Dave, it is SO COLD in Alaska, I think all of their laws would be "BLUE".
-interesting information you posted about the States and their Blue Laws.

Now when we consider countries that have other forms of government, it becomes even scarier. Take the United Kingdom for example (Parliamentary Democracy). They have had "blue laws" in effect for several decades. These laws require all stores to be closed on Sunday etc. The laws were praised be the majority of the population (including some Adventist leaders!) as being a wonderful step to unifying all religions.

We need to remember that Mr. Robertson is one of the more vocal Christian Evangelicals, however, that does not mean that other Evangelicals do not agree with him.

The common understanding of Revelation among Evangelicals is that Israel is still God’s chosen nation and that they have a Biblical right to the land God promised to Abraham. For example World Net Daily an Evangelical news site sells a book by Bill Koenig “Eye to Eye: Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel.” In his book Mr. Koenig makes the following connections.


“What do these major record-setting events have in common?
• Nine of the ten costliest insurance events in U.S. history
• Six of the seven costliest hurricanes in U.S. history
• Three of the four largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history
• Nine of the top ten natural disasters in U.S. history ranked by FEMA relief costs
• The two largest terrorism events in U.S. history
All of these major catastrophes transpired on the very same day or within 24-hours of U.S. presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush applying pressure on Israel to trade her land for promises of "peace and security," sponsoring major "land for peace" meetings, making major public statements pertaining to Israel's covenant land and/or calling for a Palestinian state.
http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?DEPARTMENT_ID=6&SUBDEPARTMENT_ID=93&ITEM_ID=1676”


Often what we see in the news is just the tip of a very large iceberg. Things are moving quickly and for many people the second coming will be “like a thief in the night”

It does not appear through reading GC that there will be a death sentence for Sunday breakers. The government will simply remove their protection from Sabbath keepers (Sunday breakers), giving the people liberty to kill them. It does not even sound like the government will be the one that actually kills them but rather "the people".

"As the Sabbath has become the special point of controversy throughout Christendom, and religious and secular authorities have combined to enforce the observance of the Sunday, the persistent refusal of a small minority to yield to the popular demand will make them objects of universal execration. It will be urged that the few who stand in opposition to an institution of the church and a law of the state ought not to be tolerated; that it is better for them to suffer than for whole nations to be thrown into confusion and lawlessness. The same argument eighteen hundred years ago was brought against Christ by the "rulers of the people." "It is expedient for us," said the wily Caiaphas, "that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." John 11:50. This argument will appear conclusive; and a decree will finally be issued against those who hallow the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, denouncing them as deserving of the severest punishment and giving the people liberty, after a certain time, to put them to death. Romanism in the Old World and apostate Protestantism in the New will pursue a similar course toward those who honor all the divine precepts."

That's true enough, but how is it that such a scenario doesn't constitute a death penalty? God's servant herself describes it in such terms elsewhere:

"I saw that the four angels would hold the four winds until Jesus' work was done in the sanctuary, and then will come the seven last plagues. These plagues enraged the wicked against the righteous; they thought that we had brought the judgments of God upon them, and that if they could rid the earth of us, the plagues would then be stayed. A decree went forth to slay the saints, which caused them to cry day and night for deliverance. This was the time of Jacob's trouble. Then all the saints cried out with anguish of spirit, and were delivered by the voice of God."
{EW 36.2}

"When this time of trouble comes, every case is decided; there is no longer probation, no longer mercy for the impenitent. The seal of the living God is upon His people. This small remnant, unable to defend themselves in the deadly conflict with the powers of earth that are marshaled by the dragon host, make God their defense. The decree has been passed by the highest earthly authority that they shall worship the beast and receive his mark under pain of persecution and death."
{5T 212.5}

"In the last great conflict of the controversy with Satan those who are loyal to God will see every earthly support cut off. Because they refuse to break His law in obedience to earthly powers, they will be forbidden to buy or sell. It will finally be decreed that they shall be put to death."
{DA 121.3}

The fact that it will be the people who will be given permission to kill sabbathkeepers is really neither here nor there where responsibility is concerned, since the governments will be not only permitting, but *commanding* the people to carry out this decree.

"The decree which is to go forth against the people of God will be very similar to that issued by Ahasuerus against the Jews in the time of Esther."
{5T 450.1}

Esther 3:8,9,12,13
8 "And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them.
9 If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed: and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king's treasuries. . . .

12 Then were the king's scribes called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the rulers of every people of every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus was it written, and sealed with the king's ring.
13 And the letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey."

In Esther's day, the decree ordered the people to destroy the Jews. EGW said that the coming death decree will be "very similar."

"Anti" in Greek means "In Place of" While in English means "Against"

In the powerful chapters "Destroyed for Lack of Knowlege" in Prophets and Kings, and Elder Cotrell's article in the SDABC "The Role of Israel in Old Testament Prophecy" are incredably important in this study and what is happening.

Now these two writings give a general overview, which we tend to only apply to Ezekiel as an excuse not to study that book. We also only accept the overview, but not realize that the macro picture given in these essays can be applied micro to each portion of scripture, and sadly we are too afraid to trust Mrs. White's principles on this topic. This is one of the few places, if not the only place, where Mrs. White (or any prophet for that matter) leaves the usual job of applying Biblical principles to their situation and turns to useing exegesus, which they usually expect us to do on our own. Yet we are afraid of keeping these essays in our mind as we study the Bible.

The book of Deuteronomy gives two plans about how God would use the Jews. First was by using them on a piece of geography which was the junction of all the major trade routes between Europe, Asia and Africa, and what God would do if they were faithful.

If they were not faithful they would get curses, and if they did not work then they would finally be taken into exile. The exile was to be the last days (Deut 4) The Hebrews were to tell their neighbors about their unfaithfulness and God's faithfulness and thus spread the gospel, the exile was to end with the Messiah bringing the exiles home, establishing the messanic kingdom, nations rejecting the truth coming to attack the messanic kingdom and those who had accepted the gospel and the world end.

With this in mind we come to Hezekiah and his reform, illness, healing and the visitors from Babylon...

We think that the message of Hezekiah's illness is "Shut up and do as your'e told" but in the light of Deuteronomy we learn that God wanted Hezekiah to pray for healing and to be healed, to draw the visitors from Babylon, to bring back to Babylon the Gospel so that Hezekiah's reformation could have lead to the evangelism of the world and meet the plan of land theology in Deuteronomy and the events that White and Cottrell wrote in these wonderful pages. Had Hezekiah shared his God with the visitors from Babylon, instead of being the father of the most wicked king Judah ever had, he could have been father or grandfather of the best King that the world ever had, good king Joshua.

Instead of sharing his God, he showed his temporal wealth, and instead of taking the gospel back to babylon, they began laying the work for their decendents to come and get that temporal wealth. Thus "In Place Of" ( or in Greek "anti") Good King Joshua, we had seven periods of rule: Babylon, followed by Medio-Persia, Greece, Rome, The rule of the Church during the Dark Ages, the deadly wound (a period of independent nations and in many personal liberty), but that there is coming a 7th period of rule in place of Christ, and this 7th head will be an attempt for the toes to join together that will ultamately fail and plunge the world in total chaos that God's people get blamed for.

Revelation 18 clearifies that this last union will be through ecconomic cooperation, and Revelation 13 tells us that the power bringing the last healing will come from a part of the world that was not in Biblical times a part of the geo-political powers that had interest in the part of the world where God's temple was.

In the counter reformation, to argue against what Luther was teaching about the papacy, two views were presented, one placing everything in the Bible in the past ONLY, others placing it in the future ONLY. The second was brought into Protestism in the 1800s by John Darby, and mixed with another child of the 1800s, Fundamentalism.

The Christian Fundamentalist-futurists have ignored the "If"s in the book of Deuteronomy and the prophecys of exile theology and focus on land theology only and look for exact fulfillments (as opposed to an application of principles to changing times.) They look for an "Anti-Christ" being a power against Christ, and look to Russia and since there are Arabs living in the land that Israel lived in, and with Christian-Arab friction over the centuries, they assume that the Arabs will be part of the Anti-Christ's hords. Our Fundamentalist-Futerists leaders feel they need to build up the Economic Empire of America for protection against the Anti-Christ.

Now the Arabs have a lot of truth, but like us also have traditons that have formed and sadly, like us, many of our religious tradions have been to encourage selfishness in the name of worshiping God. In their study of the prophecys they see themselves as the heros, with Jesus on their side, and since the Fundamentalist-Futerists Americans are opposing them, they see opposing the American Empire as how to fight against and to protect themselves from the Anti-Christ.

Some of the leaders among both Jews and Arabs are relizing that what they need to do is give up the selfish "Mine" thinking and to develope a Christlike "Our" thinking and an openess to sharing. How much Sharon ended up accpeting this Christ-like method or how much he was just giving into the influenc of these leaders and seeing it as a way to decress the violence, I don't know, but whether done out of pure motives or selfish, Sharon was starting to make what we would consider a right choice.

But the Fundamentalist-Futurist leaders feel that the sharing policy slows down what they are looking for for last day events. This thinking is not limited to Christians but Fundamentalist-Futureist Moslems and Fundamentalist-Futureist Jews are all looking for and pushing for this conflect.

And sadly as we look back at Deuteronomy, Daniel, Revelation, "Destroyed for Lack of Knowlege" and "The Role of Israel in Old Testament Prophecy" we see that the Fundamentalist-Futurist Arabs are setting up for what they expect to happen, and in responce the Futurists-Fundamentalists Christians end up supporting the growth of the power coming out of the land that starts out land like, to end up speaking as the beast as the merchants of the earth (multi-national corporations with multi-national labor unions, originally set up to oppose the first evil but as Mrs. White predicted, ended up compromising with this evil)has people buying their goods from all over the world, even at the expence of the enviorment, and who would be the first to cry when this system fails as Daniel 2 predicts.

And while this is happening, we as conservative Adventists, who have the truth about historism, are being blinded to what's happening by us focusing on what is correctly the 5th head of the beast, but focusing on the 5th head as being the entire beast, and being willing to welcome the beast just as long as he comes from a different direction than the 5th head.