Goodnews Christian Ministry

Questions
From Our Readers
2007

Send e-mail to:
askgoodnews@gmail.com

Goodnews Christian Ministry
http://goodnewspirit.com

 

Download Free Books, Maps, Documents and Question pages Here

January 5, 2007
Question:

Wow! I can't wait to read the whole thing. What denomination are you?
Where can I find a church that understands these things.­RM

Answer:

Look for a church, instead, that supports the Gospel.

There is a difference between prophecy and church teaching. That is because prophecy cannot save anyone. No matter how much one "understands" God, the only way into Christ's kingdom is to put His words into practice, a principal Paul called "love". For this reason, the perfect church is is the one that preaches compassion and kindness to one another throughout the community in the name of Christ ­ a church that insists on repentance and confession to one another in His name and support for widows, orphans and the poor. Prophecy can work as a support for faith, but it has no power to save. We can see that simply by looking at the Old Testament, a book bristling with prophecy, but without any power to save souls.

At its best, prophecy is a view dimly seen, as if through a veil. And because so much false prophecy abounds, even in good circles, it is a subject most churches want to deal with at arms length. Especially since salvation, itself, comes from another source.

The meaning of prophecy as far as God is concerned is to act as a proof of Christ to an unbelieving world. God has determined to fulfill every word in the Bible written about Jesus as proof that He truly is the Saviour and Messiah promised by Moses, and that He truly is the Son of God, the King of the new creation in heaven that is to be our refuge from this sinful world, and our future eternal home ­ a home in which we will live with God alive forever.

In fulfilling every word written about Jesus in the Old Testament, God has given proof that He will fulfill every word written about Him in the New Testament as well.

In this proof, scripture has shown, through prophecy, that Jesus will have two appearances in this world. The first at the time He died in our name to take our sins away, and the second in His Return to take all who chose to follow Him to His kingdom by rebuilding themselves in His integrity. Since only the first appearance has occurred, there still exists in scripture a whole body of prophecy yet to be fulfilled. That is what we are seeing unfold now. Proof that He will come again as promised to reward all who have rebuilt themselves in His image.

When we see these words fulfilled, know that He is near!

Daniel wrote that a set time had been allotted to set the seals on vision and prophecy, i.e., for all these things to be revealed (Dn.9:24), and Matthew specified the way in which that prophecy was to be made known to the world (Mat.10:26-27). After that will come the night for a short time ­ a darkness destined to be shattered by the brilliant light of Christ's return.

In terms of prophecy, the "Wow!" is all there is. The salvation comes from repentance, baptism and a life lived in the words of the Gospel Jesus preached.

 

My sister says that people who talk about the end of the world saying it is about to happen are false prophets and we should avoid them. What is your response to this? ­J

Answer:

Jesus said something similar:

"Take care not to be deceived,' he said 'because many will come using my name and saying, "I am he" and, "The time is near at hand". Refuse to join them." (Luke 21:8).

Jesus' statement is in obvious conflict with the popular idea currently embraced by many, promising an imminent pre-tribulation "Rapture" (i.e., two Second Coming's, with the first invisible and 'near at hand'). Various preachers have been proclaiming Christ's invisible return to be close at hand ever since John Nelson Darby first made his 'Rapture' proposal in the 1830's. Some have even assigned specific dates to the End.

Those dates have been proved wrong and all the promises of a day just ahead are wrong, too ­ at least according to this passage from Jesus.

The fact is, before Jesus can return, all the things He prophesied have to take place first. And when He does return his appearance will not be invisible. He will not be in some hiding place. He will come in full view of the world, on the clouds of heaven, seated at the right hand of the Power, and surrounded by all the angels in heaven.

"If, then, they say to you...'Look, he is in the secret chambers', do not believe it: because the coming of the Son of man will be like lightning striking in the east and flashing far into the west." (Mat.24:26-27).

"And when you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened, for this is something that must happen but the end is not so soon.' Then he said to them, 'Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes and plagues and famines here and there.  There will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven." (Luke 21:9-11).

"But before all this happens, men will seize you and persecute you; they will hand you over to the synagogues and to imprisonment, and bring you before kings and governors because of my name ­ and that will be your opportunity to bear witness. Keep this carefully in mind: you are not to prepare your defense because I myself shall give you an eloquence and a wisdom that none of your opponnets will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relations and friends; and some of you will be put to death. You will be hated by all men on account of my name, but not a hair of your head will be lost. Your endurance will win you your lives." (Luke 21:12-19).

"When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you must realise that she will soon be laid desolate. Then those in Judea must escape to the mountains, those inside the city must leave it, and those in country districts must not take refuge in it. For this is the time of vengeance when all that scripture says must be fulfilled. Alas for those with child, or with babies at the breast when those days come! For great misery will descend on the land and wrath on this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive to every pagan country; and Jeusalem will be trampled down by the pagans until the age of the pagans is completely over." (Luke 21:20-23).

"There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; on earth nations in agony, bewildered by the clamor of the ocean and its waves; men dying of fear as they await what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then you will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near." (Luke 21:24).

When Jesus was asked about the date of the end by His apostles, He spoke the words above and referred them to the Book of Daniel; specifically to Daniel's passage concerning the disastrous abomination in the temple fortress (Mat 24:15; Dan.9:27; 11:31) destined to be placed there by the Madman when he abolishes the Perpetual Sacrifice (the Eucharist).

When we turn to that passage and the other verses Daniel penned concerning this disaster, we discover a lengthy period during which the East comes to power in the form of a 4th kingdom of Persia (Dan.11:2), bringing warfare to the planet in proportions never before seen. Western world dominion is to be toppled by it.

According to Daniel, ten kings are to rise to power with this 4th kingdom, producing a world force so formidable, not just the nations, but even the Church will be brought down by them. All the things Jesus warned about are to occur in association with these events. And then the end will come.

There is still a long way to go, and Jesus will not return until all the prophecies have been completed as written. Those who say differently do so in violation of God and scripture.

Scripture's bottom line always remains the same. When preaching and Jesus disagree, listen to Jesus. You will never go wrong if you do that.

 

Don't you think it's ironic that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was driven out of his palace and forced to live like a wild animal according to Daniel? Then Saddam Hussein was forced to do the same? It almost seems like they are related. ­NM

Answer:

Yes, I do. And I agree that they are related.

Here is a passage from scripture relating to that amazing expulsion:

"King Nebuchadnezzar, these words are for you! Sovereignty is taken from you, you are to be driven from human society, and live with the wild animals; you will feed on grass like oxen, and seven times will pass over you until you have learnt that the Most High rules over the kingship of men, and confers it on whom he pleases." (Dan.4:28-29).

Nebuchadnezzar's hair "grew as long as eagle's feathers, and his nails became like bird's claws." (Dan. 4:30).

Nor does the relationship end there.

Saddam Hussein fancied himself to be a reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar and was in the process of rebuilding the ruins of Babylon, Iraq's ancient capitol city, intending to restore it to its former glory. His warring nature thwarted those plans.

Saddam seems to be carrying the legacy of two kings. When Belshazzar ruled Babylon, a human hand appeared and started writing its fateful message on his palace wall while he watched. Daniel interpreted the handwriting, telling the king he had been found wanting and was going to be handed over to an invading Persian army and put to death that very night (Dan. 5:5+).

"The writing reads: 'Mene, Mene, Tekel and Parsin'. The meaning of the words is this: Mene: God has measured your sovereignty and put an end to it; Tekel: you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; Parsin: your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.'...That same night, the Chaldaean king Belshazzar was murdered, and Darius the Mede received the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two." (Dn.5:23-31).

The unkempt Saddam Hussein was pulled out of his hole in the ground and brought back to stand trial for his crimes, his own kingdom suddenly divided as in the prophecy. Found wanting, he, too, was handed over to the people of Persia ­ the Shiite Muslims who had just overthrown his kingdom. They immedately executed him despite his own people, the Sunni's, still fighting in the streets thinking to save him.

Current history seems to have united these circumstances in Saddam Hussein, producing a particularly striking example of the fact that all the works of God go in pairs by opposites.

Saddam's kingdom is bitterly divided, to the utter despair of Washington as it tries to stem the civil war between the Sunni's and the Persians, while the handwriting's chilling message: the toppling of Babylon by Persia seems to have claimed another in the chain of victims it encompasses. As scripture says, God's plan for Babylon is going foreward. And it's going by the Book at its starting line: the Euphrates.

It's almost as if God were saying to the world through Daniel, 'and this, too, will be a sign for you.'

 

I recently logged on to your web site and was surprised to find someone who thought that the United States would be in Iraq for years, and would only leave when overrun by enemy troops. Where on earth do you find a prophecy like that? ­VP

Answer:

The prophecy comes from the Book of Jeremiah. It is a part of Jeremiah's prediction of disaster for the Israeli army leaders who appealed to God for the right to return from their exile in Babylon ahead of time (ahead of the time set for the Diaspora to end) and set up a Jewish nation in Israel.

God granted that request, but only under strict guidelines, the first being that they not make a military treaty with Egypt, and the second that they not leave the boundaries awarded them, and go settle in lands forbidden them by the leadership of Babylon (Jer. 42-45).

We read in prophecy that as soon as the army leaders constructed their new state, they quickly broke both rules. As a consequence, an enormous disaster befell them just as Jeremiah predicted, and all the settlers were killed. Their military treaty with the "Egypt" of this prophecy could not save them from this catastrophe.

Those words seemed to spring into a second reality when the new state of Israel was born in 1947. Their confiscation of other lands and the placement of Jewish settlers there is a matter of great controversy today. A military alliance has been cemented between Israel and the United States, which seems to be the "Egypt" in the prophecy.

According to Jeremiah, this "Egypt" positions its troops against the Parthians at the Euphrates river only to be overrun in a sweeping invasion by an overwhelming eastern force, who proceeds from there at lightning speed all the way into Jerusalem, leaving a great carnage behind them in the path of their assault (Jer. 46:1-10). Daniel describes the same invasion, explaining that the "King of the North" who leads this attack has with him the troops of an eastern confederacy of 10 nations (Dan. 7:7; 11:15-18).

Many of the particulars of this prophecy are well know to students of the Book of Revelation, which we know to concern a future not yet seen (Rev. 13:1-2; 16:12-13; 17:16, etc.). They show that the "Egypt" of the prophecy will not abandon its post at that fateful river until the day this prophecy is to be completed.

If all those biblical passages apply to our time, as their increasing fulfillment seems to show, America is hopelessly entangled in an Iraq it cannot leave until God's purpose for its presence there is achieved. The proof of this prophecy has already been given, but not in the spectacular fashion that seems still to lie ahead (Jer. 44:29-30).

 

It looks like Nostradamus has pegged another one. This time the man he predicted in the blue turban. Could this be none other than Moqtada al-Sadr of Iraq? When I saw his picture on the cover of Time magazine a few weeks ago all decked out in his blue turban preparing to fight against our American troops it gave me a chill. ­SP

Answer:

If Sadr is indeed the fulfillment of Nostradamus' quatrain about the man in the blue turban, it would be a very disturbing revelation with respect to peace in Iraq.  Nostradamus' blue-turbined figure is someone no one wants to see, especially now in such an incendiary place in these desperate times.  As portents go, that would be big.

Moqtada al-Sadr is seen by the West as a key terror figure in Iraq and if he is matched to the Nostradamus gallery, it would give him the potential of joining others there such as Hitler and Napolean. That means he could grow into one of the dark hawks described in end-time prophecy.  If so, it would be in keeping with Nostradamus' other visions many of which seem to have outlined Satan's most powerful end-time warmongers.

Sadr is head of the Shiite Mahdi army whose intent it is to drive the Sunni Muslims out of Baghdad, and likely out of Iraq itself. He champions a classic Shiite versus Sunni (Persian versus Arab) confrontation that is at the heart of the civil war now raging in Iraq and threatening to spill over into the Arab "south".

The word "Mahdi" in "Mahdi Army" stands for "Al-Mahdi", the Muslim "Messiah" whose future coming has been predicted and expected for over a thousand years, since the time of Mohmammed himself. The focus of this army is to cleanse the lands in prepartion for the war of conversion that is to be launched against the rest of the world in advance of his coming. That focus is driving the militant Shiite's and fomenting all the dissension currently raging across Iraq, and inflaming the surrounding Muslim nations.

It is a message increasingly preached in mosque's all over the world.

This confrontation is at the heart of America's problems in its involvement in Iraq. Both Iran and America are backing the same side, the Shiites, which is becoming increasingly bad news to the kings of the Arab south, i.e., to the Sunni Muslims, as Shiite intentions against them become increasingly visible.

Nostradamus came out of the dark. He worked in a small darkened room conjuring visions from the aerial ether. It seems the only spirits willing to talk with him worked for the wrong side as well. He was given no glorious visions of religion. He saw nothing of Christ. He saw nothing of the Christian victory on earth or the glories of heaven's realities. All he saw were visions of death and destruction. Visions of Satan's warmongers. He was a man of this world; he was not a visionary of God.

In mysterious words he wrote about a man named "Hister", visions even Adoph Hitler took to mean himself after the wife of one of his close henchmen alerted him to the quatrains. They outlined his visions and conquests and gave Hitler an added sense of successful destiny. But, as with Napolean before him, those visions led not to a thousand years of glory, but only to catastrophe.

It is the same with the man of the East in the blue turbin, if indeed the quatrain is accurate. Ahead of him lies an inflamed world, a fiery future for all the civilizations across the planet not willing to accept the forced conversion those like Sadr deem necessary to pave the path for the appearance of the Mahdi. Perhaps this is the genesis of a philosophy that will help drive the ten horns (the "Kings of the East"), the Jihadist engine that will power them across the Euphrates when the time comes for their invasion of the West.

As scripture has foretold, when that time arrives, the Muslim world, and indeed, the political eastern and western worlds will be divided, just as Iraq is divided today between those two forces, but the line of division will be the Euphrates river and at that time, America (or at least the "Egypt" in the prophecy) will still be there guarding that line.

We don't leave. Despite all the talk currently suggesting our departure, if the prophecies that have been proving so uncannily accurate up to this point are true, we will still be there, still trying to enforce a peace between those two sides, attempting to stop what Daniel says is coming.

What the man in the blue turbin missed is the same thing that Nostradamus missed ­ the victory of Jesus at the end and the eternal life that is bestowed by God on those who had the vision to listen to Him.

 

When was the end of the Jewish nation? Who was king? When will Jesus' reign in Heaven begin? ­LC

Answer:

The Jewish nation basically ended when Jesus drove the evil tenants out of the temple with His whip. Basically, He changed the tenants at that moment. Just after that He was crucified. At His crucifixion Pontius Pilate, the Roman authority over Judea made Jesus the king of the Jews when he ordered a plaque to that effect nailed to the top of Jesus' cross:

"In my anger I gave you a king and in my wrath I take him away." (Hos. 13:11).

"...and in the storm the king of Israel is going to disappear forever" (Hos. 10:15; 11:1).

Fifty-two days later (52 days after the whip), the Holy Spirit came to earth at Pentecost beginning Christ's reign as king on earth, not only of the Jews, but of all mankind.

"I gazed into the visions of the night. And I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man. He came to the one of great age and was led into his presence. On him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship, and men of all peoples, nations and languages became his servants." (Dn.7:13-14).

His reign in the newly built kingdom of heaven will begin with His Return which will take place when He comes back to earth with His Father and all the angels of heaven, an event scheduled to occur on an unknown day still in our future. This is the spiritual reality, i.e., God's truth concerning your question.

There is also historical truth.

In that, the Jewish nation ended when Nebuchadnezzar took the Jewish nation out of the land of Israel and imprisoned them in captivity in Babylon near present-day Baghdad. The king of the Jews at that time was Jehoiachin. He reigned for only 3 months before being taken prisoner. He and his mother were exiled to Babylon in 598 B.C. "Say to the king and to the queen mother, "Come down from your thrones, for your glorious crowns will fall from your heads." (Jer 13:18).

Freed from their 70 year exile in Babylon by the prince of Persia, those Jews who wished to, were allowed to return to the land of Israel and set up a new Jewish nation there. It proved a temporary reprieve. In 66 A.D. the nation, now in full rebellion, not only against the Romans but themselves as well were attacked by Rome and defeated. Agrippa was the last king of the Jews. The temple was burned down by Titus who took all the leading figures in Jerusalem who survived the battles to Rome in captivity.

The burning of the temple proves that this is the point that correlates with the captivity of Jehoiachin. But now the king is Christ. It is Jesus who is taken captive to Babylon (Rome) by virtue of the cross and the treaty of peace it represents with an evil world. Just as Joseph was taken captive to Egypt and there fed his brothers, so Jesus was taken to Rome and there fed and continues to feed His brothers as well.

"Writhe, cry out daughter of Zion, for now you have to leave the city and live in the open country. To Babylon you must go and there you will be rescued; There God will ransom you out of the power of your enemies." (Micah 4:10).

In 70 A.D. after the temple was destroyed, Judea was made an imperial province under the rule of the legate of the Xth Roman Legion based in Jerusalem (no more Jewish kings). As such, it was allowed to remain, but in 125 A.D., led by a Jewish zealot named Simon bar Kokeba ("Son of the Star") who proclaimed himself the Messiah of prophecy, the Jews again revolted against the Romans. This time they were destroyed completely, and the exile was made all-encompassing and permanent. Jews were forbidden to set foot in Jerusalem.

That exile remained in effect until the 20th century (is actually still in progress) and has lasted for almost 2000 years. It cannot end until the coming of the "prince of Persia", who will issue a decree terminating the Diaspora.

The end of the Diaspora can only occur in concert with the return of Christ and with Him, the new Jerusalem, the kingdom of heaven with a new name, due to replace the earthly city and nation:

"The bride of Christ is the New Jerusalem-the great city of the kingdom of heaven. And I seemed to hear the voices of a huge crowd answering, 'Alleluia! The reign of the Lord our God Almighty has begun; let us be glad and joyful and give praise to God, because this is the time for the marriage of the Lamb. His bride is ready, and she has been able to dress herself in dazzling white linen, because her linen is made of the good deeds of the saints'." (Rv.19:5-8).

 

Your idea that we remain in Iraq...political view masked as prophecy??? ­PO

Answer:

Prophecy wrote its headlines more than 2000 years ago. Those words cannot be changed now.

Bible prophecy is not a matter of politics or political ideologies. It is simply the headlines in a newspaper­written in advance. The chips fall and the headlines tell us what, when, and where they fell. The same is true with prophecy. It happens only one way and scripture tells us what way that was, and so will be.

Some unknown day in the future the headlines will read the way the Bible predicts they will read. This has nothing to do with ideology. "Search in the book of the Lord, and read, not one of these is missing; for his mouth has ordained it, and his spirit has brought it all together." We have seen the truth of that written across the face of the past. It will be the same with the future as well.

Actually, America remaining in Iraq is not the center of the prophecies. That line, according to scripture, simply establishes the border between the "North" and the 'South" of the last days. It determines the point of invasion, an invasion so ubiquitously described by so many prophets, that it establishes the pivotal center as Jerusalem, the place Isaiah calls the furnace of the earth. (Is.31:9).

The prophecies that lie ahead are clear on this. Jerusalem is to be overrun by the armies of the East (Dan.11:16; Jer.44:27). That is coming and the only thing to be determined is when, and which nations will be involved when the invasion occurs. Current events strongly suggest that America is one of those nations, but impotent to stop the carnage . The prophecies are couched in metaphore ­ the futile ally of Israel is called "Egypt", or, as Isaiah called it, "Rahab-do-nothing" (Is.30:7), the nation that sits still and does nothing at the time of catastrophe.

This is the same "Egypt" that the prophets tell us will send its troops to the Euphrates to guard the western perimeter there. But to no avail. The posts are to be overrun in the attack and swept away by forces vastly outnumbering those guarding against that assault (Jer.46:3-10).

Everything still points to the fact that the world of our time is standing at the crossroads of scripture's final visions. If so, the invasion of Israel is at the heart of all current events building now in the Middle East. The focus is Jerusalem. The Jewish army leaders were allowed to return to the land of Palestine and set up a nation there ahead of time (ahead of the Prince of Persia's decree) for one purpose only: to reconcile themselves with God (Jer.42).

"For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: Your salvation lay in conversion and tranquility, your strength in complete trust; and you would have none of it." (Is.30:15).

These are the people of the Book. Why have they failed to read it?

"To the seers they say, 'See no visions'; to the prophets, 'Do not prophesy the truth to us, 'tell us flattering things; have illusory visions; turn aside from the way, leave the path, take the Holy One out of our sight'." (Is.30:10-11).

The orders given were these: to stay within the boundaries decreed for them by the king of Babylon and to live at peace with their neighbors (Jer.42).  Jeremiah, himself, on the command of God defined these orders. Instead, the army leaders abandoned God. They made no attempt to reconcile themselves to Him with respect to the Diaspora and, in open defiance of scripture, made a military pact with the great king of the west, encouraging their citizens to settle in lands forbidden to them by Jeremiah's decree of return.

They did not go back to try find God, or to search for the reasons surrounding the Diaspora; to try to correct those mistakes.  Instead, they built a secular nation obsessed with military matters. Isaiah said of this fixation and the religious vacuum surrounding it:

"Woe to those who go down to Egypt to seek help there, who rely on the number of chariots and on the strengh of mounted men, but never look to the Holy One of Israel nor consult the Lord." (Is.31:1).

"The Egyptian is a man, not a god, his horses are flesh, not spirit; the Lord will stretch out his hand to make the protector stumble; the protected will fall and all will perish together." (Is.31:3).

The focus of scripture surrounding the two wars at the Euphrates is on the disaster about to befall Israel ­ foreign troops standing in the streets of Jerusalem once again, proof that the Diaspora is still in place and that the prophecies of scripture must come to the Persian end decreed before that dispersion can truly to end.

Proof, also, that no nation can stand in open violation of the orders of God and expect to succeed.

A part of Jerusalem is to fall once again. A treaty signed in duress is all that will stand between complete annhiliation and the allowance of a remnant to remain there ­ a remnant that is to be threatened by armies all the way to the end. That is the catastrophe warned about in the pages of Jeremiah, the disaster that stems from Israeli preoccupation with militarism instead of with the business of making amends with God.

Such amends are crucial to the treaty of return.

The people of Israel were called by God to change the circumstances that caused the Diaspora. But no move has been made to repair that relationship. Only military planning and preparations. Only settlements in foreign lands against the dictates of the terms that brought this people back to Jerusalem ahead of time..

While Israel is the focus of scripture and Christianity, American concern lies with the helplessness of Egypt if that is what our nation or the western world is prophetically called in these verses. Why are we impotent? Why do we allow Israel and our own forces to be overrun by the armies of the East with no more than a wimper of protest?  What will drive our impotence? Will it be like Katrina?  

Isaiah writes that God will stretch out His hand to make "the protector stumble". That implies a collapse of some kind, financial or physical. A divinely induced collapse ­ one that has something to do with the ocean and its roaring waves.

Are we Tyre, the imperial nation founded in God but, owing to its riches fallen into profligacy? In relation to this imperial nation, scripture writes, "The fortresses of Canaan are to be destroyed." God, it says, is going to stretch his hand over the sea to overthrow its kingdoms, this imperial Tyre.

"The harbor is no more. Till the soil, daughter of Tarshish." writes Isaiah (Is.23:10). "He has stretched his hand over the sea to overthrow its kingdoms..."  Tarshish stands for Tartessos of Spain ­ the farthest west ends of the earth at the time scripture was written. Today that farthest west is America. Can it be that America is Egypt, is Tarshish, is imperial Tyre, or a part of these designations?  Of course. We officially disowned God and Jesus beginning in1963. Should a nation reject God and expect a blessing in return?

Why is the harbor no more? It would take a 30 foot rise in sea level to do the kind of damage envisioned here ­ to completely neutralize a mighty nation. Does the entire ice mass of Greenland suddenly descend into the sea or is there a tidal wave? If so, how large? The only answer is that God intends to stretch out His hand over this "Egypt" and shatter it.

The single act of Jeruslem's invasion and its consequences will bring the world, not just into one prophecy, but into a terrible sequence of prophecies. The heady days of prosperity will never come again to Babylon. The fortress will be destroyed. The towers fall. The seas rage. The harbor vanish. And a militaristic East will topple the western world, replacing it as the dominate imperialism of the world. Leading that fragmentation of all that we know will be the ten kings of the beast, and with them all the forces of the Antichrist.

These are not political statements. They are prophecies from God already given, prophecies of the headlines of the world's future ­ the dark time ahead Jesus spoke of when He said that "night is coming when no one can work". It is twilight now. There is still time to work, but it is vanishing fast. Delay is perilous.

When Jesus offered salvation to the world, a precious cornerstone, a foundation stone making justice the measure and integrity the plumb-line so that the believer not stumble, He did so wielding a destructive whip (Is.28:17-19; John 2:14-16). The world was made only for Christ and the purpose He brought. All who choose to live in His shelter will come to a safe end, but the souls of those who reject Him will be shattered in the chaos ahead:

"My people will live in a peaceful home, in safe houses, in quiet dwellings ­ the forest shall be beaten down and the city laid low." (Is. 32:18-20).

Happy will be all who believe and trust in the Lord.

 

Can you tell me about the handwriting on the wall? ­GH

Answer:

The handwriting on the wall is not only in the Book of Daniel, it IS the Book of Daniel.

It's meaning is that the "night" Jesus spoke of is at hand. This is the night the Prince of Persia is coming to power and is going to overthrow Babylon and kill its king (Jer.44:29). The meaning is no different today than it was when Daniel interpreted the writing and pronounced its sentence 2500 years ago (Dn. 5:5).

The fact that the Book of Daniel, sealed by God since the time of its writing, is being opened in our time indicates we are the profligate age the handwriting addresses­the true "Babylon" of prophecy. Just as in the Babylon of history, Saddam Hussein was put to death and his kingdom divided and given to the Medes and the Persians (Dn.5:28).  So it is to be with the Babylon of prophecy.

 

You present some thoughtful arguments, but I can't get over that most people are good and the times we live in are better than any our ancestors lived in. How can you think the doom and gloom prophecies of scripture are appropriate to us? I think you are off on your years. I hope so anyway. ­D

Answer:

Yes, most people are good. Yet scripture tells us that many will be lost because they did not accept Christ's offer of eternal life. The message Jesus preached is not about perceptions of good and bad, it is about salvation. It is about a rescue!

According to scripture we were born onto this earth burdened with a death penalty for sin. This was Satan's doing. Jesus died on the cross to pay our penalty. He died in our place. Unless we are marked in His sacrifice through baptism and repentance, we can have no salvation in us. Only those who accept His gift can be saved.

The shout is given because no one has to die. Eternal life is only a decision away. It can be made in a second. That is the length of time between life and death. Those who procrastinate may lose the only moment they had to be saved because the "good times" you speak of are about to end:

"For this is what the Lord has said to me, 'Go and post the watchman, and let him report what he sees. 'If he sees cavalry, horsemen two by two...let him observe, closely observe." The look-out shouts, 'On a watchtower, Lord, I stand all day; and at my post I keep guard all night'. Look, here come the cavalry, horsemen two by two."

"They spoke to me; they said, 'Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the images of her gods are shattered on the ground'. You who are threshed, you who are winnowed, what I have learnt from the Lord God, from the God of Israel, I am telling you now." (Is.21:6-10).

"You who pass the night in scrublands, in the wastelands...bring water for the thirsty. You inhabitants of Tema go and meet the fugitive and give him bread; since these are fleeing from the swords, from biting swords, from bent bows, from the stress of battle." (Is.21:13-15).

"Woe to the legislators of infamous laws, to those who issue tyrannical decrees, who refuse justice to the unfortunate and cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan. What will you do on the day of punishment, when, from far off, destruction comes? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches? Nothing for it but to crouch with the captives and to fall with the slain. Yet his anger is not spent, still his hand is raised to strike." (Is.10:1-4).

Whether from the watchtowers or the pulpit, the ministers of God preach the same message: It is the message of the prophets: Get out of Babylon! A terrible calamity is coming to destroy her. You can escape with your lives if you leave this place now and follow the way Jesus marked out.

It is a holy road. Take it while there is still light to see by, because time is quickly running out. The evening shadows lengthen. The ministers tend to the fugitives, bringing food and drink to those who have understood the message and are on their way out, following the path of the Lord.

In the Old Testament, long before Jesus was born, the word went out:

"Someone shouts to me from Seir, 'Watchman, what time of night? Watchman, what time of night?' The watchman answers, 'Morning is coming, then night again." (Is.21:11-12).

That morning arrived in the "Sonrise" of Jesus at Bethlehem.

The last 2000 years have been a time of Sonshine and harvest: the "Day of God" when millions of people across the face of the earth listened to the call of the Lord and escaped with their lives. Called the "millenium" because of prophecy, the time of the harvest has been almost doubled through the mercy of God. But now the end is close at hand. The "thousand years" have ended and the calamity scripture calls "the Wrath" is upon us. The rage of the 20th century and the madness of world war have plunged civilization into a chaos that is to be the nursery of Armageddon.

Now night is coming again. We are at the end of the age. We know that because, after all these years, Jerusalem has suddenly been rebuilt. At the same time, all the nations have thrown Jesus Christ out of their administrations. These are two seminal events. They are at the heart of all of scripture's warnings.

Those in the watchtowers shout the warning as they see the sun begin to set. 'Watchman, what time of day? The watchman answers, 'night is coming, bitter but short, then will come the morning, an everlasting day. It will never be night again.'

The Bible is clear: at the center of the fury are the Medes and the Persians. Together, they form the nucleus of the ten horns of end-time prophecy that are about to lay Babylon waste. They bring the Wrath that God has authorized.

"The ten horns and the beast will turn against the prostitute (Babylon), and strip off her clothes and leave her naked; then they will eat her flesh and burn the remains in the fire. In fact, God influenced their minds to do what he intended, to agree together to put their royal powers at the beast's disposal until the time when God's words should be fulfilled." (Rev.17:15-17).

"Priests, put on sackcloth and lament. Ministers of the altar, wail. Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God. For the house of our God has been deprived of oblation and libation...the day of the Lord is near, it comes as a devastation from Shaddai." (Joel 1:13-15).

"See how the Lord lays the earth waste, makes it a desert, buckles its surface, scatters its inhabitants...for they have transgressed the law, violated the precept, broken the everlasting covenant. so a curse consumes the earth and its inhabitants suffer the penalty, that is why the inhabitants of the earth are burnt up and few men are left." Is.24:1-6).

Isaiah and Jeremiah, speaking of the fall of Babylon and the fury surrounding it, compared it to the agony and ecstasy of childbirth:

"Just as whirlwinds sweeping over the Negeb come from the desert, so from a land of horror­a harsh vision has been shown me­the plunderer plunders, the destroyer destroys. 'Go up, Persia (Elam), lay siege, Media, I am putting an end to groaning.' This is why my loins are wracked with shuddering; I am seized with pains like the pains of a woman in labor; I am too distressed to hear, too afraid to see. My heart flutters, dread makes me tremble, the twilight I longed for has become my horror." (Is. 21:1-4)

"The Lord says this, I have heard a cry of panic, of terror, not of peace. Now ask, consider can men bear children? Then why do I see each man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor? Why has every face changed, turned pale? This is indeed a great day, no other like it: a time of distress for Jacob; but he will be freed from it." (Jer.30:5-7).

Such are to be the labor pains of the new birth when the kingdoms change their master (Mat.24:8). All who follow Jesus will escape this devastation with their lives intact, and live forever in peace in the kingdom God has created anew in the heavens.

"On that day­it is the Lord God who speaks­I will break the yoke on their necks, and snap their chains. They will be no longer the servants of aliens, but will serve the Lord their God, and David their king whom I will raise up for them." (Jer. 30:8-9).

"So do not be afraid, my servant Jacob­it is the Lord who speaks­Israel, do not be alarmed: look, I will rescue you from distant countries and your descendants from the country (Babylon) where they are captive. Jacob will have quiet again and live at ease, with no one to trouble him. For I am with you to save you: I will make an end of all the nations where I have scattered you; I will not make an end of you, only discipline you in moderation, so as not to let you go entirely unpunished." (Jer.30:10-11).

"Yes God says this...So great is your guilt, so many your sins, that I have done all this to you. But all those who devoured you shall themselves be devoured, all your oppressors go into captivity, those who despoiled you shall be despoiled, and all who preyed on you I will make into prey. For they used to call you 'The Outcast', 'Our booty whom no one cares about!' But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds­it is the Lord who speaks. (Jer.30:12-17).

The poor and downtrodden of the earth will be "outcasts" no longer. The peace that God is bringing His people to is not on this earth. It is in another kingdom, far away. That is the meaning of the journey which is our trek through life following the Gospel Jesus preached, the footsteps that can save our lives.

"They have found pardon in the wilderness, those who have survived the sword." (Jer.31:2).

Who has power to change these prophecies and say otherwise?

 

1) Is Jesus Christ the last prophet who came to earth?
2) Does anywhere in the Old or New Testament mention this?

I am a Christian (my father Catholic & mother Orthodox) who grew up in Greece with the orthodox teachings and i remember that in religious classes we were told the Jesus was the last prophet. How true is this to us as Christians? ? ­CB

Answer:

Jesus was certainly the ultimate prophet. He is also the fulfillment of all prophecy. And because He is God (the Trinity), He is the First and the Last (the Alpha and the Omega). Which would indeed make Him the last prophet. But all Christians are prophets. Simply to say that "Jesus is Lord" is to utter prophecy, because that is not proven yet. It will not be proven until the Second Coming. Then all of our prophecies and testimonies about Him will come true.

In chapters 12 through 14, of 1st Corinthians, Paul discusses the spiritual gifts given to Christians. He specified "prophecy" as one of those gifts and discussed the subject extensively. Among his many comments was this:

"And so, my dear brothers, by all means be ambitious to prophesy, do not suppress the gift of tongues, but let everything be done with propriety and in order." (1 Cor. 14:39-40).

The entire book of Revelation is a book of prophecy written by the Apostle John long after Jesus was crucified. The book refers to itself as a book of prophecy (See Rev. 1:3; 22:10, etc.)

One of the most stunning prophecies in modern times is that of Lucia de los Santos of Fatima. She predicted the conversion of Russia. And the entire world was listening when her 3rd prophecy was revealed.

It was from a prophetess in England that Nelson Darby learned of the idea of the "Rapture". There are Christian prophets, and have been since the days of the Apostles. Scripture has ordered there to be prophets all the way to the End. If not, who would there be to carry out this command:

"Does misfortune come to a city if the Lord has not sent it? No more does the Lord Yahweh do anything without revealing his plans to his servants the prophets. The lion roars: who can help feeling afraid? the Lord God speaks: who can refuse to prophesy?" (Amos 3:6-8).

Just remember, the Apostle Peter wrote:

"Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:20-21).

In Luke 16:19 ­ 31 we see the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. In Genesis 17 we see that God promised a child to be born through the free woman, Sarah, and this child would be the one to be the heir. As promised, Sarah conceived and had Isaac. He was the one to receive the inheritance.

According to primogeniture, Ishmael should have been the heir. What was the deciding factor between Ishmael and Isaac?

Ishmael was born of the slave woman, Hagar, and Isaac was born of the free woman, Sarah.

The heir was chosen through the maternal line, not the paternal line.

If Abraham represents God the Father, then who does the free woman Sarah represent?

Hagar and Sarah

Galatians 4:21 - 21Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the SLAVE WOMAN and the other by the FREE WOMAN. 23His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.

These things may be taken FIGURATIVELY, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar...Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children...But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.

Sarah is the free woman. She represents the Jerusalem that is free and she is our spiritual mother. Further confirmation.

Galatians 4:28 - 28Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30But what does the Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son." 31Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Apostle Paul understood the importance of the story about Sarah and Hagar.

Now we can understand what secret was hidden in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

God's children are chosen through the maternal line. Only those who accept 2nd coming Christ and our spiritual mother can receive the inheritance of God, the Kingdom of Heaven.

There are those like Eliezer, who do not believe in Father or Mother.

There are those like Ishmael who only beleive in Father, but not Mother.

Then there are those like Isaac who beleive in Father and Mother.

Only those like Isaac, the children of promise, will share in the inheritance of God. ­B

 

Answer:

How did you segue from two covenants to focus on mothers and fathers and maternal salvation? There is no such thing as maternal salvation in Christ. Christianity is not a question of believing in Father and Mother, it is a question of believing in Father and Son.

As you point out, Sarah stands for the covenant of Christ. Hagar for the covenant of Moses. But the word "mother" here is allegory, standing for the creation each covenant embodies. It is not the word "mother", but the word "covenant" that is the structural architecture of the parable about Hagar and Sarah. The story does not point to Ishmael or Issac, or even through Lazarus to Eliezer. it points to those who follow either Moses or Jesus.

The belief that saves is faith in the Son, Jesus Christ.

Only the Godhead, the Trinity, is involved in our creation and salvation. That is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is no "mother" in this equation. Our salvation comes from the Holy Spirit, the "living water" that emanates from the breast of Christ. It all comes through the Father: through the Godhead: the Word of God.

Jesus proved this when He told His disciples: "My mother and sisters and brother are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice." This means that both mother and her children gain life in exactly the same way, through the same Father, the Word of God, the Gospel Jesus preached.

Living in Moses, we live in the creation that is this world. When we were born into this world, we were born into the covenant of Moses. Jesus has called us to leave this world (and its Mosaic covenant) and follow Him to a new creation (formed by a new covenant). The allegory terms that new creation a new mother.

Our new birth into that new mother (that new creation) comes from the Son through the Father.

The Book of Revelation refers to "the mother of the male child", as the mother of everyone "who obeys God's commandments and bear witness for Jesus" (Rev. 12:13-17). She is our mother, but we are not born of her, we are born into her. There is a big difference. We are born of Christ and because of that new birth, we are to be raised up in the new "mother", which is the new creation in heaven built by God out of "the good deeds of the saints" (Rev. 19:8-9).

It is common for those in this worldly creation to speak of "mother nature". Mother nature is a term that relates only to this world. Our mother in heaven can be viewed like that, because it involves an entirely new creation in another place. This earthly creation (the one we call mother nature) is to pass away and be replaced by the bride of Christ, the new creation in heaven. The new Jerusalem is to be His bride signifying that Jesus is to be the King of that new creation.

We have learned that on earth we are made in two parts, body and soul. On earth our invisible spiritual soul created by God lives in a visible physical body created by "mother nature"(also through God, though many deny that). In heaven we do not know what kind of body our soul will be given, but it will probably exist in the same substance as our soul and be raised up in the substance of the Jerusalem of heaven, i.e., in the substance of the new covenant: the "mother" of the parable.

Both body and soul come from God, but because there are two parts, we can speak of Father and mother, using the same logic that divides body and soul on earth. The body our soul will wear in the new creation will be raised up out of that new creation. Perforce, the motherhood.

The parable you quote reflects the two covenants (the two creations).

In Moses the "mother" is formed by the Old Covenant. In Jesus Christ the "mother" is formed by the New Covenant. While each has its focus in two spiritual cities (one on earth and the other in heaven), they can be understood here only in terms of scripture. The line that divides them runs between the books of Malachi and Matthew, i.e., between Moses and Christ.

The parable relates to the completion of Moses in Christ ­ our passage from the Guardian covenant to the Covenant of the True Father. Those who believe in Christ have come to the freeborn wife, the new covenant. The covenants of God relate to the creations each produce. If there is to be a new covenant, there must be a new creation to accomodate it. Perforce, a new world and a new Jerusalem.

Those who stay with Moses are children of the old covenant. Only in Christ is there eternal life. There is no eternal life in Moses. That is the meaning of the parable.

The issue is Moses versus Jesus. To stay in Moses or to go back to Moses is to refuse or abandon salvation. There is no salvation in the old covenant. Only in Judiasm is there a caveat to this rule because it alone forms a second "house" of Israel.

We can see this relationship exposed in the words of the prophet Jeremiah who explained that God's creation stemming from the Mosaic covenant had abandoned faith in God and played the prostitute. God, instead of destroying the people, sent His Son to die on the cross for His people's sins, giving them a way to return to God by way of a new covenant (Jer.3:1-18; Jer. 31:31-34).

But you have, indeed, uncovered in this parable a "secret" revelation ­ the relationship between the Jerusalem of this world and the Jerusalem of heaven. It shows that Jesus will not return to set up a kingdom in this world, despite the fact that many say so. He will return only to take us to the new creation (our new mother) in heaven. Mother nature will have nothing to do with the formation of our new bodies in Christ. The Jerusalem of this world must pass away as soon as Christ returns.

We can see that "passing away" in the testimony of Peter:

"They are choosing to forget that there were heavens at the beginning, and that the earth was formed by the word of God out of water and between the waters, so that the world of that time was destroyed by being flooded by water. But by the same word, the present sky and earth are destined for fire, and are only being reserved until Judgement day so that all sinners may be destroyed." (2 Peter 3:5-7).

"The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then with a roar the sky will vanish, the elements will catch fire and fall apart, the earth and all that it contains will be burnt up. Since everything is coming to an end like this, you should be living holy and saintly lives while you wait and hope for the Day of God to come." (2 Peter 3:10-12).

"Since everything is coming to an end like this, you should be living holy and saintly lives while you wait and long for the Day of God to come, when the sky will dissolve in flames and the elements melt in the heat. What we are waiting for is what he promised: the new heavens and new earth, the place where righteousness will be at home. So then, my friends, while you are waiting, do your best to live lives without spot or stain so that he will find you at peace". (2 Peter 3:11-14).

We can also see that passing away, as well as God's replacement creation, in the Book of Revelation:

"Then I saw a great white throne and the One who was sitting on it. In his presence, earth and sky vanished, leaving no trace ·I saw the dead, both great and small, standing in front of his throne, while the book of life was opened, and other books opened which were the record of what they had done in their lives, by which the dead were judged." (Rev. 20:11-12).

The sea gave up all the dead who were in it; ·Death and Hades were emptied of the dead that were in them; and every one was judged according to the way in which he had lived. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the burning lake. This burning lake is the second death; ·and anybody whose name could not be found written in the book of life was thrown into the burning lake." (Rev. 20:13-15).

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first, earth had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea. ·I saw the holy city, and the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, as beautiful as a bride all dressed for her husband. ·Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, 'You see this city? Here God lives among men. He will make his home among them; they shall be his people, and he will be their God..." (Rev. 21:1-3).

The new covenant creates the "mother". It does not come from her. Jesus alone is the bread of life. He is the "Son" that shines on the new creation, bringing it to life through His life-giving rays of eternal light. The living water of salvation comes to us from the breast of Christ through the Father. There is no other source of life, neither here nor in heaven.

Anyone who believes in Jesus Christ, the Son of God will live forever.

In the prophecy of Jeremiah 3:16 you refrenced a quotation that says the ark of the covenant is to pass away and never be seen or thought of again. How does this square with Rv.11:19? ­BG

Answer:

The ark of the covenant was made to house the Testimony, the two stone tablets on which were written the commandments of God which He wrote out in the presence of Moses on Mount Sinai. God told Moses that these were just the beginning of His commandments, that He would descend the mountain in view of all the people and give the rest in person.

As He began to descend, however, the people became terrified at God's approach because the earth shook, the mountain erupted in flame, there were lightning bolts and immense thunder shook the air (Ex.19:16-20). The people begged Moses to go to God and send an intermediary in His place (Ex.20:18-20).

God agreed to this, instituting a temporary Guardian covenant with them until the time came for the Intercessor to appear (Dt.18:15-19). In the meantime, the people carried the ten commandments around in a vessel called the ark of the covenant.

Jeremiah's prophecy (Jer. 3:16) informed the people that when the Intermediary appeared, there would be no need for an ark to carry around God's testimony, because He was going to house those commandments in people's hearts, not in a gold and acacia wood vessel (Jer. 31:33-34). The Intermediary had this kind of authority because He turned out to be God, Himself, made flesh.

The people's need for an ark would never occur again, i.e., the temple of Moses will never be rebuilt.

Rev. 11:19 proves this by showing that the source of God's commandments is not the Jerusalem of this world, or an earthly temple, but in the city of God in heaven.

I keep reading about a historical Jesus. What is the difference? ­TH

Answer:

Historical Jesus is a theory that there is a Jesus of history different from the person presented to us in the Gospels. The theory tries to cut between Jesus the ordinary man and the divinely directed and guided figure presented in scripture. The object is the same as those which try to find a scientific or reasoned solution to Jesus walking on water or feeding 5000 people with a few loaves and fishes, etc.­ an attempt to assuage disbelief.

Perhaps the most powerful god of this world (of Babylon) is not just science, but specifically the current understanding of science. Anything that does not fit into the ever-changing environment of current scientific thought is considered by those of this school as false reason. A divine Jesus, or the fact of a Holy Spirit guiding nature are ideas most in science find repugnant.

Those in the middle try to wed historical and reasoned analysis to Christianity in an attempt to act as a bridge between these two diverse schools of thought. As scientific understanding improves, the structure of these bridges changes, and will continue to change because current understanding of science always changes.

In other words, today's understanding of science is not accurate and will be replaced by tomorrow's understanding (which also will be false, and which, too, will change, on and on into infinity as men continue to probe the vastness of a universe in which there are as many galaxies as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world, and in which each galaxy has as many stars as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world).

It is not a small creation Satan has infected. It's sheer size defies comprehesion. Jesus addressed this size and showed that He was master of it all:

"And there are other sheep I have that are not part of this fold, and these I have to lead as well. They too will listen to my voice, and there will be only one flock and one shepherd." (John 10:16).

We can see in the scriptures two Jesus figures. The private Jesus (before Cana) and the public Jesus (the teacher of the Gospels). We can see in Mary's relationship with her Son that the private Jesus was identical to the public figure, but silent as a preacher ("My time has not yet come", He told His mother ­John 2:4). At that point He knew His whole purpose in life and was capable of performing miracles without hesitation, but obeyed His Father's command to keep his power hidden.

Not only that, but we can see in His mother's response (her command to the servants to "do whatever He tells you" ­ John 2:5) that she also knew of the range of his powers and understood Him. God's command to us that we give to anyone who asks is not a one-way street. God commands us to be like Him. Mary asked Jesus to make water into wine on that level of understanding ­ that He would do what His mother asked of Him.

The only way to understand Jesus is to understand the prophecies that outlined His coming. Jesus told His Apostles over and over that He had to fulfill scripture's prophecies. He understood every prophecy in the Old Testament and, not just those, but everything in the books and traditions (laws) that circulated around it. He talked directly with His Father and with the hidden spiritual figures of heaven every day, always in some hidden or secret place (in the same manner as He told us to pray). The difference is, we almost never see those figures, nor is their communication with us direct.

Jesus knew that He had come to give His earthly body as a sacrifice to take away the world's sin, i.e., the contamination Satan had splashed across our souls. Coupled to that sacrifice was His teaching ­ the road a cleansed vessel (a cleansed soul) must rout their bodies to, and thereby return safely to God, steeped in the understanding and belief that God will then raise them up in a new body in a new creation not of this earth.

Jesus understood this thoroughly. He also knew that the guiding power structuring this return would be the Holy Spirit. Once Jesus had been glorified by His Father in heaven, He endowed the Holy Spirit with his glory and sent Him back to earth to impart it into those who believed in Him.

In Christ, the whole structure of creation lies within the confines of this reality. It is all structured in a war between Satan and God (a war God has already won) and His salvation of the prisoners who have been held captive in Satan's domain.

Jesus knew all this, probably from the time He was a small boy. His comprehension and understanding of scripture, aside from a knowledge of Hebrew reading and writing, was not a momentary event. It did not happen overnight. That understanding can be seen in His discussions at a young age with the elders and teachers in Jerusalem at the Temple.

Prophecy shows us a Jesus of history little different from that of scripture. He knew who He was and He knew where He was going. He also knew where anyone who did not have faith in Him was going as well.

"You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I have told you already; You will die in your sins. Yes, if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." (John 8:23-24).

He knew His true age:

"I tell you most solemnly, before Abraham ever was, I Am". (John 8:58).

He understood that God had given Him everything He had:

"But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: All he tells you will be taken from what is mine." (John 16:12-15).

He also knew that the light He brought to the world would not last forever. The time for salvation had a defined limit that could be easily determined if one knew how to read the signs:

"As long as the day lasts I must carry out the work of the one who sent me; the night will soon be here when no one can work. As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world." (Jn. 8:4-5).

"There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; on earth nations in agony, bewildered by the clamour of the ocean and its waves; men dying of fear as they await what menaces the world, for the powers of heaven will be shaken. And then they will see the son of Man coing in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation in near at hand." Luke 21:25-28.

"In the evening you say, 'It will be fair; there is a red sky', but if it is red and overcast in the morning, 'stormy weather today'. You know how to read the face of the sky, but you cannot read the signs of the times." Mat.16:2-3

Those signs are easily seen in the historical world, but, of themselves, have meant little to the those who are witnessing the setting Son or the warning clouds before them. That is why the scriptural Jesus continues to be, even at the end, the salvation of the world:

Now go and inscribe this on a tablet, write it in a book, that it may serve in the time to come as a witness forever." (Is.30:1).

Is there a defining quote in scripture that backs up the Church's claim that Jesus is God in its formula of the Trinity? If so, where might we find it? ­PL

Answer:

There are many that allude to it, but perhaps none better than this prophecy in the Book of Isaiah:

"I, I am the Lord, there is no other savior but me. It is I who have spoken, have saved, have made the proclamation, not any strangers among you. You are my witnesses ­it is the Lord who speaks­ and I, I am your God, I am he from eternity. No one can deliver from my hand, I act and no one can reverse it. (Is. 43:11-13).

"Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I send an army against Babylon; I will knock down the prison bars and the Chaldaeans will break into laments. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your king." (Is. 43:14-15).

In that quote, the Chaldaens are the citizens of Babylon. The Redeemer of Israel has come to announce the destruction of Babylon and all its pagan dieties.

Isaiah clearly shows in this quotation that the Savior is God. In verses 9:5-7, Isaiah structures the saving Godhead on Jesus Christ:

"For there is child born for us, a son given to us and dominon is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him, 'Wonder-Counsellor', 'Mighty-God', 'Eternal-Father', 'Prince of Peace'."

"Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end, for the throne of David and for his royal power, which he establishes and makes secure in justice and integrity. From this time onwards and forever, the jealous love of the Lord God Almighty will do this."

This shows that the 'child born for us' is the one who makes the proclamation. He is no stranger because He was born among us ­ a man. It is Jesus who saves. Therefore, Jesus is our God, from eternity ­ just as prophecy announced, and just as He, Himself, stated:

"I tell you most solemnly, before Abraham ever was, I Am." (John 8:58).

Ted, you write:

"While Israel is the focus of scripture and Christianity, American concern lies with the helplessness of Egypt if that is what our nation or the western world is prophetically called in these verses. Why are we impotent? Why do we allow Israel and our own forces to be overrun by the armies of the East with no more than a wimper of protest? What will drive our impotence? Will it be like Katrina?

Isaiah writes that God will stretch out His hand to make "the protector stumble". That implies a collapse of some kind, financial or physical. A divinely induced collapse; one that has something to do with the ocean and its roaring waves.

Are we Tyre, the imperial nation founded in God but, owing to its riches fallen into profligacy? In relation to this imperial nation, scripture writes, "The fortresses of Canaan are to be destroyed." God, it says, is going to stretch his hand over the sea to overthrow its kingdoms, this imperial Tyre.

"The harbor is no more. Till the soil, daughter of Tarshish." writes Isaiah (Is.23:10). "He has stretched his hand over the sea to overthrow its kingdoms..." Tarshish stands for Tartessos of Spain; the farthest west ends of the earth at the time scripture was written. Today that farthest west is America. Can it be that America is Egypt, is Tarshish, is imperial Tyre, or a part of these designations? Of course. We officially disowned God and Jesus beginning in 1963. Should a nation reject God and expect a blessing in return?

Why is the harbor no more? It would take a 30 foot rise in sea level to do the kind of damage envisioned here; to completely neutralize a mighty nation. Does the entire ice mass of Greenland suddenly descend into the sea or is there a tidal wave? If so, how large? The only answer is that God intends to stretch out His hand over this "Egypt" and shatter it."

I thought you said we were Kittim? The mighty ships that push the antichrist's army back? I'll tell you why we won't stand behind Israel Ted. Because of their manipulation...pushing us toward isolationism. The writing is on the walls. Bush and his folly into Iraq has hurt us beyond belief. Iran looms on the horizon. Do you know how many people I know that have said that if we attack Iran, they will renounce their American citizenship?

That's why Ted. Because you may not read it in the press, or hear it on the news, but the vast majority of Americans are fed up with our one-sided, blind defense of Israel. We are NOT willing to fight for them because they have lied and manipulated to the point that it will backfire.

And YOU of all people should know that in the end times, Israel does NOT mean the literal nation and Babylon is NOT the literal place of a physical nature. It represents the division between worldly and spiritual. -PS

Answer:

America is the nation that saved the world from totalitarian rule in the 1940's. Yet it was the same nation that almost fractured and disappeared 80 years earlier, in the 1860's, during the period of Civil War which divided the nation and its people into two bitterly opposed halves. Same nation. Two circumstances, vastly different.

America was able to save the world in the 1940's because it survived the catastrophe of the1860's and recovered. The same applies to Kittim. Same nation. Two era's. Two vastly different circumstances. Again, a looming catastrophe from which recovery is essential if the "Man of Perdition" is to be blocked.

My writing which you refer to above points to the crises of faith currently hovering over world society today and its consequences. The rejection of Christ's doctrine has grown over the last 100 years to encompass all the nations of the western world. It will have dynamic repercussions, as discussed. Castastrophic repercussions! Those counteractions will lead the world into the final days.

The people of America are divided between secularism and religious­mostly Christian religious. Yet America today is proof of the Psalm that says "Man in prosperity forfeits wisdom." We are exposed daily to the reckless profligacy spilling out of Hollywood and can see everywhere the hedonism and godlessness that have rampantly converted human culture. Sexual obsession, greed, violence and sin are ubiquitous and universally accepted; so much so that most see all this as normal and acceptable human endeavor. God sees otherwise. Scripture shows Him pulling the plug on this "Babylon" (a world gone morally beserk). The repercussions are absolute. The warnings have already been given. The time appears close.

I sense that the recoil discussed above will be so dramatic that it will move the leadership of America back toward God, shifting the balance of political power away from the precipice of faithlessness. The fact of "Kittim" in prophecy seems proof that this shift will occur, but it will not happen overnight, and it will not happen at all if it is not brought to the people's attention that such a shift is a crucial necessity to the nation's survival. That is why the warning is broadcast.

Israel is today a divided nation as well. Up to one half of its population is militant and the other half (a political minority) is opting for peace. The militants back the settlers, and they are in power. According to scripture, this division will not change until the invasion at the Euphrates, when it will be forcibly brought to a focus.

Yes, scripture's ultimate definition is spiritual, but every spiritual element has a physical component ­ an opposite which works as an example of what cannot be seen. All the works of God go in pairs by these kind of opposites. We can see these physical components (these opposites) in the national events that encompass the last days.

The whole spiritual framework of the last days is based on a national structure focused on the city of Jerusalem in Palestine. All the nations are to be brought to this city per prophecy. A little over a hundred years ago Jerusalem was described by Mark Twain as a sleepy village town, decaying in its ruins. Compare that to the circumstance there today, with all the armies and nations of the world focused on the MIddle East, and Jerusalem a mighty modern world city at the center of all the controversy.

The Book of Esther describes Jerusalem as the world's gallows ­ intended by Haman to be the place of the execution of the Jewish race, but turned by God into Haman's place of execution instead. It is the world's "Valley of Jehoshaphat" where all the world's people are to face the Judgment. The closer that Judgment comes, the larger Jerusalem will loom over world affairs.

The word "Israel" was given to Jacob and applied to the twelve "tribes" that came through him. The Jews were only one of those twelve. That means the term "Israel" encompasses all Christians and Jews, a duality that constitutes the two "houses" of Israel. The Diaspora (exile to Babylon) applies to both.

The spiritual ingathering has been taking place since Pentecost and leads to the Jerusalem of heaven.

The physical (i.e., opposite) side of the spiritual Ingathering from this exile will take place at the End, when all of Israel is allowed to leave its 2000-year captivity in "Babylon". This event (the physical end of the Diaspora) is near, but has not yet occurred because it must await a proclamation by the "Prince of Persia" (2 Chron. 36:19-21). That prince and his proclamation are still to come. In fact, it is quite a distance away at this point, for which we can be thankful, for he is the "Beast". Much will happen before it is issued.

What is happening now is a return authorized by Jeremiah as a codicle to the Diaspora, allowing a group of Jewish army leaders to return in advance of the Persian proclamation (Jer. 42-44). In Jeremiah's return it is the king of Babylon who allows the return (not the prince of Persia). The same is true of the return we see there today ­ it was authorized by an edict issued through a political body called the United Nations (the united kings of Babylon, if you will).

The return authorized by God through Jeremiah was for the purpose of reuniting the Jewish people with God, not for building a military empire. The return was given so that the following question be probed and rectified:

"As for this Temple, now so exalted, all who pass by will be astounded; they will whistle and say, 'Why has the Lord treated this country and this Temple like this? And the answer will be 'Because they forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods and worshipped them and served them; that is why he has brought all these disasters on them." (2 Chron. 7:21-22).

Jeremiah's return involved two warnings. The people were not allowed to form "settlements" outside the boundaries defined for them by the king of Babylon and they were not to make a military pact with "Egypt". Those warnings were blatantly violated, both in the prophecy and in today's fulfillment of that prophecy.

The repercussions of those violations in the prophecy are graphically documented in the Book of Jeremiah (Jer. 44:11-14) and give a disquieting assurance that we can expect the same to be repeated for today's violations in the days ahead, i.e., the invasion across the Euphrates when "God dries up the river bed" that brings the armies of the East on the rampage preordained by scripture.

In that preordained attack, scripture tells us that God will disarm "Egypt's" hand so that it cannot aid Israel, because what is to be must be. The term "Egypt" is symbolism pointing to the United States. It points to Israel's military alliance with the West, and to the nation whose troops guard the Euphrates from the kings of the East. That symbolism points to America, not to Egypt. Today America guards the Euphrates, not Egypt, and Israel's military pact is with the American military establishment, it has nothing to do with Egypt.

America will not come to Israel's aid in time to prevent the invasion from reaching into Jerusalem because God will prevent us from responding so that the prophecy is carried out. It may follow along the course you specify, isolationism, but there is catastrophe associated with it as well (Jer. 45:4-5; Dan.11:3-4). See especially, Is. 23:10 above.

Scripture shows that the East is to be God's mace in the destruction of "Babylon". The western world nations will collapse, but America will be allowed to recover to become Kittim. That will not change the End, but insure that the End will follow the prophecies that have described it. Everything that has been prophesied will occur, irrespective of politics. Every world leader in this sequence is to be a pawn in the hand of God because scripture must follow its predetermined course.

After the invasion, Israel will be forced through a treaty of survival to accept the bride of Palestine. It will be a shotgun wedding designed to destroy Israel, but it will not work to that end (Dan. 11:17). It will be a time, as the Book of Chronicles states, of great violence and chaos:

"Listen to me, Asa, and all you of Judah and of Benjamin. The Lord is with you so long as you are with him. When you seek him, he lets you find him; when you desert him, he deserts you. Many a day Israel will spend without a faithful God, without priest to teach, without law; but in their distress they will return to the Lord, the God of Israel; they will seek him and he will let them find him.

When that time comes no grown man will know peace, for many troubles will afflict all the inhabitants of the country. Nation will be shattered by nation, city shattered by city, since God will afflict them with every kind of distress. But for your part, take courage, do not let your hands weaken, for your deeds will be rewarded." (2 Chron. 15:2-7).

Among the Jews, the militants of Israel will be destroyed (2 Chron. 18:5+). In their place, a people of peace will stand firm behind the Jehoshaphat of the future whom God will raise up for them while they prepare themselves for the Armageddon that looms. Though they are facing vast hordes of troops­combatants beyond number surrounding them, there will be no need to fight that day. The Lord alone will act and the enemy will be no more (2 Chron. 20:16-17).

And then they will see Michael teh Archangel and those with him coming from the Mount of Olives. Filled with joy at the sight of the rconciliation completed, the Jewish leaders will greet him with history's final words:

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" (Mat. 23:39).

 

Let me ask you another question: Christ said that he could destroy the Temple ad rebuild it in 3 days. What does that mean? ­PS

Answer:

The true temple of God is the body of Christ.

After Jesus had overturned the tables of the money changers and driven them out of the Temple with a whip,

"The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?' Jesus answered, 'Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up'.

The Jews replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?' " But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said." (John 2:18-21).

"Then some of the scribes and Pharisees spoke up. 'Master', they said, 'we should like to see a sign from you.' He replied, 'It is an evil and unfaithful generation that asks for a sign! The only sign it will be given is the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of tthe whale for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights." (Mat. 12:38-40).

"I saw that there was no temple in the city since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were themselves the temple, and the city did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory of God and the Lamb was a lighted torch for it." (Rev. 21:22-23).

Ted...on many issues, I have a completely different view than you.

God does not look at nations -- he is not looking at nations with a name and borders and a flag. For goodness sakes Ted, most of the world is rife with sin and corruption and greed! God is not going to single out one nation to destroy or to build up for that matter. Why? Because ask yourself this: is God CAUSING events or is He going to cause events, or, is it more that he is all-knowing and knew the future and it is unfolding NOT by the hand of God, but by the mis-steps of man?

It's from the mistakes we make. God did not lift up the United States or Great Britain for that matter. Why? Because if God knows all and knows the future, why would he lift up nations such as England, which invaded and oppressed others? Why would he lift up the USA, if he knew that we would be a nation obsessed with Hollywood and Las Vegas, etc., etc. He would not. He did not.

Likewise, he will not go about destroying this nation over that nation in the end. What WILL happen is man will either keep on the course we're on (which is probably the case) and the end results is exactly what God forsaw. What God will do is to intercede to save ALL of His people. Trust me Ted!! ­PS

Answer:

Your assessment is right on the mark, but it measures only one part of the equation. Yours is the most important part for us as individuals in Christ. I do not write about God building up some nations and destroying others. I write about the destruction of Babylon. It is a one-time occasion. My writing is more complicated, because it must include the language of scripture's prophets. I am required to write from their mouths.

It is they, the prophets of scripture, following God's orders, who have based the prophecies on nations. Their words structure the wrath of God on the rejection of His will by the nations, a plummeting faith in the final days that can, ostensibly, be observed and graphed.

When investors are evaluating companies on the stock market they use graphs to assess the relative value of the companies they invest in. They do this because graphs transfer the confusion of the numbers into a type of picture which allows the investor to see the factors they are most interested in and portray them in patterns that show past, present and likely future trends of those factors in definitive patterns which they can see and understand at a glance.

Those graphs can be shown in daily patterns, or they can be shown in yearly patterns, . The two are different. Even more different are graphs that show those patterns over several years. All are extremely valuable for determining where a corporation is in relation to the other corporations in the same field, or in relation to other industries as well.

Those graphs exist both for individual companies and for all the companies put together, usually composited in key graphs, like Standard and Poor's or Dow Jones, etc.

These graphs measure the financial picture of the corporations in question.

We can measure the moral picture of a nation, or group of nations in the same way. Not financially, but in terms of national morality. No one has ever done it. But it's still there to be done, dependent on the measure used.

Using Jesus Christ as the measure, we can garner a view of the moral nature of the United States in the motion pictures and music popular in previous era's, say the 1940's or 30's or 00's, etc. As we go back in time, we discover that previous ages were increasingly naive in relation to current behavior. They were more innocent measured in group terms. Also they tended to be more Christian. Many argue this, but that simplicity and culture can be seen vividly in the music, art, drugs and national behaviors of previous ages.

Almost all teenagers and many adults left their cars unlocked and the windows down even up to the 1950's. The jackets and items left inside were rarely stolen. It was not uncommon for people to leave their keys in the car when they went into a store. People left unattended baskets in fruit stands asking visitors to pick out what they wanted and put the money in the basket in the 1920's, even up to the1940's. Empty coke bottles were left all night in racks in the service stations, as well as machines filled with soda pop, outide all night. That's all just a few years ago in our own country.

On the other side of the coin, there has always been evil and violence. That, too, has grown far more virulent over the Christian ages leading up to figures like Napolean and Hitler, etc., who have mounted increasingly gruesome attacks on the more placid nations around them.

All this can be graphed.

If we make such a graph relevant only to Christianity on the planet, measuring nations, as we would corporations on the stock market, we would find the same kind of up and down lines relative to national obedience in general to the commandments of the Lord that we would see in corporations relative to money. As the level of disobedience increased, as the degredation into drugs and kinky sex and its public acceptance via printed and electronic media grew and the naivete fell, the line would go down, showing the rate and relative position of that general public fall in morality per Christ's rules.

The graph would not include pagan Rome or pagan Greece or any structure of humanity outside the world of Christian instruction. It would only measure Christ's impact on the world, and its changing nature over time. Just as with the stock market over time, we see companies appear and companies die, so with nations. But just as the market itself continues, so would the history of Christianity on earth and its impact on those nations that accept it, i.e., a sort of Dow Jones-like average in moral terms from Pentecost to now ­ giving us over all that time, presumably, in the long view a sort of bell-shaped curve, with a more or less flattened top.

Jesus said that God's offer of salvation was limited. It has a definitive time, which He said was "short". The prophets were assigned by God to describe that period and its end. They had only one way of doing that, and that was to portray it in terms of nations ­ in terms of their relationship to God.

We can see those Christian nations two ways. One, as the myriad of church's that comprise Christianity on earth, or two, as the Christian nations of the political world.

According to their assessments, when the national Christian response by the nations as a whole has fallen below a certain (but unmarked level), the plug will be pulled. That is how all the prophets in scripture have portrayed the termination (using the term "House of Israel" as the incorporating description of those Christian nations)..

Jesus said that every word in the prophecies had to be fulfilled. So it will be. Both literally and spiritually.

The first nation to accept Christ (as a nation) was Rome at the time of Constantine. Since then, every nation in the western world followed their lead and did likewise. In the 20th century, that acceptance was reversed. Every nation in the western world has rescinded that national acceptance. Even America. Jesus said that it was on these grounds that the sentence would be pronounced (John 3:19).

In other words, on rescinded faith.

In order to understand the timing of scripture and see that timing in the language of prophecy, it is necessary to incorporate it, as has scripture, not just in its underlying spiritual reality, but in its national imagery as well. The spiritual reality exists for each of us as individuals. We live and die in a time framework vastly different from that of the nations. The national reality exists only in terms of the relative state of returning paganism, i.e., the day and moment of the earth itself when God says "Enough!"

Since I write a prophecy page (about the prophets of scripture), specifically to explore that timing, I have to do it in the fog of a non-existant graph, using the prophets of scripture as a guide, and the state of the world today, in relation to the world yesterday as the measure: both plotted in relation to Christ's definition that the time (of Christianity on earth) would be short. This is being done under the backdrop of Christ's statement:

"In the evening you say, 'It will be fair; there is a red sky', but if it is red and overcast in the morning, 'stormy weather today'. You know how to read the face of the sky, but you cannot read the signs of the times." (Mat.16:2-3).

Jerusalem has been rebuilt. That alone shows that the time is near, which means that looking at the world today is giving us a view of a Christian world different from that of the past, i.e., more pagan and more sinful. In America we can see that difference vividly just going back to the 1940's.

God has decreed that those differences be stated in relation to the words of the prophets of scripture. He has set a defined time limit on this instruction: "Seventy weeks are decreed...for setting the seal on vision and on prophecy..." (Daniel 9:24).

"Does the trumpet sound in the city without the populace becoming alarmed? Does misfortune come to a city if God has not sent it? No more does the Lord God do anything without revealing his plans to his servants the prophets." (Amos 3:6-7).

The reason why this warning is so essential (the reason why God has decreed it must be stated) is because He wants no one to be lost; He wants everyone to be warned so fully that no one afterward can come to Him and say they didn't know.

 

Do you think homosexuality is biological? If it is should it that change our view of scripture in any way? ­LD

Answer:

Homosexuality is definitely biological. So is the urge to rape. Man is born into the body of a wild animal that must be carefully domesticated. Humans are born with biological urges and drives that would rip civilization apart if left completely unchecked. Society sets rules of order in order to keep man's drives from wreaking havoc across the social spectrum. Without those rules, people would rape and kill whenever the urge struck them. Even with those laws in place, we still have to suffer endless wars, violence and social abberations on a vast scale.

The rules of domestication have been honed over thousands of years of social intercourse by trial and error. In addition, Jesus brought a set of social rules down from heaven which He taught must be kept in order to achieve eternal life. Scripture tells us that books are kept in heaven that detail our every action, both positive and negative in relation to those rules, so important are they to our ultimate fate.

We live in a time when many of the western world's strictures are being newly tested in the wake of society's recent overthrow of Christian morality.

Biological urges notwithstanding, the New Testament teaches that eternal life is achieved only with compliance to Christ and the "narrow road" He detailed. The same is true of society's new morality. It can't change scripture. Nor can it ever offer what it has no intent to offer ­ eternal life.

Jesus is the light of the nations. Through Him God's salvation has reached to the ends of the earth.

 

I see advertisements running all the time on tv for a book written by a scientist ridiculing Christianity and other faiths saying religion precipitates wars and killing. Is this the kind of attacks on God that prove the end times are near? ­JP

Answer:

Written by a scientist, you say?  According to the media over the last 70 or 80 years, 9 out of 10 doctors (the most revered professionals in our society) were urging all Americans to smoke Camel cigarettes. Everyone now knows the terrible calamity that befell those who believed what they read or heard and followed the expert's advice. Expect far worse catastrophe from those who urge Americans to embrace godlessness.

You can see in today's world how many politicians have sold out the people that elected them to chase after gold. Scientists, doctors, professors and politicians have a miserable track record lately as far as honesty and character are concerned. The race for riches seems to level them all. It is sad to say, but these days especially, look for the money trail. Is this a sign of the end?  Of course it is. See 2 Timothy 3:1-4.

When Adolph Hitler promoted warfare, he didn't need to use religion to do it. All he needed were enough soldiers and war machinery. The same is true of the Japanese in World War II. Those wars were secular. So was the First World War, the Gulf wars, the Vietnam war, the Korean war, the American Civil war, the Chinese war, the Spanish American war, the Alamo and the Texas war, the Revolutionary war and so on throughout history.

There were a few religious wars in the major mix, but they were fought hundreds of years ago. That doesn't mean a major religious war cannot happen again. Perhaps one is brewing now at the Euphrates river between the Shiites and Sunni's because the Quran, like the Old Testament, romanticizes war.

The people who run nations tend to fight just as those in bars do, over anything they perceive as an insult, with the flash point for the violence often being very low. Wars happen because man is born with a gene for violence. Anything can trigger it. Even a flirtatious glance.

Primitive people consider eye-to eye contact an act of war. It is money, greed, jealousy, and power, far more often than religion that fertilizes the soil of mystery writers. The same is true of violence's broader scale.

For these reasons, there will always be wars, but none are promoted by Christ or His Father. Jesus warned that not only will those who initiate wars lose their chance at eternal life, even being angry will gravely endanger it. Peace is the only way to live forever. Compassion, love, humility and kindness are the traits of God, and Jesus promises eternal life to those who embrace them.

 

Can you explain the meaning of the passage in Isaiah 43:14? God seems to send for all the nobles of Babylon to come down to Israel in ships and they cry out about it. Is this right? Or is it the Chaldeans who cry? Who are the Chaldeans? This passage is very confusing to me. ­TI

Answer:

That's a fair translation. The Chaldeans are the citizens of Babylon. They include both the nobles (the kings) and their subjects. The passage sets the stage for the verses that follow it (i.e., Is. 43:15-17): they lead into a stylized maxim on the Exodus ­ God turning the seabed into a road for the redeemed House of Israel to cross, but turning that road at the end into a watery chaos that exterminates Pharaoh and his entire army when they try to chase after the House of Israel's rearguard, to kill them.

Isaiah is prophesying in these verses that this very scene is to happen again in the future, but not with Egypt as the villian. Instead, the pursuing army will be the Babylonians, flush from a crushing destruction of the holy people, and bent on annihilating Jerusalem itself.

Although this vast network of armies, seem to be massing against Israel of their own volition, it is God who has sent for them and brought them there (according to the verse you asked about) to the plain on which they are all to meet their end.

This blast of judgment is one of the great prophecies of scripture. It is the focal point of human existance. It marks the final end of Satan and his "beast". It is called "Armageddon," a war the House of Israel prepares for but never has to fight. The Lord takes the field in their place. The House of Israel does not even have to raise a bow. That is why the prophet Ezekiel said of the vision,

"Son of man, prophesy against Gog. Say to him, 'The Lord God says this: Now I set myself against you, Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you round, lead you on, and bring you from the farthest north to attack the mountains of Israel. I will break the bow in your left hand and dash the arrows out of your right. You will be killed on the mountains of Israel, you and all your hordes, and the nations with you. I shall make you food for carrion and all your hordes, and the nations with you. You will fall in the open countryside. I have spoken­it is the Lord God who speaks. I will send fire to Magog and on those living undisturbed on the islands, and they will learn that I am the Lord." (Ez.39:1-6).

"All this is going to happen, all this is going to take place ­ it is the Lord God who speaks. This is the day I predicted." (Ez. 39:8).

Almost immediately after this holocaust of fire and brimstone occurs, Jesus will return.

It will be a time of great distress, unparalleled since nations first came into existence, but all who trust in Christ will be spared, everyone whose name is written in heaven's Book of Life (Dan. 12:1-2).

The vision harkens back to the oldest days in Hebrew literature. It can be found discussed in metaphoric detail in the 2nd Book of Chronicles 20:15-24. More detail on this extraordinary day is included in the Book of Daniel, whose entire vision is wrapped around it (Dan.11:40-45).

Isaiah has even prepared an epigram that must be recited by the House of Israel against this fallen army and its treacherous leader on the day God's extermination of them occurs (Is.14:3-21).

It is in this end that God will fulfill His plan to gather all the nations to Jerusalem for the Judgment.

"Let the nations muster round you in a body, and then return, high over them." (Ps.7:7).

"He bent the heavens and came down, a dark cloud under his feet; he mounted a cherub and flew, and soared on the wings of the wind. Darkness he made a veil to surround him, his tent a watery darkness, dense cloud; before him a flash enkindled hail and fiery embers. God thundered from heaven, the Most High made his voice heard; he let his arrows fly and scattered them, launched the lightnings and routed them." (Ps.18:9-15).

"God is inside the city, she can never fall, at crack of dawn God helps her; to the roaring of nations and tottering of kingdoms, when he shouts, the world disintegrates." (Ps. 46:5-6).

Daniel, in the final moments of his vision heard the angels speaking with the man in dazzling white linen about these wonders. One of the angels asked Him how long it would be before these events would take place. The man in white answered,

"A time two times, and half a time; and all these things are going to happen when he who crushes the power of the holy people meets his end." Daniel listened but did not understand. Then he said, 'My lord, what is to be the outcome?' 'Daniel,' he said 'go away: these words are to remain secret and sealed until the time of the End." (Dan.12:6-10).

 

I find your Fatima editorial interesting in that while you give the Bishop of Rome the proper credit as the leader of his church on earth. You still try to work it into the protestant misguided teachings of millennialism. The Bishop of Rome has declared that theology heretical (CCC 667). A book by David Currie called Rapture might be of true interest for you to read. ­SR

Answer:

Thank you for taking the time to comment on these writings. The concept of "millenium" as it applies to scripture is prophecy, not theology. Those that preach thoughts on the concept as if it were theology apply it incorrectly.

There are basically two primary sources of the "thousand years" in scripture. The first is in the Psalms where the statement that "a day to God is like a thousand years to man" resides. This statement is repeated and re-emphasized in Peter's second letter, a fact that underlines its prophetic nature in Christ (2 Peter 3:8; Ps. 90:4). The second reference is in the Book of Revelation's statement that God sent Michael down to earth to place Satan in chains for "a thousand years" so that God's will could be done on earth, and that, at the end of that time he would be released for a short term. Scripture says he will use that brief freedom to mobilize all the nations of the world for war. Assumedly, global war (Rv.20:1-3; 7-10).

Those two statements are prophecies. Therefore, they exist under the orchestration of the Holy Spirit for whatever purpose He deems relevant. God has decreed that He will make known in advance everything He intends to do ­ before He does it (Amos 3:6-7).

There is an eschatology, so we must assume, according to Amos, that God will raise prophets and prophecies within the framework of that day's approach until the final day arrives. The Protestant millenial prophecies may well be incorrect prophecies as you suggest, but they are well-intentioned and each needs to be seen in that light. More likely, they are dim views of an unfolding truth. They prepare us to understand what others may clarify more accurately in the future as the moment closes in.

The currently popular prophecies with respect to the thousand-year references in scripture fail to see the just-passed 2000-year history of the Christian religion on earth as applicable to the millenial vision because it is almost twice as long as the prophecy stipulates. Yet there is another scriptural reference in the Book of Joshua that mediates that discrepancy in a way that allows the period to be seen in a single day framework (Joshua 10:12-14). In other words, it unites both millenial scriptural references (at today's point in time) to the life of the Church since its conception.

The concept of the millenium, seen in this new and largely unexplored context, while undermining the Protestant (or, more accurately, Baptist) view proposed by Darby and his followers, gives enormous relevance to the concept in terms of our world today and therefore must be seriously considered in terms of a spiritual enlightenment to the Church directed by the Holy Spirit.

What is important for us to know as far as God is concerned revolves soley around Jesus Christ, His message and purpose, and the color of the sky in the morning (Mat.16:2-3), the latter being something to which the concept of millenium is certain to apply, given Revelation's words.

 

When Jesus returns will He and God both live inside the new Temple together? In spirit or in person? How soon will it be rebuilt? It doesn't seem to have started yet. How long do you see it taking to rebuild it? I ask this because it seems to me that the world cannot end until it is finished. When the rebuilding starts that's when everyone should start getting prepared. What is your take on this? ­SW

Answer:

The temple of God has already been rebuilt. It's construction is almost finished.

At one time the ancient Jews believed that God was physically present, not only in the temple, but in its innermost room, atop the Ark itself. They believed so strongly that the Ark of the Covenant represented the throne of God that it was constructed with a place for Him to actually sit upon ­ a structure called the "mercy seat".

This belief was reinforced by verses in scripture that show the Israelites actually observing God take physical possession of Solomon's temple, entering into it hidden inside a visible cloud, soon after Solomon constructed it (1 Kings 8:10-13).  The cloud was so thick the priests couldn't see to finish their work.

But after Solomon's temple was destroyed in 587 B.C. by the Chaldaens (Babylon), and with its demise, the permanent disappearance of the Ark of the Covenant, the city of Jerusalem was viewed as the throne of God.

The prophet Ezekiel observed God leaving the temple and Jerusalem and going to be with His people as they were carried off to Babylon. This was seen as proof that God did not need the temple, or the Ark, or even Jerusalem, but would follow His people wherever they went in the absence of all three. This vision actually transcended Nebuchadnezzar's time, foretelling the structure of God's presence on earth during the greater Diaspora to come, i.e., the last 2000 years.

It was through verses like Ezekiel's from the prophets that many began to understand the full impact of God's message to David that he, David, was not the one to build a house for Him, instead, God was going to build a house (dynasty) for David, and that it would be an offspring of David's body that would build the true temple (2 Samuel 7:1-17).

The offspring of David the prophets referred to was not Solomon, it was God's Only Son, the Messiah who was to come, born on earth through David's genealogy.

This understanding crystallized in Jesus who, through the Spirit, taught His disciples that He, Himself was the temple, and that the throne of God resided inside each individual soul, entering into those souls when they turned to Him in baptism. By housing Christ, it was the people themselves that housed God's throne on earth.

Paul said: "Didn't you realize that you were God's temple and that the Spirit of God was living within you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred; and you are that temple." (1 Cor. 3:16-17).

It was in this light that the prophecy of Daniel 9:25-26 which foretold the rebuilding of the ruins of Jerusalem could be seen in its true meaning ­ i.e., in the people themselves as they turned from evil into God's righteousness by rebuilding their lives in the commandments of Christ.

The people of God which Satan has held captive are the ruins of Jerusalem and they are being rebuilt in Jesus. This rebuilding has been going on since Pentecost in 30 A.D., when the Holy Spirit first returned in Christ's name. And now it is almost complete. In other words, the temple of God has already been rebuilt, and there will be no other after it.

The Book of Revelation, explaining why there is no temple building in heavenly Jerusalem, made this quite clear:

"In the spirit, he (the angel) took me to the top of an enormous high mountan and showed me Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down from God out of heaven...I saw that there was no temple in the city since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were themselves the temple, and the city did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory of God and the Lamb was a lighted torch for it." (Rev. 21:10; 20-23)

Jesus is the true temple of God and when He lives inside us, we are God's true temple.

Once Jesus had offered Himself up as the sacrifice for sin, no man-made sacrifice or animal sacrifice could ever match that. The need for sacrifice was eliminated by the perfection of Christ. The same is true of the temple. Once God Himself became the temple, man could build nothing to match Him. The physical temple was eliminated as unworthy competition. It will never be rebuilt. Not in Jerusalem or anywhere else. Not even in heaven.

 

(Here are) terrorism incidences globally on a map updated continiously
http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php ­CB

Answer:

Global terrorism is a violent process sweeping the earth right now, one that is new to history, both in its targeting and international scope. It is perpetrated on the innocent, the weak and the unsuspecting civilian populations during the normal course of human interraction. That such malignant barbarianism would appear on earth in conjunction with the fall of "night" was predicted in scripture more than 2700 years ago:

"At evening all was terror;
before morning comes they are no more.
Such was the lot of our plunderers,
such, the fate of our despoilers." (Is 17:14)

The King James Bible uses the word "trouble" ("...and behold, at eventide, trouble") instead of the word "terror", but NIV, RSV, Greek and most other modern scholars interpret the word in this passage as "terror".

The "night" (or "eventide") referred to is the reappearance of paganism (or secularism) at the end of the "milleniam" (i.e., the end of the age of the "Sonshine" of Christ on earth). Particularly secularism's successful assault on the civic rule of those who follow the principals of Jesus Christ, especially in the western world. As we have noted here many times, one hundred years ago almost all western nations ruled their subjects with one hand on the Bible, just as they and their forbearers had for 1700 years. Today none do.

To most of these new western rulers, the name "Jesus Christ" or that of His Father, "God", is a forbidden utterance in civic affairs or schools.

Concomitant with that dark change of political power has come global war and now global terrorism, early testimony to the consequences of undermining the foundations of Christian morality on the planet. And all this is just the start of the repercussions, because the world has dismantled its shield against disaster.

Yet, Isaiah's quote shows that these new moral barbarians will not survive the night they usher in. "Before the morning comes, they are gone." King James uses the phrase "...he is gone", showing that not only the army of the Antichrist will vanish, but the Antichrist as well. Both of them, even before Jesus reappears in glory.

 

in response to your last question dated April 3, the reader is very very unfamiliar with what millenialism actually is....His response stating it is NOT condoned by the Catholic Church is true. HOWEVER, his definition, and the church's is different from yours. Your definition is in line with the early church, with Augustine and others....

Millenialism is the idea that Christ comes and rules for 1000 years , literal years AFTER his second coming.the church, Augustine and others teach that the millenium is in fact, the church age.... You elaborate on this by showing how one day became two....The reader is not familiar enough with your writings and neither is he familiar enough with the church's position and thus, he defines millenialism in generic terms, (where the church defines it as a theology)

You say theology and prophecy are not the same, I contest and say they are because anything prophetic is based on all things theological. For the theological is the mind of God, the prophecies themselves are the plan in how God brings all this about. But God cannot bring about a plan that contradicts what is already revealed as truth.... ­CB

 

1). Thank you for clarification of the last question pertaining to the protestant belief of millennialism; not all Protestants believe this. For example, taking the thousand year reign literally is not a Lutheran interpretation. Lutherans view the 1,000 year reign as a non-specific duration of time that Christ reigns, which is in the present and started when he ascended into heaven.

Some say the 1,000 years may be understood as 10X10X10 (the number of completeness times itself three times for the Trinity=infinite). Your thoughts on this? ­JF

Answer:

The focus of scripture is on the reign of Christ in heaven, not His shorter reign on earth, which Daniel terms "a time of trouble". Infinity relates to the former, not the latter. How short the shorter reign is no one knows. But scripture gives us some clues.

The Bible tells us that a thousand years to man is like a day to God. Using that equation in the calendar chronology of Christ (33 A.D. to 2007 A.D. at this writing), the world is almost at the end of the second "day" (i.e., Christ's "Day of Atonement", stretched into almost two). That is precisely where Joshua's prophecy places the completed term of God's "day" (Josh.10:12-13).

By that computation the evening shadows should be all around us now and we should be seeing the signs of the approaching "night" everywhere.

Jesus, the "Sonlight of God", said that His reign on earth would be short and urged all to repent immediately because night was coming when no one could work. "Work while you still have the day, night is coming when no one can work". (Jn.9:4). This web page is focused on an examination of that approaching darkness, and calls attention to it.

The relationship between God's "day" (His "Day of Atonement" ­ a thousand years) and the time specified by the Book of Revelation for Christ's reign on earth seem to be one and the same (Rev. 20:3). Not only that, the term "millenium" relates strongly to the jailing of Satan in the Book of Revelation, because, in the same passages the thousand year Christian rule is shown to correlate with Satan's imprisonment. His term in prison is shown to cover the same thousand years (Rev.20:1-10).

We can see that Satan was locked up even while the Apostle John was still alive to witness it. So he has been in chains over a thousand years already, proving that there is a certain degree of metaphore in the time frame. Is it related to Joshua's prophecy of one day stretched into almost two? At this point, one would have to say yes.

Another question, just as important, when is he to be released? Or, has it already happened? The answer to those questions will pretty much define the parameters that define Christ's rule on earth. We examine those questions in depth on our web pages.

We read in scripture that upon his release he will deceive the nations and mobilize them all for war. The 20th century seems to have been defined in this prophecy. Not just in its mobilization for global war, but in the fact that all the nations of the western world which had been structured in Christ since the time of Constantine, suddenly cancelled that relationship en masse ­ almost all of them (including the United States) during the last century.

Not a single western nation now includes Christ in their ruling structure. That is a sea change. And it just happened. What greater sign could show the nations universally deceived?

They could not have all turned their backs on Christ virtually simultaneously and abandoned the 2000-year old peace treaty He made with the nations of world on the cross unless they had fallen under the spell of a Satan suddenly free of chains (2 Thes. 2:9-12).

These signs head a battery of flashing red lights that show we are not far removed from the "night" Jesus warned about when no one can work.

 

2.) Also, I have heard that Armageddon refers to not so much as a specific geographical place that nations will gather for war (e.g. Israel), but accounts for the final war that Satan seeks to attack the world-wide church. Could you reiterate your thoughts of this per Scripture? ­JF

Answer:

Both postulates are true.

In the past God has fulfilled scripture both figuratively and literally. All the works of God go in pairs by these kinds of opposites. We will see an Armageddon coming in such a way as well ­ worldwide, but focused on Jerusalem. Already the nations are gathering toward Israel. In 1945 there was no Israel. There was nowhere to gather, and the town of Jerusalem was a small backward village well removed from the nucleus of world affairs. All that has been reversed in the 62 years since.

The United States with its massive armory of nuclear weapons has made a military treaty with Israel. Iran (Persia) is in the process of securing a similar arrangement with Russia. If the night of darkness is close, which all the signs seem to argue, those alignments and the allies that go with them will define future world combat as the 4th Persian kingdom unseats the western world on the throne of world power (Dan.11:2). Warfare will ebb and flow around Jerusalem and the oil-rich Middle East, but the atomic arsenals of the superpowers will moderate the extent of conquest to a certain degree for a time.

No such protections exist for Christianity. There is no defense pact between the major Christian churches and the United States or any other superpower. Certainly, unlike Israel, the Vatican, the only sovereign Christian nation on earth, has no such treaty in place. So, according to Daniel, when the Madman comes to power and secures control of the eastern nations and their western satellites, he will take advantage of this vacuum and focus much of his early fury on this people 'without bars on their doors, living peaceably isolated from all other people since they escaped the sword and were gathered in from various nations' (Dan.11:31-35; Ez. 38:8-9).

"You will say: I will attack this undefended country and march against this peaceful nation living undisturbed. They all live in towns that have no walls or bars or gates. To plunder them for loot, I am going to reach out my hand towards the ruins they live in, against this nation gathered out of other nations...who live at the navel of the earth." (Ez. 38:11-12).

Embolded by his crushing victory over the Church, and filled with godless arrogance, the tyrant's caution will suddenly vanish and he will launch an unexpected worldwide fusilade on all who oppose him (including Kittim) as he prepares to advance on Jerusalem a final time (Dan.11: 44-45). From that point on, everything will be between the tyrant and God. Man will not intervene. In fact, few men will be left to intervene (Is. 24:6). Those who are left will witness the brilliant flash of the return of Christ as promised.

"At the trumpet of God, the voice of the archangel will call out the command and the Lord himself will come down from heaven; those who have died in Christ will be the first to rise, and then those of us who are still alive will be taken up in the clouds, together with them, to meet the Lord in the air. So we shall stay with the Lord forever." (1 Thes.4:16-17).

This sequence follows the chronology prophesied in the Book of Daniel.

 

Your prophecies about America staying in Iraq are about to be proved wrong. It's a lost cause. Here is my prediction: we will be out of there as soon as the next president is elected. ­JB

Answer:

They are not my prophecies, they are scripture's prophecies.

As Americans we are focused on Iraq but the Bible makes no mention of that nation. Prophecy is about the Euphrates river, not Iraq. Jeremiah shows the western world led by a nation carrying the metaphoric name "Egypt" with its troops stationed at the Euphrates river confronting the nations of the East.

The fact that the Book of Revelation and the Book of Daniel each build a construct of the last days focused on just such a situation, and the fact that America and the western world now find themselves today similarly entangled must give pause to all of faith who see these biblical documents as truths revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Are we the Egypt that Jeremiah has defined?...the Egypt whose "Pharaoah is to be handed over to his enemies as the proof of all the prophecies" concerning the fate of Israel in the last days? (Jer. 44:29-30). Many factors say yes; but the definitive proof continues to elude certainty. It happened, yes (with Sadat), but we cannot say that it has yet happened as a definitive historical statement clear to all.

Meanwhile America finds itself in the midst of a civil war between three Iraqi factions that are likely never to reconcile. Yet the total withdrawal of American and western troops from the region would almost certainly precipitate the widening of the conflict everyone fears, encompassing the entire Middle East, and more than likely, the entire Muslim world. This situation, combined with oil, the vital disappearing commodity seems to have locked a future much like the one the Book of Daniel foresaw, in place.

If Iraq's unified government collapses, a single victor will not emerge. The Muslims themselves will see to that. The western world has too much at stake in that area's oil to simply pack up and leave. Nor will its Muslim allies in the region allow it to. Instead, expect to see a repositioning of troops to areas in the region that best allow a protracted confrontaton with the least bloodshed.

At it's northern boundary, the Euphrates river borders Turkey, and, in fact, disappears into it's mountains.

In the prophecies, we are told of an attack "from the north" (Ez. 38:15; Dan. 11:13) that launches the warfare of the last days, bringing nations of eastern troops pouring over a "dried up" Euphrates (Rev. 16:12). This gives the northern boundary of the Euphrates special significance in terms of the prophecies (Jer. 46:6, 10). As a result, we should expect to see, as the future unfolds, the western troops particularly entrenched in this area of Iraq.

But not gone.

 

Why would Jesus agree to be baptised by John when He had never sinned? Has anyone ever proposed some other purpose to this? ­ND

Answer:

Scripture tells us that John had been anointing the people of Judaea "with a baptism of repentence for the forgiveness of sins".

"All Judaea and all the people of Jerusalem made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins...In the course of his preaching he said 'Someone is following me, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit." (Mark 1:4-8).

Jesus' baptism by John was not an incidental moment. It was pivotal to His mission. That baptism launched His ministry. According to the Bible, immediately afterward, Jesus was led by the Spirit out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Mat. 3:13-17; 4:1-12). During that time He fasted for forty days and forty nights and endured Satan's temptations. Successfully resisting all the devil's efforts to break His resolve, He returned to Galilee and began the mission which was to be His life's work and our salvation.

When Jesus appeared at the Jordan to receive this anointing, the Bible tells us that John tried hard to dissuade Him, but Jesus insisted that it had to be this way:

"Leave it like this for the time being; it is fitting that we should, in this way, do all that righteousness demands" (Mat. 3:15).

That answer tells us this anointing related to prophecy in scripture. It was structured in the Law (the Torah). In the Hebrew Law the sacrifice for sin revolved around two goats. On the head of one goat, the sins of all the people of Judaea were loaded and it was led out, alive, into the wilderness, the sins going out there with it. The second goat was sacrificed to complete the cleansing as prescribed by the Law.

God fulfilled both roles in Jesus.

The reign of the Church is called the 'Day of God' on earth ­ a day the Israelites called 'Atonement'. In the Hebrew calendar the Day of Atonement was the one day each year fixed in the Law when sins could be atoned for. Sending the Holy Spirit to the earth with the light of His glorification in heaven, Jesus handed this holy 'day' to the entire world. And He lengthened it so that His forgiveness of sin could encompass the entire harvest.

Visible in the divine light from above which Christ brought to earth is the fact that the 'Day of Atonement' specified in Hebrew law and the thousand-year 'Day' which Jesus initiated for our reconciliation with God, define identical concepts. The first prefigured the latter. We are still in the "Sonlight" of that day ­ a day made into almost two by prophecy (Joshua 10:13-14).

In the Old Testament, the Day of Atonement was the highest holy day in the Israelite calendar ­ a day now called by the Jews, 'Yom Kippur'. It was the one day each year when the Jewish high priest could enter the room called the 'Holy of Holies' inside the temple and secure mercy for the people of Israel (Lev.16:5+). As a part of this yearly ceremony, the High Priest would take two perfect unblemished goats ­ one he would kill, offering it up in sacrifice to God, and on the head of the other (which remained alive), he would load all the sins of the people. This 'scapegoat' as it was called would then be led out to the desert and given over to Satan.

"Having thus laid (all the faults of the sons of Israel) on the goat's head, he shall send it out into the desert led by a man waiting ready, and the goat will bear all their faults away with it into a desert place." (Lev. 16:21-22).

Jesus, of course, changed this ritual when He absorbed this ceremony in Himself, taking the sins of the people on His own head as He was led out into the wilderness and handed over to Satan to be tempted and later sacrificed by crucifixion.

Peter (1 Peter 3:21) tells us that John's baptism (the baptism of water) is a pledge made to God from a good conscience (the confession of sins cleanses our conscience). Baptism is our public affirmation that we are sorry for having sinned and pledge to change according to God's will. That pledge is a legal statement. Because we make it publicly, God is able to transfer our sins onto Jesus, who, in turn, took all those sins with Him to the cross to pay the penalty the Law demanded for sin.

That is why Paul could say:

"Through the Law I am dead to the Law, so that now I can live for God. I have been crucified with Christ, and I live now, not with my own life, but with the life of Christ who lives in me." (Gal.2:19).

For as long as communion is offered in the Church, Christ's cross continues to wash our sins away. Not until the one comes who is fated to take communion away with his abomination of desolation will this washing away of sin come to an end (Dan. 11:31). Until then, each time we ask God to forgive our sins, in good conscience, He will honor our request.

Because the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness immediately after John had baptised Him, we must assume that He received our sins in that baptism. The sins of all mankind (of all who accept baptism by water in His name) were loaded on his head at that moment. It was His public acceptance of His mission (which made it legal since everything legal must be made public), and so it began the sacrificial journey which Jesus made in our name to free us from Satan's grasp.

What happened to the Goodnews Christian Ministry website? ­PL

Answer:

Our ISP abruptly cancelled our pages. We are in the process of setting up an alternative site now. Please check here for internet address information. We still have pages on this site on AOL, but space limitations there prevent a full presentation of page offerings. In the meantime, we may still be reached by e-mail.

http://goodnewspirit.com

In addition to these, we have a limited site on AOL (up since 1995) at:
http://members.aol.com/ecsl

And a full mirror site at:
http://goodnewsprophecy.com

BE SURE TO BOOKMARK THE ABOVE 3 SITES FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

Other web addresses include:

http://goodnewschristianministry.net
http://www.goodnewschristianministry.net

http://findgoodnewsministry.com

Your interpretation of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel is different than the others I have read. Can you explain why you think the way you do on this? ­JH

Answer:

We could all be wrong. Daniel shows us there are two powerful figures coming out of the far north, not just one. They mimic the actions of, first, Antiochus the Great and, second, one of his sons, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. It is on the lives of these two horrific figures Daniel's metaphore of the beast is structured.

The first figure powers the East to victory over the western world. He successfully drives his warfare from east to west, over to the "islands of the sea", a designation certain to encompass the western hemisphere. He is defeated by a great general, almost certain to be American, and on our own shores apparently. He goes back to the eastern hemisphere in defeat only to stumble and die.

He is replaced, according to Daniel, by a person who tries to tax (or pillage) the central cathedral of Christianity. He sends an extortioner there for that purpose. The Book of Daniel is stated to be about the end of the world ­ that is why its visions were ordered sealed until the End days arrived ­ so his book revolves around Christianity rather than Judaism. All of Daniel's visions must be seen through God's chosen lens (which is Jesus). The extortioner is not successful in his effort (to abscond with the treasuries of the Church, perhaps?), and soon, he, too, dies.

Arising in his place is the Madman of scripture. Blocked in his political (warmongering) efforts by what Daniel terms to be "the ships of Kittim", he turns his attention to the Christians in all the countries under his control. Mimicing Hitler's actions against the Jews, he proceeds to annihilate as many as he can. He burns down the churches, vanquishes the Vatican and topples its power structure, along with those of all the other churches within his grasp (See Psalm 79).

Driven completely insane by his rage he becomes so utterly possessed with his obsession to invade Jerusalem to exterminate the final remnants of the House of Israel (and facing uprisings (or revolution) in the east and north) he defies the power of Kittim by launching all his missles against the West (and probably against the rebellious quadrants of the north and east as well). All this, as he masses his troops at Armageddon to overrun Jerusalem. Ignoring the fact that there is certain to be a massive counterattack to his onslaught that will effectively burn up much of the earth, he will commit himself and the entire world to this ultimate act of suicide, in which everyone will participate.

At the same time, God will intervene with a fire of His own.

And when all has been made ready by Michael, Christ will return. Again, all of this according to the words of Daniel. The handwritiing on the wall of Babylon IS the Book of Daniel. The fate of Saddam Hussein has already mimicked that of Beltshazzar. His country has been divided by civil war, and he, himself, was handed over to the Persians (the Shiites) to be executed. This has already happened ­ just a few months ago (Dan. 5:24-30). So we are definitely watching a vision in progress in Iraq.

Gog and Magog may be these two kings. In other words, the two names Ezekiel employs (Ez. 38:1-2) may both be people. Perhaps neither is a place name. Their country, "the land of Magog", may mean the land of the first of these two rulers. Magog may be the first king and Gog, the second (i.e. the Beast). Both of these warmongering leaders originate from roughly the same area according to Daniel. And they come pretty much one right after another apparently. See Daniel 11:1-45 & 12:1-4.

Fortunately for us at this moment, these worst things are still quite a ways in the future. Closer are very rocky times indeed, but there is still time to stop chasing the world and accept Christ's offer of salvation and escape what is coming. As you watch these events progress and the others described on these pages, understand that time is quickly running out and we have been told the doorway to escape will suddenly slam shut without notice.

Everyone who hasn't already done so, should turn their lives over to Jesus Christ today, because all these things will most certainly come to pass. Scripture guarantees it.

I had a thought a week or so ago after reading an article on the 40th anniversary of the Israeli 6-day war.

Cyrus issued the decree for the return of the Jews to Babylon in 538 BC and the return from this Diaspora was completed over approximately 20 years. The rebuilding of the Temple was begun in 537 BC but was halted for a time and then restarted and completed in 520-515 BC. Have you explored the parallel events of the physical versus the spiritual rebuilding of the Jewish people? It seems that there is a parallel between the physical reestablishment of Israel in 1948 and the spiritual reunion of the city of Jerusalem in 1967. Without the 6 day war, Israel would not have had access to all of Jerusalem in order to attempt to rebuild the Temple. Note that I am not advocating that the literal rebuilding must take place, but that the spiritual significance to the Jews of a reunified Jerusalem is the object of interest. In both cases, a physical presence was ordained by those in power then, after ~ 20 years, a spiritual presence was complete (even if only symbolically).­JF

Answer:

Great queston!

Yes, I have explored the differences between the physical and spiritual rebuildings of the Jewish house. The parallels I see relate more to similarities in prophecy than to similarities of chronology.

You are right about the similarities in dates, though. And it would have been easy in 1967 to draw a correlation between the Jewish reunification of Jerusalem and view it as a spiritual parallel to the rebuilding of the temple. But in 2007 that clarity no longer exists.

The 6-day war changed the management of Jerusalem, but it did not oust the multi-national quartering of Jerusalem. The Muslims continue to control the temple mount. The old city continues to be divided into four quarters, Jewish, Arab, Christian and Armenian. In this sense it remains a city spiritually spread to the four winds. Not only that, but the spiritual reunification of Jerusalem (from the Jewish point of view ­ now predominately secular) is cultural rather than religious, structured in tradition rather than scripture.

It was as if the 6-day war was a fork in the road ­ a turning point from which Israel could have gone the way you describe it, or it could have taken a second path and gone terribly awry.

Born-again Christians may still view the reunification as you describe it, but to a secularized Israel, the idea of a temple is seen as an anachronism. Just as it is in our own society these days, interest in God in Israel is being severely marginalized by secularism, and with it, Jewish spirituality.

In light of this change, it seems the 6-day war re-focused Israel's purpose from religion to worldliness. It vastly expanded Israeli-occupied territory, territory which can spiritually be said to be "Egypt", i.e., "Arab". The Sinai was returned in a peace agreement, but not Jordan's West Bank or the Golan Heights of Syria.

This "Egyptian" (i.e., Arab) land figures prominently in one of the most powerful prophecies in scripture (a prophecy unknown to almost everyone) that addresses the Jewish return from the "Diaspora". It has been discussed on this web page often. It is Jeremiah's sobering revelation of an early return from Babylon that occurred long before Cyrus issued his decree ­ an early return authorized by God, but one that ended in disaster (Jer. 42-43:1-7). .

It was that disaster that forced the Jews to have to wait the full 70 years for the Persian appearance of Cyrus before they were allowed by God to return from Babylon.

So the first question to be answered concerns the Diaspora itself. Is this return (the 1948 return) one that has been made ahead of time (in keeping with Jeremiah's prophecy) or is it the return described in the Book of Chronicles relating to Cyrus? (2 Chron. 36:20-23). If it is a repeat of the early return, there would be no correlation of dates because it is a different event altogether.

Scripture shows that the early return at the time of Jeremiah was authorized by the king of Babylon while the end of the exile we are familiar with came by way of a proclamation made by the prince of Persia (i.e., Cyrus).

The 1948 return was authorized by the United Nations ­ the united kings of Babylon. It was the combined leadership of the United Nations of the greater world (Babylon, basically) that authorized the Jewish return that we see today. No Persian proclamation was involved, nor has any yet been issued.

Since the return that structured the Israel of 1948 was authorized by the king of Babylon, not Persia, it bears a far greater resemblance to the early return described in the Book of Jeremiah. That is cause for great concern for several reasons. First, it means that the Diaspora has not yet ended. That comes later. Second, it means the Israel now in place in the Holy Land is a powder keg that is about to blow up for reasons similar to those Jeremiah specified.

It shows the 6-day war, not as a spiritual touchstone, but as a critical crossroads from which Israel chose to violate all the precautions Jeremiah warned about. Instead of rebuilding a Jewish "house" in God that addressed the reasons for why the Diaspora happened in the first place, it chose a secular path instead, duplicating all the mistakes made by the "army leaders" in Jeremiah's vision.

According to God's warnings to Jeremiah, Israel's military seizure of Arab lands violated the covenant of return; even more so, by the fact that Jewish houses were later built on those lands. This happened both in Jeremiah's time and in our own. We can definitely see the unauthorized settlements in Arab lands and we can see the military pact with the same "Egypt" whose troops now stand at the Euphrates.

There is a further concern, just as troubling, that involves the spiritual rebuilding of the Jewish house of Israel itself. Today, much of Israel has secularized. Most Jews in Israel are not pursuing even Moses anymore. There has not occurred there a great spiritual awakening or happening. Just the opposite. There is no Israeli thought that addresses the Diaspora or the reasons for why God implemented it in the first place. Until that happens, I can only see there a people in full flight away from God, not toward Him.

The Diaspora occurred because the Jews refused to believe in Jesus as God's promised Messiah. They had a strong religious structure in place, but it was built on Moses. God tore that asunder and scattered the House of Israel to Babylon for reasons of spiritual infidelity (Dt. 18:15). Any remedy would have to be built on the kind of holiness that Jesus preached, the true commandments of God. In other words, it would have to be based on a reunification with God, not a reunification of Jerusalem.

How would the rebuilding of the Temple help? They had a perfectly good temple at the time of Christ. God allowed it to be destroyed and the entire House of Israel sent into exile to Babylon. The why of this is the critical issue that must be addressed before the Jewish house can be spiritually rebuilt. And it can only be addressed through spiritual (holy) means, not by a secular (paganism's modern form) community.

That is because God ­ our God, the world's God, and the God of Israel ­ is a Trinity that includes the Father, His Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. That is the true God of heaven and earth. Moses is in no way a part of that Godhead, and secularism is an enemy to it. That is why faith in Moses was powerless to stop the Diaspora from occurring. Without Christ, the temple was useless ­ in fact, divisive.

When the Jews got back to Israel, the first thing they did when they got ahold of Jerusaalem (even while the smoke from the 1967 war still hung in the air) was to tear down the Palestinian houses that blocked the "Wailing Wall" and clear out a large square for a return to the worship of Moses. They went back to the waters of the old pool (Is. 22:9-11).

Now even that pool is drying up. The people of Israel are secularizing away from God altogether. Just as we are. Just as the world is. This is the Great Revolt Paul talked about (2 Thes. 2:3). Secularism is the growing residue of that rebellion.

Surely owing to this flight away from God, scripture shows Jerusalem under assault all the way to the End. Jeremiah's army leaders who masterminded the early return were later decimated for "settling" in lands outside those given to them, in violation of God's orders. That fate seems to describe the current Israel's near future far more than a spiritual awakening building out of the physical reunification of Jerusalem.

While Daniel foresees a similar assault on Jerusalem and with it a concomitant annhilation of settlers, he makes it clear that in the assaults still to come, the country itself won't fall. That changes the formula. What we are witnessing now is a new circumstance, not just a repeat of the past. That means elements of the Book of Chronicles return are mysteriously contained in today's Israel. Both returns are there simultaneously.

The rebuilding that took place in Jeremiah's time by the army leaders and their followers led to a massacre that completely eradicated the Jewish presence in Israel (Jer. 44:14). That will not happen this time. The Jewish presence is there to stay to the end, despite the ferocity of the attacks still coming. That indicates that the rebuilding of the Jewish house in the righteousness that Christ brought from heaven is ongoing there (in Jerusalem) even now. But it is a very complex process that in no way follows the pagan world's conversion to Christ, which occurred one by one, and person by person over a span of almost 2000 years.

Everyone was sent into exile to Babylon, not just the Jews (Micah 4:10). The entire House of Israel was mandated there by the treaty Jesus made with Babylon on the cross. Those who turned to Christ have worked their way back to reunification with God over the ensuing years. But the Jewish reunification will be different.

Scripture shows that the Jewish conversion is not a process, but an all-encompassing momentary and singular event. Paul has indicated that the Jewish recognition of Christ will not occur until the very last day. Paul said it is a singular event that means the end of the world (Romans 11:11-32).

When it happens it will coincide with the definitive "Second Coming" of Jesus. At that very moment, Michael will be on his way into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, leading the surviving remnant of the House of Christ toward the reunification that unites the city of Jerusalem with the city of David (the city of Christ). The Jewish leaders will be there waiting for Michael's arrival, ready to greet him with the words Jesus revealed in advance. Gabriel will be positioned in the clouds with his trumpet, and, when he sounds it, the flash of light that is the Lord returning will explode across the entire earth in the blinding brightness of instant rebirth (1 Thes. 4:16-18).

The time of God's examination of the Christians in accordance with Christ (the last 2000 years) has included the Jews. They were examined with the rest of us, one by one, at the very same time as the Christians and pagans, by God's own light. They are a people made blind by divine decree, so the blindness is not their own fault. They will not be judged for it.

Jesus said that God's judgment is not only based on the righteousness that Christ preached, but on a sliding scale as well. To whom more is given, more is expected by God. To whom less is given, less is expected by God. That statement is open-ended. God can expand or diminish salvation's rules as He pleases and no one can argue His decision. He has already told us that His iron-clad rules are moved by forgiveness. If we forgive others, God will forgive us. That is a rule that applies to everyone, and especially to the two houses of Israel (i.e., to the Christians and the Jews).

There does not seem to be much precedent for matching years in scripture. Matching allegorical years, yes, (such as a day to God is 1000 years to man) but not calendar years. The 3-1/2 years of the Beast (the Madman to come) may be an exception. But trying to find correlation in terms of the calendar for what is happening in Israel today may prove, measured against events still on the way, difficult at best.

We really don't know exactly where we are in order to make those correlations. Remember, the orginal Antiochus Epiphanes came 250 years AFTER Cyrus and his Persian decree. In the future, the two will coincide. The future Antiochus figure and the Cyrus figure will be one and the same. It will not be a proclamation made in kindness.

That is the event (the reappearance of this Antiochus-like individual), when it happens, that will truly polarize Jewish hearts and move a great many of them to the recognition of the possibility that Christ truly is the Messiah whom God had sent to save them (and the world with them) (Zech 12:9-14).

Also, after the assault by Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the restructuring of the Temple, the protector of the Jewish state was Rome (even though Rome was the eventual destroyer of Jerusalem). There appears to be another parallel in that the United States is now the protector of the Jewish state and maintains a forceful presence in "Babylon" and "Persia" to keep them at bay much as the Roman garrisons of 2000 years ago. While our structure of government is different, I don't think we are viewed by the world as any different (the President is the "most powerful man in the world" - much like Caesar). Epiphanes - Hitler, Rome - US, the time frames are close, the world-view of the events is similar (surely Epiphanes' people's name for him, "Epimanes" - the madman, applies to Hitler), is the stage almost set? Or am I making too much of "coincidence"? ­JF

Answer:

For those of faith, prophecy in scripture is usually measured in circumstances that are best described as 'coincidences by design'. It is hard to make too much of that. History repeats itself, and, when those repeats match prophecy, they become the replications that we look for.

You make a good case, but I think it is still too early to define it.

I agree about the protective character of the United States playing a major role in the prophecies. And it is a paradox because Jeremiah's prophecy specifies the protectorship as one of the reasons for Israel's coming defeat. They were not supposed to make this military pact with the United States ("Egypt" in prophecy). They were supposed to pursue peace and tranquility, not play the military card at all. They were supposed to turn to God and search for Him, letting the all-powerful peace of God itself humble their enemies (Is.30:15).

Certainly the stage is almost set. But the question is, which prophecy is it being set for? There is alot of prophecy ahead that needs to be fulfilled before the Antiochus figure rises to power, and the world ends. There are, according to Daniel, still two world wars ahead and many smaller wars. The tribulation and the Wrath have to all play out. The East has to rise to power and the western world collapse. Daniel seems to show something critical happening to the United States. Jerusalem is to be overrun by foreign troops and the country ravaged.

Which one of these events is about to happen now?

The world today is in the very last stages of the framework of the millenium (the rule of Christ on earth). Although we can now see that spiritual monarchy dissembling before our eyes, the western world is still the world's power. The sound of the fourth Persian kingdom (Dan.11:2) is rumbling, but it has not yet risen out of the earth as a defiinitive presence. It's ten kings are not yet visible.

With so much happening these days that seem to replicate the Bible's visions, it is hard not to imagine that we have come to the last days. The mere fact that Daniel's sealed book has now been opened testifies to that (as does the rebuilding of Jerusalem itself). Since it seems certain that it is happening now, the United States has to be a major force in the events, and therefore well defined in Bible prophecy.

We find many references that could apply in terms of this definition. There is Ezekiel's description of Tyre. There are ample prophecies that refer to the "islands of the sea", to places like "Kittim", and so on. Jeremiah talks of an "Egypt" that stations its troops at the Euphrates in a vain attempt to block the Parthian East from invading the western world. He foresees a rebuilt Israel making a military pact with "Egypt". The United States has fulfilled all of those prophecies.

It would be interesting to know if the different names given to America in prophecy apply to a country of changing character. The United States started life in perfection, formed as a land of religious freedom, and escape from tyranny for downtrodden people. It was built on a blueprint of righteousness. Perhaps this was the USA in its role as Ezekiel's early Tyre. In 1963 the United States renounced Jesus Christ and threw God and His Son out of the nation's political framework, much to the delight of the atheists. This produced a USA in which the "Egypt" prophecies occurred, i.e., taking its troops to the Euphrates, etc.

A predicted catastrophe and restructuring are foreseen in the near future that will further altar the American structure in ways we are really not yet able to imagine. Daniel's prophecies in this regard are intriguing, but mysterious (Dan.8:8; 11:3-4). When it happens, it will change world alignments enormously. What remains of the United States at that point seems to take on the prophetic name of "Kittim". It will defeat the first king of the East on our own shores in battle, and it's ships will block the actions of the Beast for a time (Dan.11:18; 11:30).

The United States rose up in the 20th century as the defender of the world against the tyranny of Hitler and Imperial Japan. It took on the role of world policeman after successfully "saving" the world from political catastrophe, and has battled world tyrants ever since. It is partly in that role that we now find ourselves mired in Iraq. However, we are also there imperialistically as well. President Bush in his 2004 re-election state of the union speech to the nation announced that the United States under his command was determined to push democracy to the farthest corners of the earth "by force if necessary", a statement and political intent completely out of character with the country's original tenents.

Daniel's prophecy predicts a catastrophic and sudden end to this "push of democracy by force". It comes in another replication of history that seems to mimic the death of Alexander the Great in Babylon. The United States in Iraq certainly suffices to fulfill that location. We are there and we are not doing well there. The collapse seems to come associated with the death of Alexander, a death described by Jeremiah as the assassination of the "Pharaoh of Egypt," and which, when it occurs, is said to be the proof of all the prophecies concerning Israel's fate with respect to the early return (Jer. 44:29-30).

In association with that crushing loss, there seems to come against the U.S. a physical disaster as well, one associated with the waters of the ocean rising up to engulf "the harbor", and likely much more (Is.23:10-11). In the aftermath of all this, America's role as Babylon's "wall of protection" will be over. Without U.S. protection, the nations will have to fend for themselves, a circumstance they are now increasingly looking forward to. The world re-alignment of nations in the absence of that protection will restructure itself, dividing the planet politically and spiritually to the four winds.

Where the United States will fit into this new alignment is not known, but Daniel makes clear that it's international focus will concern the protection of Israel ­ a protection probably revolving around America's formidable nuclear arsenal, the strength of which, one would imagine, will enable a successful stand-off of sorts against the East until the arrival of the Madman.

So the replication, if it is there, seems to follow a different pattern. Nor do we see duplications of the timelines. At least not chronologically. Jesus said in the days of the End the time would be compressed (cut short) by God for the sake of salvation. That would be certain to end chronological parallels.

The chronology seems to follow a prophetic pattern, not a repetitive one. We can see that in the three days of Christ (two days of washing and cleaning and on the third day, seeing Christ face to face) in which the days correspond to thousand-year blocks; and in the 6000-year time-frame of the world as measured by the Hebrew calendar, a calendar of similar formula that defines the end of the world as the arrival of the 7th "day". But again, in the case of the latter, a time differing from ultimate reality because it has been cut short.

Also, the circumstances don't exactly repeat. They are different in many ways. For instance, the two Antiochus figures bring the world to an end, they don't precede a future Rome (although the second Antiochus figure seems to take his Persian throne there). Nor does America's success at defending Israel last. It is God alone that defends His people at the end.

Prophecy has presented us with a beast (Satan) that has 7 heads that come one after the other. It is a progression that repeats only once, and then, only at the very end. Hitler was likely the 7th head, i.e., a new figure, not a replicaiton of the past. We know from John that Nero was the 6th head. The Madman at the end will be the 8th, but he is not counted as an 8th head because he comes as a reincarnation of one of the previous seven (the first one to do so). As far as his identity is concerned, there are many from which to pick:

Early Christian prophecy expected Nero. I foresee Haman. Perhaps he is a figure that claims to be Nebuchadnezzar. Even the thought that it might be Adolph Hitler cannot be discounted. There are good arguments for all four, and even for the others as well.

Do you believe in purgatory? What is it, where does it come from and why do all Protestants reject the idea? ­PL

Answer:

The idea of purgatory stems in large part from the New Testament doctrine of Paul that shows individuals being turned over to fire due to flaws in their faith: (1 Tim. 1:19-20). "Some people have put conscience aside and wrecked their faith in consequence. I mean men like Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to teach them not to be blasphemous."

He explained this mysterious doctrine explicity in his first letter to the Corinthians:

"By the grace God gave me, I succeeded as an architect and laid the foundations, on which someone else is doing the building. Everyone doing the building must work carefully. For the foundation, nobody can lay any other than the one which has already been laid, that is Jesus Christ. On this foundation you can build in gold, silver and jewels, or in wood, grass and straw, but whatever the material, the work of each builder is going to be clearly revealed when the day comes. That day will begin with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If his structure stands up to it, he will get his wages; if it is burnt down, he will be the loser, and though he is saved himself, it will be as one who has gone through fire." (1 Cor. 3:10-15).

Catholic theologians, focusing on the fire, defined its doctrine of Purgatory.

Protestant theologiians, ignoring the fire, concentrated on another idea central to this statement, universal salvation for all who turn to God and are baptised in Jesus.

Both sides recognize the statement's seemingly implicit message, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved, irrespective of works.

Where do those go that have been turned over to Satan, and what loss of reward is involved? Jesus said they won't get out until they have paid the last penny (Mt. 5:21-26). Get out of what? How is the debt to be paid? Where is it to be paid? Protestant theology doesn't want to know. Everybody who turns to Jesus is saved. To them that is all that counts, and it headlines their theology.

However, the fire Paul spoke of remains. That is certain. Paul made this very clear:

"Brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, the gospel that you received and in which you are firmly established; because the gospel will save you only if you keep believing exactly what I preached to you ­ believing anything else will not lead to anything." (1 Cor. 15:1-2).

We may not know what that non-lethal fire is, or how much latitude is involved in its perimeter (Mt. 7:21-27), but we do know there is a work-around:

Forgiveness.

Not only does it guard our salvation, forgiveness is the first line of defense for those subject to the fires of Paul's mysterious and controversial purgatory, factually affirmed by the revelation of God through the prophecy of the New Testament. The fact is, if we remember to forgive everyone, it can save us from that fire, and perhaps even from the unknown latitudes of its lethality if such exist.

Forgiving everyone is easier said than done in this highly judgmental age.

There are hundreds of examples of judgmental temptations surrounding us every day. From harsh enemies down to the seemingly innocuous like Paris Hilton (how so many wanted to see her get the full measure of her penalty and clammored for her to be returned to jail). Be terrified of hate or judgement when it crosses your mind. Everything we put out is coming back to us. We live in a judgmental age and we have to be very diligent that we are not dragged down into it, to become a part of it.

Jesus said, as we forgive so shall we be forgiven. So important is this commandment, it stands alone in the Lord's Prayer (Mat. 6:7-15).

Jesus said,

"I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples." (John 13:14-15; Mt. 9:13).

If we are His disciples, we will live forever. We have His sworn word that this is true:

"I tell you most solemnly, whoever listens to my words, and believes in the one who sent me, has eternal life; without being brought to judgment he has passed from death to life.," (John 5:24).

 

 

You didn't answer my question. I asked if you believed in purgatory? ­PL

Answer:

Yes, I believe all of scripture's prophecies are true, especially those in the New Testament ­ that they will be made true by God because they carry the seal of Christ.

Purgatory is a way of defining and addressing a people who need help ­ the saved people (who otherwise lose everything) that Paul talked about in First Corinthians 3:10-15:

"...the work of each builder is going to be clearly revealed when the day comes. That day will begin with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If his structure stands up to it, he will get his wages; if it is burnt down, he will be the loser, and though he is saved himself, it will be as one who has gone through fire." (1 Cor. 3:14-15).

Jesus said that "Wherever I am, there my servant will be also". A strong chorus of prayers for mercy would be in order for those who are unfortunate enough to encounter the fate Paul described above, especially considering Jesus' statement that they won't get out until the last penny of their debt has been paid (Mat. 5:26). If Paris Hilton and Martha Stewart can have their sentences mercifully shortened in our unjust worldly system, it stands to reason prayers for mercy should help those suffering God's fire far more, whatever that fire is, or place of debt means.

There is a strong need for mercy here and a strong sense of "just in case". By giving that location a name, billions of prayers have been able to be said for them, and perhaps for us, over the ages. This is a reflection of compassion. Remember, no prayers are offered for these people in most Protestant churches. Yet what applies to Catholics and the Orthodox also applies to Protestants (all Christians), so everyone who claims Christ is subject to this predicament.

Paul teaches that the religion of Christ is not a religion of rules (Law). It is a religion of the Spirit: Love versus selfishness (Gal.5:13-26) ­ a religion where God is love and Satan is selfishness. Compassion for others is the essence of God's love (Gal. 5:14).

 

How does the milleniium figure into the prophecies? ­JA

Answer:

The focal point of the millenial prophecies is the Book of Revelation especially Rev. 20:1-6.

Many Protestants see it as an approaching thousand-year re-fashioning on earth of Solomon's empire, an empire headquartered in Jerusalem with Jesus (returned) at its head.

A more traditional view of the millenium centers on the rule of the Christian Church in the world over the last 2000 years, considering that reign to be the milleniam. A third view, only slightly different, sees the millenium as the period of Satan's imprisonment in the Abyss ­ an incarceration that allowed the Christian religion to rule the earth under Christ's Gospel for the last 1700 years (Rev. 20:1-3).

All three views see it as an empire of flesh and blood ruled by the Church under Christ.

The revelation in the Book of Daniel that the kingdom of God is to be "crushed and trampled down" by warfare in its final days on earth (Dan. 8:9-14) is the pivotal event around which all these vews of the millenium revolve.

Satan's release from his prison in the last days will allow him to mass the armies involved in this assault (Rev. 20:7-8). The Protestant belief is that this attack will be repulsed by the army of the House of Israel with God's help and the resultant kingdom formed in the wake of this holy victory will create the millenium.

The view of Christian traditionalists on the other hand, is that the attack will not precipitate the millenium of Christ's preaching on earth, but end it. There will be little successful involvement by Christian or Jewish armies in the warfare that follows (Joshua 10:11). Instead, the attack will be overturned by God alone just before Christ returns, after which all who have toiled for Christ will immediately (bypassing Judgment) be taken to Christ's new kingdom in heaven. There will be no intermediate Christian empire set up on earth.

This view is better supported by the Bible, especially in keeping with Christ's declaration that His kingdom "is not of this earth" (Jn.18:36).

To some, the idea of an intermediate empire is suggested in the prophecy that 'those who support Christ will be raised up to reign with him for a thousand years' (Rev. 20:4). This is a prophecy that reveals there will be two resurrections ­ one in the early days of the faith, and another, one thousand years later, at its earthly end (Rev. 20:5).

The traditional view of this passage assumes that the first resurrection involved Christ's Apostles and early followers, and that they have reigned with Him in heaven during virtually all of the last 2000 years of the Christian Church. One date suggested for this first resurrection centers on the burning down of Herod's temple in 70 A.D. In this respect it is interesting to note that between 67 A.D. and 73 A.D., Nero died, Peter and Paul along with Christ's closest followers (many of the biggest names in scripture) were martyrd in Rome (Jer. 52:24-27), the Roman conquest of Judea occurred, the Jewish temple was destroyed and the 2000-year Diaspora to "Babylon" (Micah 4:10) began. It was a profound 7-year period in the life of the Church.

Since a small but growing number of Protestants believe the heresy that there existed virtually no Christian Church on earth during Roman times (after the deaths of the twelve Apostles until the 16th century or later) the idea that the thousand-year reign relates to heaven rather than the earth, is widely rejected in their circles.

The numbers, however, tell a different story. They show a Christian Church on earth, if anything, even more powerful before the 16th century than after it. There are 1.7 billion traditional Christians in the world's current population. The entire Protestant movement numbers around 500 million, 2/3rds of which hold traditional beliefs as well. The difference in these numbers points to the fact that an enormous traditional Christian Church population has always existed on earth from the earliest days of the faith.

Both Daniel and John describe the millenium as an event in 3 parts ­ a period of troubled peace bookended by two wars (Dan. 9:25-27; Rev. 19:11 to 20:10). The first war saw Christians fed to lions in the Roman amphitheatres (Rev. 19:19-21), the second will be led by a Madman in the days ahead (2 Thes. 2:3-4; Rev. 20:7-9). Between them is the reign of the Church. The three, taken together, form a "Day" of God on earth. This "day" relates to Sonshine ­ the light of Christ shining across the planet. The day itself is described by Moses as the "Day of Atonement". It is God's day of mercy on earth where the people, separated from God, are offered a chance to reunite themselves with Him through the sacrifice of a perfect "Paschal Lamb", Jesus Christ (Is. 53:4-5).

Jesus informed us that God's offer of reconciliation would be short. Daniel foresaw it's sunset in the warfare described above, a shattering of the power of Christianity's rule of the earth, culminating in the assassination of the "Bishop in white" (the Pope), as announced by Lucia de los Santos in the third prophecy of Fatima, a prophecy given to her in an appearance by the Virgin Mary. (See 2 Thes. 2:7).

The duration of God's day matches the Christian calendar ­ a calendar structured in three God-days, where a day to God is a thousand years to man (Ps.90:4). Joshua's prophecy shows that God held His Son in the sky to make one day into almost two (Joshua 10:12-14). That single day made into two accounts for the 2000-year reign of the Church on earth. Joshua's prophecy, seen through Moses, was that the people of Israel were to wash and clean (repent and be baptised) for 2 days and see God early on third (Ex.19:10-11; Hos.6:2). By terms structured in the Psalms, and confirmed by Simon Peter (2 Peter 3:8), the world entered that 'third day" on January 1st, 2001.

In the early days of the 20th century, Lucia de los Santos and her two small companions were shown the future in three visions. All concerned the hell that lay ahead. As a part of that revelation, a light proving man's future was described to them ­ a light previously unknown to the world ­ like a blinding flash of light and fire across white desert sands. Lucia announced it, but did not understand it. The visions she was shown described the armies of the world that were to rise in her time to take the Churchs' peace from the earth and trample underfoot God's people, thus bringing to an end, the millenium and its offer of mercy and atonement for mankind.

The focal point of her vision encompassed the hell that was about to descend on the earth. The first related to world wars (Rev. 20:7-8), the second to the rise of world atheism in Russia (Ez. 38:1-7) and the third to the removal of tne "one" God had put in place to hold back the Wrath (2 Thes. 2:7).

The crushing of the power of the holy people ­ this is the Book of Daniel revealed ­ the book Lucia opened with her three visions. Participating in that opening she became one with the prophets of scripture. Her vision is that important. Her name is not in the Bible with the others, but she is there, a voice as prominent as theirs, nonetheless. Jesus said, "I have more to say to you but it would be too much for you" (John 16:12-15). That is why the Book of Daniel was ordered sealed for more than 2000 years. It was too much in those days, to hear. Too much, even now. Yet Lucia was given power to open it under the command of God.

In that opening, she gave voice to the sealed writings of the ancient prophets who had foreseen the coming of the east wind and its assault on the House of Israel. Daniel, in fact, had not only foreseen the assassination she described (Dan. 9:26), but touched on everything surrounding it.

He described the fall of the western world under the rise of a 4th Persian kingdom (Dan. 11:2-4), a fall predicted and foreshadowed in like events that are to repeat the divine edict known as "the handwriting on the wall" (Dan. 5:24-30). That message, coming from heaven, and interpreted by Daniel, announced that the king of Babylon would be handed over to the Medes and Persians (among whom his kingdom would be divided) and he, himself, executed by his eastern enemies. It was a prediction that the West was to be conquered by the East at the end of time.

The Bible shows the king of Babylon being brought down by the Medes in a series of repeating images ­ in one of those images, we have just witnessed the fate of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's king of Babylon, handed over to his enemies, the Persian Shiites. And, before that, and launching the forewarnings, the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the pharaoh of Egypt. A final, similar fate in Iraq, structured on the current pharaoh of the western world, is scheduled to prove and complete this sequence (Jer. 44:29-30). All of this, God's proof to the world that the handwriting on the wall of Babylon is not only in the Book of Daniel, but is the Book of Daniel itself, now opened. Proof, also, that the time for these things to happen is close at hand, the true reason why all these images of prophecy exist and are being shown to us so vividly today.

Our salvation is assured by these prophecies which bear witness to the truth of Christ's promise. They tell us that everything Jesus said is true and that He is about to return as foretold. Those who believed in His pledge and stood firm by His side during the milleniium of God's offer will be rewarded far beyond any expectation.

That is true meaning of the millenium. It's final end will be the fulfillment of our own victory in God.

 

What do you see as the main factors in God's decision to bring the world to an end? Does He have a scale of evil to go by?...I guess what I am asking is what ways you see people more wicked today than in the past? ­PL

Answer:

Wickedness will end the world. But Bible prophecy shows it is not increasing wickedness that brings this end to pass. The world was filled with wickedness when Jesus first appeared, and when He came, His primary purpose was not to reverse the world's wickedness, but to draw God's people out of it, and lead them safely to His kingdom in heaven.

That purpose has not changed.

The world will end when God's harvest is finished, not because the world's people have become more evil than those of bygone ages.

It is because Christ's word is rejected by the nations that the world ends. That rejection can be measured in the shuttering of church doors as the populations increasingly reject Christ's teachings and His offer of salvation. It can be seen in the nations' cancellation of their 1700-year political relationship with Christianity (the rule of Christ on earth). It can be seen in the rebirth on earth of atheism, Christianity's secular nemesis; and ultimately it will be seen again when world forces try to violently eradicated the House of Israel (Christians and Jews) from the planet.

Paul told Timothy that profligacy will increase dramatically in the last days, producing people he said, who are "self-serving, arrogant, rude grasping, boastful and enemies of everything that is good." "Treacherous and demented by pride, they will prefer their own pleasures to God." Yet, in the midst of this reckless behavior, people will keep up the outward appearance of religion, though rejecting its inner power (2 Tim. 3:1-5).

For this reason, we will not be able to see discernable changes at the end if we look for them only superficially. The Creator is one with Christ, so God's true religion must be judged by the Gospel Jesus preached.

"The time is sure to come when, far from being content with sound teaching, people will be avid for the latest novelty and collect for themselves a whole series of teachers according to their own tastes; and then, instead of listening to the truth, they will turn to myths. Be careful always to choose the right course; be brave under trials and make the preaching of the Good News your life's work..." (2 Tim. 4:3-6)

Because the falling away is spiritual, so less easily seen, a clearer picture of the end of the harvest can be observed in the actions of the nations. Their universal rejection of Jesus is a chilling indicator. One hundred years ago virtually all the nations of the western world still accepted the presence of Jesus within their ruling heirarchy's. Today, none do. That is a sea change. It reverses almost 2000 years of world history.

It is a fulcrum that has changed the course of the world.

Concomitant with that, we are seeing an atheistic (secular) community build in Christianity's place. Secularism has replaced Christianity at the king's table. Atheism was destroyed as a political power during the days of Constantine. It was officially outlawed and was chronicled in scripture as having recieved a mortal wound from the sword of Christ. The healing of this mortal wound (it's reincarnation in our time) was foreseen in the Book of Revelation in conjunction with the beast to come (Rev.13:1-3).

"On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the light has come into the world men have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear his actions should be exposed; but the man who lives by the truth comes out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God." (John 3:18-21).

Once the entire House of Israel ­ every person Satan took captive ­ has been found and rescued by Christ, the world will come to an end. God's harvest is tied to the Eucharist, the perpetual sacrifice of communion that has memorialized Christ's sacrifice across the ages. When that sacrifice is taken away at its source (Dan. 8:11; Mat. 24:15-16) and the one overseeing it, who holds back the world's end, is physically removed (2 Thes. 2:6-7), the end will quickly follow.

"Rebellion is at its work already, but in secret, and the one who is holding it back has first to be removed before the Rebel appears openly. (2 Thes. 2:6-7),

The removal of the one who oversees the communion sacrifice will bring the Madman and his rebellion into full public view. See the third prophecy of Fatima, below.

Because the desolating sacrilege will abolish the Eucharist, the communion Host will not be eaten.  In keeping with the terms of the Law, fire from heaven must come down and burn up the uneaten sacrifice. (Lev.19:5-6). According to the Law, that burning has to take place on the 3rd day (Lev.19:7). Using Peter's formula (2 Peter 3:8), that means after January 1, 2001. That places this "burning" in the day of Christ's return, just before His Second Coming.

Both Daniel and the Book of Revelation confirm that this fire (God's fiery hailstones) will actually coincide with a fire lit by man (by the nations in conjunction with the dictates of the Madman). The two together will ignite a conflagration that will consume everything scripture has forseen and described (Dan.11:44; Jer. 51:58; Rev. 17:16).

When he led the House of Israel out of Egypt to the foot of Mt. Sinai to see God, Moses told the tribes that they had to wash and clean for two days to prepare for the divine visitation; and, then, on the third day, see God face to face (Ex.19:10-11). That defined the harvest according to the Law ­ two "days" of baptism and repentance, followed by a "third day" that marked the return of Christ descending from God's holy mountain in full view of a world gathered to watch.

The Law of Moses is the template upon which Jesus built His religion. The fact that the harvest would be structured on a three-day format can also be seen in the prophecy of Joshua concerning the duration of God's Day of Atonement (Joshua 10:13-14). It is reaffirmed again by the Christian calendar, defining where the world is today in relation to that calendar, i.e., 2007.

With such signs of God's return being powerfully fulfilled in our time, it seems clear that the time has drawn especially near. While these do not tell us the day or the hour, still, they offer us very clear "red sky in the morning" kinds of signs that Jesus said no one should ignore (Mat.16:2-3).

Since that visitation is now so close, and the time left to "wash and clean" so short, attending to that task should be the driving priority of anyone not yet reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. With so many losing faith and falling away, the need to hold fast to Christ's salvation is greater now than ever before, 'for happy will be the person who does not lose faith in Jesus' (Mat.11:6).

 

The third secret of Fatima in full (text by Lucia de los Santos in her own words):

"After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: 'something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it'  a Bishop dressed in White 'we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God."

 

Atheism and secularism are not the same. Try using a dictionary. ­J

Answer:

Atheism and secularism are two examples of paganism. Another is the worship of false gods like Zeus, etc. Each has a specific meaning relative to the other, but all three share an overarching meaning in common. They characterize the philosophic framework of Babylon; a country whose ideologies illustrate man's separation from God.

Paganism means "country dweller". In Christianity it is a synonym for heathenism. The Holy Spirit determined that the title be applied in conjunction with Micah's prophecy:

"Writhe, cry out daughter of Zion, for now you have to leave the city and live in the open country. To Babylon you must go and there you will be rescued; There God will ransom you out of the power of your enemies." (Micah 4:10).

The prophecy refers to the Diaspora, the exile of the two "houses" of Israel (Christians and Jews) from the Holy Land, and their relocation into the greater world. This exile was symbolically instituted by Rome in 70 A.D., but the prophecy itself actually addresses mankind's separation from God.

It applies to the children of God stolen by Satan and contaminated by him when he initiated his rebellion. Jesus Christ was sent to find them, cleanse them and return them to their true home and Father in heaven. That true "holy land" is the kingdom of God, the Jerusalem of heaven.

In keeping with this prophecy, Christianity rose up in Babylon to overpower the desert country, and bring it under God's rule. As a part of that changed governance, the sword of Christ delivered a mortal wound to heathenism in its own countryside. In place of the country dwellers (pagans), the City of God appeared, changing the population into city dwellers (Christians).

"Your race will take possession of the nations, and people the abandoned cities." (Is. 54:3)

Babylon (the open country) was reborn as the city of David, reconstituted as a city of God, morally ruled through the Church by the Gospel and pointed to the Jerusalem of heaven. The light of Christ shone everywhere for almost 2000 years, bathing the entire planet in God's light as it circled the earth searching for every soul held captive by Satan. The purpose of the light, reconciliation, and the term of its shining, the "Day of Atonement".

The Lord bares his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." (Is.52:10).

Jesus said God's offer of reconciliation would be short, a single "day", lengthened by mercy through prophecy to almost two (Joshua 10:13-14). The shortness of the offer can be seen in Christ's warning to "work while you have the light. Night is coming when no one can work." (John 9:4).

"That day I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight...I will make it a mourning like the mourning for an only son. As long as it lasts it will be like a day of bitterness." (Amos 8:9-10, Ez.32:7-8).

Now that the light of God has come full circle, back to the Euphrates, the darkness is returning. The day of bitterness is at the door. The mortal wound is healing. That is why we see a return of the philosophies struck down by the sword of Christ and negated by the Church during its reign on earth. Not only has paganism returned, it has done so in such numbers as to overwhelm the city dwellers and return the land to its status as a barren countryside, a fact that has seen paganism return to world power.

Christianity no longer sits at the kings table (Jer. 52:31-34). Christianity's rule of the world has ended, and the darkness of paganism in all of its forms is returning to retake its former place in Satan's world.

The leaders of the churches, long in denial, are just now becoming aware of this change. Their fight to reverse the encroachment of this darkness can be seen, as can the ridicule of their efforts by a world increasingly convinced tthat belief in Christ is in vain.

According to Daniel, the holy people will be crushed in this revolt, but their fight on behalf of Christ is not in vain. The victory of the light is assured, and eternal life is guaranteed to all who hold to their faith all the way to the end (Mat.11:6)..

 

When can we expect to see the charismatic figure that leads the world away from Jesus? Will he be Jewish do you think? ­DF

Answer:

The beast that is described in the Book of Revelation has 3 images. The first image is Satan, the second, Satan's spirit on earth and the third, his spirit made flesh. This is a reverse trinity structured in evil to mock the true Trinity of the Godhead.

Satan's spirit made flesh is described as a "head". There have been seven over the course of the world.

The Book of Revelation tells us that Michael the Archangel locked Satan in chains in the Abyss just after Christ was crucifed and kept him there during the time of the Christian harvest. His tenure in prison is descibed as "a thousand years". Scripture explains that God did this so that he could not decieve the people who were being offered eternal life and lead them astray by offering them competing philosophies such as atheism, paganism or false religion.

We cannot be certain the exact date Satan was incarcerated, but it had already happened before 95 A.D. That is the year the final draft of the Book of Revelation was penned by John, a book that contained these words about Satan: "The beast you have seen, once was, now is not; he is yet to come up from the Abyss, but only to go to his destruction." (Rev.17:8; see also Rev. 20:1-3).

At the same time, scripture tells us Jesus delivered a "mortal wound" to the beast's sixth "head", an emperor almost all Christian scholars see as Nero.

With Satan locked in the Abyss, there would be no Satan, no defined spirit of the Anti-christ, and no "head" or human manifestation of him on earth during the time of his imprisonment.

Sin remained, but the deceiver, himself, was absent. The spirit of evil was without direction and therefore incapable of mounting an effective counterattack against the Gospel that was being preached across the earth.

All that would change upon Satan's return after his release.

The "charisma" that surrounds the return of those three manifestations can be seen vividly in the world's willing embrace of atheism and secularism, the spiritual philosophies that compete directly against the teachings of Christ. Those philosophies were not tolerated during the Christian millenium. They were forbidden by the Church.

After Satan's release, the spirit of the Anti-christ returned these philosophies almost immediately, paving the way for the "head" to appear later. These new doctrines changed public perceptions by deceiving a large segment of the world's population, creating a friendlier climate more willing to embrace the beast's evil human image.

We can see that changed climate in the popular embrace afforded to a litany of 20th century villains and Christ-hating warmongers: Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Tojo and Mao tse Tung, among many others.

The charisma is there in enormous quantity, but it does not come as one might think. (See "A Popular Beast"). The embrace is dependent on deception. First the propaganda that blinds, and then the rest follows almost by default. Once the people are willing to accomodate sin and make excuses for it, Satan's victory is assured.

Adolph Hitler, the seventh "head" of the beast arising after Satan's release, was not Jewish. There is no way to tell if the final "head" will be Jewish. It is highly unlikely, because none of the other seven 'heads' were, and scripture tells us the last beast will be a reincarnation of one of those seven. Like Hitler, he will be a committed enemy of Judaism and will push in every way he can for the race's extermination. Prophecy tells us he will align himself very closely with Persia, so much so that he seems to consider himself to be Persian.

Arising in the North, it is tempting to think of him in some ways as a sort of 'Lawrence of Persia' instead of Arabia. But he will be far different than that, and far more deadly. In fact, the deadliest person ever to live on earth.

 

Why do you keep beating the homosexuality issue (Chronology)? It is a dead horse. ­MM

Answer:

I try to put in the Chronology section news items that bear strongly on scripture, especially with reference to the last days, and particularly those that relate to Bible prophecy. The issue you ask about does all three in a big way.

Homosexuality was forbidden by the Church on the grounds that the Bible labels it immoral. That view has not changed substantially during Christianity's 1700-year reign on earth ­ a period of "Sonlight" that stretched from the time of Constantine (roughly 350 A.D) until just a few decades ago all across the western world.

The recent emergence of homosexuality as far as social acceptibility is concerned is a striking change. That is of particular concern because the view of the Christian Church follows scriptural prophecy which ties the practice to the end of the world.

Peter revealed that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament is a prophecy. When asked why God destroyed these two cities he answered that they were annihilated by God as a warning to the people of the future (2 Peter 2:6-10). Since he was speaking more than 2000 years after those two cities had been destroyed, but still seeing ahead, Peter had to be pointing to us. We are the people of the future he was referring to.

On the surface, the prophecy of Sodom and Gomorrah seems to single out homosexual deviancy and label it as more sinful than heterosexual aberrations. The weight given to it, however, would seem to indicate that the prophecy unmasks a larger sin, targeting the homosexual community, but perhaps focusing on their war against Christ even more than on their sexual asymmetry.

There is mounting evidence that the prophecy of Sodom and Gomorrah centers on that community's war against Jesus and the Bible. If this is the case, the prophecy may suggest that the war it wages against Christ, its successful attempt to garner the world's populations to its side, and its damage to the Church and to Christ's harvest, will prove to be strategic events in the world's rejection of the Gospel's message. In other words, central issues in the return of darkness.

Recent developments have shown it to be particularly active, even now, in launching verbal and written attacks against the Church. The fact that 80% of all Roman Catholic pedophilia incidents were perpetrated by homosexual priests and involved homosexual acts have not deterred a significant segment of this community from its militant stand against the Christian religion.

In speaking of the Roman church scripture tells us the "mother" (the Law under its 'new' tenants) is to die in shame and disgrace. Homosexuality has thus far been shown to play a significant role in the scandal that seems to be leading the church to this infamous end.

"The mother of seven sons grows faint, and breathes her last. It is still day, but already her sun has set. Shame and disgrace are hers..." (Jer.15:9).

It's growing engagement in the current social war being waged against God's religion may (if it hasn't already) be leading the homosexual community into the no-man's-land surrounding blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (blasphemy of the Spirit of God which lies at the center of the Church) ­ according to Jesus, an unforgiveable sin.

If the community as a whole chooses to join the Anti-christ, that would more easily explain why the prophecy is so boldly proclaimed in scripture, and why an identification with the end of the world in cosmic fire is so much more tightly linked to it than to other kinds of sins.

One thing is certain, the penalties prove the prophecy relates strongly to the returning darkness, identifying a key element in that night's character. For that reason, if nothing else, it belongs in the Chronology section whenever major media (the news) deems it necessary to headline its advances.

 

I want to know more about your suggestion that the abomination of desolation will be set up in St. Peter's in Rome instead of the new Temple in Jerusalem. If you can find any actual quote in the Bible that says that I would like to know where it is. ­JF

Answer:

The actual quote is allegorical. It is in the first Book of Maccabees. Speaking of the days when the type of the abomination was first raised up, it says:

"Then they fortified the City of David with a great strong wall and strong towers and made this their Citadel. There they installed an army of sinful men, renegades, who fortified themselves inside it. There they stored the loot they had taken from Jerusalem." (1 Mac.1:33-37).

The reference relates to events surrounding the erection of the abomination of desolation in the Mosaic holy place in 167 B.C., in relation to Antiochus IV Epiphanes, referenced by Daniel.

If these words speak to an antitype in the last days as Daniel insists, we must accept these words as prophecy. If so, two things are obvious. First, it does not occur in Jerusalem. Instead, it speaks about the City of David, a city named after the Messiah, the David of prophecy. That is the city of Jesus Christ. The only city of Christ on earth is Vatican City in Rome. It is there that the "renegades" have placed the abomination which makes desolate, and it is there that they have assassinated the "one" who holds back the wrath (2 Thes.2:7).

Second, Daniel shows the abomination is placed on a "wing" of the Temple, not in the Temple per se:

"And, for the space of one-half week he will put a stop to sacrifice and oblation, and, on the wing of the Temple will be the disastrous abomination until the end, until the doom assigned to the devastator." (Dan.9:27)

The temple is not going to be physically rebuilt in the last days. It has already been rebuilt in Christ. Anything else can only detract from that fact and mask God's plan. It is not the killing of goats and lambs and birds for sacrifice that is halted by the beast. It is the Eucharist, the offering of communion in memory of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross that is attacked by the beast. This is the true "Feast of Tabernacles (or churches). That is what the "man of perdition" puts a stop to in conjunction with his abomination of desolation. The "wing" of the Temple speaks to a church in Christendom.

It is the same church Lucia of Fatima was shown in her vision as relating to the assassination of the holy Bishop (the "one who had first to be removed" before the beast could appear openly).

The prophecy of the abomination and the cancellation of the sacrifice has nothing to do with the past or with Moses. It is about the end of the world. It is a prophecy about the future. Jesus is that future, not Moses. Jesus is the Davidic Messiah, heralded by John the Baptist in fulfillment of prophecy and put to death on the cross for our sake so that our sins could be taken away. Moses does not return. He has no power to take sin away. The Messiah is victorious, and in that victory He takes all of us with Him to His new kingdom in heaven, Christians and Jews alike.

Before that victory is achieved, the terrible "half-week" of Daniel is to occur. The Wrath. Lucia's vision is the "handwriting on the wall" pointing to the opening of that period of planetary chaos ­ world wars, the return of atheism and the assassination of the Pope. As it progresses, the beast is predicted to attack the Church and crush the power of the holy people.

Both cities of the House of Israel are to be crushed in this assault: the City of David first, and then Jerusalem. The assassination of the holy Bishop and the corruption of the sacrifice (the cancellation of communion) are the pivotal events that open the flood gates to the final period of terror, the last half-week.

"God will gather all the nations to Jerusalem for battle. The city will be taken, the houses plundered, the women ravished. Half the city will go into captivity, but the remnant of the people will not be cut off from the city. Then God will take the field; he will fight against these nations as he fights in the day of battle." (Zech.14:2-5).

God responds to the beast's fiery rampage with fire of His own. God's fire comes in response to the Law which says the sacrifice must be burned with fire from heaven if it is not eaten (Lev.19:5-6). The sacrifice is not eaten because the beast will abolish it when he erects the abomination of desolation in the holy place (Dan. 8:11-12). When the beast abolishes the "perpetual sacrifice" (i.e., the Feast of the Churches or Tabernacles) the communion sacrifice will lay uneaten, a circumstance that will make the issuance of that cosmic fire inevitable.

Isaiah defined clearly what that would mean:

"See how God lays the earth waste, makes it a desert, buckles its surface, scatters its inhabitants...for they have transgressed the law, violated the precept, broken the everlasting covenant. So a curse consumes the earth and its inhabitants suffer the penalty, that is why the inhabitants of the earth are burnt up and few men are left." (Is.24:1-6)

The Bible states that God's fire will come down on the "third day".Our world entered the "third day" of Christ on January 1, 2001. We are in that "day" now, so these events are not a great distance away.

The breaking of the covenant occurs in the Vatican because that is where the "new tenants" of the Law were sent by God when He ordered the Diaspora to occur. The new tenants are those that Christ handed the keys of the kingdom to when He reclaimed it from the wicked stewards who had been ruling it sinfully in Jerusalem. The Law, the House of Israel, and everything associated with it was then sent to Babylon in fulfillment of the prophecies.

"Writhe, cry out daughter of Zion, for now you have to leave the city and live in the open country. To Babylon you must go and there you will be rescued; There God will ransom you out of the power of your enemies." (Micah 4:10).

Rome represents Babylon. That is why Peter and Paul were sent to Rome to be crucified. Their presence there established the exile. The Arch of Titus proclaims that it applied to the Jews as well. As does history. As a consequence, the entire House of Israel has been freed from Satan's captivity while exiled in the spiritual wilderness of Babylon, scattered through that wilderness to its farthest reaches.

In Rome, we see those new tenents of the Law in their renewed form. We see the priesthood, the high priest, the Sanhedrin, the perpetual sacrifice, and all of it dedicated to Christ ­ dedicated to the single purpose of helping the people of the world leave the Law in which they are trapped, and setting them free of sin in Christ. The Law is now the "mother of seven sons" (the mother of the seven churches). Many teach that Jesus abolished the Law, but He said that is not true:

"Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them." (Mt.5:17).

We know that the Law is still here because of baptism. Baptism is the legal mechanism God instituted for those in the Law to leave it.

"Through the Law I am dead to the Law, so that now I can live for God. I have been crucified with Christ, and I live now, not with my own life, but with the life of Christ who lives in me." (Gal.2:19).

The Law was here yesterday because people were being baptised yesterday. The law is here today because people are being baptised today. And the Law will still be here tomorrow because people will be baptised out of it tomorrow as well. If the Law continues to exist, so does the religion that rules it for God. That Law, now servant to Christ, is ruled by those who use it in the way God wanted it used ­ to lead people to Christ.

Everything in Christ has been built on the Mosaic template. Even this.

Once we are free of the Law, the Law has no more power over us. Paul showed this clearly in his letter to the Galatians. That is why we are able to have "seven" churches in the world.

Wherever two or more are gathered in His name, a true church of Christ is formed by the union. Jesus is there with them. That is the legal definition of the Temple in the Law. The Temple had the holy of holies and the holy seat of God where God personally sat. His personal presence is what created the Temple. God's personal presence gave the Temple its authority to be Temple. Now Jesus has declared that He and the Holy of Holies reside in each baptised Christian, so wherever two or more Christian's gather, a true Temple of God is formed, with all the authority of heaven. More authority than ever existed in any building ever built by man.

"Didn't you realize that you were God's temple and that the Spirit of God was living within you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred; and you are that temple." (1 Cor. 3:16-17).

The seven churches (a spiritual institution hidden now in thousands of physical entities) spread out across the world to baptise everyone on earth willing to change their behavior and turn to Christ. That is how the word of God has been spread during the harvest. That is why the prophetic matrix of scripture shows the "mother" giving birth to seven sons. The one who was barren has produced seven-fold. Seven is an infinite number standing for perfection and completion.

"And God will...stretch out his hand over the River, and divide it into seven streams, for men to cross dry-shod, to make a pathway for the remnant of his people..." (Is.11:15).

"The secret of the seven stars you have seen in my right hand, and of the seven golden lamp-stands is this: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lamp-stands are the seven churches themselves (Rev. 1:20).

God has put the Law at the service of faith. This shows that the annullment of the first covenant was not an instant event, but has been a continuous process, like the curling of a breaking wave as it goes down the seashore. It will continue until everyone that God has chosen to be rescued from the Law is saved. After that has happened the desolating sacrilege will be erected, stopping the process. And then the end will come. Christ will return and collect all the fruits of His ministry, Christian and Jew alike.

The mother of those seven sons, the caretaker of the Law, is to die in shame and disgrace.

"the mother of seven sons grows faint, and breathes her last. It is still day, but already her sun has set. Shame and disgrace are hers..." (Jer.15:9).

As we watch in stunned disbelief, this, too, seems to be unfolding now as well. Scripture's prophetic architecture continues to evolve as predicted, adding proof again and again to our hope in the quintessential truth of Jesus Christ and His promise of eternal life for all who believe in Him.

One more question...about the 7 churches in your answer do you mean 7 Roman Catholic churches or 7 Christian churches? ­JF

Answer:

All.

Jesus said: "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be with them." (Mat. 18:20). Period. End of sentence.

Or, "Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother." (Mat.12:50). Again, Period. End of sentence.

Or, "I tell you most solemnly, whoever keeps my word will never see death." (John 8:51). Again, Period. End of sentence.

"Then Peter addressed them: 'The truth I have now come to realize' he said, 'is that God does not have favorites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him." (Acts 10:34-35).

What God has made clean, no one has any right to profane (Acts10:15+). Baptism cleanses everyone (Mark 1:4; Luke 7:29-30).

In your question you have divided what God has made the same. All who are baptised in Christ are Christian. All who have faith in Christ are Christian. Watch out for division. Jesus said: "Every kingdom divided against itself is heading for ruin, and a household divided against itself collapses." (Luke 11:17).

 

What is the mark of the beast? ­GH

Answer:

This is a mark that has to do with the "second death", the death of the soul.

Jesus said that though the body dies, the soul does not. As far as God is concerned, He said, everyone who has ever passed away is still alive. (Luke 20:38). Jesus was sent by God to warn the world that the time is coming when all those living souls will be called before the Judgment seat of God. Those who have the mark of God will inherit eternal life. Those who do not will succumb to the second death, because Satan stained every soul he took captive when he rebelled against God. That stain is the mark of the Beast.

That is why God has raised every soul to life in the flesh ­ to hear Jesus' warning, and to make a decision about receiving the mark of God which can save our lives.

The Apostle John, in response to his visions wrote the following in the Book of Revelation:

"He (the Beast) compelled everyone-small and great, rich and poor, slave and citizen-to be branded on the right hand or on the forehead, ·and made it illegal for anyone to buy or sell anything unless he had been branded with the name of the beast or with the the number of its name. There is need for shrewdness here: if anyone is clever enough he may interpret the number of the beast: it is the number of a man, the number 666." (Rev. 13:16-18).

This is written in a way that seems to associate the fatal brand with the "8th head of the Beast", a figure yet to appear on history's stage. That leaves us with the impression that the mark has to do with the future and thus has no application to us, or to those who have preceded us over the last 2000 years of Christain history.

In chapter 21 of the same book, however, John shows that the mark existed before the first war between Jesus and Satan occurred ­ the terrible conflict during which Christians were fed to the lions in the Roman arena's. It existed before Michael the Archangel imprisoned Satan in the Abyss for the "thousand years" of Christian rule on the earth. It existed before the first resurrection, i.e., before 70 A.D.

That means it is a mark that pre-exists the "Man of Perditition". When the 8th head of the Beast comes in the future (which he will) he may employ a corollary of that mark to be affixed to the flesh, but the spiritual mark that underlies his brand has been in existance from the beginning. The spiritual brand of the Beast is the mark Jesus came to remove from our souls.

The mark of God is baptism and it has power to wash off the mark of the beast. To prove this, the Bible says God's covenant "must be marked on our bodies". "Happy are those who will have washed their robes clean, so that they will have the right to feed on the tree of life and can come through the gates into the city." (Rev. 22:14).

The mark of the Beast is original sin. That was our nature before we confessed and repented our sins, and turned to Jesus Christ by accepting baptism in His name. Original sin is the mark of the man "Adam", and manifests itself in wickedness and evil, murder, lying, stealing, lust, fortune telling, warmongering, fornication, greed, which is idolatry, false speech and false life. It is out of that kind of living that Jesus has called us to God, and promised eternal life to all who accept baptism and a new life in His name.

Jesus came to make all creation new. Our flesh, with it's sinful nature, has died in Christ and we have been reborn into a new body in His image, pure and without the stain of sin, which is the mark of the Beast. Instead, we have been marked in purity by God through baptism. If we live thereafter in the precepts of the Gospel we will bypass the Judgment and live forever.

The second death will have no power over us.

 

Jesus said He didn't come to abolish the Law , but according to Paul in Romans 10:4, the Law came to an end with Jesus. I find these two statements contradictory. Do you see any reason why they are not? ­NK

Answer:

When you read Christ against the writers of the New Testament (especially Paul), apparent contradictions only mean your interpretation is incorrect. Jesus gave His Apostles absolute authority to bind the Christian religion on earth as the Holy Spirit directed them (Mat 18:18; John 20:23). For this reason, Paul and Christ cannot contradict one another. Both of the statements in your question then, are, in fact, true.

How are you interpreting this passage?

"Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved. Therefore, the man who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven; but the man who keeps them and teaches them will be considered great in the kingdom of heaven." (Mt.5:17-19).

Jesus is showing in this statement that the Law is (and always has been) Jesus Christ, i.e., it emanates only from God. The Law that came from Moses was a reflection of God's Law, and not even a finished picture of it (Heb.10:1).

"Notice that he says first: 'You did not want' what the Law lays down as the things to be offered, that is: the sacrifices, the oblations, the holocausts and the sacrifices for sin, and you took no pleasure in them; and then he says: Here I am! I am coming to obey your will. He is abolishing the first sort to replace it with the second. And this will was for us to be made holy by the offering of his body made once and for all by Jesus Christ." (Heb.10:5-10).

"If that first covenant had been witout a fault, there would have been no need for a second one to replace it." (Heb. 8:7).

And, indeed, God did find a fault with the covenant of Moses:

"See, the days are coming ­ it is God who speaks ­ when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant of mine, so I had to show them who was master. "No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive: Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people." (Jer.31:31-33).

The Law in the Old Testament is a "guardian" covenant meant only to be in place until the true Father arrived to complete it.  Because baptism out of the Law of Moses is still going on, the framework of that Law is still in place showing that its purpose has not yet been completely achieved. The framework of the Law is still in place because it is the template upon which the Christian religion has been constructed.

The method and structure of the sacrifice which Jesus came to complete was detailed beforehand in the Mosaic Law. Jesus followed that template with the exact precision God deemed necessary for its successful fulfillment: the perfect unblemished Paschal Lamb, the escaped goat, the sacrificed goat, the sin offering, the peace offering, the priest who stood in place of His Father, bearing the burden of the the first wife's sin.

The Law doomed mankind because of sin and only the sacrifice it stipulated could change that death sentence and allow God to effect a pardon. That is because God always keeps the Law that He has put in place. In fulfilling the Mosaic Law, Christ took charge over it and completed it.

When we study Christ's works, we see over and over again, countless situations in which the Law of Moses dictated the template for His actions. The Law of Moses formed the "type", while Christ and His religion fulfilled the "antitype" that the Mosaic "types" prophesied.

For instance, His sale into the hands of this world by His brothers, the 30 pieces of silver, His initiation of the Eucharist (the banquet of God) through the Last Supper, His distribution of the manna, the food of life from Babylon, Melchizadek, the mark of the covenant on our bodies, the whip when He exchanged the covenants, the rock of Peter, His two witnesses, "Cornerstone" and "Tent-peg", the bride and bridegroom and the marriage vows, the youngest usurping the elder, His walking on water or feeding the 5000 and so on. All this and much more helped completed the Law of Moses by fulfilling its prophecies.

The same is true of the rest of scripture's typology.

Christmas is built on the template of the Jewish festival of lights (Hannukah) which celebrates the purification of the Temple ­ Jesus Christ being that purification far beyond anything Judas Maccabees could ever accomplish. The Jewish feast was celebrated on the 25th day of the Hebrew month, Chislev (the month corresponding to December in the Christian calendar). Consequently, Christmas is celebrated on the 25th of December. The difference in days contrasts the difference between the lunar calendar and the solar calendar.

The words solar and lunar, themselves, allegorize the source of light (God) against His reflected image, showing how we should view the Law of Christ with respect to the Law of Moses ­ showing that moonlight is actually sunlight, dimly seen. The Law of Moses is the Law of Christ, dimly seen.

In the same way, the Holy Spirit has built Easter on the template of Passover. The same for Pentecost (the day of the appearance of the Holy Spirit) which is built on the template of the Jewish "Feast of First Fruits", structured 50 days after Passover in the Hebrew calendar and 49 days from Easter in the Christian (or 52 days from the commemoration of the Last Supper). Fifty-two days is the time shown in the Law for the rebuilding of Jerusalem's wall of protection, which is what the presence of the Holy Spirit represents.

The prophetic matrix of scripture is structured on hundreds (if not thousands) of "types" set in the Law, and pointing to "antitypes" in which earlier events foreshadow later ones, and which earlier people prophecy later ones. The list seems endless, but in every case the words stand for ideas about "a transcendent order above", lifting the reader out of this world and into the heavenly realm of God through Jesus Christ.

Evolution is the "type" of which our rebirth in Christ is the "antitype". That is why Jesus explained it in evolutionary terms ­ in the identical terms Darwin used: ("survival of the fittest through a process of natural selection"). Jesus said the kingdom of heaven was like a dragnet thrown into the sea bringing in a catch of all kinds. Sorting through that catch at the end of time, the angels keep the good and throw the bad away. Here is survival of the fittest by selection, but the selection is supernatural, in keeping with scripture's subject ­ our elevation out of this world and into God's transcendant order above.

Circumcision is the type of which baptism is the antitype. Communion is the type of which the indwelling Christ (the Word of God) is the antitype. Passover is the type of which Holy Week and Resurrection are the antitypes. The Exodus from Egypt is the type of which our rescue from Babylon is the antitype. Antiochus IV Epiphanes is the type of which the 8th head of the Beast is the antitype. Nebuchadnezzar is the type of which Nero was the antitype. Or, Nero is the type of which the 8th head will be the antitype.

Prophecy tells us the 8th head of the beast is to be a reincarnation of Nero. The Bible intends its types and antitypes to be understood spiritually, not as literal reincarnations. Nebuchadnezzar and Nero are spiritually identical, not literally. As are Babylon and Rome and all the others. The same will be true of Nero and the 8th head of the Beast.

I could go on and on about this, and have already done so at great length across the breadth of my web pages, but these few examples show how the Law has not been abolished, but completed in Christ. Much of it in the fashion of "type" to "antitype" which underscores the predictive nature of scripture, the Bible's predictive undercurrent that serves as a complementary backdrop to the narrative predictions that crescendo throughout its pages.

All this has been designed by the Holy Spirit who has filled scripture's pages since the day of its inception with prophecies that point to the truth of Jesus Christ, who is, in Himself, the true Law of God.

The Law of Moses (the guardian covenant) was born out of a compromise. It was meant to be temporary from the very first day of its enactment on the mountain in Sinai.

Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt on a 3-day journey to Mt. Sinai to witness God come down before them and give them His Law.  Because that appearance was steeped in a terribly frightening theophany (the mountain catching fire, the earth quaking beneath their feet, dark ominious clouds forming, thunder crashing, and lightning flashing all around them) the tribes of Israel begged Moses to have God halt His descent and send an intermediary in His place (Ex.20:18-21). God agreed and Jesus was structured into the Law (Dt.18:15-19).

In other words, God agreed to send His Law later in the person of a Messiah. In the meantime, He allowed Moses to make a copy of the Law, a reflection of it, to keep the people close to Him until the true Law should arrive to complete His purpose. Because it was reflected light, it was a lunar law for a lunar calendar. Darkness still covered the earth because Jesus had not yet appeared.

When Jesus appeared, the true Law of God appeared with Him (Heb.10:15-18). We call this light of God the "Day" of Atonement. The guardian law was supplanted by the power and truth of heaven above. The calendar related now to "daylight" and became solar. The darkness was gone, and the moon became the Church, the reflected light of Christ on earth.

To prove this, Jesus told His disciples that no one who ate the bread of Moses was saved by it. All of them died (John 6:32-35). The only bread that saves is the Bread Jesus brought down from heaven and gave to the world. His commandments constitute the structure of that heavenly Bread. All who keep His commandments will live forever (John 6:46-58). As long as this bread is offered, the Day of Atonement will continue.

Scripture tells us that a day is coming when the darkness will return. The bread of life will be abolished and taken away by forces hostile to Jesus. That will end the Day of Atonement and bring the Wrath with its fire because the Law of Moses tells us that when the bread of the sacrifice is not eaten, it must be burned up. God has armed the universe itself for this purpose. This, again, is "type" and "antitype".

When Jesus spoke about the person who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, and visa versa, He was talking about His own commandments, not those of Moses. He was talking about the commandments of God, the commandments that mean eternal life, blocked by the Israelites at Sinai, but put in force through the Messiah Jesus who was God in the flesh.

"Through the Law I am dead to the Law, so that now I can live for God. I have been crucified with Christ, and I live now, not with my own life, but with the life of Christ who lives in me." (Gal.2:19).

When Paul talked about the Law being dead, he was referring to the guardian law of Moses with respect to those who have been baptised in Jesus (Heb.10:1-10). The apostles proved this in Acts 15, when they met together in Jerusalem and separated Christianity from Moses' guardian Law in one of the very first Apostolic decisions ever made in Christ's religion (Acts 15:7-12; 28-29). For all who have been baptised in Christ, the guardian covenant (the first covenant) is gone. With its passing, it will never come again. It has been replaced by the covenant the Israelites blocked at Sinai, the new and everlasting covenant of Christ, the bread of eternal life.

We must eat this bread now while there is still time. The opportunity to do so is fast fading away.

 

Why do you think the Isaelies are procrastinating on rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem? ­EM

Answer:

If you will look at how powerful an icon the Western Wall was for the Israeli army, and the worship with which they glorified it immediately after gaining control of the wall in the 6-day War, you can see how important the scriptural elements are for the people of Israel with respect to the hallowed monuments and artifacts of their religion.

The Old Testament is clear ­ the Jewish Temple can only be erected atop "the Rock" (the "threshing stone" of David). Right now, atop that stone stands the Muslim "Dome of the Rock", the second most holy shrine in the Muslim world.

In effect, the Israeli's can't get at it without initiating World War III.

Even if they were able to take possession of David's rock, there is a second barrier almost as powerful. It is the broad and mighty human coalition of animal rights activists across the world. Animal sacrifice would be met with an outcry and force of such formidable dimensions any attempt to engage in the practice would be guaranteed failure before it even started.

There is a third barrier far greater than even the first two ­ as far as God is concerned, Jesus Christ is the temple. Every person who turns to Him becomes a living stone making up that holy structure. The spiritual ruins of Jerusalem have been almost completely reconstructed in His image over the last 2000 years. There is to be no physical counterpart. No facade. Any attempt to construct such a temple would be blocked by God.

As far as God is concerned, the "Rock" is Simon Peter, and it is atop that rock that the true temple has been built:

"So I now say to you: You are Peter (the name means 'rock') and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.' (Mat.16:13-19).

 

I have never heard of the 4th kingdom of Persia. Where did you come up with that? ­GW

Answer:

The Bible shows forces from the 4th kingdom of Persia occupying Jerusalem on at least two occasions before the Return of Christ occurs. Neither has yet happened, and both, when they do occur will be associated with fierce warfare all over the world. (See Daniel 11:2-4; 16 & Zech 12:1-3). We can see in the Book of Daniel that related to these invasions is the appearance of Michael the Archangel (Dan.11:1).

This prophecy can be examined in its physical typology in the Book of Revelation and in Daniel. We have explored this in great detail on our web pages.

It can also be seen through the spiritual typology found in the Book of Esther, an allegorical description of the time of the Wrath seen from the perspective of heaven.. Esther's entire book revolves around Satan's final war against the House of Israel at the end of time.

Those participating in it are the five heavenly figures centrally involved in this final battle. They include God (the "king"); the two creations and their two principal stewards (one for each creation). Each of these figures are contrasted in relation to the war waged by the nations against the two houses of Israel.

Vashti is the first queen (the first creation). Her crown was taken away because she refused to come to the King's banquet. Esther is the queen the King has married in Vashti's place (the new everlasting creation). These two queens stand for, in Vashti, the creation of the flesh, and in Esther, the new spiritual creation which is the kingdom of Jesus Christ in heaven. The "King" (God and Jesus) are treated in the allegory as one and the same.

The steward charged with overseeing and guarding Esther (the new everlasting creation) is named "Mordecai". He is the "type" of which Michael the Archangel is the antitype. His adversary, Haman, is the type of the Beast, i.e., Satan. Although he aligned himself with Persia in every respect, Haman was not of Persian blood. He was a Macedonian who rose to the top of the Persian court, and then betrayed it. We can expect something similar in the 8th "head" of the beast. This, because the 8th head is certain to mimic Satan, his father.

The Jews celebrate Esther's victory on the 14th and 15th of Adar in the Hebrew calendar. The date corresponds to the end of February or early March in the Christian calendar. That celebration is called "Purim".

The word Purim comes from the word "pur", the casting of lots. This, because Haman had cast the lot for the destruction of the Jews on the gallows he had built for the purpose.

"Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the persecutor of all the Jews, had plotted their destruction and had cast the pur, that is, the lot, for their overthrow and ruin. But when he went again to the king to ask him to order the hanging of Mordecai, the wicked scheme which he had devised against the Jews recoiled on his own head, and both he and his sons were hanged on the gallows."

"That is why these days were called Purim, from the word "pur". And so, because of what was written in this letter, because of what they had seen for themselves and because of what had happened to them, the Jews vowed and took on themselves and their descendants and on all who should join them, to celebrate these two days without fail, in the manner prescribed and at the time appointed, year after year."

"Thus commemorated and celebrated from generation to generation, in each family, each provence and each city, the day of Purim shall never be abrogated among the Jews nor shall their memory die out among their race." (Esther 9:24-28).

In the end, Haman is put to death and Mordecai is given Haman's office. Christ's bride (the new Jerusalem) is given Satan's "house" and she, in turn, gives Michael the Archangel stewardship of the kingdom of heaven, just as Esther gave the same supreme authority to Mordecai. This book offers a rare view and unique perspective to the time of the Wrath. It contrasts Michael and Satan, showing them as two great dragons, preparing themselves for the great and final battle of the last days between God and Satan.

In the Greek version of scripture, much of the allegory in this book is explained.

With the harvest ending, the time has come for all the nations of the world to band together against the two Houses of Israel. The 2 great dragons have taken their places. Satan has been released from his prison just for the purpose of completing the final prophecies. Michael the Archangel opposes him. The seas have begun to roar and the earth quake. The time is at hand. The Book of Daniel has been opened to increase our understanding of this dramatic contest. It's seals have been removed. The prophecies at Fatima have been broadcast before the entire Church, and taken place, in preparation for the war whose beginning they chronicle.

"There were cries and noise, thunder and earthquakes, and disorder over the whole earth. Then the two great dragons came forward, each ready for the fray, and set up a great roar. At the sound of them every nation made ready to wage war against the nation of the Just. A day of darkness and gloom, of affliction and distress, oppression and great disturbance on earth! The righteous nation was thrown into consternation at the fear of the evils awaiting them, and prepared for death, crying out to God."

"Then from their cry, as from a little spring, there grew a great river, a flood of water. Esther is the river­she whom the king married and made queen. Light came as the sun rose, and the humble were raised up and devoured the mighty."

"Yes, the Lord has saved his people, the Lord has delivered us from all these evils, God has worked such signs and great wonders as have never happened among the nations."

"Two destinies he appointed, one for his own own people, one for the nations at large. And these two destinies were worked out at the hour and time and day laid down by God involving all the nations. In this way, God has remembered his people and vindicated his heritage." (Esther, chapters 1 & 10 from the Greek).

All this has started to happen now.

With the attack by the East on the West, which occurred on 9/11, there can be little doubt that Michael has already stood up. Those of us who belong to Christ have joined him and are his forces. On every side we can see the opposition, those who have sided with Satan, a population soon to encompass all the nations of the world ­ the contrasting character between these armies, the same as it has always been, the Gospel of compassion and love for all people that Jesus preached.

 

(For more on the bride of Christ)

 

If Paul has so much authority, why didn't Jesus make him the head of the Church instead of Peter? ­JK

Answer:

Because knowledge is not a road that leads into heaven. Compassion and love are the road in. In the priesthood we offer the gifts that Jesus Christ made acceptable to God ­ mercy, justice, love, charity, gentleness, humility, grace, righteousness and good faith. (1 Peter 2:5-10).

Knowledge shows us the kingdom, but the only door in is love (1 Cor.13:1-13). Paul enlightens our mind to the hidden truths of heaven and his words structure the theology of the Church, but central to all his teaching is that we are saved, not by Law but by faith.

Do you think a church should discipline its ministers if they officiate at gay marriages?. .I mean it doesn't make sense that we should be disciplining people because they support love which is what Jesus was all about I thought. ­LR

Answer:

When Jason was the high priest at the time of the Maccabees, he tried to "Hellenize" the Temple and the Jews in Jerusalem to please the dictates of the Syrian king who ruled the empire in the ways of Greece and its gods (2 Macc.4-6). Jason's actions were the beginning of a disaster that led directly to the "Abomination of Desolation". Jesus warned that this "abomination" would be repeated by the Beast in the last days when he abolishes the Eucharist (the communion sacrifice) (Mat.24:15-16; Dan.11:31).

Foreshadowing, as it does, the darkest chapter in human and religious history, what this shows is that it is not possible to "accomodate" sin in the name of righteousness and still please God. Jesus did not come to make sin righteous, He came to make sinners righteous.

We cannot enable sin by embracing it in the name of love.

If the state legalizes prostitution, the church cannot decree it sinless (even on humanitarian grounds) without sacrificing the righteousness of Christ. In our secularly governed society, we are not far from that now. We have already witnessed the legalization of homosexuality by those same authorities, with subsequent rulings that have branded the church virtually illegal for holding that it is sinful.

Thus the secular society is in the process of ruling that the Church is the outlaw (as is its Bible} rather than the deviant behavior outlined in that Bible. This is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and it cannot be embraced or tolerated by the Church.

Any church that does embrace it can be said to have been "Jasonized" (2 Mac.4:7-14),

The division is catastrophic because it unites Sodom and Gomorrah with the Abomination of Desolation, putting our government on a collision course with a God whose principals they once embraced, but now refuse to acknowledge.

This is not a small thing. It fuses together the two elements in scripture that mean the end of the world.

The founders of our country were clear that church and state should be separate. Why do you have such a problem with this? What part of separation of church and state do you not understand?­WP

Answer:

The American constitution was ratified by the Continental Congress in 1776. For almost 200 years, from 1776 until 1963 a compromise between church and state remained in place. In 1963 that compromise relationship was terminated by the Supreme Court.

Since then, ruling after ruling in that court has decreed that Jesus has no place in the American government and that God's place there be eradicated or restricted to ornamental at best. All compromises were cancelled and all the artifacts of those compromises were ordered removed. Crosses and Ten Commandment slates were torn down. Prayer was abolished. Names and seasons were changed, and public decorations scrapped.

Our founding fathers would have been horrified; but the American rulings have followed those of all the other western nations during the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The era has changed.

When the nations evicted God and Jesus from their ruling table, they ended a relationship between Babylon and God that had been in place since the time of the Roman empire under Constantine.

When Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., he set in motion a 1600-year treaty between God and this world, that, when ratified by Theodosus in the West and Galerius in the East, structured in place a relationship of peace between the nations and Jesus that would last until the 20th century.

"Listen; the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem; he carried away the king and the princes, and took them to where he lives in Babylon. He took a member of the royal family and made a treaty with him...so that the kingdom would remain modest and without ambition and so maintain his treaty faithfully." (Ez.17:12-14).

"The king of Babylon pardoned the king of the Jews and released him from prison. He treated him kindly and allotted him a seat above those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. So the king of of the Jews laid aside his prisoner's garb, and for the rest of his life always ate at the king's table." (Jer.52:31-33).

You will notice in this prophecy that this honored seat will not be vacated until the life of the king of the Jew's has ended. The life of Jesus, the king of the Jews specific to this prophecy, was restored to Him in the resurrection, long before the treaty was even made. It has been ordained that Jesus Christ live forever. So this prophecy has nothing to do with that. Instead, the "end" in question relates to the end of the life of the treaty of peace between Babylon and God. It has to do with the life of the relationship between God and Babylon.

That treaty is now in collapse. God and Jesus not only no longer enjoy the highest seat among the kings at the emperor's table, they no longer are even welcome to sit at the table itself. The United States forbids even the mention of their names in its public schools.

With the treaty at an end, the nations are now poised to attack the very people they once joined and respected. This is little different from Pharaoh's attack on the rearguard of the fleeing Israelites as they made their way across the parted waters of the Red Sea in compliance with Pharaoh's decree. That original typology was put in place by the Holy Spirit for the very reason that it emphasize the current relationship, and prophesy it's violent end.

The Passover of the Israelites from Egypt across the Sinai to the Promised Land was pointing to our own spriitual journey from Babylon to God's everlasting kingdom in the new heaven and new earth to which Jesus is leading us.

"Work while you have the light, darkness is coming when no one can work!" (Jn.9:4-5)

This darkness means the end, not just of prophecy, but even of the knowledge of Jesus and His salvation. It means all the nations will work in concert with one another to thwart the message of salvation and prevent its broadcast. They will pull every plug they find. Even pages like this one will disappear suddenly and never be seen again on this earth.

As the hour of midnight approaches, the nations will declare war on the treaty itself. The communion sacrifice will be abolished and the entrance to every house of worship will be shuttered. "Gladness will be banished from the country. Nothing but rubble in the city, the gate smashed to pieces, and so it will be on earth, among the peoples, when the grape harvest is over." (Is.24:11-13). It is then that God will stand up and say "Enough!" (Is.24:16).

"The earth is defiled under its inhabitiants' feet, for they have transgressed the law, violated the precept, broken the everlasting covenant. So a curse consumes the earth and its inhabitants suffer the penalty, that is why the inhabitants of the earth are burnt up and few men are left." (Is.24:1-6).

For this reason, the preaching you hear now is like the grand finale at a fireworks show, a spectacular and explosive moment of light and preaching everywhere, to be followed suddenly by silence and darkness. Scripture says in that silence men will go from land to land looking for God but failing to find Him.

It is hard to conceive that this could happen, the planet going from high noon to midnight in the blink of an eye. But that is how scripture has defined it. We have seen over and over again how scripture fulfills itself. "The word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do." (Is.55:11).

The door is to be shut and the offer of Christ terminated quickly. That is why everyone who has not yet repented or who has decided to procrastinate for a better time may find themselves locked out forever.

Now is the time for conversion. There may not be another moment like this. Think of the last helicopter flight out of Saigon, with people trying to hang off its runners. It will be like that. What scripture has promised is certain to happen just as predicted.

 

In your paper you say the two houses of Israel in the Old Testament stand for the Christians and the Jews. How did you arrive at this? I am not disagreeing with your position, just wondering. ­GW

Answer:

The story of the two houses of Israel in scripture is built on the ten northern tribes leaving the true religion of God and going off to Bethel to set up a temple and priesthood "foreign" to Moses. The Jews, meanwhile, remained faithful to the temple in Jerusalem. This schizm split the House of Israel into two houses. It created two religions in Israel.

On the surface, the meaning is clear. The ten northern tribes committed apostasy and separated themselves from the God of their ancestors, while the Jews remained loyal to Him.

Proving this apostasy and its consequences, the ten northern tribes were subsequently overrun by the Assyrians and the entire population of northern Israel was taken to Nineveh in captivity and never seen again. They disappeared into the genetic framework of the human race leaving the Jews (the citizens of Jerusalem) the apparent sole heirs of the religion of Moses.

The recovery and restitution of the lost tribes was considered completely impossible.

As the story develops through prophecy, however, a new meaning unfolds. It not only shows the recovery and restitution of the lost tribes, it reverses the allegory. The ten tribes, in their conversion, end up actually following the true temple, Jesus, while their brothers in Jerusalem reject Him, lavishing their worship on lifeless brick ­ an idol foreign to God.

Our guide to this second meaning is the prophets. It is their predictions which alert us to this reversal.

"Son of man, your brothers, your kinsmen, the whole House of Israel (i.e., all the people in the ten lost tribes), these are told by the citizens of Jerusalem (the Jews), "you have been sent away from God; it is to us that the land was given as our domain".

Say therefore, "The Lord God says this: Yes, I have sent them far away among the nations and I have dispersed them to foreign countries; and for a while I have been a sanctuary for them in the country to which they have gone", Then say, "The Lord God says this: I will gather you together from the peoples, I will bring you all back from the countries where you have been scattered and I will give you the land of Israel. They will come and purge it of all the horrors and filthy practices. I will give them a single heart and I will put a new spirit in them; I will remove the heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh instead, so that they will keep my laws and respect my observances and put them into practice. Then they shall be my people and I will be their God." (Ez. 11:14-21).

God has set up an astonishing religion, deep in symbolism, miraculous in its complexity and meaning, absolute in its virtue, and all of it prophesied in advance. But, as Isaiah said, He brought His plan before a people who refused to listen.

"You have seen many things but not observed them; your ears are open but you do not hear. It is God's will, for the sake of his integrity, to make his Law great and glorious. But this is a people all pillaged and plundered, trapped in caves, hidden in dungeons. They are looted with no one to rescue them, robbed, with no one to say, 'Give it back!' Which of you listening to this will pay attention and mark it, against the time to come? Who handed Jacob over to the robber, Israel to the pillagers? Was it not the Lord? We had sinned against him, we had refused to follow his ways or obey his Law." (Is.42:20-24).

That failure to listen does not apply only to the tribe in Jerusalem, the prophets show that it encompasses many who seem to hear and understand every word:

"Son of man, the members of your nation are talking about you on the ramparts and in doorways. They keep saying, 'Come and hear the word that has come from God'. They throng towards you; my people sit down in front of you and listen to your words, but they do not act on them. They cannot tell the truth and their hearts are set on dishonest gain.

As far as they are concerned, you are like a love song beautifully sung to music. They listen to your words, but no one puts them into practice. When the thing takes place - and it is beginning now - they will learn that there has been a prophet among them.." (Ez.33:30-33).

I believe your are right in the assumption that the thousand years has ended. It is possible that satan was released from his prison in the 1908 Tunguska mystery. Could 99% of prophesy have already been fulfilled-no dualism. Is it possible we are sitting at Rev 20:9 ?

Could Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia after signing the current "peace and security" pact launch a surprise attack only to be burned by fire from above? I have wondered if the abomination didn't begin in 2000 with Arafat's fatwa. The desolation being the exclusion of Jews from the temple mount. Very interesting times.­JC

Answer:

Fortunately God has ordained that the punishment approach little by little to give people time to repent. God's time seems to move at the speed of glaciers (which now appear to be moving a bit faster these days according to the news). God made creation for repentance, not judgment. We have watched the mobilization of the world's armies for over a hundered years now. That gives us hope that the physical assault on the Church will not occur for awhile yet.

But you are right. We are watching a part of that eastern army build now (Daniel's 4th kingdom of Persia) and that is very unsettling. Yet there are so many prophecies still to be fulfilled, the pivotal attack on the West by these armies must be a long way down the road yet. And when it comes, it will not be just the forces of the Middle East alone. Scripture is clear: The attack is to be launched from the far north, and all the world's armies will be involved or absorbed in the warfare.

God has ordained that all the world's armies be drawn to Jerusalem for the Judgment. "Let the nations muster round you in a body, and then return, high over them." (Ps.7:7). Obviously, the Judgment will not be a local event.

That is why Jesus said,

"When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, you must realize that she will soon be laid desolate. Then those in Judaea must excape to the mountains, those inside the city must leave it, and those in country districts must not take refuge in it. For this is the time of vengeance when all that scripture says must be fulfilled". (Luke 21:20-22).

Daniel shows that the last days revolve around Jesus, not Moses (Dan. 7:13-14). The focus is on a different temple mount.

It is clear in the Book of Daniel that the abomination relates to the communion sacrifice (Dan. 8:11-12). So it cannot have anything to do with Arafat. In fact, it hasn't happened yet because the Church has not yet been physically assaulted. Not only that, the one who oversees the communion sacrifice is still in office. He has not yet been removed (2 Thess. 2:2-7).

As scripture says, God has ordered everything by measure, number and weight. He overlooks men's sins so that they can repent because He is merciful to all. As bad as things seem to be getting, salvation is still possible. God will hold the door open until the last minute, still waiting for the last conversions to occur.

Can you please tell me if someone were to take the Mark of the Beast and then down the road decide they made a mistake and repented of this sin, would God forgive them and then they would then be saved.. ­IB

Answer:

There are two parts to the mark of the beast. One is spiritual and every person was born with it. Many churches call it "original sin". It is the mark of Adam & Eve. It is Satan's contamination of our soul. This is the most important mark because Jesus said our soul was created to be eternal. Marked by the beast it cannot remain eternal, but if it survives the "second death", our soul will live forever. Since everyone was born with their souls marked by the beast, the answer to your question is an emphatic yes! God will still forgive them & save them.

We can see the presence of the mark of the beast in us in the way we lived our lives before we turned to Jesus Christ. We can also see how Jesus Christ changed us once we turned to Him, proof of the fact that God cleansed our soul when we were baptised in His name.

We can be said to have accepted and approved of the mark of the beast by living a life directed by Satan ­ murder, violence, hatred, lust, adulterey, fornication, wickedness, incest, stealing, slander, cursing, coveting, idolatry, dishonor, depravity, greed, malice, envy, treachery, arrogance and so on. If we do live in these ways, we are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit we put an end to the misdeeds of the body we will live forever. In Jesus, Paul said, we have an obligation to righteousness and must submit without reservation to the creed Christ taught us, which is the Gospel He preached (Romans 6:16-22).

The second part of the mark of the beast is a physical tattoo that has not yet made it's appearance on earth. It will come in association with the "Madman" at the end of time. The Madman is the beast of the last days. He is called a "madman" because he goes completely beserk. When he arrives, there will be no question about his appearance or visibility. Far more lethal than Adolph Hitler ever dreamed of being, he will institute a reign of terror on earth more violent than any ever witnessed. His hatred of Christians and Jews will know no bounds.

He will order his mark applied to the flesh of all his subjects as proof of their devotion to him.

You don't have to worry about this second mark because the Rebel has not yet appeared, and his coming seems still to be a long way off. Not only that, according to Daniel's prophecies, when the Madman does appear, he will be bested in every encounter he has with a mighty western nation called "Kittim", a nation whose ships block many of his aggressions with respect to Israel (Dan.11:30).

This Kittim (assuming these prophecies apply to our times) must surely be the United States of America. There is no other candidate currently on the world stage with that kind of counteracting power ­ a force so powerful it has the ability to block and hold at bay the military giants of the Eastern Hemisphere.

This means the Madman's authority and edicts, as vast as they may be, will not extend to our shores.

That is not to say the beast will not be in America. He is already here.

Remember, in scripture both the Madman and his father, the great red dragon known as Satan are called the "beast". In fact, there are many more references to Satan as the beast than there are to his end-of-the-world protege (Rev.12:3-4; 13:1+; 17:3; 17:8, etc.).

While the Madman may not make it onto our shores, his father has been here all along, just as he has been present everywhere on earth at all times since his release from his thousand-year imprisonment in the Abyss. The world is divided everywhere between two spiritual cities, "Babylon" and the "Jerusalem of God". Not only do they both exist in every nation and city, they are in every family. That is the meaning of the call of Christ, to separate the citizens of those two cities.

While we continue to live in a mixed population, those who follow Christ are led on an invisible spiritual journey to another world, the kingdom of heaven, an eternal creation where Satan and his children do not exist. The children of Satan must remain behind, their souls to perish in the fiery holocaust scripture says is poised to consume the earth.

Not only is the beast (Satan) here now, he has reclaimed his rule of the world. We can see that reclamation in the decision by all of the world's nations to reject Jesus and His Father (those they had previously pledged allegiance to over the last 1700 years) and follow after godlessness instead. One of the most dramatic visualizations of this new course can be seen in the darkness that suddenly swept across the Asian continent in 1917, plunging virtually all of that continent into a Marxist and Leninist form of atheism, manifested by a virulent hatred of God. This was likely the bowl of the 5th angel, plunging the whole empire of the beast into darkness as it was prophesied in the Book of Revelation (Rev.16:10).

Equally as profound, but less visual has been the rebellion of the nations of the western world (2 Thes. 2:3). Together, these two manifestations of the rebellion point to the certainty of Satan's recent release from prison (Rev.17:8; 20:1-10).

Both of the beast's marks (his spiritual mark and his physical mark) are erased by baptism, which is the mark of God. In fact, that is why Jesus and the Apostle's insisted that we be baptised in Christ's name. Baptism totally cleanses both body and soul from the mark of the beast.

Since the time of Moses, scripture has insisted that the mark of God's covenant be applied to our bodies. Those who lived in Moses were marked by God's first covenant but that mark had no power to cleanse the soul. When Jesus replaced the Mosaic mark with baptism, He not only innoculated our flesh against the mark of the Madman, He provided a way for the soul to be cleansed as well, imparting on it eternal life and destroying forever Satan's mark on us.

Baptism into Christ not only puts the mark of God on our bodies, it puts His mark on our souls as well. That erases Satan's mark and sets us free from sin. The mark of Moses had no power to do any of those things.

As long as we remain in Him, Christ's mark is forever.

The only way we can lose it is to fall from grace. That is not an easy thing to do as long as we keep faith in Christ and remain obedient to His commands. Everytime we stumble, we ask God to forgive our lapse and He does. That is the meaning of the cross. The cross is a fountain of forgiveness that keeps flowing down on us forever, especially when we petition its power through prayer. That keeps us pure in God's eyes.

God is very forgiving. Even those who fall from grace are allowed to return. This is the message of Jesus' parable concerning the "Prodigal Son" (Luke 15:11-32).

The Lord said that we are forgiven in the same amount that we forgive others. Jesus said this many times, and it is in the Lord's Prayer. That is why it is so important that we forgive everyone who has anything against us. As long as we are faithful to Him, He will be faithful to us. If we don't renounce Him, He will never renounce us.

From that point on (i.e., from the point of conversion, confession, repentance and baptism), Satan has absolutely no power over us, nor will his beast when he comes at the end of time. There is nothing to be afraid of ever again for those who have taken refuge in Jesus. The safety He offers is absolute!

Today is the 6th anniversary of the day the towers fell.

Scripture:

"Now go and inscribe this on a tablet, write it in a book, that it may serve in the time to come as a witness forever: On every high mountain and upon every high hill, there will be streams and watercourses, on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall" (Is.30:8; 25)

"...and so it will be on earth, among the peoples, as at the beating of the olive trees, as at the gleaning of the grapes when the grape harvest is over. They lift up their voices, singing for joy; they acclaim the majesty of God from the sea. Therefore in the islands they give glory to the Lord, in the islands of the sea, to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. From remotest earth we hear songs, 'Honor to the upright one'. But 'Enough, enough!' I say." (Is.24:13-16).

Are there any references to the beast with 7 heads outside of the Book of Revelation?.. ­OP

Answer:

The Old Testament identifies Satan with both a serpent and a sea monster, and references him as a "beast". For instance, In the Book of Job (40:25) as a sea monster, Satan is equated with Leviathan, and in Ezekiel with the crocodile, symbol of Egypt (Ez. 29:3; 32:2).

"Am I the Sea, or the Wild Sea Beast, that you should keep me under watch and guard?" (Job 7:12).

"With his power the Lord calmed the Sea, with his wisdom struck Rahab down. His breath made the heavens luminous, his hand transfixed the Fleeing Serpent." (Job. 26:12-13).

Daniel describes the four kingdoms of Persia as "beasts", especially the last one, the kingdom with iron teeth that teams up with scripture's ten nations to destroy the world at the end of time. The tyrant who leads that destruction is the 8th head of the dragon. Nebuchadnezzar, living next door to Persia worshipped a "dragon" called "Bel", a crocodile he brought to Babylon from Egypt.

The prophet Isaiah, in his satire on the death of the beast provides bitter details of his exploits. (Is.14:3-21)

"Is this the man who made the earth tremble and overthrew kingdoms? Who made the world a desert and levelled cities?" (Is.14:16-17).

To the Hebrew's, the dragon is symbolic of the devil. But in the Orient, it is a symbol of worship. This has been true for thousands of years. The Bible sees Satan as a master serpent who rules the lower waters.

"That day, the Lord will punish, with his hard sword, massive and strong, Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent; he will kill the sea-dragon." (Is.27:1).

Satan's reptillian imagery in scripture started with Adam and Eve in Eden. And John completed the Bible's imagery with his fire, smoke and sulphur-breathing serpent ­ the 'great red dragon', the monster of the sea (i.e., of the cosmos) ­ destined to lead the kings of the East into the gathering of the nations at Armageddon.

In Greek mythology, Draco, the dragon, was the constellation of stars in the heavens which were thought to be responsible for bringing famine and pestilence to the world.

"The shades tremble beneath the earth; the waters and their denizens are afraid." (Job 26:5). This passage addresses the waters of the abyss, peopled, according to the ancient cosmogonies then in popular acceptance, by the monsters subdued at the creation. In the cosmogonies of Babylon, the sea (called Tiamat) co-operated in the birth of the gods and then was conquered and subdued by one of their own.

In the beginning the earth was covered in water and there was no dry land, so life on earth began in the sea. At least the sea co-operated in the birth of life. So the cosmogonies have a ring of truth. Moreover, they forsee one being born out of the world, subduing it. These poems presaged the coming of Christ. The 'God' they envisioned that would bring the Sea and its monsters under His control was the 'Son' who was sent to be born in Judea by the Father to conquer Chaos and mold it into order.

"by your power you split the sea in two, and smashed the heads of monsters on the waters..." (Ps. 74:13). "You crushed Leviathan's heads..." (Ps. 74:14).

Notice in these passages that the word "heads" is plural. There were several monsters in the water, all of them "heads" on Leviathan, the sea monster.

The Book of Revelation gives specific number to the monsters in the waters ­ a single dragon with 7 heads. Not only that, but John reveals them in such a way that we can identify most, if not all of them in terms of nations and kings hostile to God's House of Israel who have dotted history's sequence since its inception.

They begin with Egypt under Pharaoh and proceed through Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and finally (leading up to the time of Christ and the Apostles) Rome. The list ends with the 7th head, Germany, and Adolph Hitler's slaugher of an enormous part of one of the two "Houses" of Israel, 9 to 12 million Jews in the 20th century. As we can see, many of the heads have already been thrown into the eternal flames by God.

In addition to the dragon, one head is left.

Still to come is the 8th head, a reincarnation of one of the previous seven. The violence of his reign is detailed in the Books of Daniel, Revelation, Isaiah (above), Jeremiah, Ezekiel and many others, including the two books of the Maccabees. The fate of the 8th head will be the same as the others.

He, too, will meet his end, after which Jesus will return in glory exactly as predicted (Dan.12:7).

 

The first 9/11 remembered-and the message of the second 9/11.

On this great feast day of Our Lady's Holy Name, established in 1683 to honor Mary's intercession to deliver Christendom from the Moslem onslaught at Vienna, we gratefully recall the words of Psalm 33:

"The LORD foils the plan of nations, frustrates the designs of peoples. The plan of the LORD stands forever, wise designs through all generations. Happy the nation whose God is the LORD, the people chosen as his very own."

Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc, who predicted in a 1936 essay that Islam would rise up again and attempt to conquer the West, reviewed the history of its successful aggressions against our civilization, culminating in "the last effort they made to destroy Christendom":

"Vienna . . . was almost taken, and was only saved by the Christian army under the command of the King of Poland [Jan Sobieski] on a date that should be among the most famous in history-September 11, 1683."

On that date, 9/11/1683, the rescuing Christian army attacked the Turks besieging Vienna, delivering a resounding defeat on the next day, September 12.   The Viennese, under fierce siege for two months, had sought the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

" The object of this feast [The Holy Name of Mary] is our blessed Lady bearing the name of Mary, and it was instituted that on it the faithful might in a special manner recommend to God, through the intercession of His all-holy Mother, the needs of the Church, and thank Him for His almighty protection and numberless mercies, especially those we receive on account of the graces and mediation of the Blessed Virgin. The feast was allowed at Cuenca in Spain in 1513; it spread in that country, and in 1683 Pope Innocent XI extended it to the whole Western church, as an act of thanksgiving for the raising of the siege of Vienna and the defeat of the Turks by John Sobieski, King of Poland; it . . . is now kept on the date of Sobieski's triumph."  Butler's Lives (vol III, p 544)."

 

In an insightful secular essay, "The Revolt of Islam": When did the conflict with the West begin, and how could it end? (New Yorker Magazine 11/19/01), Bernard Lewis wrote:

"Then the change came. The second Turkish siege of Vienna, in 1683, ended in total failure followed by headlong retreat-an entirely new experience for the Ottoman armies. A contemporary Turkish historian, Silihdar Mehmet Aga, described the disaster with commendable frankness: "This was a calamitous defeat, so great that there has been none like it since the first appearance of the Ottoman state.'

"This defeat, suffered by what was then the major military power of the Muslim world, gave rise to a new debate, which in a sense has been going on ever since. The argument began among the Ottoman military and political élite as a discussion of two questions: Why had the once victorious Ottoman armies been vanquished by the despised Christian enemy? And how could they restore the previous situation?"

 

Did the Islamic jihadists choose 9/11/2001 to "pay back" for 9/11/1683, and all the Moslem defeats that followed?  Did God perhaps allow this to be the fateful date, that we might recall how Vienna, and what once was rightly called Christendom, were rescued by faith and by repentance, so that like them we might return to the path that leads to peace-to love of God and neighbor, and obedience to God's commandments-the path taught by Jesus, exemplified by Mary's earthly life, and again emphasized by our beloved Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, in his first encyclical, Deus caritas est (God is Love)?"    www.paoline.org/eng/doc_art/articoli/deus_caritas.htm <http://www.paoline.org/eng/doc_art/articoli/deus_caritas.htm> .

To answer the question of Mr. Lewis' essay title, "How could it end?", the conflict between the West and Islam could end in peace-if those who have heard and once believed the Gospel again embrace it, and submit to God their wills, and their lives. In 1683, a holy Capuchin monk, Fr. Mark D'Aviano, asked for help by King Leopold, worried over the Moslem advance upon Vienna, addressed the Viennese,

"Vienna, Vienna, your love of lax living has prepared you a grave and imminent chastisement: Convert, and consider well what you are doing, O wretched Vienna."

Like Jonah when he prophesied doom to the Ninevites, Fr. D'Aviano was heeded. "The emperor commanded public penances, and the Viennese, like latter-day Ninevites, prayed and did penance."

Let us, then, keep this holy day by prayer and by repentance, asking Our Blessed Mother Mary again to intercede with her Divine Son, to obtain the conversion of the Muslims, to bring about the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart, and ensuing period of world peace, that she prophesied-and promised-at Fatima, Portugal, on July 13, 1917.

My Comment:

The Ottoman attack on Vienna marked the ultimate reach of the prophet Mohammed's military forces into Christian territory. The defeat (chronicled above) stopped this third Muslim advance against Christian forces in its tracks and reversed the process. There has not been any attempt by Muslim forces to attack the Western world in any appreciable way since ­ at least not until 9/11/2001.

The prophecies of Daniel forecast four attacks by the kings of the East to try to counteract the teachings of Christ in the world. The Ottoman attack was the third in this series. The fourth attack, the final one, his book says, will be successful in toppling western power, but it will end in the catastrophic devastation of the earth.

This victory by the fourth kingdom of Persia will be hollow. Daniel's writings together with those of the Book of Revelation show us that nothing will be left of the nations vanquished nor of the victor, either. Instead, Jesus will appear and the end of the carnage and take His followers to a new world uncontaminated by the sins of this world, leaving behind the flaminig wreckage of this fourth war, and all those who chose to be left behind, .

The prophecies of this approaching age of darkness are imbedded like concrete throughout the scriptures. Nothing can stop the occurance. Yet the Bible makes it clear. Repentance and conversion are powers that can stay the day and hold back the clock. Like the people of Nineveh and Vienna, we have that power if only we choose to exercise it.

 

See Also, In "The Last Days of Babylon": "The Four Empires of Persia"

Perhaps you can shed light on something confusing to me. As I understand it, Cyrus was the Persian king who set the Jews free from Babylon in 538 BC, but the way Isaiah speaks of him in chapter 45 it is like he is talking about someone else. Is the Cyrus in Isaiah the same Cyrus from Persia who authorized the return from Babylon? If not, can you tell me who he is. ­PL

Answer:

These are two different figures built on similar principles. While they seem the same, on closer inspection, it is clear that the Persian king, Cyrus, was never God's shepherd. Isaiah writes:

"I am he who says of Cyrus, 'My shepherd ­ he will fulfill my whole purpose, saying of Jerusalem, 'Let her be rebuilt', and of the temple, 'Let your foundation be set in place." (Isaiah 44:26-28)

Cyrus the Persian king did, in fact, issue a decree authorizing the Jews who wished to return, the right to leave Babylon and return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. His relationship to the God of Israel, however, was not the same as that of the servant Isaiah describes.

Isaiah's prophecy points beyond the Cyrus of Persia. It involves an expansive prophecy that stretches in his writing from chapter 41 to chapter 45 and is clearly Messianic. Thus it's essence relates to Jesus Christ and seems specific to a world leader associated with Him, a fact that would place the focal point of the prophecy centuries after the Persian king who freed the Jews.

Covering so many chapters in the Book of Isaiah, the prophecy must relate to a person of vital importance. We should expect the figure it personifies, therefore, to occupy a dominating position in the structure of Christianity.

Since the prophecy is built on the powerful king of Persia and relates to someone who does not know the God of Israel (Is.45:4-5), it seems likely that it references a dominant pagan world leader who converts to Christ in a very meaningful way. The Persian king in 538 B.C., remember, is notable in history for issuing a proclamatioin freeing the people of Israel from captivity and allowing them to return and rebuild the ruins of Jerusalem.

"And in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord that was spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to issue a proclamation and to have it publicly displayed throughout his kingdom. 'Thus speaks Cyrus king of Persia, 'The Lord, the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; he has ordered me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him! Let him go up." (2 Chron. 36:22-23).

We know from scripture that the ruins of Jerusalem can only be rebuilt in Christ. His entire mission was to effect that rebuilding through conversion, repentance, baptism and obedience to His word.

The strongest candidate by far in this regard would be the Roman emperor, Constantine, who, in 313 A.D., issued the Edict of Milan which made Christianity legal in the world, allowing the Christian Church to come out of hiding in the catacombs and rebuild the Church openly, with the full approval of the pagan authorities. Constantine, did, in fact, become a strong servant of God, developing into an enormously powerful Christian convert and leader who oversaw the Church Council at Nicea in which the Nicene Creed was promulgated.

Under Constantine, Rome ruled the world ­ all the kingdoms of the earth. The reach of his empire was such that he found it necessary to build a second capitol at the Bosphorus at the entrance to the Black Sea in Byzantium, a city he renamed "Constantinople" (now known as Istanbul).

It was Constantine's conversion and acceptance of Christ that accomplished the fulfillment of all the prophecies Isaiah lists in his writings about Cyrus. His proclamation at Milan began the reign on earth of the Christian Church. From the time of Constantine until just this last century, the Christian Church and all the nations of the western world have worked in concert with one another, creating a climate on earth conducive to the spread of Christ's message of salvation to the farthest ends of the earth.

Isaiah's concept of the Persian king as a benevolent servant develops not only on the Persian figure who freed the Jews in 538 B.C., but also on the theme of Esther, where the king of Persia, allegorically, is not only friendly to the people of God, He is God. His two wives, Vashti and Esther are the covenants. The first refused the banquet and the king married Esther in her place ­ instituting by allegory, a new creation (a new everlasting covenant). Esther represents a brand new kingdom not of this earth.

The Jerusalem of this world (the first covenant) is being discarded like Vashti. Esther represents her replacement ­ the new Jerusalem in the new creation. The ruins of the new Jerusalem are living stones ­ i.e., people ­ making up the new Jerusalem's spiritual house. We are those living stones. The ruins that Constantine allowed to be rebuilt across the earth by his actions and edict, are those same spiritual ruins, ourselves.

It is obvious in Isaiah's writings that the servant of God he portrays as Cyrus is vastly different from the future Persian figure who will soon free the House of Israel from its 2000-year exile ("diaspora") imposed by the treaty of peace Christ signed in His blood with Babylon from the cross.

When that final prince of Persia appears in the days ahead to issue his own decree, it will complete the circle of prophecies relating to Persia, and bring the return of Christ.

Scripture tells us that all the works of God go in pairs by opposites. It is the same here. The Prince of Persia to come will not be a servant of God. Just the opposite, he will be God's arch enemy. His edict will reverse that of Constantine. He will cancel Christ's treaty, abolish the perpetual sacrifice, and forbid Christian worship throughout his enormous empire.

About your answer on 9/24/07 I don't agree with you about Constantine being Cyrus in Isaiah's prophecy. Perhaps you should revisit Jesus. ­DH

Answer:

You might be right, but most bible scholars disagree. The fact that Isaiah used the word "Cyrus" points the prophecy toward an individual prefigured by the name.

In terms of what they both did, Cyrus of Persia in 538 B.C. and Constantine of Babylon (Rome) in 313 A.D. these two world leaders were virtually mirror-images of one another. Both began as leaders of empires hostile to Israel and both promulgated edicts which set the two "Houses" of Israel free from captivities to their nations by allowing the Israelites (Jews and Christians) the freedom to return and rebuild the ruins of Jerusalem.

One return related to an ill-fated physical attempt to rebuild the Temple in Jewish times. The other related to God's demand for spiritual rebuilding under Christ, and it, alone, has turned out, in the end, to be successful. Christianity is, in itself, God's spiritual temple ­ every soul of it..

The edict of Cyrus allowed the Jews to leave their Persian captivity to return to Jerusalem in Palestine and rebuild the physical Temple, finalized in Herod's structure in Jerusalem (the temple that refused to embrace Jesus Christ when He arrived). The edict of Contantine, on the other hand, allowed the Christians to spiritually leave the pagan environment of Babylon (i.e., the pagan Roman empire) by conversion into the righteousness of the Gospel.

Jesus made it clear that God's demand related to the latter, not the former (Mat. 24:1-2). His message was all about the spiritual rebuilding of our souls. Physical rebuilding was unimportant to God because He was leading His flock out of this world to a new kingdom not of this earth.

Constantine's Edict of Milan had the immediate effect of openly converting the vast Roman empire from paganism to Christianity. In less than 60 years every pagan temple was closed or converted into a Christian church. The entire populace was ordered to follow Christ. That vast conversion proved a "mortal wound" to Babylon, turning Rome, and with it the world, into a Christian empire.

Constantine's edict did not end with the fall of Rome. The conquerors of Rome, the Huns, Goths and Vandals, etc., converted to Jesus themselves, and carried the religion of Christ home to all their European families and neighbors.

The changing political climate in Europe over the ensuing years retained the Christian Church as the sole religious philosophy governing their populations. Moreover, their worldwide conquests carried the Church across the planet. Atheistic or pagan worship was not tolerated by these Christian conquerors and explorers, and was systematically stamped out wherever they went ­ and they went virtually everywhere.

This "rule" of Christ in the world continued from the time of Constantine until the beginning of the last century. Only in our time has it changed, and in our time it has changed dramatically. In 1917 atheism as a national doctrine appeared for the first time. Led by the philosophies of Lenin and Marx this Antichrist belief swept across Russia and, 30 years later, in 1947, carried by the army of Mao tse Tung, it enveloped almost all of China and much of the Far East.

At the same time, the agnostic philosophy of secularism has overwhelmed what formerly had been the Christian nations of the West. No longer are any nations of the world carrying the banner of Christ, or promoting Christian worship. Instead, they have systematically passed law after law forbidding the proseletyzing of religion in any area deemed "state or civic". The mere mention of the words "Jesus" or "God" is not permitted in most American public schools today.

Stalin, Hitler, Mohammed, or Atilla the Hun, yes ­ but not Jesus Christ.

Private corporations have followed suit, terming religions like Christianity "bigoted" for declaring they are the only path to eternal life ­ a claim they maintain that has made Jesus too controversial to be tolerated in the commercial environment. The word "Christmas" has been changed to the word "holiday" because of the controversy. The word "Easter" is now "spring". And so on.

The public has openly embraced this secular philosophy. Without thinking they have accepted this attack on Jesus Christ as something to be applauded.

The Book of Revelation, written 2000 years ago, predicted that after Satan had been released from his prison in the abyss in the last days, he would return to his world throne (to spiritually govern) everywhere on earth. Not just overseas, but here as well (Rev. 17:8). Everywhere. We have seen what an enormous impact his changes have had on the nations of the West in just the last hundred years with respect to God, and how dramatically they have altered the religiosity of the populace. Churches are closing and disappearing in great numbers all across the earth.

The shunting of Jesus away from public view has proceeded with astonishing speed.

We are witnessing the beginning of the impact of Satan's return, not the end of it. This is only the start. There are no more Constantine's in the national picture of the world. With Boris Yeltsin gone, there are no more world leaders with the ability or inclination to turn themselves or the people they govern to Christ. There is no one one to intervene in the secular or atheistic environment of today's world politics and stand up openly for Jesus.

Had the absence of faith been like this in the past, Christianity would never have flourished ­ finding the world too hostile for fearless speech.

Had it not been for Constantine, billions of Christians would never have heard the voice of Jesus speaking to their hearts and imploring them to leave this world and follow Him to eternal life. Choosing that path their lives have been made secure forever, proving that Constantine was a powerful tool for God in Christian history. His temporal actions were pivotal in terms of world salvation.

He made the world a far more inviting field for the spiritual harvest Peter and Paul had initiated through Jesus Christ.

While much of Isaiah's writing in these chapters does, in fact, relate to Jesus Christ, the figure Isaiah terms "Cyrus" seems certain to point to Constantine and to his powerful role in structuring the rule of Christianity in the world ­ a politically sponsored reign that lasted 1700 years, brought billions of people to the Gospel, and stretched across many empires and nations over the course of a period called the "millenium", the most important era in the planet's entire history (Mat.11:11).

As we watch that era now come to an end, we are particularly reminded of its importance.

October 3, 2007
Question:

Jesus said there will be earthquakes in diverse places and that this will be a sign that the last days have begun. Can we expect more of them, or what we see now is all there is? ­OV

Answer:

I would assume the earthquakes will increase in frequency. At least one of them will be more powerful than anything the human race has ever experienced before. Zechariah and others have written about a great quake that will strike Jerusalem very near the end that will be the greatest ever felt by man (Zc 14:4; Rv.16:17-21; Ps.46:1-3). Jesus said the powers of the heavens will be shaken during the last days (Mat.24:29-30). That, alone, could set the earth trembling.

The release of Satan from his imprisonment in the Abyss (Rev.17:8; 20:7-9) seems to have been associated with a comet striking Russia in 1908. It was a fearsome blast that rocked the whole earth and leveled thousands of square miles of forest. Fortunately it struck out in the wilds of Siberia where almost no people lived. Had it hit in a population center, it would have done catastrophic damage and could easily have killed millions.

As Satan retakes his throne, assembles his forces and mobilizes the nations of the world for war in the way that scripture fortells (Rev. 20:7-9), one might expect the gravity of the consequences of his actions to be expressed in ways not unlike the Tsunguska event in Siberia. The shaken powers of the heavens, at least some of them, may well impact the earth. Jesus said the seas will roil wildly, and the famines he warned about are certain to lead to global panic and rioting. All this will be independent of the warfare. We may know very soon about an increase in earthquake activity because the reign of violence that scripture labels the wrath, appears quite close.

The increasing level of terrorism on earth right now (highlighted by the civilized world's reaction to it ­ its "war on terror") may well be part and parcel of such a reign.

Scripture tells us the Wrath (of which the earthquakes are certain to be a part) has been held back for the harvest, but Satan's return from the Abyss indicates that those divine restraints have now been removed. The world wars, the return of atheism in imperial form, the terrorism and violence...all these things point to recent pivotal changes in the millenial structure. All have seriously eroded the power and reach of the Christian Church's message on earth. There are growing signs that a darker moment, the proof of the prophesies announced by Jeremiah is very close as well (Jer 44:29-30), and that the United States will be co-targeted with Israel when that moment is unveiled.

In ancient times words were not only seen as signs & symbols, "but were actually forces and powers in themselves. Puns, boasts, vows, spells, and curses were thought to release energy into the natural world. In our language the word has no power to become anything but language. But in the language of scripture, the word is God ­ with all the power implied." It is in this power that all the epic and mystery in scripture lies. In this sense, God seems to have locked Jeremiah's moment in a warning by the prophet Amos.

At the funeral of Ronald Reagan. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor quoted a reading that she said he often quoted in his speeches which seemed to him to relate to the United States and its transcendent potential on the one side, or the possibility (if our country shuns God) of a bitter fate on the other. It was about scripture's account of a city on the hill that Reagan attributed to the prophet Micah.

Here is Justice O'Connor's reading that day:

"Now the only way to provide for our posterity is to follow the council of Micah: to do justly. to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. We must delight in each other, make the condition of others our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together; always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work as members of the same body.

The Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us as His own people. For we must consider we shall be as a city on a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word throughout the world." ­ Ronald Reagan.

The "city on the hill" relates to Samaria, a city belonging to the northern tribes. While Micah addressed this shining city's sinfulness, he spoke more glowingly about another place even higher, the "mountain of the Temple of God that would be put on top of the mountains and lifted higher than the hills." (Micah 4:1-4). He was speaking of the transcendent Jerusalem of Jesus Christ, a city not of this earth, the kind of city Reagan wanted the United States to emulate and so preserve its place of safety and power under God.

"In the days to come the mountain of the Temple of the Lord will be put on top of the mountains and be lifted higher than the hills. The peoples will stream to it, nations without number will come to it; and they will say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob so that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths; since from Zion the Law will go out, and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He will wield authority over many peoples and arbitrate for mighty nations; they will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles. Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war. Each man will sit under his vine and his fig tree, with no one to trouble him. The mouth of the Lord God Almighty has spoken it." (Micah 4:1-4).

The city on the hill reference is specific to Samaria and the northern tribes and comes from the first book of Kings:

"He (Omri, the king of Israel) bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built a city on the hill, calling it Samaria, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill." (1 Kings 16:24)

Micah addressed the city on the hill with this warning:

"What is the crime of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? What is the sin of the House of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? I intend to make Samaria a ruin in the open country, a place where vines will be planted. I will set her stones rolling into the valley, I will lay her foundatios bare. All her images are going to be shattered, all her earnings consumed by fire, all her idols broken in pieces, for they have been collected with prostitutes' earnings and prostitutes' earnings they will be again." (Micah 1:5-7).

The prophet Amos, a contemporary of Micah, and speaking on the same subject, pointed the oracle toward our own times. He underscored the close relationship between this city on the hill (Samaria) and Israel (a relationship which, if it points to America and the current nation of Israel, would bring Reagan's prophecy full circle). The reason for Reagan's warning to America "not to deal falsely with God in the work the city had undertaken so as to cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, (lest) we...be made a story and a by-word throughout the world." can be clearly seen in the direction taken by the northern tribes:

"Woe to those ensconced so snugly in Zion and to those who feel so safe on the mountain of Samaria, those famous men of this first of nations to whom the House of Israel goes as client...You think to defer the day of misfortune, but you hasten the reign of violence.

Woe to those who lie on ivory beds and lounge on couches, who dine on choice lambs and fatted calves; who strum to the sound of the harp, inventing new instruments of music like David; who drink wine by the bowlful, and use the finest lotions for anointing themselves, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile and their wanton revelry done away with. Their feasting will be brought to an end." (Amos 6:1-7)

"The ruin of Joseph" warns in this passage of the impending collapse of the kingdom of Israel (the ten tribes of the north). Amos' prophecy here announces the imminent exile of the northern tribes to Assyria shortly before it occurs in 721 B.C.

Joseph, who lived a thousand years earlier, enters this picture through his son Ephraim. When they broke away from Judah and Jerusalem to form one of the two houses of Israel, the northern tribes raised their own temple in a town called Bethel. Bethel was located in the land of Ephraim ­ the land allotted to Ephraim, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Because Ephraim was the son of Joseph, the loss of the temple and these ten tribes is termed by the prophet "the ruin of Joseph". It is seen as the ruin of Ephraim, and therefore, of the legacy of his father, Joseph, a patriarch of Israel..

Because it relates to patriarchal honors it is like an opposite to Jacob whose son Judah provided the land in which Jerusalem and the Jewish temple were located. The honor of housing the tribal temple see-saws back and forth through Old Testament scripture between Bethel and Jerusalem (between Ephraim and Judah). The issue seemed to have been decided once and for all with the exile and destruction of the ten northern tribes. The Jews saw that disappearance as permanent and irrevocable. Not only were they irreversibly invisible, the northern tribes had become one with the Gentiles and thus mortally and hopelessly contaminated in Jewish eyes.

However, that promise did not die with the loss of the ten tribes. It was renewed in Jesus Christ who, through baptism in His sacrifice, purified the souls of both the Gentiles and the Hebrews who had mixed with them. Jesus called them back to return to His Jerusalem in the heavens (Jer.16:14-15). Not only that, He elevated them to the status of conquerors of Jerusalem (Jer.13:20-21). Christianity with Christ at its head was to rule supreme over both Israel and Judah.

When the name Joseph appears in Bible prophecy, it should always be seen as a possible allegorical alert pointing to Jesus Christ.

It is commonly understood by scholars that Jesus fulfilled the allegory of Joseph, who was sold by his brothers into slavery to Egypt. Joseph rose there to become a powerful Egyptian lord who commanded all of Pharaoh's stores of grain. When famine came, it was Joseph who saved his brothers, by alloting them all the food they needed to survive the catastrophe.

In this story Joseph stands forever in scripture as the allegorical counterpart to Jesus who was to repeat this formula on God's spiritual level in Babylon. Resurrected from His crucifixion Jesus was at the forefront of the great Diaspora that saw the two Houses of Israel deported spiritually to Babylon. Taken in chains (witness Christianity in the catacombs) to Babylon (Rome), the Body of Christ was at first a prisoner there. Constantine released Him and allotted Him a seat above all the other kings in Babylon (the Edict of Milan) where He was put in charge of food distribution. That food is the Gospel that gives eternal life to all who eat it.

"Writhe, cry out daughter of Zion, for now you have to leave the city and live in the open country. To Babylon you must go and there you will be rescued; There God will ransom you out of the power of your enemies." (Micah 4:10).

For this reason, we can allegorically project Amos' prophecy beyond its Old Testament setting and apply it to Christian times. The collapse of Joseph in our time relates directly to the impending loss of the food supply which Jesus has been making available to the world from Babylon. The essence of this loss will prove the collapse of the house of Christianity. In this sense, it points to the abomination of desolation and the abolition of the perpetual sacrifice.

In this new application the prophecy warns us that we are on the threshold of the Wrath, the "reign of violence", and that the Word of God is about to be taken away from the world. The prophecy, then, is about the return of darkness when no one can work, a circumstance Jesus warned lay ahead.

That loss will end the peace treaty that Jesus made with the world on the cross.

Amos' prophecy speaks to us today for in it we can see a people that is paying no attention to the circumstances leading toward this catastrophe (the order not to proseletyze in the public square). The "ruin of the House of Joseph" can be seen in allegorical terms, a circumstance contrasted by the lush and hedonistic lifestyle good times are making possible in religion's vacuum. It warns that the good times are about to end and never return. Few care that Jesus is under attack by the secular nations of our time. Instead, everyone is listening to music, painting themselves with all sorts of expensive oils and perfumes, drinkng expensive wines and dining on gourmet meals featuring the finest cuts of meat.

The warfare by those who want to block any mention of God in science is reflected even more profoundly by those who are fighting to "challenge the constitutionality of mixing church and state". Together they have changed the culture by systematically driving God out of the public square, leaving in their wake an orthodoxy that is quite godless. Reading Amos' account, it is easy to see ourselves in the conditions that brought the northern tribes to the point of Amos' warning. And now, just as then, few care or express concern about the collapse of the house of God in the civic arena.

That is precisely what Reagan warned about in his 'city on the hill' speeches.

Israel stood then, "confident of their favored status before the Lord (Dt.7:6+), eagerly awaiting God's intervention, certain it would be in their favor. Amos warned them it would be the opposite. Instead, he said, the day of the Lord will be a day of wrath against an Israel hardened by sin (Zp. 1:15; Ezk. 22:24, Lm 2:22). It will be, scripture says, a day of darkness, tears, massacre and terror (Am.5:18-20, Is. 2:6-21, Jer. 30:5-7, Zp 1:4-18, Joel 1: 15-20, Joel 2:1-11)."

As the approach of the End manifests itself in the events that signal it (such the earthquakes and roaring seas) the 'day of the Lord' will be seen more and more as a "day of 'judgment' insuring the triumph of the virtuous and the destruction of sinners. (Mal. 3:19-23, Is. 13:6-9, etc). Yet the Book of Revelation shows that instead of repenting their sins, the people will curse God and denounce Him for bringing on them all this woe.

The earthquakes are early warnings of this impending reign of violence (that in many ways seems already swirling around us). Yet there is, still in the future, a defining moment designed by God to structure its unveiling. Will there be a flurry of great quakes to accompany that moment? Scripture does not say. Instead the focus seems to be on a pivotal assassination, economic collapse and a catastrophic tidal wave.

Apparently those are the circumstances that will define the moment that opens the floodgates to the global Wrath. Only those who have accepted Christ's offer of peace will be exempted from the chaos that follows.

The one thing that stands out in all these prophecies is that all this could have been prevented had the nations not turned their backs on God. Especially here. The empty churches should have been filled to the rafters with worshippers willing to stand up to the godless vanguard that has mounted its attack against Christ in its battle for our nation's soul. Even so, there is still time to work for our own redemption, and perhaps for that of our nation as well.

I recently have read several articles intimating that plans are in the final stages of development by the current US administration for a military assault on Iran. The actionable timeline is within 8-10 months, prior to the presidential elections. These plans are being finalized ostensibly in preparation to a failed diplomatic agreement in Germany later this month to an array of sanctions against Iran forcing curtailment of it's alleged nuclear weapons capability production. Germany is expected to balk at the proposed sanctions joining Russia and China as countries opposed to the harsh conditions. In these same articles are references to blooming alliances between forces opposed to Iran's pursuit of nuclear arms and forces in support of Iran's right to sovereign decisions. When the countries of these alliances are mentioned, they paint a picture of the north-south axis along the Euphrates river region that prophecy has predicted millennia ago and that your web site has so vividly and repeatedly described. The countries referenced forming along the north axis are: Iran, Syria and Russia. The countries referenced forming the south axis are: US, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Emirates and Israel. While these gathering forces aligning themselves are in the early stages and does not necessarily promote a grim harbinger to immediate warfare on a worldwide scale, it may well be wise to not cast a blind eye to the real possibility looming in the very near future of a hardened stance promoting a new era of Middle East cold war by these countries - and their proxy's - positioning for sphere's of influence and, perhaps, triggering a series of ever-escalating wars or the achievement of nuclear weapons in the hands of terror proxy's leading to the nightmare scenario predicted in the last days. A sign of the times? ­RA

Answer:

How could it not be?

History's path is almost always interrupted and redirected by the unexpected, the catastrophic, and the unbelievable. Expect something completely unexpected, i.e., God's monkey-wrench in those "finalized" plans.

The alliances today are reflective of the power structure today. A changed world power structure will reflect differently. The Book of Daniel doesn't give us nations, but it does show the geography. We don't even know yet the identity of his "ten nations".

Also, not only does the East rise to great power, all the oil in the world is slated to run out in just 40 years (according to a British Petroleum study). Long before that, the remaining supplies will be concentrated only in the Middle East (same study). That's going to bring the whole world there. I personally don't see any of these powers tolerating rogue nuclear, considering that it is such a guaranteed, and almost reflexive two-way street. But who knows?

Ted: For your info and posting if you feel appropriate.

One of the signal events prophesied as a harbinger to the entrance of the era of the last days, is the great rebellion against God, faith, religion and belief in a meaningful spiritual afterlife. This dissociation from God en masse by the world's population as been covered in great detail on your web site and is one of those developments that can (and will) go quietly under the radar of awareness of a large percentage of the population who will be lulled into its embrace by the regularity of its acceptance as easily the ebb and flow of tidal waters. This past Saturday, September 15, I read a front page article in the Washington Post titled, "In Europe and U.S., Nonbelievers Are Increasingly Vocal". In this article are many descriptions, too numerous to cite here, of how the new era of "humanists, secularists, freethinkers, rationalists and brights" are rapidly gaining political power and access to the primary media outlets: television, Internet, radio and newspapers. It was absolutely chilling to read how this great falling away from God, especially in the West, has become rooted by the very event that was demonstrated to this world that we are entering the era of the last days: the fall of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

To directly quote the article: "But especially in richer nations, and nowhere more than in Europe, growing numbers of people are actively saying they don't believe there is a heaven or hell or anything other than this life. Many analysts trace the rise of what some are calling the 'nonreligious movement' to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The sight of religious fanatics killing 3,000 people caused many to begin questioning - and rejecting - all religion."

This reaction depicts clearly the ironic reality of the sophistry spread by the false prophets of the day: the event that should unite the population in recognition and awareness of prophecy being fulfilled has, instead, engendered a rapidly spreading movement of anti-God belief anchored on the effective manipulation of human emotion and factual events creating a cleverly fashioned argument of deception that, apparently, will sweep the world.

One final medley of quotes from the article supporting this development is worth citing here: "'There is a feeling that religion is being forced on an unwilling public, and now people are beginning to speak out against what they see as rising Islamic and Christian militancy'....'You can't tell us religion is peaceful - look around at the misery it is causing'....'One has to step up and stem the rise of religions influence'....Not believing in an afterlife...'makes you think you have to make the most of this life. It's the now that matters.'"

I hope this entry gets posted to your web site as a manifestation of the reality of the era in which we live. Thank you, ­RA

Answer:

The movement the Post article speaks of began long before 9/11/01. It was in high gear in America when the 9/11 attack took place. The Ninth Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco had ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional because it mentioned "God" and schools in northern California had already begun forbidding it's recitation after the ruling, just weeks before the enemy planes hit the buildings. The decision against the Pledge was the deepest penetration to date in the anti-God's movement to destroy the Christian religion in America. That movement on U.S. soil was actually blunted by the Trade Tower attack.

In this country, the events of 9/11 had the immediate opposite effects from the ones quoted in the article. There was an instantaneous outpouring of the Holy Spirit all across America. As if orchestrated by a divine wand, people all across the country began to spontaneously sing "God Bless America". The song resounded in public everywhere from coast to coast, and today, 6 years later is still being sung at thousands of athletic and other events as witness to that outpouring and the sustained power behind it.

In response to this outpouring of the Spirit, there was an immediate backtracking by the satanic forces. The fact that President Bush added his voice to the side of those singing, threw the godless forces into dissaray. The Supreme Court was cowed by the overwhelming national sentiment, and its reach into the White House, so punted on making a decision with respect to the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance. Up to that point, the anti-god forces had risen to such a place of power, school districts were passing out orders forbidding employees from wearing crosses or displaying rosaries in public or in the workplace. Bibles were forbidden as reading matter. The attack of 9/11 blunted these efforts.

The anti-God forces in America have regrouped and are pressing new advances along the lines of the article you quote, and other measures as well. Hopefully the people of this country have awakened to the threat and have courage enough to stand up for God. There seems little hope that the same will hold for the rest of the world. Europe abandoned its faith many years ago. The carnage of World War II seems not to have staunched this loss of faith, on the contrary, they are doing exactly what the article says, "blaming God" for the misery (Rev. 16:9).

The new Pope (Benedict) in his inaugural address bemoaned the catastrophic loss of faith in his homeland, and pledged to try to restore a renewed Christianity to Europe. Faith, however, comes from the inside, not from the outside. The harvest doesn't appear to be there anymore. Only gleaning. The fact is, there are more Mosques in those countries now than there are churches, and the churches that are there are increasingly empty.

In all this the warning at Meribah resounds (Psalm 95:7-9; Exodus 17:7). At the end of their journey, after they had endured virtually the entire 40-year journey across the desert toward the Promised Land, the people led by Moses revolted. They had seen all the miracles and everything God could do and they rebelled anyway at the end of the journey. That is a prophecy because it points to where we are today, almost at the end of the journey (the third day has already begun). And we find ourselves in a world not only questioning the Christianity it had previously embraced, but in many cases, revolting against it.

Nothing good can come from this revolt. Only the Wrath, that night of violence scripture has been warning about from its earliest days. One does not have to watch ten hours of the latest Ken Burns documentary to know that that wrath has already started.

"How long, O God, am I to cry for help but you do not listen...I cry out to you about the violence but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; all is strife and clamorous discord...Then God answered and said, 'Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets to be easily read, since this vision is for its own time only: eager for its own fulfillment, it does not deceive; if it comes slowly, wait, for come it will, without fail." (Hab.1:2-3; 2:2-3).

Seek the Lord while he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near.

"Let the wicked man abandon his way, the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn back to the Lord who will take pity on him, to our God who is rich in forgiving; for my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways ­ it is the Lord who speaks. Yes, the heavens are as high above earth as my ways are above your ways, my thoughts above your thoughts." (Is.55:6-9).

"Jesus said: 'I am the resurrection. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." (John 11:25-26).

have you considered that the great whore Babylon, is the city of Jerusalem, and it is from this city that the chapter 13 beast will deceive the whole world? Of course, since that is God's "holy City," that is exactly where Satan would want to put his man of sin. ­LC

Answer:

Jerusalem has been singled out in scripture (Is. 47), but so have many the other cities. Many scholars see the great whore Babylon as a world ruled apart from God. It is hard not to agree with this assessment. Especially since Babylon is shown in scripture to cover (exist on) seven continents.

It is important to remember that these concepts are spiritual. Babylon and Jerusalem are spiritual antagonists, the only relationship they bear to physical cities is metaphoric. Satan wants to put his throne in the hearts of men, replacing there the presence of Christ that might be in them. The fight is spiritual warfare and it is waged inside our own hearts. This warfare results in physical changes that bear witness to the internal battles and chronicle their outcomes.

Because the word "Babylon" refers specifically to governance, we need to see it in that character, focusing on governance in God or governance outside of God ­ where, in spiritual terms, governance in God creates Jerusalem while governance outside of God creates Babylon.

In terms of political governance, we live in a time when all the nations of the world have rejected the Christianity that once ruled in conjunction with them. That reflects a spiritual change that is the re-birth of Babylon, or more specifically, the "healing of the mortal wound". During that healing, the nations have all thrown out Christ to re-embrace godlessness. Spiritually, instead of worshipping God, they are now worshipping this world.

We can see this in the worship of the body ­ the ballooning fascination of sports and the world's increasing obsession with weight.

This can be seen on the political level, even more so ­ the most dramatic being the sudden re-appearance on earth of atheism (forbidden during the 2000-year age of the the Church). Virtually the entire continent of Asia has embraced this anti-Christ philosophy which had its beginning in 1917 in Russia. From there, 30 years later in 1947, it spread to China. It extended into North Korea and Tibet, and ultimately captured Southeast Asia 20 years after entering China.

The rebellion of the nations has secularized much of the populace of Europe as well, sending millions there running for the church exits. Only spotty church attendance now characterizes the European worship scene. The United States still has a strong church attendance, but our country was the last to officially renounce Christ politically (in 1963). Even so, the signs of erosion of populist faith can be seen here as well, a fact that does not bode well for the days of tomorrow unless profound changes are effected and soon.

Since scripture shows Satan fighting unsuccessfully from now until the last day to gain control of Jerusalem, it is obvious that Satan wants to put his earthly throne there, but God will prevent him from doing so. The prophecies revolving around Armageddon are proof of that.

Due to the fact that the Book of Revelation shows Satan's political throne covered in darkness, one would assume it lies somewhere in either an area ruled today by atheistic politics or, perhaps an area ruled by a foreign god. John in the Book of Revelation was told by the Angel that Satan's throne was in Pergamum (Rev.2:13). Pergamum was a city in Asia Minor (map 9) dedicated to emperor-worship, a practice equated in scripture with the worship of the prince of this world, Satan.

Ezekiel shows the invasion of the last days coming from the far north, from a place called "Magog", the homeland of Gog, its warmongering prince (Ez. 38). How far north it lies no one can say. A line drawn from Jerusalem to the North Pole would go through Lebanon, Turkey, the Black Sea, the Ukraine and Russia, and pass almost directly through the city of Moscow. Of course, Ezekiel's description does not say that Gog comes from due north of Jerusalem, only "the far north". That adds quite a few more candidates.

 

I think the night Jesus said was coming was when people die. Why don't you mention this? ­NE

Answer:

Good point. You are absolutely correct. Jesus came to rescue us individually, one by one, so the personal interpretation should always be the first interpretation in scripture.

The life of Jesus is compared to a day's work, ending with the night of death. Our moment of death is the night when no one can work. We can only work in Christ while we are alive. A short time. Once our bodies die it will be too late.

A reciprocal time also applies to the life of the Church (John 21:18) ­ and beyond that, to the life of the world itself ­ which is often the subject of our writing because that moment is particularly referenced in many of the prophecies, the subject of our web page. They are the same, really, but the focal points are different. The first is personal, the others are global.

It seems certain that the same principle applies to the duration of the offer. We have seen in the Book of Joshua that God held the sun back in the sky, making one day into almost two (Joshua 10:12-14). Spiritually, the prophecy applies to God's offer of repentance, the Day of Atonement ­ He has extended it, almost doubling the time allotted. We must assume this extention also applies to us individually. God has given us far more time to repent our sins and follow Him to eternal life than anyone could expect. This applies even to those who have fallen, allowing them ample time to get back up and recommence their journey to God.

For everyone still living, the offer is still there.

Does the holding back of America for a time...correlate with the expected events of an assassination, economic collapse and physical natural water-driven calamity that eventually creates the reorganization of geopolitical spheres of influence? ­RA

Answer:

Reading Daniel's passages in 8:5-7 it does. Their correlation with our current date and time is quite striking when compared to the two Gulf Wars that have embroiled America and the western world at the Euphrates river over much of the past two decades. Daniel's prophecies concerning uncannily similar wars and their sudden occurrence in our time (for the first time in 2000 years) strongly suggest the possibility of a close relationship.

Those wars in the Book of Daniel are an early part of an unfolding scenario mimicking the historic rise of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, his involvement in the assassination of the high priest Onias, and the desecration of the Jewish Temple and altar. As a result of those actions the offering of the perpetual sacrifice, the central religious rite of the Hebrew religion, was abolished.

Pointing ahead to the Christian era, the prophet Isaiah (24:1-6) descibes the repetition of just such a transgression in terms of the annihilation of humanity. Jesus confirmed this.

When the apostles asked Him about the end of the world, Jesus referred them back to Daniel's prophecy (Dan. 9:26-27; 11:30-32) and told them to watch for a replication of this profanation (Mat. 24:1-3; 15-22). When that is repeated on the future stage, the End will be at hand. That is why we study Daniel, especially with respect to the events that preceded this desecration so that we might have an early warning of its proximity. The Gulf Wars are flashing red lights in this respect.

Historical analysis of the Book of Daniel by biblical scholars have led them to the conclusion that Jesus was discussing the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Roman general's Vespasian and Titus in 70 A.D. They arrived at that conclusion confident that the Jewish Temple and the sacrifices of cattle, lambs and birds, etc. constituted the essence of this Jewish prophecy. The problem with that analysis is that the Book of Daniel, although a Jewish book, is about Jesus Christ, not Moses.

In 30 A.D., Jesus changed the management of God's religion ­ the moment He whirled the whip inside the Temple, scattering all the money lenders (Is.10:25-27; Is.66:6). From that point on, the new tenants of God's religion were in place (Is.22:19-22; Mat.16:13-19). A few hours later, that new management, led by Jesus instituted the true perpetual sacrifice ­ the communion Eucharist designed as a perpetual memorial to His crucifixion and resurrection. The Guardian had been replaced by the true Father.

No committed assault on the Christian sacrifice has yet been made, especially one that also correlates with the other events which surrounded it in Daniel's prophecy. Jesus, then, was pointing to a time in history not yet arrived. That attack will not occur at a Jewish altar, or involve a Jewish priesthood or temple. It can only occur where the Eucharist is being offered, and only at the headquarters of that offering. That is where the high priest Onias comes in. Put those three together and it is clear where this assault will take place.

The only question remaining is, when? In her prophecies received at Fatima, Lucia's third vision related to this event. That is what makes her prophecy so dynamic and relative to this current era (not the explanation of her prophecy, but the prophecy itself). No one but the Spirit of God could have revealed this to her, so we must assume that the event in question is not that far away. The two Gulf Wars underscore this proximity. Further emphasis will come when an event analogous to the death of Alexander the Great occurs. That is the next prophecy in the continuum of Daniel leading to the abolition of the sacrifice.

That is also where America comes in. The modern western world bears a striking resemblance to Alexander's empire in many ways, from its global reach down to it's Greek political underpinnings in democracy. The death of Alexander correlates with a perfusion of prophecies throughout the scriptures that portray a similar demise, almost all of which revolve around assassination. Jeremiah calls this slaying the "proof" of all the prophecies concerning Israel and the settlers (Jer. 44:29-30).

What is stunning about this disclosure is that Jeremiah's prediction has already occurred; recently, and precisely as predicted. The pharaoh of Egypt (Anwar Sadat) was assassinated in 1981 and it happened in correlation with Arab relations pertaining to Israel. The only problem, no one noticed. That is not the way it is supposed to be with prophecies of the magnitude Jeremiah's words would seem to call for, i.e., the "proof of everything". That is what leads us to the conclusion that there is still more to this prophecy yet to come. Its analogy to pharaoh has taken place, but it's relationship to Alexander must also be fulfilled.

This cascade of prophecies and fulfillments in our time (everything that has happened so far per Daniel) seems to be its own definitive proof of the nature of the era we find ourselves in. We are living the fulfillment of Daniel's allegorical schematic. The shattering and scattering of the western world empire cannot be far away and in many ways seems already to be in progress. Add cataclysm (also predicted) to the mix and it is done. Nothing after that can block the formation of the eastern world's ten nation confederacy.

 

October 21, 2007
Question #2:

Are these events what holds America back for a time - from which to recover for future safe-guarding of Jerusalem/Israel? ­RA

Answer:

That seems a safe conclusion. A crippled America will be incapable of stopping the collapse of western power (a key element in these prophecies) because it will be unable to interfere in the process. In Daniel 8:8 and perhaps 11:4, the western world appears to be shattered and scattered to the four winds. As stated above, that collapse is not specific to the United States alone, it involves the entire western alliance. Since that alliance is structured on global capitalism, economic catastrophe is a given. Cause? We can read the newspaper these days and see in its business section a likely list. With added calamity(s), an expedited recovery will not be possible.

Prophecies of calamitous events of considerable size and scope are present in the scriptures and many lie in specific prophecies that seem particularly related to America. Ezekiel's visions with respect to Tyre are notable in this respect. There are many others as well and all are chronicled on the various pages of this website. Most have not yet occurred and time seems to be running out. That could mean they do not apply to us. It could also mean they are building now in readiness to coincide with the other events.

Dependent on the magnitude of the events that drive the collapse which Daniel forsees, American global authority could be incapacitated indefinitely. Especially important in the recovery will be management itself. Look at New Orleans and Katrina. No recovery in years. Without effective and precision governmental guidance, the chaos could drag on for a long time.

That would not affect the nuclear arsenal or retaliation capabilities, so we would remain a formidable foe, but only in terms of ultimate defense. Not offense. An example would be Russia in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It's been 17 years. They have been on history's sidelines for that entire period. Which is to say it could be a very long time...as much time as is needed to raise to the status of world power a ten-nation confederacy on the other side of the Atlantic.

We don't see a powerful America re-emerge on history's stage until its victory over the northern army that has invaded its shores in Daniel 11:18. From this point on, it seems, the United States can be considered the "Kittim" of Daniel 11:30.

Looking back at the start of Daniel's prophecy, verse 8:8 shows the western collapse in an allegorical simulation of Alexander the Great's sudden death. Alexander's untimely demise scattered his western empire into four independent and dissimilar quandrants in the same way described in Daniel's prophecies.

Here again, we can look at Russia. While Daniel's verses 11:1-4 probably allude to the western scattering, they could just as easily describe a secondary event, the epic breakup and dissolution of the Soviet Union, an empire whose demolition scattered a great many nations to the four winds the same way, and in roughly what may be the same time period. It would make more sense that the smallest quadrant of that breakup, produce the monster Daniel foresees as conquering the earth in the last days (Dan. 7:8).

Since the rise of the East is to be built on events suggestive of, first, Antiochus the Great's army of the North and, second, his son, the "wretch" Antiochus IV Epiphanes, we can expect to see coming out of this 4th Persian empire (Dan.11:2), two mighty leaders violently assaulting world affairs, and coming in succession, one after the other, and both of them centered within the same ten-nation confederacy in the eastern Hemisphere. (The 11 kings destined to compose this empire seem to show a competition for leadership).

Daniel's words suggest that America will have to engage the first king in physical combat, and control the second (the Beast) with it's Mediterranean fleet. The threat of the nuclear arsenal is certain to play a prominent role in both of these engagements and, in fact, in all global affairs from here on out.

I don't see them used during most of this period, but the threat of their use can only grow. They will be used ultimately, of course, but likely only at the very end.

The 2nd world figure ­ the one suggestive of Antiochus IV Epiphanes is the Madman, the "Beast". He is the one who masterminds the slaying of the Onias figure, orders the desecration of the altar and abolishes the perpetual sacrifice. True to his character, when he finds himself utterly blocked, he will throw all caution to the wind and launch the missles of the East. The response to this madness will come not just in the form of return missles, but in a bombardment of cosmic fire by God, all of this mayhem heavily documented in scripture (Rev.17:15-17; Dan.11:42-44; Is. 24:1-6; Ez. 39:6; Jer. 51:58, etc).

Although it will all be over in a single day, it will be a most unhealthful time for whatever civilization occupies this world in those terrible days. But that is the point. It will be like a head-on collision, bringing a very wicked world, bent on mayhem and destruction, in very short order to Michael the Archangel and the Return of Christ. Jesus will at that time appear and take all who have chosen during their lives to follow Him, to his heavenly kingdom ­ a kingdom that is not of this earth. The very reason for this world's existance will be brought to an end by that rescue. A new heaven and a new earth are going to replace it.

When is the final warfare going to happen? As long as we still see churches prevelant in the environment, the end cannot be at hand. Jesus intimated that when He returns there will be almost no faith operational anywhere on the planet. That means as long as Christ is worshipped and followed on earth, the end will be held at bay. God's promise to Abraham is proof of that (Gen.18:20-32).

All through this protracted period of violence the world will witness the growing erosion of the Christian faith througout the world. The hatred of Christians will build. According to the Gospel of Matthew, the day is coming when Jesus and His Church will be villified everywhere. The attack that takes God's curtain of protection down is in progress, and no longer invisible as it was in the days when Paul first wrote about it (2 Thes. 2:7), but there is still a significant time yet to go.

And for that reason, God's harvest goes on.

America's position will have been to buy time for the completion of that harvest. Now whether our leaders see it that way or not, is really not the issue. If they do, it will insure that our lives here be much less traumatic. If, on the other hand, the atheists complete their takeover of the government, it's going to be rough sledding. But, either way, it won't change the prophecies. To paraphrase what Jeremiah told Hananiah (Jer. 28:6), we can only hope for a significant return to God by our nation during the days ahead.

You mentioned a high priest named Onias. Who is he? ­PL

Answer:

At the time of the Maccabees just before the desolating sacrilige was erected in the temple by the Greek forces under Antiochus IV Epiphanes (and the Perpetual sacrifice abolished) a righteous Jewish high priest reigned in Jerusalem. His name was Onias. Only after he was physically removed could any of the sacrileges above take place. For this reason, he was assassinated (circa 172 B.C.) by forces supporting the Greek takeover (2 Mac.4:30-35).

This assassination is central to the prophecy concerning Christianity's future at the end of time. We will see it repeated. It represents the third and final prophecy (the assassination of the "bishop in white") given to Lucia de los Santos at Fatima. It fulfills the vision of Paul in 2 Thes. 2:7, and is the defining moment that ushers in the last half-week in Daniel's prophecy (Dn. 9:26-27).

The fate of this Onias-figure bears no relation to an assassination that is destined to take place much earlier in a framework that mimics the fate of Alexander the Great. The two represent quite different circumstances. The assassination of the high priest is religious and profoundly impacts the Christian religion at the end of time. The fate of the Alexander figure is political and vastly impacts America and the western world, especially modern Israel.

What will happen to Jerusalem after the thousand year rule? ­KL

Answer:

There are two Jerusalem's. When speaking of them, scripture usually alludes to the kingdom in heaven that Jesus Christ came to lead us to. Many times in that discourse the Bible flips back to the rebellious city on earth as a means of contrast. Our interpretations are supposed to understand and dilineate the lines between those two cities, not blur them or pretend they don't exist. Jesus will return to the Jerusalem of this earth as scripture points out, but not to build a kingdom here. He will come to gather up the righteous and transport them to His eternal city and kingdom in heaven (2 Peter 3:5-10).

According to Peter, in that heavenly kingdom will be a new heaven and a new earth. A new heaven means a new universe ­ a place beyond the sky. That puts it, for most scholars, beyond the ken of science. Writers of science fiction might be able to ponder such a civilization, yet it is beyond human understanding in any ordinary sense. But then, who could comprehend galactic and stellar explosions bringing to birth out of billions of invisible vibrating particles this world and our presence in it? Yet here we are. Stars explode and out we come. God's Son appears and out we come again, reborn.

Just as stars explode, the city on earth that bears Christ's name now and to which Michael returns will be in ruins when he arrives. The thousand-year rule on earth of the Christian Church (our own age) will have ended in the warfare of a returned Satan (Rev. 20:7-9). Zechariah tells us that half the city will have been taken by the enemy forces. More than that, the city will have been shattered in an earthquake more powerful than any felt since men have lived on the planet. The Mount of Olives will be split in two by it (Zech.14:1-5).

At the moment of Christ's Return, God will have gathered all the nations to the Holy Land. They will come prepared for battle. But God will intercede. There will be no battle that day, only the fiery thunderbolts hurled by the angels from the heavens. These will rout the enemy and kill them all. The citizens of Jerusalem will not have to lift a finger.

After that, Christ's return will cover the entire world in a single blinding instant. To say that He returns only to Jerusalem focuses on just a tiny fraction of His true Return. He will Return everywhere ­ to every city at the same instant. Even so, at that moment civilization as we know it will not be intact outside the Holy Land. It will be a time unlike anything we are familiar with today. Satan's ruinous impact on God's earthly creation will be visible everywhere, in every vapor of smoke still evident in the smouldering.

It is that doomed creation Jesus came to get us out of alive before this predicted End occurs. Everyone who puts their life in Christ will escape with their lives. Those who embrace the world and turn their backs on God will perish.

That end may not come for some time; yet it is the template for everything we experience now, so there is only a short time to act. Scripture tells us that before the final moment occurs, darkness will cover the earth, a blindness that will make it almost impossible then to find the salvation that is so attainable now. The front end of that darkness, the growing attacks on the Church. bear witness to what is nearing, and the need, not only for a quickened pace but for a strengthened faith as well. Knowing where the times ahead are leading, it is easy to see that the route will not be smooth. Even so, all who hold on to their faith despite their tribulations will live. That is Jesus' promise to everyone who listens to Him ­ all who have ears to hear what God's voice is saying to His people.

In your article titled "GOD Clock Book", it was mentioned that The Bible Made up of 73 books, while the commonly accepted Bible used contains only 66 books.

Can you please share your thought please? ­L

Answer:

The Christian New Testament Bible has 27 books.

The Jewish (Hebrew) Old Testament has 24 books. The Septuagint (Greek and Christian) Old Testament has considerably more, but only 46 are accepted by both the Eastern and Western Churches together. Those 46 books structures an Old Testament scripture common to all of Christianity during its first 1600 years of existance. The Protestant Bible accepts a smaller number of Old Testament books, but that version did not come into existance until the 16h century, i.e., during the last 400 + years.

Our thoughts are these: Not only were these 73 the only scriptures common to Christianity during its first 1600 years, more than 75% of Christians on earth today continue to accept them as the books of their common Bible. For this reason, we use, for purposes of prophecy (our website is dedicated to Christian prophecy), the same 46 Old Testament books common to this majority.

The size of the majority accepting at least a 73-book scripture is overwhelming. It is large enough (in terms of the total world Christian population) to sustain a veto in the American congress, as well as to pass an amendment to the American Constitution. With a majority acceptance that measures more than 2/3rds of all Christians on earth, we see these 46 as the "commonly accepted" Old Testament books of the world Christian community. Therefore, for our use, all 73 figure in our prophetic calculations.

However, as the New Testament tells us, "the Law was only a reflection of the heavenly realities, and no finished picture of them" (Heb.10:1). Nothing in the Old Testament books can give eternal life to the reader. The Old Testament books live for prophecy only. They herald the true reality to come which is the New Testament and its author, Jesus Christ.

"By speaking of a new covenant, he implies that the first one is already old. Now anything old only gets more antiquated until in the end it disappears." (Heb. 8:13).

That is to be the fate of all the books in the Old Testament, whether the number is 39, 46 or 66. They live for us today only for the purpose of prophecy. They have all been supersceded by Jesus Christ and the salvation He has brought to us from heaven through His Gospel.

In other words, in terms of Bible books, the only number that leads to heaven is 27.

Forgive me for not exploring the entirety of your website, but does the Bible support replacement theology? What role does this theology play or not play in prophecy? Thank you. ­jf

Answer:

I am sorry, I am not familiar with "replacement theology".

As far as theology in general, Jeremiah predicted that during the Diaspora to Babylon (the circumstance of the 2000-year Jewish and Christian exile from Jerusalem) there would be no prophets (Jer.29:15). As proof of this, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, prophecy outside of scripture has remained Christianity's ridiculed stepchild throughout Christian history. Very rarely has it surfaced, let alone impacted theology, or visa versa.

Only in the 19th century did this change in any way, and even then only out in the fringes of Protestantism. Its reach into the mainstream has been slow. Lucia's Fatima predictions in the 20th century are the only substantive prophecies to have come out of the Roman church since its break with the Eastern Church in 1054 A.D. All in all, considering a 2 billion-member Christian Church on earth, the few (in number) that embrace prophecy are still quite small, almost always deprecated or shrugged off by the strategic clergy, and denominationally localized.

Theology's role has been divinely diminished because it is God's will that everyone on earth be given the opportunity to share in the salvation Jesus brought down from heaven. Jesus made it clear that eternal life does not come from theology or prophecy, it comes only from the Gospel of Christ (John 5:39-40; 8:51). Everyone who accepts Jesus will be saved.

God needed prophecy specifically to prove Jesus true, and that was accomplished in total within scripture. God needed no outside help outside of that Book. He will need prophecy again only to announce in advance, Jesus' Return. That seems to have started. The voices remain marginal but they are growing louder.

What is Zion? ­PL

Answer:

Zion is the ancient name of the mountain on which the city of Jerusalem was built. Its first mention in scripture was in the days of the priest-king Melchizadek. This mountain was bounded on the east by the Kidron valley, and on the West by the Tyropoean valley. The highest point on this mountain was the spur of Ophel, the place God later instructed David to build an altar. David's son Solomon erected the Hebrew Temple on the same spot, on a rock that was once the threshing stone of Aruna the Jebusite. Herod's Temple at the time of Jesus was built over the same rock.

Today a Moslem mosque, the Dome of the Rock occupies that spot, the rock of Abraham sheltered beneath its roof.

During the reign of the Hebrews, the city of Jerusalem expanded across the Tyropoean valley and up and over a higher mountain to the west. It was here that Herod built his home. Higher than the temple mount, it figured in prophecy both positively and negatively ­ in one sense, as something greater (higher) than the temple mountain and in another as an audacious attempt to be higher than God.

Jesus held His Last Supper on this higher mountain and was crucified near it. In the course of history, this higher hill, home to the expanded city of Jerusalem became known as Mount Zion, and the hill on which the Temple resided, was changed to Mount Moriah. The City of David was just to the south of the Temple on the southern end of Mount Moriah.

The significance of this name change can be seen in the prophecies which stated that the city of God would rise above the mountains and be lifted higher than the hills. In moving to the western hill, Jerusalem had risen above the Temple Mount, to a higher Mount Zion. That move was a type of the greater lifting up to come when Jesus takes us to the true Zion in the heavens far away ­ the fulfillment of God's promise for Jerusalem where the peace David sought will truly be achieved ­ "when God brings His people home...".

"Who will bring Israel salvation from Zion?  When God brings his people home, what joy for Jacob, what happiness for Israel!" (Ps.14:7).

The word "Zion" now finds its ultimate fulfillment as a synonym for God's holy mountain in heaven. It is here that the true city of God is to be found.

"I will add Egypt and Babylon to the nations that acknowlege me. Of Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia, 'Here so and so was born' men say. But all call Zion 'Mother', since all were born in her. It is he who makes her what she is, he, the Most High, the Lord; and as he registers the peoples, 'It was here' he writes 'that so and so was born'. and there will be princes dancing there. All find their home in you." (Ps. 87:4-7).

How can we tell which parts of scripture are true and which parts are false? ­NA

Answer:

Jesus told His disciples over and over again that it was an imperative to God that all the words and prophecies in the Old Testament revolving around the Christ be fulfilled. Because it was God's will, it is impossible for that fulfillment not to occur. We cannot say that not a word in the Old Testament will be found incorrect once the full truth of God is made known, because Jesus, Himself, detailed where those errors lay (see especially, Mat. 5:17-48; 6:1-34 & 7:1-29).

The new standard is higher than the old. It is more peaceful; more compassionate. Jesus said "God wants mercy, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:5-6; Mat.12:7). Yet it is the fulfillment of all the promises made to the patriarchs that knits Old and New together. Those promises make the two books a part of one another. Together they form a single promise by God to mankind ­ the Old, not destroyed by the New, but perfected by it.

It was not an accident that Jesus' crucifixion was superimposed on Passover or that the appearance of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost coincided with the Jewish Feast of Weeks (the feast of the first fruits). It is also not an accident that the Christian celebration of Christmas coincides with the Jewish Feast of Hannukah (the feast of Lights commemorating the purification of the tainted altar of God according to Jewish tradition). These relationships were orchestrated by the Holy Spirit on purpose.

Jesus showed the true altar of God to be within each person's heart, and His birth marked the moment when all hearts would be purified through baptism. The true altar purified. He was the light of the world and He was suddenly in the world, destroying darkness forever by His presence.

It did not matter as some have irrelevantly claimed, that His real birthday could have been on another day (there are 365 to choose from). Scripture dictated the day. As with Passover, Tabernacles and Pentecost, the day had to be celebrated according to the Hebrew template. The entire Christian religion is built atop that template for a purpose. Paganism has nothing to do with this imperative despite the claims of those ignorant of the prophecies or the architecture of the Law.

Jesus told Peter that whatever he bound on earth would be bound in heaven and what he loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven (Mat.16:19). That order repeats the prophecy in Isaiah 22:19-24. It applies to the Christian Church (all the "least of vessels from cups to pitchers"), and specifically to the bound testimony of Christ which the Church chose to embrace as the authoritative Word of God.

That binding made Jesus Christ the absolute of scripture. The absolute of heaven and earth.

As Jesus said, the Law will not pass away until its full intent is carried out (Mat. 5:17-19). That "carrying out" continues to this day, irrespective of charges by brash and deluded philosophers who say that scripture is a lie and that its words cannot be trusted. John said scripture cannot be rejected (John 10:35. That means it is set in stone. Every word will be shown in the end to truly work for God. You can bet your life on it (2 Tim.3:16-17).

"...all that scripture says must be fulfilled" (Luke .21:22).

I can't believe that God condoned the violence committed by the Israelites when they murdered so many babies and children in their conquest of Canaan. How can that be holy behavior favored by God? It was merciless. What do you say is more true, Jesus or the Bible? ­NA

Answer:

The answer is Jesus. He is the absolute of creation.

In science there is always a greater reality to be discovered beyond the reality scientists proclaim. That is why professors write new textbooks every year ­ to try to keep pace with a changing reality that constantly evolves. They find themselves in orbit around a truth that can never be touched. Not by science or philosophy or any other academic subject. This is not the case with Jesus. The absolute truth of creation is Christ.

He is even greater than the Bible,. To prove that, Jesus said we search the scriptures thinking that in them is eternal life, yet those same scripture testify to Him but most people refuse to comes to Him to gain life (John 5:39-40). In other words, eternal life is not the Bible per se, it is Jesus alone. The word of Moses is literal only to the extent Jesus has determined to make it so. If God has ordained that the words in the Old Testament must come true (which He did) Jesus will see to it that they do ­ in His own way. And that is the mystery in scripture ­ how what appears on the surface to be untrue becomes absolute by the power of Christ.

It is only in Jesus Christ that the Old Testament can be true. Therefore anything in the Old Testament that contradicts Jesus or His message cannot be considered Godly or to represent Godly behavior. God may have tolerated the Hebrew's wickedness and brutality during Old Testament times because the people at that time didn't know better. But, according to Paul, God has set a day for the world to be judged and that kind of violence is no longer acceptable to Him. It now leads to death.

"God overlooked that sort of thing when men were ignorant, but now he is telling everyone everywhere that they must repent, because he has fixed a day when the whole world will be judged, and judged in righteousness, and he has appointed a man to be the judge. And God has publicly proved this by raising this man from the dead." (Acts 17:30-31)

This is not to say that God cannot impose His preordained sentence on a Babylonian mankind when the time for that judgment comes due. Every blessing in scripture comes encapsulated in the same warning. There is a set time for mercy. Jesus holds back what scripture calls 'the Wrath'. When the time for mercy (the two days allotted by God for washing and cleaning in His name) has concluded, it will be followed by a moment in history akin to what the Canaanites experienced at the end of their dynasty.

That is what the prophecy about the 'third day' is all about. It is about the return of God and the Judgment of Babylon. No one can read the Book of Revelation without shuddering over the terrible consequences of theWrath as it unfolds on an unrepentant and wicked culture ­ a world living in open opposition to the ways of God.

It is that kind of a day we are appoaching now ­ the day God pulls the plug on a harvest that has ended as prophesied. It is a day easy to see, because it is a day deeply etched by the world's open hostility to Jesus and His Father. When you see the attack on Christ, you see the imminence of the Wrath.

It is that vision the world of Canaan was meant to reflect.

Is it against God to celebrate Christmas? ­WK

Answer:

No.

With the idea that we should treat all days as holy to God, Paul wrote that no particular day is really holier than any of the others:

"...How can you want to go back to elemental things like these, that can do nothing and give nothing, and be their slaves? You and your special days and months and seasons and years! You make me feel I have wasted my time with you." (Gal 4:9-11).

One would expect, reading this, that celebrations of any kind had no place in the Christian religion. Obviously, the Holy Spirit had a different point in mind when He allowed Paul to make that statement, i.e., that all days are equally holy in Christ. That difference is corroborated by Paul in his letter to the Romans:

If one man keeps certain days as holier than others, and another considers all days to be equally holy, each must be left free to hold his own opinion." (Rom. 14:1-6).

The Christian religion did not appear, standing on its own. The Holy Spirit designed it to stand on a Mosaic template made up of holy days, each imparting special meanings designed to explain the intricacies of Christian belief through its relationship to the Mosaic Law and prophets.

The Mosaic rituals, seen allegorically, prove the truth of Christ and lead the faithful to a far deeper understanding of Him than would otherwise have been possible. Without that template as a guide, those understandings would have remained locked in the mental vaults of just a few theological intellectuals. It was essential to the Holy Spirit that this understanding be freed from that vault and reach all the way down to even those who could not read or write.

The Mosaic template provided that vehicle.

"No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive: Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbor to try to teach neighbor, or for brother to say to brother, 'Learn to know God!" No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest since I will forgive their iniquity and never call their sin to mind." (Jer.31:31-34).

The rescue from slavery, the purification of the altar, its true location, Christ's sacrifice: what it meant, why it had to happen ­ Satan's stain of sin on our souls. Jesus' relationship to God. Our whole grasp of the Christian religion stems from the deep impressions structured in the Mosaic rituals. Those images and their deep meanings etched in our religious understanding hold the Christian religion in a vice-grip mold of comprehension. That wisdom is the mechanism that has prevented all those who have tried to take Christianity away from God, from doing so.

Every holy day in the Christian calendar is based on its Mosaic forebearer. Passover, Easter, First Fruits, Pentecost, Hannukah, Christmas. They have all been structured in the same week, or on the same day, in the same time of the year, ritual for ritual. These three especially, because the Law states that the Israelites must hold three days each year holy to God.

Christmas over Hannukah has replaced Yom Kippur (the high holy day during the September-October Feast of Tabernacles) because those days have been reserved for a far higher moment that starts with the communion sacrifice of Christ on the cross, offered daily for the last 2000 years. The Feast of the Tabernacles is the commemoration of this "Perpetual Sacrifice" (see Dan.11:31), which leads to the great Wedding Feast in heaven after the Return of Christ and His Father (the true Yom Kippur event), when Jesus is crowned king of the New Creation (Dan.7:9-14).

All this is made clear by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ in the Mosaic ritual.

Christmas did not start out a pagan holiday as many rumors would have us believe (it started out as shown above), but it seems to have morphed into a pagan holiday in the 20th century. Now, instead of creches there are cash registers, and instead of angels and shepards heralding the news, salesmen and saleswomen hawk cameras and the latest fashions.

With all of us moving at lightning speed along the supersonic commercial highway that leads from Thanksgiving to New Years, is there any time to even contemplate Christmas or its significance and deeper meaning any more? The Psalms say that contemplation can only come from prosperity's collapse (Ps.49:1). An unsettling thought to be sure. One that can be assuaged easiest, by going to church and praying, thanking God for the season and its true reason.

For Additional Questions and Answers, see:

Current Questions

2010
2009
2008
2007­July - December
2007­January - June
2006­June - December
2006­January - May
2005­July - December
2005­January - June
2004
2003-July - December
2003-January - June
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996

Or Download Question & Answer pages Here

Goodnews Christian Ministry
Short History of IsraelGraphs & MapsChronological Table
Book of RevelationDead Sea Scrolls
Goodnews Introduction - The Gulf War
Complete Site Index

Download Free Books, Maps and Documents Here

Goodnews Christian Ministry
http://goodnewsprophecy.org

All books, contents & materials copyright © 1991 to 2009
Goodnews Christian Ministry.
To find out more about Goodnews Christian Ministry,

Send e-mail to:
askgoodnews@gmail.com


World Wide Web Home Page:
http://goodnewspirit.com