Scattering Of The Power Of The Holy People
“The Lord shall judge His people, and repent Himself for His servants, when He seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.” (Deut. 32:36).
Leviticus 26 gives a rundown of all that the Lord would do for Israel as His beloved bride; and Moses faithfully relayed the message to the people. He would provide for and protect her from all enemies, foreign and domestic. He would give her health and strength and beauty. He would give her power to manage her home and rid it of all trespassers, and He would give her perfect peace. There would not be a more perfect union in all the Earth. All this as long as she reverenced her Husband and remained holy to Him.
But, after saving her from her previous husband, and the bondage and unending misery that Satan had brought her; after being perfectly loyal to her and providing for all her needs and wants, and protecting her and giving her perfect peace; after pouring out His love to her in joy and exceedingly wonderful overtures, if she turned on Him and despised the reasonable requirements of a doting husband and unintimidating hero, and went back to her previous husband, the devil, then He said, “I also will do this unto you….” (Lev. 26:16). The picture would rightfully be a bad one.
In the end, when her pride and willfulness was finally broken, He would return to His people and restore them. “If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and that also they have walked contrary unto Me;
And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:
Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.” (Lev. 26:40-42). If they would fall on the Stone and be broken-hearted, then they would be humbled and redeemed. “Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their cry: and He remembered for them His covenant, and repented according to the multitude of His mercies.” (Ps. 106:44,45).
Five times He forewarned Israel that if His measures would not be enough to show His bride His displeasure at her adultery, to correct her disrespect toward her heavenly Husband, then He would bring to her calamities seven times worse than the previous set of calamities. In the midst of all His threatening, He said, “I will break the pride of your power.” (Lev. 26:19).
After the Lord lived with 700 years of Israel’s serving Satan and his wickedness, with much embarrassment to Jehovah, her Husband, then He began sending warnings of the fulfillment of all the desolations that He had forewarned them through Moses. Five times Isaiah declared what the Lord was going to do to them, listed in Isaiah 5-10, specifically, verses 5:25;9:12,17,21; 10:4. Then He explained who it was that would play the role in humbling Israel—it would be Satan himself, through her favorite earthly consort, Babylon. (Is. 13:1;14:26,27).
Later through Jeremiah, after 800 years of dealing with Israel’s unfaithfulness, the Lord said, “They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the Lord.
Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.” (Jer. 3:1-3).
And later still, through Ezekiel, “How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman….
They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.” (Ez. 16:30-3).
Then, through Daniel, Israel heard the final decree. “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy… and for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.” (Dan. 9:24,27). God would give a probationary period which would terminate in full forgiveness and redemption for His wife’s abominations, or in complete divorce.
During this period of probation, Israel’s power would be restricted, their sovereignty permanently removed as well as the evidence of the Lord’s approval through His prophetic voice. But in the end their power would be fully scattered because they used the powerful and health-giving spiritual inheritance from the Holy Spirit to please themselves, and to join with the idolatrous nations around them in the sophisticated philosophies of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
“But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they Him to anger.
They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them, because of the provoking of His sons, and of His daughters.
And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend Mine arrows upon them.
They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men.” (Deut. 32:15-26). The scattering intimates wrath and determination against sin; His promises to them after their humbling and shame tell of His unending love for the sinner.
Finally, through Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greece, and Rome, their power was completely scattered, both sovereignly and spiritually. The heathen empires’ subjugation of Israel got increasingly stronger and inflexible, and the knowledge of God faded away more and more, until devil-possession was rampant among the common people and religious leaders, alike.
This scenario was bad, but a worse, future identical scenario was prophesied for God’s people of the new dispensation. Built upon the model of ancient Israel’s experience with apostasy, “Out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.
And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.
Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of His sanctuary was cast down.
And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered….
And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.” (Dan. 8:9-12,23-25).
“He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time….
Therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.
And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.
And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.
And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.
Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.
And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed….
And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.” (Dan. 11:24,31-35,45).
To this Christ, standing on the river, spoke when He answered the angel at the end of Daniel’s testimony. “One said to the Man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when He held up His right hand and His left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when He shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.” (Dan. 12:6,7).
This scattering, according to Daniel chapters 8 and 11 would happen during the Dark Ages, yet in its fullest sense, not until the very end of chapter 11—that is, according to Christ’s words spoken here, between the end of the 1,260 year time period, “time, times, and an half” (12:7) and when the tidings out of the east and out of the north would come (11:44), after God has scattered the power of His people.
With that background, a comparison between Daniel 12:6,7 and Revelation 10:6,7 finds both texts speaking of the same event—the end of the awful prophecies of a future apostasy of the church that would interestingly mimick the past apostasy of Israel and of whole great controversy between God and Satan.
But, they reveal extra details concerning the end of time. So, let’s compare them.
“And one said to the Man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?
And I heard the Man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when He held up His right hand and His left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when He shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.” (Dan. 12:6,7).
The question was, “when will all these distressing visions of the desolation of God and His people be fulfilled and come to an end? The answer—when God gives His foe a period of time to develop his real purposes and decimates God’s people. And what John later heard compliments this answer.
“And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up His hand to heaven,
And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
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.” (Rev. 10:5-7).
Placing both verse seven texts line upon line, we see the last half of each text speaking of the same event in different wording. And when collating them together, we get this picture: “In the days of the voice of the seventh angel,” “when He [God] shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people,” “all these [wonders] shall be finished”—”the mystery of God…finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.”
The word “wonders” and “mystery” mean the same thing and superimpose each other. In Daniel, the wonders are the great controversy theme played out on Earth prior to Michael standing up and destroying the anti-Christ power. In Revelation, the mystery of God is the book sealed with seven seals, which was open in the hand of the Angel clothed in glory, at the time of this prophecy (Rev. 10:2)—that is, the book binding God’s reputation of love, credibility, and faithfulness in the minds of His kingdom and His people on Earth. But although the book was open to be understood (since 1844) the full revelation wouldn’t be finalized until the seventh angel would sound its trumpet, the third woe past. And the great controversy of sin and Satan will not end until, both sovereignly and spiritually, to His people as a group and in each soul, God has fully scattered the power of His people.
The Lord can do nothing toward the recovery of man until, convinced of his own weakness, and stripped of all self-sufficiency, he yields himself to the control of God. Then he can receive the gift that God is waiting to bestow. From the soul that feels his need, nothing is withheld. He has unrestricted access to Him in whom all fullness dwells. Faith I Live By, p. 136.
All human ambition, all boasting, is to be laid in the dust. Self, sinful self, is to be abased, not exalted. Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 234.
As Christ the Pattern is constantly kept before the mind’s eye, new habits will be formed, powerful hereditary and cultivated tendencies will be subdued and overcome, self-esteem will be laid in the dust, old habits of thought will be constantly resisted, love for the supremacy will be seen in its real, despicable character, and will be overcome. Our High Calling, p. 99.
The world’s greatest need today is the humbling, shaming power of God through His Law and His goodness; His towering mountain of righteousness and truth and His equally great mountain of mercy and peace; the awful fear from His warnings and threats and the comforting power of His precious promises.
The context of Revelation 10 and the opened book falls between 1844 (Rev. 8:1) when the seventh seal is removed and culminates when the seventh trumpet is sounded (Rev. 11:15). This is not the book of Daniel, but the book of God’s reputation bound up under Satan’s charges which only the offering up of Christ could undo, as seen in Revelation 5. After the first 6 trumpets the book is fully unsealed and opened in Christ’s hand, and the Lion of the tribe of Judah roars in soon coming judgment in His Father’s favor; and following the Lion, His Father thunders, also, in anticipation of the victory.
But, a close look shows that Rev. 10:6 does not say that there should be time no longer—as in no more time prophecies. The original Greek says, “Delay no shall be longer (sic); but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound [the] trumpet, also should be completed the mystery of God, as He did announce the glad tidings to His bondmen the prophets.” (Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, by George Ricker Berry.)
When this context, Rev. 10:6 and 7, is read in its entirety, we see that the word “but” is a conjunction that brings the two verses’ thoughts together into one whole and helps define the phrase, “there should be time no longer.” In other words, the verses are mutually-defining. In a microcosmic way, scripture is interpreting itself, as the thought of verse 7 interprets the thought of the verse preceding it. And thus, according to verse 7, the “no time longer” would not occur until after the 7th trumpet begins to sound.
To me this is significant because of what it means concerning the 5th trumpet, which begins in Rev. 9:1-5.
When comparing Rev. 9:4 with Rev. 7:3, we see direct reference to one and the same future event—the servants of God being sealed in their foreheads. The similarity of the language is unmistakable. Adventists have never united these two verses into one theme, partly because of Uriah Smith’s interpretation of the fifth seal which he saw fulfilled in the Saracens attacking Christendom in 1299. Personally, I think he tended to interpret prophecies primarily as military campaigns. Thus, in the prophecies that end Daniel, this habit led Elder Smith to see, not the Son of perdition, papal Rome and the image of the beast, but Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. Even against the counsel of Ellen and James White he maintained this wrong stance.
The 5th trumpet must have a historicist interpretation, but, by the description of its context, a historicity not bounded by the whole Christian era, as is commonly believed. It is historicist in the context of the time period beginning in Revelation 7 and the Investigative Judgment, i.e. from 1844 to the day Christ returns to receive His people. It is historicist within the time of the end. The language of the 5th trumpet reveals its intimate connection with 1844 and the ascending angel with the seal that commands the winds of strife to be held back. Both verses, Rev. 9:4 and 7:3 deal with the seal of God in the forehead.
Since the 5th trumpet occurs chronologically after the seal of God in His servants’ foreheads begins, then it follows that the 5th trumpet must be fulfilled after 1844, not in 1299 as Elder Smith said and as many of us have understood.
My study and thought is that the 7th seal was opened in 1844 because when it did open, in Rev. 8:1-5, we see Christ in a heavenly sanctuary scene readying Himself to pass through the veil into the Most Holy Place, and holding a censor with an over-abundance of incense. This abundant incense was intended for God’s last day movement, the Seventh-day Adventists, and in particular, for Mrs. White. I believe that the “much incense” was the gift of the Spirit of Prophecy given to her for the guidance for God’s final movement and their preparation for the last events on Earth.
Following the casting of the incense and coals and sanctifying blood upon the movement in 1844, the trumpets began to sound, the first four, I believe, in rapid succession. The first trumpet established and re-inspired the Seventh-day Adventists with the divine mandate to prepare the world for Christ’s return and the Day of Judgment.
The second trumpet described the Protestant churches, which denied the blinding truth of Christ’s literal coming in power, and then when the Sabbath truth came out, they immediately turned to the erroneous abrogation of God’s Law. Thus we see Mt. Sinai burning with fire, thrown out of the churches and quenched in the sea.
The third trumpet shows Satan moving into the denominations and poisoning their doctrines and spoiling their faith. No longer could they be God’s representatives, even though they kept the name. The northern ten tribes kept the title of Israel, but the title didn’t save them.
The fourth trumpet shows the light of the Protestant churches going completely out. What a sad thing that has been to every Evangelical who turns away from the hearing of the Law of God! Even their prayer is an abomination. They have wandered in darkness ever since because they denied God His authority to reprove and correct them.
After the fourth trumpet, three angels cry out a warning of approaching danger to the whole world. This speaks of a milestone event, or it would not have been attended by three angels crying out the warning. They are seen again in the messages of chapter 14.
The fifth trumpet begins this period of special danger warned of by the three angels. The first four trumpets spoke of the downfall of the Sunday denominations, which occurred within a few years after 1844. Simultaneously, the Lord led the SDAs to work strenuously to understand all the light God had for them, and by 1848 they had hammered out the truths to give to the world.
The stage was now set. The Adventists were ready to move out, and the Protestants were rejected. Now the Investigative Judgment could begin in earnest, by way of putting to the world an unprecedented litmus test. God looses Satan from the bottomless pit to go and deceive the nations and to further deceive the denominations. The “strong delusion” begins and Satan quickly launches his invasion with an army of demons and their human counterparts.
With his dark influence, which hid the sun, casting enchantments all over the earth, Satan has molded the human race into his image. Slowly at first, but subtly accelerating over time, Satan has brought this world to a kingdom suited perfectly for him. He has restored what he accomplished in the antediluvian world and in Imperial Rome, when the image of God in humanity was destroyed, and which, as the Holy Spirit describes, “when the transgressors [were] come to the full.” (Dan. 8:23). During this period in the 5th trumpet the seal of God has been awarded to some, but, according to the language of the 5th trumpet prophecy, most of the world has been devoured by the temptations prevailing throughout America, the divinely provided refuge for Protestantism, and currently the defiling influence of Satan is now rapidly spreading around the globe through the powerful influence of America. Soon, the whole world will become as decrepit as America has been.
I see, based on Revelation 10 verses 6 and 7, that John prophesied of another time period beyond 1844, and thus, another “time prophecy.” The 5th trumpet, which torments all who do not receive the seal of God in their forehead, is speaking of the 150 years that followed the California Gold Rush in 1849. And it ended in another gold rush, the unprecedented upsurge of the stock market that finished at the end of 1999. That stock market growth trapped all the Protestants in its clutches and also showed, once again, that their treasures have been laid up on earth where thieves break through and steal.
During this prophetic 5 month prophecy of the 5th trumpet we’ve seen our world transformed in technology, communication, transportation, in spirituality, morality, and on and on. The prophecy began with the world in the stone-age and ended in the space age. Human history had never seen anything like this until the time of God’s loosing of Satan as a catalyst for humanity-wide decision-making of eternal importance during the Investigative Judgment.
God’s use of Satan as a catalyst for final decisions speaks of His determination to finish the great controversy, the “mystery of God”. It may explain the seven thunders that John was forbidden to interpret. It was our Father speaking in strong determination to finally end sin and its desolating effects. It was another fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: for He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.” (Rom. 9:27,28). “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.” (Is. 10:22,23).
The 5th trumpet is also seen in Rev. 11:7-10 which contains the death of the Advent movement. But, the 5th trumpet already having ended and our now being in the 6th trumpet, we are looking for the soon resurrection of the Advent movement in the Latter Rain of the Holy Spirit, according to verses 11-14, and then the time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, in verses 15-19. But this is all very good news, (Gr. evaggelisen, from Rev. 10:6). Our long wilderness wandering is almost over. The Lord is coming very soon.
Leviticus 26 gives a rundown of all that the Lord would do for Israel as His beloved bride; and Moses faithfully relayed the message to the people. He would provide for and protect her from all enemies, foreign and domestic. He would give her health and strength and beauty. He would give her power to manage her home and rid it of all trespassers, and He would give her perfect peace. There would not be a more perfect union in all the Earth. All this as long as she reverenced her Husband and remained holy to Him.
But, after saving her from her previous husband, and the bondage and unending misery that Satan had brought her; after being perfectly loyal to her and providing for all her needs and wants, and protecting her and giving her perfect peace; after pouring out His love to her in joy and exceedingly wonderful overtures, if she turned on Him and despised the reasonable requirements of a doting husband and unintimidating hero, and went back to her previous husband, the devil, then He said, “I also will do this unto you….” (Lev. 26:16). The picture would rightfully be a bad one.
In the end, when her pride and willfulness was finally broken, He would return to His people and restore them. “If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and that also they have walked contrary unto Me;
And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:
Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.” (Lev. 26:40-42). If they would fall on the Stone and be broken-hearted, then they would be humbled and redeemed. “Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their cry: and He remembered for them His covenant, and repented according to the multitude of His mercies.” (Ps. 106:44,45).
Five times He forewarned Israel that if His measures would not be enough to show His bride His displeasure at her adultery, to correct her disrespect toward her heavenly Husband, then He would bring to her calamities seven times worse than the previous set of calamities. In the midst of all His threatening, He said, “I will break the pride of your power.” (Lev. 26:19).
After the Lord lived with 700 years of Israel’s serving Satan and his wickedness, with much embarrassment to Jehovah, her Husband, then He began sending warnings of the fulfillment of all the desolations that He had forewarned them through Moses. Five times Isaiah declared what the Lord was going to do to them, listed in Isaiah 5-10, specifically, verses 5:25;9:12,17,21; 10:4. Then He explained who it was that would play the role in humbling Israel—it would be Satan himself, through her favorite earthly consort, Babylon. (Is. 13:1;14:26,27).
Later through Jeremiah, after 800 years of dealing with Israel’s unfaithfulness, the Lord said, “They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the Lord.
Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.” (Jer. 3:1-3).
And later still, through Ezekiel, “How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman….
They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.” (Ez. 16:30-3).
Then, through Daniel, Israel heard the final decree. “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy… and for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.” (Dan. 9:24,27). God would give a probationary period which would terminate in full forgiveness and redemption for His wife’s abominations, or in complete divorce.
During this period of probation, Israel’s power would be restricted, their sovereignty permanently removed as well as the evidence of the Lord’s approval through His prophetic voice. But in the end their power would be fully scattered because they used the powerful and health-giving spiritual inheritance from the Holy Spirit to please themselves, and to join with the idolatrous nations around them in the sophisticated philosophies of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
“But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they Him to anger.
They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them, because of the provoking of His sons, and of His daughters.
And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend Mine arrows upon them.
They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men.” (Deut. 32:15-26). The scattering intimates wrath and determination against sin; His promises to them after their humbling and shame tell of His unending love for the sinner.
Finally, through Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greece, and Rome, their power was completely scattered, both sovereignly and spiritually. The heathen empires’ subjugation of Israel got increasingly stronger and inflexible, and the knowledge of God faded away more and more, until devil-possession was rampant among the common people and religious leaders, alike.
This scenario was bad, but a worse, future identical scenario was prophesied for God’s people of the new dispensation. Built upon the model of ancient Israel’s experience with apostasy, “Out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.
And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.
Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of His sanctuary was cast down.
And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered….
And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.” (Dan. 8:9-12,23-25).
“He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time….
Therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.
And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.
And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.
And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.
Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries.
And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed….
And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.” (Dan. 11:24,31-35,45).
To this Christ, standing on the river, spoke when He answered the angel at the end of Daniel’s testimony. “One said to the Man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when He held up His right hand and His left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when He shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.” (Dan. 12:6,7).
This scattering, according to Daniel chapters 8 and 11 would happen during the Dark Ages, yet in its fullest sense, not until the very end of chapter 11—that is, according to Christ’s words spoken here, between the end of the 1,260 year time period, “time, times, and an half” (12:7) and when the tidings out of the east and out of the north would come (11:44), after God has scattered the power of His people.
With that background, a comparison between Daniel 12:6,7 and Revelation 10:6,7 finds both texts speaking of the same event—the end of the awful prophecies of a future apostasy of the church that would interestingly mimick the past apostasy of Israel and of whole great controversy between God and Satan.
But, they reveal extra details concerning the end of time. So, let’s compare them.
“And one said to the Man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?
And I heard the Man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when He held up His right hand and His left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when He shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.” (Dan. 12:6,7).
The question was, “when will all these distressing visions of the desolation of God and His people be fulfilled and come to an end? The answer—when God gives His foe a period of time to develop his real purposes and decimates God’s people. And what John later heard compliments this answer.
“And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up His hand to heaven,
And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
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.” (Rev. 10:5-7).
Placing both verse seven texts line upon line, we see the last half of each text speaking of the same event in different wording. And when collating them together, we get this picture: “In the days of the voice of the seventh angel,” “when He [God] shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people,” “all these [wonders] shall be finished”—”the mystery of God…finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.”
The word “wonders” and “mystery” mean the same thing and superimpose each other. In Daniel, the wonders are the great controversy theme played out on Earth prior to Michael standing up and destroying the anti-Christ power. In Revelation, the mystery of God is the book sealed with seven seals, which was open in the hand of the Angel clothed in glory, at the time of this prophecy (Rev. 10:2)—that is, the book binding God’s reputation of love, credibility, and faithfulness in the minds of His kingdom and His people on Earth. But although the book was open to be understood (since 1844) the full revelation wouldn’t be finalized until the seventh angel would sound its trumpet, the third woe past. And the great controversy of sin and Satan will not end until, both sovereignly and spiritually, to His people as a group and in each soul, God has fully scattered the power of His people.
The Lord can do nothing toward the recovery of man until, convinced of his own weakness, and stripped of all self-sufficiency, he yields himself to the control of God. Then he can receive the gift that God is waiting to bestow. From the soul that feels his need, nothing is withheld. He has unrestricted access to Him in whom all fullness dwells. Faith I Live By, p. 136.
All human ambition, all boasting, is to be laid in the dust. Self, sinful self, is to be abased, not exalted. Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 234.
As Christ the Pattern is constantly kept before the mind’s eye, new habits will be formed, powerful hereditary and cultivated tendencies will be subdued and overcome, self-esteem will be laid in the dust, old habits of thought will be constantly resisted, love for the supremacy will be seen in its real, despicable character, and will be overcome. Our High Calling, p. 99.
The world’s greatest need today is the humbling, shaming power of God through His Law and His goodness; His towering mountain of righteousness and truth and His equally great mountain of mercy and peace; the awful fear from His warnings and threats and the comforting power of His precious promises.
The context of Revelation 10 and the opened book falls between 1844 (Rev. 8:1) when the seventh seal is removed and culminates when the seventh trumpet is sounded (Rev. 11:15). This is not the book of Daniel, but the book of God’s reputation bound up under Satan’s charges which only the offering up of Christ could undo, as seen in Revelation 5. After the first 6 trumpets the book is fully unsealed and opened in Christ’s hand, and the Lion of the tribe of Judah roars in soon coming judgment in His Father’s favor; and following the Lion, His Father thunders, also, in anticipation of the victory.
But, a close look shows that Rev. 10:6 does not say that there should be time no longer—as in no more time prophecies. The original Greek says, “Delay no shall be longer (sic); but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound [the] trumpet, also should be completed the mystery of God, as He did announce the glad tidings to His bondmen the prophets.” (Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, by George Ricker Berry.)
When this context, Rev. 10:6 and 7, is read in its entirety, we see that the word “but” is a conjunction that brings the two verses’ thoughts together into one whole and helps define the phrase, “there should be time no longer.” In other words, the verses are mutually-defining. In a microcosmic way, scripture is interpreting itself, as the thought of verse 7 interprets the thought of the verse preceding it. And thus, according to verse 7, the “no time longer” would not occur until after the 7th trumpet begins to sound.
To me this is significant because of what it means concerning the 5th trumpet, which begins in Rev. 9:1-5.
When comparing Rev. 9:4 with Rev. 7:3, we see direct reference to one and the same future event—the servants of God being sealed in their foreheads. The similarity of the language is unmistakable. Adventists have never united these two verses into one theme, partly because of Uriah Smith’s interpretation of the fifth seal which he saw fulfilled in the Saracens attacking Christendom in 1299. Personally, I think he tended to interpret prophecies primarily as military campaigns. Thus, in the prophecies that end Daniel, this habit led Elder Smith to see, not the Son of perdition, papal Rome and the image of the beast, but Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. Even against the counsel of Ellen and James White he maintained this wrong stance.
The 5th trumpet must have a historicist interpretation, but, by the description of its context, a historicity not bounded by the whole Christian era, as is commonly believed. It is historicist in the context of the time period beginning in Revelation 7 and the Investigative Judgment, i.e. from 1844 to the day Christ returns to receive His people. It is historicist within the time of the end. The language of the 5th trumpet reveals its intimate connection with 1844 and the ascending angel with the seal that commands the winds of strife to be held back. Both verses, Rev. 9:4 and 7:3 deal with the seal of God in the forehead.
Since the 5th trumpet occurs chronologically after the seal of God in His servants’ foreheads begins, then it follows that the 5th trumpet must be fulfilled after 1844, not in 1299 as Elder Smith said and as many of us have understood.
My study and thought is that the 7th seal was opened in 1844 because when it did open, in Rev. 8:1-5, we see Christ in a heavenly sanctuary scene readying Himself to pass through the veil into the Most Holy Place, and holding a censor with an over-abundance of incense. This abundant incense was intended for God’s last day movement, the Seventh-day Adventists, and in particular, for Mrs. White. I believe that the “much incense” was the gift of the Spirit of Prophecy given to her for the guidance for God’s final movement and their preparation for the last events on Earth.
Following the casting of the incense and coals and sanctifying blood upon the movement in 1844, the trumpets began to sound, the first four, I believe, in rapid succession. The first trumpet established and re-inspired the Seventh-day Adventists with the divine mandate to prepare the world for Christ’s return and the Day of Judgment.
The second trumpet described the Protestant churches, which denied the blinding truth of Christ’s literal coming in power, and then when the Sabbath truth came out, they immediately turned to the erroneous abrogation of God’s Law. Thus we see Mt. Sinai burning with fire, thrown out of the churches and quenched in the sea.
The third trumpet shows Satan moving into the denominations and poisoning their doctrines and spoiling their faith. No longer could they be God’s representatives, even though they kept the name. The northern ten tribes kept the title of Israel, but the title didn’t save them.
The fourth trumpet shows the light of the Protestant churches going completely out. What a sad thing that has been to every Evangelical who turns away from the hearing of the Law of God! Even their prayer is an abomination. They have wandered in darkness ever since because they denied God His authority to reprove and correct them.
After the fourth trumpet, three angels cry out a warning of approaching danger to the whole world. This speaks of a milestone event, or it would not have been attended by three angels crying out the warning. They are seen again in the messages of chapter 14.
The fifth trumpet begins this period of special danger warned of by the three angels. The first four trumpets spoke of the downfall of the Sunday denominations, which occurred within a few years after 1844. Simultaneously, the Lord led the SDAs to work strenuously to understand all the light God had for them, and by 1848 they had hammered out the truths to give to the world.
The stage was now set. The Adventists were ready to move out, and the Protestants were rejected. Now the Investigative Judgment could begin in earnest, by way of putting to the world an unprecedented litmus test. God looses Satan from the bottomless pit to go and deceive the nations and to further deceive the denominations. The “strong delusion” begins and Satan quickly launches his invasion with an army of demons and their human counterparts.
With his dark influence, which hid the sun, casting enchantments all over the earth, Satan has molded the human race into his image. Slowly at first, but subtly accelerating over time, Satan has brought this world to a kingdom suited perfectly for him. He has restored what he accomplished in the antediluvian world and in Imperial Rome, when the image of God in humanity was destroyed, and which, as the Holy Spirit describes, “when the transgressors [were] come to the full.” (Dan. 8:23). During this period in the 5th trumpet the seal of God has been awarded to some, but, according to the language of the 5th trumpet prophecy, most of the world has been devoured by the temptations prevailing throughout America, the divinely provided refuge for Protestantism, and currently the defiling influence of Satan is now rapidly spreading around the globe through the powerful influence of America. Soon, the whole world will become as decrepit as America has been.
I see, based on Revelation 10 verses 6 and 7, that John prophesied of another time period beyond 1844, and thus, another “time prophecy.” The 5th trumpet, which torments all who do not receive the seal of God in their forehead, is speaking of the 150 years that followed the California Gold Rush in 1849. And it ended in another gold rush, the unprecedented upsurge of the stock market that finished at the end of 1999. That stock market growth trapped all the Protestants in its clutches and also showed, once again, that their treasures have been laid up on earth where thieves break through and steal.
During this prophetic 5 month prophecy of the 5th trumpet we’ve seen our world transformed in technology, communication, transportation, in spirituality, morality, and on and on. The prophecy began with the world in the stone-age and ended in the space age. Human history had never seen anything like this until the time of God’s loosing of Satan as a catalyst for humanity-wide decision-making of eternal importance during the Investigative Judgment.
God’s use of Satan as a catalyst for final decisions speaks of His determination to finish the great controversy, the “mystery of God”. It may explain the seven thunders that John was forbidden to interpret. It was our Father speaking in strong determination to finally end sin and its desolating effects. It was another fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: for He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.” (Rom. 9:27,28). “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.” (Is. 10:22,23).
The 5th trumpet is also seen in Rev. 11:7-10 which contains the death of the Advent movement. But, the 5th trumpet already having ended and our now being in the 6th trumpet, we are looking for the soon resurrection of the Advent movement in the Latter Rain of the Holy Spirit, according to verses 11-14, and then the time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, in verses 15-19. But this is all very good news, (Gr. evaggelisen, from Rev. 10:6). Our long wilderness wandering is almost over. The Lord is coming very soon.
posted by David | 12:36 PM
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