The Hidden History of Verse Forty - Number Sixteen

Jones’ logic that the first angel of Revelation fourteen cannot be separated from the following two angels is rock-solid. His identification of the structural connection of those three angels with the trumpet angels is absolutely air-tight. His emphasis was no doubt upon the three angels of Revelation fourteen, but the logic for applying them as “inseparable” is just as valid for all the angels that preceded them.

Because he was focusing upon the three angels of Revelation fourteen, he did not carry out his own logic to its ultimate conclusion. Ultimately the logic he used to connect the fifth, sixth and seventh woe trumpets to the three angels of Revelation fourteen also included taking the line of the trumpets all the way back to the first of the seven trumpet angels.

The series of angels begins with the “seven” trumpet angels, and the line of angels in Revelation begins with the first trumpet and continues all the way through to the third angel’s warning of the mark of the beast. Jones is correct for identifying a distinction between the first four trumpets and the last three woe trumpets, for that “four and three” prophetic structure is also found in the churches and the seals. Establishing this upon three witnesses in the book of Revelation allows those who choose to see that seven as a symbol also contains four as a symbol and three as a symbol.

What we have been identifying in the recent past is that the first and second angels of Revelation fourteen are empowered by a time prophecy of Islam of the first and second woes, and that the empowerment of the third angel is accomplished by the fulfillment of the third woe on 9/11. What Jones’ application identifies (even though he did not make my point) is that every angel from the first trumpet angel of Revelation eight to the third woe trumpet of Revelation eleven is inseparably connected with the three angels of Revelation fourteen. They are symbols within the same prophetic line. They must be recognized as such to understand the various roles that each of the angels represents. So just as the seven churches, seals and trumpets represent seven, and also the symbol of four and three within the overall symbolism of the seven (churches, seals and trumpets), the line of angels from the first of seven trumpet angels all the way through to the third angel must be considered as a whole. This identifies a line of eleven angels.

The three angels of Revelation fourteen represent the warning message of the Millerites that announced the opening of the judgment and thereafter the warning message of the one hundred and forty-four thousand that is announcing the close of judgment.

The seven trumpets represent powers that God employed providentially to bring judgment upon nations that enforced the worship of the sun.

The first four trumpets identify the progressive demise of Western Rome by the year 476.

The fifth and sixth identify the demise of Eastern Rome from 1449 unto 1453.

The last three trumpets represent Islam of the three woes.

The angel in Revelation ten is Christ, who descends to empower the movement in the beginning, and He descends again in Revelation eighteen to empower the movement at the end.

The seventh trumpet began to sound on October 22, 1844, at the opening of the judgment which is the antitypical Day of Atonement. The trumpet of Jubilee was to be sounded on the Day of Atonement. Two trumpets therefore are sounded at the judgment: the Jubilee trumpet and the seventh trumpet.

The context that identifies the scattering of Israel for “seven times” located in the very next chapter in Leviticus, is set forth in the verses that lead to the instruction of sounding the jubilee trumpet on the Day of Atonement.

When Miller recognized the judgment against Israel for breaking the sabbath rest for the land in chapter twenty-six, he applied the principle that a day represents a year and discovered that a year is three hundred and sixty days, and that seven times three hundred and sixty was twenty-five hundred and twenty years of punishment for breaking the covenant. It was the first prophetic truth he discovered. It’s the foundation of the truths that made up the foundation that Christ laid through the work of Miller. The Jubilee trumpet is an announcement of deliverance and freedom.

The seventh trumpet is Islam of the third woe.

The seventh trumpet of Islam is an external prophetic truth and the Jubilee trumpet is the internal prophetic truth of justification by faith—deliverance from sin, which according to Sister White is the third angel in verity. In the period when the seventh trumpet is sounding, the mystery of Christ in you the hope of glory will be perfected as Christ combines His Divinity with the humanity of the one hundred and forty-four thousand. Those who then receive the seal of God will proclaim a trumpet message of warning represented as the third woe and also the warning of the third angel. The third woe empowers the message of the third angel when the angel who is no less a personage than Jesus Christ descends with a message in His hand.

When we identify that it was a time prophecy of the first and second woe that empowered the first angel’s message, and a prophecy of the third woe that empowers the third angel’s message, we are identifying the trumpets as ‘judgments that were brought upon Rome in response to Sunday enforcement.’ Those providential judgments, particularly the last three woe trumpets, align and parallel the warning message of Revelation fourteen’s three angels. Two woes and two angels in the Millerite history and the third woe and the third angel in the history of the one hundred and forty-four thousand. In the beginning history of the first and second angels, the message of the opening of the judgment was empowered by a fulfillment of Islam of the first and second woes. In the ending history of the third angel the message announcing the close of judgment was empowered by a fulfillment of Islam of the third woe.

The empowerment at the beginning and ending was represented by the angel of Revelation ten and eighteen, “who was no less a personage than Jesus Christ.” The external message of Islam and the internal message of judgment is the external third woe trumpet and the internal message of judgment is the trumpet of the third angel. The external trumpet of Islam is the prophecy of twenty-five hundred and twenty years and the internal trumpet of the third angel is the twenty-three hundred years. Both arrived and sounded at the opening of the judgment of the dead, and both arrived again at the opening of the judgment of the living.

The angel of Revelation ten descended on August 11, 1840 in fulfillment of the prophecy of Islam and in so doing, the angel typified the descent of the angel of Revelation eighteen with a fulfillment of a prophecy of Islam. God’s judgment upon the rebellion of the Sunday law in 321, and then again in 538 is represented by the first six trumpets, and His judgment for the soon-coming Sunday law rebellion is represented by the seventh trumpet, which is the third woe and also the third angel. The warning message of the beginning of the judgment on October 22, 1844 and the warning message of the judgment of the living on 9/11 were both empowered by the seventh angel in the sequence that Jones set forth. Six trumpet angels in chapters eight and nine, then in chapter ten the angel descends who is no less a personage than Jesus Christ. He is the seventh in the sequence of angels, who is followed in chapter eleven by the third woe, which is the seventh trumpet that began to sound in 1844, but is the eighth in the series of angels that lead to the ninth, tenth and eleventh angels in Revelation fourteen.

The third angel’s message cannot be isolated from the first and second angels’ messages, but neither can it be separated from the seven trumpets of God’s judgment upon apostasy. The first four trumpets of judgment in chapter eight of Revelation identify the progressive demise of Western Rome after Constantine’s first Sunday law in 321 and began at his division of the empire into east and west in 330.

The principle of national apostasy bringing national ruin was brought upon Constantine’s nation beginning with the first four trumpets that brought Western Rome to a conclusion by 476. Eastern Rome came to its conclusion in 1453, though it had prophetically lost its national sovereignty on July 27, 1449. Unlike Babylon, who was overthrown in one night, Rome, both western and eastern, was brought to its end progressively. The demise of Western Rome under the first four trumpets by 476 represents the demise of the United States under four trumpets, which at one level represents the four generations of the United States that began in 1798 and end at the Sunday law. Those four generations parallel the four generations of Adventism, which parallel the first four churches of Revelation two, and the four escalating abominations of Ezekiel chapter eight and the four waves of grasshoppers in the book of Joel.

The fifth and sixth trumpets brought down Eastern Rome, and Eastern Rome, in prophetic relation to Western Rome, represents the state. Western Rome represents the church. Western Rome also represents the United States, who is conquered first, as was Western Rome.

The first four trumpets represent the four generations of American history, and when the United States falls, the glorious land of verse forty-one of Daniel eleven has just fallen, and the next obstacle is Egypt, a symbol of the rest of the nations of the world. The United Nations, who are the ten kings, then agree to give their seventh kingdom to the papacy, for ‘a short space—one hour,’ in Revelation seventeen. This occurs at Herod’s birthday party, when he pledges half his kingdom. At Herod’s birthday party, in that hour the handwriting appears upon the plaster of the walls, and Belshazzar is slain. That hour arrives at the Sunday law and continues until the close of human probation. The seventh kingdom is conquered as typified by the destruction of the walls of Constantinople that came down in 1453. From the Sunday law in the United States, as typified by 1449; unto the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is four symbolic years. The papacy received its deadly wound in 1798.

In Daniel eleven verse forty the papacy fell in 1798, at the time of the end. Then the king of the south fell in 1989, at the time of the end. The United States falls in verse forty-one and Egypt falls in verse forty-two and the papacy comes to its second and final fall in verse forty-five.

The fall of the United States (the false prophet) in verse forty-one was typified by 1449, and the fall of Egypt (the dragon) in verse forty-two was typified by 1453 and the papacy (the beast) comes to its end with none to help as typified by 1798. The false prophet and the dragon are brought down by trumpet powers, and the beast is brought down by a dragon power.

The number four is a symbol of the dissolution of a kingdom. Alexander’s kingdom disintegrated into four kingdoms, and Egypt came down in the Red Sea in the fourth generation, and Israel is bowing to the sun in the fourth abomination of Ezekiel eight. The four generations of Protestantism and Republicanism in the earth beast began in 1798 and end at the soon-coming Sunday law for both horns. Ezekiel’s four sore judgments upon Jerusalem illustrate four judgments upon the United States, and those four judgments upon the sixth kingdom of Bible prophecy typify the four years from 1449 unto 1453 when the seventh kingdom of Bible prophecy agrees to give half their kingdom unto the papacy in a church and state relationship that the whore of Tyre reigns over.

The four years of 1449 unto 1453 represent the demise of the seventh kingdom at the Sunday law, and they also represent the period of the demise of the eighth kingdom from the Sunday law unto the close of probation. The conquering of Egypt, who is the world and also the dragon that is given to the papacy, is a fractal at the beginning of the period symbolized by the four years of 1449 unto 1453. This identifies the fall of Constantinople at the Sunday law, and then again when Michael stands up. When Michael stands up the four angels are fully released according to inspiration.

Four divisions of Alexander’s kingdom, four trumpets upon Western Rome, four winds released on Eastern Rome, four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, four winds released when the papacy comes to its end with none to help. With these prophetic symbols set forth, we will consider the second woe in the context of applying it at the soon-coming Sunday law.

In 1439, at the Council of Florence (also called the Union of Florence), representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church (led by the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos and the Patriarch of Constantinople) signed a formal decree of union with the Roman Catholic Church. They agreed to identify the Pope of Rome as the head (supreme authority) of the entire Church.

The Emperor and Patriarch accepted the “Filioque clause” in the Nicene Creed, which was an addition to the Nicene Creed, claiming that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Nicene Creed is one of the most important and widely used statements within the history of the Catholic faith. The Nicene Creed is a formal summary of core Catholic beliefs. It was originally written to defend the truth about who Jesus Christ is. In 325, a major controversy arose because a priest named Arius taught that Jesus was created by God the Father and was not fully God.

Emperor Constantine called the First Council of Nicaea to settle the issue. The council strongly affirmed that Jesus is fully God, “of the same substance” as the Father. The Creed was later expanded at the Council of Constantinople in 381. It is to be noted at this point that the Nicene Creed was established in the history of Constantine the first, and it would be an issue for the last Constantine, who was Constantine the eleventh, who was the last Emperor of the eastern Byzantine Empire. Constantine the Great, who was the first, is repeatedly set forth as a subject in Bible prophecy. He is the ruler at the beginning of the empire of the east and therefore typifies the ruler at the ending of the empire of the east. The fact that the Nicene Creed is an element of both the beginning and ending histories must be noted by a student of prophecy, if they understand the principle of alpha and omega.

In 381, the Nicene Creed was updated with the doctrine of Purgatory, the doctrine of the Eucharist, with the acceptance of the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, which was a Latin practice. The Creed of 381 also accepted the Catholic understanding of original sin and the afterlife. It ended with this key line: “We also define that the holy apostolic see and the Roman Pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world and is the true vicar of Christ.”

At the Council of Florence another updated version was signed on July 6, 1439, 14 years before Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The union was signed under heavy political pressure. The Byzantine Empire was desperate for military help from the West against the advancing Ottomans. When the Greek delegates returned home, the agreement was strongly rejected by the majority of the clergy, monks, and ordinary people in the East. Most of the bishops who signed it later withdrew their support. The union was never fully implemented and was formally repudiated by the Eastern Orthodox Church in the following years. By the time Constantinople fell in 1453, the union had already effectively collapsed. It is often described by historians as a political union that failed due to deep theological, cultural, and popular resistance.

At the First Council of Nicaea of 325, the Nicene Creed was adopted. It is marked five years before the year 330, when the 360 years of Daniel eleven, verse twenty-four, represented as a “time” concluded.

The years 31 BC and 330 both mark the “time appointed” of verses twenty-seven and twenty-nine of Daniel eleven.

The beginning (330) and ending (1449–1453) of the prophetic line of Eastern Rome are represented by the first and last emperors named Constantine. The alpha and omega of the prophetic line of Eastern Rome, called the Byzantine Empire, is connected to the ending of the three hundred and sixty years Imperial Rome ruled supremely from the battle of Actium in 31 BC unto the year 330, and then onward to 1453. Before the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Mark Antony and Augustus Caesar spoke lies at one table that did not prosper. Before the year 330, in 325, the Nicene Creed was adopted. Before the year 1453 the updated version of the very same Nicene Creed was adopted. Before 31 BC two political figures told lies at one table. In 325 the spiritual lies were told at one table. Those two witnesses identify the political and spiritual lies that were adopted in 1439 at the Council of Florence. That updated Nicene Creed was called the Decree of Union.

The first waymark of lies at one table came before 31 BC and was between two political factions of pagan Rome. The time appointed for those lies was 31 BC, and it consisted of Augustus, a symbol of Rome, against a confederacy of a man and woman representing Egypt. The second set of lies was in 325, and the time appointed was 330. The third set of lies was in 1439, and the time appointed was 1449–1453. Those at the table in 1439 represented Western and Eastern Rome, with Eastern Rome seeking a political goal by agreeing to a religious argument. 31 BC, followed by 330 and then 1453, represents a triple application of the line of Rome.

The political threat of the alliance of Mark Antony and Cleopatra typified the spiritual threat of the heresy of Arianism in 325, which in turn typified the political and religious threat of the Islamic Turks in 1439.

The doctrines of the Nicene Creed are lies and there is no truth in them. The document signed on July 6, 1439, at the Council of Florence was called the Decree of Union and represented the same lies and more. When the delegates returned to Constantinople in 1439, they were met with anger and accusations of betrayal. The saying went around: “Better the Turkish turban than the Pope’s mitre.”

The union was signed mainly because the Byzantine Emperor desperately needed Western military help against the Ottomans. Once it became clear that very little (or no) military aid was coming, support for the union evaporated. In 1450–1451, several Eastern synods rejected the union, and after Constantinople fell in 1453, the union was completely abandoned. The ultimate outcome of the Decree of Union of Florence is considered by the Eastern Orthodox Church as a failed and rejected council. It is not recognized as valid. The Roman Catholic Church, however, still considers it a valid ecumenical council.

We are setting the logic to understand how the prophetic characteristics of the second woe are repeated in the history of the third woe. The one-hundred-and-fifty-year prophecy of the first woe began on July 27, 1299, and ended on July 27, 1449.

Constantine XI Palaiologos was born in 1404 and reigned from January 1449 unto May 29, 1453. He was the final emperor of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, which had lasted over 1,100 years. He bravely led the defense of Constantinople during the Ottoman siege in 1453 with only about 7,000 to 8,000 defenders against Mehmed II’s army of 80,000 plus. He died fighting on the city walls on May 29, 1453, when Constantinople finally fell. His body was never conclusively identified. His death marked the end of the Roman Empire (the last direct continuation of the empire founded by Augustus in 27 BC).

He is remembered in Greek history and Orthodox tradition as a heroic figure — often called “the Marble Emperor” in legend (the belief that he will one day return to save Constantinople).

John VIII Palaiologos (1392–1448) was the second-to-last Byzantine Emperor who reigned from 1425 to 1448. He was the eldest son of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and the older brother of Constantine XI. John VIII spent most of his reign desperately trying to save the dying Byzantine Empire from the Ottomans. In 1439, he personally traveled to Italy and presided over the Council of Florence, where he and the Eastern Orthodox delegation temporarily agreed to reunite with the Roman Catholic Church and accept the Pope as head of the Church. Constantine the Great had also presided over the Council of Nicaea. John VIII hoped this union with the papacy would bring Western military help against the Turks, but the union was deeply unpopular back in Constantinople and ultimately failed. John VIII died in 1448 (of natural causes), just five years before Constantinople fell in 1453. His brother Constantine XI then became emperor and died defending the city.

When John VIII died in 1448, his brother Constantine XI was chosen as successor. By 1448 the Byzantine Empire was a tiny vassal state, and the Ottomans had significant influence over who sat on the throne in Constantinople. On July 27, 1449, a very significant political event occurred in the final years of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos had died earlier in 1448. His brother, Constantine XI Palaiologos (the last emperor), was proclaimed emperor in Constantinople. However, before Constantine XI officially ascended the throne, he sent ambassadors to the Ottoman Sultan (Murad II) and requested permission to reign. The Sultan granted that permission, and only then was Constantine XI formally crowned and recognized as emperor. This act was seen as the voluntary surrender of Byzantine independence. For the first time, a Byzantine emperor openly acknowledged that he ruled only by permission of the Ottoman Turks. Just four years later, in 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans.

Three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days after July 27, 1449, on August 11, 1840, the Turks sought protection from Egypt by submitting to the four great European powers, thus fulfilling the prophecy of an hour, day, month and year. We have now set the logic in place to apply the first and second woe at the soon-coming Sunday law. Peter as a symbol of the one hundred and forty-four thousand represents the movement of the third angel, and William Miller represents the movement in the first and second angels. Both movements are associated with “keys.”

We will approach the battle of Nineveh in the next article not only as the “key” that opens the bottomless pit, but also as the prophetic key that aligns the entire testimony of Daniel eleven into perfect order. In Miller’s dream the “key” attached to the casket was Miller’s method of Bible study. Proof texting of the Millerite history combined with “line upon line” in the history of the third angel is the key that allows the key of Revelation nine to unlock and align the hidden history of verse forty’s external message into order.

We will continue our considerations in the next article.