Opinion

They will lament the great wickedness in the world, and second the testimony of religious teachers, that the degraded state of morals is caused by the desecration of Sunday. Great will be the indignation excited against all who refuse to accept their testimony. Satan’s policy in this final conflict with God’s people is the same that he employed in the opening of the great controversy in Heaven. He professed to be seeking to promote the stability of the divine government, while secretly bending every effort to secure its overthrow.  GC88 591.1 – GC88 591.2

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling

Tue, May 20, 2025 at 12:08 AM GMT+33 min read

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More than two dozen people were killed by tornadoes across Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia over the weekend—but come Monday, the White House and the executive agency responsible for the emergency response to natural disasters had not publicly addressed it.

St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer told MSNBC Monday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was “not on the ground” and that the area did “not have confirmed assistance” from FEMA, forcing local organizations such as the St. Louis Community Foundation to turn to crowdfunding to rebuild their community.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump made an appearance at the Rose Garden Monday afternoon, offering brief remarks during a bill signing focused on curbing revenge porn. Trump’s comments made mention of his wife Melania Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a potential peace deal in Ukraine, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, but notably did not address the storm system that killed 28 people across three states (two of which voted for him in November.)

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And FEMA announced Monday that there was less than a week left to apply for federal aid for homeowners in Kentucky who had their properties damaged during storms in February. The deadline is May 25. Survivors of storms in April have until June 25, the agency advised in a press release.

It made no mention of potential aid application deadlines for survivors of the weekend tornadoes, though the state is reportedly in the process of seeking FEMA assistance, according to the Kentucky Lantern.

While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and  desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hail-storms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. “The earth mourneth and fadeth away,” “the haughty people … do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” [Isaiah 24:4, 5.]
And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God’s commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday-sabbath, that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced, and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against the servant of God will be repeated, and upon grounds equally well established. “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.” [1 Kings 18:17, 18.] As the wrath of the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God’s ambassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward Elijah. GC88 589.3 – GC88 590.1

But getting the aid they need from the federal government is not a guarantee under the Trump Administration. Last month, FEMA rejected North Carolina’s application for an emergency aid extension as the state grapples to recover from Hurricane Helene, a Category Four storm that killed 250 people in September. It was the deadliest hurricane in state history.

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.Psalm 20 : 7

In a letter to North Carolina Governor Josh Stein in April, acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton said that the agency had determined that an extension with a full cost share was “not warranted.”

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Like Kentucky and Missouri, North Carolina had also voted for Trump in November, but months into his presidency, residents of devastated communities are still begging the president to send relief.

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Since Helene, Trump and his allies have spread unfounded conspiracies that the lead response agency had run out of money, and that the Biden administration had diverted funds from FEMA to assist undocumented immigrants enter the country. (FEMA administrators have fervently and repeatedly denied this.) Conservatives, at the time, claimed that working with the White House to expedite disaster relief “seemed political” and even conspiratorially suggested that the hurricanes were a government manipulation.

Days after his inauguration, Trump pitched that it would be better to do away with FEMA altogether in favor of handing the money directly to the states, though that plan never seemed to gain traction.

Since then, Trump has actively worked to dismantle the agency. The administration has blocked states across the nation, including California and Michigan, from accessing pre-approved relief. A coalition of Democratic-led states have sued the federal government, claiming that “hundreds of millions of dollars in FEMA grants” are still inaccessible.