Thank you EarlySDA for your response.

It's not easy maintaining a spirit of preparation, especially when those around you are 'sleeping'.

What do you do to consistently stay 'awake'?

The decline and fall of religious freedom and of America started with the two events of the churches throwing Millerites out of fellowship in the early 1840's & In 1892 having Congress  and the Supreme Court changing the legal foundations of the country .  A. T. Jones wrote of it as an eye witness, and battled against the Blair Bill & Sunday Legislation.

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Sermon 5

" General Conference Daily Bulletin, Vol. 5 (1893) THE THIRD ANGEL'S MESSAGE 5 A. T. Jones

I find that some are beginning to get a little perplexed by not doing what we agreed to the first night, or else they did not get here in time to agree to that. The first night, you know, we agreed to stand by that text of Scripture, and say it is so, that "If any man thinketh he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing, yet as he ought to know." Some who have perhaps come in since these lessons began, and others who have not remembered fully to stick to the text, have begun to say like this: "Well now, all these things are plain that you have set forth, but I do not see how they are going to fit" such and such things that we have held before. {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 108.1}

Don't be a bit afraid. If these things are plain--and they say they are--then look at them. If they are new--don't try to put new wine into old bottles. To all such who may think these things are new, I say, Do not try to put new wine into old bottles. You cannot do that. Do not get concerned about what you thought before. I am not talking at random on these things at all. I know what I am saying and I know some other things that are coming besides. If you have been thinking right before, this will fit; and if you have not been thinking right, it ought not to fit. Let us study these things together. Have I brought any matters before you that are not actual facts? [Audience: "No"]. {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 108.2}

All we are studying this week is that one text we started with. Many other things are going to come that we have not yet taken a text for, but we are studying this week this text: "The people who will now see what is soon to come upon us by what is being transacted before us, will no longer trust in human inventions and will feel that the Holy Spirit must be recognized, received, presented before the people." {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 108.3}

Now so far we have got along pretty well in seeing what is being transacted before us and some of the things that are soon to come upon us. Let us take what we have and make the most of it, and the rest will take care of itself when it comes. {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 109.1}

Now tonight I am going to take up another study right in the same line--of what is being transacted before us. I will simply call attention to facts--things that you can see and things that everybody in the world can see who reads the common daily events as they appear in the daily papers of the world. You can see them, and everybody else can see them. Have we brought up anything in these lessons yet as to what is being transacted before us, that everybody cannot see? [Audience: "No."] As to what is coming upon us, we can tell them. They may not believe what is soon to come, of course, but they cannot help seeing what is before them. {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 109.2}

Four years ago last fall I was appointed to write a reading for the week of prayer on "Our present Standing and Work." In that I mentioned some of the thoughts that I referred to the other night, but I call attention to this one particular thought now for our study tonight. Here it is: {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 109.3}

Under our Constitution as it is, the total separation of Church and State and the perfect religious liberty thereby assured, have been a beacon-light of progress to all other nations for a hundred years. The American principle of the liberties and rights of men had an irresistible influence upon other nations in all parts of the earth. This is the genuine principle of Protestantism, which is, in short, the principle announced by Christ, that men should render to Caesar only that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's. {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 109.4}

Against this principle the papacy has constantly maintained that no State could exist without alliance with the church; in fact, that States exist only for the support and for the sake of the church. It is true that the American principle has not been adopted in its clearness by any other nation, but yet its influence has been untold in turning the minds of men from the influence of the papal theory. But just now, when the other nations in their perplexity are courting the support of Rome, the papacy takes advantage of this to reassert the papal theory and to claim that these things are an acknowledgement on the part of rulers and governors that her theory is correct. {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 109.5}

Now in view of all this, and just at this time, in fact this very year, 1888 [Here I mentioned the proposed Constitutional Amendment and the National Sunday Bill, which were then before the country, as proposed by Senator Blair, in which Christianity as the religion of the nation and Sunday as the sabbath were to be recognized and then continued as follows:] When this is done, its influence in favor of the papacy will be inestimable. Then it will be said that this nation, which has made such great pretensions to religious liberty and which has been set forth as the model for earthly governments, has been compelled to reverse that which was supposed to be the enlightened order and to adopt the principles which the church has all the time maintained. {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 109.6}

Then as this nation has been the model of liberty, enlightenment, and progress to all others, so when its principles shall have been reversed, when the liberties and rights of men are denied, when the nation is carried back to the principles of the papacy in the Dark Ages and persecution for conscience's sake is carried on, the reaction upon other nations will be such as will infinitely confirm and magnify the claims and power of the papacy. {February 2, 1893 ATJ, GCDB 109.7}........ " 

more later.....