining their forces and consolidating. They are strengthening for the last great crisis. Great changes are soon to take place in our world, and the final movements will be rapid ones (vol. 9, p. 11).

If this author is correct in her prediction that the United States will participate in religious persecution, joining the beastly power of Revelation that takes away our liberties, then the protections of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights will have to be removed.

Could this really happen? And could it really happen quickly?

God is the God of reality. He not only sends warnings to His people (Revelation’s prophetic warnings), but He also allows events to unfold in a way that they provide evidence that His warnings are to be trusted. For those with eyes to see, the evidences of the final events leading up to Christ’s return are clear and shocking.

In light of this, I’d like to review some of the constitutional protections afforded U.S. citizens detailed in the Bill of Rights. It is these protections that have historically made the USA “the Land of the Free”—a place where people fleeing religious persecution would find safety. Yet within just two years, these rights have been effectively eliminated by authoritarianism, exercised through the use of executive orders that bypass the framework of our constitutional rights. This has been done under the guise of so-called emergency COVID protections—under the illusion that these abuses of power are necessary to protect the people, that the threat of the disease is so great that our freedoms must be set aside for our own safety.

But this is nothing more than a grand deception, a trick. The SARS-COV2 virus is merely the tool, a focal point, used by those who hate the liberties enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, to raise fear so that the public agrees that removing those protections is righteous and good. Sadly, millions of Americans have bought into this deception. Because of their fear and their drive to survive by protecting self at all costs, they have embraced these beastly methods of coercion and control over their fellow citizens.

For those who consider public health (e.g., an epidemic) a valid reason to suspend our liberties, that an epidemic is a serious and existential threat that the Framers of the Constitution did not consider when they wrote the Bill of Rights, history refutes this assertion.

During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army endured two epidemics. The forces in the north suffered a smallpox epidemic that lasted from 1775 to 1782 and had up to a 50-percent mortality rate without vaccines, while forces in the south suffered from a malaria epidemic. Both outbreaks severely hindered the army’s ability to carry out the war effort. Despite having firsthand experience with lethal epidemics (much more virulent and dangerous than SARS2) and despite these epidemics occurring in the face of all-out war for national sovereignty, the Framers chose not to include any medical exceptions to the Bill of Rights.

Thus, any person, using the authority of their office to violate our constitutional liberties “for public health reasons,” is acting unconstitutionally, betraying their oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”—and they are cooperating with the prophetic end-time forces of God’s enemy.

The Bill of Rights in the Time of COVID

Listed below are five of the amendments in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, followed by a brief discussion of how ten of our liberties have been set aside during COVID—demonstrating how rapidly and easily the beastly system of Revelation can form:

Amendment I

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

• First liberty taken away under COVID: freedom to worship. Under COVID rules, places of worship were ordered closed. Clergy and laymen were obstructed from visiting parishioners in homes and hospitals, even those in hospice care. In some states, citizens were given citations for sitting alone in their cars in a church parking lot while services were broadcast on loudspeakers. Nowhere in the Constitution is access to liquor considered a protected right, while religious liberty is. Yet under COVID rules, houses of worship were shut down, while liquor stores were deemed an “essential business.”

• Second liberty taken away under COVID: freedom of speech. Under the guise of stopping “misinformation,” various media and online platforms, following the guidelines and recommendations of various government regulatory agencies (CDC, etc.), have censored and obstructed speech. However, the algorithms used to determine what is “misinformation” and, therefore, what gets censored, do not target lies, falsehood, or erroneous information; instead, they censor any information that does not support the official government narrative. If the information is true, verifiable, and factual, but doesn’t support the government narrative, it gets flagged as “misinformation” and gets censored. Thus, the so-called “misinformation” censors are the actual purveyors of misinformation. Indeed, under the lie of stopping misinformation, our ministry has been censored twice by YouTube. But even if the information being censored was factually wrong, such censorship still violates the Constitution. The best solution for misinformation is more information and greater openness, as the truth always comes out when free speech and equal access to the marketplace of ideas is protected. It is only when free speech is curtailed, restricted, or censored that truth is obstructed and misinformation persists. And it is always censored or restricted by those who don’t have truth.

• Third liberty taken away under COVID: freedom of the press. Under COVID restrictions, much of mainstream media in the USA has become propaganda machines that no longer report news, but purposely suppress facts and create premeditated falsehoods to misinform the populace. Here is a just a small sampling of such misinformation:

• • Masking children is essential to stop viral spread
  • Shutting down schools is good for public health
  • People who don’t want the vaccine are dangerous to society
  • The pandemic is driven by the unvaccinated
  • Downplaying the successes of openness, liberty, and the lack of mandates in Florida while also downplaying the damage caused by restricted liberties and enforced mandates levied in states like New York, California, and Michigan

• Fourth liberty taken away under COVID: freedom to peaceably assemble. Under COVID rules, assemblies of all kinds—sporting events, schools, graduations, weddings, funerals, etc.—were prohibited. There is no legal right to quarantine healthy, asymptomatic people or obstruct their liberty to gather as they see fit, but it has happened and quickly.

Amendment IV

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

• Fifth liberty removed under COVID: right to privacy. Under COVID rules, vaccine status, private health information, travel history, and social contacts of healthy, asymptomatic people are now tracked or required without due process.

Amendment V

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

• Sixth liberty removed under COVID: life. Under COVID mandates, forced injections under the threat of losing one’s job, or merely from false information, due to the violations of free speech and a free press, some individuals have taken the “vaccine” and died as a consequence (here is a partial list of healthy people who died after receiving the injection).

• Seventh liberty removed under COVID: individual freedom. The freedom of healthy, asymptomatic people to travel, shop, engage in public and social activities (eat out, attend events), and conduct business (keep one’s fitness center or hair salon open) has been restricted.

• Eighth liberty removed under COVID: use of private property. Under COVID rules, businesses were forcibly closed—and citizens who refused to close their businesses were arrested and/or had their business licenses revoked.

Amendment VII

“In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

• Ninth liberty removed under COVID: right to trial by a jury of peers. If we are harmed or injured, physically or financially (someone steals, defrauds, damages your property, or interferes with your ability to conduct business, etc.), we are entitled to a jury trial to redress our grievances. But this right has been denied to those whose businesses have been closed, whose licenses have been revoked, who have been terminated from jobs, and who have been harmed by the jab. They cannot sue an overreaching government, the pharmaceutical company, the health official who injected them, or the hospital or employer who enforced the mandate on threat of losing employment. Will all the employees, including many healthy, asymptomatic employees, and even COVID recovered (with better immunity than the injection provides), who were terminated from their jobs, because they refused the jab, be afforded a jury trial of their peers to sue the employers for lost wages and pain and suffering caused by their unreasonable action?

Amendment VIII

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

• Tenth liberty removed under COVID: no excessive fines. It is an excessive fine (financial penalty far exceeding a $500 or $1,000 ticket) to close a family business, revoke a business license, or terminate from employment healthy people who refuse the jab or who have not closed their businesses.

The Final Movements Will be Rapid Ones

In a span of under two years, at least ten of the core constitutional protections for religious and civil liberties have been taken away from the American people—all under the false guise of public safety.

It appears that The Great Controversy was prescient in predicting the USA would one day repudiate the principles of liberty. We are surely living in the last days. It is time for the people of God to wake up, to recognize beastly methods wherever and whenever they are present (in our homes, governments, and churches)—and especially when coercive power is presented as necessary for our health and welfare. It is time to reject the methods of the beast, to say, “No! We will not comply with ungodly methods of coercion and force. We will live God’s methods of truth, love, and freedom!”

Our call to action is not a call to political action—the U.S. government will not be saved no matter what political party is elected to office. Instead, our call is a loud cry to people to prepare our hearts and minds; to embrace the methods of Jesus; to reject the methods, principles, and practices of this world; to act on love and not fear; to refuse to be complicit with coercion of conscience; and to love others as God loves us.

Our message is to call people back to the worship of our Creator, to behold the One who made the heavens, earth, seas, and fountains of water. We worship God by finding His character of love worthy of our adoration, affection, and devotion, and we internalize His methods and practice His design laws in how we live and treat others. We refuse the trap of Satan, the lie that we can achieve justice through human laws, governments, and coercive power.

The events around COVID are warning signs for all those not in a spiritual stupor; it is time to prepare our hearts and minds, for Jesus is coming soon!