The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Page 533
The European Union in Prophecy
And now before the swaying multitude are revealed the final scenes--the patient
Sufferer treading the path to Calvary; the Prince of heaven hanging upon the cross;
the haughty priests and the jeering rabble deriding His expiring agony; the
supernatural darkness; the heaving earth, the rent rocks, the open graves, marking
the moment when the world's Redeemer yielded up His life.
The awful spectacle appears just as it was. Satan, his angels, and his subjects
have no power to turn from the picture of their own work. Each actor recalls the part
which he performed. Herod, who slew the innocent children of Bethlehem that he
might destroy the King of Israel; the base Herodias, upon whose guilty soul rests the
blood of John the Baptist; the weak, timeserving Pilate; the mocking soldiers; the
priests and rulers and the maddened throng who cried, "His blood be on us, and on
our children!"--all behold the enormity of their guilt. They vainly seek to hide from
the divine majesty of His countenance, outshining the glory of the sun, while the
redeemed cast their crowns at the Saviour's feet, exclaiming: "He died for me!"
Amid the ransomed throng are the apostles of Christ, the heroic Paul, the ardent
Peter, the loved and loving John, and their truehearted brethren, and with them the
vast host of martyrs; while outside the walls, with every vile and abominable thing,
are those by whom they were persecuted, imprisoned, and slain. There is Nero, that
monster of cruelty and vice, beholding the joy and exaltation of those whom he once
tortured, and in whose extremest anguish he found satanic delight. His mother is
there to witness the result of her own work; to see how the evil stamp of character
transmitted to her son, the passions encouraged and developed by her influence and
example, have borne fruit in crimes that caused the world to shudder.
There are papist priests and prelates, who claimed to be Christ's ambassadors,
yet employed the rack, the dungeon, and the stake to control the consciences of His
people. There are the proud pontiffs who exalted themselves above God and presumed
to change the law of the Most High. Those pretended fathers of the church have an
account to render to God from which they would fain be excused. Too late they are
made to see that the Omniscient One is jealous of His law and that He will in no wise
clear the guilty. They learn now that Christ identifies His interest with that of His
suffering people; and they feel the force of His own words: "Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Matthew 25:40.
532