Bible Believers' Newsletter 410
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
On the eve of 2006 we wish to express our appreciation and sincere thanks to our research volunteers and contributors for their invaluable assistance during the past year. We pray the Lord has blessed you in your edifying service to the saints who feed their souls from the revelations in these pages and from the Christian resources on the Church Website.
In this issue we have called on the expertise of the late Sir Robert Anderson, who was adept in expounding Daniel's prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. There is still some confusion among Brethren with respect to the seventieth week which we hope this series will help dispel and lead each of us into a more perfect recognition of our day in relation to prophecy.
We appreciate our Newsletter readers and subscribers and pray the Lord bless you richly this seminal New Year of 2006.
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.Your brother-in-Christ,
Anthony Grigor-Scott
Alaska braces for Possible Volcanic Eruption
Anchorage, December 22, 2005 – St. Augustine Volcano, an island peak 175 miles (280 km) southwest of Anchorage in Cook Inlet, has produced a series of steam explosions, releases of sulfur gas and signs that there may be an eruption similar to events in 1986 and 1976 which sent ash clouds as high as 40,000 feet (12,000 m) . . . It is also possible that there will be a landslide from the volcano into the waters of Cook Inlet, causing a tsunami. . . Full story: alertnet.org
Zundel and Germany
Why is this important? The German people have been vilified, demonized, libeled and slandered. Their nation was twice targeted for destruction in the last century by the Zionist and globalist elites, allowing the occult phoenix of the European super-state to rise from the ashes of the Dresden holocaust and a shattered, guilt-ridden social landscape.
By design, the German people have been led to believe that a yearning for national sovereignty and real independence is a manifestation of fascism, not patriotism. What is legitimate and celebrated in the United States and France as wholesome and socially desirable has been criminalized in Germany with monstrous Zionist laws policing the national psyche and enforcing fearful self-censorship reinforced by Zionist "history" books written after 1978, the year when tales of the Jewish "holocaust" burst upon the television and newspaper scene following what appeared to be a miraculously spontaneous bout of mass-remembering on the part of "holocaust victims" and their claims lawyers.
The law and its myriad of legalisms is the lifeblood of Zionism. Without it, it is nothing. Why should anyone be discouraged from using their laws against them where the opportunity to do so exists? Mr. Zundel not only has a "get out of jail free" card, he is uniquely placed to collapse the Federal Republic and with it, the European Union. Full story: rense.com
CIA Chief tells Turks to prepare for Attack on Iran
December 26, 2005 – Goss and Mueller were sent by the Neocons to shop around an "air operation against Iran and Syria" in Turkey in exchange for a hard-line against the Kurds and using the unestablished "fact" the Iranians have nukes and the desire to use them as enticement. Full story: rense.com
The Road from Rome
Jerusalem, December 29, 2005 – The Jews should be deeply grateful for Protestantism. As soon as any nation replaced Catholicism with a new Protestant state religion, the slaughter and torture of the Catholic inquisition stopped and decency took over. The Protestant nations of Europe and the British Commonwealth offered their Jews a secure shelter they had never known in any Catholic country. By fighting to protect Protestantism worldwide, Michael de Semlyen, author of All Roads Lead To Rome?, is fighting to protect the safety of Jews worldwide. . .
Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury and an enthusiastic ecumenist, told BBC Radio Three; "It is entirely possible that the Anglican Church could disappear to make way for a united world church". . . Full story: rense.com
Jubilee Part II
There was no seventy years' captivity, but because of national sin a judgment of seventy years servitude to Babylon was divinely imposed upon Judah. The servitude to Babylon had been predicted by Isaiah as early as the days of Hezekiah (II Kings 20:17). This judgment fell in the third year of King Jehoiakim (606BC), when Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judea and captured Jerusalem, but his purpose was merely to hold the land as a vassal State. Daniel and his companions were carried to Babylon to adorn his court as vassal princes (Daniel 1:1-2; Jeremiah 25:1) leaving the Jews in undisturbed possession of their City.
Jehoiachin succeeded to the throne, and after three years he revolted (II Kings 24:1-2; II Chronicles 36:5-7). Five years later Nebuchadnezzar returned to enforce his conquest (598BC) and the young king surrendered almost without a struggle. On his first invasion the King of Babylon had proved magnanimous and lenient. But now he had to punish rebellion; and he "carried away all Jerusalem," leaving none behind "save the poorest sort of the people of the land" (II Kings 24:14-17). This was what, in the opening words of his book, Ezekiel terms "King Jehoiachin's captivity," the prophet himself being numbered among the captives.
Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah having sworn allegiance to his suzerain was placed upon the throne as vassal king. In common with "the residue of Jerusalem that remained in the land" he had ever before him Jeremiah's warnings that a refusal to submit to the divine decree which brought them under servitude to Babylon would bring upon them a more terrible judgment (Jeremiah 24:1 et seq). Nebuchadnezzar would again return to "destroy them utterly" and to make the land "a desolation and an astonishment" (Jeremiah 25:8-11; 25:9; 27:3-12). But they gave heed to false prophets who pandered to national vanity by predicting a speedy restoration of their independence (Jeremiah 28:1 et seq); and having obtained a promise of armed support from Egypt (Ezekiel 17:15), Zedekiah openly revolted. Nebuchadnezzar thereupon invaded Judah for the third time; and when, after a siege of eighteen months he captured Jerusalem, the city was given up to fire and the sword. The last chapter of II Chronicles contains the sad story of Judah's sin and of the divine judgments it brought upon them.
There were actually three sieges of Nebuchadnezzar upon Jerusalem. The first siege in 606BC began the Servitude of the nation to Babylon and was prophesied to last 70 years. It began on the third year of Jehoiakim (from Nisan 1, 606, to Nisan 1, 605, "The fourth year of Jehoiakim, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar," after two years as co-regent. That is, the year beginning Nisan 1, 605 – Jeremiah 25:1). The seventieth year ended on Nisan 1 536 with the Decree of Cyrus authorizing the Judeans to return to Jerusalem.
Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar appointed as vassal, later rebelled and a second siege in 598BC resulted in his uncle, Zedekiah, being appointed to the throne. Jeremiah and Ezekiel both warn the Judeans that if they persisted in rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar Jerusalem will be destroyed and the people transported to "captivity in Babylon." This transpired when Zedekiah hearkened to the false prophets and rebelled.
A third siege took place in 589, resulting in the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem which also lasted seventy years, until Nehemiah was granted authority to rebuild the city.
It was this third judgment of the Desolations that filled the thoughts and bowed the heart of Daniel as he prayed the prayer which brought him the great prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. No words could be plainer or more definite. Daniel 9:1, "I Daniel understood by the books of Jeremiah the prophet that the desolations of Jerusalem must continue seventy years." By the same prophetic books he must have understood that the seventy years of the Servitude would expire in two years' time which would terminate the judgment of the Captivity, which thus lasted sixty-two years. But as Daniel was already in his eighties he could scarcely hope to outlive the Desolations, which still had seventeen years to run. And I confidently offer the suggestion that his prayer was an appeal that God would cancel those years, and remit the still unexpired portion of the judgment. The circumstances of the time, and the whole tenor of the prayer, seem to point to this. The closing words are specially explicit: "0 Lord forgive; 0 Lord hearken and do; defer not, for Your own sake, 0 my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your Name" (Daniel 9:19; Revelation 3:12).
"And while he was speaking in prayer" the angel Gabriel who would later pass Mary the Word of Life that would become the Temple of the living God, appeared to him and revealed God's sixfold plan of redemption for Israel that would cause 144,000 elect Israelites to anoint that Temple in the joy of their new birth when they recognize the 'parousia' of King Jesus Messiah and His Queen to Israel (Revelation 7:15-17; 21:22).
Echoing the words of Daniel's prayer, the angel's message told him that not seventy years, but seventy weeks of years were decreed upon his people and his holy city, before they would enter into the Divine blessing of Abraham and the Davidic covenant: "Seventy weeks are decreed upon your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sins, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks in which the city shall be rebuilt with street and moat, but in troublous times".
"After sixty-two additional weeks Messiah shall be cut off with nothing proven against Him: and the people of [Titus, the Roman] Prince that shall come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall be with a flood [or military overthrow], and to the end there shall be warfare, and desolations are determined (Daniel 7:19-26). And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week; and in the latter half of the week he will break his pledge and cause the sacrifice and offering to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall makes it desolate, even until the consummation [in the latter half of the seventieth week], and that determined, God's wrath shall be poured out upon the desolator" (Revelation 17:7-18; 18:1-20).
After John and Jesus confirmed the New Covenant to Israel for half a week, Christ was "cut off." The Temple veil was torn from top to bottom, the tables on which the sacrificial beasts were examined were overthrown, interrupting the sacrifice and offering which Titus brought to an abrupt end when fire destroyed the Temple. In the antitype, after two prophets have reconfirmed God's New Covenant with Israel in the first half of Daniel's Seventieth Week, a Papal Roman prince will sit in the temple of God as if he were God, breaking the solemn agreement with Israel, causing her revived sacrifices to cease, and forcing the mark of the beast (Isaiah 14:12-14; II Thessalonians 2:3-10; Revelation 13). Doubtless many non-elect Israelites and self-styled Jews (outside Judaeo-Communist Russia) will be incarcerated, for instance in US FEMA camps. Brother Branham prophesied, "Jews in the United States (which they won't escape from)"—the antitype of the defeat of Jehoiachin which initiated the Captivity (II Kings 24:8-16), or more likely Zedekiah which initiated the Desolations (II Kings 24:17-20; Jeremiah 52:9-11)? (COD, p. 97:235; Jeremiah 6:14; 8:11; Ezekiel 13:10; I Thessalonians 5:3).
The years by which the judgment of the Desolations to which the prophecy referred, were reckoned by both the Israelites and the Babylonians as years of 360 days. This seventy years dated from the day on which the city was invested; namely, Tebeth 10 598BC in the ninth year of Zedekiah, a day that for twenty-six centuries has been observed as a fast by Jews in every land. And, as the Prophecy of Haggai 2:18 so explicitly records, it ended on 24 Chisleu 520BC in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, a period of 25,200 days, or seventy years of 360 days. The foundation of the Second Temple was laid that same day (Haggai 2:18). It was finished on Adar 3 in the sixth year of Darius (Ezra 6:15), and dedicated at Passover, Nisan 515 (Ezra 6:15-22), 490 years after the dedication of Solomon's temple in 1005BC, and seventy years before the date of the edict to rebuild the city.
We should not confuse the edict of Cyrus at the end of the Servitude and Captivity in 536, to "rebuild the house of the Lord" (Ezra 1:1-2), with the command of Darius in 445 to "restore and build the city of Jerusalem," beginning with its walls and gates (Nehemiah 1-2). For the city had to remain a ruin until the seventy years of Desolations was fulfilled. This explains why the Lord permitted the Samaritans to hinder the workmen with "troublous times".
As the Hebrew year was regulated by the Paschal moon, we can calculate the Julian date of any Nisan. Nisan 1 in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, when the decree "to restore and build Jerusalem" was issued, was March 14 445BC. And the era between that day and Nisan 10 (or April 6), AD32, was 173,880 days, or sixty-nine weeks of 360-day years, to the very day on which Jesus made His "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem.
After the Sanhedrin Council had decreed His death He charged His Apostles not to make Him known, and from that time Jesus shunned all public recognition of His Messiahship (Matthew 12:14-21). But now He welcomed the acclamations of "the whole multitude of the disciples" and silenced the remonstrances of the Pharisees by declaring "If these held their peace the stones would immediately cry out." He was hailed as Son of David: "Messiah the Prince" (Matthew 21:4-9; Zechariah 9:9), and on the evening of Nisan 14 AD32, four days "after the sixty-ninth week of years, Messiah was cut off although he was without guilt" (Daniel 9:26).
In the present age of Israel's rejection, Hebrew and Gentile stand by nature upon the same level of guilt and doom. "There is no difference, for all have sinned." But neither is there any difference as regards salvation. Grace is reigning, and therefore "there is no difference, for the same Lord is rich unto all who call upon Him." The Jew can have blessing as freely as his neighbour, if he will give up his boasted supremacist ground of covenant and promise. Blessing on that ground is as inconsistent with grace, as is blessing on the ground of works, or personal merit of any kind. For in the same sense in which we say "God cannot lie," we recognize that He cannot act upon incompatible principles at the same time and that He is "no respecter of persons".
It is clear, therefore, that before this prophecy of the Seventy Weeks can be fulfilled for Daniel's people, there must be a change of dispensation as definite and vital as that which took place when Israel was rejected and set aside. Israel's outcast condition is one of the "mystery" truths of this Christian dispensation. (It was in grace that God gave the covenant; but the covenant established a relationship of faith; and, for those who were within it, blessing was on that ground. Having rejected grace and obedience God placed Israel under the curse of the Law; still later at Kadesh Barnea they proved to be without the requisite faith. Finally the only alternatives were grace or judgment the Cross put an end to every claim upon God). But this dispensation will be brought to an end when the Lord, in fulfillment of that other "mystery," takes Home His heavenly people, both Israelites and Gentiles, who are one with Himself as members of "the Church which is His Body." Then the earthly people will come to their own again.
Romans 11:15, "How wonderful it will be when the 144,000 elect Israelites become Christians. When God turned from them it meant the reconciliation of the world, what then shall His receiving of them be, but Life from the dead?" This proves that God cannot act upon two incompatible Covenants simultaneously.
The prophecy of Zechariah 13:1 points forward to "that day when there will be a fountain opened to the House of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanliness".
Jesus' reference to "the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet" (Matthew 24:15) gives the clue to the right interpretation of the unfulfilled portion of the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks and the duration of the Gentile dispensation or parenthesis between the "cutting-off of Messiah" and Israel's redemption. Hence our Home-going.
In Matthew 23, He denounced the hypocrisy of Pharisaism, which we call Judaism today, and foretold the calamities that would befall the nation from that time to the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week, when "all Israel shall be saved"—all 144,000 of them. He said, "All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. For I assure you, You shall not see Me henceforth, till you shall say, Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord. And Jesus departed from the temple".
Three days later, "Messiah was cut off" and the desolations of Jerusalem were renewed. God's recognition of the nation was once again in abeyance, and after thirty years' gleaning the elect of Judea, the eagle ensigns of "the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet" were seen on Mount Olivet overlooking the temple, a sign of the impending Jewish Wars with the destruction of the city and temple: the signal for Christians to take immediate flight (Matthew 24:3, 15-21; Daniel 9:26-27).
We do well if we remember that the Gentile dispensation will end with the eagle ensigns of the image unto Rome looking menacingly over those with the Seal of God. "For all who dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8).
The Mosque of Omar has made the temple site a desolation since the seventh century. The unfulfilled Seventieth Week of Daniel's prophecy will not begin until after it is destroyed by the earthquake that cleaves the Mount of Olives on Nisan 14, signaling the end of grace and the Gentile dispensation. Yet Israel will continue under foreign dominion throughout the "times of the Gentiles" and "Jerusalem will be desolate until the consummation" (Daniel 9:27; Luke 21:24; Revelation 11:1-2, 8).
Daniel's prophecy commenced when Darius Hystaspes, leader of the second Gentile world power issued a decree to restore and build Jerusalem. Intimidated by the Jews, Pontius Pilate, a governor of the fourth Gentile world power acquiesced in the murder of Messiah. In retribution, and to terminate the corrupted, superseded temple service with its hereditary priesthood and substitute animal sacrifices, which were now a blasphemy [today impersonated by the Judaeo-Roman Catholic church with its papacy and Mass], God sent a military general from the world power to destroy the city and its temple and expel the Jews. The final week of the era will begin when the earthquake ignites the 'hot' phase of a very brief World War III, followed by the then Devil-incarnate Papal leader of the fourth world power uniting the world religions, and restoring peace. Thereafter he will be made president of a world government administered from Jerusalem under an agreement wherein self-styled Jews are guaranteed their national and religious rights and their banksters co-operate to refinance the US dollar Alan Greenspan has dedicated 18 years to devalue.
In the midst of the week he will violate his treaty, take over the Money Power and desecrate the temple, ushering in the great tribulation in which Rome, her denominational daughters and reprobate Jews will martyr the elect and Word-born Israelites (Revelation 6:11), and all classes of the "saved" (Matthew 25) before God extracts vengeance on Rome by his Judaeo-Communist servant, Russia (Revelation 17-18), and Armageddon destroys all life.
Heaven has been silent since the opening of the Seventh Seal. Thence the fullness of the Word has been incarnating Christ's end-time Bride, bringing her to maturity in the unity of the faith for the "third pull" during the manifestation of the Sons of God. The Word is now on earth in souls under pre-eminence, waiting for inspiration to break silence after the Seventh Trump annunciation, "It is done!" the Seven Vials of God's wrath have all been poured out (Revelation 8:1-5; 16:1, 17).
No prophet's ministry has been so abundantly vindicated by signs and Supernatural portents as accompanied Brother Branham's end-time ministry commissioned by the Angel of the Lord on May 7, 1946. Signs that include apostasy in the churches, the rise in sexual promiscuity and homosexuality, miscegenation, lawlessness—with courts and governments paying no regard to law, spiritual blindness under a spirit of strong delusion, the end of the Laodicean Church Age, Christ's Mediation, and the Coming of the Son of man in the revelation of the Seven Seals.
"As in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage," men are today oblivious to the "signs . . . of the end of the world," the 'sunteleta' or winding-up and completion of the 'aion', age, or dispensations. For "the end," 'telos' of the 'suntelata' or process of termination will be unheralded and sudden (Matthew 24:3, 13-14). This is why Jesus warned His disciples to watch for the signs of the winding-up process that would precede the coming destruction of Jerusalem in AD70; and why He has warned His disciples in these last days to watch for the events that would precede His 'parousia' Coming at the 'sunteleta' or winding-up of the Gentile dispensation prior to its unheralded and sudden 'telios' when the earthquake sinks Los Angeles.
The nuance between different Greek Words is lost when they are replaced by one very general English Word, "end." We must be vigilant. I Thessalonians 5:1-10, "But of the (Gk. 'chronos') times and the (Gk. 'kairos') seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write. For you know perfectly well that the day of the Lord comes unexpectedly like a thief in the night. For when people say, Peace and safety (in this New World Order, Revelation 13:4); then sudden destruction will come upon them, like the birth pains of a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But you are not in darkness for that day to surprise you as a thief. You are all the children of Light and of the day: we are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do; but let us watch and be sober" (II Peter 3:1-10; Revelation 3:3; 16:15).
As the Greek 'chronos' and 'kairos' are translated "time" in English, 'erchomai' and 'parousia' have been replaced with one English word "coming," and the clarity of meaning conveyed by the Greek has become a mystery to the reader of English.
Great confusion has been caused by the Word "Jew" which did not appear in Scripture in any language until it was introduced into the Douay and King James Versions of the Bible when they were revised in the late eighteenth century. The Greek transliteration 'Ioudaia' became Judea in English (Strong 2449), and 'Ioudaios' which means either Judahite (one born of the tribe of Judah as in Romans 1:16; 2:9) or Judean (a resident of Judea regardless of race or religion as in Acts 13:6), according to its context, became simply 'Iewe' or "Jew" (Strong 2453). There is no Scriptural authority to regard the word "Jew" as a synonymous term for all the tribes of Israel.
Jesus, John, Luke, and Paul always make a sharp distinction between Israel and the Judean scribes and Pharisees "who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets" (I Thessalonians 2:14-16).
It was Josephus who gave rise to the false doctrine which claims the one word that means either Judahite or Judean, nowadays transliterated "Jew," should be used for all twelve tribes of Israel (Josephus, Antiquities xi, 5-6; Vol. IV, McClintock & Strong Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, & Ecclesiastical Literature, p. 905). This is a deception and although the Apostle John and Brother Branham clearly warn us that "anyone who does not accept Jesus as the Christ is a liar," there are ministers in the circle of this Message who draw their authority from these liars and teach the word "Jew" as a term which encompasses all the tribes, and is therefore synonymous with the term Israel, thereby becoming liars themselves.
[The religion of] "Judaism was not evolved from Judah; it was in Babylon that Judaism first became that which it was and still is. . . The distinction between Israel and Judah can best be expressed in the phrase, which may sound paradoxical, but yet aptly characterizes the true relationship of the two people: The Israelites were not Jews!" (Harmsworth, History of the World. Vol. 1, p. 781-4. For a fuller discourse see Newsletter 361).
Like all prophetic warnings, Brother Branham's ministry is despised, yet the Son of man was revealed behind the veil of his flesh (Luke 17:28-30; Hebrews 4:12). After the earthquake, the "mystery of lawlessness will be revealed" behind the flesh of "that man of sin, the son of perdition." Now he has "come in his own name" as the only mediator between God and men, vicar of Christ, ruling "the Holy Catholic Church," to which most nominal Christians proclaim allegiance when they recite the Bible-denying "Apostle's Creed" (so-called). Then he will no longer be vice-Christ but the beast, Antichrist in his father's name, ruling the whole world.
Lucifer was God's right hand man from the beginning of time with knowledge of God's plan to manifest Himself in Michael and a kingdom under His pre-eminence. Satan knows more about Scripture than any theologian at any time, but he lacks faith. He reasoned that if he were to deceive Eve and introduce her to lust and a knowledge of physical procreation apart from faith, he could breed out Adam's race and instead of Michael inheriting a kingdom of eternal Life he would have a perpetual kingdom of birth, procreation and death.
This is the kingdom claimed by Jewish supremacists, who imagine the kingdom of God is built by sexual reproduction within their tribes who are "men" (i.e. human beings) while non-Jews or Goyim are not men but "human cattle" (Yebamoth 61a; Baba Mezia 114b). Like Cain Jews trace their lineage to Abraham and Adam through the woman. Hence Jesus said, "You are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies".
God foresaw Lucifer's plan to subvert faith and eternal Life by his knowledge of Good and Evil (which is the mark of the beast), and from the foundation of the world foresaw Christ slain to redeem the penitent souls of those Satan would assign to death. Thus it was Christ not Lucifer who was predestinated to be "the firstfruit, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence" (Colossians 1:18).
When Lucifer aspired to world hegemony he rebelled against the Divine purpose, and from that hour he has sought to thwart it. By faith Christ knew that in the foreknowledge of God, Satan and his demons were accounted "fallen from heaven as lightning" before they came into existence. This explains the sovereignty of God's election and predestination according to His foreknowledge of the decisions each of us will make in the exercise of our free moral agency (Ezekiel 28:15-16; Romans 8:28-33; I Peter 1:2).
After His baptism in the Jordan, "Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested of the Devil." And after He fasted forty days and forty nights, Satan tempted Him with that mysterious vision of his coming world government, testing for imperfections of character (as the Israelitish priest flayed the sacrifice in search of fleshly imperfections), saying, "All this authority and glory has been delivered to me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If You, therefore, will worship before me it shall all be Yours" (Matthew 4:1-11).
This was a bold assertion by Satan of a disputed right. Satan claims to be the true Messiah, the true firstborn and heir of creation; and as such he claims the worship of mankind. These apocalyptic visions foretell his greatest and final, effort to supplant the Christ of God. And to that end he will give to the Beast "his power and his throne and his great authority" Jesus refused to receive (Revelation 13:2).
Can we then be surprised at the sequel that "all the world wondered after the Beast? And they worshipped the Dragon [Satan, who incarnate the old Serpent of Eden] which gave power to the Beast; and they worshipped the Beast, saying, who can compare with the Beast? Who is able to make war with him?" But even this is not all. For the Seer "beheld another Beast [the United States of America] . . . that exercises all the power of the first Beast before him [the Holy Roman Empire], and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first Beast."
So long as the Bride is on earth Satan's power is definitely restrained (II Thessalonians 2:7). But, when we are called to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, that restraint will cease, "that Man of Sin will be revealed," and the powers of hell will be permitted to operate in ways and to an extent unprecedented in the past.
An element that tends to be misread into these prophecies is a want not only of sympathy but of acquaintance with the promises and hopes of Israel. As believers of this dispensation "our citizenship is in heaven" whereas Israel's citizenship is earthly. The true elect Israelite therefore is not looking for the Lord to catch him away but for "the coming of the Son of David to restore again the kingdom to Israel" and inaugurate the promised rule of heaven upon earth (Acts 1:6). However, they should be seeking Him in the prophetic Office Son of man to reconfirm the New Covenant through the two witnesses of Zechariah 4 and Revelation 11. The wise men from the East inquired, "Where is He who is born King of the Judeans?" And when He began His Ministry by proclaiming "the kingdom of Heaven is at hand," that "gospel of the kingdom" did not mean that God was about to rule in heaven but that divine government was about to be established upon earth in fulfillment of Messianic prophecy.
This explains the attitude and conduct of the Jewish leaders toward the Lord Jesus. They argued that, if He was indeed the Messiah, He was the promised "Son of David" who would put an end to Gentile supremacy and restore the Davidic covenant which had been in abeyance ever since the imperial sceptre was entrusted to the King of Babylon.
They were looking for a Messiah who would deliver them from their enemies and revive the glories of the greatest of their kings. Such will be the coming Antichrist; not merely a false Messiah in the religious sense, but president of one world government based in Jerusalem. The Apocalyptic visions already quoted clearly indicate that he will be a man of transcendent natural qualities. "All the world wondered after the Beast . . . and they worshipped the Beast, saying, who is as great as he? Who is able to fight against him?" Satan's superman will be a great statesman, an orator, and a brilliant general whom nations will honour, and armies follow with enthusiasm. Added to this, he will be endowed with the superhuman powers of Satan, so that all the non-elect whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life will pay him divine homage (Revelation 13:8).
In these visions of Daniel the word "beast" signifies primarily an empire or kingdom, and in Revelation it is used to symbolize an individual. The Beast of Revelation 13 is clearly identical with the fourth Beast of Daniel 7, the last great Gentile world-power; but at a later stage of its development. Three periods of its history are marked in Daniel. In the first it has ten horns. In the second it has eleven, for a little horn comes up among the ten. In the third it has but eight, for three of the ten have been torn away by the eleventh (Revelation 17:11). Up to this point Daniel's vision represents the beast merely as the fourth kingdom upon earth," but in Revelation 13 and 17 it turns away to describe the action of "the little horn."
The first three stages of the history of "the fourth kingdom" are past, and another has been developed. It is no longer a confederacy of nations bound together by treaty, but of dictators subordinate to a pope whose greatness has won him the supremacy (Revelation 17:11-18). And this is the Prince of the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks; the Antichrist of the New Testament; the man whom Satan will incarnate to administer his awful power on earth; the man to whom he will give "his throne, his power and great authority"—all that the Lord Jesus refused in the days of His humiliation.
The times of the Gentiles, which began with enforced worship of the image of the holy man Daniel, whom Nebuchadnezzar named after his god, will end with the enforced worship of a supposedly holy man (Daniel 3; Revelation 13).
Jewish Supremacism in Israel's Desolation. Israel's Redemption:
The Adamic dispensation was brought to an end by the judgment of the Great Flood; and the Noachic was marked by the Babylonian apostasy in which the primeval revelation was utterly corrupted. An apostasy so subtly adapted to our fallen nature that Yahweh Torah and organized Christianity are overcome by it. God called Abraham and his race to be His agents and witnesses on earth, and "unto them were committed the oracles of God" (Romans 3:2). But the nation of Israel proved false to that trust; and instead of being Light-bearers to the world, they proudly claimed a monopoly of Divine favour. The Holy Temple, designed to be "a house of prayer for all nations," they regarded as their own house, and ended by making it "a den of thieves" (Isaiah 56:3-8; Matthew 21:13).
Here, then, is the clue to a right reading of Romans 11, a chapter of cardinal importance to the student of prophecy. The Apostle's warning to us Gentiles not to be "wise in our own conceits" is practically ignored, as witness the illusion that the Christian Church (so-called) has ousted Israel from the olive tree. The teaching of the chapter is explicit, that Gentiles are "wild olive branches, grafted, contrary to nature [into Christ the root] of a good olive tree," the natural branches being Israelite. But they are only branches. For the allegory of the olive tree points back to the Abrahamic covenant and promise. And it is not as "members of the Church" that we are grafted into it, but as individual Gentiles, who, in virtue of faith, became "children of Abraham." In the true Church there is neither Judean nor Gentile. Neither is there in the Vine, which represents a vital relationship with Christ manifested by fruit-bearing.
This chapter teaches emphatically that the present age is not only parenthetical (i.e. the time space between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks), but in its earthly aspect, abnormal. And further, that as Israel was cut off because of unbelief, so the professing church of this age will be cut off (II Thessalonians 2:3). Then "There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And so all Israel shall be saved," all 144,000 of them (Romans 11:26; Joel 2:32).
Even with knowledge of the evil history and present condition of the false church, we can form no adequate conception of what it will become when that tiny number of true Christians are caught up to heaven, and the influence of the Holy Spirit is no longer felt. But with awe we ponder the words of the Apocalyptic vision, that when the day of its judgment comes all heaven will ring with Hallelujahs, and the living creatures who sit around the throne will fall upon their faces in adoring worship as they join in the refrain, "Amen; Allelujah, all Israel shall be saved. And if the casting away of them was brought reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but Life from the dead!" nl410.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations overseas. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
Bible Believers' Church
Gunnedah NSW
Australia 2380e-mail Bible Believers URL Bible Believers' Website
PowerPoint presentation The Second Coming of Christ
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