Global Persecution Formation and the Time of Jacob’s Trouble

 

Koot van Wyk

 

The “Time of Jacob’s Trouble” is supposed to kick-off shortly after a certain world ruler of the current empire of the World, will be so unpopular “that he will come to his end and no-one for him”. I cannot think of any ruler as unpopular in the USA as Donald Trump. After all the same verse says that before he comes to his end, he will move his embassy from Tel Aviv to between the two seas, the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, that is, Jerusalem. And he did. Did he not? The subject is Persecution of religion and in a narrow sense, not any religion but the Christian religion. A persecution scheduled in prophecy against the Truth and faithful believers.

There will be a small time of persecution before the Time of Jacob’s Trouble or a “Time of trouble like there never was” as Daniel 12:1 is reading. Of course the comments on Trump above is taken from the last verse of Chapter 11 of Daniel.

Prophets have spoken a lot of the time of persecution to come before the coming of Christ.

During the Time of Jacob’s Trouble according to Isaiah 40:27 spiritual Israel will say: “My way is hidden from the Lord and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God”. In Micah 5:1-4 the Time of Trouble is considered to last the time of a woman in labor, 9 months. Does this mean it will be only 9 months of severe persecution? At the end of this period of persecution “the Lord will come out from His place to visit the evil inhabitants of the earth upon it” (Isaiah 26:21). Not good news for the powers involved in persecution engineering. During the Time of Trouble Christ will appear and “He will rebuke them and they will flee far away” (Isaiah 17:13b). The faithful ones “who walk in darkness [of global persecution during the Time of Jacob’s Trouble] will see a great light” (Isaiah 9:2a). When Christ comes He shall break “the rod of their oppressor” (Isaiah 9:4b). Every soldier “the booted warrior” and cloak rolled in blood [of violence against the faithful] “will be for the burning, fuel for the fire [of His presence]” (Isaiah 9:5a-b). During this time of Trouble the remnant weed or evil ones who spy for the powers in the churches, will have hard times “they will pass through the land ‘hard pressed and famished’ and when they are hungry they will curse their rulers and also God as they face upward (Isaiah 8:21). “Cities devastated without inhabitants. Houses are without people” due to the excessive migrationism (Isaiah 6:11b-c). The false believers will try to dodge God’s plaques that will come upon evil during the Time of Trouble by hoping to take the name of the true remnant of believers (Isaiah 4:1). The true remnant will be during this terrible period of world history, “in that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of [spiritual] Israel” (Isaiah 4:2). Micah 4:14 says that during this time of Trouble the evil will strike spiritual Israel with a rod on the cheek. Do not be fooled by the “now”used by Micah since this is a prophetic processional atah or “now” indicating the time meant in the vision and not in his own ontological history or his own time. It is that time near the end which is the main subject under discussion. That end time is divided in time zones of “then” and “now” etc.

Ellen White said in a Letter 79 in 1900 “Four mighty angels hold back the earth till the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. The nations of the world are eager for conflict; but they are held back in check by the angels. When this restraining power is removed, there will come a time of trouble and anguish. Deadly instruments of warfare will be invented. Vessels with their living cargo, will be entombed in the deep. All who have not the spirit of truth will unite under the leadership of Satanic agencies.” Just before this time, the saints of the Most High will be sealed and perfected in their characters though not in their physical set-up.

I can go on more but his is a window of what is going to happen during the Time of Jacob’s Trouble or the Trouble like there never was in history.

Every empire had their role in creating persecution for the faithful. During the 1260 years of the Holy Roman Empire or the role of the Catholicism as ruler of the Middle Ages, from 538 to the time Napoleon captivated the pope in 1798, persecution was the name of the game.

 

Papal Persecution Template of the Past

The book of R. I. Moore The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250 is applicable here. What was embodied in a kind of “Church Manual with teeth” by the Catholic Church as guide for clerics is full of examples of persecution. The example is from the 12th Ecumenical Council of Lateran IV 1215. Of course embodied in it is a list of previous regulations of persecution of all kinds.

1.     No one can be priest except “the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church” meaning the papacy and his admin. [Canon 1]

2.     “Condemning all heretics under whatever names they may be known, for while they have different faces they are nevertheless bound to each other by their tails, since in all of them vanity is a common element. [Now the teeth] Those condemned, being handed over to the secular rulers of their bailiffs, let them be abandoned, to be punished with due justice, clerics being first degraded from their orders. As to the property of the condemned, if they are laymen, let it be confiscated….”But those who are only suspected due consideration being given to the nature of the suspicion and the character of the person, unless they prove their innocence by a proper defense, let them be anathematized and avoided by all…” [Canon 3].

3.     “All those prohibited or not sent, who without the authority of the Apostolic See or the Catholic bishop of the locality, shall presume to usurp the office of preaching either publicly or privately, shall be excommunicated and unless they amend, and the sooner the better, they shall be visited with a further suitable penalty. [Canon 3].

4.     “The founding of new religious orders is forbidden” [Canon 13]. “Diversity of religious orders lead to grave confusion in the Church of God, we strictly forbid anyone in the future to found a new order, but whoever should wish to enter an order, let him choose one already approved.” [Canon 13].

 

This was just a small window in the condition of the church as power in 1215. What about an Ideology as Power in 2018 and here one thinks especially of Communism or the Classical influence of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Lenin in a political construct. Many countries tried this religious design of creating a heaven on earth. Even the continuous efforts of Alexandr Dugin in his neo-fascist multifaceted approach, had to admit that the Utopia is “elusive”. It is not yet. They all live with the hope it will come. But, part of their system means the crushing of the opposition and for this writing, Karl Marx counted religion as the opium of the people and thus to be crushed as well. He substituted religion with his ideology. All Communistic countries are kneeling at the statue of Karl Marx and worship him and his ideas. They are his disciples. A cult. A religious cult? Of course, even though they deny it. Anthropologically it is just as much a cult and any other religion, Hindu, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism. You name it. Dugin even admitted it is transcendental as well!

What about persecution in Marxistic orientated countries?

 

Persecution in China in 2018

The most dramatic news items of organized persecution against Christians [other religions as well] are coming from China as of this year 2018 also reported by the Korean Media YTN and the BBC.

 

1.     "When one of Beijing's largest underground churches first refused to install surveillance cameras that would allow authorities to spy on their activities, they didn't know it would end Sunday with officials storming into the church building and legally shutting it down."

Chaoyang District Civil Affairs Bureau informed the Zion Church that it violated regulation by holding religious activities."

 

2.     Law apparently prohibiting preaching and livestreaming of worship on internet as of September 10, 2018.

Zhang Hui "Draft law prohibits preaching on internet, livestreaming of worship" Global Times 2018/9/10

 

3.     A church of 50 000 Christian believers were dynamite by para-militia of the CCP in the city of Linfen in Shanxi province around the 12th of January 2018. It was the Golden Lampstand Church.

What we have here is a neofascist regime persecuting Christians in 2018 in the same fashion and rules designed by the papal-fascists of 1215. Are both done by religious powers? According to Dugin, Marxism is transcendental focused, albeit ideological cultic powers persecuting whereas in the Middle Ages it was Catholic powers persecuting.

They may argue, it is not our soldiers but paramilitia. Paramilitia cannot go unnoticed by the militia of these regimes. The argument does not uphold the facts. If Christians cannot move without surveillance then paramilitia as well.

 

So the winds of persecution is held in place until the angels will decide that the time has come for this next chapter in the history of eschatology just before the great arrival of the Messiah, Christ from heaven and not from among believers or on earth as Judaism and Islam is wrongly expecting.

 

Source:

1.     Medieval Sourcebook: Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran IV 1215. The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215. Downloaded from https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp

2.     Chris Baynes, "Chinese authorities blow up Christian megachurch with dynamite" Independent 12 January 2018. See "Iran Gets Desperate, Turns to China" China Uncensored September 17, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q2lUmwtsrY

3.     Russell Goldman, "Chinese Police Dynamite Christian Megachurch." The New York Times 12 January 2018. Downloaded with photos from  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/world/asia/china-church-dynamite.html

4.     "Large Beijing house church banned as China continues Christian persecution" Monday, September 10, 2018. "Iran Gets Desperate, Turns to China" China Uncensored September 17, 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q2lUmwtsrY

5.     Zhang Hui "Draft law prohibits preaching on internet, livestreaming of worship" Global Times 2018/9/10