The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Page 471

The European Union in Prophecy
them in from the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world have shown
contempt for the law of Jehovah; and the Lord will do just what He has declared that
He would--He will withdraw His blessings from the earth and remove 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 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.
While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all
their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to
ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and
by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in
tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a
thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest,
and famine and distress follow. He imparts to 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 both man and beast. "The earth mourneth and
fadeth away," "the haughty people . . . do languish. The earth also is defiled under the
inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance,
broken the everlasting covenant." Isaiah 24:4, 5.
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 those whose obedience to God's commandments is a
perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are 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, thus destroying reverence for Sunday,
are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal
prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against the servant of God will be
repeated and upon grounds equally well established: "And it came to pass, when Ahab
saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he
answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have
forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." 1 Kings
18:17, 18.
470