By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Sunday Special)
Ever wonder why the world is supersonically changing from how things were just a few years ago and why the world is becoming scarier by the day as we move into the future?
Wonder no more. The answer to these questions is simple: history is simply repeating itself back to the same trappings of a pre World War I and World War II times. In this study learn how to be equipped not to fall into all the trappings of Antichrist. Learn how this coming deception takes with it billions of people, if possible, even the very elect. Do not be caught off guard and prepare yourself and your family for what is to come.
Indeed, the same demons of old are rising back again. While the world advances technologically, morally it is decaying and reverting backwards to how things were just before World War I (and worse) when Christianity’s dominance declined as result of the enlightenment, Social-Darwinism, Deism, and Nietzscheism. These were the main ingredients to later spawn German militarism, continuing the catastrophe into the anti-Semitism and Nazism of WWII. Today we are becoming plagued with the same demons of WWII with its three deadly frogs: anti-Semitism, Sodomy and Ultra-Nationalism. Even the church has a big chunk of it in bed with one or even all three where the non-elect are daily bending the knee to these major fast-moving demons.
For example, today Greece’s neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn is gaining momentum winning 21 seats in parliament. In Ukraine the radical anti-Semitic Svoboda (Freedom) captured more than 10% of the popular vote. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the instability of the new states has also brought the rise of anti-Semitic ultra-nationalist movements accusing Jews for the economic crisis. Today over 30% of European surveyed indicated that Jews have too much power in business. Such sentiments encompass 66% of Hungary, 40% of Catholic Poland and Catholic Spain. Europe is becoming plagued with Ultra-Nationalism while Nazism is reviving at a supersonic speed. Islam too is re-arising at an alarming rate while Christianity is continuing to decline. In the last few years deism grew at a whopping rate of 717% in one decade alone. Today Hinduism has become the fastest-growing religion in Australia, while in India too, Hinduism is growing at a rate of 20% per decade. In the U.S., Canada, Australia and Mexico, Wicca is growing at whopping 143% per decade.
In fact, no-religion is also growing leaps and bounds at an alarming rate, that besides the problems we just mentioned, a study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reveals:
“The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.”
While many get excited every time there is a new presidential election, where so many expect a Donald Trump victory to solve economic crisis, but lets be honest, can any president solve all these global crisis we just mentioned in just four years? Christians need to be realistic. What we see today are messianic expectations from individuals who simply inherited mountains of problems.
People want a hero to delivers them and bring back their nationalist aspirations to a time when the world was safer. What they do not understand is that safety, prosperity, honesty, integrity, moral values … are all tied exclusively to Christian ethics which are fast dissipating.
Reality is that we are not progressing. We are simply going backwards. Today’s millennial generation think in bullet-points, Twitter lines, Facebook short narratives, short videos, fast and easy to read fiction books, … all this short-span attention process, converts masses globally, at a fast paste and at an alarming rate to view life from a swap-meet of selections converting them back to the same degenerate ideas from the past and it is all done by a quick click of a mouse. Today the millennial generation worships the iPod and lacks history, morality and proper theology … Today the word “wisdom” is simply something they see in a fantasy fiction movie like the Lord of The Rings or Harry Potter. Everything is infiltrated by all sorts of leaven from the same old repackaged legends geared towards the hatred of everything Christian.
It is indeed moving at a fast paste. Negative changes that took a decade to fall into are now happening within a year and even months as people hunger for internet quick answers. Today if you ask the millennial generation what is happiness, they say it is an advancement to complete unrestricted freedoms, they have quick answers to what constitutes permanent happiness, they believe that technological advancement, fast accumulated wealth and combating poverty and disease is the answer to all of our problems.
But the world forgets one crucial element in this fanciful equation, Christianity, which the world is rejecting. It is as if God said ‘have it your way’. The devil then played the same old record repeating lessons they did not learn from times past. The needle today is on that same spot when the Christian world began a decline before WWI. We are simply going backwards to how things were just before that era including the same demons of World War II preparing us to face World War III.
In reality, the world is not advancing at all, it is actually reverting us backwards to face the same demons who were once conquered by Christianity. Today the devil is re-playing his same nauseating symphony backwards. Christianity is not some national-aspiration, it is a Kingdom “not of this world,” it is not nationalism, it is not a war on the Jews, it is not pro-sodomy, it is not love at all costs, and when it is manipulated or when it declines, history simply ends up repeating itself, reverting us back to a time in history where God’s people abandoned, or twisted the faith, causing deadly schismatic and heretical views.
Today Christians think of God as exclusively “love” while forgetting that this same ‘God of love’ flushed down the toilet the entire world in Noah’s time, He flea bombed Sodom and had the whole generation of Moses die in the Sinai taking only Joshua and Caleb to the promised land. Today there is a major lack of balance that while God is loving, this comes with obedience or else perish.
Christians fall when they view only one demon. There are many demons. And while the west reverts to these demons of dark times, the other demon, the Turkish neo-Ottomans too are reverting to a time just before World War I. Ideologically the Muslim world is even reverting further backwards to the glory days of what Muslims consider their ‘enlightenment period’.
All these ‘enlightenments’ to the true and persevering Christian becomes gloom as he sees his relatives and friends fall into the same ancient trappings. This is the black cloud of lucifer, the scorn and the locusts that consumed everything green and holy for twelve centuries, converting hordes of Christians to take the mark of Antichrist and spawn the seeds of satan.
Historically, when Christian zeal dissipates, the main restrainer is taken out of the way, and tyrannies like Nazism and neo-Ottomanism arise, while Tsarism in Russia also arises to reclaim what these controlled in their zenith, and as a result, the world will soon witness turmoil at an epic proportion.
But the Kingdom of God is not of this world.
Who has ever dreamt that just a few decades ago we will see all this? The truth is, there are a few who predicted this (we will explain this later on).
But how will the narrow gate withstand such an onslaught, especially when warfare progressed leaps and bounds from the last two world wars? This calls for wisdom to prepare souls and make sure the lamps are filled with oil.
Things are moving supersonically. Today Russia has its navy armada in Syria, while Assad just warned Turkey that his missiles are set to bring down any jets encroaching into its airspace causing Turkey to halt its attacks, while just two days ago, Saudi Arabia’s Mecca nearly got hit by a scud missile coming from Iran’s Houthi ally in Yemen, and just this week, Erdogan of Turkey said: “I am the chief muhtar controlling all of Turkey”. Muhtar means “the chosen one”. All these events can spark WWIII while they gain a scant mention in the media. A decade ago, a beheading got the attention of the whole world. A year ago it took a mass beheading of Coptic Christians to get attention and today a slaughterhouse where beheading is a process using conveyor belts where they literally process human beings as sheep gets scant attention. The world is simply desensitized.
Today Ultra-Nationalism and Irredentism are spawning Antichrists. Erdogan’s remarks being “the chosen one” came as confirmation of claims suggesting that he is aspiring to take everything in the country, and even more, encroach on Iraq and Syria. Irredentism is now a goal by the neo-Ottoman regime. Irredentism is a political or popular movement intended to reclaim and reoccupy what was lost. Just two weeks ago Shoebat.com reported how Turkey wants to reclaim northern Iraq and include it as part of Turkey’s territory. In a sort of Palestinian irredentism, where Palestinians include Israel proper in their maps, Turkey is now redrawing their map what they term Ahd-i-Mili (One Nation) to include northern Iraq (Mosul) and northern Syria:
The map shows the borders laid out in Turkey’s National Pact, a document Erdogan recently suggested the prime minister of Iraq should read to understand his country’s interest in Mosul. It was signed in 1920, after the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I. The National Pact identified those parts of the empire that the government was prepared to fight for, specifically those territories that were held by the Ottoman army in October 1918 when Constantinople signed an armistice with the allied powers.
When it comes to the map, on Turkey’s southern border, this line ran from north of Aleppo in what is now Syria to Kirkuk in what is known as northern Iraq, the oil rich area of that nation.
But such moves speaks or prophecy. Turkey, in Asia Minor, is where the biblical leopard was: Greece. In the prophecy of John’s Apocalypse, and according to Daniel, this leopard must consume much flesh (land). This includes ancient Babylon. Shoebat.com for decades made this point, that when the Ottoman Empire revives again, it will get into irredentism, attempting to rule what was once Ottoman territory. These days this is no longer an assumption for even Yahoo News just confirmed:
In the past few weeks, a conflict between Ankara and Baghdad over Turkey’s role in the liberation of Mosul has precipitated an alarming burst of Turkish irredentism. On two separate occasions, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the Treaty of Lausanne, which created the borders of modern Turkey, for leaving the country too small. He spoke of the country’s interest in the fate of Turkish minorities living beyond these borders, as well as its historic claims to the Iraqi city of Mosul, near which Turkey has a small military base.
Erdogan criticizing the Treaty of Lausanne is like Hitler lamenting about the Treaty of Versailles. History is simply repeating itself.
But why is the West missing that we are repeating this same history? Most who study prophecy do not understand that the key to seeing how prophecy unfolds is not to simply view prophecy as a fulfillment of one certain event but a repeat of several events encompassing the timespan of all God’s people. The whole Bible is prophetic. Even the verse “History merely repeats itself”, is, in itself, a prophecy:
History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
Even fulfilled prophecies repeat. For example, Daniel 7-8, while it definitely speaks of Darius the Mede (lower horn), Cyrus the Persian (higher horn that came up last), the leopard (Alexander the Great) with four heads (Ptolemy, Seleucus, Cassander and Lysimachus, Alexander’s generals) Antiochus Epiphanies and the Ten Caesars of Rome, yet when we read Daniel, we also find these prophecies are not strictly historic, especially since John in the Apocalypse combines the Leopard (Asia Minor) with the Bear (Medo-Persia). This encompasses Alexander’s landmass, Persia and more. So when we visit Daniel, it is crucial we understand its projection catapults way into the future:
And out of one of them came forth a little horn [also includes Antichrist]: and it became great against the south and against the east, and against the strength [the church]. And it was magnified even unto the strength of heaven: and it threw down of the strength, and of the stars, and trod upon them. And it was magnified even to the prince of the strength: and it took away from him the continual sacrifice, and cast down the place of his sanctuary. And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice, because of sins: and truth shall be cast down on the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper. And I heard one of the saints speaking, and one saint said to another, I know not to whom that was speaking: How long shall be the vision, concerning the continual sacrifice, and the sin of the desolation that is made: and the sanctuary, and the strength be trodden under foot? And he said to him: Unto evening and morning two thousand three hundred days: and the sanctuary shall be cleansed. (Daniel 8:9-14)
This little horn goes “against the south and against the east“. This is Syria and Iraq (south) and tomorrow Armenia (east).
So its not unusual to see Turkey going against Syria and Iraq in the south and in the future Armenia to its east. But will Turkey go on a conquest to invade much lands via war? The answer is Yes and No. This beast is broken down into ten toes, which give allegiance to the beast. These are separate nations that willfully make an alliance with it, while others are forced to succumb through invasion. Keep in mind its composite is clear:
“And the beast, which I saw, was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his own strength, and great power.”
History will repeat itself from when Heraclius eventually lost Syria to Islam’s saracens in 640 A.D., then Egypt and Byzantine Mesopotamia (Iraq) to the same Muslim locusts to only all be encompassed by the Ottoman Turks later on repeating the same biblical prophecies.
So in Syria, Turkey is preparing a takeover. They installed The Sultan Murad Brigade, comprising predominantly of ethnic Turkmens which has been one of Ankara’s military assets inside Syria against both Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the Kurdish (biblical Medes) PKK. Meanwhile, the Turkmen population living around Mosul and its surrounding area has been a concern to Iraq and an asset for Ankara in Iraq. Turkish special forces have worked with the Iraqi Turkmen Front since at least 2003 in order to expand Turkish influence and counter the PKK in northern Iraq.
The Sultan Murad Brigade with the mark of Islam “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger”
The Syrian Turkmen Brigades, also called the United Turkmen Army are Syrian Turkmen fighting against the Syrian Armed Forces, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and the Syrian Democratic Forces. They are aligned with the Syrian opposition and are heavily supported by Turkey, who provides funding and military training along with artillery and aerial support. The groups represents a wide spectrum of ideologies from Islamism to secular Turkish nationalism. A look at the map of Syria, the blue, are the Turkmen living in Syria. This is a sizable number.
They are the second biggest group outnumbering the Kurds. Turkmen share a closer kinship to Turkey and reside mostly near the Syrian-Turkish border that runs from the northwestern governorates of Idlib and Aleppo to the northeastern governorate of Raqqa. Moreover, many reside in the Jabal al-Turkman region near Latakia, the city of Homs, Damascus, and the southwestern governorates of Dera’a (bordering Jordan) and Quneitra (bordering Israel) situated in a high valley in the Golan Heights.
Quneitra is key in an Armageddon war. Israel captured it in the Six Day War and it was briefly recaptured by Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War to have Israel only regain control of it.
All this history is unfolding in a repeat. The key to unlocking Prophecy is to understand, that prophecy is not jotted down for a single event, but projects the entire history of God’s people. There are several Armageddons. Few pay attention that one year after Muhammad’s death, the Muslim locusts entered Jordan massacring Christians in Kerak and in 636 A.D, under Khalid bin Walid they crushed the Byzantine army at the plains of Megiddo (Armageddon) at the battle of Yarmuk. There we have an Armageddon battle. They then entered Jerusalem occupying it in 638 A.D. Amazingly, 1260 lunar years later in 1880 Russian Jews began flocking into Jerusalem. This would be 1260 lunar years after Islam occupied it. Therefore, Revelation 12 is a re-oocurance and is not simply just a single event for the fast-blogging prophecy hypes of this millennial generation that lacks history.
Heraclius eventually lost Syria (640 A.D.), Egypt and Byzantine Mesopotamia to the Arab locusts (a repeat of the little horn) and the wars even continued throughout all seven Muslim caliphates, until 1260 lunar years passed and the tide turned in 1871 A.D. Later on came Allenby’s decisive victory, giving a mortal wound to the beast’s head, which must revive later. Yet this battle occurred at the same place where Islam entered in 636 A.D: at Megiddo (Armageddon). But this time it was after the tides turned when Islam got its fill with persecutions chasing after the seed of the woman of Revelation 12, and it then began to weaken. Then in 1918 when the pro-Catholic Christian, Protestant General Allenby, forced the Turks to relinquish control of Jerusalem to the British. Thereafter he was often referred to as Allenby of Armageddon.
Battle of Megiddo (1918) at Armageddon
Allenby united both Catholic and Protestant soldier in Jerusalem in a Catholic Church to worship after the victory. So far here we have two Armageddons and then there is also another coming, a final Armageddon after Christendom is finally refined again. This refinement will be what is coming soon and it will be very painful. This will be the test of the saints.
Therefore, the threat to the church encompasses the same composites in Daniel and this is also reflected by John in the Apocalypse. And if Greece after Alexander had four heads, we also had the four heads of the infamous Caliphate empires which were also seven Caliphates (seven heads) that were the sole persecutor that threatened God’s people.
So why do we ignore the seven Muslim caliphates from being studied in prophecy?
The answer is simple: the Protestant-Catholic divide where prophecy became Papal-centric.
WHAT EVERY CHRISTIAN MUST BEWARE OF
But who can deny that Islam was the greatest persecutor of God’s people during the church age? Yet the period of prophecy from the seventh centuries onwards is silenced due to the focus on the papacy where prophecy teachers continually twisted and jimmy-rigged the text to fit the Puritans anti-papacy interpretations.
And since no honest historian can deny 12 centuries of this red dragon’s Muslim persecution against the seed of the woman (God’s people), by the seven caliphates of Islam, should we then believe that Daniel and John dropped it, and that God just left the church hanging to dry not to be warned by whats coming?
Eliminating such history and twisting these prophecies is the devil’s plan. Be extremely careful.
There is a myth that slanders true Catholics and genuine Orthodox Christians saying that these do not study prophecy. This is simply not true as we shall prove. The difference between apostolic and non-apostolic, is that in the apostolic, while they provide latitude for laity to interpret prophecy, to these, accepted and approved prophecy is only interpreted by the few in the church. These ‘few’ are not people of fame, but are men and women of deep sacrifice and humble of heart following what God promised in Joel 2:28:
And it shall come to pass after this, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
To these, prophecy is not the subject of any interpretation and is more carefully studies than in what we see from the Left Behind series generation.
For example, Mahometanism in its Relation to Prophecy was written in 1855, over 160 years ago. This was before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, yet it perfectly predicted its fall and explained Islam in prophecy in detail using the Bible.
The remarkable work was written by Ambrose Lisle March Phillipps De Lisle. What was laid on the man’s heart “the reconversion or reconciliation of Britain to Catholicism” is what was laid on my heart as well, the reconversion of western protestants back to Catholicism. Although I converted initially from Islam to Protestantism, I too like De Lisle, left Protestantism and converted to Catholicism. Why?
One comment which reminded me as to ‘why’ was sent to me by my Russian friend Stephen Eugene (Стефан Евгений) in which he referred me to the Holy and Righteous John of Kronstadt who 115 years ago in 1901 saw a vision describing the fall of the Tsar and communism sweeping Russia and then the world falling away into heresy, which hits the West and he also included predictions about the Antichrist.
The heresy, as it appeared to Kronstadt in his Daniel style prophecy, it stems mainly from the West: “He [the elder] then pointed to the western wall of my cell …” He then described how countless churches will fall away as bright stars turning into ashes. He describes to the letter what we see today.
In one example he gives about a fallen church describing a woman: “… she screamed and laughed throughout the church saying, ‘I am free!’” describing the easy believism we see today expects to benefit from an instant salvation without any suffering. This is obviously the simplistic, cheap and easy salvation we see today:
“I thought Oh, Lord, how awful! The people, like madmen, began to run around the altar, scream, whistle, and clap their hands. Then they began to sing lecherous songs.”
“… she screamed and laughed throughout the church saying, ‘I am free!’”
This is obviously the simplistic and easy salvation we see today where we find lecherous songs and immodest dress and at times perform immodest arts on the very altar.
As he said “These are the earthly people, heretics who have abandoned the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church and recognized the newly innovated church which God has not blessed. In this church they do not fast, do not attend services, and do not receive Holy Communion!’”
“We are not saved by going to church or by taking Communion” is the favorite comment of millions today. While salvation is by grace alone, one must ask: is salvation also obtained through disobedience?
It is what I tell many in the modern church, that what they belong to, can never be recognized, had the ancients came into their places of gathering. These places are truly not churches but are cafes and clapping dance halls, that believe because they hear or repeat the name “Jesus” that they are alright with God.
It cannot be imagined by the ancients that the church will have little or no focus on holiness or Holy Communion. Indeed, what we see today is the “newly innovated church” which “God has not blessed”. Many even do not partake in the Communion and are more like a disco or Rock and Roll dancing parties. These are not churches. These are the den of demons.
Islam has removed the sacraments and here I was still without sacraments. The years I roamed the world in churches something was missing: order.
I just could never get my hands to clap or sing contemporary and only sang when old hymnals were performed to only discover the hymns I loved were Catholic. “Faith of our Fathers” was composed by Catholic Fr. Frederick William Faber.
And who are these ‘fathers’ that this hymnal is speaking of? And ‘what’ and ‘where’ was this faith of the fathers from? These ‘fathers’ were from the first century onward, not the sixteenth.
This was not speaking of reformers, but the Christian martyrs in Rome during the persecutions of Nero.
But this was not the only hymnal. The best of Protestant hymns were Catholic: “Holy, Holy, Holy” “Angels We Have Heard on High” “Joy to the World” “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” “The First Nowell” “Love Divine,” “All Loves Excelling,” “O Come, All Ye Faithful” “Rejoice, the Lord is King” “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” “A Mighty Fortress” “Silent Night” …
Deep in my soul I knew I should only sing to these while I remained silent when the contemporary began its diluted mirky waters.
Yet as I roamed these churches, hundreds of them, they preached on how the Catholic church was the Synagogue of Satan, how the popes were patrons of the Whore of Babylon and Roman Antichrist. And right afterwards they sang the very hymnals written by the very Church they accused being the Antichrist.
It made no sense. So many were decent and loving people who were led astray. I thank God for using me as an instrument in changing millions of hearts to stop believing the nonsense. I must say, it is not the fault of these people. It is the fault of centuries old leaders who had dark souls.
Something indeed was missing. I simply could not fit into this modern mold. I wanted the well-tried and aged wine, the most ancient of recipes. I was simply never satisfied. The service of God is order, respect, holiness, preparing one’s soul by confession to receive Holy Communion as prescribed in the writings of the apostles and etched and explained in the first instruction manual written by them: the Didache the oldest patristic document written 80 AD:
On the Lord’s Day of the Lord come together, break bread and hold Eucharist, after confessing your transgressions that your offering may be pure; But let none who has a quarrel with his fellow join in your meeting until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice be not defiled. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord, “In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great king,” saith the Lord, “and my name is wonderful among the heathen.”
The Altar of the Lord is Holy, clean, void of drums and shoes. It is the Holy of Holies. Yet in all these churches I attended, I have rarely if ever remember them proclaiming the Lord’s prayer “Our Father”, the most important prayer in the history of Christianity, full of mystery and power, a treasure of immeasurable wealth and a pearl of great price.
Indeed, we live in a time where the verse fits: “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and maul you.” (Matthew 7:6)
Where are the languages ordained, the Mourner’s Kaddish, the prayers in Aramaic that praises God’s greatness, the beautiful vestments as prescribed in scripture, the incense as prescribed for the Gentile church in Malachi 1, and where do I go where I can simply spend hours begging: “Lord have mercy on me”. Years I have roamed my past enemies houses of worship, countless Jewish synagogues in the U.S., Europe and the Americas, then hundreds of Messianic synagogues and Evangelicals. I then entered the church of my other enemies; a Maronite Catholic church whom we warred with in Lebanon, chanting in the ancient Aramaic, these were more ardent enemies of my Palestinian heritage then the Jews. I only found everything still in tact there. I then entered Latin Mass to find islands of green grass still worshipping and chanting in the ancient Hebrew Chazan style cantor. How can I hate the Hebrews or the Maronites? Jesus said to “love your enemies”. These were my enemies. Therefore, I must love them too.
O how the world changed from just six decades ago, from the times of the great theologian Fulton Sheen, who predicted the rise of Islam. I have referenced him without knowing he was Catholic. Just listen to him explain the beautiful prayers of the Missal:
The devil is a roaring lion ready to consume and devour the naive. Antichrist is not some event only in the last three years of history. Antichrist is throughout the church age and is why we find this spirit attempting to destroy and conquer even in the primitive church: “now it is already in the world” in John’s time (1 John 4:2-3). Therefore, what we see today is a prelude where Antichrist, who, before anything else, will abolish all these wonderful sacraments, especially the Communion: ‘And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice‘ (Daniel 8:12)” which continues until the end of the world “and the Desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end“ (Daniel 9:27).
Kronstadt described the falling-away we see in the charismatic chaos coming from modernized Protestantism even creeping into Catholic churches:
“These are the ones who renounced their faith and left the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church and accepted the new innovative church.”
It is what we see so many do, who say they left to join what they believe is a modern church that is growing leaps and bounds.
No one can deny that we are witnessing a falling away, but the question is where do we find the true church? One key is that “the falling away” is departure from the original teachings. Therefore, the church that is inflicted and is decreasing in the number of memberships is the true Church, which is falling. The true church is not in the arena size super-church that is swelling in numbers by the day. It is not what we see as “church growth” but church reduction. In other words, the one that grows as result of new attractions, new methods, is not the real church, while the one that experiences a falling away is the one where we must find whatever leftover islands that remain steadfast in keeping the ancient rites.
But the testing for tribulation, as Kronstadt sees it, will be primarily where Antichrist rules, in the east:
“He suddenly stopped and pointed to the east with his hand. I saw a large gathering of people with joyous faces carrying crosses and candles in their hands … Suddenly the starets waved his cross upwards three times, and I saw mountain of corpses covered in human blood and above them Angels were flying. They were taking the souls of those murdered for the Word of God to heaven while they sang, Alleluia!’ I observed all this and cried loudly.”
Raising the cross three times signifies these are who uphold The Trinity. Antichrist denies the Trinity (1 John 2:22). He then travels to Jerusalem, the land of the Jews:
“The starets then prayed for these servants of God and pointed to the east as the words of the Prophet Daniel came true, ‘Abomination of desolation.’ Finally, I saw the cupola of Jerusalem. Above it was a star. Within the church millions of people thronged and still many more were trying to enter inside. I wanted to make the sign of the cross, but the starets grabbed my hand and said, ‘Here is the abomination of desolation!’
He describes the falling-away coming first, than the Antichrist possibly appearing in the dome of the rock, which was built on a church foundation with an octagonal shape. This was the typical of church construction at the time the Muslims took over it. The Dome of the Rock was actually built by Abd al-Malik in 692 A.D. as a rebuilt Christian Church that once stood in its place. The Rock that sanctified the shrine was first an important Christian holy place. Ezekiel foreshadowed the Muslims praying at the Dome of the Rock in Ezekiel 9:4-5 as turning their backs from Jerusalem while facing east towards Mecca. He then told His warriors to place the mark of God on the foreheads of the righteous, and to slay these who turned their backsides to Jerusalem.
When Muslim worshipers pray towards Al-Aqsa Mosque (the silver dome mosque) they have their backside to the Dome of the Rock
Many flaunt how they, unlike the Catholic and Orthodox, understand scripture and know prophecy. They scorn that the apostolic churches do not study the subject. They speak in tongues and proclaim not a single vision that came to pass.
But the challenge is here. The bible speaks of “seven mountains” and “seven kings” which they say is the “seven hills of Rome”. Yet none of these can answer a simple Jesus-style question: if the beast represents papal Rome, why does this interpretation then contradict scripture where “mountains” within the Hebrew context are kingdoms (see Isa 37:32; see also Ps 48:2; Jer 51:25; Dan 2:35, 9:20; Zec 4:7), especially when the same occurs with the term “king,” which OT as well used as the equivalent of “kingdom” (see Dan 7:17; 8:21, 23).
Even the ones who admit this question is unavoidable, twist the interpretation to say these ‘mountain kingdoms’ are: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece, Rome and the seventh as “papal Rome”.
This interpretation generates even a better slam-dunk Jesus-style question: if papal-Rome was the seventh kingdom, what happened to the real seventh, the greatest persecutor of Christians in all church history: the Muslim empire?
It is this ‘missed beast’ replaced by the wrong ‘filler’ that renders thousands of books completely worthless and obsolete.
Another killer Jesus-style question would be this: if the Catholic is the seventh kingdom, how did God, Daniel and John, Ezekiel, Joel and Isaiah then miss the greatest beast and persecutor of God’s people in history: the Islamic seven Caliphates?
This alone renders every anti-papal book as completely worthless.
Yet even another deadly Jesus-style question would be: how come it was the apostolic succession interpreters who jotted the correct and true interpretation, while Protestant church fathers missed it?
I happen to interpret after I prayed decades ago, while being Protestant “God what of these seven mountains”? I never forgot my prayer and what happened next as the Niagara falls rushed into my soul revealing everything I needed to know. The sinful man I was, yet God had mercy on my soul answering my prayers. Only the other day did I find Ambrose Lisle March Phillipps De Lisle, citing several Catholic interpreters who conclude what I have concluded about the entire threat to God’s people throughout history. De Lisle writes:
the seven heads of the dragon would signify: 1. The Egyptian monarchy; 2. The Assyrian ; 3. The Chaldean or Babylonian ; 4. The Medo-Persian; 5. The Grecian; 6. The Roman ; 7. The Antichristian empire of Mahomet (Islam).
De Lisle siting several Catholic interpreters concludes what we have correctly concluded about the Antichrist:
“It is impossible to read this description of the second beast, and not to remember the pastoral origin of the Ottoman Turks, springing, as they did, from the steppes of Scythian Tartary, with their vast flocks of sheep, and all the habits of a nomad pastoral people. Let the reader turn to Father Newman’s lectures on ‘The Turks’ and he will see how appropriate a symbol of the Ottomans was ” the horns of a lamb.” Now, observe this beast ” had two horns, like unto the horns of a lamb.”
But this beast ” spake as a dragon” (Apoc. xiii. 2.) His language, his doctrine, came from below, from the great dragon of the abyss; the same dragon that in the twelfth chapter of this same Apocalypse we have already seen arming the Roman empire against “the woman and her seed; “and when the Roman empire became Christian, and so the very ” earth “helped the woman, he, this implacable dragon, conjured up Mahomet and his first empire out of the sea; so now does he speak through the voracious throat of the two-horned Turco-Tartar beast uttering his dragon cries, terrible to be heard, and bearing the message of death to myriads of the human race. St. John continues his description: ” And he executed all the power of the former beast in his sight ; “that is, whatever had been done by the Saracens is now repeated over again by the Turks and Tartars.” And he caused the earth, and them that dwell therein, to adore the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed;” that is, he caused the children of perdition, symbolized by ” the earth, and them that dwell therein” to adore, that is, to venerate and accept the religious in of the first beast, that is, the religion and political system of Mahomet, whereby his deadly wound occasioned by the destruction of the Saracenic empire, that is, of the first Apocalyptic beast, was healed …
A nearly identical interpretation we had jotted without reading this wonderful works is amazing. I could add to his wealth of knowledge from my experience with Islam.
And where was the church (the woman who was given wings) being fed and nourished for 1260 years during the reign of Islam? Was it in Geneva? If so, when was Geneva the church for 1260 years?
Remember, John in Apocalypse 12, ordained that the Church should be fed, in a place prepared for her, for twelve hundred and sixty days, as we too concluded, De Lisle states:
The text continues, “that there they should feed her a thousand two hundred and sixty days.” This expression is very significant, and it surely indicates that there would be a very remarkable period in the Church’s history, a period during which the Church was to be fed, that is to be specially nourished and enriched; and that this period was to last for the space of twelve hundred and sixty days; that is for the very same space of time that was allotted by Daniel, as we have already seen, to the dominion of the little horn, that is of Antichrist, which we have proved to be the religious system and empire of Mahomet. Now then we may begin to understand why God gave a temporal dominion to the popes at Rome, in other words, why He ordained that the Church should be fed, in a place prepared for her, for twelve hundred and sixty days. Mahometanism decreed the extirpation of the Church by fire and sword, and it was to meet this armed heresy that God gave a temporal dominion to His Church. And we shall see in the sequel how this temporal dominion of the popes was the only thing that saved Christendom from being overrun by the Mahometan armies: so that, humanly speaking, unless God had given temporal dominion to the popes, Christianity would have been rooted out, and Antichrist would have extended his empire not only over the three great provinces of the Macedonian he-goat, but over the universe itself.
So what was Geneva doing to combat Islam during this time? What wars did they do to thwart Islam during this period of 1260 years? Fact is, they joined Islam at the greatest naval battle in Christian history, Lepanto, when Pope Pius V, with the Catholic League repulsed Islam while Protestant Calvinists gladly joined the Muslim hordes. Where are the Protestant battles against Islam throughout history? And what historian would believe that the Protestants warred with Islam? Even the attack on the Catholic, De Lisle, the convert from Protestantism addressed:
We have shown the absurdity of those interpreters who would refer to the pope and the religion of the pope, that is, to the Catholic religion, the Divine prophecies relating to Antichrist, but we have also shown that all such interpreters of prophecy are themselves emissaries and disciples of Antichrist.
History simply repeats itself, Lepanto repeats, Armageddon repeats, schism repeats, the same old slanders abounds and repeats, while wisdom diminishes but only for a few, who do not and will not bend the knee to the false god of Sodom, to the false god of ultra-nationalism and to the false god of Nazism. I rest my case after praying: We beseech Thee, O Creator of all things, that in these days of Paschal joy, Thou defend Thy people, the Holy Israel and to be redeemed Israel, from every assault of death. Save us O Lord, deliver us O Lord, Holy God, Holy Almighty, Holy Immortal have mercy on us.