February 4, 2010

Printable/viewable PDF format for browsers that do not support Greek or Hebrew characters

End Notes

From the East and from the West

__________________

And the word of the Lord of hosts came, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the Lord: I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus says the Lord of hosts: If it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my sight, declares the Lord of hosts? Thus says the Lord of hosts: behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.” (Zech 8:1–8)

__________________

1.

The Lord did not, during Zechariah’s days or in the centuries between the prophet Zechariah and priest Zechariah (father of John the Baptist), dwell in the midst of earthly Jerusalem. Once the glory of the Lord left the temple, the glory of the Lord did not return to Jerusalem. Old men did not sit in the streets of Jerusalem either before, during, or after the days of the Maccabees. The natural descendants of the patriarchs were not saved, nor were they even gathered together. They remained dispersed exiles in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia (1 Pet 1:1) until they were scattered even farther after the rebellions of 66–70 CE and of 131–135 CE. In Judah and in lands ruled by Rome, the natural descendants became a slave people. Only in Babylon and in the Parthian Empire were “Jews” not slaves, not merchandise to be bought and sold as if they were cattle and sheep. Only in Babylon could Israel freely serve the Lord. … The Parthian [or Arsacid] Empire limited Rome’s eastward expansion, and prevented Rome from conquering Babylon.

The Parthian Empire began in the 3^rd-Century BCE as a contemporary of the Seleucid Empire. It was, for the most part, a Persian federation that became a friend of the Greeks, but a friend that gobbled up Seleucid territory in the east as the overextended Greek empire weakened. So it is always wrong to say that Rome alone defeated the Greek Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires. Ptolemaic, perhaps, but not the Seleucids, the larger but not initially stronger of these two empires: the Seleucid Empire is represented in Scripture by the prophetic king of the North while the Ptolemaic Empire is represented by the king of the South.

After the Seleucids pushed the Ptolemies out of Judea, the overreaching Seleucids were dealt a severe blow when Judea under the Maccabees successfully obtained independence, then sought an alliance with Rome to ensure its sovereignty, a mistake that was historically dictated to fulfill prophecy. And as the Seleucids were fighting wars in the west, the Seleucid were losing vassal states to Persian alliances in the east while 2^nd-Century BCE Rome was occupied with its conquests of Carthage in the west and Corinth in the east.

Out of Rome’s (and by extension, Western historians’) sight, Parthia, unlike the Seleucids, was an indigenous Persian dynasty that absorbed the Lost Tribes of Israel. Like the Seleucids, Parthia employed a vassalry system of governance that had a lower and upper house somewhat akin to Britain’s parliamentary system: the Magi who brought gifts to the child Jesus were apparently from Parthia’s lower house … time-wise, the Parthian rule over Persia was roughly comparable to the Han rule over China, and Parthia and China exchanged envoys: Chinese texts from the time portrayed the Arsacid culture and civilization as comparable to their own. And because of Parthia’s organizational structure, its emperor bore the title king of kings and lord of lords, whereas the Roman emperor was simply Caesar [Keyser]. It is this title—King of kings and Lord of lords—that the Messiah has written on His robe (Rev 19:16) when the glorified Jesus comes in power to bind the Adversary, the presently reigning prince of this world and king of Babylon. It is Babylon not Rome that represents the single kingdom of this world, the kingdom that will be given to the Son of Man when the Adversary is cast into time halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation.

Today, circumcised of heart Israel doesn’t live as livestock under a Roman emperor, but as an outwardly subjugated but inwardly free people under the king of Babylon; for only in spiritual Babylon—the kingdom of this world as ruled by the present prince of the power of the air—can spiritually circumcised Israel serve the Lord for there is no other land, no other nation, no other kingdom except the single kingdom of Babylon. There is and can be only one kingdom of this world, of this cosmos. And this solitary kingdom is presently ruled by the prince of this world, that old serpent Satan the devil. But the Adversary’s rule comes from the Lord driving Adam and Eve out from the Garden of God as the Most High cast the Adversary (i.e., the anointed cherub in whom iniquity was found) out from “‘Eden, the garden of God’” (Ezek 28:13) as a profane thing (vv. 15–16).

In eating forbidden fruit, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve ate the mingled fruit of the sacred and the profane—

Since the days of Moses, Israel has known the story of Adam and Eve eating forbidden fruit, but Israel has not comprehended what was being represented in the story: the fruit of the tree was profane in that it is knowledge of good and of evil, knowledge of the godly and of the profane. It was fruit like the worldly holidays of Christmas and Easter, which seek to honor Christ’s human birth and physical resurrection through figuratively baptizing pagan holidays. Thus, in eating what was profane even though what was godly was also eaten, first Eve then Adam became profane things, driven from the presence of God. Likewise, following the Second Passover liberation, the Christian Church, with very few exceptions, will rebel against God on or about Christmas, and will rebel through keeping the holiday, thereby transforming itself into a profane thing … in mingling good and evil, a person becomes a profane thing, condemned by the evil in what would otherwise be good.

The importance of not mingling the sacred and the profane (and thereby becoming a profane thing) requires that the person separate him or herself from the things of this world, especially the governance of this world. In Jesus’ prayer, He said to His Father and our Father, “‘I do not ask that you take them [His disciples] out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world’” (John 17:15–16). In his first epistle, John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). Yet the essence of visible Christendom is truly love for this world, not mental separation from it while remaining physically in it.

The prayers of this world are for this world and for those who govern the nations of this world. Prayers are said for troops before they are sent into battle where lives will be lost; prayers thank God for good fortune and beseech God for deliverance when bad fortune befalls a person or a nation. In an overly superstitious world, prayers thank God for touchdowns scored in Sabbath afternoon football games, for parking spaces at shopping malls, for legislators’ votes on political issues, even for a gold nugget found in a stream. But John reminds Christians that “all that is in the world … is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16), and this includes authorities God has appointed to be terrors to bad conduct; to be His avenger who carries out His wrath on the wrongdoer as He used Nebuchadnezzar, His servant, to bring destruction upon Jerusalem (Jer 25:9) because Israel had not obeyed His words (v. 8). In the days of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and later in the days of Zedekiah, king of Judah, it wasn’t Israel that was doing the will of the Lord as His servants, but the uncircumcised king of Babylon that besieged Jerusalem and eventually razed the city and destroyed the temple as the Lord’s avenger for the wrongdoing of Israel—and yes, the polis Jerusalem was all that remained of Israel, with the nation shrinking even farther in size until it was no larger than the temple mount upon the remnant’s return after seventy years from when Jeremiah spoke in the fourth year of Jehoiachin, son of Josiah (ca 609 BCE). Thus, the nation of Israel was rebuilt in the temple, with the wood and stone edifice constructed by Zerubbabel being rebuilt in the Body of Christ Jesus (John 2:19–22), making disciples the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16) and the entirety of Israel (Rom 2:28–29) that returned from Babylon.

That God has established governing authorities—the rulers of this world—does not mean that God presently reigns over this world through the personage of human sovereigns, but that the Most High rules the kingdom of men by giving this kingdom to whom He will, setting over it the basest [lowliest] of men (Dan 4:17), beginning with the Adversary who must come to present himself before the Lord at his appointed time (see Job 1:6; 2:1) as human sons of God are to present themselves before the Lord at their appointed times, three times a year (Deut 16:16; Ex 23:14).

The judges and officers in the towns of Israel—the authorities upon whom the governance of Israel depends—will present themselves before the Lord on the weekly Sabbath and at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths according to the terms of the eternal second covenant made between the Lord and Moses and Israel (Ex 34:23), the covenant that was not ratified by blood as an earthly thing but by a better sacrifice (Heb 9:23), the glory that shone from Moses’ face when he entered into the presence of the Lord. Moses put a veil over his face so that the people of Israel could not look upon the glory of the Lord (Ex 34:33–35), just as a veil separated the Holy of holies and the Ark of the Covenant from the people of Israel (Ex 40:3). Only when Moses spoke the words of the Lord to Israel and when the high priest entered the Holy of holies on Yom Kipporim to make atonement for himself, the temple, and the people could Israel see the glory of the Lord; for the veil is only lifted through Christ Jesus (2 Cor 3:14–16).

The person who denies Christ for whatever reason has the veil lying over the person’s heart so that this person cannot see the glory of the Lord.

In this world, the men (and women) who rule but who do not present themselves before God at the appointed seasons [the high Sabbaths] exercise authority under the rubric of the Adversary. They rule only as extensions of the Adversary, who as an angelic son of God does indeed present himself at his appointed time. These men (and women) do not rule as direct representatives of the Most High; do not rule as judges and officers in Israel.

It is true that every sovereign who does not come before the Lord as Moses commanded rules under the cover of the Adversary, and this includes every president of the United States, from George Washington to Barack Obama. No president has kept the high Sabbaths of God. None thought there was a need to keep them. And as long as these presidents serve We the People, they rule as servants of the People, who have been consigned to disobedience as bondservants of the Adversary. They themselves remain consigned to disobedience. And though they truly need to appear before the Lord when He commanded His people to appear before Him, as long as they—presidents or prime ministers or party chairmen—serve as representatives of the Adversary, they remain “covered” by the Adversary presenting himself before the Lord when angelic sons of God are commanded to appear.

The Adversary serves the Lord as an unwilling slave to avenge wrongdoing. Remember, Paul commanded the saints at Corinth to deliver the man who was with his father’s wife to Satan for the destruction of the flesh [and its desires] so that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord (1 Cor 5:5). So by destroying the flesh and those who live according to the flesh with their minds set continually on the things of the flesh, the Adversary must deal with the results of his own rebellion against God. And the rebelling angelic sons of God who joined themselves with him will not be ruled by him, but are to him as he was to the Most High and as Korah was to Moses. Likewise, the human ruler who serves the Adversary will not be willingly ruled by the Adversary. Some will desire to serve God instead, even though they cannot; some will serve the death angels; most will do whatever the person deems is right and good. Thus, the Adversary eats his own dog food; for it was he who spoke rebellion when he said (paraphrased), We the People [the angelic sons of God], in order to form a more just relationship with the Most High and insure heavenly tranquility and the blessing of liberty to ourselves, rebuke the Most High for exalting Himself over the assembly of the Lord. Hence, the Adversary must now quell a rebellion within his own house as the prince of Greece tramples the prince of Persia.

As the first Adam was a shadow and type of the last Adam (Rom 5:14; 1 Cor 15:45), the human kings of Persia were the shadow and type of the angelic kings of Persia (Dan 10:13, 20); as the first Adam was a type of the last Adam, Alexander was the shadow and copy of the angelic king of Greece. Likewise, the )4�*@P@4—Diadokhoi were the shadow and copy of the four horns or kings that emerged from the stump of the first horn of the angelic king of Greece (Dan 8:8, 22; 11:4). And as the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires emerge from the wars of the Diadochi, the angelic kings of the South and of the North emerge as the two iron (silver-colored) legs of the humanoid image King Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision (Dan 2:40).

2.

As the first Adam was a type of the last Adam, the first Eve was/is a shadow and type of the Christian Church. And as the first Eve would be saved in childbearing (1 Tim 2:15) but would bring forth children in pain (Gen 3:16), the last Eve will bring forth sons of God in tribulation, with her labor pains following not preceding her bringing forth a nation in a moment (Isa 66:8). The Christian Church will experience birth pains after this Woman gives birth to many sons of God that today believe that they have already been born again when they have not yet received a second breath of life … Scripture can only be understood when meaning is taken via typological exegesis. Paul said that invisible things of God are made known by the visible things of this world (Rom 1:20), and that the physical things of this world precede the spiritual things of God (1 Cor 15:46) as the man of mud came before the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

The Garden of Eden from which the first Adam and first Eve were driven (Gen 3:23–4) wasn’t located in Egypt or in Assyria or in Rome … a “river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates” (Gen 2:10–14). In this description of Eden, the physical land representing the spiritual holy mountain of God (Ezek 28:14) roughly corresponds to the geography of Babylon; hence, in Daniel’s sealed and secret visions, the kings of Babylon, Persia, and Greece are mentioned. All three of these empires (and by extension, kings) ruled the lands from Egypt to Assyria, then eastward to the lands of the Chaldeans and Persians; all three ruled the kingdom of Babylon. But Rome did not. Although Rome ruled Albania and Syria, Israel and Egypt, Rome never ruled Babylon.

Rome, the Roman Empire, the Roman Emperor, the Roman Church, the Roman See—none of these western lands, human beings or organizations, and mental landscapes are mentioned in biblical prophecies for cause. None pertain to endtime Israel, represented in type by the people of Jerusalem being delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, with a remnant of these peoples returning to Jerusalem to build for Cyrus, the Persian king of Babylon, a house for the Lord. Endtime Israel will, in entirety, come from a spiritual remnant of the Christian Church that was, at the Council of Nicea (ca 325 CE), delivered into the hand of the spiritual king of Babylon, with this remnant of Christendom returning to the Lord beginning in the 16^th-Century, 1200 years after Emperor Constantine buried the spiritually dead Body of Christ.

The Han Empire in China was as large and as technically advanced as the Roman Empire was. The Parthian Empire was roughly as large and as culturally sophisticated. And the Roman Empire never ruled either; the Roman Empire never ruled the world, and never even ruled all of Europe. In his greatest splendor, the Roman emperor was merely a vassal king of the spiritual prince of this world, with the Roman Empire a vassal state of spiritual Babylon as China and Parthia were vassal states. The Mayan civilization in the Americas was a vassal state that made astronomical observations rivaling or exceeding the technical sophistication of any Eurasian empire.

There are no nations of this world that are not vassal states of spiritual Babylon. The United States of America is not an exception; for it, too, is ruled under the rubric of the Adversary, ruled by the Adversary because God consigned all of humanity to disobedience so that He could have mercy on all (Rom 11:32). The modern State of Israel is included in this rubric; so, too, are Iran and Iraq and lands held by fundamental Islam.

The war presently being waged between the Adversary’s vassal kings, each representing a humanly governed state or ideology, is actively fought in the timeless Abyss, created from a rent in the fabric of heaven, with this rent being like the chasm that opened to swallow Korah when he and his supporters rebelled against Moses and Aaron (Num chap 16). The rent and everything in it, including the creation and all matter [everything that has mass], is passing away (1 John 2:17). The nations of this earth will pass away. Earthly Jerusalem will be no more. We the People will cease to be.

According to the visions of Daniel, the king of Greece will win the war being fought in the Abyss.

Because human beings are unable to “see” an invisible war being fought between angelic sons of God in the Abyss, there are reasonable grounds for sane people to dismiss biblical prophecy and those who faithfully explicate prophecy as “kooks” and people not to taken seriously. By this world’s standards, genuine prophecy pundits are, simply, crazy. They differ from Zealots only in that they are physically harmless. Unlike fundamentalist Islamic ideologues, genuine prophecy pundits do not try to hasten the onset of the Tribulation for they know how difficult it will be for any Sabbatarian disciple to survive … the person who is certifiably insane is the one who seeks to hasten the onset of the Tribulation that will see within its 1260 days the death of approximately 4.6 billion human beings, thereby making death a truly unmanageable sanitation problem. In the Tribulation, death will lose its present psychological distance and will become part of everyone’s life. The wages of sin will not be concealed in nursing homes or sanitized hospital rooms, but will be in every house, with the unforgettable stench of human corpses reminding all that any transgression of the law will cause the Christian to be a vile, profane thing cast from the presence of God.

If—and this “if” makes all the difference—the progress of scrimmages and battles being fought in the Abyss can be perceived through the spread, in this world, of traditionally Greek values and ideas, with mental landscapes forming the reality of geographical areas of Hellenistic colonization under Alexander and his generals, then the prince of Greece is prevailing against the princes of Persia; for democracy and individual rights are sweeping away the paradigms of the past. Even in the United States, democracy and We the People have reengaged the “progressive” ideology of the spiritual princes of Persia: progressivism inevitably leads to totalitarian governance and is the antithesis of democratic ideals. For more than a century, America has been spoon-fed enough progressive arsenic that the nation is dying, with death now being inevitable.

But Greek democracy in Persia will not look like Greek democracy in America. Greek democracy in Persia doesn’t look like American occupation of Iraq, but like the Iraqi people choosing for themselves their own leaders and representatives. Likewise, when democracy prevails in Iran, victory for the angelic king of Greek will not see foreign occupation of Persia, but will see We the People in Persia exercising self-governance. When the prince of Greece prevails in Afghanistan, foreign occupation by Arabs or by Americans will no longer be. Tribesmen will again be able to self-govern themselves through not American-style elections that have traditionally been corrupted by special interests and co-opted by community organizers, but by elections that they themselves organize and supervise.

So even in the United States the prince of Greece is now prevailing in ideological scrimmages as the Tea Party emerges as a grass-roots return to the foundational construct of We the People. As such, President Obama’s election was a necessary part of the prince of Greece’s trampling of the princes of Persia within America itself; for Obama’s arrogance and narcissism has fueled a resurgence of We the People. This is not to say that Obama has been good for America (if anything, Obama has hastened the demise of the United States), but that his election was necessary. For after infecting Persia with Greek ideals and values, America needed/needs to leave the region so that those spores of We the People can, as yeast spores, leaven all of Persia with true self-governance. Plus, when Obama’s contempt for We the People is coupled with the ugliness of how he has shepherded legislation through the House and the Senate, buying votes in closed door negotiations, and with his community organizer ties to ACORN, Obama has returned enthusiasm to We the People.

When Korah confronted Moses, what did Korah say that was wrong? What part of, “‘You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord’” (Num 16:3), isn’t true from the perspective of We the People? All of Israel was holy, for the Lord told Moses, “‘Now therefore, if you [Israel] will indeed obey my [YHWH] voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’” (Ex 19:5–6). And if all of the assembly or congregation was holy, why hadn’t Moses consulted with them: Moses certainly did not consult with the assembly. Instead, when the twelve spies returned from the Promised Land, Moses didn’t listen to the people but backed Caleb who urged the people to go up at once and occupy the land. And a rebellion of the people was in the making:

And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” (Num 14:2–4)

Then all the congregation said to stone them [Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb] with stones. (v. 10)

The rebellion of the assembly did not end well: the Lord pronounced a death sentence on all of the men of Israel numbered in the census of that second year, with the exception of only Joshua and Caleb. Because of the assembly’s unbelief, none could enter into God’s rest. All would perish in the wilderness of Sin/Zin. It would be the children of these men who would cross the Jordan behind Joshua [in Greek, [0F@Ø—Jesus]. And the ten spies who convinced the assembly not to enter into God’s rest when the promise of entering stood immediately died by plague: they didn’t wander for 38 years before they perished before the people.

When the ten spies died by plague, the assembly realized that the people had sinned before the Lord, and We the People repented before the Lord—“‘Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned’” (Num 14:40)—but the people’s repentance was not accepted; for in repenting and attempting to enter the Promised Land on the following day, the people again rebelled against the Lord. The people mingled their will with the will of the Lord to make of themselves profane things prevented by their certain deaths in the wilderness from entering into God’s rest as His rest was physically represented by the Promised Land of Canaan.

After Israel’s rebellion when the spies returned from the Promised Land, Moses commanded the children of Israel to make animal sacrifices when the people of Israel entered into the Promised Land, a practice that would deplete herds and flocks and bankrupt the people. Moses also commanded the people to stone the man found gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and to make tassels for the corners of their garments so that they would not forget the commandments. And in none of these things did he consult with the assembly: We the People had no say in what was being commanded by Moses.

Did Moses not take too much onto himself? He didn’t consult with the assembly before making decisions that affected the nation. He simply talked to the Lord then dictated to the people what he said the Lord, whom the people did not hear or see, allegedly told him.

How would Americans respond to theocratic rule such as Moses exercised over the assembly of the Lord? Would they not respond to Moses as American Colonists responded to King George III in 1776? They would, wouldn’t they? They would have tarred and feathered Moses and run him out of the camp if they could have, but the caveat is that they couldn’t have, not after the Passover liberation of Israel, a fact made plain to Korah when the earth swallowed him as the Sea of Reeds had swallowed Pharaoh and his army and as the split Mount of Olives will swallow the endtime armies of the Adversary (cf. Rev 12:15–16; Ex 15:12; Zech 14:3–4; Dan 9:26; 2:44–45).

Moses and Aaron, in type, represent the two witnesses in the Tribulation (Rev 11:3), with the 40 years that Moses lead Israel equating to the 1260 day long ministry of the two witnesses; and in type, the two witnesses form the left hand enantiomer of the Lamb and of the Remnant in the 1260 day long Endurance.

We the People is the heart of an ideology that is democratic in nature and anti-God in practice—

Certainly patriots in Colonial America professed to worship God, and patriots today profess to worship Christ Jesus, but they did not in the 18^th-Century and they do not now know God, nor worship God. Even when they think they worship God, they don’t. They worship demons instead, and they will wage war against the person who would have them believe the writings of Moses so that they can hear the voice of Jesus (John 5:46–47) and believe the words of Jesus so that they can be saved (v. 24).

What part of We the People is of Moses? What part of Korah’s rebellion was of the Lord? When Pilate offered the assembly of the people the life of either Barabbas or of Jesus, what part of the people shouting, “‘Let him [Jesus] be crucified’” was of the Lord?

There is a part of We the People that is of Moses, and that part is their belief in the rule of law. But in exercising self-determination of which laws they will obey and which laws they will not, We the People rebel against God through their rejection of Moses.

Many modern patriots in America will insist upon the rights of We the People up till, and then after the endtime Second Passover liberation of Israel … Christians filled with and empowered by spirit at the Second Passover will rebel against God as Israel rebelled against the Lord at Sinai, then again in the wilderness of Paran, where the descendants of Ishmael, the circumcised natural son of Abraham, dwelt. These modern patriots will, through their short-lived success against the progressive arsenic that America swallowed for more than a century, believe that God is on their side when, in reality, they are as rebellious as Israel was in the days of Zedekiah. These patriots will seek an alliance with the spiritual king of the South, the king that represents Sin, as Zedekiah sought an alliance with Pharaoh, but as the Lord brought the king of Babylon against Jerusalem, the Lord will bring Death, the king of the North, against rebelling saints who have no excuse for their lawlessness except their unbelief.

In this world, there is no more empowering rallying cry than, We the People, but with God, there is no greater expression of rebellion against Him:

John records,

But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? (John 5:42–47 emphasis added)

If a minister comes in the name of Martin Luther, he will be received. If a priest comes in the name (or by the authority of) the Roman See, he will be received. If a bishop comes by the authority of the prophet, he will be received. But if Moses were to come again in the name of the Lord, he would be rejected—and this will be the case with the two witnesses. They will come in Jesus’ name as Jesus came in the Father’s name, and they will be rejected as Jesus was rejected.

3.

The principle Greek value that identifies for endtime disciples the progress the spiritual king of Greece is making in his war against the king of Persia is the spread of democracy in this world, and especially in the lands forming the geographic heart of ancient Persia: Iraq and Iran. The Iranian election protest movement will be successful: the martyrs that have already been hung can be compared to the Texans who died in the Alamo, for democracy will come to Iran. Either imposed from within or from without, the people shall rule. Greek ideals will come to Persia, and will be modified by the spiritual princes of Persia as Alexander adopted Persian garb and customs. But in democracy coming to Iran (the Arians), the world will finally get as far from God as it possibly can. The angelic king of Greece will have trampled the kings of Persia in the Abyss, and the Second Passover will be at hand.

In the Lord removing from Judea the northern kingdom of Samaria, the house of Israel, in the 8th Century BCE, with the removal of these Lost Ten Tribes from the historical stage representing their reality’s spiritual absence from the heavenly realm; and in the Lord delivering the southern kingdom of Judah (Jerusalem) into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the earthly king of Babylon who served as the shadow and type of the spiritual king of Babylon (see Isa 14:4), the Lord did in type to the ancient nation of Israel what He has done to the spiritually circumcised nation—

The Sabbatarian Churches of God have traditionally identified the peoples of the ancient house of Judah as the ancestors of rabbinical Judaism and the ancestors of the modern State of Israel. These Sabbatarian Christians have also identified the ancient house of Israel as the ancestors of northern European peoples, with the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh representing the English speaking nations of Great Britain and the United States of America. But this identification of the house of Israel as the ancestors of northern European peoples can only be physical and is highly speculative at best and is wrong at least in part.

It is the attempted identification of peoples by their alleged genealogy that identifies false prophets, false teachers, liars and heretics to genuine endtime saints. From the perspective of the Most High, blood descent is without spiritual significance: “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Rom 9:6–8 emphasis added).

Blood descent for a Christian is only of value to the Christian if the person born into a household of faith makes for him or herself a journey of faith that cleanses the heart so that it can be circumcised. Without such a journey, which will necessarily cause the person to leave the ideology of his or her biological parents and journey closer to the Jerusalem above, no heart is cleansed; no person is added to the ranks of circumcised-of-heart Israel … it is not the Christian’s human parents through which the Christian traces his or her lineage, but through the Father, through God, for the Christian is a son of God.

A person is not born of God because of anything done in this world. No person can make a decision for Christ and receive spiritual birth because of that decision: decision theology is a lie! a scandalous heresy that seeks the destruction of the infant son of God. Until a person is drawn from this world by the Father (John 6:44, 65) as the first disciples were chosen by the Father (see John 17:6); until the person drawn by the Father is called by Christ Jesus (John 15:16) and receives the indwelling of the breath of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø — from Rom 8:9], the person is as a lifeless spiritual ovum that awaits fertilization and implanting in the womb of grace. And as a human ovum can not bring life to itself a human being who is of the nations and who dwells far from God can do nothing as a spiritual ovum to force the Father to give to this person a second breath of life. Because God is not a respecter of persons, giving life to one and not to another, every person will eventually be born of spirit. But as human ova do not all develop and fall at once even though all are present at the birth of the woman, human beings are not all born of God at once even though every future son of God has been known since the foundation of the cosmos. There is an order for the birth of the sons of God, with this order represented in type by the selection and maturation of human ova via oogenesis until the world is baptized in spirit and all human beings are initially born through receipt of physical as well as spiritual breaths of life.

Until the world is baptized in life by the breath of the Father being poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28), a son of God must bear the fruit of the spirit as fruit borne out of season. It is this fruit that Christ Jesus seeks before the world is baptized into life as the man Jesus sought fruit on the fig tree before He was crucified as the selected paschal Lamb of God (see Matt 21:18–19; Mark 11:12–14) … Jesus said that “‘many are called, but few are chosen’” (Matt 22:14), and the one who will be chosen is the disciple who bears fruit when it is not the season for fruit.

The genuine Christian is not the child of human parents, but a human son of God. When this realization is coupled to the reality that the Christian who holds to the theology of his or her parents, regardless of what this person’s human parents believe about God, makes no journey of faith so that the person’s heart can be cleansed and circumcised, what becomes apparent is that few or no second generation Christians exist. All must be converts, or first generation disciples. All must make a journey of faith so that hearts are cleansed. The Anabaptist who clings to the beliefs and traditions of his or her parents is unlike the Anabaptist of the 16^th-Century that converted from Roman Catholicism to belief in a Believers’ Baptism. The 21^st-Century Anabaptist must do what his or her 16^th-Century ancestor did: convert! Leave behind the errant ways of his or her human parents and seek the ways of God, which means believing the writings of Moses and hearing the voice of Jesus and believing the words of Jesus. Of course the Anabaptist’s parents believe they are already doing what the Lord requires, but a simple reading of Moses discloses that the Sabbath is the 7^th day, not Sunday; that Jesus ascended to the Father on the first day after the Sabbath [J± :4” Jä< F"$$VJT<] as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering (Lev 23:11). So if this Anabaptist is to cleanse his or her heart so that it can be circumcised, this Anabaptist will cross into Sabbath observance (the weekly type of entering into God’s rest — Heb 4:9, actually Heb 3:16–4:11). Otherwise, this Anabaptist will be a false disciple, a person not born of spirit nor circumcised of heart, regardless of what the person believes about him or herself.

Because of the necessity that every person makes a journey of faith, the Adversary will not be slain when Christ returns, but will be bound in the Abyss for a thousand years so that he can be loosed to compel those human beings born during the Millennium to also make a journey of faith. Without making a journey of faith, they cannot be saved even though they are born of God and born filled with spirit when humanly born.

When a Jew is a person whose heart is circumcised (Rom 2:28–29), the physically circumcised nation of Israel is merely the older sister of the circumcised-of-heart nation of Israel.

The above needs a moment before the statement can be comprehended … before God, a Jew is not an outwardly circumcised descendant of the patriarchs even when that descendant comes through the man Judah, the son of Jacob and Leah (Gen 35:23). A Jew is a son of God born of Christ Jesus by promise. The natural descendants of the firstborn son of the Lord (Ex 4:22)—and this is where things become theologically complicated—are spiritually the older sister of the Christian Church, and are not “Jerusalem,” the Bride of Christ (Rev 21:2, 9–10). The natural descendants are those who occupied earthly Jerusalem from the days of David until the days of Zedekiah, then again when a remnant returned from Babylon. The people of the ancient assembly of the Lord should be likened to the inner new selves that are born of God, and not to the fleshly bodies of disciples: the fleshly bodies are analogous to the houses in which outwardly circumcised Israelites dwelt from Egypt to earthly Jerusalem

Ideologically, the natural nation of Israel forms the left hand enantiomer [left hand mirror image] of the spiritual nation of Israel, with the natural nation dividing into two nations after the reign of Solomon. The northern kingdom disappears into the flotsam of history, but a remnant of the southern kingdom remains historically present. But this remnant of the southern kingdom has no presence in the heavenly realm: it has not been born of spirit, nor does it claim to be so-born. It, like the Sabbatarian Churches of God, makes no claim about being firstborn sons of God that now have life in the heavenly realm.

The above is of importance: because rabbinical Judaism makes no claim about being born again and because the Sabbatarian churches of God deny that they are now born again or born anew, both Sabbatarian assemblies deny Christ and will be denied by Christ before the Father. The first never has had indwelling spiritual life and the latter denies the indwelling of Christ Jesus. Both are like the northern kingdom of Israel—Samaria—that disappeared from the historical stage when taken into captivity by the Assyrians (ca 721 BCE). The predecessors of rabbinical Judaism disappeared from spiritual view following their rejection of Christ Jesus: they have now been absent from spiritual view for nearly as long as the Lost Ten Tribes have been absent from world history.

From the perspective of the heavenly realm, the ancient house of Israel (Samaria) forms the left hand enantiomer of the outwardly-circumcised natural nation of Israel that has no indwelling spiritual life; thus, it isn’t the ancient house of Judah (Jerusalem) that prophetically represents rabbinical Judaism. Rather, the ancient house of Judah (Jerusalem) prophetically forms the shadow and type of the Christian Church, with Israel’s seventy year exile in Babylon representing the 1200 years between when the Body of Christ was buried at the Council of Nicea (ca 325 CE) and when the first attempt was made by the last Elijah to breathe life into this dead Jonah, the son of a widow woman.

The Sabbatarian churches of God and others who find in the history of the ancient house of Judah the ancestors of modern rabbinical Judaism lack spiritual understanding: their thoughts are set continually on the flesh, and to set the mind on the flesh and on the things of the flesh is death (Rom 8:6). They are spiritually dead. Although many of these Sabbatarians were once born of God, some have returned to sin, thereby denying Christ, and many more deny Christ through their theological teachings. They have made themselves into enemies of Christ when they were younger brothers. They have done far worse than their older sister, rabbinical Judaism, but the truly sad thing is that they have made themselves into the spiritually dead older sister of visible Christendom. But following the Second Passover, through its rebellion against God the empowered Christian Church will make itself into the spiritually dead older sister of the third part of the little ones (all of humankind). So in type, the house of Israel (Samaria) prophetically represents in succession rabbinical Judaism, the Sabbatarian churches of God (that Evangelical Christendom has consistently contended are pharisaical), then the rebelling Christian Church, and finally the five foolish virgins who left where the Bridegroom would be to buy oil before the Bridegroom came. In each coupling of elder and younger sister, the first was made last and the last became first.

The fallacy inherent in the Sabbatarian churches of God’s assignment of endtime prophecies about Israel to the biological descendants of the northern kingdom of Samaria comes from the Lord identifying, once the northern kingdom goes into captivity, the ancient house of Judah as “Israel” (see Ezek 12:9, 22, 26–27). What happened physically to the biological descendants of the house of Israel that caused these peoples to become the Lost Ten Tribes forms the shadow and type of what happened to Pharisees and Sadducees to cause them to become the lost house of Israel. And what happened to Pharisees and Sadducees forms the shadow and copy of what happened to the Sabbatarian churches of God to cause them to become a lost house of Israel. And what happened the Sabbatarian churches of God in their rejection of revelation will be analogous to what causes the empowered Christian Church to rebel against God on day 220. In each case, spiritual life is lost (or prevented) through rebellion against God, with this rebellion being through blasphemy against first Christ Jesus [in the case of the Pharisees and Sadducees], then blasphemy against the spirit of the Father and the Son in the case of the Sabbatarian churches of God, and in the case of the greater Christian Church. Blasphemy against the Son will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the spirit of God that gives to the person a second breath of life will not be forgiven.

The Sabbatarian churches of God today serve as left hand enantiomer of the visible but still lifeless Christian Church, the nation of Israel that will be born of God and circumcised of heart following the Second Passover.

4.

In biblical compass directions, south [Egypt] represents sin and north [Assyria] represents death; so when the Lord says through Ezekiel, “‘And your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways’” (16:46–47), the Lord locates the natural nation of Israel [rabbinical Judaism] in the place of death and the Church’s younger sister Sodom in sin … any biblical student knows that earthly Sodom was wiped out with fire from heaven in the days of Abraham, long before Jacob was born or Israel left Egypt; thus, this word of the Lord that came to Ezekiel should not be read with earthly referents for the named nations. As for Sodom’s spiritual identity, if the orthodox Christian Church [Latin and Greek] is represented by faithless Judah, then her younger sister is the Protestant Christian Church in its many forms.

The great sin of Sodom was its sexuality that caused even Lot to offer his daughters to the men of the city—

Is not the great sin of Protestant Christendom its spiritual perversion, its intimate relations with angelic sons of God? The very nature of Protestant Christendom comes from entwining democracy with theology: Protestant origins lay in We the People’s right to protest in 16^th-Century Swiss Canons. This right to protest, however, transforms Christianity into a profane thing when those who protest seek authority in this world as the 16^th-Century Reform Church sought power … the mingling of the common [democracy] with the holy [Scripture] produces a profane thing that will be cast into the lake of fire.

In unions of Church and State, the Greek and Roman Churches mingled the authority to rule under Satan with the authority to rule under God into centuries old forbidden fruit akin to the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This mashing together of the sacred and the profane fermented into the wine of une foi, un loi, un roi (one faith, one law, one king), the traditional expression of how religion, society, and state were bound into one identity that made no separation between public and private, civic and personal, but formed the basis of social consciousness for more than a millennium. But the leaven of We the People spread as wild yeast spores riding the winds of change once the last Elijah lay over the Body of Christ to breathe life back into this child of a widow.

But before Sodom, Jerusalem’s younger sister, the bastard child of We the People, could manifest her guilt through her pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, “Jerusalem” prostituted herself with the princes of this world … the hourglass figure of Jerusalem, whose birth was in the land of Canaan and whose mother was a Hittite, produced beauty desired by the nations of this world. She was flattered by their attention, and instead of remaining the chaste bride of the Most High, she lay in the bed of Death, paying instead of being paid for the sins that would be her undoing. Her time has about run out, and still she will not repent. She lights another candle, confesses her sins, and seeks another bed where she will again merge the sacred with the profane, making herself into a profane thing to be cast from heaven—there is no good reason for a representative of God to exchange diplomatic envoys with the princes of this world unless this representative is double-dealing and a tree of forbidden fruit.

The 16^th-Century Radical Reformers, unlike the leaders of the Reformed Church, recognized the error in merging Church and State, and sought a separation of power through non-participation in worldly governance … perhaps because they lived under the shirts of whoring Jerusalem, the Radical Reformers understood that a separation of Church and State couldn’t exist as long as disciples had any participation in the governance of the State. True separation is not entirely possible, but through non-participation, the disciple doesn’t take onto him or herself spiritual responsibility for the lawlessness of the State.

When America’s founding fathers created an implied separation of Church and State, a separation that is not expressly stated but suggested through a separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution and a limiting Bill of Rights, We the People morphed theology with rejection of top-down governance into an elevation of the “people” in a rebellion against God analogous to the rebellion of Korah in the wilderness of Sin/Zin—and to the rebellion of the Adversary in heaven. The United States of America begins its foundational document with, We the People, written in very large letters. And in those three words are found the fuel for Christendom’s rebellion against God in the Tribulation.

In the heavenly realm, power does not rest in either angelic or human sons of God, but in the Most High as the Head of the single living organism that has life. There is no Church and State, no mingling of the sacred and the common, the holy and the profane. There can be no good and evil, obedience and disobedience. What isn’t of God isn’t there. When lawlessness was found in an anointed cherub, this lawlessness threatened to produce gridlock in the timeless heavenly realm; thus, it had to be immediately cast from heaven. And it was cast into the Abyss, a rent in the fabric of heaven analogous to the chasm in the earth’s crust that opened to swallow Korah.

The promise contained in the word of the Lord Ezekiel received is that the Lord will “‘restore their fortunes, both the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and [He] will restore your [Jerusalem’s] own fortunes in their midst, that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all that you have done, becoming a consolation to them’” (16:53–54). According to the word of the Lord the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah received, Israel will be recovered from the north and the south, and according to the word Zechariah received, from the east and the west. The Lord will dwell in Jerusalem even though He does not today dwell in any city on earth; for Jerusalem shall not be an earthly city but the Bride of Christ that must bear her disgrace and shame forever.

5.

The peace promised through the prophet Zechariah has been often declared by those false prophets who say, Peace, peace, when there is no peace, but only war continually.

Zechariah also records,

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,

against the man who stands next to me,”

declares the Lord of hosts.

“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;

I will turn my hand against the little ones.

In the whole land, declares the Lord,

two thirds shall be cut off and perish,

and one third shall be left alive.

And I will put this third into the fire,

and refine them as one refines silver,

and test them as gold is tested.

They will call upon my name,

and I will answer them.

I will say, ‘They are my people’;

and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” (13:7–9)

The prophesied sword did not strike the shepherd in the days of Zechariah; for Jesus said, “‘You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee’” (Matt 26:31–32) … it was Jesus who was struck; Jesus was the Shepherd, the man who stood next to the Lord of Hosts, meaning that the cutting off and perishing of the two parts of the little ones must come after Calvary, and in actuality, remains to come. Since Calvary, two parts of the little ones have not yet perished. Not enough human beings have professed being “Christians” for these two parts to be disciples that presently rest in the dust of the earth.

The Lord of Hosts is the Father. The man who stood next to the Lord of Hosts was the Logos [Ò 8`(@H], who entered His creation as His only Son, the man Jesus of Nazareth. Thus the shepherd is Christ Jesus, and the sheep scattered are His disciples. The little ones are human beings, not simply disciples. For when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man, the Lord will baptize the world in spirit; i.e., in the live-giving breath of God. All living creatures will be immersed in life, which doesn’t mean that lions and bears will enter heaven but that even the animal natures of the great predators will change (Isa 11:6–9). Human nature will change. Every person will be born of God and filled with the breath of God so that the law [Torah] will be written on hearts and placed in minds. All will Know the Lord. In the Endurance (the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years), all of humankind will become Israel, the firstborn son of God. But of the number of human beings that begin the seven endtime years of tribulation, only a third part will remain physically alive in the Endurance, when all who endure to the end without taking upon themselves the mark of death [P>lr — chi xi stigma, the tattoo of the cross] shall be saved.

The endtime good news [gospel] that must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations is the simple message that all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13–14) … enduring will mean not taking upon the person the mark of the beast [P>lr].

When all of humankind Knows the Lord; when all of humankind has the laws of God written on hearts and placed in minds, salvation is the simple matter of enduring to the end, for what more will be needed?

The prophet Isaiah records,

In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. / In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. (11:10–11)

The prophet Jeremiah records,

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, “As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.” For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers. (16:14–15)

and,

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, “As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.” Then they shall dwell in their own land. (23:7–8)

So the Lord shall recover His people from the east and west, north and south; from the four corners of the earth where today they now dwell yoked to unbelief and disobedience. There shall again be a liberation of Israel, and a gathering to the Jerusalem above; there shall be a Second Passover recovery of Israel—

Returning to what the prophet Isaiah records,

For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom,

Cush and Seba in exchange for you.

Because you are precious in my eyes,

and honored, and I love you,

I give men in return for you,

peoples in exchange for your life. (43:3–4)

In the physical type, the Lord gave Egypt as Israel’s ransom, but in the spiritual reality, the Lord will give two parts of the little ones in exchange for the life of Israel before there will be peace and another crossing from one world [age] into the next, the Millennium, with the recovery of Israel from sin and death [south and north], democracy and tyranny [west and east] being dramatic enough that Israel’s exodus from Egypt three and a half millennia ago shall finally be forgotten.

At a macro level, the first Passover recovery of Israel and the Second Passover liberation of Israel are enantiomorphs, mirror-image types of one another as the left hand forms the non-symmetrical image of the right hand. On a micro level, the Second Passover and the opening of the seventh seal with its seven Trumpet Plagues are enantiomorphs. But descending even farther in size, the silence in heaven (Rev 8:1) for about a half hour is a respite of three and a half months [105 days] after a year [360 days] of the Lamb’s wrath: these three and a half months are also representative of the time, times, and half a time between the first Passover (approximately 1450 BCE) and the Second Passover thirty-five hundred years later. Despite the wars and famines and plagues of the last three millennia, humankind has lived in a time of relative quiet when compared to what the seven endtime years of tribulation will be like, except for this half hour.

Again, the first Passover—Israel’s liberation from physical servitude to a physical king in a physical land—and the Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death are enantiomorphs; for what is physical cannot be what is spiritual. The left hand cannot be the right hand; the shadow cannot be the reality casting the shadow. And the Lord told the prophet Jonah, “‘You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left’” (4:10–11). Faithful endtime disciples pity (i.e., want to save) Christians for whom they have not labored, nor have made to grow, when within the confines of death is a great city that does not know what is shadow or type and what is real or true … the sign of Jonah contains within its significance the salvation of those who are not today of Israel; i.e., of Judah, Samaria, or Sodom.

Laying type over type in a weaving of macro and micro, in the plagues preceding the death angel passing over the land of Egypt (slaying all firstborns not covered by the blood of a paschal lamb) is seen the mirror image of the first five of the Trumpet Plagues. The death of all uncovered firstborns in Egypt forms the mirror image of the death of uncovered firstborns in the Second Passover liberation of Israel and forms the mirror image of the sixth Trumpet Plague; for again, when the kingdom is given to the Son of Man all of humankind will become firstborn sons of God. So the random killing of a third part of humankind when the four angels are loosed [i.e., the sixth Trumpet Plague] is the reality of the twice-before killing of uncovered firstborns, once in Egypt and once at the beginning of the seven endtime years.

During the Exodus that will be forgotten, Israel left Egypt, a land visually representing the mental landscape of sin, but the nation of Israel, with few exceptions, desired to return to Egypt … Israel did not willingly follow Moses, and circumcised of heart Israel will not willingly believe the writings of Moses. But the promised peace about which the prophets spoke lies beyond wildernesses of Sin that must be mentally crossed as if they were the desert sands of western Iraq in a journey from spiritual Babylon to the Jerusalem that is above. And the nation that is liberated from indwelling sin and death (about which Paul wrote — Rom 7:15–25); the nation of Israel that is filled with, and empowered by the spirit of God at the Second Passover; the nation that incorporates the entirety of the Christian Church—this circumcised of heart nation will rebel against God 220 days into the seven endtime years just as the nation that left Egypt rebelled against the Lord in the wilderness of Paran (Num chap 14).

In the analogy that has Samaria as the older sister of Jerusalem and Sodom as the younger sister, the Rebellion of day 220 comes from mingling the sacred with the profane, with Christmas being perhaps the best representation in this world of such a mingling. Thus, it is through Christmas observance in the year of the Second Passover that both Jerusalem and Sodom rebels against the Lord. Samaria will rebel by its rejection of the light of God in its Hanukkah celebration. So it will be the “children” of circumcised of heart Israel—that is, it will be the third part of the little ones—that enter into God’s rest; i.e., that are saved.

Even though the past three millennia have been relatively quiet as the population of the earth has grown from a few people to nearly seven billion, the past three millennia has not seen “peace” for more than a few years at a time, and then only locally … to understand the plan of God, a disciple must periodically “zoom out” so that he or see can see “a time, times, and half a time” from a more expansive perspective than three and a half days, or three and a half years.

The phrase time, times and half a time doesn’t carry with it a time-unit designation, for it can refer to any unit; the phrase permits comparisons of millennia to years or days.

When the light of Day One is Christ Jesus (2 Cor 4:6), a spiritual day consists of a period defined by the absence of the Lord [the dark portion of the day] and a period defined by the presence of the Lord in this world. Thus, midnight of a spiritual day is that period farthest from the light, the moment that is of equal spiritual distance from when the Lord left this world until He returns. So the six hours from midnight when humankind can get no farther from God—when death angels pass through the land as the death angel passed over Egypt at the midnight hour—to dawn when “light” returns (i.e., to when the kingdom is given to the Son of Man) are represented by a time, times, and half a time (Dan 7:25), with this expression representing the 1260 days of the Tribulation and with the Tribulation forming the mirror image of the 42 month long Endurance that begins with the Son of Man receiving the kingdom. Thus, each hour between midnight and dawn represents seven months; a half hour represents three and a half months.

A time, times, and half a time represents all of the following:

· The period between the first Passover and the Second Passover, a period of three and a half millennia;

· The length of time between when Jesus was placed in the heart of the earth and when He appeared before the Father as the Wave Sheaf Offering, a period representing three and a half earth days;

· The 1260 days of the Tribulation, a period representing three and a half 360-day years;

· The 1260 days of the Endurance;

· The half hour of silence between when the seventh seal is opened and when the trumpet plagues begin, this period representing approximately 105 days;

· And the period from the first Adam to the dedication of the true second temple, as well as the period from the second temple to the great White throne Judgment, when the main crop harvest of the earth shall appear before the Lord.

As the first Passover and the Second Passover are enantiomorphs, and as the Tribulation and the Endurance are enantiomorphs, the death of uncovered (by the blood of a paschal lamb) firstborns in Egypt and the death of uncovered (by the blood of the Lamb of God) firstborns at the Second Passover as well as the death of the third part of humankind in the second woe are enantiomorphs. Likewise, the period from Adam to the wood and stone second temple (ca 516 BCE) and the period from the second temple that goes from being a lifeless stone building to being completed in the glorified Christ (the Second Advent) and the wheat harvest of the earth (the great White Throne Judgment) are enantiomorphs—and this last set of mirror-images have not been well explored.

But before new ground can be theologically plowed, old ground must be planted: because faithful endtime time disciples are today as close to pending doom as Noah was when the Ark was nearing completion and the animals were gathering, these disciples must necessarily know more than the first disciples knew. Except for John, all of the first disciples were dead before John’s vision was given. None of them knew of Revelation; none of the first disciples understood the then-sealed and secret visions of Daniel. None realized that as Noah entered the Ark on the 10^th day of the second month, the day when the lamb was selected and penned for the second Passover, faithful disciples would also be selected as the Body of the Lamb of God on the 10^th day of the second month.

If the Second Passover were to occur on a near year, say, 2011 as an example year, the liberation of Israel would occur on May 19, 2011, with the death of uncovered firstborns—2.3 billion persons—occurring suddenly and unexplainably immediately before. Governments would collapse. In the United States, both President Obama and Vice-President Biden would be uncovered firstborns. How many other national leaders and prominent figures are firstborns isn’t known, but most are. But before any of them can be mourned, the dead must be buried … it is truly beyond the imaginative ability of most humans to conceive of a local catastrophe of such portions, let alone a worldwide catastrophe that renders nations helpless, confused, their infrastructures running without supervision, their institutions on auto-pilot, their attempts to limit population growth the basis of their own destruction.

China has become a nation of mostly firstborns. Any nation with a birthrate of less than 2.01 will have half of that nation being firstborns. This means that if Muslims immigrants are not counted, the industrialized world will see half or more of the nations’ population suddenly killed. And truly, death on this scale isn’t imaginable. Military planners have no computer models for a Second Passover scenario … it is relatively easy to look at Scripture, see the prophesied Second Passover liberation of Israel from indwelling sin and death, then declare such a worldwide catastrophe and the beginning of a period of tribulation unlike anything the world has ever known. But when contemplating this Second Passover liberation of Israel, what will happen is frightening and not something that any sane person would want to hasten. Muslim twelvers have no grasp of what they seek; for the chaos they desire will be the sure result of the death of all uncovered firstborns.

So let it be clearly stated, of the approximately 7 billion people alive when humankind can get no farther from God—when God sets His hand to recover Israel from sin and death—one third of humanity will be firstborns, a number that closely matches present real-world figures based on birthrates versus population of developed and third-world countries. Of these firstborns, a statistically insignificant number cover themselves by taking the Passover sacraments of bread and wine on the dark portion of the 14^th of Abib. Thus, following the Second Passover liberation of Israel, only two-thirds of the world’s 7 billion people will remain alive: approximately 2.3 billion will suddenly and unexpectedly die. China and Western Europe with their low birthrates will virtually cease to exist. And death on this magnitude will topple nations staggered by simply burying the dead. A catastrophe of this magnitude will seem as devastating as the Flood of Noah’s day, or as fire from heaven on Sodom. The devastation really cannot be imagined, but this is only the event that begins the seven endtime years of tribulation.

Of the approximately 4.7 billion that will remain alive, one fourth will be delivered into the hand of Death, the fourth horseman (Rev 6:8); so the math will now have only half [3.5 billion] of the world’s pre-Second Passover population remaining alive when the first woe begins (Rev 9:1–11), good reason why humans are tormented but not killed in this trumpet plague (vv. 5–6). For a third part of the 3.5 billion remaining alive will be killed in the second woe, when the four death angels are loosed (v. 15).

Of the 7 billion alive when humankind can get no farther from God, 2.3 billion will remain alive when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man at the beginning of the Endurance … in a time, times, and half a time, the psyche of humanity will have been “rewired,” so that those remaining alive sincerely desire to serve the Lord.

The prophet Ezekiel records,

And the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God. / If I cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it be made desolate, so that no one may pass through because of the beasts, even if these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate. / Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, Let a sword pass through the land, and I cut off from it man and beast, though these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they alone would be delivered. / Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off from it man and beast, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness. / For thus says the Lord God: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord God.” (14:12–23 emphasis added)

The prophet Joel records the Lord saying,

And it shall come to pass afterward,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

your old men shall dream dreams,

and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female servants

in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. (2:28–32)

Israel will be baptized in spirit at the Second Passover, and the world will be baptized in spirit when the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man on the doubled day 1260; so endtime disciples have knowledge that Peter did not have when the first disciples were immersed in spirit when “suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:1). What occurred at that first Pentecost was the shadow and type [the visible left hand enantiomer] of what will happen to the Christian Church at its Second Passover liberation and what will happen to the third part of humankind that remains alive when Satan and his angels are cast from heaven.

There will be survivors! And the righteous men of old and the righteous that come through the Tribulation will be consoled by the ways and the deeds of the third part of humankind that say they are the people of the Lord (Zech 13:9).

But of this third part, all spiritual virgins, half will not be glorified, despite everything they have gone-through. This is the hard reality of the parable of the ten virgins (Matt 25:1–13).

The peace promised through the prophet Zechariah comes to the survivors, to those spiritual virgins who are not glorified, who do not marry the Bridegroom, but who will live physically for a thousand additional years (because death no longer dwells within them). These are the men [and women] comparable to the giants of old, the Nephilim of Noah’s day.

6.

Except for Latter Day Saints [Mormons], the peoples of the industrialized world are not prepared for a sudden collapse of what has developed as a “just-in-time economy,” where today’s foodstuffs are purchased fresh today; where the delivery of water, electricity, natural gas comes when faucets are turned on, or light switches are flipped, or stove burners are lit. There are no cords of wood stacked in the backyards of suburban America, no coal bins, no generators that will run when gasoline or diesel cannot be purchased. Oh yes, a few homes have gone “green” and have gotten off-grid, but as with those firstborns who take the Passover sacraments as Jesus established the example, the number is statistically insignificant. However, in the third world, with its poverty, lack of development, and large families, the death of uncovered firstborns will have much less of a catastrophic effect; so the world will see a major shift in power from the so-called “have” nations to the “have-not” nations … the primary exception to this shift in power; the pole of stability around which America and the industrialized world will swing is Latter Day Saints, who will argue that their prophet warned them to prepare for just this situation. These “Christians” have been preparing for decades to leverage food into discipleship, and these saints will make war on faithful disciples that keep the Sabbaths of God.

Because good Latter Day Saints have a year’s worth of everything the family needs on hand at all times, these saints will not repent of their lawlessness and will not turn to the Lord when the Second Passover occurs. They will continue in their present errant ways, for they will sincerely believe that their “prophet” has prepared them for the meltdown effects of the death of firstborns that do not take the Passover sacraments on the 14^th. How they will explain the death of their own firstborns remains to be seen. But regardless how they spin these deaths, they will implement plans already made to feed only those who convert—and when the industrialized world gets hungry enough, conversion will be wholesale and will also be the undoing of their plans, for they cannot feed those who do not produce more than they consume. They have not stored enough foodstuffs to care for “have-not” nations; thus, there will be continued war under the guise of peace until Christ returns as the Messiah. These Latter Day Saints will, however, during the Tribulation bring Islam under the “Christian” umbrella in preparation for the third part of humankind becoming Israel in the Endurance.

As Satan is an integral part of the Lord’s plan to save humanity, and as the election of President Obama was apparently necessary in the defeat of the spiritual princes of Persia and their ideological intrusion of progressivism into the independence of We the People, the rise and rebellion of Latter Day Saints are also integral aspects in God’s plan to bring the Muslim nations to Christ: Mormon theology is a bridge between Muslims’ hatred of Judaism and their acceptance of Sabbatarian Christendom.

The emphasis of faithful disciples should not be on physical foodstuffs although they, too, will have to eat: their emphasis should be on the spiritual feeding of the third part of humankind that will not want to hear about a God that would bring such suffering upon peoples already struggling to survive. And to feed these future lambs, a distinction has to be made between the fat sheep that push around the lean and the wolves that devour the sheep, fat and lean, and the Shepherd that enters by the gate. This distinction begins with construction of an events’ calendar … if the Second Passover were to occur in 2011, then the great falling away (the Rebellion of day 220 — 2 Thess 2:3) that occurs when the man of perdition is revealed will happen on or about Christmas day 2011. This is when the fifth seal (Rev 6:9) is opened, and for 360 days, rebelling Christians will slay faithful disciples as Cain slew righteous Abel. The number of faithful disciples slain will be great enough that when the Lamb begins avenging their deaths, it will seem like the end of the world.

The Christian Church, as the last Eve, will eat mingled fruit when it collectively keeps Christmas after being liberated from sin and death … the dust of this earth is lifeless (dust mites being excluded for they are not dust); thus, when the Lord “formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7), the Lord liberated the dust of this earth from death. Space dust was no longer lifeless, but had been gathered into a solar system and a planet and formed into the corpse of a man who received life via receipt of the breath of the Logos [Ò 8`(@H] as the shadow and copy of humankind’s liberation from indwelling sin and death.

When Jesus told the disciples, “‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead’” (Matt 8:22), Jesus established in Scripture the reality that those human beings who rest in the dust of this earth do not differ in spiritual awareness from physically living and breathing humans who do not follow Christ Jesus: both the dead and the dead that bury the dead are as the dust was from which Elohim [singular in usage] formed the first Adam. The breath of life that Elohim breathed into the nostrils of this first man is analogous to breath of God [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] the Father breathed on the man Jesus, the last Adam, following baptism and the symbolic death of the old man or old self (Matt 3:16).

After breathing life into the nostril of the first Adam, created when there was no other living things, no plants, no animals, the Lord placed the man of mud into the Garden of God where Adam would name the animals as the last Adam entered the temple where He named the animals: hypocrites, vipers (Matt chap 23). And when no helpmate could be found for the first man among the animals of the Garden, the Lord caused a deep [death-like] sleep to come upon the man and took from a wound in the man’s side the rib from which the Lord created Eve. Likewise, when no helpmate could be found for the last Adam in the animals of the temple, the Most High delivered the last Adam into the hand of Death: from His crucifixion and resurrection, the Lord created the last Eve [the Church] when He breathed on ten of His first disciples (John 20:22) at a time analogous to when the Lord presented the first woman to the first Adam.

As the first Adam and first woman became one flesh (Gen 2:24) as they were one flesh [i.e., the body of the man] before the creation of the first woman, the last Adam and the Church are one spirit, with the Church forming the Body of Christ and by extension, the Body of the Son of Man—

Christ consists of the Head and Body of the Lamb of God: the Head cannot be sacrificed without the Body also being sacrificed. And as the first woman was one with the first Adam even before she was created, the last Eve was one with the last Adam even before the spirit was given and the Church was created, the reality of the indwelling of Christ Jesus in every disciple. Paul writes,

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit [B<,b:"J4], if in fact the Spirit of God [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø] does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit [B<,Ø:"] is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit [B<,Ø:"] of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Rom 8:9–11)

The Greek word B<,Ø:"—pneuma translates directly into Latin as spīritus, with the usual assignment of meaning being “breath” or “breath of a god.” In English, B<,Ø:"—pneuma is the root of words such as pneumatic tools or pneumonia, and pertains to moving air or breath. Thus, when Paul writes about the breath of God dwelling in person, Paul references disciples receiving a second breath of life. But this second breath of life must have a container to “hold” it, with this container being the breath of Christ. So there are two holy breaths present: the first breath is that of the Father [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø], the breath [B<,Ø:"] of the one who raised Jesus from the dead, and second breath is that of Christ [B<,Ø:" OD4FJ@Ø]. So every son of God exists in Christ as Eve existed in Adam before the Church was created by the Lord, a reality that will cause at least momentary unbelief. But this is why Paul writes about being known from the foundation of the universe: he was so known as is every other son of God who will be glorified known, a subject to be revisited.

Because of the mass martyrdom of genuine disciples when the fifth seal is opened, the Wrath of the Lamb begins with the opening of the sixth seal (Rev 6:12) —

If the Second Passover occurs in 2011, the sixth seal is opened on or about the December solstice 2012.

The doomsday scenario that has been made popular by scholars understanding the Mayan calendar is aptly described by the events that are prophesied to happen when the Wrath of the Lamb begins. Therefore, if the sixth seal is opened on or about the December solstice of 2012, the Wrath of the Lamb has been known to many different cultures and peoples in ancient times, and if His Wrath was known long before the creation of the Christian Church when Jesus breathed on His disciples, the Rebellion of Christendom on day 220 has been foreknown since the creation of the universe.

Pause for a moment. If the Rebellion of Christians who mingle the sacred and the profane in Christmas observance has been known even before Eve ate forbidden fruit, the disciple who eats or doesn’t eat equally forbidden fruit by observing Christendom’s principle holiday should come to a frightening realization: if the Rebellion has been known since the foundation, then faithful saints and rebelling disciples have also been known. What Paul writes about predestination assumes greater importance:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom 8:29–30)

From the perspective of a timeless heavenly realm, the glorification of saints at the end of this present age and the construction of the universe occurs in the same unchanging moment. It is therefore possible for glorified saints to be known from the beginning; for once saints enter the heavenly realm, they will always have been. There will never be a moment when they did not exist, a situation that contributed to the rebellion of angels who were unaware of their own creation and can only see their creation in the sudden giving of life to lawless Christians at the Second Passover, with the Rebellion of day 220 forming a copy and shadow of their own rebellion.

Again, time and the passage of space-time can be written as a mathematical function of gravity. Without a creation, there is no mass, and without mass, there is no gravity; there is no time. Thus, before the creation came to be is the same moment that now exists in the heavenly realm; is the same moment that then was and is the same moment in which the Bride marries the Bridegroom. Every event that has ever happened in the heavenly realm occurs in one unchanging movement; so events that precede the present leave no time-specific record of themselves for there is only the “present.” There is no past, nor any future. The present simply continues unabated as all living entities conduct a dance of oneness with the moves that came before being erased by the moves being made.

If a person were to take a snapshot of a couple on a dance floor, the movements of the couple would be frozen in time into a single pose. Unless the person viewing the snapshot knows that the pose belongs to a certain dance, the pose is without a context. Thus, angels that did not exist prior to their creation would not know any moment when they did not exist; from their perspective, they have always been even though this is not true. So how can an argument be constructed that would persuasively convince them that they had a beginning within the moment that now exists … that argument comes in the form of a demonstration, which has spiritually lifeless human sons of God suddenly being born of spirit and filled with or empowered by the breath of God. These “Christians” that had no life in the heavenly realm would suddenly receive life that the angels can see. Then after receiving life, these Christians will rebel against God as natural Israel in the wilderness rebelled, and these Christians will be condemned to death in the lake of fire as the nation numbered in the census of the second year (except for Joshua and Caleb) was condemned to death in the wilderness. These rebelling angels will be able to see themselves in rebelling Christians, who will be replaced virtually man for man by the third part of humankind as the nation numbered in the census of the second year was replaced virtually man for man by the children of Israel in the census of the new generation (Num chap 26). Rebelling angelic sons of God will be replaced virtually man for man by glorified human sons of God.

7.

Even without an inscribed history, a person knows that a time came before the present moment, a time when the person didn’t exist. The person has no memory of this earlier time just as an angel has no knowledge of what occurred in the unchanging moment prior to its creation. But from the perspective of being inside of time—as a fish lives in a realm of water—human beings simply know there was a yesterday when they were physically younger and smaller than they presently are. And it is through their physical maturation from infancy to adulthood that they are able to see their own spiritual maturation from receipt of a second breath of life to glorification (i.e., reaching one’s majority).

What would happen if a person were suddenly born as an adult? Born as the first Adam was born when Elohim [singular in usage] breathed life into the man of mud?

When spiritually lifeless Christians—who do not realize they are lifeless; they have been taught they have an indwelling immortal soul—are suddenly born of God and born filled with and empowered by the breath of God, they will spiritually be as the first Adam was physically, and they will rebel because of their present unbelief as Adam rebelled when he ate forbidden fruit.

Those Sabbatarian Christians who have used the mantle of grace to practice walking uprightly before God will, when filled with spirit, walk uprightly before God as living sacrifices, with all but a remnant actually being sacrificed as the Body of the paschal Lamb of God. This Remnant (from Rev 12:17) will be witnesses to the third part of the little ones in the Endurance as the two witnesses (from Rev 11:3) are witnesses to Christendom in the Tribulation.

So if the December solstice of 2012 has prophetic significance, the 360 days following this solstice will see the destruction of the earth, a destruction that the small and the great can comprehend.

In the construction of a prophetic timeline, if the Second Passover occurs in 2011, then the Rebellion comes on Christmas 2011, and the following 360 days will see the saints martyred as the first disciples were. Only the Remnant will remain when the Wrath of Lamb begins on or about the December solstice of 2012, and for the following 360 days, men will hide themselves … those Christians who had a year of foodstuffs stored when the Second Passover occurred will now have empty cupboards and flattened houses and the assumed responsibility of providing for many converts: their Joseph will have done them no favors. But because they took sin into themselves after they had been liberated from indwelling sin and death, God will send a strong delusion over them so that they cannot believe the truth. They will be condemned to the lake of fire with repentance not possible because of the delusion that causes them to believe what is false (2 Thess 2:11–12).

The seventh seal will be removed on or about the 15^th of December 2013; Satan and his angels will be cast from heaven on Halloween 2014 … there are 220 days [2520 minus 2300 days] between the second Passover in 2011 and Christmas of that year, and there are 1260 days from the second Passover of 2011 to Halloween 2014, an ironic juxtaposition of dates that probably isn’t coincidental.

With 320 days between the middle of December 2013 and Halloween 2014, and with 105 of these days represented in a half hour of silence, the first six trumpet plagues must occur in an approximate 215 day time frame, with the extra days (215/216 minus 7 days equaling the hour of trial – from Rev 3:10) forming a condensation of the history of Israel into one week during which life and death are reversed in the two witnesses, with the physically living then physically dead witnesses forming the mirror image of humankind being spiritually dead until the kingdom is given to the Son then spiritually living during the three and a half year long Endurance.

If minds are not already foggy, consider the following: the three days for which Moses asked Pharaoh—the three days journey into the wilderness for which Moses initially asked—equates to the three days and three nights Jesus was in the grave and equates to the three days that the two witnesses shall lay dead in public view. The mirror image of these “three days” in the Endurance are not three earth days in length, but includes all of the 1010 days after the third part of humankind rebels against the Antichrist and endures being unable to buy and sell.

A shadow doesn’t cast an image so precise that a micrometer can be used to measure distances, but with God, events will occur on a precise timeline that has been at least partially revealed. And what is apparent is that once the glory of the Lord left Solomon’s temple (Ezek chap 10), it did not return to earthly Jerusalem with Sheshbazzar, prince of Judah.

After three days and three nights in the heart of darkness, Jesus was raised from the dead. This, however, was not at dawn of the first day after the Sabbath, but at the beginning of the first day; at an hour comparable to when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus placed Jesus in the tomb. For approximately fifteen unaccounted-for hours—from the end to the Sabbath to when the Wave Sheaf Offering would have been waved (Jesus was the reality of the first sheaf of barley harvested)—Jesus was somewhere. He was seen by Mary … for more than three of these hours He was not in the tomb. And these hours represent in type the period when the court of the Ancient in Days sits in judgment of the four kings and of the little horn, takes dominion from these four kings, and gives that dominion over the earth to the Son of Man (Dan 7:9–14). These hours also represent the period when Jesus stands of the split Mount of Olives (Zech 14:3–4) and a remnant of Israel escapes through the rock cut not by human hands (Dan 2:45). These hours represent the period when the serpent sends a flood after the Woman, and the earth swallows this river of soldiers the dragon had poured forth (Rev 12:15–16). And represented by this period are the 144,000 natural descendants of Israel following the Lamb wherever He leads (Rev 14:1–5), which is why the 144,000 disappear at about the symbolic hour when the Wave Sheaf Offering is traditionally waved and accepted.

Perhaps the remainder of Zechariah’s prophecy should be read:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets who were present on the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. For before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in, for I set every man against his neighbor. But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the Lord of hosts. For there shall be a sowing of peace. The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.”

For thus says the Lord of hosts: “As I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts, so again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not. These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.”

And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts; I myself am going.’ Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’” (8:9–23 emphasis added)

The nations [Gentiles] have not taken hold of the robe of the Jew and asked to go with him because they have heard that God is with Israel. On the contrary, “Israel” remains a byword and a curse among the nations, a stumbling block for all, especially for the Christian, the Muslim, and the rabbinical Jew. The prophecy of Zechariah that seems to be fulfilled at least in type by the remnant that returned from Babylon remains to be fulfilled in the Millennium when men are few (Isa chap 24) because of the great number either killed or glorified at the Second Advent.

In this era, the Lord has set every man against his neighbor. He has done so by putting eternity or this world [olam — from Eccl 3:11] into the hearts of human beings so that they cannot know the Beginning from the End; they cannot know Christ Jesus. Even Israel didn’t know the Father until Jesus revealed Him to His disciples, not to the nation.

· The physical creation conceals the things of God from the sons of Adam until these sons receive a second breath of life and become sons of the Most High God.

The Lord has set a person against his or her neighbor through love for this world and for the things of this world—“the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions” (1 John 2:16). None of the things of this world, including every government of man, are from the Father … when iniquity was found in an anointed cherub (Ezek 28:15), gridlock threatened the timeless heavenly realm just as Korah’s rebellion threatened Israel.

Endtime disciples need to understand Korah’s rebellion and the threat that Korah’s rebellion poses today: after Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness of Paran, when Israel would not enter the Promised Land when the promise of entering stood, the Lord gave Israel commands concerning animal sacrifices. Because of unbelief, Israel (i.e., the nation numbered in the census of the second year) could no longer enter physically into God’s rest, and the children of Israel that would enter could not spiritually enter into God’s rest because of Israel’s rebellion at Sinai; thus the children of Israel needed a covering for their transgressions in this world that would stem from unbelief. They would not receive indwelling spiritual life so unlike disciples who have been born of God, Israelites in the wilderness, because their lack of spiritual life in the Abyss, could not commit transgressions in the heavenly realm and thereby needed no covering in that realm … the universe and all that is in it was created within the Abyss, the rent in the fabric of heaven formed when iniquity was found in an anointed cherub.

Animal sacrifices would be Israel’s covering for sin once the children of Israel crossed the Jordan and entered into God’s rest, but these animal sacrifices were only a shadow and type of Christ Jesus’ sacrifice at Calvary. However, between where Israel was when the nation turned toward the Red Sea after refusing to enter into the Promised Land and when thirty-eight-plus years later (from Deut 2:14) the children of Israel assembled on the plains of Moab, Israel had no covering for its sin except its obedience. Every man of war numbered in the census of the second year perished because of unbelief that manifested itself as rebellion against God, with the first to perish (the ten spies were already dead) being those Israelites slain after the people acknowledged their sin and tried to enter into God’s rest on the following day (Num 14:40–45) … there is a time when repentance will not be accepted; when nothing the person does will be accepted by God. And the nation of Israel spiritually entered into such a time at Sinai, and the nation numbered in the census of the second year physically entered into such a time in the wilderness of Paran. The men who rebelled could not undo the death sentence pronounced upon them because of their unbelief (vv. 11–12, 20–23). They didn’t immediately die because Moses intervened for them, but they wandered in circles until they died, going nowhere and were prevented from entering the Lord’s rest.

The lack of covering for sin is evident when the man found gathering sticks is ordered stoned to death (Num 15:32–36) … when manna was given prior to the giving of the Law at Sinai, those Israelites who went out to gather on the Sabbath were not stoned (the needs of execution best representing breaking the commandments written on the stone tablets by the finger of the Lord) but were chided: “On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.’ So the people rested on the seventh day” (Ex 16:27–30).

Note: before the commandments were given at Sinai, the Sabbath was given as a commandment from the Lord, and made known to Israel by the bread from heaven, but the people were not stoned or executed for breaking the Sabbath; for the Lord covered their disobedience by not sending any manna. Hence, the disobedience of these commandment-breakers was “covered” by the law not yet being given (Rom 5:13) as the spirit wasn’t given to ancient Israel. Because the law had not yet been given, Israel (and everyone else in the world) was under natural grace, which doesn’t bestow life but doesn’t require the immediate death of the sinner. But once the law was given at Sinai, unbelief manifested in breaking a commandment was subject to immediate death as would have happened to Israel at Sinai (Ex 32:10) and again in the wilderness of Paran (Num 14:12) if Moses had not intervened for the people. But when the single Sabbath-breaker was taken, the point was made that sin has no covering except obedience; hence the Lord told Moses to have the people make tassels on the corners of their garments and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner (Num 15:38). The tassels were not a covering for sin like an animal sacrifice would be for the children of Israel who entered the Promised Land; for the tassels were for Israel “‘to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after [Israel’s] own heart and [Israel’s] own eyes, which [Israel was] inclined to whore after” (v. 39). The command to make tassels was given so that Israel should “‘remember and do all [the Lord’s] commandments, and be holy’” (v. 40). The command to make tassels was given to cause Israel to cover itself with its obedience to the Lord.

When Israel was in Egypt, living as slaves to Pharaoh, the people were not free to worship the Lord; they were not free to keep the Sabbath. But because the law had not yet been given to Israel, no sin (i.e., no transgression of the law) was reckoned against the people. And the same situation applied even after Israel left Egypt: no sin was reckoned against the people who transgressed the Sabbath by going out to gather manna on the Sabbath … there was no manna there to be gathered because the Lord was faithful to keep the Sabbath; so by the Lord not giving manna on the Sabbath, the Lord “covered” the people’s unbelief even though the Lord rebuked the Sabbath-breakers.

When moving from physical to spiritual and from the first Passover to the Second Passover, Israel—the nation born of God and circumcised of heart—is covered by grace; is covered by the glorified Jesus bearing the sins of Israel in the heavenly realm as the reality of the Azazel goat. The sins of Israel in this earthly realm are covered by Jesus’ physical death at Calvary as the reality of the goat sacrificed on the altar on Yom Kipporim: Jesus’ death at Calvary paid the death penalty that stood against the old self or old nature of every person who would be drawn by the Father from this world and called by the Son. In His death at Calvary, the old self or nature of the person called to be a disciple was crucified; so in His resurrection on the first day after the Sabbath [J± :4” Jä< F"$$VJT<], the old self is resurrected as a new man or new self or new nature dwelling in the fleshly body of the old self in which sin and death continues to dwell and will continue to dwell until the second Passover liberation of Israel. The Sabbath, now, becomes of representation of natural grace when sin was not reckoned against the person because the person had no life in the heavenly realm. The fleshly body of the person pays for its sins with its death, delayed since the Flood by Noah’s obedience in a manner analogous to Moses intervening on behalf of Israel at Sinai and in the wilderness of Paran.

If Noah had not been obedient, believing the Lord who said to him, “‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood’” (Gen 6:13–4), there would be no human lineage, no descendants of Adam, no people. Assuming the validity of Scripture, there are no descendants of Noah’s neighbors here on earth today. There are no descendants of Cain, or of the sons of Seth except for Enosh, and from Enosh, Kenan, and from Kenan, Mahalalel, and from Mahalalel, Jared, and from Jared, Enoch, and from Enoch, Methuselah, and from Methuselah, Lamech, and from Lamech, Noah. Except for Noah, every human lineage ended with the Flood. And only Noah’s righteousness saved his lineage when the world was baptized into death. Likewise, only Moses’ intervention at Sinai and in the wilderness of Paran saved Israel, and as in the case of Noah, only Moses’ spiritual lineage will be saved when the world is baptized into life.

Again, Jesus said,

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? (John 5:39–47)

Jesus was speaking to Pharisees, but He could have just as easily been speaking to Southern Baptists or Roman Catholics or Mennonites or Methodists or to a Trinity Broadcasting telethon by simply replacing, There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope, with There is one who judges you: Ò 8`(@H Ô< ¦8V80F" — the word (or message) which I [Jesus] spoke (John 12:48).

The person who will not believe the writings of Moses will not believe the words of Jesus, and the person who will not believe the words of Jesus, will not hear “‘JÎ< 8`(@< :@L — the word (or message) of me [Jesus]’” (John 5:24) and will not believe the Father and will not pass from death to life but will come under condemnation. Therefore, as only Noah’s lineage populates the world today, only Moses’ spiritual lineage coming through believing Moses’ writings and hearing and believing the voice of Jesus will populate the world tomorrow.

Because Noah’s lineage dwelt in the post-Flood world without sin being reckoned to these descendants of the first Adam, Noah’s lineage, unlike the lineages of all who descended from Cain or descended from the unnamed sons of Seth or from their sons, dwelt as physically-living human beings under a covering of natural grace; they dwelt in a Sabbath of physical life extended to them because of Noah’s righteousness or obedience. The remainder of the world perished in justified death because “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and … every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5).

Noah’s righteousness could only physically save his lineage. His righteousness could only spiritually save his life (Ezek 14:14 et al) via a promise of resurrection on the last day. Neither Noah nor his lineage had indwelling spiritual life; so Noah, Daniel, and Job were as Abel and Enoch were. They were righteous men in a lawless world. And they represent in type faithful disciples in a lawless Christian Church, with the Flood making a separation between the physically living versus dead physical descendants of the first Adam as the Second Advent will make a separation between the spiritually living versus dead spiritual descendants of the last Adam. And as few entered the Ark in Noah’s day, few of today’s Christians will be saved: again, Jesus said, “‘For many are called, but few are chosen’” (Matt 22:14). The message Jesus left with His disciples condemns all Christians who do not believe the writings of Moses and hear and believe His words.

There is no love in preaching an easy salvation to the lawless, teaching the lawless to remain in sin because God loves the sinner. In fact, the message taught by the visible Christian Church, a message of love for humanity and tolerance for sinners, would not have delivered Cain’s descendants in the days of Noah, and such messages will not deliver Christians during the Tribulation. Such messages “work” today for the giants [Nephilim] of Christendom who do mighty works in the name of Christ Jesus. Crystal Cathedrals are erected; Ambassador Auditoriums are built; colleges are started and maintained; satellites are launched; and the word of the Lord pierces the hearts of heathens in the farthest hinterlands. But as the descendants of Cain and of the other sons of Seth did not enter into the Sabbath of physical life on earth, with that Sabbath representing this present world where sin is not counted against those who are not under the law, the giants of visible Christendom will not enter into either heaven or the Millennium, but will perish spiritually in the lake of fire as Cain’s lineage physically perished in water. For Paul writes,

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Rom 2:12–16)

Because Israelites did not perish when they looked for manna on the Sabbath, their transgression (or unbelief) being covered by the Lord’s faithfulness to His word; because not all Israelites perished when they demanded that Aaron make for them a golden calf; because not all Israelites immediately perished when the nation sought to return to Egypt in the wilderness of Paran—because a person or a nation doesn’t immediately die when sin is committed doesn’t mean that that the person or the nation has not been condemned to death, for all who sin without the law will perish without the law whereas all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. The person who doesn’t have the law must, by nature, do those things that the law requires if the person is not to perish. And in doing what the law requires, the person shows that the works of the law are written on hearts and minds. This person, when born of God or when resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment, shall live; for this person today dwells in a physical Sabbath because of the righteousness (obedience) of Noah.

Sometimes Christians are so surrounded by the lawlessness of this world—and so accepting of this lawlessness—that they do not realize they would not even be here if not for the obedience of their ancestor Noah. They have the good fortune of being born into a physical “rest” that really doesn’t seem all that restful. But because they have been born on this side of the Flood doesn’t mean that God will accept them as they are. Rather, as humankind descends from the first man, Adam, through Seth then through Noah, the sons of God descend from the last Adam through Abraham then through Moses. As the first Adam fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth (Gen 5:3), the Lord promised to make of Abraham a great nation and a blessing to those who bless him (Gen 12:2).

In type, Abraham is to the Lord as Seth was to Adam, with descent reckoned through obedience by faith. And as it was not all of Seth’s lineage that entered in the Ark but only those coming through Noah, not be all of Abraham’s lineage will enter into salvation but only those disciples born of God who come through Moses, a type of Christ Jesus … on repeated occasions the Lord told Moses that He would a great nation from him, a promise He intends to keep regardless of Moses’ protestations.

When the seventh seal is removed, there shall be 320 days until dawn, until the kingdom of this world is given to the Son of Man, with 105 of those days represented in the half hour of quiet. This means the last long hour before dawn represents “‘the hour of trial … coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth’” (Rev 3:10). This hour of trial will see the random death of a third part of then living humankind when the four angels are loosed, so the math goes as follows. Only Philadelphia will be excepted, and then only because Philadelphia has kept and delivered the message about the Endurance, in which all who endure to the end shall be saved,

* * *

"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

* * * * *

[ Archived End Notes ] [ Home ]