Built Upon the Sand

Good morning once again. Good morning. Yes, it's good to have Brother Gerhard back with us.

And so, we will, without any further ado, get started with our message today, which I have titled, Built Upon the Sand. Now, most references when we make reference to this parable of Jesus building upon the rock and upon the sand, we emphasize being built on the rock, because the rock is Jesus. Amen.

But today, we're going to be looking some more at the other side of that, because we're kind of looking back in the recent history, and we will understand what it looks like to have built on the sand. So, to begin with, just starting with the parable that Jesus gave, and everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened to a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell.

And great was the fall of it. So, we're talking about building an edifice. What kind of a house is he talking about? A literal house, or a? Sure, it's a spiritual house, to be sure.

And I think we can see, as we go on, that it's especially in the context of the church, the house of God's people. Yes, and if there is spoken about winds, wind is always turbulent times, war times. Exactly.

Let me say end times, right? So, the setting is clear. It's in the end. Exactly, and that's the circumstance that we find ourselves in now, and especially in the last several years, since the coronavirus time.

And if we recall some of those circumstances back in 2020, you remember the empty streets, all of the lockdowns everywhere, and the mask mandates, the distancing, everybody had to be isolated. Even the children were subjected to this kind of treatment. And now we're in a special time that we've been talking about.

It's the day of the Lord. Yes, maybe we should do at this time a short recap, because we had two sermons so far since that May 28th. Right. And what did we cover, since that time, because it's important to just recap, we had the day-year principle. We spoke about it, because people always say, hey, we are the 28th came. What happens? No, the day is in the prophecy like a year.

Right. Vice versa. It's not just one day, but extending through the whole year, you have to watch.

Then we spoke about the 10 virgins, because this is now the time where they wake up and where everyone decides where to buy oil. What was the oil? What is the oil? This is knowledge for this coming year. It's very important.

And this, what we do today is also a special knowledge, a special portion to build your faith upon the strengths in this year, because it's the year of the great time of tribulation. This was also in the last two services. What is the difference between the little time and the great time of trouble? So it's important to know these things.

It's very important because each sermon is built upon the next one. Right. So then we had this 372 days, which are in front of us and have it in mind.

This is seven days plus 365 days. We will hear it today. But the seven days of Noah in the ark while no rain fell.

How important this is. Right. Exactly.

We're going to look at something that happens. Very important. In the earth.

We'll talk about that. And on that seventh day. So the 372 days, like Gerhard mentioned, is divided into seven days and then a full year of 365 days.

Right. And on that seventh day, there was a situation that happened in the United States, and it was maybe not so well publicized, but it's very important. Do you perhaps recognize this man? He was almost a household figure back in 2020 and 2021, because he was at the forefront, the public face of the lockdowns, all the measures that were taken.

He was the one, the head scientist that everyone looked to, to understand how we should deal with this coronavirus. And here he is in the Congress in the United States giving a sworn testimony. He's being questioned by many people there in the Congress.

And I just wanted to show some clips of some things that he says in defense of himself and some of the concerns and responses of the people as well. This is Dr. Fauci. He's the responsible man if a pandemic breaks out for the U.S. The man. We want to ultimately understand where this is in the prophecy.

And I've already mentioned a little bit that seventh day of Noah, because that was the day this took place, exactly on the seventh day after May 28th. We'll look at it more precisely. But first: Herd immunity, as we know, means if you have a virus that doesn't change and a virus in which when you get infected or vaccinated, you have highly durable, perhaps lifelong immunity.

That's not the case with COVID. We know immunity wanes and we have multiple variants. So this is just a little place where he's explaining this concept of herd immunity.

And you might remember from 2020 when the vaccines were first coming out, there was all this talk about herd immunity. We have to get everybody vaccinated so that if we have enough people vaccinated, we'll get over the hump and then it won't be a problem anymore with the coronavirus. But it was a lie, obviously.

Exactly. Now he's explaining the situation. No, sorry.

In looking back on it, you can't even have herd immunity with this kind of a virus because it changes too quickly. And so it's always changing. And that's been our experience over the last few years.

But it's important to understand this because God's people, who should they follow? God or a man? The science that he stands for is not a consistent, solid foundation. That's the point. That's why we're talking about building on a foundation of a rock or sand.

The sand changes. When the floods come, the sand washes away. And therefore, he was in front of the Congress, I think, right? Yes.

So that they questioned him. Was this now correct? What was done? Or was it not correct? Right. And it appears that it was not.

And yet, the churches, and I'll show you an example of this, the churches acted in line with the herd immunity concept of getting everyone vaccinated so that we can get the herd immunity that we need. So we'll come back to that in just a little bit. But we want to see where this is in the flow of prophecy.

Yes. And one question from the audience was in the last week, when is the second war over? How do we know that? Is there any event or is there any better explanation of those verses in Revelation 11? Right. And therefore, we pick that up and explain that first so that you know, surely, where we are in prophecy. Right.

And we've seen already how the second woe is directly related to the vaccination theme. We've looked at that in great detail. And now, we've also seen how the timelines point to this transition into the day of the Lord.

And we should be able to look at these concluding verses of the second woe and understand how they are being fulfilled. So, beginning in verse 12, we have pictured here the two witnesses in heaven. And looking at the path of the comets from the sign of the Son of Man, this is comet K2.

Yes. And comet E3. But looking at them continuing on in time after the present, just to give you the sense of their direction.

Because it fits with what God says in Revelation 11 verse 12. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, come up hither. And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them.

So, what is the cloud? Yeah, that's a question for the audience as well. Well, the comets represent the clouds. And their ascending to heaven is depicted by the path and how both the paths go from the witness up, up into heaven, when you have it in the upright orientation for each one.

So, that just shows the setting. They're being called up to heaven, ascending to heaven. That's the direction they're going, ascending up.

The spiral ends anywhere they are. Yeah, it just basically goes round and round and round and round, gets tighter and tighter. Same thing for both of them.

And so, that is how they are shown to be ascending. In the next verse, in verse 13, it mentions the same hour. So, that's the same hour as that May 28th transition, because that was the end of the period of the two witnesses, when they would hear that voice.

That's at this 28th of May. Yes. Now, everyone can ask the same question, what is the hour in the prophecy? Is it one hour on our clock, or is it something different? So, we have different ideas of an hour, because you have to look at a certain clock.

The Orion clock would have seven years as one hour. But what is the shortest interpretation of one prophetic hour? A prophetic hour is 15 days. Exactly.

So, it's the same principle as the day-year principle. That's where that 15 days come from. If you take a day, it's 24 hours, and the day represents a year.

So, that means a year is 360 days, the prophetic year, and you divide that into 24 hours, and you come to 15 days. So, within 15 days, we could search if this text gets fulfilled. Exactly.

Let's read it first. Yes. So, and the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell.

And in the earthquake were slain of men 7,000, and the remnant were affrighted and gave glory to the God of heaven. So, the first thing that's mentioned is this great earthquake. Prophetic earthquake, because people, what did they do? I saw it in the last week.

They posted around and searched around where was an earthquake, where was an earthquake. Right. So, if there's a prophetic earthquake, in a prophetic book, it's not a literal earthquake.

It's always easy to find a literal earthquake, though, because they're happening all the time. All the time. So, quake, what is this? Of course, this is a certain kind of shaking.

It's a shaking, a disturbance. Yes, an event which is shaking a certain area. Right.

And this is the nice thing in the same word as also the earth. So, what is earth in the prophecy? I think you have a slide for it.

Yes. I do have a few slides on that. This is the hour that we're talking about from May 28th to June 11th.

But let's just look at what the Bible means when it says earth. Yes. And in order to understand what it means when it says earth, we look at a little, a couple of verses from Revelation 13 in contrast.

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, not the earth, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea. Now, we look at Revelation 17, and it says specifically what these waters of the sea represent. Right.

And he saith unto me, the waters which thou sawest, where the horse diddeth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. So, where in the world are there a large group of many different nations, and peoples, and languages, and all of that? And don't forget Revelation was given to John in about the year 90 after Christ. And what did the people know there? Which countries did they know? And which countries did they not know? Because this was given in that context.

So, which area in the world was populated, and the people at the time knew about it? So, a lot of tribes, and peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. This is standing for Europe. Right.

A sea of all of this mixture of people, all of these nations, and languages all together. So, yeah, it tells us pretty clearly in the Bible that the waters of the sea represent the nations of Europe. So, now we look at the earth.

This is in contrast to the sea. And in Revelation 13, again, it says, And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth. So, here we have a contrast.

It's not in Europe, but it's on the earth. And it's not fully populated, but the contrary is less populated. If the waters represent people, and nations, and tongues, then there must be few people, and few nations, and not many tongues where it's referring to the earth.

And so, it's pretty clear then, especially you mentioned in John's time, that there were very few people living in the new world at that time of John. And, of course, for centuries, it was still very sparsely populated. It was, therefore, likened to the earth, a desert place without many people, without that water.

If you are raised in Europe, you're used to the environment, and the culture of all of the different languages. Many people speak multiple languages. Whereas for me, I grew up in the new world, and it's a big area, and all there is is one nation, one language, and you have a totally different... This variety is not there.

Exactly. It's definitely this contrast between the waters of the sea in Europe versus the earth and the dry land. Yes, in the United States, especially.

You could say inclusive of South America as well, but in this particular case, when we're talking about this great earthquake, we can see that it's something that's happening in the United States. And that is what I just showed you a clip from, when the top scientist, a few years after this huge global catastrophe, then he says, oh yeah, well, we didn't really have even a chance of herd immunity. And we'll see a couple of other clips that change our perspective about that as well.

Mask mandates for children under five, there's scientific evidence supporting that. There was no study that did masks on kids before. You couldn't do the study.

You had to respond to an epidemic that was killing four to 5,000 Americans per day. The issue of the six foot distance, and I made the statement that it just appeared, and that got taken like, I don't know what's going on. It just appeared.

It actually came from the CDC. The CDC was responsible for those kinds of guidelines for schools, not me. So when I said that it just appeared, it appeared.

Was there any science behind it? What I meant by no science behind it is that there wasn't a controlled trial. But once we realized that the virus was not spread by droplets and was aerosolized, did you feel an indication to go back to the CDC and said, let's base this on science. Let's get rid of this six foot rule.

Once the new data came available, we did not see a change of course. So there's just a couple of examples of how Dr. Fauci was exonerating himself saying, I'm not responsible. That was the other guys.

And then you hear the concerns following up, well then why didn't you, when we learned the reality, which was that it wasn't based on science, why didn't you then go back and say, okay, it's not important that we have this six foot rule or that we mask up the children. There was no basis for those things. If a new disease came or if a new pandemic is coming, then of course you do something at the moment.

But as soon as you recognize this makes all no sense, then you should stop the thing. And this was not done also. On the contrary, it was even promoted more later on that, especially with the masking and all of this, it's only progressed and wasn't reversed or repealed.

And so it shows that there was something else going on. But now this is coming out in a sworn testimony before the Congress of the United States. That's a shaking of the foundations.

Remember, this herd immunity was the basis for many people getting [vaccinated] push, push, push, get everybody vaccinated so we can achieve herd immunity, herd immunity. But then it turns out, oh, you can't do that. It doesn't work.

And we are speaking or we are searching about the fulfillment of this one verse that is talking about this earthquake. Yes. Now this is in the U.S. And this was a shaking event.

If one has the time, watch the three hours where all those people ask him about certain questions. Yeah. They were all jumping on him.

This was an earthquake because the people believed him. Absolutely. And he was in the news the last years all that time.

Not just the U.S. Others listened to them. But this room was full of tension. It was really an earthquake when it came up that this was mainly all a fake.

Right. And it fits the time frame within this one hour, which is 15 days, more or less in the middle. Even on the seventh day, this was June 3rd of 2024.

That's the seventh day from May 28th. So just like the seven days before the year, like Noah entered into the ark and was there for seven days until the door closed and rains fell. And have that in mind, the door closed because there is also a very sad part here, how it is seen, how the door is closing.

Yes. That's where we're coming next. So understand now the earthquake is about the prophetic earth, the United States especially, and the quake being a shaking going on in the United States, shaking of the foundations that took place in this coronavirus time.

And the 10th part of the city fell. We've talked in our articles about how the New World Order plan of the Jesuits basically divides the whole world into 10 segments. And so in that context, you can understand the 10th part of the city, the city being Big Babylon.

Yeah, modern Babylon, the whole world, the global village, if you will. And the 10th part of it is then one region, such as the United States. So in the earthquake were slain of men 7,000.

That's the next part that we want to look at. And that hints to Christ. Christ has the number seven, many, thousands, many.

So we're talking about many Christians. Correct. And first of all, we do not speak about 7,000 literal men because it's again in the prophetic book.

Right. This must have meaning. So 7,000 is seven times many because thousand is a picture for many.

And seven is the number of Christ, a completion. So we can say many Christians. Exactly.

So now we're looking at how did the churches respond to this coronavirus situation? Did they build their house on the rock or on the sand? And so I'm going to use the Seventh-day Adventist church as an example. But others too, just to say. Exactly.

I just use this as a familiar example to me, but it's universal throughout all of the Christian churches. Now, the Seventh-day Adventist church is especially known for their health message and their emphasis on health. And the church put out an official statement on October 25th of 2021.

So get that in context. This is now about 10 months or so after the initial vaccinations were being rolled out. So a lot of time had passed.

Many, many people had already gotten vaccinated. And the church put out this statement of position. It was actually the third one, I believe, that they wrote reaffirming the Seventh-day Adventist church's response to COVID-19.

I just want to highlight part here. It says, as a denomination, we have advocated the synergy of a healthy lifestyle and responsible immunization for more than 100 years. In the light of the global magnitude of the pandemic, the deaths, disability, and long-term COVID-19 effects that are emerging in all age groups, we encourage our members to consider responsible immunization and the promotion and facilitation of the development of what is commonly termed herd immunity.

And now we know it's a fake. And this is in October of 2021. They're still pushing this herd immunity idea, even after variants started emerging and more aspects like that that should have directed the attention away from that.

But they're still using the herd immunity to push the people to get immunized from COVID. So this is a sad aspect when the church, known for its healthy lifestyle, promoting healthy lifestyle, is in the official channels. I didn't list off all of the general conference, all of the head bodies in the church, the top official bodies in the church, religious liberty, public affairs, all of these different ones, including the well-known Loma Linda University Health Center, all of these different groups within the church coming together and promoting the COVID vaccination.

There was even one point more. I just say it because the church has pushed this ideology also with the love topic. If you love your neighbor, you need to get vaccinated because with this, you show the love.

This was not the real showing of love because in the end, we see this was a fake. And as you know, our understanding of the threefold tests, we will come to that, but this was even affecting and changing the DNA of a person. And this is a gift from Eden, right? We will see.

It's just that it is clear in the context. They promoted something that kills you in not just literally, but maybe also in the spiritual way. Exactly.

So, unfortunately, they showed, along with all the other churches that supported the vaccination drives, they were based on the shifting sands, the unstable foundation. And in fact, the Adventist Health Department was even host to the COVID-19 vaccination clinic. They had their own vaccination clinic with the motto, believe there is hope, and then in white, be the hope.

So, very much encouraging and promoting the man-made vaccination rather than looking to God to use the natural means that he has given everybody in their own immune system to overcome. Jesus said, a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

Wherefore, by their fruits you shall know them. And now we see the fruits. The fruits are, they did not build upon the rock, but upon the sand.

And what is the rock? The rock is Jesus. The rock is the creator. And again and again and again, from Eden, from the creation came the first test, the Sabbath, the marriage test, also from Eden, and the creation test where the DNA was created in Eden.

This was touched here now. You do not touch what God set in stone. You do not touch those things.

We have to respect what God has reserved in his own capacity as the creator. I always say, people are doing like this with this DNA vaccination, right? They say to God, what you did 6,000 years before was not okay. Come on, God, we help you out a little bit, right? We change your master plan in the DNA, right? We help you a little bit, dear God.

And God said, no, everything was perfect. So don't touch those holy things. Right.

It's never a good idea. That's the point. Exactly.

So this is actually prophesied in the symbolism of another Bible story, a very well-known Bible story in Daniel, chapter three, where King Nebuchadnezzar makes an image of gold. So we'll just look at a few verses here. Verse 15.

Now, if you be ready, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornets, flutes, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made well. But if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace. And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? So Nebuchadnezzar is being very defiant toward God in this.

But we're going to look at this and understand more clearly how this applies. And we'll see, does it apply to the vaccination theme? Does it apply to the LGBT or gay marriage theme? Or does it apply to the Sabbath? We have to look at some of these characteristics and understand what is this story really pointing to directly. But let's look at what, you know the story, the Nebuchadnezzar was talking to those three Hebrews.

As king of Babylon. Yeah, the king of Babylon was angry because he got a report that there were these three who wouldn't bow down. And so he gave them another opportunity.

And then their response to him was, if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace. That was their punishment or consequence if they didn't bow down. And he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.

The symbolism that the Bible uses for a furnace is it's a symbol for affliction, enduring affliction. And that points to a time of trouble, a time of plagues also. And it's Michael, represented by Orion, who stands up and delivers his people from that tribulation, from those plagues.

Yes, because King Nebuchadnezzar even asked specifically, who is the guy who can deliver you? Right. The word says deliver. And here in Daniel 12, as an answer, if you want, who can deliver? And at that time, my people shall be delivered.

So the same word, who is that God that can deliver you from my hand, Nebuchadnezzar said. And here's the answer in Daniel 12, at that time shall my people be delivered when Michael stands up. Everyone that shall be found written in the book.

So the question now is, when was this image established? And we can connect this with what we talked about last week, how the Pope in 2015 went to the United Nations, and he gave a symbolic address, basically showing that he's the big boss on top of all of the United Nations. So he, therefore, would represent Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the whole realm. Nebuchadnezzar, the king, made an image of gold, whose height was, get this, three score, that's 60 cubits, and the breadth thereof, six cubits.

And it only mentions one dimension because it's square. So the breadth is also measured in this direction. Six, and six, and that's 60.

So you have three times the six. Exactly. The statue itself represents already six, six, six.

Exactly. He set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. So there's Nebuchadnezzar's golden image.

This was in 2015, just the beginning. That was when Nebuchadnezzar, Pope Francis, spoke before and said, okay, let's make this image. And so from then in 2015, that's the beginning of that seven-year period, Orion Hour, that began in 2015, and it concludes in 2022 with the Pandemic Treaty.

That was the year when the Pandemic Treaty was drafted, and that was a very important year. That was then when the image was set up, all right? So first, Nebuchadnezzar set up the image, and then what did he do? He gathered all the people together, and they all bowed down, all right? So the Pandemic Treaty is the brainchild of the World Health Organization, and we already saw the 666 in the statue, and it's also there, as you may be familiar if you've seen many of our presentations, in connection with the World Health Organization. The logo is reflected in a little bit of an abstract way in the Horologium constellation.

We've got this serpent around the pole, and here we have the path of the comet, making a spiral also around the pendulum of the clock. And there are three crossings from February 20th to May 28th, then we have that transition into the Day of the Lord until June 4th of 2025. At each time, they're crossing the six o'clock hour, because that's where the pendulum is hanging down.

So six, six, six, each time it's crossing that six o'clock hour. And these were key dates where the WHO did something important. Last week we talked more extensively about those dates and their significance.

Who is the director of the World Health Organization? Difficult name, I cannot pronounce it. Tedros. Tedros, that's the easy one.

Here's the guy, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. But it's interesting, it's almost like Jesus. And in fact, when you look at the meaning of the names, it's very eye-opening.

All three of his names are very significant. Tedros means gift of God. Interesting.

Adhanom means he saved them. Now it's getting really thick. And sorry, that should be his last name there.

Ghebreyesus means servant of Jesus. So in fact, it is the name of Jesus in his very name. Of course, is this talking about Jesus Christ? By his fruits.

By his fruits, you know. And in fact, we can say, like in 1 John 2, verse 18, John says, little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time.

They are those who are against Christ or in place of Christ. So looking at these names, he's not really the servant of Jesus, but the servant of the anti-Jesus, the antichrist. And therefore, we understand this, you have to look at it in the opposite perspective.

The servant of the antichrist or the antichrist saves them, the gift of the antichrist. So it's the antichrist who is giving this gift of the leader of the World Health Organization. But let's put this now into the whole picture.

We've seen this chart a few times already. We won't go into a lot of detail except to say on the top, we have the long period of Adventist church history from the 1840s all the way until 2015. And then on the bottom, we saw how it is the same reflection of the pattern, but now going backward through it and only looking at those key times as individual years, bringing us to the present year, 2024.

In that time, we have these golden triplets that represent those key times. It's a detailed study and there's a lot that is based on it, but it's hard to explain it every time because we don't have that time. So 1888 to 1890 was a very important time in the church history and also in the national history in the United States.

This was a time when the Sabbath was called into question. It was made a test for the people, especially those who understood that the Sabbath is on Saturday and not on Sunday because there was a very strong push in the United States and even other places around the world for Sunday, pushing a bill in Congress, for example, for Sunday rest. And I just want to look at that a little bit more.

This is an article in Spectrum magazine talking about Adventists in American courts and the Sunday Law cases. And this is talking now about the Sunday Law in the 1880s or that time frame. And just looking at a part in that article, it's a very nice article, Sunday Law prosecutions flourished in Arkansas, Tennessee, and many parts of the United States.

As one website notes, Scoles, he was one of the people that was involved in a court case about the Sabbath and his convictions on keeping the Sabbath instead of Sunday. And that was the first of at least 21 Sunday Law prosecution cases in Arkansas alone in the late 1880s. So this was a significant development in those times.

Almost all of the defendants appear to have been Adventists. They were the ones who had a lot at stake about this. It was a very core doctrine in the Adventist church.

Many more Adventists in Tennessee were convicted of Sunday Law violations placed in chain gangs and subjected to hard labor. Back in the day when they still had the chain gangs, literally tying all the people together in chains and giving them hard labor to do. And why? Because they were found in one case, they were painting the outside of their church on Sunday.

And the law was you must rest and not do your work on Sunday. And in fact, there are still some of those, they call them blue laws in existence in the various states that they're not enforced, but they're still there on the books. In some cases, they have taken them away, but many are also still there.

One early 20th century author counted over 100 Seventh-day Adventists in the United States and about 30 in foreign countries who were prosecuted for quiet work performed on the first day of the week. So they weren't doing anything like really in your face or something like that, just quiet work. But their neighbors saw them and ended up reporting them.

And it resulted in fines and costs amounting to $2,200. Yeah, in that time, surely a lot of money, of course. "...imprisonments totaling 1,438 days and 455 days in the chain gangs." I just wanted to point out how there were real consequences for the people in the 1880s. Have you ever heard of anyone going to jail or being forced to serve in hard labor for breaking the Sunday? Nowadays? Yeah, today it's not, it doesn't happen. Therefore, this was the test at that time.

Exactly. And in a very specific place. Exactly.

This was the test for that era, the Sunday law test. And it was pretty small. Locally.

It was just in the United States. But a valid test. Absolutely.

Just that it is clear. If the government says, don't work on Sunday. But Jesus says, you should work six days.

Exactly. But not on the Sabbath day. So you should work on Sunday.

Exactly. Says the Lord. And the government says, do it not.

In other words, take two rest days. Take your Sabbath and take the Sunday and work then on Monday till Friday. This is what the people say.

But the Lord says work six days. Right. So therefore, Adventists had at that time, a big problem.

Exactly. It's important to understand that this was a bill that was actually presented to Congress to make it a national law. However, there was an Adventist preacher by the name of Alonso T. Jones, who testified in Congress so that it didn't pass in the end.

And so time went on and the Sunday law issue subsided. But then something else came up in 2015. And that's when the LGBT issue came to the forefront as the Supreme Court in the United States legalized gay marriage.

And there's at least one face that made it to the news for being jailed because of her conviction on this point. And that was Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky, was jailed in 2015 for refusing to sign a marriage license for two same-sex couples. Bakeries.

People had to close their shops. Exactly. There were other businesses and many more effects.

I highlighted her because she was actually put in jail because of her conviction. Later, they did make an allowance for conscientious objection so that somebody in her position as the clerk could say, I'm not going to sign that contract, the marriage license, and they would have another person without that conflict to sign it. But she went to jail for that.

But did this reach the whole world? It certainly affected many, like you mentioned, businesses and the bakeries and different companies. But if you look at this map, and this is from Our World in Data, the red areas are those areas that have laws very much against LGBT rights and equality, whereas the blue and green are in the direction of acceptance of LGBT equality. So you can see there's certainly a lot greater area than the Sabbath issue was, but it's still not worldwide.

What about the third test? We've looked now at the two, but now we have this last one with the number of the beast. How does that compare in terms of how widely supported it was by the nations? Here is a similar map, also from Our World in Data. And it shows the vaccinations as a function of the color.

In Africa, they didn't have as many, and so it's a pale green. But they're all always green, more or less. They've all administered some vaccination. There's not one country anywhere that abstained. The whole world was involved in this. And this is what we want to show.

From a little point, not many people involved, to a bigger test, to a worldwide test. And what does the image in Daniel 3 represent? Which one of those three? Does it point to just one little portion of one little province of Babylon, or was it all of the provinces that he gathered? It was the whole kingdom of Babylon. And so if we look at that now in the prophetic sense, the whole kingdom of Babylon is the world.

So this is the only one which fits that example in Daniel chapter 3. Now the three Hebrews were put into the fiery furnace because they refused to bow down to that image of Nebuchadnezzar. And we see a furnace in the heavens. And this relates to a specific verse in the harvest passage.

We talked about this many weeks ago. This angel that came out from the altar, we see in the heavens. It goes through the furnace.

Yeah, it goes even to three places. This place here is a sculpture here and here. This harvest text is a description of an event which you see in the heavens.

And among those harvest texts, there's one who checks out the earth. Simply who checks out the earth. He comes from the temple and goes through the earth and is checking the fruits.

Are the grapes really ripe for harvest? Yes. So he checks here. And as we stated often, this here is the DNA because here's Christ on the cross.

Blood and water flowed out of Jesus, from the side wound. So what is this horrible creature here, which stands for Satan, right? What is he doing? He is deviating the normal blood flow and he's grabbing it to his side. This was the vaccination issue.

And it's changing the DNA, which is mainly seen in the blood. So this was [how comet] S4 checked out what is going on on the earth in this particular case. And he has to say, well, the whole world was affected by the thing.

Then as we see the path. Then it comes here and this is an idol. It's an image.

Image. Just like the number, the image, which is the marriage thing, the homosexual issue, the LGBT issue. He checked also this one, who is for the grape harvest, who is for the wheat harvest.

How did the people decide? And of course, it goes back and we have here the furnace, which we are speaking about in Daniel 3. Exactly. Yeah. It's a chemical furnace where they would change the makeup of something, trying to make gold out of it.

And therefore we have the golden statue. Exactly. Making gold out of it.

Yes. And of course, big pharma is also a gold making industry. Absolutely.

But the interesting thing is after this check, this angel is crying to the one who has the sickle. Of course, physically, this is Jesus Christ. He's reaping the earth.

Either it's a good wheat or it's a bad grape. Right. And the interesting thing is that S4 is going into the wine press.

Right here. After the 27th or 28th of May. Directly there where the trampling is taking place.

Yes. And therefore, this Daniel 3 is so important because of the furnace. Right.

The furnace then is connected with the three men who stood faithful. And it's about the trial that they went through. So these three were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Those were their Hebrew names. And then Nebuchadnezzar changed their names. But it's interesting when we look at their name.

You know, the name represents one's character. And so in the context, we're talking about three characters who withstood and were delivered from the trial. And so we look at their names and we can understand something about how that relates to these tests also.

Hananiah means Yahweh is gracious or Yahweh has been gracious. So if we think of that in the context of these three tests, the first test was the Sabbath test in 1880s. And that was when Alonzo T. Jones spoke in Congress and they didn't sign the bill.

So it didn't pass. Yahweh was gracious. Yahweh was gracious.

It didn't pass. It didn't succeed. And so Hananiah represents those who had the character in that time to withstand that test.

Mishael means who is what God is or who is like God. So it's a comparison with God. It's very similar to Michael, Micha-el, which has a very similar meaning, who is like God. It can be a question or a statement, who is like God or one who is like God. And that's why Michael is another name for Jesus in a different role, because that's the one who is like God. But what does this have to do with the next test? What was that next test? The image.

It was about the image. It's a contrast between what Genesis says, which is, God made man in his own image, male and female, he created them in his own image. And so we see it's about who is like God, who is in his image.

Is it the gay marriage that's in God's image, or is it his Edenic marriage? And so that was the test. Those who understand what God is like, and they respect the creation order, they have that character of Mishael. The third one is Azariah.

His name means Yahweh has helped, or Yahweh is my help. And this then would relate to the last one, the last test, the present test. And who is our help? We read it already.

Michael. Michael stands up for the deliverance of his people, to deliver his people. And this great time of tribulation in which we are now, out of that tribulation, only one can help.

It is only Jesus who can help. Right. And this third test was worldwide, and what we have to expect will still be not smaller, but again, worldwide.

It doesn't matter what comes. It will be worldwide if we think on what the WHO has in plan with this vaccination passport, that you cannot even travel anymore if your health is not in order, and so on. So this is again worldwide.

Only Jesus can help you out of that. Right. You'll remember in the story, after they were put in the fiery furnace, the tribulation time, this year of the Lord, who else was there? Jesus.

Jesus. He was in the midst of it. The one who was there to help them.

So we see how these three Hebrew men represent three classes of people, three characters. And three tests. And three tests.

Hananiah with the character that represents those who would stand in that test, but it didn't materialize that time because God was gracious. And it was little and local. Yes.

The next bigger one? But now we see that it is really global, encompassing the whole world, and this is, therefore, we can be sure that this is the test. It's not the LGBT test, and it's not the Sabbath test. Those were for their time.

They were limited in their scope, but they didn't reach the proportion that the story of Nebuchadnezzar teaches. Nebuchadnezzar's story says it was the whole realm of Babylon. All of the princes in the provinces all came together.

And we mentioned how there was a signal. What was the signal? The music. They would play the music.

When you hear the music, then you bow down. Now, does that fit with the Sabbath test? Was there one signal, and then everybody in the world, or even if you took it locally, then everybody has to keep Sunday? No. This is a periodical thing.

Every week, you have to respect the Sunday law. So it doesn't fit. It wasn't one signal for everybody to bow down at one time.

No. What about the LGBT issue? Kim Davis had two different couples coming in, wanting their marriage license signed. This happens all the time, every day.

So that also doesn't fit. It's not one signal, and then everybody has to bow down. It doesn't fit that pattern. But what about with the pandemic situation? Then it's the World Health Organization, and what do they do? They say, World, we have a pandemic. We have to have new lockdowns.

We have to have all these regulations, and you follow all these procedures. You wear masks and do all these things. That's the signal.

Then everybody bows down. Yes, WHO, we obediently comply with everything that you tell us. Yes, and there is an idiom that makes it clear.

In English, I think it's to dance to someone's tune. Yeah. As soon as the WHO plays the sound and says, now it's time for a pandemic, you do this.

Yes. And therefore, it's the pandemic treaty. Therefore, are these rules which they signed recently.

Therefore, is this digital health system set up to play the flute, right? And then everyone has to dance according to their sound. Exactly. Yeah.

So what we see is that this story in Daniel points specifically to this third test. This is the one that fulfills the image, which in Revelation is also a key symbol, the image of the beast. That's something we'll talk about more next week.

But there's one other character in the story who's missing. Daniel. And Daniel represents a different class.

Just as he made it away from this story, he represents those of the Church of Philadelphia, whom Jesus gave this promise to in Revelation 3:10. Because thou has kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation. That's this hour when all of these things are coming together, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth.

So Daniel represents this Church of Philadelphia. He was simply not there. He wasn't there.

He was spared from that furnace of affliction, that trial. Right. So that concludes our study for today.

And next week, I'm excited about that. I think we'll have a very interesting time looking more at the details of the image of the beast and what Revelation has to say about that. All right? It's enough for today.

I think so. All right, let's stand for a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the clarity that you give in your word.

As we see the things unfolding and we understand by your prophecy where we are according to the words of Scripture, then we know that we have a solid foundation in Christ. And when we act on his words and we take heed to the things that we hear, then you protect us. You protect your people who hear your voice.

And we just thank you for that. We praise your name for that precious guidance, especially at this time in history when there's so many lies and so much confusion. Your word gives us a light in the darkness and opens the way.

It's truly a light to our path so that we can know the way in which to walk and have confidence in your leading. So we praise you for that. And we ask for your spirit to multiply the bread that we are breaking, that many people will be nourished from it and likewise come to the understanding and the stability that your word gives in these unstable times.

So we thank you for all that you do and for your guidance. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.