Tribulation such as never was

“Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart.” (Dan. 7:28).

 “And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.” (Dan. 8:27).

What did Daniel see? Was it more than just someone assuming the non-scriptural office of Vicar of Christ, taking God’s name in vain? Someone standing “up against the Prince of princes” (Dan. 8:25), taking His place? Is that what made Daniel faint and be ill? Is that what robbed his peace and affected the normal cheerfulness of a man widely known throughout the empire as a man who had “an excellent spirit,” “in whom [was] the spirit of the holy gods;” in whom “light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods,… and dissolving of doubts” “and excellent wisdom,” were found in him? (Dan. 5:11-13).

Hadn’t Daniel seen some awful behavior in the courts of Belshazzar, a vain king who thought nothing of profaning the holy vessels of Jehovah’s temple, who everyone knew was a God of true holiness and mercy. Yet, all the gross products of idolatry—the arrogance, the license, and the drunken orgies on Christmas and Easter—did not affect Daniel like what he saw in the visions. What did he see in the visions?

We’ve read of the murderous history of the medieval Papacy, the man of sin, the little horn power of Daniel 7 and 8. We’ve seen the growth of an unstoppable force of demonic anger and violence controlling the Christian church, beginning when the church lost its first love.

“Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;… Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” (Rev. 2:1,4,5). This announcement concerned the church’s condition long before John wrote the Revelation in 95 A.D., with a solemn warning that refusal to repent, would be the cause of their candlestick to be taken away. Their light would go out and remain extinguished, which is exactly what happened.

In John’s vision he saw a red horse that followed a white horse. The rider of the red horse had power to take peace from the earth. Because the majority of the church would not heed the warning of Jesus concerning the first love, when their connection with God, which illuminated their faith, did go out, they lost their peace; and they never sought it again. This was similar to King Saul, when he would not repent of losing that first joy and peace in believing.

“God gave him another heart:…a company of prophets met him;…the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them.” (1Sam. 10:9,10). “But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.” (1Sam. 16:14). Continued refusal to repent left him unprepared for another test of character. “And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?

And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.

And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house.” (1Sam. 18:8-10).

Satan took over Saul’s soul more and more until he wanted to murder “a man after [God’s] own heart,” a youth who was “as an angel of God.” (1Sam. 13:14;29:9). The church fathers lost their peace because they forfeited the science of salvation and a knowledge of God’s mercy, as they increasingly fed on the idolatry of the Roman Empire. King Saul hoped in an earthly kingdom as well, and his soul slipped into Satan’s grip without him recognizing it; this happened to the church fathers.

From that point onward, the church fathers exalted self and lost any hope of serving their Master in the heavens. They could not live without mixing Greek philosophy into the truth and allegorized the scriptures into Aesop’s fables, rendering the powerful word of God a useless fiction blending humanism and morals. They were doing no differently than the Jewish rabbis had done during the dark inter-testamental period after Nehemiah and Malachi.

The church fathers were Judaizing. “Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which He loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange God. The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.” (Mal. 2:11,12). “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” (Rom. 1:18). While the church fathers were excommunicating genuine commandment-keepers on the accusation of Judaizing, they were the ones guilty of Judaizing. For Judaism, according to Malachi’s testimony, resulted from Judah’s adoption of paganism into the Hebrew religion. Satan was simply continuing the same program with the early church that he had started with the Jews. Here we see God’s one eternal, true religion, “the everlasting covenant”, “the everlasting gospel” (Isa. 24:5;Rev. 14:6), powerfully influenced by paganism when backed by the violent and dictatorial civil Roman government.

And, per Satan’s standard procedure, the guilty who can beat their drums the loudest and have the military and government media behind them, can project their treacherous wickedness onto the innocent whom they fear will expose their sanctimonious fraud. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake.  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” (Matt. 5:11,12).

As the centuries passed, the official church assumed greater and greater authority of God while adopting more and more pagan traditions. A list of assumptions by the Church follows by their date:

56    Paul warned  of “a falling away” of the church
56    “The mystery of iniquity doth already work.” (2Thess. 2:3-7).

64     “Grievous wolves [shall] enter in among you.”  (Acts 20:29).

95    “Antichrist…now already is it in the world.” (1Jn. 4:3).

95     “Even now are there many antichrists.” (1Jn. 2:18).

120   First Waldensian Christian opposition to the church apostasy
150   Justin Martyr muddied the stream of pure Christian doctrine
175   His student, Tatian wrote the Diatessaron, corrupted Gospels

200   His student, Clement taught Bible mixed with pagan philosophy

250   His student, Origen allegorized Bible into humanistic fables
331   His follower, Eusebius made first Greek Bible using Origen
380   Jerome wrote Vulgate from corrupted Eusebio-Origen type

431   Worship of Mary and applying to her the term, “Mother of God”

607 (or 610)  Boniface III made first uncontestable Pope

709    Kissing the pope’s foot

764    Worshiping the images and relics

850    Use of “Holy Water” began

995    Canonization of dead saints

998    Fasting on Fridays and during Lent

1079  Celibacy of the priesthood decreed

1090  Prayer beads (The Rosary)

1184  The Inquisition

1190  Sale of Indulgences

1215  Transubstantiation dogma decreed

1215  Confession of sin to a priest instituted

1220  Adoration of Host (Communion Wafer)

1229  Bible forbidden to laymen

1414  Cup forbidden to people at communion

1439  Doctrine of Purgatory decreed

1508  The Ave Maria approved

1534  Jesuit order founded

1545  Tradition granted equal authority as the Bible

1546  Apocryphal books put into the Bible

1854  Immaculate Conception of Mary introduced

1864  Syllabus of errors proclaimed

1870  Infallibility of the Pope declared

1930  Public schools condemned

1950  Assumption of the Virgin Mary

1965  Mary proclaimed “Mother of the Church”

And anyone who spoke out against the sacred liberties of the Church was hunted down, and demonically killed with as much torture as possible. Their goddess was Cybele or the ancient Semiramis, whose appearance was beautiful, but whose personality was split between ostentatious affection to those who adored her, and fierce, tyrannical revenge on all who dared to cross her. She guided the character of the pagan Roman Empire and of the Holy Roman Empire. When the Church adopted all of the pagan gods and baptized them as her holy retinue of saints, Cybele, mother of the Gods, became Mary, mother of God. Worshiping such a goddess reflected back onto the character of the Church and made it as murderous as the devil Cybele or Semiramis had represented from antiquity. Thus, the brutal vengeance of the Church against her dissenters or anyone who read and taught the Bible as the apostles wrote it.

But all of this, as horrible as it was, was not the worst of the tribulations. Jesus, regarding the days before His return, said, “Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” (Mat. 24:21,22).

In the Revelation, John saw a series of kings who would do Satan’s work to support the imperious and violent pagan woman, sitting upon the beast, “the great whore” (Rev. 17:1) of Babylon. “And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” (Rev. 17:11). “The kings of the earth…have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her.” (Rev. 18:9).

“Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” (Rev. 12:12).

With the continued recent rise of the papacy, the generation gap that has plagued Christian nations for the past fifty years will spread around the globe as Democracy and Christianity occupy in the wake each victory of the world war on terror. This generation gap is Satan’s tool to undo God’s great plan of redemption and to destroy all the families of the earth. Children will become the instruments of Satan to kill their own parents. “The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.” (Matt. 10:21). Satan will create a vast army of crafty, duplicitous youth assassins, all garbed in a nice appearance of Christian humility until they accomplished the act of murder. “Through his policy [his dogma and legislated decrees] also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many.” (Dan. 8:25).

This is what caused Daniel to faint when beholding the details of the vision.

“Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the firstripe fruit.

The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.

The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.

Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.

For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.” (Mic. 7:1-6).

“Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!

Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.

For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.

Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!” (Hab. 2:9-12).

Through the duo of the Christian church and the holy armies of America, the devil will rid the nations of the last vestige of the image of God in humanity.

“For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.

Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?

Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble.” (Jer. 30:5-7).

All that Daniel saw and grieved over, to the point of falling ill, will be the experience of God’s people in that fearful and sorrowful time. With Daniel, they will “sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst” of the land. (Eze. 9:4). This will be the climax of the terrors of the Day of Atonement. “Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.” (Lev. 23:27-29). On them is put the seal of God. (Eze. 9:4;Rev. 9:4).

“Thus saith the Lord GOD; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate.” (Eze. 35:14). Everyone who celebrates, rather than sigh and cry for the wickedness in the land and afflict his soul for his own sinfulness, is no different from Babylon and Sodom. “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” (Eze 16:49). “This shall they have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of the LORD of hosts.

The LORD will be terrible unto them: for He will famish all the Gods of the earth; and men shall worship Him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen.…

This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand.” (Zeph. 2:10,11,15).

 “In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.” (Jer. 51:39). All who partake of the celebration churches in this Day of Atonement will receive the mark of the beast and be smitten with the angels’ slaughtering weapons. (Eze. 9:5;Rev. 9:5).

“Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the Gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;

And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:

The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.” (Deut. 29:18-20). Everyone who enjoys himself at that time will receive the mark of the beast. “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” (Rev. 14:11).

“Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.

I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.

Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, Where is the LORD thy God? mine eyes shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

In the day that thy walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed.

In that day also he shall come even to thee from Assyria, and from the fortified cities, and from the fortress even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain.

Notwithstanding the land shall be desolate because of them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.

Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.

According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I shew unto him marvellous things.

The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf.

They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the LORD our God, and shall fear because of thee.

Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.

He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.” (Mic. 7:8-20).

“The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.

The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.

In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden.

Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.

At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD.” (Zeph. 3:13-20).

 “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. 11:45).

“Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them?

Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.” (Hab. 2:7,8).

“He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the swor d must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.” (Rev. 13:9-10).