~ Islam's Three "WOES" ~

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"Satan delights in WAR, for it excites the worst passions of the soul and then sweeps into eternity its victims steeped in vice and blood. It is his object to incite the nations to war against one another, for he can thus divert the minds of the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day of God." The Great Controversy, p. 589

 

Sunday Laws:

"It is God that shields His creatures and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world have shown contempt for the law of Jehovah; and the Lord will do just what He has declared that He would--He will withdraw His blessings from the earth and remove His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law and teaching and forcing others to do the same." ibid

 

"It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity." The Great Controversy, p. 590

 

Spiritualism & Sunday Laws:

"The miracle-working power manifested through spiritualism will exert its influence against those who choose to obey God rather than men. Communications from the spirits will declare that God has sent them to convince the rejecters of Sunday of their error, affirming that the laws of the land should be obeyed as the law of God. They will lament the great wickedness in the world and second the testimony of religious teachers that the degraded state of morals is caused by the desecration of Sunday. Great will be the indignation excited against all who refuse to accept their testimony" The Great Controversy, p. 591

 

Political Corruption:

"Political corruption is destroying love of justice and regard for truth; and even in free America, rulers and legislators, in order to secure public favor, will yield to the popular demand for a law enforcing Sunday observance. Liberty of conscience, which has cost so great a sacrifice, will no longer be respected." The Great Controversy, p. 592

 

War......Calamities......loss of temporal prosperity........the degraded state of morals........great wickedness in the world.....political corruption........politicians looking only to secure public favor yield to popular demand for a Sunday Law.  You can see the progression of events........but not in a straight-line, but rather, advancing together, toward a great final crescendo.

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9-11 panicked people into the churches: Temporarily.

[It is easy to see that all of North American Christianity, not just the Seventh-day Adventist church, is afflicted with Laodiceanism. In the future, when these nominal Christians are hurting, confused and afraid because of the loss of temporal prosperity in this country, from whatever cause, they will be grabbing at straws for answers, and pointing fingers at some hapless scapegoat as the cause of all their troubles.......historically, the Jews......]

 

Looking upon the smitten Lamb of God, the Jews had cried, "His blood be on us, and on our children." That awful cry ascended to the throne of God. That sentence, pronounced upon themselves, was written in heaven. That prayer was heard. The blood of the Son of God was upon their children and their children's children, a perpetual curse. Terribly was it realized in the destruction of Jerusalem. Terribly has it been manifested in the condition of the Jewish nation for eighteen hundred years,--a branch severed from the vine, a dead, fruitless branch, to be gathered up and burned. From land to land throughout the world, from century to century, dead, dead in trespasses and sins! {Desire of Ages, p. 739} ......(Written in 1898....before the Holocaust of Hitler's Germany.)

 

The "Politically Correct Anti-Semitism of Europe". Let's start with the Europeans. There is only one group of Arabs for whom Europeans have consistently spoken out in favor of their liberation -- and that is those Arabs living under Israeli occupation, the Palestinians. Those Arabs who have been living under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein or other Arab dictators are of no concern to President Jacques Chirac of France and his fellow travelers. ... We all know what this is about: the Jewish question. 'For too many Europeans, Arabs are of no moral interest in and of themselves,' observes the Middle East analyst Stephen P. Cohen. 'They only become of interest if they are fighting Jews or being manhandled by Jews. Then their liberation becomes paramount, because calling for it is a way to stick it to the Jews. Europeans'  demonstrations for a free Palestine -- and not for a free Iraq or any other Arab country -- smell too much like a politically correct form of anti-Semitism, part of a very old story.'"

The Federalist.com, March 10, 2003

.......Seventh-day Adventist's look like Jews to the casual observer.

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WHAT will scare people so badly that they will look for a scapegoat?

 

World War IV Now:

We are presently fighting world war IV. So say a number of scholars and military experts, particularly former CIA director James Woolsey. He says the Cold War between the Western Democracies and global Communism was actually World War III. The Korean and Vietnam wars were combat theaters in the larger conflict, which included guerrilla war in Latin American and Africa, espionage and counterespionage, diplomatic and ideological warfare, all conducted in the shadow of a nuclear standoff.

The current war on terrorism is also global in scale, with a multitude of fronts; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East; the Pakistan-India nuclear saber-rattling, Afghan terrorism, Philippine insurgency, and Indonesian militancy in Asia; the Russia-Chechnya conflict and the Serbian-Bosnian hatred in Eastern Europe; the drive to impose Islamic law in Africa; and terrorist attacks against Europe and America. Unifying them is an ideology just as totalitarian as communism; radical Islam. 

Whereas the struggle against communism pitted a civilization shaped by religious faith against a godless foe, in this war, WE are the godless ones.

The cultural influence of America overseas is no longer democratic ideals, political freedom and economic prosperity as it was formerly, but rather sexual permissiveness, pornographic entertainment, legalized abortion, and an anti-cultural hedonism.

WORLD, October 25, 2003

 

In December, a United Nations monitoring group estimated that there were 30 to 40 terrorist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda.

Most officials say they consider it unlikely that the dozen terror groups that they are most concerned about are capable of pulling off an attack on the scale of Sept. 11. But they said interrogations of captured terror suspects and other intelligence have made it clear that the groups have the training, explosives and money to strike "soft targets," similar to attacks last year in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Indonesia.

They point to the May 12 suicide bombings of three Western housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 25 residents, including 8 Americans. Four days later, in Casablanca, Morocco, suicide bombers carried out five simultaneous attacks, killing more than 30 people. In both cases, local groups, with loose ties to Al Qaeda, carried out the attacks.

NewYorkTimes.com, February 9, 2004

 

The New Fifty-Years War:

The other day, I interviewed a terrorism expert. How long, I asked, will we have to live with these terror alerts, and will the coming war on Iraq make us more or less secure from terrorism?

His answer? In the short run, the war will make us less secure.

In the long run, disarming Iraq will deny terrorists access to at least some weapons of mass destruction. But we must expect to live with terror alerts for the rest of our lives, he said, as the war will last as long as the Cold War itself.

It is remarkable how complacent Americans seem to be, as our freedoms are gradually restricted, and more and more power and wealth flow to Big Government to protect us from terrorists.

Pat Buchanan, quoted in the Conservative Chronicle, February 26, 2003

 

SDA Insights........From the past to the present........3 WOES.

Revelation 8:13 And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!

 

1st Woe = 5th Trumpet:

Rev. 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. ("a new manifestation of satanic power" GC 268)
9:2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
9:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
9:4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

Uriah Smith's, Daniel & Revelation, p.500-501 (paper, 457) quotes Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Vol. 5, p.190, who points out that this verse was fulfilled by Arab Moslems (Saracens) from about 630 A.D. to 1299 A.D. who warred against the "Holy Roman Empire" ....the apostate Catholic Church.

"Men were weary of life, when life was spared only for a renewal of woe, and when all that they accounted sacred was violated, and all that they held dear constantly endangered, and the savage Saracens [Moslem Arabs] domineered over them, or left them only to a momentary repose, ever liable to be suddenly or violently interrupted, as if by the sting of a scorpion." U. Smith, Daniel and the Revelation, p. 504

9:5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

[Editor's Note: The terms, "sudden or violent" fitly describe the scorpion-like terrorist strikes by Moslem suicide bombers today.]

 

9:11 And they had a king over them, [which is] the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue [is] Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath [his] name Apollyon.

 

U. Smith, p. 506 (paper, 461) explains that the Arab Moslems were disorganized tribes, but in 1299 Othman began to unify them under the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and thus became the "king" mentioned in v.11. The "Five Months" of v. 5 began in 1299 and (5 x 30 days per month, in prophetic time reckoning) extend 150 years, to 1449 A.D.

 

2nd Woe = 6th Trumpet:

9:12 One woe is past; [and], behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
9:13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 9:14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
9:15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

 

U. Smith p.508 (paper, 464), "The Sixth Trumpet," (quoting Josiah Litch, "Prophetic Expositions," vol. II, p. 180).

"The first woe was to continue from the rise of Mohammedanism until the end of the five months.  Then the first woe was to end, and the second to begin.  And when the sixth angel sounded, it was commanded to take off the restraints which had been imposed on the nation, by which they were restricted to the work of tormenting men, and their commission was enlarged so as to permit them to slay the third part of men.  This command came from the four horns of the golden altar."

 

U. Smith, p. 508-509 (paper, 466) .......391yrs, 15 days.

"The four angels were loosed for an hour, a day, a month, and a year, to slay the third part of men.  This period, during which Ottoman supremacy was to exist, amounts to three hundred ninety- one years and fifteen days.  Thus:  A prophetic year is three hundred and sixty prophetic days, or three hundred and sixty literal years;  a prophetic month, thirty prophetic days, is thirty literal years;  one prophetic day is one literal year;  and an hour, or the twenty-fourth part of a prophetic day, would be a twenty-fourth part of a literal year, or fifteen days;  the whole amounting to three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days. "

 

U. Smith, p. 514 (paper, 471).......From 1449 A.D. to Aug. 11, 1840.

"This supremacy of the Mohammedans over the Greeks was to continue, as already noticed, three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days.  Commencing when the one hundred and fifty years ended, July 27, 1449, the period would end Aug. 11, 1840."

 

The last Eastern king, Constantine XIII, voluntarily asked permission of the Turks to ascend his throne in Constantinople. The Turks later attack, "SLAY" and bring down his government in the Eastern Holy Roman Empire, and ALSO further weaken the apostate Western Holy Roman Empire, the Catholic Church,

 

.....UNTIL the aspiring French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, sends general Berthier to Rome to take the Pope prisoner and end Rome's political power in Western Europe.....(the "deadly wound" of Rev. 13, in 1798 A.D.)

 

SDA's understand that this date, 1798 A.D., is referred to in Dan.11:40, "And at the time of the end shall THE king of the south push at him:" (Smith here, regrettably, stumbles over the word "THE" and goes off-course with his explanation of Dan. 11, and finally "crashes and burns" in the Crimean War of the 1870's.)

 

......Incidentally, 42 years after 1798, on Aug. 11, 1840, the Ottoman Turks themselves voluntarily give up their empire to Christian powers, bringing the "hour, day, month, year" prophecy to an end, the "voluntary" nature of the fall of the empire being a marker to help locate the beginning and ending of the 391.15 prophecy.

 

Revelation 10.....the mighty angel.....the 7th Trumpet = the 3rd Woe:

".....that there should be time no longer: " ....A reference to the end of the 2300 day prophecy on Oct. 22, 1844, which is the beginning of the Investigative Judgment.

10:7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

..........(Col. 1:27 To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: )

 

(After a history about the atheistic French Revolution, ending in 1798, when Napoleon took the Pope captive....)

11:14 The second woe is past; [and], behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become [the kingdoms] of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

These verses are an announcement of the nearness of the second coming of Jesus.

 

CONCLUSION:

We are NOW living in the time of the 3rd Woe, and the 7th Trumpet~!

Since the first two woes were Moslem terrorists attacking apostate Christianity in the Catholic Church.....and the Holy Roman Empire, which drew the "heat" off of the budding Protestant Reformation, it is reasonable to expect that the 9/11 attacks, and future attacks, of Moslem terrorists compare favorably.

National Apostasy = National Ruin:

"By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. "Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p 451 (Maranatha, p. 216.)

 

"The people of the United States have been a favored people; but when they restrict religious liberty, surrender Protestantism, and give countenance to popery, the measure of their guilt will be full, and "national apostasy" will be registered in the books of heaven. The result of this apostasy will be national ruin." Review & Herald, May 2, 1893, Last Day Events, p. 133, Maranatha, p. 216

 

"Roman Catholic principles will be taken under the care and protection of the state. This national apostasy will speedily be followed by national ruin."--RH June 15, 1897. Last Day Events , p. 134.