FRIDAY MORNING MANNA
Prophecies Regarding Current and Still-Breaking News
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“A classic motif of comedy is the small lies that require bigger lies to maintain the deceit, until the whole fraud collapses with the deceivers exposed.”
— Nick Newman, Yahoo Finance, July 20, 2018
Before we dive back to the latter part of our mini-series on the “death and resurrection” of the “Two Prophets/Witnesses” and the “beast that ascends from the bottomless pit” of Revelation chapter 11, we need to be periodically reminded—lest we get distracted or carried away repeatedly, which the carnal mind is so vulnerable to,—by politically conflicted and oftentimes contradicting scientific reasons being advanced as to why and who/what is/are actually causing the alarming increase of all kinds of “natural” disasters in the world today. This isn’t even talking of all the “wars and rumors of wars” and the long rap list of what makes these days “perilous times” to live in! Conspiracy purveyors are having a field day, enhanced and empowered by the speed, reach, and apparently limitless powers afforded by the digital age technology and its internet, for creativity (both bad and good) and transform turn what was once crude fantasy into virtual reality. You’re probably tired of hearing the word “surreal” by now.
Not wanting that “anyone should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3: 9) nature’s God is speaking with divine authority through nature’s forces, to which all mankind is in thunder tones to the religious leaders of the churches, the secular governments of the nations described in the Revelation as “the great men” and “kings of the earth.” Will they hear, heed, repent, and return to God by obeying His law and implementing His? Or will they persistently and stubbornly forbear—as the apostate kings of Israel, then Judah did, as chronicled in the sacred pages of the “two prophets/witnesses.”
Sacred, and even secular history to a certain extent, testifies as it teaches that owing largely to the religious leaders’ failure and dereliction of duty of uplifting God’s “two prophets/witnesses,” they instead erect the prophesied spiritual towers of Babel of the last days, based on human wisdom and “many inventions of men.” Result? countless of “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” at this closing hours of sinful mankind’s probation, are still sadly ignorant or worse, fearfully misinformed of the present truth and the true nature of the great controversy between Christ and Satan and their respective agencies/ followers on earth. To such souls, Satan is not real; they are unacquainted his malignant power on the earth and over what main issue the war between them on earth is all about, and the masterful diabolical stratagems he has employed since he caused the fall of man in Eden only six thousand years ago. Not much time is left since the three angels messages of Revelation 14—earth’s final merciful warnings–began to be proclaimed in their order, beginning in 1840 to 1844 and onward to the present time. We need to step faster, much faster.
The following passages quoted below from the inspired pen, cuts to the chase. It explains in broad and bold strokes yet are direct, clear, and uncluttered colors, based on the tried and proven prophecies of the “two prophets/witnesses,” as to why, thus, what to realistically expect which are uncorrupted, devoid of the sensationalism, fanaticism, and rampant conspiracy theories that are clouding the truth: We will see/experience increasing, not decreasing catastrophic upheavals in the natural world, locally, nationally, and globally. We must also expect and accept that such will continue to astound the minds of the concerned authorities and specific experts’ minds—until they turn to God’s “two prophets/witnesses” for divine enlightenment and guidance. This also helps to answer to the desperate inquiry of the ordinary man who walks Main Street as to why there are so many multi-angled explanations, often in language only the privileged can understand. And yet the problem is even worsening. Take heart and look no further. The explanation is right here. Remember that the eternal, immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, and merciful God in Christ, the great I AM who He is not subject to time or constrained by circumstance, sees the end from the beginning being “the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last,” our Creator and Redeemer, is in full control. On the other hand, in this great controversy that is approaching its grand climax, as the very upheavals and erroneously-portrayed as “tantrums of Mother nature” portend, Satan, the usurper, pretender, liar, murderer from the beginning, the enemy of God and man, is temporarily allowed by God to be the “prince/ruler of this world” (John 12: 31; and “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2: 2). See what he does with mankind and the earth, when allowed to play out, thus manifest his true character and nature? He deceives, tempts, corrupts, and destroys! Now this:
“Through Spiritualism, Satan appears as a benefactor of the race, healing the disease of the people, and professing to present a new and more exalted system of religious faith; but at the same time he works as a destroyer. His temptations are leading multitudes to ruin. Intemperance dethrones reason; sensual indulgence, strife, and bloodshed follow. 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; for he can thus divert the minds of the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day of God [His pre-advent Judgment]. NOTE: The ‘war hawks’ in government and all religious leaders who are suddenly becoming politically active and even aggressive should be acutely aware of this.]
“Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studies the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. When he was suffered [permitted] to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children were swept away, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. It is God that shields His creatures, and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world has shown contempt for the law of Jehovah [Decalogue]; and the Lord does just what He does declare He would do–He withdraws His blessings from the earth, and removes His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law, and teaching and forcing others to do the same. Satan has control of all who whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others, and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them. “[See the ever-present “acts of God” and “force majeure” exceptions written into contracts!]
“While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies [via the various unsuspected, thus unrecognized Spiritualistic fields and disciplines of healing today] who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolations. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations [as the wildfires still raging in California as of this writing, establishing a new infamous record of destruction of this nature], in fierce tornadoes and terrible hailstones [see recent news on this], in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves [tsunamis], and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, is Satan exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest and famine and distress follow, [devastating consequences of fire, drought, floods, plant disease, man’s greed]. He imparts to the air [as the ‘prince of the powers of the air’] a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon the inhabitants of the world. The beasts of the field will groan, and the earth will languish.
What follows next? “And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon the faithful few who the Lord has sent with messages of warning and reproof. It will be declared that the nation [America in particular, then followed by the world thereafter according to Revelation 13] is 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 [the true seventh-day Sabbath memorial of creation and who the Creator is], thus destroying reverence for Sunday [the man-made, spurious sabbath], are troublers of the nation., preventing its restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity.
History will repeat itself in antitypical fulfillment. “Thus the accusation of old [read the testimony of the “prophet/witness” of the Old Testament] against the servant of God will be repeated, and upon grounds equally well established. ‘And it came to pass when Ahab [apostate king of Israel] saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou him who troubled Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel but thou and they father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim [ancient sun-god and sun-worship].” I Kings 18: 17, 18, K.J.V. As the wrath of the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God’s ambassadors [without an earthly portfolio] very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward Elijah.
“The miracle-working power manifested through Spiritualism will exert its influence against those who choose to obey God rather than men. Messages will come from the spirits [fallen angels] declaring that God has sent them to inform the rejecters of Sunday that they are in error, and that the laws of the land [not of God] should be obeyed as the laws of God [!] They will lament the great wickedness in the world, and second [echo; repeat; support; re-emphasize] the testimony of religious teachers, that the degraded state of morals is caused by the desecration of Sunday. Great will be indignation excited against all who refuse to accept their testimony [which contradicts the testimony of God’s ‘two prophets/witnesses’]
“Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption [they should review what led to the horrors of the French Revolution], and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection for government. Ministers who deny the obligation of the divine law will present from the pulpit the duty of yielding obedience to the civil authorities as ordained of God. In legislative halls and courts of justices, commandment-keepers will be censure and misrepresented. A false coloring will be given to their words; the worst possible construction will be put upon their motives. . . . .
“The lack of divine authority will be supplied by oppressive enactments. Political corruption is destroying love of justice and regard for truth, and in order to secure public favor, legislators will yield to the popular demand for a law enforcing Sunday observance. Liberty of conscience, which as cost this nation [America] so great a sacrifice, will no longer be respected. In the soon-coming conflict we shall see exemplified the prophet’s words: ‘And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.’ Rev. 12: 17.” – Ellen G. White, Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4, 1884 edition, pp. 406-410. NOTE: Since the First Amendment is the only constitutional provision guaranteeing the right of freedom of religion, i.e, to worship according to dictates of conscience, expect increased activity and issues surrounding it. (Continued next week)