Those who focused on individual presidents or popes must, with every passing president and pope, weave a different story. Imagination is an interesting thing as we see people weaving current presidents and popes into the prophecies only to have to weave a new web with each election and change.
I've been watching people do this for some 20 years.
Once upon a time the hype was all on president Regan. he was the "one".
Then I remember "His Child" going into great detail *based on his supposed discoveries in Daniel" on how Clinton and Al Gore were the fulfillment.
Then Bush Jr. was definitely the last one -- the fourth since Regan. Now new theories abound saying Obama is the last one.
What is the purpose of such speculation?
Granted, one of these times it will be correct, the end will come, but why build on a continuous stream of error?
All that does is lull people to sleep.
Like the shepherd boy that kept calling out "the wolf is coming", and people rushed out to help only to find it was a false alarm. When the wolf actually did come, no one came to help because they didn't believe.
So with all the "last president" studies when presented as if they were the present truth for our times -- so many have failed already that people simply laugh.
How much better to focus ON THE ISSUES!
The issues are building up as prophesied.
Each and every president and pope in the last several decades has contributed more building blocks to build up the issues, however, none were the last, another followed.
Do we focus on the issues (the signs that the end is near) or do we continue to speculate on individuals, sending out failed interpretations after failed interpretations?
Dedication,
Sister White reminds us:
In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God! As I see what the Lord has wrought, I am filled with astonishment, and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.--LS 196 (1902).
The history of ancient Israel is a striking illustration of the past experience of the Adventist body. God led His people in the Advent movement, even as He led the children of Israel from Egypt. In the great disappointment their faith was tested as was that of the Hebrews at the Red Sea. Had they still trusted to the guiding hand that had been with them in their past experience, they would have seen of the salvation of God. If all who had labored unitedly in the work in 1844 had received the third angel's message, and proclaimed it in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts. A flood of light would have been shed upon the world. Years ago the inhabitants of the earth would have been warned, the closing work completed, and Christ would have come for the redemption of His people. {GC88 457.1}
How did God lead His people in 1843?
They were wrong, Jesus did not come.
How did God lead His people in 1844?
They were wrong, Jesus did not come.
How did God lead His people in 1844?
He revealed the Sanctuary message.
God allowed His people to be wrong twice
before they got it right!
But the Sanctuary message is a message of faith.
God's people cannot prove it except by the Scriptures.
And there are many who will not believe it.
In 1843 and 1844, God allowed His people to be wrong twice.
And when their prophetic understanding was right
they could only claim to be right 1/3 of the time
and that part of their prophetic understanding
is counted as wrong by most of the world.
Thus while God has led His people on the right track.
their prophetic understanding was 2/3 wrong in 1843-44
and that part which they believe to be true
THEY CANNOT PROVE IT, but accept it by faith.
For the past 20-years you have held God to a higher standard.
Forgetting that the human vessel is not infallible,
you have demanded a 100% accuracy rate for God's people.
If the prophetic understanding presented is not 100%
all of the time you have been among the first
to call the bearer of the message a false prophet
and to speak and work against the message.
Many times with weeping, I have taken your case to the Lord.
But if you should see the errors of your past,
it may be too late to be of any good for yourself
or those who you have turned from searching for truth.
I know that I called Gore over Bush.
Albert Arnold Gore II (666) George Walker Bush (664)
But when Bush was elected his count changed (President Bush II)
President George Walker Bush II (666)
I know I did not get prophecy right when Bush II was President.
I know I did not get prophecy right when I wrote Benedict was the last pope.
I missed the SOP counsel.
By their fulfillment in these last days they will explain themselves. (7BC 949.6)
But I DID GET PROPHECY RIGHT when Pope Benedict resigned in 2013.
And I could have had it more right if I had studied more.
While the naysayers were saying that Revelation 17 is not about individuals, I was saying it is about 7 popes and Benedict was the last one. He was to reign a short space that could not exceed 7-years (the number of completeness). But He was already in his 8th year.
And now that prophecy in Daniel and Revelation has been fulfilled:
I understood that 2005 (his ascension year was counted as Pope John-Paul II's last year) and that the Babylonian calender goes from spring to spring so he could not be in office past the spring of 2013. He resigned a few weeks shy of New Years Day on the Babylonian calender 2013.
Praise God He gave me prophetic understanding! But alas I could not understand how Pope Francis I fit Revelation 17.
You will never imagine the distress of my soul as I read the entire book of Revelation daily for a month after Francis was selected. Then in agony of spirit I cried out to God,
"I don't understand. You've led me to proclaim before the fact that Benedict would not be pope after the spring of 2013, but I do not understand how Francis I fits the 8 popes in Revelation 17"
While I was weeping in prayer on my knees at my bedside, the Spirit spoke to me: "you are reading the wrong book." and this Spirit of Prophecy explanation came to mind:
Revelation is the supplement of Daniel. (2SM 114.2)
In Revelation 17, Babylon is about to fall.
Babylon had 2 kings and Daniel was made the third ruler as Babylon was about to fall.
The papacy has 2 popes Benedict the retired and Francis. It will soon have a third moments before it falls.
Daniel and Revelation make statements, and expand and explain.
Revelation 16 tells of the three frogs. Rev 17 states the 8th pope will be of the 7 and my study shows it will be John-Paul II, but it would have to be Satan pretending to be J-P II. Thus when the papacy falls: there will be three popes as there were 3 rulers in Babylon.
Then I understood how the hour: 83-years 4-months fit the prophecy.
The Judgment of the dead 22 October 1844 to 22 February 1928.
The papacy received its deadly wound February 1798.
It was dead from 22 October 1844 to 22 February 1928.
The Judgment Hour of the living was to follow. When would it begin? the restoration of the papacy in 1929 had three beginning dates for three different parts of the process.
Judgment begins on the day of Judgment (Yom Kippur)
The papacy was alive in 1929: Yom Kippur 1929 was October 14
The healed papacy (living papal beast) was allotted one hour with the ten American Presidents.
The living papacy with one solo pope ruling was to be alive
from 14 October 1929 to 14 February 2013.
Thus Pope Benedict resigned 2/11/13 effective 2/28/13.
I remember how God has led His people in the past. He put them on the right trail and let them get it wrong to build their faith in His word because:
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
I know how God has led me in the past and how He is leading me now. And I know how hard I have tried to study with the brethren and sisters, and how Satan has had me to mis-speak or those to whom I was speaking to mis-hear. And how hard the devil has worked to destroy me.
(November 2009 the bank took my house. My wife left with the kids. Alone, I fought to stay there. God interceded and they paid me $5000 to move. Then at 12 noon on 4/27/2010 I published my book Echoes of Doomsday showing among other things that natural disasters are increasing because GW set up an abomination that makes desolate 9/20/01. A tornado took the roof off that house at 6 pm 4/27/2010, 6 hours after the book came out.)
I had given a neighbor, my pastor, one of my books. He said he would read it. I prayed for him often. A few weeks before the tornado I asked if he had read the book. He said no but he would get to it. The way he said it was if ever I get to it. I was impressed to stop praying for him. The tornado ruined his house. It looked perfect on the outside from the front. But the back wall gone and the inside was totaled. I told him I had stopped praying for him. he asked why. I told him I had prayed for a lady and she died. He had a huge belly laugh and said "pray for me anyways." I did and he dropped dead while on a mission trip in south America. I learned later that the lady's prayer group was praying for him the moment he died. "Lord we love out pastor, but he is not meeting the needs of our church. Please send us a pastor of your calling." His death has shaken those women to this day. Though none of us prayed for his hurt, we know the power of prayer.
I know that God is in charge of His work and we need to pray and be careful that we pray for God's will to be done in all things. And it is written:
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
“Not all who proclaimed the first and the second angel’s message are to give the third, even after they fully embrace it, for some have been in so many errors and delusions that they can but just save their own souls, and if they undertake to guide others, they will be the means of overthrowing them… They would have to be…freed from all their errors, or they could never enter the kingdom.” (EW 62.1)
