The Four Winds of the Earth

While the sealing process is going on, i. e., while the develop ment of the ruling class of the kingdom to come continues, the four winds of the earth are checked. The wind symbolizes war, the blow ing of the four winds signifies world war. Just what now goes on and stirs all quarters of the earth. This leads us to consider the cause that brought it on.

Constantinople was undoubtedly the real object that started the nations to send their armies against each other. Germany had in several ways given evidence of friendliness to Turkey. It had sent officers there to instruct the turkish army, and it built a rail road within its domain. That looked in the eyes of the other na tions, that for many years have desired to take Constantinople, as a block in the way and something must be done to hinder further complications. Hence the nations, mentioned in the proclamation of the Sultan, ordered their armies to invade Turkey. The follow ing clip from the "Associated Press" of Nov. 16th 1914 gives the Sultan's view of the military movement:

"The sultan of Turkey has issued a proclamation to the army and navy, in which he accuses Great Britain, France and Russia of having instigated the war on Turkey. He adds in this connection that the outcome will put an end to the attempts directed against the glory of the Turkish empire. Exhorting his soldiers and sailors to bravery, the sultan says:

"Not only the fate of our own country, but the future existence of 300,000,000 Moslems depends on your victory."

We may here raise the question: Was it the finger of God that led the nations to that act ? We believe it was and will give our reason for that belief.

Constantinople is the "key to the bottomless pit" from which the nations gathers their implements of war and send forth their armies. It will also be the cause of their final fall.

Christ came to the earth as the prince of peace. At the time of His birth the angelic host praised God and said: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." If He had been accepted as the ruler, no war had then ever come in question.

Emperor Constantine incorporated the name of Christ under the Roman laws, but the civil rule he kept for himself. When he by the conference in Nicoa had chosen and established the church of state and called it a Christian church, he moved his emperial seat from the city of Rome and built up the old town Byzantium at the Bosporus and made it his residence. He called it Constantin ople, which means, Constantine and the people. The people belongs to Constantine.

Then and there began the mixture of heathenism and christianity and that continued until the heathen dogmas had leavened the entire doctrine of Christ. The city of Constantinople controlled the latin and greek races and by the help of the religious influence made the people subject to the most oppressive laws. The military power in the hands of the generals, who controlled the districts allotted to them as the Emperor's vassals was ruling with the hand of iron. The freedom of the people was taken away and bond-slavery was brought in by the application of the military laws.

God knew before hand what all that would lead to and conse quently He prepared means to break down the human godpower when it becomes too tyrannical.

The seven trumpets, recorded in the 8th and 9th chapters of the Revelation, were beforehand appointed to break down the dominant power of the kingdom of Constantine, and in their course of time they gave their war-sound against the depressive power.

In the fourth century Alaric gathered to him a great number of people and made war against the western part of the Empire and gave it a terrible blow.

In the fifth century Genseric, the king of the sea, destroyed the Roman sea-power.

Then came Attila, the leader of the Huns, who spread his armies over a large portion of the Roman territory and by a great slaughter conquered the army of the Empire.

In the latter part of the fifth century Odoazer conquered first Italy and then he gathered his army against the eastern part of the Empire and crushed its military power, so that, in the words of the prophecy, "the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars," Chap. 8. 12.

Rome inherited from the preceding universal Empires the laws and doctrines of the sun-gods, hence it claimed to be the kingdom of the sun. When for instance Emperor Constantine enacted the law regulating the keeping of a weekly holiday, he commanded that "the venerable day of the sun" (sunday) should be kept holy. That day, the first day of the week, was originally sanctified to the honour of Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Chaldeans, who was worshipped as the queen of heaven, the sun of the universe, and the mother of God.

Emperor Constantine had divided the Empire into three principal parts which he placed under the supervision of his three sons, then again he divided the country as a whole into ten parts, which came under the supervision of his ten generals, which he nominated dukes, the nobility next below the princes. Hence the sun, moon and stars. A third part of it all became darkened by the invasion of the fearless army of Odoazer.

About the time the papal power arose within the Roman Empire, the great leader of the Ishmaelites, the descendants of the seed of Abraham with Hagar, generally called Mohammedans — Mohammed developed as the prophet among his people. The name Mohammed signifies the longed-for, the leader that the people expected God would send them. His name from his father was Gotham. He came as the fifth angel and blew the trumpet of war against the kingdom of the sun. He set his people in motion on the path of war and they did not stop before the key of the "bottomless pit" was in their hand.

The Revelator describes the war scenes by symbolic language and says:

"And I beheld, and heard an eagle (angel is not in the Greek) flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound!" Rev. 8. 13.

The flying eagle was the symbol or emblem the Romans had designed on their military standards, which also is found in Russia, Austria, Germany and France, Yea even U. S. of America, has it on their military standard. It represents the military power of the kingdoms, and the crying of woe concerns just that power, and Rome takes the first place in that category.

Jehovah, the God of Abraham, has ordained that Ishmael's descendants shall help the dispersed seed of Jacob at the time they are to be delivered from their long bondage among the nations. It is by the military power they are kept down and controlled by the Gentiles.

We said that Rome was first on the list to become subdued by the power of Ishmael. In placing the prophecy by the side of the historic records we find that they correspond. Now we read Rev. 9. 1, 2.

"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottom less pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit."

"A star from heaven," means a leader heaven sends to carry on a special work. Mohammed chosen as a prophet among the Ishmaelites, came with his visions which he at the age of forty years received on the mountain Hira, where he was told by an angel to be "the prophet of his people." He compiled his many visions in a book he called Coran, used by his people as their law and gospel. He put the sword into their hands and declared, that by a holy war they would conquer the world.

Constantinople, the military stronghold of the Christian world, constituted the main object they had to conquer, and in the course of time they also gained their mark. Constantinople, the great city, where all the works and inventions of the heathens had be come christianized, fell in the hands of the Ishmaelites, and their head-leader, the Sultan, occupied the throne of the Christian Emperor. Then the key of "the bottomless pit" was in the power of the Mohammedans.

Now we read the proclamation of the sixth angel, v. 13-16:

"And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them."

The four angels bound in the great river Euphrates symbolizes the military powers indicated by the four winds of the earth. The river Euphrates was running through the old Babylon, the mother to the mystical Babylon of the Revelation, which signifies the kingdom of the gods of the sun christianized. The mohammedan people symbolizes that stream running through the daughter of Babylon, and by the four great European nations the military power of Ishmael in the four parts of the earth has been bound or hindered to accomplish the work assigned to it by the prophet Mohammed, namely to conquer the world.

The bound angels or representatives of the military power of Ishmael have been prepared but hindered in one hour, one day, one month and one year (profetic reckoning; one day for a solar year), namely 391 years. Then we may ask: When was the military power of the mohammedan stream tied up and hindered to carry on its prophetic mission?

The history tells us that at the time the Reformation by Martin Luther had worked its way so that the princes of the Prussian kingdom were actuated by it, the military power of Ishmael was operating in Hungary and on its way to the very gates of the Em- pire of Austria.

Charles V, then the king of Spain and Emperor of Austria, appealed to the princes of Prussia to come to his aid, and they would drive the turks out of Europe. Luther, on account that the Emperor had refused to sanction the appeal the leaders of the Reformation had laid before him concerning certain religious rites, then advised the princes not to sustain him. This occured about the time the Pope sent Luther the anathema which then so stirred the world. That happened in the year 1520. And about the same time the mohammedan army was withdrawn and the war ended as by a magic power.

From that time then we reckon the beginning of the 391 years, and, added to 1520, they would end in the year 1911. That year the power of Italy sent its army to Tripolis and declared war on Turkey. Then in 1912 the Balkan war broke out, and in 1914 the world war was declared. The loosening process of the mohammedans have continued ever since 1911, but it takes the blowing of the four winds to reach that great mass in all parts of the world. It takes time and circumstances to bring them on a general war path. But surely they are coming.

The world war with its present united powers is finally com plete in the fulfillment of the prophecy about the four winds. From all the quarters of the world it draws its supply in order to continue the length of time set apart for its destructive work. But finally the sealing time sets in and with that movement the command goes forth that the winds shall not blow, while the servants of God are sealed.

From Rev. 9. 4 we see that the military power of Ishmael shall not hurt those that are sealed with the seal of God.

We are now living in the loosening time, a period of dissolution, where the tying chains that have held the people down under the bonds of military power, are link by link loosening their hold on the masses in every country. The war-winds will yet accomplish a great deal in the work of dissolution.