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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Seven Thunders and Prophetic Woes

Eugene Prewitt

The Seven Thunders and The Third Woe

Turneth in your Bibles to the book of Revelation.

God willing, I'm going to use PowerPoint this morning.

That might not seem surprising to you, but I do that so rarely that in probably my last 800 sermons, I've only done it 3 times.

And the only reason I'd even think about doing something like that is because I plan to read to you so much that I think if you didn't see it, you wouldn't be able to really follow.

The reason I don't use PowerPoint is I'd like to have the freedom for the spirit to tell me, go to this verse, go to this verse, go to this verse.

But with PowerPoint, it doesn't work quite that way.

So I'd like to teach you something before we go to PowerPoint, just so if I get stuck with it, that you will have learned something.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation.

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud.

And his face was, as it were, the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.

And he had in his hand a little book open.

And he set his right foot upon the sea and his left foot on the earth." Our pioneers, when they tried to understand what this little book was, they started with this idea that a little book was open.

I just want to look to see, OK, make sure that you're not getting ahead of me already.

They wanted to see what was this little book.

And they observed this little book was open.

Do you know the Bible only speaks about 1 book that has been shut?

Only 1 book has been shut in the Bible, and that's in Daniel 12.

In Daniel 12, Daniel is told, shut up the words of this book.

So our pioneers had an idea when they came to Revelation 10 that in terms of timing, we were probably somewhere around the time of the end when this book was being opened.

They had more evidence than that, because Revelation 10 doesn't just come out of nowhere in terms of an order of events.

In Revelation, you have these 7 trumpets.

Now, I realize I'm speaking to an audience that probably is mixed.

Maybe you could put you into 2 categories.

1 category that when I say the 7 trumpets have an idea of like 7 parts of revelation, prophecies, and about when they're fulfilled, and another class that have no clue at all what I'm talking about.

And what I want to do is to make sure that for the class that has no clue, that I can catch you up and you feel like you know where we're at, which means the second class will have to be patient some with hearing things you've already heard 100 times.

And then for the second class, I want to teach you things you've never understood before, perhaps, which means for the class who has no clue, some things are just going to go right over your head.

That we need to meet the needs of both, we're going to have to do something kind of like that, unless we're here for much longer than we have to be.

So Revelation 8 and 9 and 11 have what we call the 7 trumpets.

That is a prophecy that describes God's judgments on Rome.

Do you know Rome doesn't do well in prophecy?

Audience Laughter I'm speaking, and I'm sorry when I say things that sound like I'm trying to be funny, because I never am.

But Rome receives the judgments of God from the very beginning.

Those legs of iron that turn to those feet of iron and clay, they aren't iron and clay for so very long before a rock comes and shatters them.

And in chapter 7 you have that fourth beast, that dreadful beast, and while the other beasts had their dominion taken away, their lives had been prolonged.

But what happens to Rome when its dominion is taken away?

You know, its body is given to the burning flame.

And when you come to Revelation 11, Rome comes to his end and no 1 can help him.

And when you come to Revelation, it doesn't get any better.

You have entire chapters describing the fall of Babylon and the judgment on Babylon.

I'm thinking of chapter, we're really 17 and 18, but it's also true in 16.

What I'm trying to say is that prophecy gives a lot of attention to God's judgments on Babylon.

And Revelation 8 through 11 are God's judgments on Babylon beginning at a very early period of the Middle ages, judgments that were designed to limit the influence of the Roman apostasy.

Have you ever seen a graph that shows the effect that Islam had on the growth of the Roman church?

Craig Smith Really, Islam had such an impact.

We don't want to say that it's a bright thing.

I mean, in Revelation it's pictured as being darkness all the way.

But it limited that growth of idolatry and of that papal concept.

And so here we are in Revelation 10, about to begin the PowerPoint presentation, where you have this little book open.

And what happens when the little book is opened?

I'm reading from the Bible, but you have it there, but you should read it in your Bible anyway.

And he had in his hand a little book open, and he had set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the earth.

And he cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roars.

And when he had cried, 7 thunders uttered their voices." This is a good question for us to ask, what are these 7 thunders?

In terms of time, these 7 thunders utter their voice after the little book is open.

Verse 3, excuse me, verse 4, and When the 7 thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write.

And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the 7 thunders uttered, and write them not." I think for many Bible readers in the Middle Ages, that has to be 1 of the most discouraging verses in Revelation.

Because here you know these 7 thunders, they have some important message, something, and John heard it, and he's about to write it, and he's told not to write.

The next thing that happens in Revelation 10 is that there is this mighty cry.

And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven and swear by him that lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are therein, and earth and the things that are there, and the sea and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." So if this loses any of you, I promised you that that might happen.

But this verse is fulfilled, or was fulfilled in 1844.

This was the time when God said, this is the end of time prophecies, messages based on fulfillment of time.

It really sandwiches the 7 thunders in a pretty narrow period of time, between when the book opens in 1798 and when time is no longer in 1844.

This question, does the Bible elsewhere prefigure a message that comes at the time of the end and announces the coming of the judgment, that should be of the judgment.

The feast of trumpets occurred on the first day of the seventh month, announcing the soon coming of the day of atonement.

I don't have a slide to show you this picture, but maybe I can just do it with my fingers.

You know the Jewish year, how it was organized?

The Jewish year began with its first month, and there in the first month you had the Passover that represented the death of Jesus.

50 days after Passover you had the Pentecost, representing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Then you had a number of months, excuse me, the first and third month.

Then you had a number of months, the fourth and fifth and sixth, when there were no feasts.

Thunders and Prophetic Woes Part II

Thank you for coming on a Sabbath afternoon.

What we're talking about this afternoon is a very interesting part of Adventist history.

I will share a Bible study with you, but the Bible study is related to the history.

It has to do with William Miller when he first became a Christian, for real.

You know, Miller, when he became a Christian, it wasn't in a vacuum.

You know that he had relatives that he'd made fun of that were ministers, and He had been well-read before he was even a deist.

How many of you are aware that Isaac Newton wrote as much on prophecy as he did on...

In most view, Isaac Newton loved prophecy.

That is, for Isaac Newton, prophecy wasn't something that you sort of if it could go 1 or 2 ways you guess At it he thought there was system and science to it, and he yeah, he wrote some fascinating material Isaac Newton Among the things he understood 1 of them was the day for your principle.

That was not an idea invented by the Millerites.

It had been used for a long period before them.

If you've ever seen that large series, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers by Leroy Froome, it just documents case after case of people who used the day for your principle prior to the Millerites.

Because once Miller decided to study the Bible and find answers to his own deistical questions and those of others, he began at Genesis.

Maybe some of you know this story, that he began at Genesis and began going through the Bible, reading every verse, and this was his aim.

He wanted to make sure that he could harmonize every passage with every other passage, so at least he could have an intelligent, consistent, internal understanding of Scripture.

He didn't want anything in here to threaten him in discussion with someone who was a deist or an agnostic or an infidel.

You know, he was using a concordance in his studies.

And the type of the concordance was a crudence concordance.

Do any of you have a crudence concordance?

They're much more convenient than a Strong's or a Young's concordance.

When I say convenient, I mean it's because you can fit them in your pocket.

If you had a Bible that had a, you could have a Kurdish concordance in the back of a Bible and it wouldn't make it that much bigger.

It leaves out the thus and the ofs and the ands and all those things.

It's just the key words, but it also entirely leaves out the Hebrew and Greek lexicons and references.

It's just an English concordance to find English words.

That's what Miller was using, was just a crudence concordance, and he came to a passage.

Turn with me in your Bible, to Leviticus 26.

Leviticus 26 has an incredible, beautiful promise at the beginning of it, but we're not going to read the promise.

But if you will not hearken unto me and will not do all these commandments, Can you guess what the condition is of receiving the beautiful promises before this?

Wouldn't it be it'd be hearkening and doing that's what would be verse 15 if you shall despise my statutes or if your soul abhor my judgments I think there are today many people whose souls abhor the executive judgments of God When they hear about them or read about them or think about them.

They just abhor the idea of God executing wrath on the wicked If your soul abhor my judgments so that you will not do all my commandments but that you break my covenant I also will do this unto you.

I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, the burning agou, and you that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart.

And you shall sow your seed in vain, and your enemies shall eat it.

And I will set my face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies, and they that hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.

And if you will not for all this hearken to me, then I will punish you 7 times more for your sins." It's that 7 times there, that last part.

Miller knew from his previous reading what Isaac Newton had written about, for example, the times in Daniel, a time, a dividing of times, a time, times, a dividing of times, a time that is a year, then that'd be 360 years with the day for year principle.

So in trying to understand this passage, if 3 and a half times is 1260 years, then 7 times, that'd be 7 times 360.

So God said, I'll punish the Jews 2, 520 years if they will not listen.

He found this before he got to Daniel 8, for example.

He found this because he was going through the Bible chronologically, Genesis and through.

And in trying to find dates for that, he found here in Leviticus 26 that it speaks about captivity.

It's 1 of the judgments that's listed here, that God would send his people into captivity.

You know, this prophecy occurs, a similar wording to it several times in this chapter.

And if you will walk contrary unto me and will not hearken to me, I will bring 7 times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

Do you notice there that God indicates that whatever this judgment is, that it's just?

He says 7 more times, I mean, 7 more times plagues according to your sins.

There's a ratio there, or there's an equality.

The punishment would be equal to the sin.

Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and I will punish you yet 7 times for your sins.

And if you will not for all this hearken to me, but will walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary unto you in fury, and I, even I, will chastise you 7 times for your sins.

William Miller, thinking these things through, could not see any sense in the idea that God would punish Israel for 10, 080 years.

So he concluded that These 4 references must be references to the very same judgment.

This idea that if you don't do right, I'm going to punish you.

I'm saying, if you don't do right, I'm going to punish you.

If you don't do right, I'm going to punish you.

This idea so that he understood all 4 of them referred to the same time period.

And he began looking for the fulfillment of it in connection with when God's people went into captivity.

Maybe we should come back to that, but I think I'll just, to make this make sense to you, start here.

He eventually landed on the particular captivity of Manasseh.

Manasseh, you remember, was the king of the 2 tribes.

The 10 tribes had gone into captivity quite some time before Manasseh.

Manasseh went into captivity, the first of the tribe, first of Judah and Benjamin to go into captivity.

No, he came back out right after, but then there was another captivity.

In fact, finally after Hezekiah you had a captivity that was final.

Well, then there was another 1 after that when Jeremiah, of course, was there and he wasn't taken, but the rest were.

I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that there are quite a number of experiences of Judah going into captivity recorded in the scripture.

And the first of those was that of Manasseh.

It's interesting that if you take Manasseh's first captivity start there and go forward 2, 520 years, you'll come to 1844.

Miller came to 1843, but that was because of the same mistake he made in all the other prophecies.

Now, you should know that it wasn't just the 2, 300 days that William Miller thought came to 1843.

There were quite a number of prophecies that Miller thought came to this period of time.

1 of them was the 6, 000-year prophecy, but it's not in here.

But I mean, but this idea, he understood that a day is with the Lord as a thousand years.

If the millennium is a rest, then the history of the Earth ought to be about 6, 000 years.

And when Miller ended up doing his chronology through the Chronicles and Kings, he came to quite a different picture than Usher.

Almost 100, well, 153 years different than Usher.

And when he did it, he found that the 6, 000th year of the world would be 1843.

But more than that, you know the Jubilee.

Some people say the Jubilee was every 49 years, some say it was every 50 years.

1 thing that's for certain is that it was the least celebrated of any of the Jews' holy days.

There just isn't a credible reference to 1 ever having been kept.

Question & Answer on Prophecy

So 1 of these questions, I'm just gonna start the questions because I think the questions will keep us busy.

People pay more attention when they think there's an argument happening.

My Bible prophecy is on the weak side, But out of all the captivities, why start at Manassas?

Weren't there other captivities before and after?

And I'll tell you Frankly, I think that it was a little bit arbitrary on the part of William Miller.

The truth is there were captivities even in the time of the judges.

Honestly, I think Miller picked that 1 because that was the 1 that ended at the right date.

And it happened to me a while back that I saw, I'd written a paper on this 2520, and someone responded to it, but they didn't send the response to me.

They sent it to someone else, and this is okay.

I mean, people can do what they wanna do, but on that response, they mentioned that the date 723 BC shows up more than 100 times on the Pioneer CD-ROM.

Now, I was thinking, I've studied this, and I only saw it 1 time.

So I went and I looked again and I found sure enough more than 100 times the number 723 shows up.

Almost all of them are page numbers, but a couple of them are to 723 AD, and 1 of them is to the Roman year 723.

Roman years are neither AD or BC, it's a different numbering system.

And a couple of them are to addresses that had the number 723 in them.

But yes, only 1 reference to 723 BC in connection with this prophecy.

I think there is a little bit of arbitrary decision making that goes into some of this connecting a prophecy.

It says, Jubilees were not celebrated routinely.

How do we know the records were accurate, the ones noted were accurate?

I think God uses honestly, sincere, and weak people to do very important things.

When we say William Miller was a man of God, we don't mean that he was a person who could have written a Bible commentary from Genesis to Revelation.

We don't mean it, but we mean that God gave him special light on the books of Daniel and Revelation that was especially relevant to his time.

And when he gets outside of that field, like the work he does with Usher's chronology, I don't think we should buy into that.

I think the 6, 000 year probably ended just about 14 years ago.

Can you please expand on the third woe and the teaching that the latter rain began to fall in 911?

Thank you, if you'll just get it going, that'll be good.

Ellen White wrote some very interesting statements related to God's judgments in the end of time.

1 of them she wrote involved the towers in New York.

So what I'm going to show you now is how to use this fancy piece of software, right?

So I'm going to go here to full text search and I'm going to type New York and I'm going to type in there, oh, was it title?

Now comes the word that I have declared that New York is to be swept away by a tidal wave.

If you've ever been on the Ellen White websites, anti-Ellen White websites, and seen a lot of the things about her, you should just know a lot of rumors went around that have no basis in fact.

But once Ellen White was dead, she could not refute them any longer, and so they began to multiply.

I have said as I looked at the great buildings going up there, story after story, what terrible scenes will take place when the Lord shall arise to shake terribly the earth.

Then the words of Revelation 18, 1 to 3 will be fulfilled.

The whole of the 18th chapter of Revelation is a warning of what is coming on the earth.

But I have no light in particular in regard to what is coming on New York.

Only I know that 1 day the great buildings there will be thrown down by the turning and overturning of God's power.

From the light given me, I know that destruction is in the world.

1 word from the Lord, 1 touch of His mighty power, and these massive structures will fall, what a statement, huh?

And let's find if there is another 1 that is relevant.

So I'll tell you what I understand from this passage, and then I'll tell you what some others understand.

I understand that in Revelation 18, you have a description of God's judgments on Babylon.

Series

Seven Thunders and Prophetic Woes

The Seven Thunders and The Third Woe

Transcript

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