Hair-Raising Revelation—Why the Tribulation Will Begin Soon! The Greatest Mystery Unfolds When You See What’s Really Going On….

If God is with us, who can be against us?

Pity those who are sold out to the devil, Give your enemy food and water, this way you will pour coals upon his head!

God’s long-suffering has ended. The world has rejected His mercy, despised His love, and trampled upon His law. The wicked have passed the boundary of their probation; the Spirit of God, persistently resisted, has been at last withdrawn. Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the wicked one. Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great, final trouble. . . . The people of God will then be plunged into those scenes of affliction and distress described by the prophet as the time of Jacob’s trouble. FLB 339

As Satan influenced Esau to march against Jacob, so he will stir up the wicked to destroy God’s people in the time of trouble. And as he accused Jacob, he will urge his accusations against the people of God. He numbers the world as his subjects; but the little company who keep the commandments of God are resisting his supremacy. If he could blot them from the earth, his triumph would be complete. He sees that holy angels are guarding them, and he infers that their sins have been pardoned; but he does not know that their cases have been decided in the sanctuary above. He has an accurate knowledge of the sins which he has tempted them to commit, and he presents these before God in the most exaggerated light, representing this people to be just as deserving as himself of exclusion from the favour of God. He declares that the Lord cannot in justice forgive their sins and yet destroy him and his angels. He claims them as his prey and demands that they be given into his hands to destroy. GC11 618

Had not Jacob previously repented of his sin in obtaining the birthright by fraud, God would not have heard his prayer and mercifully preserved his life. So, in the time of trouble, if the people of God had unconfessed sins to appear before them while tortured with fear and anguish, they would be overwhelmed; despair would cut off their faith, and they could not have confidence to plead with God for deliverance. But while they have a deep sense of their unworthiness, they have no concealed wrongs to reveal. Their sins have gone beforehand to judgement and have been blotted out, and they cannot bring them to remembrance. GC11 620

Wonderful events are soon to open before the world. The end of all things is at hand. The time of trouble is about to come upon the people of God. Then it is that the decree will go forth forbidding those who keep the Sabbath of the Lord to buy or sell, and threatening them with punishment, and even death, if they do not observe the first day of the week as the Sabbath. HS 156

Jacob’s experience during that night of wrestling and anguish represents the trial through which the people of God must pass just before Christ’s second coming. The prophet Jeremiah, in holy vision looking down to this time, said, “We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. . . . 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; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:5-7. PP 201

truthseeker:
We briefly call attention to the events under each of the seven seals in their order.

(1.) The opening of the first seal reveals a white horse, whose rider had a bow and a crown as he went forth conquering and to conquer. This is a fit emblem of the triumphs of the gospel in the first centuries of this dispensation, the whiteness of the horse denoting the purity of faith in that age.

(2.) At the opening of the second seal, there appeared a red horse. If the whiteness of the first horse denoted the purity of the gospel in the first period, the redness of the second horse may denote that in the second period the original purity of the church began to be corrupted. The mystery of iniquity was at work hi Paul’s day. Errors began to arise, and the love of the world came in at an early date, which ripened into a state of things in Constantine’s time, A. D. 323, described by Dr. Rice thus: “It represents a secular period, or union of church and State. Constantine aided the clergy, and put them under obligations to him. Mosheim says of this period, ‘ There was continual war and trouble,’”

(3.) The opening of the third seal presented a black horse, and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. The work of corruption in the church progressed rapidly. The black horse, the very opposite of the first, represents a period of great darkness and moral corruption. By the events of the second seal, the way was fully opened for that state of things to be brought about which is here presented. The time that intervened between the reign of Constantine and the establishment of the papacy in A. D. 538, may be justly noted as the time when the darkest errors and grossest superstitions sprung up in the church.

“The balances denoted that religion and civil power would be united in the person who would administer the executive power in the government, and that he would claim the judicial authority both in church and State. This was true among the Roman emperors from the days of Constantine until the reign of Justinian, when he gave the same judicial power to the bishop of Rome.”—Miller’s Lectures, p. 181.

(4.) When the fourth seal was opened, there appeared a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was called Death, and Hell followed with him. The color of this horse, which is pale or yellowish, like that seen in blighted or sickly plants, denotes the condition of things in the church when the papacy bore its unrestrained and persecuting rule, commencing about A. D. 538, and extending to the time when the reformers had exposed the corruptions of the papal system. During that period fifty millions of martyrs lost their lives by the very instrumentalities named in the prophetic description of that period.

(5.) The events to transpire under the fifth seal are, the crying of the martyrs for vengeance, and giving to them white robes. This represents the work of the reformers, and covers the period of the great reformation. In reference to the souls under the altar, Dr. Clarke says:

“A symbolical vision was exhibited in which he saw an altar. And under it the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God—-martyred for their attachment to Christianity—are represented as being newly slain, as victims to idolatry and superstition. The altar is upon earth not in Heaven.”

A, Barnes makes the following remarks in reference to this subject:—

” We are not to suppose that this literally occurred, and that John actually saw the souls of the martyrs beneath the altars—for the whole representation is symbolical; nor are we to suppose that the injured and the wronged in Heaven actually pray for vengeance on those who wronged them, or that the redeemed in Heaven will continue to pray with reference to things on the earth ; but it may be fairly inferred from this that there will be as real a remembrance of the wrongs of the persecuted, the injured, and the oppressed, as if such prayer were offered there ; and that the oppressor has as much to dread from the divine vengeance as if those whom he has injured should cry in Heaven to the God who hears prayer, and who takes vengeance. The wrongs done to the children of God, to the orphan, the widow, the down-trodden, to the slave and the outcast, will be as certainly remembered in Heaven as if they who are wronged should plead for vengeance there ; for every act of injustice and oppression goes to Heaven and pleads for vengeance. Every persecutor should dread the death of the persecuted as if he went to Heaven to plead against him ; every cruel master should dread the death of his slave that is crushed by wrongs ; every seducer should dread the death and the cries of his victim ; every one who does wrong in any way should remember that the sufferings of the injured cry to Heaven with a martyr’s pleadings, saying, ‘ How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood ?’”

For a full exposition of this subject, read Thoughts on the Revelation, by Elder U. Smith.
Address, REVIEW AND HERALD, Battle Creek, Mich.

(6.) “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake ; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood ; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind; and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond man, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb ; for the great day of his wrath is come ; and who shall be able to stand?”

Such are the solemn and sublime scenes that transpire under the sixth seal. And a thought well calculated to awaken in every heart an in- tense interest in divine things, is the consideration that we are now living amid the momentous events of this seal.

Between the fifth and sixth seals there seems to be a sudden and entire change in the language, from the highly figurative to the strictly literal. Whatever may be the cause of this change, the change itself cannot well be denied. By no principle of interpretation can the language of the preceding seals be made to be literal; nor can that language of this any more easily be made to be figurative.

The first event under this seal, perhaps the one which marks its opening, is a great earthquake. As the more probable fulfillment of this prediction, we refer to the great earthquake of Nov. 1, 1755. Of this earthquake, Sears in his ” Wonders of the World,” pp. 50, 58, 381, says:—

“The great earthquake of Nov. 1, 1755, extended over a tract of at least 4,000,000 of square miles. Its effects were even extended to the waters in many places where the shocks were not perceptible. It pervaded the greater portion of Europe, Africa, and America; but its extreme violence was exercised on the southwestern part of the former. In Africa this earthquake was felt almost as severely as it had been in Europe. A great part of Algiers was destroyed. Many houses were thrown clown at Fez and Mequinez, and multitudes were buried beneath the ruins. Similar effects were realized at Morocco. Its effects were likewise felt at Tangiers, at Tetuan, at Funchal in the island of Madeira. It is probable that all Africa was shaken. At the north it extended to Norway and Sweden. Germany, Holland, France, Great Britain, and Ireland were all more or less agitated by the same great commotion of the elements. Lisbon (Portugal), previous to the earthquake in 1755, contained 150,000 inhabitants. Mr. Barretti says that 90,000 persons are suppose to have been lost on that fatal day.”

On page 200 of the same work, we again read:

” The terror of the1 people was beyond description. Nobody wept—it was beyond tears—they ran hither and thither, delirious with horror and astonishment, beating their faces and breasts, crying, ‘Misericordia, the world’s at an end!’ Mothers forgot their children, and ran about loaded with crucifix images. Unfortunately many ran to the churches for protection; but in vain was the sacrament exposed; in vain did the poor creatures embrace the altars; images, priests, and people were buried in one common ruin.”

The Encyclopedia Americana states that this earthquake extended also to Greenland ; and of its effects upon the city of Lisbon, further says:

” The city then contained about 150,000 inhabitants. The shock was instantly followed by the fall of every church and convent, almost all the large public buildings, and more than one-fourth of the houses. In about two hours after the shock, fires broke out in different quarters, and raged with such violence, for the space of nearly three days, that the city was completely desolated. The earthquake happened on a holy-day, when the churches and convents were full of people, very few of whom escaped.”

The events which follow the great earthquake under the sixth seal are the special signs, in the sun, moon, and stars, of the second coming of Christ. The dark day and dark night of 1780 is described in these words: “The sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.” The moon that was full the day before, appeared through the darkness of the night like a ball of blood. This was the appearance as presented to the prophet. Christ, speaking of these signs, says, ” The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall’ not give her light.”

The Concord [N. H.] People speaks of the dark day, May 19, 1780, thus:—

” It was not the blackness of a storm-cloud, such as sometimes with a frightful agitation breaks over a single city; it was the silent spreading of the pall cloth over the earth by strong, invisible hands.”

“The dark day, May 19, 1780, so called on account of a remarkable darkness on that day, extending over all New England, In some places persons could not see to read common print in the open air for several hours together. The true cause of this remarkable phenomenon is not known.”— Webster’s Dictionary, edition for 1869.

The prophetic description of the falling of the stars met a literal fulfillment in the meteoric shower of Nov. 13, 1833, which was unlike any other on record in appearance, extent, and magnitude. The falling stars is the last special sign upon which believers, base their faith in the near second advent. The departing of the atmospheric heaven is after the close of probation. This seems evident from the fact that the affrighted multitudes in despair of the mercy of the Lord, direct their cries to mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

While the book of Daniel has to do with four universal monarchies, Babylon, Persia, Grecia, and Rome, and its several chains of prophecy bring us with wonderful definiteness, to the day of God, the second coming of Christ, and the last Judgment the book of Revelation pertains to the fourth Rome, and its several lines of prophecy bring us down, with the same minuteness, to the same point, and open before us the naked glare of eternal scenes.
http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/jswhite_seals1.html
http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/jswhite_trumpets_overview.html