An email to a friend

Last night at the prayer meeting we read some from Great Controversy in the chapter of the time of trouble. It got me to thinking again how close the end is. 

I don't want to sound like a fanatic, and actually sometimes I wander from God and begin to think we'll be here, in this world, forever. Then the Holy Spirit and the Bible bring me back on course, after I've really blown it and dishonored God. But there is nothing like the consequences to our sinfulness to help us need a Savior from sin. 

 But, about the time of trouble. I see signs of it on the horizon. I don't know what's going on in Uganda, but here the Protestant Evangelical denominations are attacking the U.S. Supreme Court. They've already filled many places in Congress and President Bush is very partial to the churches' political force. In America, the Protestants are doing the very work that the Papists do in other countries. That is, weakening the popularity of the government in order to force the government to do their bidding. 

We've been forewarned that the Protestant denominations would reach across the gulf and unite with the church of Rome. I believe that is well on the way already. At least in America. But there is another sign. The Rapture theory. It sets the Christian world up for Satan's personation of Christ's second coming. It's the perfect setup, the perfect deception. We are the only ones who see the delusion. 

According to the Rapture theory, "Christ" comes to set up his kingdom on Earth instead of in heaven where sin cannot harass. I know you know all this. My question is, How will it all play out in reality? How does the false eschatology run parallel with the true? We know one event that happens simultaneously--the personation of Christ. Working back from that point, it seems that the so-called Secret Rapture should happen seven years prior to the coming of Satan, or, of course, Satan's delusion that the second coming happened. So, here's a scenario I've come up with in my head. 

 1) American society and world conditions degrade because of sin. 

 2) A bitterness in the world builds and the nations get restless because the love of God and His grace is neglected by the preachers and religious leaders and teachers. God brings disasters all over the world, including the United States. 

 3) God's Advent people see the signs and wake up. Multitudes find themselves without the faith to stick with the fast-moving events happening, which forces them to leave God's people. Others begin to preach like never before in the outpouring of the Latter Rain of the Holy Spirit. Righteousness by Faith is seen by millions who were completely ignorant of it. Faith is seen to be very different to the pervasive presumption in the churches. They turn to their own preachers for answers. The whole world is forced to make its final decision for obedience to or rebellion against heaven, to reject the message and persecute the uneducated, uncredentialed preachers or to believe the truth and rejoice in it and join its persecuted preachers. 

 4) The natural, economic, social disasters of all kinds are seen by a united humanity as a sign that heaven is not happy with this world. At the Protestants' political pulling and because they have lost the true power of the Gospel for the uplifting of the world, they coerce the U.S. government to give them power to enforce religion. 

 5) America repudiates its Constitution, and unites church and state. Every other nation under America's dominion imitates the United States government. 

 6) Uniting church and state opens the door to the Papacy with all its inherent curses on humanity. 

 7) The U.S. government invites the Pope to set up the Papacy and Inquisition in America to allow the Vatican to force it into Christianity, and then the whole world. The Mark of the Beast is now finalized. 

 8) The corruption and violent control that come with the church of Rome quickly speeds up the process of social decline. 

 9) The last plagues from God now fall in great terribleness. 

 10) Multitudes now wake up to thinking that the Tribulation period they were taught in the Rapture doctrine is happening and that they must have missed the Secret Rapture. 

 11) They get nervous and very desperate to save themselves. They believe that they lost their first chance and only have one chance left to get into heaven. But the door of probation is closed and Satan has full control of them. 

 12) The Rapture theory foretells of a secular "Anti-Christ" troublemaker who rises to power half-way through the last 7 year period before Jesus returns. For the lack of any real dictator, Satan inspires the unsettled and scared religious world to accuse the preachers of the Latter Rain of being the Rapture theory's Anti-Christ. 

 13) Finally Satan impersonates the return of Jesus. Jacob's Trouble begins for God's people. Great Controversy says that the people will be threatened with torture and death. Along with their supplication for evidence of God's acceptance, this must be a real threat that terrorizes them. (I wonder if the Inquisition had already begun torturing and executing God's people before probation closed. Or perhaps it is such a threat to God's people because there will have been wicked people who resisted the Papacy and reaped the wrath of Rome.) 

 14) At long last Jesus comes to save us from a situation that is horrible, yet necessary for our preparation for heaven. He breaks through the clouds with an entrance of unfathomable proportions, which Satan could never imitate in his impersonation. We are glorified because Jesus has been glorified. One more time, by beholding we become changed. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." 

 15) We will travel home amidst the glories of the universe. Leaving our home around the Sun, we will traverse our place in our galaxy, the Milky Way. We live in one of the outcroppings of our spiral galaxy, and Orion, the Creator's home, resides in the very next outcropping over from ours. We actually live in God's front yard. As one website states, "We know that the Sun is on the edge of what is probably a 'spur' called the Orion Spur which seems to merge with the Perseus Spiral arm towards the constellation Cygnus...." 

But it's all part of the same galaxy. That first trip between two of many parts of the Milky Way, will be only the beginning of an eternity in the presence of the King and our Father, and also much space travel to different galaxies where other planets are that are home to God's children. Daniel, please, let me know how you view the last events of the Great Controversy, especially from your viewpoint from Uganda and the things that are happening there.