An angry world

"The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come. And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth." (Rev. 11:18).

What will cause all the nations to be angry at the end? Why does it seem to coincide with God's wrath, as in the third angel's message against everyone who chooses the Mark of the beast? Its context, when laid over Revelation 15, also shows that it is time for the last plagues. Does their anger stem from God plaguing the earth with the three woes, which Revelation 9:20 calls plagues, because the nations will have corrupted Noah's old world order? When Israel was delivered from Egypt, they could have gone in to conquer Canaan. The Canaanites had corrupted the Lord's land, and He said the land was going to vomit them out. As it happened, rather than frogs or the Nile turned bloody or the Sun darkened that afflicted Egypt, hornets helped Israel to afflict the Canaanites and drive them out. Have the Jesuit-corrupting locusts from the bottomless pit almost wholly corrupted the nations of the world that are soon to be vomited out of God's peace, Protestant America being first in line? 

(The tormenting locusts with scorpion tails, followed by killing locusts with man-eating lion's mouths and lethal viper tails, are the symbolic mode of destroying faith in the earth, thereby corrupting the earth. The three woes are the first three of the ten last plagues, the first three afflicting even the people getting the Seal of God in their foreheads, with its holy, deeply rooted self-denial. And once received, the rest will have the Mark of the beast, and its deeply rooted self-exaltation and self-indulgence. Then the last seven of the ten plagues will afflict only those who would prefer the Mark's self-indulgence and self-exaltation, rather than the Seal's self-forgetfulness and self-abnegation.)

But what will make the nations angry? Several things factor into their rage, which we can see by letting scripture interpret scripture.

"Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.

But when they in their trouble did turn unto the Lord God of Israel, and sought Him, He was found of them.

And in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries.

And nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city: for God did vex them with all adversity." (2Chron. 15:3-6).

God's vexation was of a character that made the people fight among each other, fighting between Jewish cities, fighting between Jewish nations (tribes), and even between Israel and neighboring nations.

"There was no peace." No peace in the heart leads to no peace outside the heart, creating inter-personal conflicts and long lasting family feuds. When King Solomon left the God of his father, he also had no peace and lots of wars. His own inspired words were a witness against him, "When a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." (Prov. 16:7)

"And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, (who) had appeared unto him twice,

And had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the Lord commanded.

Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant." (1Kings 11:9-11).

 

The Lord raised up enemies of Irael. This was for a wake-up call to Solomon, if perhaps he would arouse and again seek the only true God. 

"And when Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab the captain of the host was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, Let me depart, that I may go to mine own country." (1Kings 11:21).

"And God stirred Him up another adversary, Rezon the son of Eliadah, which fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah:

And he gathered men unto him, and became captain over a band, when David slew them of Zobah: and they went to Damascus, and dwelt therein, and reigned in Damascus.

And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, beside the mischief that Hadad did: and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria." (Vs. 23-25).

"And Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite of Zereda, Solomon's servant, whose mother's name was Zeruah, a widow woman, even he lifted up his hand against the king...." (Vs. 26).

The Lord promised to exceedingly prosper Solomon on condition that he would remain faithful to all the covenant that his God had made with Israel. His promises are in effect only as long as the heart is justified, by which it comes in line with the character traits of God.

"I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel.

And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in My ways, and do that is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as David My servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.

And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever.

Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam." (Vs. 37-40).

"And he (Rehoboam, son of Solomon) did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord.

Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually." (1Chron. 12:14,15).

The constant strife with King Solomon and his son was only for keeping them back from complete apostasy and eternal destruction. God keeps His people under the curse of His broken Law so that He might justify them by a revived need for His grace. Rehoboam wouldn't seek his God in all honesty and sincerity, like King David had. Jesus remembered those blissful days of sweet communion with His son David. And, although Rehoboam never had the holy privilege of meeting his grandfather, the priests had taught him that holiness is what pleased the only true, living God. But the good life of the king's court spoiled Rehoboam's heart for holy heavenly things, and apathy set in. 

With King Asa the Lord repeated the punishment of unrest for national apostasy. The Lord's rebuke and the threat of war exploded the king's presumption.

"And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand....

For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars." (2Chron. 16:7,9).

But instead of humble repentance, the king's response was imperious rage, against God, His prophet, and His few holy people.

Therefore, wars and disquietude would wear away the nation professing to serve Jehovah, and eventually humble a remnant within it. Ultimately though, most within their heaven blessed refuge, which had flowed with sweet love, joy, and peace, would be filled with hardened, brier-filled and thorny hearts from serving Satan through Baal and Ashtoreth worship, and then the soil of their hearts would become forever hardened when they received punishment from their Jehovah Elohim. 

Moses had long before forewarned the holy people of the unacceptable discipline upon proud hearts if they should choose to serve Satan and his priests.

"Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.

Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them.

Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long; and there shall be no might in thine hand.

Thy fruit of thy land, and all labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway." (Deut. 28:30-33).

Later, Jesus sent Isaiah to tell his people of a 700 year captivity that would begin in his lifetime and continue until the end of the Israelite nation.

"And He said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.

Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Then said I, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,

And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." (Isa. 6:9-13).

After Assyria would successively come Babylon and the other three world empires until the old covenant people of God would be full of briers and thorns, and their divinely imposed status taken away.

"The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes." (Isa. 7:17-19).

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns." (Isa. 7:23,24).

The briers and thorns symbolized the hardened hearts and disagreeable temperaments. Where in times of faithfulness gardens were lush with produce, silver was like stones for abundance, and peace flowed like a river, now after centuries of living in the glorious land without one yearning thought toward their God of love and Law, all the blessings, spiritual and temporal, would be taken away.  

Like a garden overgrown with thorns and thistles, the hearts of the apostatized descendants of beloved Abraham would be thorny and abrasive, worthy of Assyrian tribute, destruction, and centuries of captivity for all who would surrender. 

"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,

and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.

For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God.

But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned." (Heb. 6:4-8).

They turned their ear away from hearing the Law, and their prayers became an abomination to God. Then the health-giving, joyful light of the Holy Spirit would go out, leaving them in a horrible, hopeless, perpetually darkened hearts. The vanity and vexation of spirit, their anxious and unsettling, inner turmoil from being cut off from the God of creative and recreative life, would be expressed in cursing and bitterness toward each other.

"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness." (Isa. 8:20-22).

But the faithful remnant, who continued to let the Spirit of truth break up their fallow hearts and scourge their consciences, would remain before God, receiving His blessed Spirit, and would be the spiritual lineage that would receive the Messiah when He should come--Miriam and Joseph, Zacharias and Elizabeth, the shepherds and street urchins, demoniacs and publicans and sinners of all sorts, and common people--the 500 who saw Jesus ascend to His Father and the thousands who turned to the Father and Son after the ascension.

"And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle." (Isa. 7:25).

"For butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land." (Vs.22).

I believe these scriptures show the cause behind Revelation 11:18, "the nations were angry", and the time for judgment. And they show us how, 

by returning to the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy, we can avoid the final, lifeless void of soul and burning wrath of God.

Are we letting the sixth trumpet cavalry of Jesuit locusts, ordained by the Satan-ordained Vatican, which not by coincidence but for convenience, was built upon the Necropolis, kill our consciences by their modern, deceptive and corrupting delusions, by which they bombard the world through every form of media and education, that God does not exist, or that His merciful kindness is not strong enough to forgive and imbue His children with His powerful presence?

Will we return to the twin mighty Cleavers of truth, be given a conviction of exceedingly sinful sins, receive an exceedingly needful need for an exceedingly merciful Saviour? Will we be given an exceedingly powerful loathing of our sins from on high that sanctifies us from sin and seals us?