"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them." (Isaiah 11:6)

The picture of our reality is quite different. The words of the biblical prophecy are fulfilled: "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines and earthquakes in diver places. And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of many shall wax cold!" (Matthew 24:7.12)

Those principles which have led this world in this situation, will lead it even deeper to a ruin, if we do not undertake something.

Maybe this question reminds us of our personal responsibility and therefore upsets and burdens us? Maybe we do not want to think about it. Somebody noted: "Only 5% of people thinks, 25% thinks that thinks, and other 70% would rather commit suicide than to think." Most of people have not courage to think about any radical action aimed to make this world better. Maybe because the things somehow are running out of hands to the minority who thinks.

"Seems like we are moving all the time, like we are led" against our will, against the will of all nations and all national groups and every group of society - toward some global disaster. Everybody wants to stop it, but doesn't know how" (Winston Churchill)

The history of our world appears to be nothing but a history of man's unsuccessful efforts to give a sense to the life and world around him by true happiness, love and well being. So much of the effort and sacrifice, time and abilities, strength of human will, invested in building and preservation of human civilizations has proved finally to be quite useless.

Sin and evil permeate all the spheres of human living to an ever greater extent - from the way of entertainment to the arts; from marital relationships to the relationships between peoples.

Men are more and more sinful and unhappy. However, a majority wish to solve their life problems just in order to be able to continue to live the same sinful and futile life, just like that which has caused the damnation of the world. When they are offered a solution (demanding renunciation of the sin itself), men discard it and continue to fight against the consequences of sin.

Those life principles which have brought this world here, will bring him even deeper to its ruin, not because the world cannot renounce these principles, but because it does not want to do it. The majority is hindered only by the effects of sin, not by the sin itself. The entire science, from medicine to politics is in the service of looking for an answer to the question: "How to be as more in sin as possible, and to free oneself of the effects of sin (feeling of guilt, illnesses, disrupted relationship with oneself and surroundings, etc)?"

Psychology tries to remove by various tricks the effects of sin which are manifested in a human mind, his feelings, and then in his distorted relationship with himself and with his environment.

Instead on a health preventive, modern medicine focuses on removing the effects of an unhealthy way of life, originated due to man's voracity and disregard for the health reform (Daniel 1:8-15). As long as it is more important for man that the food he eats is tasteful (selfishness), than healthy (love), we cannot say that the mankind is moved by motives purposeful to his existence. Therefore we will find in the Bible a multitude of advises of what is edible and what not (Leviticus 11).

A system of false religions helps man to build up a feeling of his own righteousness whereby he will suppress the feeling of guilt originated due to his irreconciliation with God. Also, a false religion does not oblige with its demands, i.e. it must not reprimand man's sinful motives, for otherwise it could not be liked and generally accepted. It, actually, helps man to live sinfully and to feel righteously, differently from the real religion enabling man for a righteous life, and disburdening from the need of feeling "righteous" ("holy").

The sin of human heart is also manifested in a disrupting of social relationships, and therefore the mass has a need for an exterior authority to whom they would give the right of political power, expecting in return his taking the responsibility of keeping the social safety. The more sinful people are, their need for an exterior intervention is greater, and so the ruling authority has an excuse for being more totalitarian. By a gradual escalation of evil the system itself is being transformed, so that it is finally destroyed completely from inside by inactivity, corruption and other evils and made non-resistant to almost any exterior stress. The same stress that was before an opportunity for strengthening and building of civilization is getting now a destructive role, because the system is rotten in itself.

Just as sinful world has a need for political security, it also has a need for protection from it's own conscience. Therefore it needs a religion (or any other ideology) to justify their sinful acts. It has a task of replacing the use of common sense which has been sacrificed in order to provide a peace of man's conscience, and so that ideology directs him to the authority of an institution (a church, a political party, etc.) which takes the responsibility of thinking instead of the man himself. And as that institution has neither the right to take that responsibility from the individual nor succeeds to fulfil it, it has a need to justify that its unfulfilled responsibility by inventing "enemies" (national, religious) who will be guilty for all its unfulfilled promises. With a gradual escalation of evil, an ideology (religion) transforms itself. The reason is that it faces an increasing problem of a collective feeling of guilt. It tries to suppress the feeling of guilt or to pass it to someone else (a class, national, or religious) enemy. So the mass ideology becomes more and more fanatical and, because of its inability to resist a rational criticism, more and more intolerant.

By a time, in a near future, it will seem as the world have helped to itself. However, relying on authority of the Holy Scripture, we will not be deceived by human creations. The new world order, established on the principles of human, not of Jesus' justice, will not survive for a long.

"When they are saying: PEACE AND SAFETY, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape." (1 Thessalonians 5:3)

SPIRITUAL UNITY - A PREREQUISITE OF WORLD'S PEACE

The world has a need for a peace, and realization of it is seen by many in building of an universal religious and political system. An universal religion should remove the causes that continually present a tempting for mutual disagreement and conflicting, whereas a new world government should restrain and sanction all who present a threat for the new world peace and order.

Of course, such solutions are only political (symptomatic), not spiritual (causal) as well. We should be in love and unity. However, we will unite if we love each other, and not in order to be able to love each other. Removing the religious, national, class and other differences between people we do not remove the cause of sin, but only an opportunity for its manifestation.

Let us remember of the decomposition of the breakdown of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11). God permitted the difference between the languages to become a test of correctness of the motives the men are moved by. The world is building a tower of Babel even today, but not in height, but over the surface of the Earth. Today also the differences between men are a test for trying the spiritual state of mankind.

By no administrative measures is possible to change human heart and implant love in it. Only love can arouse love! Only God can have changed the hardened human heart, if it has chosen it voluntarily.

But man most often is not aware of the spiritual background of his problem. He repents the symptoms of his state of sinfulness, instead the sin itself, which still remains in his heart as a cause of his further sinning. It is only through God's moral law (Exodus 20; Matthew 5) that man can become aware of sin being bad in itself, not only because of its negative manifestation on the level of feelings and behavior. Without the law man can be aware only of his symptomatic i.e. selfish and self-righteous needs, whereas through the of law he is becoming aware of his spiritual needs. When we become aware of the need for becoming free of the power of sin and for a forgiveness of guilt, we will recognize God as our Savior who, through the merits of His sacrifice of reconciliation, offers us the gift of His righteousness (liberation of the power of sin and forgiveness of guilt):

"I will sprinkle clean water over you, and you shall be cleansed from all that defiles you; I will cleanse you from the taint of all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in to you and make you conform to my statutes, keep my laws and live by them. You shall live in the land which I gave to your ancestors; you shall become my people, and I will become your God." (Ezekiel 36:25-28)

"In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit." (Judges 21:25) God's will was not that His people have a mundane king (1 Samuel 8:6-7), and still ''each one with the bearing of a prince." (Judges 8,18). Israel was not saved in well-being by a civil law of a mundane king, but by the moral law inscribed by the Heavenly King into the heart of His children. The theocratic Israel needed a cognition that a spiritual and material well-being of people did not depend on their religious or national belonging, but on a personal relationship of each individual with God.

"This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, 'This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!' If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm," (Jeremiah. 7:3-6)

Consequently, a real unity of mankind is based on the essential moral (spiritual) values; love, goodness and justice, and not on the values of certain religious, national or some other belonging.

Differently from a unity based on the character of a real love, defined by God's law (Romans 13:10), a unity based on tradition is liked because it obliges nobody. It does not demand a reform of hearth and renunciation sin, but it functions only in the imagination of superficial idealists. When it is to endure a test by the life temptations, it experiences its fall, and finds in the temptations an excuse for its failure. Does the Bible admits anywhere a notion of insurmountable life temptations, temptations where man has an excuse for his failure? Just the heavy life temptations will test and show our real relationship with God and our real character (Matthew 7:22-27).

Let us remember the experience of the young Christian church. Its believers were persecuted, slandered, tormented and killed, and still it did not prevent them of overwhelming the greatest kingdom of the time by their teaching. Their firmness, self-sacrifying and faithfulness were precisely a testimony to all the world that God was with them. It is an argument of a genuine Church that cannot be disputed by anybody.

We often hear that the Christian world justifies its non-Christianity by some bad social system. However, a system can be bad as much as it has permitted the people to express their real nature, to reveal their real character. It cannot be worse than the people it consists of. Have the things gone so far that the character and strength of a Christian depend on the quality of the legal system he is in? should not the things be opposite?! Only who bases the arguments of his spirituality on political means must defend them by those means, while who relies on God knows that "The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit." (Hebrews 4:12). A real church, built on Christ and His word, "cannot be defeated even by Hell's door" (Matthew 16:18).

THE HARLOT AND THE MUNDANE KINGS

The seventeen chapter of the Biblical book Revelation tells about a great harlot making adultery with the mundane kings. In the Biblical symbolics a woman represents a church, a bride - a genuine God's church, while a whore represents the apostate church. A harlot is said by God's word to have on her forehead the written name:

"MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." (Revelation 17:5).

The "Great Babylon" is a "mother of whores", i.e. it is from it that various religious communities have became by the Reformation, having apostasies soon as well as their mother.

"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries. Then I heard another voice from heaven say: Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes." (Revelation 18:2-5)

The lust of the great harlot or Babylon with the mundane kings represents a relationship of the apostate church with the state. How and why does the symbiosis of the church and the state begin? When, due to its spiritual apostasy, the church has lost its spiritual power, it has a need to replace it by a political power over its subjects, and tends to look for a support in the state's power; on the other hand, the state is also prone to look for patronage of the church in order to have an impact on the people.

"When the early church became corrupted by departing from the simplicity of the gospel and accepting heathen rites and customs, she lost the Spirit and power of God; and in order to control the consciences of the people, she sought the support of the secular power. The result was the papacy, a church that controlled the power of the state and employed it to further her own ends, especially for the punishment of 'heresy.'" (EGW GC 443)

A genuine Christ's church will not deal with politics because Christ's kingdom is not of this world. God allows evil to progress on the Earth precisely in order that it be unmasked as a principle in front of all the universe once forever, and finally abolished by Christ's second coming.

God's word depicts the great harlot "sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns." (Revelation 17:3).

THE SEVEN-HEADED BEAST THE WHORE IS SITTING ON

On the basis of the Chapter 13 of Revelation, we see that "the second beast", will support the religious power of "the first beast" by its economic and military power and so form the religious and political power "the image of the beast". The dictature of the new world order will be a modern variant of the medieval rule of "the first beast".

"Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, 'Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?' The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. ... Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666." (Revelation 13:4.7.11-17)

As we see, the principles of the new world order will get into a conflict with the principles of freedom of conscience. Everyone will be tried if he or she would obey more God or man.

THE TESTING ROCK OF THE LAST CONFLICT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN

In all the history of the conflict of Christ and Satan we see the attempts of the powers of evil to violate at least one of the first four commandments, in order that so blaspheme openly against God's supreme authority. To succeed in their intentions, the powers of evil were exerting a pressure on the mundane kings to issue such the laws that would be in a controversy with God's commandments.

In order to destroy the faithful prophet Daniel, the elders and dukes influenced the Babylonian emperor to issue an order that anyone who would direct his or her prayers to any else except to the emperor should be thrown into a lion den.

In the time of king Ahasuerus and queen Esther, the opponent of the Jews Aman influenced the emperor to issue a decree about extermination of the Jews. "There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king's laws; it is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them." (Esther 3:8)

In the time of the Roman Empire and subsequent Inquisition, many Christians paid by its life the obedience to the First and Second commandments of the Decalogue, for they had refused to offer incense to a Roman god or bow down to an idol in the form of anything which is in heaven above (Exodus 20:4-5).

The forces of evil never forced the faithful to violate some God's commandment without offering them a surrogate for that commandment. So man could always justify himself before its conscience as being actually an opponent to the lawlessness and a pious man. The difference between God's and human commandment could be considered by him to be a formal and insignificant one. God's word reveal to us that the final conflict between good and evil will also proceed between God's commandment and human orders. While those who "This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus." (Revelation 14:12), will be one side, on the other will be the proponents of the force said by Gods word to "He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws." (Daniel 7:25).

In order to learn which religious power has tried to change God's law, let us compare the contents of God's commandments in the Catholic catechizes (a religious manual) with God's commandments in the Bible (Exodus 20). We will notice that the Second Commandment is missing, while the Tenth one has been divided into two parts, and the Fourth one has been changed (instead of the seventh day - Saturday, the Catholic church calls the first day of week - Sunday - the Lord's day). in the Bible Sunday is nowhere called Lord's Day, but simply and modestly "the first day of week". In the Bible the seventh day of week is called Saturday (Sabbath), or Lord's Day (Exodus 31:15, Isaiah 58:13). If we ask the representatives of the Catholic church for an explanation, they will answer that observing Sunday is precisely a proof of Papal power, a proof that God has been given such proxies to the Pope and to the Church that they are able to change God's law legitimately.

"Saturday, the most glorious day of the Law, has been replaced by Sunday. This change has not been introduced on the basis of Jesus' teaching, for he said that he had not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. This change has been made by authority of the church." (Catholic archbishop Gaspar D.F. Trent Council, January 18 1582)

We are probably surprised by the insolence of the church having raised itself above God's authority. Holy Scriptures inform us that Jesus will not "come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God." The apostle Paul goes on "For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming." (2 Thessalonians 2:3 2:3-8)

In order to acquire an approval from people the church has ascribed the holiness of Biblical Saturday to the pagan day of Sun (Dies Solis) that falls on Sunday.

Observing Sunday we observe the authority of who proclaimed that day to be blessed and consecrated, the authority of the man, and not of God. We ought to have in mind it was not man who has given the commandments to God, But God to man, and therefore they are called God's commandments, and not man's (the Pope's) commandments.

The papal authority legalized the change of the Fourth commandment from Saturday to Sunday, before the schism of the Church into the Eastern and Western one, and before the appearance of Protestants. That is the way the observing of Sunday has been spread all over the Christian world. It is only in the doctrine of the Eastern Church that observing Saturday persisted beside Sunday (in the teachings of early Christian fathers), but in practice it has been neglected and forgotten.

Beside the question of filioque, celibacy and (non)eating blood, one of the reasons for the schism between the Eastern and Western church was also the Saturday's fast.

"Yet, you Greeks, if you do not Yudaize, then tell us why you have something common with the Jews in a similar observing Saturday. They certainly observe Saturday and you observe it ... For that reason, because you observe Saturday with the Jews and Sunday the Lord's day with us, you seem to imitate by such observing the sect of Nazarens, who accept Christianity in this way, but cannot abandon Judaism." (Cardinal Humbert "Against the Heresy of the Greeks" 1054)

"For we are ordered to observe Saturday same as the Lord's day Sunday, and not to do any work on that day." (From the latter of the patriarch of the Eastern Church Michael Kerularius to the church of Antiochia, whereby he explains the reason for the schism.)

The attempt of many Christians to justify their rest on Sunday by their referring to Christ's resurrection on that day is not adequate one, because it has not any connection with the contents and sense of the Fourth commandment (see Exodus 20,8-11). Jesus did not rest on Sunday, but precisely got up from his grave, and so it is not adequate to make rest, spoken by the Fourth God's commandment. The Saturday's commandment is a moral one (on of ten commandments), and Sunday is a ceremonial commandment for it points to the plan of salvation (to resurrection), and so it is impossible to compensate the violation of one moral commandment by observing some another, especially not by observing a ceremonial commandment. Observing Sunday has not any connection with the authority of the Bible either. It is not mentioned nowhere in it.

Apostle Paul says: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galatians 1:8) Consequently, if the apostles Consequently, if the apostles' authority, representing an authority of the church, are passing on the Gospel to us different from the revealed one in the Holy Scriptures, let them been damned. How did Paul announce the Gospel to us? "As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath" (Acts 13:42)

Had Paul been respecting Sunday, he would respond to them: "Do not wait for the next Saturday! Come tomorrow on Sunday! That is the new day of rest!" Paul did not say so. The Gospel says: "On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord." (Acts 13:44)

Knowing that His authority will be neglected, Jesus directed to us in chapter 14 a special message for this time:

"Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water." (Revelation 14:7)

The only way to respond to this call, to bow to God as to the Creator of the heavens and earth we find in the contents of the Fourth God's commandment. When the Lord reveals the reasons why the seventh day is to be dedicated to Him, then He says: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." (Exodus 20:8-11) The Saturday commandment is an ideal testing rock of faith, for it will be observed just who has love for God. Since it can be maintained holy only by who is holy himself, it is itself a sign (or a seal) of consecration. "Also I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between us, so they would know that I the LORD made them holy." (Ezekiel 20:12)

While those who respond to God's call will be decorated by "Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God" (Revelation 7:3), the others will be characterized by "mark on his right hand or on his forehead" (Revelation 13:16).

"Do not follow the statutes of your fathers or keep their laws or defile yourselves with their idols. I am the LORD your God; follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Keep my Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between us. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God." (Ezekiel 20:18-20)

The most terrible warning said to man ever is found in the Bible and is directed to the man of the present time:

"If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb." (Revelation. 14:9-10)

All will be tempted to bow to the image of the beast, whether because of their mundane interests ("the mark on the right hand"), or because of deception ("the mark on the forehead"). "But he who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Matthew 24:13)

As the apostate Israelite king Ahab blamed prophet Elijah "''Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17), so the apostate Christian and non-Christian world will blame those truly faithful to God to be the cause of the damnation befalling the earth. In that they will be helped by devil's means, statements by false prophets and false Christs, "ghosts" of the dead ("saints" and "ladies"), astrology, messages from "flying saucers", etc.

Bahaic prophecy, for example, claims that for the outpouring of the evils onto the Earth guilty will be a minority burdened with religious prejudices because of which it will not wish to accept the principles of the New World Order. Prophet Bahaulah claims, among other things:

"A chaos will take place because of the too much freedom among nations, which yet are not prepared, and as a consequences there will be needed a temporary return to a dictatorship, in an interest of the people itself, in order to avoid disorder and chaos." (Bach. and N. Age, p.73)

The vision of the "Lady" had by Leone van den Dyck from Belge, says:

"Gods punishments come because of sins of mankind, because of the Lord's day (violation of Sunday), because of the abuses in marriage, because of the unclean sins," (M. Glavurtic "V Znak-2 p. 214)

Apostle John depicts the apostate church rebelling the mundane kings through Satan force against God's faithful people. "And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men." (Revelation 13:13). Jesus says: "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me." (Matthew 24:9)

The high priest of the apostate church, Khaiafa, claimed for Jesus that "You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." (John 11:50). Since the Jewish church itself had not power to send Jesus to death, it asked for help the Roman state government. In order to ascertain its influence over the enslaved Israel, the Roman government met the demands of the Synedrion.

The history will be repeated. Under the influence of the apostate church and its devil's means, the supreme world government will vote that it will be better that one people on the earth perishes, than all the world to suffer because of it. A decree, similar to that passed by king Ahasuerus, will pass all over the world, but God will interfere in a last moment and save His people:

"The great king Artexerxes writeth these things to the princes and governours that are under him from India unto Ethiopia in an hundred and seven and twenty provinces. After that I became lord over many nations and had dominion over the whole world, not lifted up with presumption of my authority, but carrying myself always with equity and mildness, I purposed to settle my subjects continually in a quiet life, and making my kingdom peaceable, and open for passage to the utmost coasts, to renew peace, which is desired of all men. Now when I asked my counsellors how this might be brought to pass, Aman, that excelled in wisdom among us, and was approved for his constant good will and steadfast fidelity, and had the honour of the second place in the kingdom, Declared unto us, that in all nations throughout the world there was scattered a certain malicious people, that had laws contrary to ail nations, and continually despised the commandments of kings, so as the uniting of our kingdoms, honourably intended by us cannot go forward. Seeing then we understand that this people alone is continually in opposition unto all men, differing in the strange manner of their laws, and evil affected to our state, working all the mischief they can that our kingdom may not be firmly established: ..." (Septuagint - Esther 3.)

"The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet." (Psalm 18:4-7.9)

"His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth. His splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden." (Habakkuk 3:3-4)

"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory." (Matthew 24:30)

"Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?" (Revelation 6:15-17)

"He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD; I have not done evil by turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees." (Psalms 18:16-22)

"In that day they will say, 'Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.'" (Isaiah 25:9)