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Kings Of The North - Amazing Discoveries

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THE KING OF THE NORTH AT JERUSALEM<br />

over the Sabbath.<br />

In His Second Advent sermon, Jesus said: “When you therefore shall see the abomination of<br />

desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place [“the glorious holy mountain”] (who so<br />

reads, let him understand).” Matthew 24: 15. In Daniel 9: 26, 27 we read of the coming of the Romans who<br />

would “destroy the city and the sanctuary. And the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the<br />

war desolations are determined, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even<br />

unto the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolator.” (See margin.) <strong>The</strong> enemy<br />

would “come in like a flood” but “the Spirit of the Lord,” because of their sins, would not “lift up a<br />

standard against him” (Isaiah 59: 19). <strong>The</strong> “abominations” (mentioned in Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11) is the<br />

word employed in Scripture when referring to idolatrous worship. Commenting on Matthew 24:15, God’s<br />

servant says: “When the idolatrous standards of the Romans should be set up in the holy ground, which<br />

extended some furlongs outside the city walls, then the followers of Christ were to find safety in flight”<br />

(Great Controversy, Page 26).<br />

In describing the spiritual Roman power, the Revelator designates her “the mother of harlots and<br />

abominations of the earth” (Revelation 17:5). Thus, in Revelation 17:4, 5 and also Matthew 24:15, Jesus<br />

applies, in a “double,” “spiritual,” sense, Daniel’s prophecy concerning “the abomination of desolation.”<br />

Both literal and spiritual Rome are designated by the same word: pagan Rome was an idolatrous power, and<br />

papal Rome, also, is an idolatrous power.<br />

To His disciples, Jesus declared: “And when you see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then<br />

know that the desolation thereof is nigh” (Luke 21:20). When that occurred they were to know that “the<br />

days of vengeance” had come (v. 22). As recorded in Matthew 24: 15, 16, Jesus said: “When you therefore<br />

shall see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place [Mark 13: 14 “standing where it ought not”],<br />

(who so reads, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.” As the sign<br />

for the flight of the disciples was that literal Rome was standing threateningly around Jerusalem, “the holy<br />

place,” where she should not have stood, so, by the principle of the “double spiritual,” application, the sign<br />

for the flight of God’s people in the last days will be when spiritual Rome also stands “in the holy place” –<br />

“standing where it ought not” - presumptuously stands in the place of God by enforcing the keeping of<br />

Sunday in defiance of the Command of God.<br />

It is acknowledged by all that the Papal assault on the church in the Dark Ages is described in<br />

Daniel 11: 32-3-5 It is also acknowledged that this assault is described in Revelation 11: 2 as an attack<br />

upon “the holy city.” <strong>The</strong>refore the application that Daniel 11: 45 refers to the gathering of the forces of<br />

spiritual Rome against the spiritual city of God, “in the-glorious holy mountain,” the church, is in harmony<br />

with what has already been made clear in the same prophecy.<br />

Paul quotes from Daniel 11: 36-39 when describing the rise and work of the Papacy: “That man of<br />

sin ... as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 <strong>The</strong>ssalonians 2: 3, 4). <strong>The</strong><br />

Papacy is thus pictured as sitting “in the temple,” God’s church, which is represented as being “on the<br />

mount Zion,” “in the glorious holy mountain.” Thus by combining the prophetic delineations the Papacy is<br />

represented as being “in” Jerusalem during the Dark Ages. <strong>The</strong> events associated with the Reformation and<br />

the great Second Advent Movement have caused the Papacy to be more or less ejected from Jerusalem. But<br />

the prophetic word declares that the forces of evil will redouble their efforts to replace the Papacy fully<br />

within the church-that once more “the man of sin” will seek to show that “he is God” by demanding the<br />

world to obey his law instead of the Law of God. Thus Daniel 11: 45 points to the last conflict in which<br />

“the man of sin,” “the beast,” “the little horn,” will again encircle “the holy city” to subdue or to destroy the<br />

people of God. Thus the Spirit of Prophecy is in harmony with the Bible, when applying the Savior’s<br />

prophecy of Jerusalem being surrounded by Roman armies to the enforcement of Sunday laws.<br />

22. WILL THE PAPACY REMOVE ITS SEAT OF POWER?<br />

Do the prophecies of Isaiah 2: 1-5 and Micah 4: 1-4 teach that the Papacy will establish its seat of<br />

power in the literal city of Jerusalem? And will all nations receive the word of the Papacy as if it were the<br />

word of the Lord coming from that ancient historic city?<br />

Such an interpretation is based upon a total misunderstanding of the prophecies of Isaiah and<br />

Micah. <strong>The</strong>se contemporaneous prophets (compare Isaiah 1:1 and Micah 1:1, and notice marginal dates.<br />

See also Prophets And <strong>Kings</strong>, Page 322, 330) were both burdened over the apostasy of God’s people: they<br />

36<br />

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