Moriel Ministries

We made it this far: Israel at 78

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 11:30:21 GMT

We made it this far: Israel at 78

Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM

Since the last anniversary milestone of Israel at 75, we have been embroiled in relentless wars. Citizens had little respite to enjoy this year's festivities, coming on the heels of a lull in fighting on the Iranian and Lebanese fronts. We are constantly waiting for a breakthrough on the horizon that will normalize our relations with our neighbors and secure our position on the world stage. It is acutely exhausting to be the focus of the world's attention. But also there is a sense of inevitability accompanying the Zionist project. Specifically that Israel is destined to be central in the wider region and global affairs. Why is this? Is it due to it being a western transplant? Being geographically positioned on the crossroads of three continents? Religious believers would point to prophetic fulfillment. It is short sighted to only look at how our problems are rooted in today’s' reality. Greater forces are at work that will dictate the direction that Israel is heading. The Jewish diaspora will likely find itself in a growing precarious position that will lead to increasing Aliyah (immigration to Israel) and will perhaps ferment the emergence of a second Jewish commonwealth that will not need to heed international pressure in the same way that todays' polity finds itself doing.

In this light it is interesting to ponder how our posterity would view our predicament and gains. And I frame matters in these terms with intentionality. We are enmeshed in a seemingly intractable conflict with the Palestinians, and yet Israel has made great gains particularly in the technological fields. There is a current of thinking that perceives Israel's way out of its quagmire is by making itself indispensable to technological advancements. We don't know how tomorrows' world will be shaped by the rapidly advancing AI revolution but so far Israel has proven to be uniquely adaptable and innovative to technological change. This has proved to be a boon to Israel's economy, as have offshore natural gas discoveries being developed in concert with Greece, Greek Cypriot and American energy interests that are geographically and strategically removed from any Straits of Hormuz shipping impediments that strangle the Persian Gulf deposits shared by Qatar and Iran.

On another note we should contextualize the situation. How different are Israel's challenges from other nations? Is Israel any less stable than other countries (particularly in the region)? Israel doesn't find itself uniquely challenged to define its identity (most European countries do also, particularly in light of immigration). Nor does the government experience any more volatility than other comparable democracies. Israel's real problems lay in the nature of how its Jewish citizens desire to govern themselves. It is arguable whether the judicial reform protests that occupied public discourse in pre-October 7th Israel would have led to serious civil strife. But it is without doubt that this impasse was allayed by the external attack. The underlying tensions remain unresolved and there are many ways that they could play out. It has been framed as a battle for Israel's soul.

Israel's enemies predict that Zionism is imploding and that the State won't survive another 5-10 years. Supporting this claim, they point to Israel's increasing alienation and growing pariah status on the international stage. Our Prime Minister has been indicted for war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Even public opinion in our staunchest ally the U.S. has turned sharply against Israel. With 80% of the Democratic Party being anti-Israel in a growing climate of anti-semitism we have even witnessed the shift of Alan Dershowitz to the Republican Party which must be seen as emblematic of a trend. There is apprehension in Israel of a post-Trump America dominated by the Democrats. However, these seeming incontrovertible facts may be offset by other measures of fortitude. This may be partially countered by the high investment by Silicon Valley in the Israeli Hi-tech sector, making Israel an asset for purposes of Research and Development in America's AI race against China. New opportunities for economic relations have also been opened with Arab nations through the Abraham Accords and with the powerhouse India. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine a world in which Israel's technological prowess will not carry the sway of western decision makers in the long run. Israel's 78th anniversary is a moment to take pause and not catastrophize what the future may behold. The entire world is currently in a state of transformation and Israel is not an outlier in this context.

(Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

Council attempts to shut down and censor local church’s evangelism efforts.

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:58:39 GMT

Please click this link:https://mailchi.mp/christianconcern.com/action-alert-street-preaching-22-04-26?e=f1df30be3f

A critical juncture in NATO's future

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:51:33 GMT

A critical juncture in NATO'S future

Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM

NATO was originally established in 1949 to keep the Russian hordes at bay from toppling those European countries not forked over to the Soviet sphere of influence at the Potsdam conference. Europe lay in ruins. Britain had passed on the torch of global hegemony to the U.S. by tacitly acquiescing to the decolonization of its Empire when Churchill and Roosevelt agreed terms of the Atlantic Charter for the post-war new world order in 1941. So from its start NATO was very much an American driven endeavor. American money with the Marshall plan was propping up western European economies and its military might was forming the bulk of their defensive capabilities. The lopsided nature of this dynamic has informed how tensions have persisted and recently erupted in the Alliance.

During the Cold War the U.S. felt obligated to shoulder the costs of underwriting Europe's security in light of the broader interests to keep the Soviet's in check. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain European complacency became a sticking point with the 'peace dividend' further exploiting American largesse. European NATO allies spent ever smaller percentages of their GDP on defense expenditure at U.S. expense. Now in a multi-polar world U.S. and European perceived threats are less aligned. This was first tested in the aftermath of September 11th when for the first time NATO elected to trigger its article 5 collective defense protocol. And since then the U.S. has sought to continue to expand the traditional theatre of operations beyond Europe's borders. No longer is Russia perceived by America as being a proximate existential threat to its interests, but rather containing Chinese expansion in the Pacific arena.

Parallel to NATO a discrete 'five eyes' intelligence sharing alliance comprising the Anglo-sphere (the U.S., U.K., Canada and New Zealand) emerged. This stands at the center of the U.S. – U.K. 'special relationship'. A relevant question would be can this signals intelligence (NSA-GCHQ) partnership persist should the U.S. withdraw from NATO? Conventional thinking would have led one to believe that with Brexit the U.K. would naturally pivot towards closer U.S. relations but under Starmer the U.K. is distancing itself.

European powers misrepresent the present conflict as an aggressive, rather than defensive U.S. adventure while they themselves are more likely to be at risk. In this the Starmer government resembles the Labor party led committee for nuclear disarmament in the 1980's. It opposed the Thatcher supported deployment of U.S. cruise missiles in response to the Soviet SS20's pointed at Britain's cities. The British left branded their response to Soviet strategic escalation to U.S. aggression. This time however there is for the moment no Thatcher to bring common sense into an equation dominated by emotionally driven ideologies in the face of an aggressor with definite aims.

In terms of the Russian-Ukraine conflict we are reverting to the old question dating back to the Napoleonic war era: to what extent is London happy with the European nations fighting it out alone for dominance of the continent. Britain was never willing to accept a single power in control.

Many variables will dictate what kind of world emerges from the current conflicts in Ukraine and Iran. How will power be extracted from potential gains? What will be the strategic impact of this? What is sure, in the age of Trump this pattern of reliance on U.S. muscle is becoming quickly exhausted. Dating back to the Roman Empire, a factor in the decline of major powers has always been astronomical military spending, a budgetary demand that the U.S. under Trump is no longer willing to shoulder alone.

Urgent Prayer request for Malcom Betts, his daughter and others

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 09:38:50 GMT

Please keep brother Malcolm Betts from the New Life Pentecostal Church, Winsford in prayer. He is suffering from heart failure, valve problems and spinal stenosis. Your prayers for healing and intervention are coveted.

Also, Malcom’s daughter Laura-Louisa is having complications with her pregnancy. Her baby boy is due on the 22nd of April and was in a breach position, however he is now moved to an oblique position which carries serious risk and possible surgical intervention. Laura is also at risk of postpartum haemorrhage. Please pray for the midwives and obstetricians skill and wisdom.

Please also pray for Malcolm’s sister Susan who has sepsis in her leg.

And please pray also for Sheila Carlisle. She is undergoing knee replacement surgery.

Urgent Prayer Request for Teerth Sond

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:55:23 GMT

Greetings Dear Brethren in Yeshua our Lord & God

Hope your all well

Further developments:

The NHS and oncologist from day one got my Markers wrong which in result denied me access to the latest treatments such as immunotherapy and targeted treatment.

After getting a second opinion from Royal Marsden they discovered my Markers were not zero but 13-14 and that I was also Claudine 18.2 which confirmed I was allowed to all the latest treatments such as targeted treatment.

My local MP and Health secretary are now involved and have written to both the treatment companies and NHS trust.

I have also spoken to doctors in the states.

Dear brethren my family & I have been through so much in the past and the valley is truly a battle.

I truly thank The Lord Yeshua for Him humbling us all, correcting us in His parental love (1 Cor 4-6 & 2 Cor 2). It’s been very hard but also a blessings to truly draw closer The Lord- cast of works of darkness/old garments and be washed in His Blood daily.

Your prayers are vital and above all The Glory Of The Lord to be magnified.

Please remember us in your love & prayers as we walk through this battle in The Lord.

Praying for you all and much love in Yeshua.

Your brother - Teerth & Family

The reliability of Asian and European oil coming through the straits of Hormuz in contrast to the US energy independence.

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:15:29 GMT

Contrary to the near unanimous chorus of media coverage concerning the current impasse in the straits of Hormuz it isn't obvious that this is an American problem. The chief consumers of oil passing through this critical juncture are China, India, South Korea, Japan and the European markets. The U.S. has alternative reserves due to domestic crude from Alaska, the Permian Basin, the Gulf of America and domestic fracking. This is further augmented by Venezuelan heavy crude now refined in the U.S. and possible further supplementation with Canadian sand shale from Alberta. Based on those determinations if European powers won't contribute to efforts to keep the straits open, Trump can simply leave them to their own repercussions that will further drive up the price of Brent crude oil.

The question may then become whether the U.S. can redefine the global oil market by legislatively mandating the West Texas Intermediate. Can America divorce the WTI from the Brent prices and from the Rotterdam spot market prices by maintaining a domestic market legislatively controlled? In so doing, keeping all oil being drilled from federal lands subject to a semi-interventionist price control system that in theory could average domestic gasoline prices at $2/gallon varied only by state taxes. Such a fundamental restructuring of oil markets will allow the U.S. to operate independent of global bench marks. This might be opposed by petroleum industry interests who would benefit from higher international prices, but would likely have public support. Such price regulation would not be government mandated price controls in the ordinary sense, but could be legally enforced as terms of condition in federal licensing policies for drilling on federal lands.

Approximately 25% of oil pumped in the U.S. is drilled on federal land where contractual conditions can be easily implemented. These strategies would have a short to medium term impact on global markets and on domestic prices. Medium to longer term strategies however would require a national network construction of safer pebble cooled nuclear reactors, generating a viable source of electricity for electric vehicles. Additionally, similar to the energy company SASOL, the U.S. should begin domestic production of a coal conversion variant of gasoline, jet fuels and certain petrol chemicals. The Fischer-Tropsch process technology allowing for the production of cleaner synthetic fuels has existed since the 1930's and enhanced upgrades of this method are in active production use in South Africa. This would avoid the failed folly of moving towards 100% renewables that have crippled the German economy and driven energy costs punitively higher in order to placate Green Party-political interests.

The Trump administration must lower domestic gasoline prices in an election year in the short term. However, in the medium to longer term the current conflict with Iran affords an opportunity to restructure the international oil market in such a manner that it will immunize the U.S. from surging oil prices. In theory such a fundamental revamping of oil markets could keep domestically produced oil under $50/barrel.

Events are marching forward at pace. At time of writing some European nations have indicated a willingness to perhaps contribute towards a naval response. Trump himself has said that Iran is negotiating an end to the blockade. Irrespective of this, the situation has elucidated the vulnerability of European and Asian gas and oil supply and the opportunity for the U.S. to advance its energy independence in such a way that will directly translate into savings for domestic consumers.

An ex-catholic and bible scholar responds to the eucharist

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 11:53:51 GMT

An ex-catholic and bible scholar responds to the eucharist

Link to video here: https: //www.instagram.com/reel/DWNLjj9DyoZ/?igsh=MXRvdXF3cHk0eW00cA%3D%3D

THE CONFGLAGRATION OF HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND CURRENT RISING PRICES

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:12:20 GMT

THE CONFGLAGRATION OF HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND CURRENT RISING

GLOBAL ENERGY PRICES. WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING?

Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM

The markets historically have responded with grave alarm at the prospect of disruptions in the major sea lanes for transporting fuel. So far, Iran has exercised a degree of reluctance to fully close this critical channel due to Chinese pressure for their major source to remain. The Chinese economy could be savaged should Iran fully attempt to shut down all shipping in its entirety. As the war continues, Iranian capability to realize these ends becomes less likely due to the severe damage inflicted upon maritime forces.

The U.S. has strategically positioned their Armada in place so that they are effectively choking the deployment of the Iranian Navy at sea in all theatres. From the coast of Sri Lanka in the mid Indian Ocean to the outer reaches of the Persian Gulf, the Iranian Navy is simply out gunned and woefully inadequate technologically to pose any meaningful opposition.

However, they may decide to go all in and actively concentrate directed attacks by their small boats at all incoming oil tankers in the Straights. If this scenario unfolds, we may see an impasse in the conflict. Fear in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia has already greatly increased. These regimes continue to be actively targeted by Iran to cause maximum economic impact. They may lean on the U.S. to seek a negotiated settlement. Europe with the exception of Spain has so far largely fallen into line with the Washington consensus. But if prices rapidly increase policy may shift (as it has been with now over $100 per barrel of oil). The combination of Arab consternation, Chinese pressure and European pliability together with a collapse in global energy supplies could cause the U.S. to reconsider its objectives in terms of what can be realistically realized.

Trump prepared for these repercussions and mitigated the damage by posturing accordingly. The City of London's traditional monopoly on ensuring the maritime industry is being effectively displaced by U.S. surety for transit in the Straights. Further, the operation to remove Maduro in Venezuela with the consequent assumption of their oil reserves lent handsomely to the aim of forging an alternate fuel supply to the global markets. Albeit there remain questions concerning the ability to refine thick Venezuelan crude oil as its refining is more costly and arduous than Saudi and Gulf oil. Trump gained an extension of time for getting these operations underway by drawing out the prior negotiations with Iran. Here we can see that contrary to popular comment Trump's actions are strategically calculated.

Complicating matters, after the oil and natural gas embargo was imposed on Russia, Europe became increasingly reliant on Middle Eastern supplies. Qatar is the prime source of natural gas and its depots are being choked by Iranian strikes. If this persists Europe will find it extremely difficult to secure its energy needs. Similarly, India has been acutely impacted to such an extent that Trump was moved to allow Delhi to lift sanctions on Russian energy.

It must also be noted however that at present there exists no shortage of ready refined petroleum supplies, not even including the embargoed Russian oil (much of it unrefined) stored in tanker ships due to Ukraine War sanctions. Trump Administration plans using US naval and allied naval assets to escort tankers through the Straights f Hormuz would easily allow Lloyds of London to provide usual insurance once those vessels clear the Persian Gulf. Hence, the upward trajectory of crude prices is in part being manipulated by certain City of London and Wall Street interests that are in some measure politically motivated to favour the American Democrat Party in upcoming mid-term congressional elections. In terms of supply actualities, crude increases should be no higher than 25% in terms of Brent and 20% in terms of West Texas Intermediary. Predictably the legacy media is misrepresenting the price surge as purely market driven, when it is to some degree being engineered.

Certain questions can be raised regarding how current events will unfold. A catastrophic situation could plausibly embroil dragging in additional actors to the conflict. Serious commentators have actually cautioned that we are heading towards World War Three. Short of this, Qatar is warning of global economic disaster. At the very least we will continue to see instability in global energy markets that will increasingly hit everyday consumers at the gasoline pump.

Prayer request for Malcom Betts & Others

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 08:06:48 GMT

There appears to be a number of good pastors in very serious

health struggles at the moment in England.

These include Pastor Tony Pearce (London),

Pastor John Anglisse (reading area), and Moriel Pastor

Teerth Sonde (Wolverhampton). To these we have just learned that another Moriel Pastor in Winsford, Pastor Malcom Betts has suffered a serious coronary and is likewise in deep need of prayer.

This may or may not be a general demonic attack on pastors in the area of health, however Our God Is Indeed Able to undettake for all of them and each of them.

Urgent Prayer Request for John Anglisse

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 14:12:18 GMT

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

Moriel has learned that Pastor John Anglisse of Ark Christian Fellowship in

England, a long standing friend of Moriel, has been medically diagnosed as being pre terminal in his on going health battles.

Moriel and Jacob Prasch earnestly request prayer for The Lord's intervention and prolonging of John's temporal life for the sake of

his wife Mary and for his congregation and ministry. While "to Live is Christ and to die is gain" for John, his homecoming would be quite a loss for those of us who remain, and we ask The Lord for healing.

We also thank our subscribers for their prayers for our friend & brother Pastor Tony Pearce in London. Tony is scheduled for two surgery procedures this week for skin cancer, one of which involves potential risks for his eye. Continued prayer is much appreciated.

Prayer Request for Sue

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:49:48 GMT

Prayer request for Sue

Jacob and Moriel request prayer for Sue. She is a Moriel volunteer in Tennessee and is dealing with a heart blockage. Please keep her in your prayers.

Prayer Request for Sister Joan Philips

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:32:12 GMT

Prayer request for Joan Philips

Moriel requests prayer for Sister Joan Phillips in Perth, Australia. A widow of former Moriel Australia Council member Pastor John Philips.

Joan is about to turn 90 and has fallen into seriously poor health affecting both her kidneys and heart.

Joan is Anglo-Australian (a "Pommie", an English born Australian). She stood by her husband John who was among those biblically grounded Pentecostal preachers who withstood the corruption and spiritual seduction of British & Australian Pentecostalism during the counterfeit 'Laughing Revival' and Hillsong ('Hell-Song') era.

Please pray for her health, her spirits, and her family.

Prayer Request for Pastor and Evangelist Tony Pearce

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 17:06:20 GMT

Please pray for Tony Pearce of Light for the last days in UK

MORIEL PRAYER REQUEST FOR PASTOR & EVANGELIST TONY PEARCE

Moriel & Jacob Prasch request prayer for Pastor - Evangelist Tony Pearce of Bridgelane Chapel, London and 'Light For The Last Days'.

For the second time Pastor Tony Pearce has been diagnosed with cancer (this time apparently affecting skin) and is undergoing oncology treatment. We pray for The Lord's intervention, for guidance for his physicians, and for Divine encouragement for him and for his wife Barbara. The strategic location of Bridgelane Chapel in the heart of the London Jewish community and its witness to that community, and the evangelistic outreach that Tony has carried out for many decades is a vital area of ministry as is the prophetic teaching ministry of 'Light For The Last Days'. Bridgelane is also one of the relatively few doctrinally stable Evangelical congregations still remaning in London in a largely post Judeo-Christian UK. His ongoing ministry and leadership role, requiring good health, is important to The Body of Christ in

Great Britain.

May The Lord Jesus again intervene for healing. Please lift up Tony Pearce in prayer.

Refuting Tucker Carlson

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:20:32 GMT

Refuting Tucker Carlson on His lies about Israel

In this uncompromising presentation, the speaker directly challenges Tucker Carlson and his repeated use of half-truths regarding Israel, U.S. military aid, and the treatment of Christians in the Middle East. Drawing on historical context, military facts, intelligence cooperation, and firsthand experience across Muslim-majority nations, this message exposes what is consistently omitted from popular narratives—namely the strategic, financial, and moral realities of America’s alliance with Israel and the stark contrast between Israel and surrounding countries when it comes to religious freedom for Christians.

This is a sober rebuttal, a warning against deception, and a call for discernment in an age where misinformation is often packaged as journalism. Click on photo to open new window to video.

https://youtu.be/w4XPorAnhtY

Please Pray for Elon in Israel

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 06:12:27 GMT

Please pray for Elon in Israel

Moriel & Jacob Prasch request prayer for long time Moriel Missionary Elon in Israel who has had a heart attack and has had to have surgery and is currently in ICU. We thank the LORD he now appears stable but we implore the LORD to fully heal his body and return him home safely. Please pray for him.

Your Moriel family

Youtube and the Pitfalls of Digital "Reality".

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 18:42:27 GMT

Who's auditing the auditors?

Thanks to Granniopteryx for this video. You can find her on Rumble or Youtube.

Please pray for Marguerite Moseley's sister Francesca

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 18:29:00 GMT

Please Pray for Francesca, your sister in christ with cancer

Pierre and Marguerite Moseley from Moriel New Zealand have recently learned that Marguerite's sister Francesca in South Africa has been diagnosed with late stage cancer. She knows the Lord, so we have no fear. However, we ask you to lift her up in prayer to request healing and if it is the LORD's will she is healed this side of eternity she will be. Please pray for their comfort and strength and that this time of trial will result in glory for our Lord and Saviour by the testimony she is able to maintain because of faith and trust in Christ. I pray for safe journey for Marguerite to South Africa and that her time with her sister will be met with such a presence of the love and faithfulness of Jesus that their faith is made even stronger in the face of these difficult days.

Please pray for David Passmore with Moriel UK

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 04:13:33 GMT

Please Keep our brother david in prayer

MORIEL PRAYER REQUEST

Moriel & Jacob Prasch request prayer for Brother David Passmore,

Moriel Administrator for the UK. David Suffers from a disease affecting the peripheral nervous system but has developed additional painful symptoms of an internal nature that remain undiagnosed. He is a wonderful, hardworking brother. May the LORD cover Him according to His wonderful compassion.

Islam and little girls

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 22:45:08 GMT

east London mosque's "men and little girls" charity run, by apologetics roadshow

East London Mosque had an interesting charity fundraiser. Let's take a closer look.

PATREON: / acts17apologetics

SUBSCRIBESTAR: https://www.subscribestar.com/david-wood

PAYPAL: https://www.paypal.me/Acts17Apologetics

STORE: https://acts-17-merch.creator-spring.com

Please Pray Jahyraha Cruz in Brazil

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 22:45:03 GMT

Please pray for Jahyraha Cruz in Brazil

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST from Dustin White in Virginia

I am writing to request an urgent prayer for my sister-in-law. Perhaps the request could be shared with a network of believers.

She 36 years old and in ICU in Sao Bernardo Brazil, a suburb of Sao Paulo. She has Restrictive Pericarditis, or calcification of the pericardium. She is unmarried without children.

She is stable, but critical, and is scheduled for a pericardiectomy this Tuesday, 7th September. It will be an open heart procedure where they will remove part or all of the pericardium and it is considered higher risk. The pericardiectomy is also known for the risk of developing long term side effects.

Please pray for healing, a successful outcome without side effects, and for peace for the family. Her name is Jahyraha (Ya-heda) Cruz.

Thank you so much for your time! My wife Natalya and I had lived in England for a while and started following Moriel teachings online from that time.

God Bless,

Dustin White

Virginia USA

Revival in the Heartland Oct 5, 2025

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 00:25:03 GMT

A historic first-ever moment calling a generation to the rest found in Jesus at the iconic carver Hawkeye arena in Iowa city, Iowa

New Paragraph

UK 1984

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 23:49:19 GMT

UK- where you can't speak or laugh unless big brother agrees with you.

Click the photo to watch the video

Please pray for Jill du plessis in South africa and Pastor Dema in Ukraine

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 19:46:44 GMT

Please pray for Jill du plessis in South africa and Pastor Dema in Ukraine

Moriel & Jacob Prasch request prayer for long time Moriel friend in South Africa Jill Du Plessis who is

battling very serious stage 4 lung cancer and is undergoing surgical and chemo therapy treatment. Her

husband Pierre (now with The Lord) was a leader of a Moriel linked congregation in Port Elizabeth.

We also request prayer for pastor for Pastor Dema in The Ukraine who operates a Christian war relief

ministry supported by Moriel. He has been diagnosed with pneumonia and had been unable to get medical

treatment. This situation from a medical perspective is not ideal and his ministry is important.

Prayer for these two believers is much needed and valued.

What Charlie Kirk Warned of and Basically Predicted

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 21:39:26 GMT

What Charlie Kirk warned of and basically predicted

We mourn the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk. May the LORD comfort his young family.

Please pray for Jay's father who has had a fall.

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 19:22:48 GMT

Please pray for Jay's father who is in pain from a fall.

Jay's father has had a bad fall. Thank the LORD he did not break any bones, but he is elderly and is in a lot of pain still. He has very painful bruising and all of us at Moriel pray he heals quickly. Please join us in prayer for Jay and his father as he repairs from his injuries.

Please pray for my brother Peter in Costa Rica

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:56:30 GMT

Please pray for Peter in Costa rica Praise REPORT UPDATE

My sister has been with Peter since I was 9 years old. He has come down with a terrible bacterial infection and is in septic shock. He is not saved and I have been trying to witness to my unsaved family all weekend in the face of this danger. Please pray for them. I know that healing is a sign to the unbeliever and that while this illness is like a perfect storm of circumstances converging, GOD is over the storms. May the Lord Jesus be truly revealed to them and bring salvation to them in the midst of the storm. Thank you for your prayers.

Peter is still in hospital in Costa Rica. He has something called Fournier's Gangrene and it is very serious. As I write this he is going in for another surgery. Please, please keep praying. It is very serious.

Praise the LORD for His mercy and goodness!! My brother Peter is released from hospital and recovering now at home!! It is amazing!!! Thank you for all the believers who prayed.

Your sister thanks be to Jesus,

Mea

Please keep Pastor Marco Quintana in prayer!

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:47:05 GMT

Marco has just been moved out of ICU. Praise the LORD!

MORIEL PRAYER REQUESTS

Moriel thanks our brethren for their prayers for Jacob Prasch who took ill again with serious cellulitis while in Asia at Moriel missions, and had

to cancel itinerary dates in Australia & New Zealand and return to the USA. He remains ill due to his lymphatic disorder but his condition has stabilized.

We also continue to ask for prayers for Pastor Teerth Sond who pastors a Moriel affiliated congregation in the UK who is undergoing immunotherapy and chemotherapy in his battle with cancer.

Your family at Moriel

Please pray for May Loh who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 16:49:29 GMT

Please pray for May Loh who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

We are asking for prayer for our dear sister May Loh who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. May has been struggling with a non-cancerous brain tumour requiring half yearly MRI's. May has also now been diagnosed with Stage 1 Esophageal Varices and we pray that it will not move to Stage 2 which can be fatal. Please also keep May in prayer for help with her Epilepsy and Type 2 Diabetes.

Urgent need for prayer for Beryl's daughter

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 15:24:39 GMT

Please pray for beryl's daughter, Jacqueline.

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

Moriel & Jacob Prasch request urgent prayer for Jacqui, the daughter of Moriel UK Bookings coordinator & conference organiser Beryl Hunter and her husband Peter, (who have only recently lost their son Andrew to illness).

Jacqui does not walk in faith with Jesus and has been diagnosed with a serious adrenal gland malady where cancer is suspected.

Please pray that The Lord will use this health crises to draw Jacqui to a repentant faith in Christ and that in His mercy The Lord will intervene for healing and prolong her temporal life, and grant wisdom to her physicians.

Please also pray for Peter & Beryl who are already bereaved from the departure of their son Andrew. This is a very difficult time.

Early Jewish Literature Validates Christianity

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 03:31:58 GMT

Click on the photo to hear an argument worth hearing

Jacob has asked this to be posted for your consideration and use.

Prayers answered for Pierre Moseley in NZ

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 19:00:47 GMT

Pierre Moseley is out of hospital. Praise the LORD!!

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Warning about website collecting data on Jewish families

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 23:35:24 GMT

Beware of Website called https://lionnights

The Israeli Embassy has requested that we share the following important message with the Israel friendly Evangelical Christian community:

Dear friends,

At this time, a website claiming to assist Jews living abroad is being circulated:

https://lionnights

The website collects information about Jewish and Israeli families abroad and invites people to “host Jews and Israelis.”

There is a serious suspicion that this site is operated by hostile entities aiming to identify and harm Jewish and Israeli families!

Under no circumstances should you provide personal information on this website!!

Stay away and spread this message – do not use this site, and only rely on official channels of the Israeli government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and its embassies.

In urgent or emergency cases, you can contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ situation room, which operates 24/7:

• Phone: +972-2-5303155

• Fax: +972-2-5303896

• Email: matzav@mfa.gov.il

Please Pray for Ken from Ken's Corner

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 20:29:59 GMT

LORD WE LIFT UP OUR Ken!

The Moriel family want to inform you that Ken is currently in hospital.

Please pray for him and his wife as this is a difficult situation and we all desire for them to be a strong witness while he is suffering, but we pray the LORD will cut short his ordeal and deliver him from his medical crisis quickly.

We wait upon the mercy and lovingkindness of the LORD and ask that you pray for Ken's strength and faithfulness in the midst of his trial. Lord we pray for healing and a glorification of the Son through Ken's faith and testimony among the medical staff.

Please pray as the LORD leads!

Your family at Moriel

There is still hope for Ireland

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 17:45:52 GMT

Click on the photo to hear a pastor's appeal

All Nations Church Dublin speaking about the disturbing antisemitic political shift in Ireland. He gives a warning about the growth of Islam in the Western world. Jacob thought it was worth posting for others to listen and share. Please pray for Ireland.

Brigitte Gabriel exposes the Muslim Brotherhood plan to destroy US

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 00:43:15 GMT

Click on the photo to hear Brigitte Gabriel

Brigitte Gabriel

@ACTBrigitte

Survivor of Terrorism. @ACTforAmerica

Founder & Chairman. NYT Best-Selling Author. National Security Expert. RTs/Likes are NOT Endorsements. OFFICIAL ACCOUNT.

Marco Quintana in Fresno California July 11-13

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 09:18:27 GMT

Come and join the saints and our dear brother Marco Quintana for fellowship and teaching.

New Paragraph

A RESPONSE TO : The 50 YEAR 'CULTURE WAR' in AMERICA - Who Won??

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 06:54:33 GMT

Andrew, I love you as a brother and I appreciate so much of what you do and write. This piece of garbage by J. Paulette Peltier however is an offensive exception and an insult to any Christian with an ounce of reason.

As a saved American born and Born Again believer in Jesus, I do not believe this silly nonsense. The Word of God and factual reality demand otherwise.

EDUCATION

The anti God Earl Warren (appointed by the Republican Eisenhauer) REPUBLICAN Supreme Court ordered God out of the classroom, banning prayer in schools.

PRO LIFE

The baby murdering Warren Berger (appointed by the Republican Nixon) REPUBLICAN Supreme Court ordered God out of the Hospitals with Roe v Wade abortion.

GOD'S LAW

The pro sex pervert Sandra Day O'Connor REPUBLICAN Supreme Court Justice (appointed by Republican President Reagan) authored the Supreme Court decision outlawing the Texas Sodomy laws that opened the flood gates for same sex marriage nationally. After lying to Christian America through his corrupt politician teeth that he was pro-life, Reagan appointed Day O'Connor - a pro-abortion judge - to the Supreme Court. It was Reagan's Day O'Connor who wrote the corrupt judicial decree ordering The 10 Commandments out if the Judicial building in Alabama.

LGBTQ+

Reagan the Republican also nominated, and the Republican Bush appointed the homosexual judge Vaughn Walker who outlawed California Proposition 8 voted by referendum by the majority of voters to protect heterosexual marriage. The decision stated that "Christianity" was responsible for homophobia. These were all Republicans who put America on the road to spiritual and moral suicide. Like the Democrats, it is a satanic party that has been consistently led by hypocritical politicians with the no more biblical convictions than pigs & dogs. It was Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist preacher who from the pulpit packaged the Republican Party as the party of Christianity in his campaigning for Reagan. Falwell hosted the anti christ Korean cut leader Sun Yung Moon of the Unification church to address the student body at the chapel in Liberty University. Moon identified himself as 'Lord of The Second Advent ' The literal return of Christ. After getting a few million dollars from him, Falwell lauded him from the pulpit as an "unsung hero", despite Moon's felony conviction and imprisonment for fraud.

OCCULT

Reagan meanwhile had a wife, Nancy, advising him who had fortune tellers like Jean Dixon, and astrologers in the White House doing Reagan's astrological zodiac chart advising her how to counsel him in running the country.

These are the stinking demonic Republicans. Nancy Reagan practiced what God's Word denounces as 'Witchcraft'.

I pray for Mr. Trump daily. I painfully wish the so called 'evangelical advisors' he surrounds himself with such as the false teacher, con artist, and immoral woman Paula White who carried on in public with a still married Benny Hinn.

From outlawing God in the classroom, outlawing God from the maternity ward, and outlawing God & His10 Commandments from the court room, the Republican Party is truly wicked and Godless.

The Republican Party is saturated with hypocrites, witches, liars, heretics, and whores. Why doesn't Paulette Peltier pick up a bible and begin living in the real world instead of being so naive, undiscerning, gullible, and very frankly stupid? Jesus commanded we be innocent as doves but shrewd as serpents. Paulette Peltier sadly fails to do so.

May The Lord correct her. Please do not give platform or outlet to such well-intentioned, yet ignorant voices such as hers. She speaks like a silly, easily deceived and misled woman. I do not judge her personal faith or her motives.

Her words however are unadulterated pseudo spiritual and grossly misinformed rubbish.

Respectfully in Christ,

J.Jacob Prasch / Moriel

Prayers in the UK

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:03:58 GMT

Please Pray for repentance and mercy for the UK and the church as a whole. We are one body.

There is a serious increase of lawlessness in the UK and other places. This is a time to seek the LORD and repent of our sins as a church. Our complacency with our calling and great commission, and even our cooperation with sin as immorality is growing in the church. People supporting and promoting sin in the name of Jesus. It should not be this way. The LORD requires holiness. We need mercy wherever we are and if we want to receive mercy, we had better turn from our own ways, repent towards God and sanctify ourselves and give glory to Jesus Christ.

Jacob has asked that this video be posted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jciP8BTdQV4

Thank you for prayers for Jacob

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 20:15:30 GMT

LORD WE LIFT UP OUR BROTHERs!

MORIEL PRAYER REQUESTS

Moriel thanks our brethren for their prayers for Jacob Prasch who took ill again with serious cellulitis while in Asia at Moriel missions, and had

to cancel itinerary dates in Australia & New Zealand and return to the USA. He remains ill due to his lymphatic disorder but his condition has stabilized.

We also continue to ask for prayers for Pastor Teerth Sond who pastors a Moriel affiliated congregation in the UK who is undergoing immunotherapy and chemotherapy in his battle with cancer.

Your family at Moriel

Please Pray for Teerth Sond

Sat, 10 May 2025 05:33:16 GMT

lord we lift up our brother teerth!

Moriel & Jacob Prasch request further prayer for Pastor Teerth Sond who is battling cancer. He has began a course of immunotherapy in concert with other treatment.

Please pray that The Lord intervenes in this situation and grants wisdom to his oncologists. Teerth pastors a mainly Asian congregation affiliated with Moriel and he has a family with young children.

He has had to step down as a Moriel UK Trustee due to his health.

Serious prayer us very much needed.

Your family at Moriel

The Pope is Dead

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 06:22:30 GMT

OBITUARY FOR A DEVIL

When Joseph Radzinger cum Pope Benedict xvi, (who had fought in Hitler's Nazi forces in his youth) resigned as pope amidst the pressure of drowning in a sea of scandals of internationally orchestrated conspiracies to protect pedophile sex criminal clergy at the expense of not protecting hundreds of thousands of victimized defenseless Roman Catholic children on a global scale, Jorge Bergoglio took his place. This Jesuit from Argentina took the alias 'Pope Francis' referring to Radzinger ironically as his "dad", and asserted a divine mandate to 'transform' the Roman Catholic Church.

Transform it he most certainly did. After responding to a question concerning homosexuality and lesbianism with the response "who am I to judge" in open rejection of The Word of God discounting passages such as The Epistle to The Romans Chapter One, he progressed even further telling Roman Catholic priests to bless same sex marriages, placing the benediction of the Church of Rome on homosexual and lesbian marital unions, while not actually performing the nuptial liturgy. The hypocrisy failed to satiate the demands of homosexuals & lesbians for a full same sex nuptial mass, but infuriated Roman Catholic traditionalists for granting religious sanction to same sex matrimony in violation of their moral teaching and church dogma.

Cardinal Pell of Australia called Pope Francis a 'disaster'. Some viewed Vatican abandonment when Pell was imprisoned for child molestation (but later acquitted due to insufficient evidence) as retribution. Cardinal Carlo Vigano was literally excommunicated by Pope Francis for being schismatic when Vigano objected to Pope Francis restoring criminally convicted serial pedophile Cardinal McKenrick of Washington DC to ministry as a papal liaison to China. Pope Francis also removed Texas Archbishop Joseph Strickland from office for his objections to Pope Francis' position on LGBTQ+ issues.

Pell and Vigano had both ranked among the powerful senior cardinals in the Pontifical Curia. Yet, his progressivist pro same sex activism had only been one cause of discontent among more conservative elements of Roman Catholicism. Francis was more progressive activist than clergyman in the opinion of many Roman Catholic clergy and laymen alike. He denounced the opposition to illegal immigration policies of Donald Trump, endorsed scientifically disputed radial green agendas and other left-wing ideologies in an attempt to use religion to dictate the political agendas he subscribed to as the political policies Roman Catholics should support on religious grounds.

While our own strong theological disagreement with Roman Catholicism doctrinally is very well established, this is not to say that we do not share common ground with Roman Catholics on the contemporary socially divisive crises of sexual morality upholding heterosexuality as natural divinely designed normality and deviations from it as perversion (as well as on issues of non-therapeutic abortion). Without hatred or personal acrimony towards homosexuals & lesbians, we do, as do traditional Roman Catholics, hinge our values to "God created them male and female". Bergoglio did not need to judge; God already has, and Bergoglio used his pontificate to defy Him.

Jesus commanded "Call no man on earth your Father" (as a religious title), for One is your Father who is in Heaven" (Matthew 23:9). Yet, rejecting the command of Jesus, Bergoglio usurped the place of the Almighty and called himself "The Holy Father". Now he knows that he wasn't. The Greek term antichrist (antikristos) co-equally means in opposition to and in place of Christ. Translated to Latin this is "vicarious Christos", the 'Vicar of Christ'. God's word however tells us that it is His Holy Spirit who acts vicariously for Christ. Popes place themselves in place of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Apostle Peter claimed no primacy (1Peter 5:1) but described himself only as a "fellow elder". In the first church council in Jerusalem in Acts 15 it was James, not Peter, who presided. Peter plainly was no monarchial pontiff. Neither did Peter anywhere decree such a position was to be inherited by future bishops in Rome. Pontiff was the Pontificus Maximus title of the pagan Roman emperor as bridge building head of the Pantheon of idols that St. Paul identified to be demons (1 Corinthians 10:20).

The Vatican is the miniature restoration by Hitler's allie, the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, of the Medieval Papal States at the Concordat of San Giovanni Latereno.. Jesus however insisted that "His Kingdom was NOT of this world" (John 18:36). The papacy has always been an institutionalized den of political and financial corruption besmirched by an ugly history of moral debauchery. This is not to state that Calvin's Geneva, or other Protestant states were any better, but it is to face the undeniable legacy of the papacy.

The papacy has always been a dynasty of popes given to wickedness, crime, treachery, bank fraud, and reprobation. Carol Wojtyla / John Paul II gave refuge to wanted clergy inside the Vatican, including the Ambrosiano bank collapse and Calvi affair that involved dozens and dozens of murders and saw the Vatican paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. The unceasing pedophilia fiascos in country after country and the coverups that racketeers wouldn't perpetrate under Radzinger followed.

No, Bergoglio was not the first nefarious pope - not by a long shot. But as honest Roman Catholics, including the senior cardinals and bishops who opposed him themselves have admitted - Jorge Bergoglio, alias Pope Francis, diabolically dragged the papacy to an all-time low. He was not The Holy Father, he was rather of his father the Devil (John 8:44).

J. Jacob Prasch

Please pray for persecuted believers in India

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:07:43 GMT

PRAY FOR THE BELIEVERS IN INDIA

According to our missionary Mark to India. Once again, religious persecution is on the rise, particularly in Rajahmundry (where Moriel operates as a small house church in this region). Hindu militants are once more emerging and launching attacks on Christians.

It has been reported that he fell off his motorcycle, but many are questioning this account due to inconsistencies and a lack of evidence. Consequently, there is a growing demand for a thorough investigation into the incident, as the injuries sustained do not align with the alleged accident.

A rescue for a brother taken captive in South Africa

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 23:39:16 GMT

A Rescue and a warning.

We are so grateful to the LORD for the rescue of this man. Many have prayed and the LORD has answered. Praise our Mighty Loving God! South Africa has become increasingly dangerous. If this was the LORD's way of making it clear to this pastor that it is time to go to another place, we hope he heeds the warning and follows the LORD to the next mission. May the LORD protect them.

Japanese Buddhism: The Large Vehicle in the Far East

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:15:34 GMT

Japan is an incredible nation with impressive inventions, a unique culture, and a brilliantly efficient way of life in spite of having limited natural resources. Where else can a person ride on a bullet train at 320 kilometers per hour, eat raw fish (safely), hear about snow falling on monkeys "chilling" in hot springs, see spring cherry blossoms in front of a 500 year old castle, watch a sumo wrestling match, and be in the country where words like "ninja," "samurai," "karate," "karaoke," "Kawasaki," "Yamaha," "Canon," "Toyota," "origami," and "sushi," originated? Japan, also known as the land of the rising sun, has a very interesting history. Much of that history was shaped and influenced by various religious convictions.

In this paper I will first give a historical overview of Japanese Buddhism and then focus on its most popular forms today (which mostly fall into the category of Mahayana Buddhism- "large vehicle" Buddhism). For a list of statistics, reflecting the popularity of various Buddhist influences in Japan, please see appendix A. In looking at Japanese Buddhism, several themes keep popping up: the popularity of the Lotus Sutra (a sutra is a Buddhist text), ancestor worship, chanting and the use of rosaries, pantheism, Shintoism (Japan's pre-Buddhist religion which is sometimes mixed with Buddhism), savior figures such as Amida (Amitabha), Kannon (Avalokitesvara), and Dainichi (Vairocana), and mystical revelations as opposed to historically verifiable truths.

Of course the various schools of Japanese Buddhism have differences in their emphasis or denial of these themes, sometimes teaching completely opposite doctrines of one another. The goal of this paper is to show the sure foundation of the Bible in contrast to man-made systems, which are interesting, but don't have the ultimate saving power which every person in this world needs to get to heaven.

Periods of Japanese History Related to Buddhism

The Kofun Period (AD 250-538)

The Asuka Period (AD 538-710)

The Nara Period (AD 710-794)

The Heian Period (AD 794-1185)

The Kamakura Period (AD 1185-1333)

The Ashikaga Period (AD 1333-1568)

The Shokuho Period (AD 1568-1603)

The Edo Period (AD 1603-1868)

The Meiji Period (AD 1868-1912)

The Taisho Period (AD 1912-1926)

The Showa Period (AD 1926-1989)

The Heisei Period (AD 1989- present)

The Kofun Period (AD 250-538): Foundation

This period is named after the "kofun" which were large burial mounds used at that time. Although the date given in Japanese legends is 660 BC for the beginning of the Japanese state, modern historians would place the beginning of the Japanese state in the Kofun Period instead, "...modern historians present us with the hesitant statement that a start was made towards building a center of political power in the Yamato region in the late third or early fourth century A.D. They regard the date 660 B.C. as about a thousand years too early" (Mason & Caiger, 25).

"Pre-Buddhist Japanese religion centered on the worship of kami: beings (spirits, people, animals), objects, and places possessing charismatic power. This charisma was perceived to have not only a religious dimension, but also political and aesthetic dimensions as well" (Robinson, 241). Later, this pre-Buddhist Japanese religion came to be known as Shinto. "Shinto, as this animistic religion is called, has no founder and no bible” (Mason & Caiger, 33).

"The first emperor of Japan did not ascend the throne in 660 B.C., but Japan's imperial institution is still the world's oldest hereditary office" (Mason & Caiger, 32). "The head of the imperial family in Yamato, from whom the present emperor is descended, claimed direct descent from the sun goddess (Amaterasu Omikami)..." (Mason & Caiger, 32). "In 1946, the emperor publicly denied his divinity; in 1947 the traditional system of interlocking households was dismantled, so that individuals were no longer bound by their family religion" (Robinson, 264).

"...the kami were numerous and essentially amoral, with no established order among them...One of the principal problems in unifying Japan as a country thus lay in establishing a fixed narrative cycle to explain the hierarchy among the kami so that the various clans could be brought into a hierarchical relationship as well. The truth of these narratives was tested in the battlefield, and a shift in the balance of power would be reflected in a retelling of the relevant narrative" (Robinson, 242).

Buddhism's claim was that it was based on "...universal principles rather than uncertain narratives" (Robinson, 242). We will see later in this paper that Buddhism also beckons help from uncertain narratives and thus has an uncertain foundation for its principles.

The Asuka Period (AD 538-710): Hesitation

"Buddhism was probably first brought to Japan by Korean immigrants...The first recorded contact on the royal level, however, was in 552" (Robinson, 243). King Syong-myong of Paikche (one of the three main states of Korea at that time), sent the emperor of Japan a request for military assistance against his enemies, along with a Buddhist image and Buddhist scriptures, telling him that Buddhism, "...leads ultimately to the highest wisdom and in which every prayer is fulfilled" (Saunders, 92). Ten years later, in AD 562, this Korean king who introduced Japan to Buddhism, "...was ultimately killed and his country conquered by the Sillans..." (Saunders, 92).

Meanwhile, back in Japan, this new religion was met with suspicion by many. The Nakatomi and Mononobe families stood against the new religion, but the Soga family was in favor of it, and turned their house into a temple for this Buddhist image from Korea. Soon however, a pestilence broke out, and the Buddha image was blamed for this. The Nakatomi and Mononobe families, "...burned the temple and threw the image into a canal" (Saunders, 93). Years later another Buddha image was set up and another pestilence broke out. This time the image was again thrown into the river, but this did not seem to stop the pestilence, so the image was fished out of the river and set back up.

The Mononobe family claimed that, "...they were descended from a kami [Shinto deity] who flew down from heaven riding in a 'heavenly-rock-boat'" (Mason & Caiger, 39). The Soga clan, who were descendants of Korean immigrants, defeated the Mononobe clan militarily in AD 587, and Buddhism began to gain more ground.

"Prince Shotoku (AD 573-622), who was later regarded as the founder of Japanese Buddhism...imported Korean artisans to build temples...as well as Korean monks and nuns to staff them" (Robinson, 244). Prince Shotoku was himself descended from Korean immigrants, being a member of the Soga clan. Among other commentaries, Prince Shotoku also wrote a commentary on the Lotus Sutra, which would become a very prominent sutra in Japan.

"Because Buddhist Sutras were all written in Chinese, it became plain to the Japanese that they might do better to establish direct contact with China, rather than go through Korean intermediaries" (Robinson, 244).

The Nara Period (AD 710-794): Experimentation

In 710 the capital moved from Asuka to Nara. There were six Buddhist schools of thought in the Nara Period (Kusha, Jojitsu, Sanron, Hosso, Kegon, and Ritsu). "Kusha, Jojitsu, and Sanron were never more than curriculum subjects..." (Robinson, 245). Only the Hosso, Kegon, and Ritsu schools still have an active following in modern times, which together account for only about half of one percent of Japan's population. Here's a brief description of some of the beliefs of the surviving three schools:

Hosso: "In the Hosso teaching, things exist for us through the projection or reflection of their image on our minds..." (Saunders, 121). "...the Hosso school does not recognize that every being has within it the Buddha nature" (Saunders, 123).

Kegon: "The Hua-Yen [Kegon] worldview was adapted to political ideology by equating Vairocana, the Cosmic Sun Buddha, with the emperor, whose uji [tribe or clan] claimed to be descendants of the sun" (Robinson, 245). "...the Kegon school which flourished in Nara times, taught that all phenomenon were fundamentally one and interchangeable" (Mason & Caiger, 239). "The Avatamsaka-sutras (J. Kegonkyo), which are the basis of the Kegon school, are also intimately connected with Zen. They teach a kind of cosmotheism in which the various aspects of the universe are completely interdependent...Moreover, the Buddha-nature is in everything, as much in a grain of dust as in man" (Saunders, 204-205). Many of the Japanese Buddhist sects cancel each other out, as can be seen in the Hosso and Kegon beliefs about the Buddha-nature.

Ritsu: "Ritsu, named after the Chinese Lu, or Vinaya tradition, concerned itself with exegesis of the Vinaya (the Buddhist code of monastic discipline)...this sect was also responsible in Japan for the ordination of the clergy" (Noriyoshi, 163).

The Heian Period (AD 794-1185): Amalgamation

"In 784, THE IMPERIAL CAPITAL was transferred from Nara to Nagaoka and from there in 794 to Heian , the present-day Kyōto , where it was to remain in name at least, until 1868" (Saunders, 134). In this period two new schools of Buddhism emerged: Tendai and Shingon. "...both the Tendai and Shingon sects explained that the Shinto kami were actually nirmanakaya (emanation bodies) of the great Cosmic Buddhas" (Robinson, 246). "...Both Tendai and Shingon retained the Hinayana concepts of rebirth (karma), monasticism, and self-effort" (Mason & Caiger, 100-101).

Tendai

Saicho (AD 767-822) founded the Tendai School of Buddhism after spending time in China learning from various schools there. He set up his headquarters on Mount Hiei. "Mount Hiei went on to become the major monastic center in Japan and remained so until its destruction at the end of the sixteenth century. In its heyday, it housed thirty thousand monks and contained more than three thousand buildings... The vast amount of wealth donated to the temple required that some of the monks be armed to protect it from thieves. These armed monks formed factions that then became involved in disputes over succession to the position of abbot" (Robinson, 247). "...all the major monastic reformers of the following period- Eisai, Dogen, Honen, Shinran, and Nichiren- spent their early monastic careers at Mount Hiei and were largely motivated in their efforts at reform by the corruption they witnessed there..." (Robinson, 248).

"[In Tendai]...there was a belief in the eventual salvation of all beings...there was the idea that all life, and not just human life, was basically the same; that is, an idea of underlying unity of existence...This teaching was based on the Lotus Sutra, one of the great scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism. The Lotus Sutra claims to be a final sermon preached by Gautama shortly before he entered nirvana. In reality, it was composed long after Gautama's death..." (Mason & Caiger, 102). The five reformers mentioned above were all influenced to some degree by the Lotus Sutra.

"Saicho adhered to the T'ien-t'ai doctrine that recognized universal salvation, that is, the existence of the absolute nature of Buddhahood in all beings" (Michio, 270). In 2004, Tendai still claimed followers among 2.7% of the Japanese population. "Tendai recognizes Vairochana, the solar pan-Buddha, as an expression of the dharmakaya..." (Saunders, 144-145).

Shingon

The founder of Shingon was Kukai (AD 774-835) who also went to China to learn. There are four statues of him in Japan ranging in height from 16-21 meters. "From Prajna [a Kashmirian monk], Kukai is said to have received sutras and a rosary with which he is frequently portrayed in Japanese representations of him" (Saunders, 154). Using prayer beads was a practice used in Hinduism hundreds of years before Christ. "In addition to founding Shingon he devised a syllabary that greatly simplified the reading and writing of Japanese" (Robinson, 248). "Shingon posits a kind of pantheism in which the whole universe is a manifestation, an emanation, of the central solar divinity, Vairochana (J. Dainichi)" (Saunders, 161). "[Vairochana's] marked solar character made it particularly easy to establish a relationship with the native sun goddess Amaterasu, the Dual Shinto system..." (Saunders, 168).

"Shingon was Mahayana Buddhism with a strong mixture of Tibetan or Tantric emphasis on such things as ritual speech and mystic union with the deities" (Mason & Caiger, 105). The texts which Shingon was based on, "...involved a pantheon heavily influenced by Hinduism, containing numerous divinities not purely Buddhist" (Saunders, 161). Practicing Shingon requires disciples to, "...bring body and speech into harmony through the use of the mudras [sacred gestures] and mantras [sacred words or phrases] taught by Mahavairocana. Then, by absorbing one's mind in these physical manifestations along with visualization of chaste but colorful mandalas [sacred pictures], total harmony can be attained..." (Robinson, 248-249). The goal of these exercises was actually to become Mahavairocana, which fits in with Shingon's pantheism. "Shingon was based on Tantras of the Yoga class...the practice of imitating the body, speech, and mind of the Buddha Mahavairocana (The Great Sun), so as to assume the identity of that great being" (Robinson, 248).

Ezekiel, who prophesied around 590 BC, before Israel's temple was destroyed by Babylon, recorded Israel's unfaithfulness to God. They worshipped the sun. "And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose." (Ezekiel 8:16-17) Putting "the branch to their nose", probably refers to the practice, still used in modern times, of holding up incense sticks in a worshipful gesture.

Shingon's idea of pantheism is also reflected in art. "Shingon's idea that Truth (i.e. the cosmic Buddha) included the unpleasant as well as the agreeable sides of life..." (Mason & Caiger, 115). Also related to Vairocana's unpleasant side is, "...a secondary group of divinities called Wisdom Kings (myo-o)...Fudo (skt. Achala), the Immovable, a form of Shiva...He is regularly portrayed holding in his hands a sword and a rope; with the former he cuts down the evils of the world, and with his rope he binds them...with a terrible face from which two fangs protrude, while behind him arises a background of flames" (Saunders, 176). In Hinduism, from which Fudo is derived, Shiva is the destroyer. "Fudo Myo-o is the central deity in all Myo-o groupings...Today, the Myo-o are revered mainly by the Shingon sect...Indeed, the Myo-o are forms of Dainichi [Vairocana], and represent Dainichi 's wrath against evil and ignorance." (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/fudo.html) In pantheism, even the evil sides of life are part of the "deity." In the sutra of the Kurikara incantation, "He [Fudo] assumes the form of a flame-wreathed snake or dragon coiled around an upright sword..." (http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/dragons.html)

Shingon continues to hold sway over many people in Japan. Fudo, who supposedly can change to be a snake or dragon, and who is derived from Shiva the destroyer, is supposed to be a manifestation of Vairocana. The Bible declares clearly who this snake/dragon-like being is. "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him" (Revelation 12:9). In 2004, about 9.9% of the population considered themselves to be adherents of Shingon.

The Kamakura Period (AD 1185-1333): Reformation

In AD 1185 power was taken from the emperor and a new form of government emerged under the authority of a shogun. The imperial capital was still in Kyoto, and the emperor was allowed to hold his title, but the political capital was moved to Kamakura, where the shogun resided. During this time on Mount Hiei, near Kyoto, there were five prominent men who came out of the Tendai school, and became reformers of Japanese Buddhism: Eisai, Dogen, Honen, Shinran, and Nichiren.

Eisei and Dogen: Zen Buddhism

As of 2004, about 2.6% of Japan's population claimed to be Zen Buddhists. Although that's a pretty low number, internationally, Zen is probably the best known form of Japanese Buddhism. "Myoan Eisai (1141-1215) established the first Zen (in Chinese, Ch'an) temple in Kyoto in 1202...Dissatisfaction with the eclecticism of Eisai's Zen led a number of monks in the following generation to travel to China on their own to receive transmission of a less adulterated teaching to bring back to Japan. The first to do so was Dogen Kigen (1200-53)....Zen, he [Dogen] says, is essentially 'dethinking thinking.' With what means is dethinking to be thought? 'Beyond thinking'" (Robinson, 251).

Altered States of Consciousness

Zen focuses on meditation as the way towards enlightenment. The word Zen comes from the Pali word "jhana" and the Sanskrit word "dhyana." "The four dhyanas are best understood as a series of altered states of consciousness characterized by an increasing degree of enstasy. The term 'enstasy' literally means 'standing within.' An enstatic practice, then, is one aimed at the withdrawal of the practitioner's senses and thoughts from contact with the external world and at the reduction of the contents of her consciousness" (Griffiths, 38). "It is even possible to see strong parallels between his [Dogen's] thought and that of early Buddhism: Dethinking thinking corresponds to the use of right view to go beyond views...Dogen became regarded as the founder of the Soto school of Zen" (Robinson, 252).

Early Buddhism, which is carried on in the Theravada tradition, resembles Zen in some of their meditation goals and techniques. In early Buddhism, "Jhana...signifies a state of trance in which all sensory input, aside from the subject of meditation, is totally excluded from awareness. At the higher jhanic levels the meditator is also incapable of speech or movement, and in the highest possible, attention is said to be without ordinary consciousness and to reach the trance of cessation. According to the Pali Canon, Gotama reached Buddhahood (enlightenment) by means of the four classic jhanas, gained by concentrated attention on the (unspecified) meditational subjects he had chosen" (King, 88).

Beyond Words and Logic

Bodhidharma (c. AD 470-534), who in Japan is called Daruma, is said to be the first Chinese patriarch of Zen. "His [Bodhidharma's] teaching goes back traditionally to that of the Buddha himself, who once while preaching held up a flower and smiled. Only Kashyapa understood that the Buddha meant to symbolize the inadequacy of words to express the essence of his Doctrine. This is the 'wordless tradition' Bodhidharma brought to China, the transmission of which henceforth depended on intuitive apprehension of the Absolute" (Saunders, 208). According to the "Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall", written in AD 952, Bodhidharma is said to have faced a wall for nine years, not speaking at all. Whether or not this is legend, it is in keeping with the wordless philosophy. This tendency against rational thought continues in the modern Zen school.

"Zen holds that nobody can actually think himself into a state of enlightenment, still less depend on the logical arguments of others. Rationality must eventually give way to intuitive insight, which alone frees a person to live naturally and spontaneously..." (Mason & Caiger, 169). This kind of approach to morality and religion does not match the real world. If a teacher "intuitively" gave grades to students without looking at test scores and other rational factors, there would be an outcry of "that's not fair" from the students. If a doctor "intuitively" and "spontaneously" prescribed medicine, people would die. The same chaos would result if this were applied to financial decisions, driving decisions, moral decisions, etc. An "enlightenment" which is "beyond views" and "beyond thought" is really a suppression of the truth. Instead of freedom for rational thought, experience is overemphasized, which results in going away from truth. The rationality we use in everyday life also applies to understanding spiritual truths.

Koans are one way to "overcome" rationality in Zen, such as meditating on the question, "What's the sound of one hand clapping?" In addition to the koan, sometimes a "shocking yell" is used. "Koans are, so to speak, undeveloped themes, which often illogically confound the intellect and appeal to the intuition for understanding. Like the yell 'katsu!' they are meant to establish a direct intuitive understanding, bypassing inhibitive intellectual processes" (Saunders, 212). "...the purpose of asking such questions [koans] from all possible sides is not to come to any conclusive answers, but to become more and more familiar with the dynamic of 'beyond thinking'..." (Robinson, 252). Another technique to overcome thought, used in some schools, was (and is) the whack of a stick: "...the stick which, like the yell, was used- corporally- to startle the mind to sudden enlightenment" (Saunders, 213).

One example of a longer koan, was a case in a monastery in China. "Monks of the northern and southern halls of Nan-ch'uan's monastery engaged in a rowdy dispute over the possession of a kitten. Catching the cat, Nan-ch'uan held it up before the disputing monks and said, 'If any among you can tell me why I should not kill this cat, I will spare its life.' Since none of the monks spoke, Nan-ch'uan dashed the kitten to the ground and killed it. The monk Chao-chou (J. Joshu, 778-891), returning to the monastery after a day's absence, was greeted by Nan-ch'uan and asked what he would have answered had he been present. Chao-chou removed his straw sandals, placed them on his head, and left the presence of Nan-ch'uan. Whereupon Nan-ch'uan said: 'If you had been there, the cat would have been saved.' Chao-chou's action implied neither affirmation nor negation. In other words, it expressed the Void that is the only answer to any problem, and his pointing out the nonexistence of the problem constituted the saving word which was never spoken" (Saunders, 212-213).

"The Prajnaparamita-Sutras are studied today in Zen cloisters, and their concept of the ultimate Void of all things continues to influence Zen thinking" (Saunders, 204).

There are many negative implications of a philosophy like this for society. Chao-chou's disinterested response about the kitten, show a classical Buddhist detachment, combined with the Mahayana doctrine of the "Void of all things." This "ultimate Void" is in contrast with the belief of the Buddha-nature being in everything (see under Kegon about cosmotheism on page 4). As we've seen already though, logical coherence is not a priority in Zen.

The popular Zen author, D.T. Suzuki wrote, "Zen is neither monotheistic nor pantheistic; Zen defies all such designations...Zen defies all concept-making. That is why Zen is difficult to grasp" (Suzuki, 41-42). Suzuki then quotes Yengo (AD 1566- 1642) to help "define" what Zen is: "The great truth of Zen is possessed by everybody. Look into your own being and seek it not through others...In its light all is absorbed. Hush the dualism of subject and object, forget both, transcend the intellect, sever yourself from the understanding, and directly penetrate deeply into the identity of the Buddha-mind; outside of this there are no realities" (Suzuki, 46). Suzuki has contradicted himself by quoting Yengo's concept-making and designations for Zen, which he said Zen defies. In the quotation we also see the pantheistic statement, "In its [Zen's] light all is absorbed." A follower of Zen is supposed to "transcend the intellect," bringing a person to the very dangerous place of leaving logic and commonsense behind.

In the koan above, regarding a kitten, what if the case concerned a human baby, would there still be indifference shown and sandals worn on the head? In Keown's 1996 book he wrote, "In Japan...abortion is legal and around a million abortions are performed each year. This compares with a figure of 1.5 million for the United States, a country with over twice the population of Japan" (Keown, 102). America as a nation has also gone far from God and the compassion that should be shown to a baby in the womb. The problem with the view of indifference is that some things really are evil and some things really are good. If people go through life indifferent and detached (but ironically very attached to the view of indifference), this filter for life (also called the middle way of equanimity) will cause them to miss God who is ultimately good, and cause them not to avoid some things that really are evil.

Honen and Shinran: Pure Land Buddhism

This is by far the most popular form of Buddhism in Japan today. About 15.3 % of Japanese people in 2004 identified themselves as being Pure Land Buddhists. "While Amidism [Pure Land Buddhism] stressed salvation through others, i.e., through the Buddha Amida, Zen emphasized salvation within oneself. Every man has the Buddha-nature, and this nature is perceptible through a 'realization of self' (Saunders, 228). "Amida's presence in the Tendai and Shingon sects testifies to his existence as an Esoteric divinity. Thus, like other Esoteric gods, Amida was an object of meditation...Merely calling on Amida's name (nembutsu), was not sufficient..." (Saunders, 189). This Tendai and Shingon emphasis (which like Zen involved much self-effort) changed through the influence of Honen and Shinran.

Honen (1133-1212) founded the Jodo sect of Pure Land. This was based on the idea that a person could call on the Amida Buddha's help to bring them into the Pure Land when they die. "A charismatic leader, he practiced what he preached- chanting the Nembutsu up to seventy thousand times a day- and drew disciples from all levels of society..." (Robinson, 254). Shinran (1173-1262) was a disciple of Honen. "We are told that he dreamed Kannon instructed him to study with Honen, which he began to do in 1201" (Saunders, 198). Shinran later had some dramatic visions, which eventually led him to found Shin Buddhism (a.k.a. Jodo Shinshu).

"After twenty years on Mount Hiei, grappling with the constraints of celibacy, he experienced a revelation, in which the Bodhisattva Kuan-yin (in Japanese, Kannon) appeared to him in a dream and promised to come to him in the form of a young woman who he should marry" (Robinson, 254). Shinran did get married and then had another revelation, "...that the saving grace of Amida required only one Nembutsu" (Robinson, 254).

"Shinran's doctrine, similar to Honen's, opened itself to all sorts of abuses and misinterpretations. His own son, Zenran, preached such an inflammatory version of the teaching as to make it an outright invitation to sin. Shinran eventually had to sever all relations with him" (Robinson, 255).

"Honen had thought that the greater the number of repetitions the greater the believer's chances of rebirth in the Pure Land" (Mason & Caiger, 164). Over the years there were many debates about whether one calling on Amida was sufficient or whether repetitive callings were necessary. Nowadays both schools are still in existence, but Shin Buddhism (one calling) is more popular. "China, Korea, and Vietnam decided in favor of combining devotion to Amita [Amida] with Ch'an [Zen] meditation (known in Korea as Son and in Vietnam as Thien), while Japan divided Pure Land and Zen into separate lineages" (Corless, 263).

Tao-ch'o (AD 562- 645) of China, "...is credited with the introduction of the rosary into Pure Land practice, with the aid of which both laypeople and monastic people notched up record numbers of nien fo [Nembutsu]" (Corless, 263). In contrast, Jesus said, "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking" (Matthew 6:7).

Although Shinran's devotion was primarily to Amida, he also paid respect to Kannon (which has the largest number of tall statues in Japan). From the picture given in Pure Land sutras, "On either side of him [Amida] are his chief bodhisattvas, the greatly compassionate Avalokitesvara [Kannon] and the greatly powerful Mahasthamaprapta..." (Corless, 253). However, both of these personalities (Amida and Kannon) date from after the time of Christ. And, they are not real historical figures, but inventions of hagiographers.

"Whereas Honen had stripped meditation and merit making away from the teaching, leaving only faith and the Nembutsu, Shinran stripped it down still further, leaving only faith in tariki (other-power), with no trace of jiriki (self-power) at all" (Robinson, 255). The well known Thai Buddhist scholar P.A. Payutto has said, "No matter where Buddhism spreads to, or how distorted the teaching becomes, this emphasis on human endeavor never varies. If this one principle is missing, we can confidently say that it is no longer Buddhism" (38). According to Payutto, Shin Buddhism should not even be called Buddhism, because of its complete lack of emphasis on self-effort.

Only One Savior

At first glance, Amida seems to fulfill the role that God does in Christianity- bringing salvation by grace and not by works. But there are some big differences between God Almighty and Amida: "[Amida]...is not unique in the universe as a whole, being only one of many Buddhas...he does not create, sustain, or destroy the universe as a whole, nor is he the ontological support...for the universe as a whole...he does not stand above the worshiper as an ontologically 'Higher Power'...his life is not infinite, since there was a time when he was not a Buddha" (Corless, 247-248).

Honen and Shinran were not the only ones to make changes to Pure Land doctrines. "These two points- recitation rather than meditation, and the inclusion of sinners with those who can benefit from Amitabha's [Amida's] vows- were the main Chinese departures from Indian Amitabha doctrines" (Robinson, 196). Over the years many changes have been made in Pure Land doctrine. Shin Buddhism has strayed not only from Pure Land doctrine, but has also strayed far from reality in following after a non-historical person who has no authority to save us. When we look for a doctor we look for good credentials and reliability. When we look for an insurance company we likewise look for reliability and trustworthiness.

When looking for a saviour we should not expect less. In fact, we should expect more. "I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour" (Isaiah 43:11). "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:22). "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11). There is only one God Almighty! God said "beside me there is no saviour," and yet Jesus is called "Saviour." This is because Jesus is God Almighty.

Jesus' salvation is far reaching, even promising salvation to the thief on the cross who put his faith in Him. This was not an empty promise. Jesus proved his authority when He rose from the dead. The historical records regarding the resurrection of Jesus from the dead are of the caliber that have brought many lawyers to faith in Jesus. "And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:39-43). Jesus can save someone from any walk of life. To read the story of how the granddaughter of a Shin Buddhist priest's daughter became a Christian, please see Appendix B.

Nichiren: Nichiren Buddhism

As of 2004, the various Nichiren sects accounted for about 13% of Japan's population. Nichiren (AD 1222-1282) also left the Tendai school, but focused exclusively on the Lotus Sutra to form his Buddhist sect. "Only the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren felt, contained the unadulterated True Dharma. All other Buddhist sects were wrong..." (Robinson, 256). "Nichiren's life followed the pattern of a Shinto shaman more than that of a Buddhist leader. He attracted a following largely through his courage and...his personality, which at times resembled that of a medium possessed" (Robinson, 256). "...the practice he [Nichiren] recommended was simplicity itself: the repetition of the daimoku (mantra) 'Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō'...Later he worked out a mandala [sacred picture] representing his beliefs, called the gohonzon, at which one was to stare while repeating one's declaration of homage" (Robinson, 256).

The name "Nichiren" which was not his original name, but is a name that he chose, means, "sun-lotus." "...nichi standing not only for the sunlight of true faith, but for Japan itself; ren, for the Lotus" (Saunders, 231). Nichiren also wrote a lot. "...these writings were devoted to exposing the errors of other sects, especially the Amidist and Zen, and later the Shingon and Ritsu. In fact, adverse criticism of these four branches became an integral part of Nichirenism" (Saunders, 233). "Although Nichiren promoted the doctrine of universal salvation, his school developed into the most exclusive and often militant group in Japanese religious history" (Michio, 273). Nichiren once said, "It is a great pity that they should have cut off the heads of the innocent Mongols and left unharmed the priests of Nembutsu [Pure Land], Shingon, Zen, and Ritsu, who are the enemies of Japan" (Mason & Caiger, 165).

"Nichiren presented his doctrines as complex meditations on the Lotus Sutra's teaching of the original Buddha-nature...placing faith in the conviction that the Eternal Buddha Sakyamuni, the truth of the Sutra, and all beings were ultimately one..." (Robinson, 256). This belief, like those of other schools in Japanese Buddhism (Kegon, Tendai, Shingon, and Zen), sounds very pantheistic.

For example in Tendai, "...there was the idea that all life, and not just human life, was basically the same; that is, an idea of underlying unity of existence...This teaching was based on the Lotus Sutra..." (Mason & Caiger, 102). Such a "unity of existence" and the supposed ultimate oneness of the Buddha and "all beings" can make no distinction between good and evil. It is pantheistic, saying that everything is one, which would include good and evil! Even though Nichiren tried to make distinctions of "right" and "wrong," based on the Lotus Sutra he had no grounds for doing so. Nichiren was not indifferent about what he thought was good or evil, but he had no standard within his system which was authoritative and separate from the evil of this universe. Only God almighty can provide that perfect standard.

Kannon

In Kyoto there is a temple that has 1000 idols of Kannon. Surrounding these are 28 "protectors" of hers, many of which look like demons, some having snakes hanging out of their head or arms. Many of these 28 were taken straight from Hinduism. Doesn't that say something when a "deity" is being protected by demon-like beings? Demons certainly don't want to promote the truth. The Dalai Lama is said to be the manifestation of Kannon even though he is male, and usually Kannon is portrayed as female. "In China, Avalokitesvara [Kannon] was eventually represented as a woman" (Robinson, 108). By the way, the brand name "Canon" (cameras, printers, etc.) is also named after Kannon. (http://www.canon.com/about/history/outline.html)

Kannon receives much attention in the Lotus Sutra, going by the name of Avalokitesvara. In the Lotus Sutra, it is recorded that Avalokitesvara (Kannon) can change its form, becoming a woman, a boy or a girl, a garuda bird, or even a naga snake (www.bdkamerica.org/digital/dbet_t0262_lotussutra_2007.pdf). "The Avalokitesvara Sutra was incorporated into the Lotus Sutra as late as the third century C.E." (Robinson, 108). "...Maitreya, Manjusri, and Avalokitesvara [Kannon]...These great beings are nonhistorical; there is no evidence that any of them is an apotheosis of a human hero.... Strangely, no Sutra preaches devotion to a celestial bodhisattva until the third century C.E..." (Robinson, 105).

In Japan there are 10 statues of Kannon taller than the U.S. statue of liberty, and 32 statues of Kannon ranging in height from 17-100 meters. Sadly, millions of yen have been poured into this non-historical idol, while ignoring the One who really deserves our praise and attention, namely our Creator. God doesn't want to be worshipped with idols though, but in "spirit and in truth," as Jesus taught. Jesus' existence is very much confirmed in history. He performed miracles, led a perfect life, was raised from the dead, and his life was prophesied in hundreds of details in the Old Testament, hundreds and thousands of years before he came. Jesus said, "...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

The Ashikaga Period Through the Edo Period (AD 1333-1868): Stagnation

During this time, "All Buddhist sects aside from Soto and Rinzai [both Zen] had formed armed societies to protect their interests, only to be slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands, which destroyed Buddhism's credibility as an instrument for national unity" (Robinson, 257). Government headquarters were set up in Edo at this time (modern day Tokyo). From the Kamakura Period (1185) up until the beginning of the Meiji Period (1868), Japan was mostly ruled by shoguns. "...the long period of uneventful existence, of status quo, the absence of new ideas or challenges from abroad, were ultimately to sap the vitality of Buddhist institutions until, by the end of the Tokugawa period [1868], their condition can at best be called apathetic" (Saunders, 247). "...at the beginning of the Meiji era [1868], Buddhism was at its weakest. The years of stultification under Tokugawa control had terminated in the identification of the religion with the shogunal power...In 1867, the shogunate collapsed, and the next year Buddhism was disestablished and largely disendowed" (Saunders, 255).

The Meiji Period (AD 1868-1912): Renovation

The Meiji Restoration involved many aspects of society, but of course began with, "...restoring the emperor to his rightful position which had been usurped by the Fujiwara and a succession of shoguns" (Mason & Caiger, 258). The exaltation of Shintoism went hand in hand with the exaltation of the emperor. "The government proclaimed the adoption of Shinto as the national religion in 1870 under the name of Daikyo, or 'Great Doctrine.' A strong propagandist movement was initiated, and missionaries were sent throughout the land, whose duty it was to refute Confucianism and Buddhism and defend the concept of Shinto" (Saunders, 257).

The Taisho Period to The Heisei Period (AD 1912- present): Innovation

After World War II, "...the emperor publicly denied his divinity...individuals were no longer bound by their family religion...[and] a policy of land distribution was enacted...The combined effect of these directives was to create, for the first time in Japanese history, a totally secular government; to give individuals total religious freedom" (Robinson, 264). Many new religions (shinko shukyo) sprung up. On the other hand, "Polls indicate that large numbers of Japanese do not view themselves as belonging to any particular group" (Robinson, 265).

Soka Gakkai

Soka Gakkai Buddhism is an offshoot within Nichiren Buddhism. It began in 1938 and is based on Nichiren’s teachings. "The sect recommends the traditional Nichiren practice of chanting...although the purpose of the chant is to attain this-worldly goals: Job promotion, financial success, family harmony, and the alleviation of physical and psychological ills" (Robinson, 265). "The Gohonzon scroll is the religious core of the Soka Gakkai faith" (Dumoulin, 259).

"The personal character of the religion is particularly apparent in the spirituality of President Ikeda, who teaches the faithful to pray daily: 'Gohonzon, help me to accomplish this today'" (Dumoulin, 259). "Among the many mandalas created by Nichiren to represent symbolically the total content of his teachings- that is, absolute reality according to the vision of the Lotus Sutra- one [the Gohonzon] is accorded special importance by the Nichiren Shoshu and the Soka Gakkai...a scroll upon which Chinese ideograms are written in vertical order..." (Dumoulin, 258- 259). Dumoulin, in visiting the Daisekiji temple, writes, "...I was not only touched by the intense conviction of the young people there, devoid of all human fear, but I also felt that their disposition unmistakably exhibited a personal relationship with the Gohonzon" (Dumoulin, 259).

David Hesselgrave, writing about a disagreement between Soka Gakkai Buddhism and Nichiren Buddhism (their umbrella organization at that time) says, "Built a quarter century ago at a cost of $100,000,000 (well over twice that figure at today's exchange rate), the Shohondo [a main hall on Nichiren temple grounds, but largely built by Sokka Gakkai donations] was one of the most impressive buildings in the Buddhist world. And yet, in spite of the pleas and protests of prominent architects, politicians and religious leaders of various persuasions, a Nichiren Buddhist priest had spent $35,000,000 to have it demolished!...Power struggles and factionalism finally reached a climax in 1991 when High Priest Abe took the radical step of excommunicating Ikeda [Soka Gakkai's president] and all his followers."

www.emsweb.org/images/stories/docs/bulletins/hesselgrave_nichirenists_2_2000.pdf

Conflict between Nichiren and Soka Gakkai went back further to after World War II when Soka Gakkai president Toda, forced one of the Nichiren monks in 1952 to sign a declaration of guilt. "This particular monk was blamed for the suppression of the Soka Gakkai during the war, and for Makiguchi's death [the founder of Soka Gakkai] in prison, because as a leader he had favored syncretism with Shinto, the state religion, as well as an organizational merger with other Nichiren sects from Mount Minobu" (Dumoulin, 258). This conflict aside, Soka Gakkai members focus on the Gohonzon, which Dumoulin was told was, "...nothing other than the presence of the holy Buddha Nichiren" (Dumoulin, 259). Having a relationship with a scroll, which is supposed to invoke the presence of Nichiren, a dead man, whose personality, "at times resembled that of a medium possessed" (Robinson, 256), is spiritually dangerous to say the least. More on this later, when discussing "familiar spirits."

Reiki

Reiki was a Japanese adaptation of some Hindu ideas (e.g. chakras- the seven energy centers). In 1922 Mikao Usui , after going through a Buddhist training course, said he received a revelation regarding Reiki. It's a method that aims to bring healing through "supernatural influence." "...many nurses, counselors, and especially massage therapists use Reiki as a supplement to their work" (Yungen, 95). "Reiki came to the United States (from Japan) in the mid 1970s. It took about twenty years for this particular practice to reach 500,000 practitioners....By the year 2005, the number skyrocketed to an astonishing one million practitioners in just the U.S." (Yungen, 13)! Reiki claims to have 5 million followers worldwide. (http://www.reiki.ne.jp/reiki_japan/en.html)

"...many Reiki practitioners report having verbalized channeled communications with the spirit world" (Yungen, 97). In Reiki, guidance is given by spirits, called "Reiki guides." One Reiki master wrote of her experience, "For me, the Reiki guides make themselves the most felt while attunements are being passed. They stand behind me and direct the whole process, and I assume they also do this for every Reiki master. When I pass attunements, I feel their presence strongly and constantly. Sometimes I can see them" (Yungen, 95).

Reiyu-kai

Reiyu-kai, was founded in 1925, as an offshoot of Nichiren. In 1963, they claimed to have 3.6% of the Japanese population as members. Presently, they have about five million members worldwide (http://reiyukaiglobal.org/introduction.php). "It is based on the Lotus Sutra and stresses filial piety and duty towards ancestors" (Saunders, 281). "...ancestor worship is the core of its teaching and practice. Easily understood by the common man, it gives him access to the world of spirits and souls which the shamanistic cofounder mediated to her following" (Dumoulin, 241).

Funerals and Spirits

"...traditional Buddhism has lost much of its appeal, except as a relic of Japan's cultural past. 'Funeral Buddhism' is the name that many people use to refer to the traditional sects, in light of the ritual role to which many of the priests have been reduced" (Robinson, 265). "Many temples have become funeral institutions, whose administrators concern themselves primarily with well-paid rites for the dead" (Dumoulin, 217). "As a means of gaining their [provincial samurai and the peasantry] allegiance Soto [a school of Zen] assimilated a certain amount of popular beliefs and rituals but devised, above all, funeral and memorial services for the dead, a trait that was to become one of the characteristic features of almost all Buddhist schools in Japan" (Noriyoshi, 169).

"The time-honored ritual of sutra copying (shakyo), still popular among Jodo, Shingon, and Tendai followers, is undertaken to bring repose to the spirits of the dead, accumulate merit for the practitioner, and deepen faith in the sutra copied" (Unno, 323). Also related to bringing "repose to the spirits of the dead" is the Obon festival. "...it [Ullambana, known in Japan as Obon] began in the sixth century in China and soon after was introduced to Japan...the origin of the Ullambana ceremony is found in the legend of Moggallana...who through transcendental vision saw his mother suffering in Avici hell. In order to save her he followed the advice of Sakyamuni Buddha and practiced charity by feeding hundreds of monks" (Unno, 320). This story is a very late invention, not being in the Pali Canon, which in and of itself already contains many legends. It comes from a text, "made in China," called the, "...Ullambana Sutra (a text composed in China)..." (Robinson, 215). "...much of the content of the Ullambana festival is non-Buddhist in origin" (Unno, 320-321). The main purpose of the Obon festival is, "...aiding the dead in their proper journey, keeping them from becoming malevolent and thereby dangerous to the living" (Robinson, 215).

Involvement with spirits is a trademark of many Japanese Buddhist sects. Shintoism, being an animistic religion, also involves ceremonies to appease spirits, ask them for blessings, etc. In the Bible, "familiar spirits" are actually devils. God forbids us to invoke or communicate with them, because they are deceivers. When people die, they don't float around in this world. "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment..." (Hebrews 9:27). There is nothing we can do for those who have died already. Whatever they have done in their lives will be judged by God, whose judgment is perfect and fair.

The spirits that are in the spiritual realm of this world are not deceased family members, but are either angels or devils. If we are NOT submitted to God and adopted into God's family, then we are in danger of deception by devils pretending to be merciful and powerful beings. They try to take people's attention away from God, and towards bondage to spiritual lies. Even those who are Christians and part of God’s family are told to be careful. " Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (I John 4:1). The word "try" here means "put on trial"- to test. We do this by comparing their message with the standard of the Bible. God made it very clear that we are not to seek spiritual direction from anywhere apart from His Word. "There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee" (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).

Isaiah, who lived about 700 years before Christ, rebuked the people for seeking dead spirits instead of God Almighty. "And when they shall say unto you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isaiah 8:19-20). God has authority over every spirit, so we need not be troubled by any lesser spirits. We can simply submit ourselves to God almighty, and He will lead our lives.

God Almighty

If we found a computer mouse laying on the road, would anyone doubt that it has a maker? A computer mouse cannot make itself. Even though we may not see the maker, the computer mouse itself is evidence that points to it having a creator. People have factories for making computer mice. But, people have no factories for making real mice. A computer mouse is impressive in that it can transmit information via it's "tail" to the computer, or in some types, the mouse has no tail and can transmit information "remotely." But, a real mouse has its own brain with which it can transmit commands to its body.

Although we normally would think of a computer mouse as being "high-tech," seeing that people can make these, but cannot make real mice, we should actually call a computer mouse "low tech" and a real mouse "high tech." Only God can make a real mouse! Although we don't see God, the mouse itself is evidence that it has a Creator. Being far more complex than a computer mouse, it cannot make itself, nor randomly come into being without a Designer. God created people, too, but He created people in His own image, different from the animals. Monkeys don't have police monkeys, nor courtrooms, nor prisons, nor libraries, nor philosophers, etc. They follow instinct. People have the freedom to choose right or wrong. People will one day be held responsible by God for what they have done with their lives and how they have responded to God their Creator.

Right now, the tallest statue on earth is an idol of the Vairocana Buddha in China, which stands at 128 meters. Compared to God Almighty, that statue is like a tiny piece of dust. How could people fit the Almighty God who made everything, into an idol made by people? Even if people could make an idol 8000 meters tall, with its head in the clouds, or 12,000 meters tall, with its head peering above the clouds, that is still tiny, compared to God Almighty. " Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest" (Isaiah 66:1)?

In Japanese Buddhism, the Vairocana Buddha is exalted as a solar deity, and in Shintoism, Amaterasu Omikami is exalted as the sun goddess. Is the sun a worthy object of our worship? The universe itself is also said to be a manifestation of Vairocana. Is the universe a worthy object of our worship? The sun truly is massively big and amazing. But, compared to the rest of the universe it is likewise tiny. The sun and the universe point to God's incredible design. God almighty is separate from His creation and awesomely greater than it. The universe is also still under the curse brought about through sin, and is thus only an imperfect reflection of God's power. We should worship the Creator, not the creation.

Jason Lisle gives us some insight about the sun and our universe, "The sun is about 400 times more distant than the moon. Remarkably, it is also 400 times larger. So it has the same angular size as the moon- meaning it appears the same size and covers the same portion of the sky [making the moon the perfect size to eclipse the sun]... If it [the sun] were hollow, it could hold over 1 million earths...When we consider the immensity of the Milky Way, with its 100 billion stars...the overwhelming power of the Creator becomes clear. Yet, our galaxy is not the only one...It is estimated that there are at least as many galaxies as there are stars in the Milky Way (100 billion)."

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tba/splendor-of-creation#fnMark_1_1_1

As incredibly large as the universe is (making the sun seem tiny), God almighty is even greater than the universe He created. "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD" (Jeremiah 23:24).

Conclusion

The large vehicle of Buddhism (Mahayana Buddhism) is expressed in a large variety of ways and is practiced in Japan, China and elsewhere. Within this large vehicle there are schools of thought that are completely opposite of one another, but they are still considered to be part of Mahayana, since they cater to a larger group of people as opposed to Hinayana (the "small vehicle") for which enlightenment is seen as something few people can attain (Theravada is the only surviving school of Hinayana). Mahayana had a later start historically, mystically adding many new ideas to an already faulty system (Hinayana). In this paper, we've seen some of the shortcomings of the large vehicle in Japan.

Shingon and the other schools which emphasize a pantheistic type of view implode on themselves when we consider that if all is included (which Shingon especially is very clear about, and other schools hint at), then evil also is included in the "Buddha-nature." Zen relies on the silent sermon and the "beyond logic" approach, defeating itself with any attempt to communicate anything. Shin Buddhism sees the vanity of self-effort, but suggests believing in a limited and imaginary being to help. The various Nichiren schools have an equally unreliable foundation in the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra was composed around AD 200 (Robinson, 85), but claims to be a final sermon of Gautama Buddha, which makes it about 600 years too late to be credible. Various other schools of thought which call on the "spirits of the dead" are likewise limited and in the dark, not knowing that these are actually deceiving spirits they are calling on. Besides this, no lesser spirit can help us find eternal salvation. God is almighty. Because He is almighty He expects us to put all of our faith in Him, not 50% in Him and 50% in something else.

If we compare any of these schools of thought to a "vehicle" which is supposed to save us and get us to heaven, they are like vehicles that have no gasoline, or no tires, or are only imaginary, having no ability to take us anywhere. People have factories for making nice vehicles for the roads here on earth, but we have no factory to make a vehicle to get us to heaven. Only God almighty can bring a person to heaven, and that must be on His terms, which are revealed in the Bible through Jesus Christ.

Tokichi Ishii, a former criminal, became a Christian in 1916. He wrote the following words: "Again, chaplains and pastors, and those who see men die, agree that the last words a man utters come from the depths of his soul, and that he does not die with lies upon his lips. Jesus' last words were, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, and so I cannot but believe that they reveal his true heart." "What did the verse reveal to me? Shall I call it the love of the heart of Christ? Shall I call it His compassion? I do not know what to call it. I only know that with an unspeakably grateful heart, I believed. Through this simple sentence I was led into the whole of Christianity" (Ishii, 36).

Christianity is not just a good idea, but is confirmed with historical and prophetic evidence. This is essential. Experiences, dreams, or even visions are not proof of spiritual reality. Such "evidences" would be thrown out of a court of law very quickly. What we have in Christianity are not only life transforming and wonderful truths about Jesus and His teachings, but also the kind of evidence that can be proven in a court of law. God our Creator deserves all of our worship and faith. Will you come to Jesus and put your faith in Him today? "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (I John 5:11-12).

References

Corless, R.J. (1997). Pure Land Piety. In Yoshinori, T., Van Bragt, J., Heisig, J.W., O'Leary, J.S. & Swanson, P.L. (Eds.), Buddhist Spirituality: Indian, Southeast Asia, Tibetan, and Early Chinese, volume 8 (pp.242- 271) New York: Crossroad.

Dumoulin, H. (1976). Buddhism in Modern Japan. In Dumoulin, H. & Maraldo, J.C. (Ed. & associate Ed.), Buddhism in the Modern World. (pp. 215- 271) New York: Collier Books.

Encyclopedia Britannica Almanac 2005. (2004). USA: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Griffiths, P.J. (1997). Indian Buddhist Meditation. In Yoshinori, T., Van Bragt, J., Heisig, J.W., O'Leary, J.S. & Swanson, P.L. (Eds.), Buddhist Spirituality: Indian, Southeast Asia, Tibetan, and Early Chinese, volume 8 (pp. 34- 66) New York: Crossroad.

Ishii, T. (1918). A Gentleman in Prison: The Confessions of Tokichi Ishii written in Tokyo Prison.

Keown, D. (1996). Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.

King, W. (1997). Theravada in Southeast Asia. In Yoshinori, T., Van Bragt, J., Heisig, J.W., O'Leary, J.S. & Swanson, P.L. (Eds.), Buddhist Spirituality: Indian, Southeast Asia, Tibetan, and Early Chinese, volume 8 (pp. 79- 92) New York: Crossroad.

Mason, R.H.P. & Caiger, J.G. (1997). A History of Japan: Revised Edition. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.

Michio, A. (1989). The Schools of Japanese Buddhism. In J.M. Kitagawa & M.D. Cummings (Eds.), Buddhism and Asian History (pp.267- 275). New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.

Noriyoshi, T. (1989). Buddhism in Japan. In J.M. Kitagawa & M.D. Cummings (Eds.), Buddhism and Asian History (pp.159- 173). New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.

O'Brien, J. & Palmer, M. (2007). The Atlas of Religion: Mapping Contemporary Challenges and Beliefs. London: Earthscan.

Payutto, P.A. (1998). Toward Sustainable Science. Bangkok: Buddhadhamma Foundation.

Robinson, R.H., Johnson, W.L., Wawrytko, S.A., & DeGraff, G. (1997). The Buddhist Religion: A Historical Introduction. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

Saunders, E.D. (1976). Buddhism in Japan: With an Outline of Its Origins in India. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc.

Suzuki, D.T. (1964). An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. New York: Grovepress.

Unno, T. (1989). Buddhist Cultic Life in East Asia. In J.M. Kitagawa & M.D. Cummings (Eds.), Buddhism and Asian History (pp.317- 330). New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.

Yungen, R. (2012). A Time of Departing. Eureka: Lighthouse Trails Publishing.

Websites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statues_by_height

http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/fudo.html

http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/dragon.shtml

http://www.canon.com/about/history/outline.html

www.bdkamerica.org/digital/dbet_t0262_lotussutra_2007.pdf

www.emsweb.org/images/stories/docs/bulletins/hesselgrave_nichirenists_2_2000.pdf

http://www.reiki.ne.jp/reiki_japan/en.html

http://reiyukaiglobal.org/introduction.php

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tba/splendor-of-creation#fnMark_1_1_1

Appendix A

Numbers and Hearts

Japan has a land mass that is smaller than California, but a population over 3 times that of California. The entire population of the United States is only about 2.5 times that of Japan. In other words, about half of the United States could move into the state of California, and this would be roughly the population density of Japan. In spite of being a fairly small nation compared to other nations (but with a large and very diligent work force), Japan has done very well economically. "...the generally sustained increase in annual production has raised Japan to a position where, today, it comes second to only one other nation, the United States, in economic strength" (Mason & Caiger, 361, copyright 1997). More recently China has moved into the number 2 spot, but Japan is still number 3 in the world (as measured by GDP).

In this situation of economic strength, many people's hearts in Japan, China, and America have decided to follow money instead of God almighty. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:13-15).

In Dale Saunders' book "Buddhism in Japan," he cites two other books dated 1960 and 1963, showing the number of members of the various Buddhist sects in Japan. Between 1960-65 the population of Japan was about 95.85 million people. Using the statistics from Saunders' book, but as a percentage of the total population, here are the seven most popular Buddhist sects at that time: Jodo Shin (also known as Shin Buddhism) 14.9%, Soka Gakkai 10.4%, Zen 9.6%, Jodo (the predecessor of Jodo Shin) 3.7%, Reiyukai 3.6% [an offshoot of Nichiren], Shingon 3.1%, and Nichiren 2.3%. Also reflecting the popularity of Shin Buddhism, a book published in 1918 ("A Gentleman in Prison") states that all prison chaplains at that time were Shin priests (Ishii, 49).

The 1960/1963 statistics show that about 56.77% of the population of Japan was Buddhist. Statistics from 1995 show that about 69.6% of the population was Buddhist and 93.1% of the population was Shinto. Christians accounted for 1.2% and other religions for 8.1% of the population (Encyclopedia Britannica). Clearly there is an overlap between those who consider themselves to be Buddhist and those who consider themselves to be Shinto. Many people consider themselves to be followers of both Shintoism and Buddhism. These two religions have a history of syncretism with each other, though at times forcible distinctions were made.

Comparing these statistics with more recent ones in 2004, we see that about 44% of the population considered themselves to be Buddhist, based on a population at that time of 127.6 million people. Nara religions accounted for 0.56% of the population, Zen 2.6%, Tendai 2.7%, Shingon 9.9%, Nichiren 13%, and Pure Land 15.3% (O'Brien). It seems that Soka Gakkai, Reiyukai, and Nichiren are all included under the heading of Nichiren here. Also, Jodo and Shin Buddhism seem to be included under the heading of Pure Land Buddhism. In summary, Jodo, Shin Buddhism and schools based on Nichiren's exaltation of the Lotus Sutra were still the most popular, with Shingon Buddhism, Tendai Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism also accounting for a large percentage of followers.

The tallest statue in the world presently is in China and is of the Vairocana Buddha, which stands at 128 meters. Japan has 10 idols of Kannon that are taller than the U.S. statue of liberty (which is 46 meters tall). The tallest statue in Japan is the Amida (Amitabha) Buddha at 110 meters. Of all the Buddhist statues in Japan ranging from 13 meters to 110 meters tall, the top four types are as follows: Vairocana Buddha (3 statues), Kukai (4 statues), Amida Buddha (4 statues), and Kannon (32 statues). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statues_by_height). The massive amount of money that is poured into these statues tells us something about where people's hearts are at. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:21).

The popularity of various statues gives a slightly different picture compared to the popularity of the various Buddhist sects. With the popularity of Shin Buddhism, we would expect there to be more statues of Amida. Kannon is overwhelmingly the most popular statue, but it doesn't even have a sect dedicated solely to it. Kannon features prominently in the Lotus Sutra though, which Soka Gakkai, Nichiren, Reiyukai, and Tendai all exalt. Shin and Jodo Buddhism also give a place to Kannon, next to Amida. Vairocana is the central Buddha of the Shingon sect. And, Kukai (AD 774-835) was the founder of the Shingon sect. So, in a way this distribution does make sense.

Appendix B

Ayako Kawanishi's Story from Hyogo Ken, 90 years old (June 2013)

(Thank you Geoff and Fumie Toole for recording this.)

Praise the Lord. About 30 years ago there was a pastor who had been a teacher in my son’s school. He saw that society had given up taking care of children’s souls. Realizing that the training of the soul was important, as opposed to only teaching academic subjects, he quit teaching and ended up studying in a theological college to become a pastor. My son also attended his church and one day he visited me at home. He invited me to come to church and shared with me the following scripture.

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

But I thought that it would be impossible for me to go to church. Actually my grandmother was the daughter of a Buddhist priest [Jodo Shinshu]. As a child I had gone to Buddhist Sunday school, learned to recite the "Okyo" Buddhist chants and learned stories about the Buddha. I repeated the Buddhist chants each morning and evening. On top of that, our lives were saved by returning to my grandmother’s temple in the countryside just before my house was burned and destroyed during the war in Hiroshima. They had looked after us during the war, so I felt that I could not turn away from their religion...I was always against my son’s faith.

Even in the days following the war in Japan, every day was a struggle with my children and family. Everything had been burned down and all resources had been lost. Somehow we managed to live day to day. In search of some solution to my problems, I bought a Zen book and read it but it didn’t contain the answers I was looking for. I finally thought (after many years) I would go along with my son to church one day.

The first church I went to was Nishinomiya Baptist Church. There was a wonderful American missionary couple there who taught great things about the Bible. It was wonderful for me to see all the smiling faces and to be in such a happy environment. I learned that God had given Jesus Christ to a world lost in sin to die in my place for my sins. My small, narrow heart which had long been troubled was turned 180 degrees and filled with light.

I don’t know how many people’s hearts have been saved by the many words God has left us in the Bible. I am so grateful that Japan has become a nation which legally recognizes freedom of religion so that even people like myself can freely go to church. Ever since then I have looked forward to going to church each week on Sunday and now I find that I am 90 years old. I greatly enjoy living each day in good health and in God’s care. As I look back on my life there have been many struggles, but the words of the Bible have always given me the answers. I give thanks to the Name of the Lord for all things.

The Buddhist Road Map

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:14:19 GMT

In this paper I'll be focusing on Theravada Buddhism, since this form of Buddhism, found mainly in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Laos, claims to resemble the original teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha [1] most closely.

Other schools claim this as well, but historically speaking (not mystically speaking), the Theravada school’s claim seems to be the most substantiated. Much of what has been written on Buddhism presents an idealized and incomplete portrait of Buddhist teachings. This is difficult to avoid due to the vastness of the subject, but is enhanced by those who focus mainly on the positive aspects of Buddhism, omitting the more difficult issues. In this paper I don’t claim to provide a comprehensive portrait, but I will attempt to address some of the more obscure and lesser known core issues and dilemmas of Buddhism, showing that it is indeed a fascinating system, but not one which will help a person fulfill their destiny in life. I will also make some comparisons between Theravada Buddhism and Christianity based on biblical principles. The paper will be presented under eight subtopics, namely No soul (anatta [2] ), Rebirth, Nirvana, Karma, Women, Meditation, Science, and God.

No Soul (anatta)

Descartes is known for the phrase, “I think- therefore I am.” My high school history teacher pun…ished us with the following phrase: “I’m pink- therefore I’m Spam.” Taking an entirely different approach to these evidences for identity, Buddhism concludes with the concept “I am not.” In John Garrett Jones’ book, “Tales and Teachings of the Buddha: The Jataka Stories in relation to the Pali Canon,” Jones takes a look at how popular representations of the Buddha’s teachings, as seen in the Jataka Stories [3] , compare with the more orthodox Four Nikayas [4] of the Pali Canon [5] . I.B. Horner, former president of the Pali Text Society, gives Jones the following recommendation in the foreword to Jones’ book: “Mr Jones is well versed in both Jataka and Canon, and is thus able to draw on both not only with apparent ease but also with aptness and accuracy and dependable documentation.” (vii) Jones in his chapter on rebirth, addresses the doctrine of “no soul,” pointing out that, according to orthodox beliefs, souls are not reborn, because Buddhism admits to no such entity: “Consciousness (vinnana) is one of the five khandhas [6] which are dissolved at death. Deprived of its physical basis, or, if we prefer it, its physical correlate, how could it possibly survive death? In MLS I 313, 320f, Gotama does in fact vigorously refute the ‘heresy’ of a persisting consciousness” (34).

The doctrine of “no soul” undermines the entire premise of the Jataka Stories, which are supposed to be rebirth tales of Sakyamuni Buddha. Without a soul, what is the connecting point from life to life? The answer usually given to that question is that the karma of a being carries through. But, what does this “karma” attach itself to, if not to the one to whom that karma was due? Daniel J. Gogerly in his 1885 edition of “The Evidences and Doctrines of the Christian Religion,” (after 44 years of Pali study), wrote the following:

“The Buddhist religion is that which Buddha taught, and which is found in his Sutras [7] , and not that which persons may hold who are ignorant of these teachings. We shall in the first instance prove that Buddha teaches, that the person by whom the actions were performed is not the same with the person who is rewarded or punished: that the connection is not between the man who performs the action, and the good or evil resulting from that action, but between the action performed and its results, whoever may be the recipient of those results. This is contrary to every known principle of justice, which associates the doer of the good action with the reward, whereas in Buddhism the reward will follow the good actions, but the performer of the good action will not be the recipient of the reward. This results from Buddha’s doctrine that there is no soul in man which transmigrates, but that the whole of a man;- the whole of the panchaskandha [8] ceases at death.” (54-55)

A belief in anatta would mean, for example, that when Adolf Hitler died, the aggregates of his “being” dissolved, and then his enormously bad karma attached itself to someone or something (maybe a lowly insect), having absolutely no consciousness of the evil deeds done, or the reason for the suffering. Can this be called justice? WHO is punished? WHO is rewarded in this system? When the word “self” is used in Buddhism, such as “self-improvement”, “be a refuge unto yourself”, etc., this word is used for the sake of convenience, as opposed to describing an absolute self. Walpola Rahula, in “What the Buddha Taught”, responds to those who try to point to a self or soul in Buddhism:

“Those who want to find a ‘Self’ in Buddhism argue as follows: ‘It is true that the Buddha analyses being into matter, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness, and says that none of these things is self. But he does not say that there is no self at all in man or anywhere else, apart from these aggregates.’ This position is untenable for two reasons: One is that, according to the Buddha’s teaching, a being is composed only of these Five Aggregates, and nothing more. Nowhere has he said that there was anything more than these Five Aggregates in a being. The second reason is that the Buddha denied categorically, in unequivocal terms, in more than one place, the existence of Atman [9] , Soul, Self, or Ego within man or without, or anywhere else in the universe.” (56-57)

In spite of teaching that there is no soul, but that there is rebirth, Sakyamuni Buddha still held to a conviction that the universe is not amoral. Concerning Buddha’s conviction that this is a moral universe, Jones concludes: “He could not claim that this conviction had a sound basis in the rational, analytical part of his teaching; indeed, it would seem to me not too strong to say that there is a hopelessly irreconcilable contradiction between the two” (36). But, if there is no soul, why does a Buddhist go to such great lengths to be free from rebirth, and why is it said that Sakyamuni proclaimed at the time of his “last” birth (Dialogues of the Buddha II, 12), that it was his last birth? WHOSE last birth? "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

Rebirth

In the popular story of Sakyamuni’s final birth and renunciation of worldly pleasures, several questions arise. If Sakyamuni had really passed through virtually countless lives previous to that one, why did his father need to shelter him from the harsher side of life- why was Sakyamuni so startled by the sites of death, poverty, and old age, when he finally ventured out of the palace to see things for himself? If we are to take the Jataka re-birth tales at face value, he would have been quite familiar with all of these harsher realities of life- in fact according to the Jataka tales, he was sometimes a participant in the cruel side of life. “…within this group is the one which depicts the bodhisatta [10] himself as being, in one way or another, involved in killing or injuring. The stories concerned are JSS 93, 128, 129, 152, 178, 233, 238, 246, 315, 319, 384.” (Jones, 61). Among the 547 Jataka stories, he is twice said to have been a robber, once a gambler, and twice a giant snake (Jones, 18-19). He would also have been familiar with suffering according to Jataka 538, which states he had to spend eighty thousand years in the Ussada hell [11] (Jones, 43). So why was Sakyamuni so struck by the fact of death or suffering, as if he had never experienced or seen these things? The common answer given to this question is that previous lives must be remembered in a state of meditation, when the mind is free from distraction, and more capable of reaching these deep levels of memory. But how can the mind store such information when the mind and everything of which people are said to consist (the five aggregates) are said to not survive death? Actually though, this popular story of the Buddha’s renunciation is not found in the Pali Canon.

In the Pali Canon, as a baby, the Buddha was said to have walked uprightly and proclaimed that it was his last birth: “Chief am I in the world, Eldest am I in the world, Foremost am I in the world! This is the last birth!” (D II, 12) How can a baby be so mature as to speak these lofty words if there is no enduring soul? In the non-canonical story, the problem of anatta arises because meditation does not explain how the 35 year old bodhisatta could “remember” that which according to his own doctrine was not an enduring soul. In the canonical story, the problem of anatta is still there, because his doctrine of no enduring soul stands in contrast to a baby speaking from the perspective of an enduring soul, relieved to see the end in sight.

The doctrinal mismatch between anatta and rebirth leaves the intellect unsatisfied, while an attempt is made to appease the conscience with an invented morality: “When two propositions conflict, the simplest possible solution is to ignore one of them- which is precisely what the Jataka does. There is no contradiction in the Jataka between the doctrine of anatta (no soul) and the doctrine of a series of lives of the same individual because the doctrine of anatta is simply ignored” (Jones, 39). Sakyamuni did not want to let go of morality, but his system is one which leads people to contradictions, both intellectually and in “merit distribution”- both the villainous and the virtuous are said to have no soul connection from one life to the next- and thus the ones receiving a particular “lot” are not the ones who “earned” it.

But apart from these difficulties with rebirth, what about real life cases of people who claim to have been reborn? Ernest Valea, in his online article “Past-life recall as modern proof for reincarnation,” ( www.comparativereligion.com/reincarnation1.html ) quotes Ian Stevenson, who is one of the foremost authorities in the field of re-birth/reincarnation research:

“In my experience, nearly all so-called previous personalities evoked through hypnotism are entirely imaginary and a result of the patient’s eagerness to obey the hypnotist’s suggestion. It is no secret that we are all highly suggestible under hypnosis. This kind of investigation can actually be dangerous. Some people have been terribly frightened by their supposed memories, and in other cases the previous personality evoked has refused to go away for a long time (Omni Magazine 10 (4): 76 (1988)).”

Valea points out that this phenomenon is called “false memory syndrome,” and that, “Courts of law know these dangers and most do not accept testimonies produced under hypnosis or from witnesses that have been previously hypnotized.” What about other cases, where the “memories” are not evoked by hypnotism? Valea brings our attention to the demographic of people who are usually targeted for this:

”Almost all cases of spontaneous past life recall experiences are produced by children who manifest them between the age of two and five, when their spiritual discernment is almost nonexistent, especially concerning spirits. This situation makes them easier to be manipulated by external spirits. As the child grows up, the entities lose their power of influence upon him, which could explain why the past life memories are lost after the age of 10.”

In one case researched by Stevenson, a person actually had two personalities expressing themselves at the same time. As in the cases of the children, where manifestations took place when the individuals were at a vulnerable time in their lives (especially if their parents were taking them to centers of spiritual activity), spirit possession or the person acting as a “medium” is a likelier explanation. This interference by outside spirits shows the extremely subjective nature of rebirth research. Valea concludes with Stevenson’s conclusion:

“For this reason Ian Stevenson, the well known researcher of this phenomena, was forced to admit in his book Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation that the cases he studied, as the very title of his book indicates, are only suggesting reincarnation and cannot be considered proofs for it. Stevenson admitted: ‘All the cases I’ve investigated so far have shortcomings. Even taken together, they do not offer anything like proof’ (Omni Magazine 10(4): 76 (1988). If this is the case, they could also be suggestive of spirit possession.”

Seeing the possibility of outside spirits to deceive in this way, how are we to suppose that a monk or nun who is meditating is immune to this outside influence? Meditation actually swings the door wide open to such an influence. The monk or nun may experience many things during their meditations and count them as confirmations of the Buddha’s doctrine. Are they though? Can we really count this as a confirmation when they were trying to have such “memories” in the first place, and when the experiences are largely subjective? Even if a person can reveal information they would not naturally know, this information is something which outside spirits could know and transmit.

Why does a person need to be under hypnosis, or have the undiscerning mind of a child, or be in an altered state of consciousness during meditation, in order to have such “memories?” If rebirth is “for real” why isn’t it obvious among the billions of people in the world, regardless of cultural background? Why can’t babies speak the language of their “former life” or any language (besides gobbly gook) for that matter? This is probably the reason for inventing the doctrine of anatta (explains the lack of memory). This places the dilemma in the moral realm though (no real justice without a permanent soul) and still does not solve the practical problem of having a connecting point from life to life. “…it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

Nirvana

Childers in his Pali Dictionary, presents a very definitive answer to what nibbanam (nirvana) is. He states, “But a creed which begins by saying that existence is suffering, must end by saying that release from existence is the highest good, and accordingly we find that annihilation is the goal of Buddhism, the supreme reward held out to the faithful observer of its precepts.” (265) “Annihilation” may not be the best choice of words here, but for another reason than one might think. Walpola Rahula, points out, “Nirvana is definitely no annihilation of self, because there is no self to annihilate. If at all, it is the annihilation of the illusion, of the false idea of self.” (37)

In explaining why some canonical verses speak of nirvana as “bliss” and others as “extinction”, Childers shows that both are meant, but that the “bliss” is only a temporary state before final extinction:

“I have shown that the goal of Buddhism is annihilation, and that Nirvana is a brief period of bliss followed by eternal death. It is of course conceivable that Sakyamuni should have made Arhatship [12] the summum bonum held out to his disciples. It may even appear incredible to some that having imagined a state of blissful purity resulting from a virtuous life, he should have made it end in annihilation. That he did so is however certain, and it must be remembered that his denunciations of the evil and suffering of existence are levelled not merely against transmigration but against all existence whatever, and that the bliss of the Arhat is chiefly based on the consciousness that he has rooted out Karma and may any day cease to exist.” (268)

Rahula, likewise states that nirvana is ceasing to exist: “There is a word parinibbuto used to denote the death of the Buddha or an Arahant who has realized Nirvana, but it does not mean ‘entering into Nirvana’. Parinibbuto simply means ‘fully passes away’, ‘fully blown out’ or ‘fully extinct’, because the Buddha or an Arahant has no re-existence after his death.” (41)

In Buddhist cosmology there are said to be 31 realms of existence, including various heavens, hells, the earth, etc. In all 31 of these however, many of which are heavenly “bliss” states, none of them are “nirvana,” because all of these are said to be prone to impermanence and suffering. When even a heaven cannot be nirvana, we see again that nirvana is beyond existence. Among the 31 realms of existence, the top 20 of these are also said to parallel the meditative states. In other words a person who meditates is supposed to be able to experience what these top 20 realms represent. The highest meditative state a person can achieve, also represents most closely what nirvana is supposed to be:

“A ninth stage known as the ‘attainment of cessation’ (nirodha-samapatti) is also mentioned in some sources. In this stage all mental operations are completely suspended, and even heartbeat and respiration cease. Life subsists simply in the form of residual bodily heat. A person can, we are told, remain in this state for several days, eventually emerging from it spontaneously at a predetermined time. This condition is held to be the closest anyone can come to experiencing final nirvana while still alive, and is described as ‘touching nirvana with the body’.” (Keown, 91-92)

When even mental operations are suspended, we see that it’s not a far step from there to complete cessation. And this is consistent with the Pali Canon teaching of a progression towards more and more detachment, finally culminating in detachment from existence.

In a discussion of whether nirvana is taught as a state of bliss or cessation in the Pali Canon, Jones comments, “If this is the case [nirvana as bliss], I can find no basis for it in the Four Nikayas. So far as I am aware, there is not one word in the Four Nikayas which lends support to the idea of nibbana as some positive, transcendent state of bliss.” (152) In a footnote to this discussion, Jones brings to light the most commonly held view among Theravada scholars: “It is interesting to note that, while Jayatilleke, 1963, pp. 475f, does adopt a transcendentalist view of nibbana, his former pupil Kalupahana, 1976, pp. 87f, rebukes him for this and reasserts the more commonly (in Theravada circles) held cessationist view.” (202)

A.L. Herman in his article “Two Dogmas of Buddhism,” [13] points out other difficulties with nirvana, relating to both Mahayana [14] and Theravada Buddhism. The more recent Mahayana school of Buddhism tends to hold more to the view of nirvana as bliss, whereas the more orthodox Theravada school of Buddhism usually holds to nirvana as cessation. Herman shows that regardless of which interpretation of nirvana is taken, it is a dogma in dilemma:

“The dilemma of nirvana holds that if nirvana is seen negatively as the total absence of passion and desire and feeling then this is tantamount to being dead, and who wants to pursue a goal that leads to death? Nirvana is suicide on this first interpretation. On the other hand, if nirvana is seen positively as the presence of peace and tranquility wherein all that I desire is fulfilled then desire is not ended or blown out and the whole intent of nirvana is contradicted: nirvana is inconsistent on this second interpretation. But, the dilemma of nirvana continues, nirvana must be seen either negatively or positively; there is no third alternative. The conclusion of the dilemma is then that nirvana is either suicidal obliteration or inconsistent continuance.” (170)

Herman concludes with this somber note: “The effect of retaining these ill-founded dogmas in the face of these philosophic problems would be (has been) to move Buddhism away from empirical truth and reason and closer to either ‘a questionable pragmatism,’ where truth is measured by sheer usefulness, or towards ‘a non-rationalism and mysticism’ where truth is abandoned altogether.” (174) In the footnote to this conclusion, Herman further explains, “…’a questionable pragmatism’ and ‘a non-rationalism and mysticism,’ were precisely the routes subsequently taken respectively by Southern or Theravada Buddhism, on the one hand, and Northern or Mahayana, Buddhism, on the other.” (174)

If we say that the more recent Mahayana view is correct, it flies in the face of the Pali Canon, it being the nearest in time to what Sakyamuni actually taught. If Mahayanists wish to assert a different interpretation, on what higher authority is this based? This would be to negate the authority of the Buddha, and rely on mystical revelations instead. If on the other hand, we concede that the view in the Pali Canon of cessation is indeed what the Buddha taught, then speaking plainly, the Buddhist way amounts to “if you are really good, you get to be extinguished.” It is no wonder Mahayanists have tried to change this doctrine, but in vain as there is no authority to back up the claim. The authority behind the original claim (of cessation) is also quite lacking though. Instead of desire leading to suffering, and suffering being the chief characteristic of existence, there is a way of hope and renewal. Instead of exiting from existence, Jesus Christ offers a way to quench thirst in order to live meaningfully and eternally: ”Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."" (John 4: 13-14).

Karma

The system of Karma is one which has an appeal to people at the popular level, making it seem that everything that happens is based on what is deserved-- if you do good, you receive good; if you do evil, you receive evil. This seems to explain inequalities in the world, as well as apparent injustices. But, let’s take a closer look at the implications of this system. Firstly, karma is said to be a natural law just like gravity, only that it governs morality instead of governing matter, although matter is also said to be affected. If it is just a natural law, doesn’t that mean it could be subject to mutations just as the laws of genetics are occasionally influenced by an unexpected (and in most cases harmful) factor? How could we place our trust in such a system? Concerning this dilemma, John Jones points out that, “The morality of karmic consequences seems to call in question the strictly impersonal nature of karmic processes since, if these are moral processes, the only type of morality for which we have empirical evidence is that associated with personality. There is thus a tension between the impersonal and the moral attributes of karma” (37).

The supposed effects of karma are listed clearly in the Pali Canon (Middle Length Sayings III, p. 248- 253): “This course is conducive to shortness of life-span, brahman youth, that is to say making onslaught on creatures, being cruel, bloody-handed, intent on injuring and killing, and without mercy to living creatures.”… The opposite of this is as follows: “This course is conducive to length of life-span, brahman youth, that is to say, if one, by getting rid of onslaught on creatures [204] abstains from onslaught on creatures, (and with) the stick laid aside, the sword laid aside, lives scrupulous, merciful, kindly and compassionate to all living creatures.” Since the opposite results are easy to guess, and for the sake of brevity, I’ll list a few more with only the negative consequences. The ellipses (…) in these quotes are in the text itself (not something I’ve omitted):

“This course is conducive to many illnesses, brahman youth, that is to say being by nature harmful to creatures with his hand…or with a sword.”…”This course is conducive to ugliness, brahman youth, that is to say being wrathful…and evincing…resentment.”… ”This course is conducive to being of little account, brahman youth, that is to say being jealous-minded…of respect and reverence paid them.”… ”This course is conducive to poverty, brahman youth, that is to say not being a giver…of bed, lodging, light.”… ”This course is conducive to being in a lowly family, brahman youth, that is to say being one who…does not honour one who should be…honoured.”… ”This course is conducive to being weak in wisdom, brahman youth, that is to say…not being one who asks: ‘…Or what, being done by me, is for long for my welfare and happiness?’”

Thus the causes of a short life, illnesses, ugliness, being of little account, poverty, being in a lowly family, and being weak in wisdom, are spelled out for us- these things are due to bad deeds, words or thoughts done in previous lives. That these are descriptions of causes from previous lives, can be seen in the first consequence: “But if, at the breaking up of the body after dying he does not arise in the sorrowful ways, the bad bourn, the Downfall, Niraya Hell [15] , but comes to human status, then wherever he is born (in a new existence) he is of a short life-span.” This is the way karma explains inequalities in life- according to what people deserve. In this system the poor deserve to be poor, and the rich deserve to be rich, etc. This type of thinking seems to place the crippled person in the same category as a criminal in jail, and the person with material possessions, in the hero category. Are these conclusions really warranted?

All of the complex moral effects in a person’s life are supposed to be recorded, not by an intelligence, but by a mere energy force. Then, to compound the problem, the person who dies is said to have no soul, raising the question of how this accumulated moral bank account is reassigned. Karma is the conscience of the Buddhist system, but its practical operation and existence is left unexplained. Jones writes of the Buddha, “He seems to have been convinced that, however much the rational, analytical part of his teaching- especially the doctrine of anatta- might seem to deny it, the laws governing sentient life on this planet and beyond are not amoral.” (36) The Buddha couldn’t deny morality, and yet he also couldn’t synchronize it with his doctrine. Aside from these difficulties though, we should ask ourselves, do we really want what we deserve, strictly speaking?

The system of karma supposes that a good deed can make up for a bad deed, like a bank account of merit which could be added to or taken from. This kind of reasoning applied to morality would not hold up in a court of law (judges don’t pardon crimes based on balancing out the good deeds against the bad deeds in the life of the accused). Biblically speaking, morality is not like a bank account which can be balanced out subtracting bad deeds from good deeds, or vice versa. Rather, morality is a set of obligations based on relationships. Children have certain obligations to respect their parents, as parents have obligations to care for their children. Husbands and wives, friends, workers and employees, etc. all have certain obligations to one another. If a husband cheats on his wife, but then gives his wife a wonderful present, will he then break even? Will he have amended his violation as if it were a business deal? There is such a thing as forgiveness in relationships, but morality is not just an impersonal formula that can be treated as a bank account. Likewise, if a person admitted to murder, but then told the judge that even though he had committed the murder, he had also given his life’s savings to a widow in his neighborhood, would that judge cancel the punishment for the murder? He had violated his obligations to love his neighbor (whom he murdered). The crime of murder would still be punished, no matter how many good deeds the person had done.

Conversely, if a person lives an upright life and follows all of the laws of the land, does the government then send this person a reward for their good behavior? That person was simply fulfilling their obligations, so while the government would be appreciative, they would simply see the person as behaving as they should. They don’t get any bonus points for that. Violations count against us, but good behavior is simply expected. Even if a person does one hundred good deeds, but one bad deed, they have fulfilled their duty one hundred times, but have one violation on their record. What would we think of an employer who pays their employees 100 times, but the time after that doesn’t pay them, because of their supposed merit in already paying 100 times? Or, what would we think of a hot-tempered teacher who refrains from temper loss with absent-minded students 100 times, but the time after that lets loose and gives one of them a good kick? Does that mean the teacher then has 99 “points” (100 good deeds minus 1 bad deed)? The teacher has fulfilled an obligation 100 times and has one violation on record.

People are obliged to forgive others for violations done to them, because they themselves have their own lists of violations, though perhaps in areas differing from those offending them: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15). God on the other hand is not “obliged” to forgive, because He is without sin. A judge in a courtroom, though not without sin, likewise has no obligation to pardon a crime.

According to the Bible, not only “good” deeds are expected of us. Our obligation is to do our best: "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5: 46-48). If a person lives a horrible life, accumulating a long list of cruel violations, but then reforms and lives the rest of life as an upstanding citizen, is the past then balanced out? The reformed life lived was already an obligation, but the former list of offenses is still on record. Likewise, when a criminal has finished serving time for their crime, it doesn’t erase the crime, because their best was expected all along. Violations continue to accumulate throughout a person’s life, and included in that list is the violation of not forgiving others for violations against us.

The biblical system is an entirely personal one. Positive or negative morals cannot be separated from relationships as being mere “points.” To rebel against morality is not just to make a bad choice or to accumulate negative points. It is all relational. The laws of the Bible are summed up in two commands— love God and love people. To reject morals is to rebel against a person—the One who created life. To properly acknowledge obligations is also to change our relational standing: “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Galatians 3: 24). First comes the law and thus a realization of the extent of violations. With that realization, comes a realization of the love of Christ, who being innocent died on the cross for our sins. With that realization comes a yielding to Jesus Christ. Then things that were once “obligations,” become things which are welcome: "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15: 15)

On the other hand, to embrace morality, but to reject the relational aspect of morality is like refusing a ride from a ship going across the ocean and trying to swim that incredible distance. The Bible describes such a person as cursed, because they depend on their own abilities and not on God: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’" (Galatians 3: 10). When our faith is in Christ the violations that were against us are nailed to the cross.

It is hopeless for people to climb out of the mire of their misdeeds, by their own abilities. And yet there is hope for everyone. God’s offer of forgiveness is not something that can be earned, or demanded, but is a free gift of mercy for all who realize the extent of their violations and truly repent- putting their trust in God, and not in themselves: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2: 8-9).

Women

According to the Pali Canon, it is said that someone can be born as a woman in one life and then as a man in the next, etc. But, nowhere in the 500 plus Jataka lives (though not an exhaustive list of Buddha’s lives), nor elsewhere in the Pali Canon, does Sakyamuni appear as a woman (although it is sometimes inferred that he must have been a woman at one time or another). Jones writes, “The most striking single fact is that, in spite of the tremendous diversity of forms which the bodhisatta assumes, he never once appears as a woman or even as a female animal. Even when he appears as a tree-spirit or fairy, he is always masculine.” (20) His close friend Ananda who appears in many of his lives, appears only once as a woman (Jones, 113). Going further, Jones contrasts the doctrine of the Jatakas with the Pali Canon in general:

“But whereas the corrupting influence of an evil woman is the norm in the Jatakas, virtuous women being merely exceptions which prove the rule, the possibility of a friend’s becoming a corrupting influence is so remote that it is hardly ever mentioned. This differs from the canonical position. There, unquestionably, sex and marriage are bad, but so are love and friendship, since these involve one in personal attachments and painful (or potentially painful) emotions. The only love which the canon can bless is that which is quite detached and general; a ‘boundless friendly mind for all creatures’.” (115)

Commenting on one of these virtuous women, Jones writes, “That rare thing in the Jataka stories, a virtuous woman, owes her virtue to merit acquired in a former birth- as a male!” (43) In the Pali Canon itself, the depiction of women is hardly better: “…yet, women never tire of sexual intercourse and childbearing (GS I 72) and they never sit in court or embark on business because ‘they are uncontrolled, envious, greedy and weak in wisdom’ (GS II 92f).” (Jones, 78). Regarding the establishment of an order for nuns, Jones writes, “When Ananda prevailed upon Gotama to allow a separate Order for women, he is reported to have been very gloomy about this. It would, he said, halve the length of time for which the Dhamma [16] would be preserved in pure form.” (Jones, 77; GS IV 184f). In the Vinaya Pitaka (Book of Discipline V), a similar prediction is made by Sakyamuni, when addressing Ananda:

“If, Ananda, women had not obtained the going forth from home into homelessness in the dhamma and discipline proclaimed by the Truth-finder, the Brahma-faring, Ananda, would have lasted long, true dhamma would have endured for a thousand years. But since, Ananda, women have gone forth…in the dhamma and discipline proclaimed by the Truth-finder, now, Ananda, the Brahma-faring will not last long, true dhamma will endure only for five hundred years.” (356)

Since women did “go forth” and five hundred years have already passed, the question arises, is the above canonical passage false, or is it true in saying that “true dhamma” will only endure for five hundred years? If we say it is false, then there is falsity in the Pali Canon. If we say it is true, then it is still false, since five hundred years have already passed, and thus “true dhamma” would no longer be around. In this same text, the Buddha compares the influence of women to mildew: “Even, Ananda, as when the disease known as mildew attacks a whole field of rice that field of rice does not last long, even so, Ananda, in whatever dhamma and discipline women obtain the going forth…that Brahma-faring will not last long.” (356) Also in the above text (Book of Discipline V), the eight conditions for allowing the women to join, are spelled out. Among these, here are two examples, which highlight women’s subordinate role to men in Buddhism:

“A nun who has been ordained (even) for a century must greet respectfully, rise up from her seat, salute with joined palms, do proper homage to a monk ordained but that day. And this rule is to be honoured, respected, revered, venerated, never to be transgressed during her life.” (354); “From to-day admonition of monks by nuns is forbidden, admonition of nuns by monks is not forbidden. This rule too is to be honoured, respected, revered, venerated, never to be transgressed during her life.” (355)

Elaborating on this basic attitude, Tibetan (Tantric) Buddhism has taken it to more extreme extents. Victor and Victoria Trimondi, in their book “The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic, and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism,” devote a large portion of their 816 page volume (in German) to the topic of misogyny:

“In light of the complexity of the topic, we have resolved to proceed deductively and to preface the entire book with the core statement of our research in the form of a hypothesis. Our readers will thus be set on their way with a statement whose truth or falsity only emerges from the investigations which follow. The formulation of this hypothesis is necessarily very abstract at the outset. Only in the course of our study does it fill out with blood and life, and unfortunately, with violence and death as well. Our core statement is as follows: The mystery of Tantric Buddhism consists in the sacrifice of the feminine principle and the manipulation of erotic love in order to attain universal androcentric power”

(this book is not currently available in hardcopy in English, but the entire English translation of the German can be found online: http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Contents.htm )

Coming back to Theravada Buddhism, Jones explains the doctrinal gymnastics behind the scenes of the Jatakas and the Pali Canon proper, related to women:

“Why such an onslaught on the fair sex? I am convinced that JS 61 gives us the most reliable clue to an answer. The stories are designed mainly to discourage young men from family life and sexual involvement. Now, as we have seen, the canonical reason for turning away from the entanglements of family life is that these are “fetters”, nourishing the illusion of “self” and of attachment to other “selves”; only in the detachment of the realisation of anatta (selflessness) can true peace be found. We have also seen that the Jatakas studiously avoid the doctrine of anatta, since this would undermine their basic premise: that the same person moves on from life to life….Thus women pay very dearly for the Jatakas’ need to avoid the anatta doctrine. In becoming the scapegoat, they must have found it very hard to retain any self-respect. A Theravada woman, bred on the Jatakas, must have felt the dice were very heavily loaded against her- as must a layman who hoped that his marriage, against all the odds, would turn out well.” (99)

Instead of rebelling against Buddhism though, many women in Buddhist societies accept their lower status as something they deserve based on supposed karma from previous lives. Cleo Odzer, in the book “Buddhism and Abortion,” writes, “Typically, women in Thailand are undervalued in respect to men, a situation endorsed by the Buddhist religion…”(33), and in surveying women in a Bangkok slum area, it was discovered that “Mostly, the women accepted their lot in the Buddhist belief that they were born ‘as a woman because of bad karma or a lack of sufficient good merit.’”(35)

In the Bible women are not seen as “mildew,” incapable of doing business, of lesser status than even young men, the cause of men being defiled, and deserving of any suffering they may be facing. Women and men do have different roles and responsibilities in the Bible, but the inheritance for believers in God’s economy is equal: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3: 27- 29) In the book of Proverbs chapter 31, written by King Lemuel’s mother, the virtuous woman is praised for being wise in business dealings, being clothed in strength and honor, having words of wisdom on her lips, and being trusted by her husband.

Meditation

Buddhist meditation is often presented as something neutral-- just meditation, as opposed to being a “religious” activity. People from various worldview backgrounds are encouraged to try it, on the assumption that it’s just a kind of mind training-- just as physical exercise is body training. This is an attraction for someone who just wants to have a unique, peaceful, or meaningful experience without necessarily buying into the doctrines of the Buddha. But how neutral is meditation really?

In a rarely referred to portion of the Pali canon, a meditation time gone haywire is reported:

“Indeed there was one occasion so damaging to the Buddha’s reputation as a ‘peerless charioteer of men’ that it is hard to think it would have been invented. I have never seen it referred to in any of the books on Buddhism I have read. In KS V 284, we read that the Buddha had commended ‘the unlovely’ as a subject for meditation before he himself went off for a fourteen-day retreat. On his return, he found the Order sadly diminished because so many of the monks, contemplating ‘the unlovely’ had ‘as to this body…worried about it, felt shame and loathing for it, and sought for a weapon to slay themselves’- and had in fact, committed suicide. Ananda suggests that in future it might be better if the Buddha ‘would teach some other method’ of meditation. Gotama replies with this suggestion and advises his monks to base their meditation on their breathing in future.” (Jones, 76)

To this day, ‘the unlovely’ (such as a human corpse) is still a valid object of Buddhist meditation, although other types of meditation, such as focusing on breathing, are far more common. The above canonical passage raises the question of Sakyamuni’s omniscience (which is claimed for him in other canonical passages). Did he know the monks would commit suicide, and gave them this harsher form of meditation anyway, or did he not know, and thus was not omniscient (this latter view is more commonly held today).

Even in the more standard types of meditation, such as focusing on one’s breathing, or observing one’s thoughts as though they were not one’s own thoughts (being detached from the concept of “self” and “objectively” observing the thoughts), there are dangers. Rahula nonetheless encourages such meditation: “Try to examine it as if you are observing it from the outside, without any subjective reaction, as a scientist observes some object. Here, too, you should not look at it as ‘my feeling’ or ‘my sensation’ subjectively, but only look at it as ‘a feeling’ or ‘a sensation’ objectively. You should forget again the false idea of ‘I.” (73) In his chapter dealing with “Meditation on Breathing,” Paravahera Vajiranana relates Vipassana [17] meditation to breathing:

“At the moment of insight he breathes in, breathes out, setting free the mind from the idea of permanence by contemplating impermanence, from the idea of happiness by contemplating painfulness, from the idea of self by contemplating non-ego, from the idea of delight by contemplating repulsion, from passion by contemplating detachment, from cause of origination by contemplating cessation, from clinging by contemplating renunciation.” (255)

Also related to a breathing meditation, Vajiranana writes, “Thus in these two stages the bodily element of respiration is said to be completely tranquilized. It is with a view to attaining this state that ‘he practises mindfulness of breathing in and out’” (243) In this instance, the goal of breathing is not breathing! In a footnote, and based on Visuddhimagga [18] 283, Vajiranana points out, “There are eight states in which there is no breathing: within the mother’s womb, when one is drowned in water, in unconscious beings, in the dead, in the fourth Jhana [19] , in the unconscious form-world, in the formless world, and in Nirodha-samapatti, the attainment of the cessation of all feelings and perceptions” (243). Ernest Valea in his online article points out some further dangers with Vipassana meditation:

“…the experiences that accompany Buddhist contemplation on the mental states (citta samapatti) can be explained as misperceptions of the surrounding reality due to the imposition of an abnormal way of functioning on the senses and mind: ‘As meditators passively watch their own mental states come and go without trying to control them, these begin to fluctuate more and more rapidly and unpredictably. After a while this chaotic activity creates the strong impression that the mental events are springing into life on their own, from some separate source, rather than the observer’s own mind. As meditators persist with this practice, they also notice that there is a definite separation between the mental events being observed and the mind that is doing the observing. As meditation progresses still further, both the mental events and the observing mind begin to seem alien and impersonal, as if they do not really belong to the observer. At about this point the meditator’s sense of “self” becomes confused and weakened, and finally it disappears entirely for brief periods of time… (E. Hillstrom, Testing the Spirits, IVP, 1995, p. 114-115)’” ( www.comparative religion.com/Buddhism.html)

When a person becomes a “third person” observer of themselves, and even renounces the idea of “self”, it is like relinquishing the steering wheel and sitting in the passenger seat. This presents the possibility of outside spirits entering in and having a very real and dangerous influence, even if it’s “only” deception. Why does a person have to move into an altered state of consciousness, in order to accept the “higher truths?” Would we not be suspicious if a real estate agent told us we needed to take mind altering drugs before appreciating the full value of the house being sold?

The ultimate goal of meditation, canonically speaking, is nirvana- freedom from suffering via the non-existence of the individual. Many meditators who try Buddhist meditation at the basic levels, do not have this as their goal. Their goal may be inner peace, mental health, or just to experience something unique. Nonetheless, travelling farther along the pathway of meditation, when the stated goal is nirvana, meditators become more and more detached from their feelings, and become spiritually leprous. A person with physical leprosy is someone who has lost the sense of touch (and thus is in danger when leaning on a hot stove, not having an impulse to pull away, etc.). A person who becomes completely detached from emotions becomes spiritually leprous, and may appear to be quite peaceful, but is also unaware of emotions which give needed warning and provide other healthy functions.

There are said to be states of bliss and even supernormal abilities attainable along the pathway of meditation, but according to canonical teachings, these are supposed to be rejected as distracting from the ultimate purpose- that of complete cessation (nirvana). Thus the “positive” experiences of meditation are mere “lures” leading to the “hook” of cessation. Speaking of the highest level of meditation (Nirodha-samapatti), Vajiranana writes, “But that which is experienced in the Nirodha-samapatti is the state of Nirvana, namely the cessation of all mental activities, which is comparable to that of final Nirvana. The final Nirvana is called ‘Khandha-pari-nibbana,’ the complete cessation of the five aggregates, and is attained by the Arhat at his death” (467).

Apart from the dangers of meditation on a personal level, meditation does not deliver the objective standard it claims. Meditation is sometimes labeled as scientific, because in it, the claims of the Buddha are said to be experienceable. However, as mentioned before, the meditators are instructed beforehand in what they can expect to experience. This expectation removes objectivity since it conditions people to generate what is expected. If the instructor tells them they can expect to see previous lives, they are already predisposed towards that. Also, it is not objective, because there are “wrong” or heretical views described in the Pali Canon. In other words, if someone meditates and experiences something heretical- such as “I do have an eternal soul,” this will be rejected.

Buddhist meditation takes people who are relational by nature, and makes their mind more like a machine. Even when the meditation is “spreading compassion to all beings”, the focus is on one’s own ability to direct the mind to this challenge, and the compassion is meant to be a detached one. When the meditation is a concentration upon one object, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, this silences the voice of conscience calling us to a relationship with God, and sets the mind instead on a path toward increased detachment and isolation. Proverbs chapter 18, verse 1 states, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment.” In isolation one’s own desires may be accomplished, but this situation can be compared to a child who would reject the care of loving parents who provide good food and friendship, and wants to instead go live in the forest- rejecting offers of food, rejecting clothing, rejecting offers for education, etc. Such a child would have difficulty surviving and would eventually lose the ability even to communicate with the parents. Meditation in the Bible means to consider God’s principles and character, spending time with God. It’s a relational process of God “feeding” His children and communicating with them, taking away the burdens in life and providing wisdom.

Science

This is the topic which brings to light Sakyamuni’s claims to omniscience (or the Pali Canon’s claims on his behalf). How credible is the Pali Canon as a book of facts? If Sakyamuni Buddha did not inspire these writings either directly or indirectly, where is the standard by which truth is measured? And, if it is claimed that the Pali Canon was inspired by the Buddha why does it contain so many factual errors? If the Pali Canon is a mix of truth and error, entrusting one’s destiny to its teachings would be like entrusting oneself to a doctor who prescribes both good and harmful medicines-- a real gamble. All of the scriptural quotations in this science section are from the Pali Canon proper, not its commentary.

In the Digha Nikaya (Dialogues of the Buddha III; 137-139), are listed the 32 marks of one who is supposed to become either a Buddha or a universal ruler. Among these marks, it says he must have 40 teeth [as a baby! - the time when such an assessment is made (Dialogues of the Buddha II; pp. 13-18)]. Ordinarily children have only half that amount- 20 teeth. A mature adult will have 32 teeth total (assuming they didn’t play too much hockey), or 28 teeth if the four wisdom teeth are removed. Fitting eight extra teeth into the jaw of an adult would be quite a feat, but fitting 20 extra teeth into a baby’s jaw would be a real stretch- both of the jaw and of it’s credibility!

Among the 32 marks, another one is that the potential universal ruler or Buddha must have a large tongue. Just how large? In the Majjhima Nikaya (Middle Length Sayings II), a brahman named Sela came to talk with the Buddha and was looking for the 32 marks on him…”Then the Lord, having put out his tongue, stroked it backwards and forwards over both his ears and he stroked it backwards and forwards over both his nostrils and he covered the whole dome of his forehead with his tongue.” (335). Wow. Although there are many statues of the Buddha with various expressions, and in various postures, I’ve never seen one highlighting this aspect of his anatomy, and yet this is canonical.

When responding to Ananda’s question about the cause of an earthquake (Gradual Sayings IV; pp. 208-210), the Buddha gives eight reasons. The first is a natural explanation relating to the structure of the earth, while in the next seven reasons the Buddha says the earth responds with quaking when various “enlightened” ones make monumental accomplishments. In the first reason for earthquakes, we see some real differences between what he says and what modern science knows about the structure of the earth and the causes of earthquakes: “Since, Ananda, this great earth rests on water and the water rests on wind and the wind subsists in space; what time the great winds blow, they cause the water to quake, and the quaking of the water causes the earth to quake. This, Ananda, is the first cause, the first reason, of a great earthquake becoming manifest.”

This example and some of the following examples, demonstrate a lack of correspondence with “the way things are” (the kind of insight the Buddha claimed to provide). These are not just examples of miracles, which would have to be examined on an individual basis according to the evidence for or against them. Rather, they are examples of “reality claims”, which can be tested against modern and non-controversial knowledge of our world (such as the layout of the continents, the height of the tallest mountain, the size of the oceans, etc.).

In the Dialogues of the Buddha III, a description is given of human ancestors who lived to be 80,000 years old, but gradually through various vices, their life-spans were reduced to only ten years. At that time it is alleged that these humans married at five years of age, and presumably conceived children at least by the age of nine if not earlier (since at age nine “old age” would have already set in). These are clearly referred to as humans in this text, and not monkeys. Then, with an increase in moral living, the humans are said to increase their life-spans once again. If this story is only allegorical, why does the text refer to a well known city as being part of this history/prophecy: “Among such humans the Benares of our day will be named Ketumati…” (73). Also, if it is allegorical, so is the prediction of the future Buddha Metteyya, who is supposed to appear when human life-spans are back to 80,000 years.

In another “reality claim” coming from the mouth of the one who “can fall into no error” (Dialogues of the Buddha III, 25), the Buddha says that there are fish in the great ocean, which are anywhere from 100- 500 yojanas long:

“And again, monks, the great ocean is the abode of great beings; these beings are there: the timis, the timingalas, the timitimingalas, asuras, nagas, gandhabbas. There are in the great ocean individualities a hundred yojanas (long), individualities two hundred…three hundred…four hundred…five hundred yojanas (long).” (Book of Discipline V, 333)

According to the Pali Text Society Dictionary, one yojana is said to be equal to 7 miles. That means a fish which is 500 yojanas long would be 3500 miles long. That’s quite a claim, considering that this distance would be about 700 miles longer than the USA is wide (west to east)! Also, it would be quite a disproportional fish since the deepest spot in the world’s oceans is about 7 miles deep, with the average depth being about 3 miles.

For one who claims to omnisciently describe things “as they are” whether in the spiritual or the physical realm, it seems not too much to ask that he would be able to diagnose physical ailments and prescribe suitable cures. In the fourth volume of the Book of Discipline, there are a number of stories which make it plain that the Buddha’s knowledge does not even match up to modern standards, much less omniscience. In one such case the Buddha puts his approval on consuming raw flesh and blood from swine:

“Now at that time a certain monk had an (sic) non-human affliction. Teachers and preceptors, although nursing him, were unable to get him well. He, having gone to the swine’s slaughter-place, ate raw flesh and drank raw blood, and his non-human affliction subsided. They told this matter to the Lord. He said: ‘I allow, monks, when one has a non-human affliction, raw flesh and raw blood.’” (274)

“A non-human affliction” here may refer to demon-possession as the footnote for this passage points out. The cure approved of by the Buddha, is to let the “non-human” spirit (a.k.a. demon) indulge itself in raw flesh and blood. Is there any disease for which this would actually be a wise practice? Why didn’t the Buddha cast out such a foul oppressor as Jesus Christ often did? In another contrast to the ministry of Jesus Christ, whose healing was often described using the word “immediately,” the Buddha gives permission for various remedies, which are often followed by the words, “he got no better” (278-279). Following such incidents is another passage showing the Buddha’s lack of appropriate remedies:

“’I allow, monks, a piece of cloth for tying over the sore.’ The sore itched. ‘I allow you, monks, to sprinkle it with mustard-powder.’ The sore festered. ‘I allow you, monks, to make a fumigation.’ The flesh of the sore stood up. ‘I allow you, monks, to cut it off with a piece of salt-crystal.’ The sore did not heal.” (279)

When someone is so much in the dark regarding physical realities, why should we trust him concerning much weightier, eternally significant, spiritual realities?

Lastly, because the theory of evolution seems to align itself to Buddhism pretty well (no need for a Creator), does this mean Buddhism is therefore scientific? Firstly, the Buddha didn’t explain ultimate origins and said that speculating about origins is one of the useless endeavors in life (since such speculation doesn’t lead to Nirvana). But, also if there is no Creator, how can we expect our world to have any morals (or any karmic justice), or any beauty if everything came into being through random, mutated, impersonal chance? Apart from the lack of cohesion between evolution and Buddhism, there is the more fundamental problem- evolution is still a theory- and after all these years since Darwin’s “discovery”, the evidence for evolution is not increasing, but decreasing. The famous line-up of monkeys to men, for example, have been shown to be hoaxes, or completely ape, or completely human. The missing links are still missing. The website www.answersingenesis.org has articles, audios, and videos, presented by Ph.D. creation scientists, offering evidence in support of a Creator of this world. To someone raised with evolutionary thinking, a Creator may sound “unscientific”, but the evidence is there. To dismiss this evidence without a fair examination would itself be unscientific. Should we accept something just because it is the opinion of our age or in agreement with our moral preferences in life? An objective person would be willing to follow the evidence where it leads, even if that means to God.

God

In Jataka 543, questions are asked concerning a Creator [20] : “Why are his creatures all condemned to pain? Why does he not to all give happiness. [sic]” (Jones, 144). The agnosticism/atheism in Buddhism and emphasis on self-effort, claim for humanity a jurisdiction all their own. Suffering that is so evident in this world is often given as the reason for rejecting a loving and powerful God. The book of Job in the Bible addresses the problem of apparent injustices in this world. By making a judgement about their circumstances, people presume to know all that can be known about the situation. Job had a similar complaint, because from his perspective, he couldn’t see any justice in what he was facing. In response, God asked Job four chapters worth of questions (Job 38-41), which made Job realize how limited his knowledge really is. Sitting in judgment on God is presuming to know what is right based on our finite and limited perspective. What knowledge does such a person have, that the Creator has not yet considered?

The vanity in this world should turn us towards our Creator for direction and renewal, rather than supposing we can handle the problems on our own. Jesus taught his disciples their need to humble themselves before God: “Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them,

and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.’” (Matthew 18: 2-3). What we see in this world oftentimes is unjust- the wicked prospering, the “innocent” facing trouble, etc., but we need to know the perspective of eternity, which includes a judgment day in which God will judge the world in righteousness. In Buddhism, the question of God’s existence is placed in the category of vain philosophical speculation-- supposing that this question does not help a person end suffering through Nirvana. Thankfully, knowing God does not lead us to Nirvana (non-existence). Also, considering Sakyamuni’s lack of omniscience, it is hardly advisable to trust in his speculations about what is or is not a worthy pursuit. If an appliance in our house is not functioning properly, we turn to the owner’s manual or maybe call the maker of that appliance. Similarly, God who made us has the answers to life’s dilemmas.

Conclusion

Looking at Buddhism plainly like this, if Buddhism were a journey, it would be a journey in which the road map contains known false claims, the “discoverer” of this journey is no longer around to offer any help, and ultimately one is extinguished when arriving at the destination. Although Buddhism is a fascinating system, it leads people along a pathway away from the God who loves them, away from incorruptible everlasting life, and thus away from what we were made for- a life washed of our sins and relating to our Maker- made possible not by “earning it”, but through Jesus Christ taking our punishment onto Himself on the cross. To reject this is to reject a true road map to heaven [21] , help for the journey, and a guide who will not fail us. To acknowledge and accept this is to begin a relationship of trust with our Maker. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3: 16-18).

References

Childers, R.C. (1979). A Dictionary of the Pali Language. New Delhi: Cosmo Publications.

Gogerly, D.J. (1885). The Kristiyani Prajnapti or The Evidences and Doctrines of the Christian Religion in three parts. Colombo: Christian Vernacular Education Society.

Herman, A.L. (1996). Two Dogmas of Buddhism. In Pali Buddhism Hoffman, F.J., Mahinda, D. (Eds.) Surrey: Curzon Press.

Jones, J.G. (1979). Tales and Teachings of the Buddha: The Jataka Stories in relation to the Pali Canon. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Keown, D. (2000). Buddhism: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Odzer, C. (1998). Abortion and Prostitution in Bangkok. In Buddhism and Abortion. Keown, D. (Ed.). Great Britain: Macmillan Press Ltd.

Rahula, W. (1999). What the Buddha Taught. Bangkok: Haw Trai Foundation.

Rhys Davids, T.W. & Stede, W. (1966). The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary. London: Luzac & Company, Ltd.

The Debate of King Milinda: An Abridgement of The Milinda Panha. (1998) Pesala, B. (Ed.) Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pte. Ltd.

The Holy Bible: New King James Version (1991 printing). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc.

The Pali Canon: Pali Text Society Version. Abbreviations of Pali Text Society books, with Pali titles in parentheses: V = Book of Discipline (Vinaya Pitaka); GS = Gradual Sayings (Anguttara Nikaya); D = Dialogues of the Buddha (Digha Nikaya); KS = Kindred Sayings (Samyutta Nikaya); MLS = Middle Length Sayings (Majjhima Nikaya); JS(S) = Jataka Stories (Jataka).

Trimondi, V. & Trimondi, V. (1999) Der Schatten des Dalai Lama: Sexualitaet, Magie und Politik im tibetischen Buddhismus. Duesseldorf: Patmos- Verlag.

Vajiranana, P. (1987). Buddhist Meditation in Theory and Practice: A General Exposition According to the Pali Canon of the Theravada School. Kuala Lumpur: Buddhist Missionary Society.

[1] Sakyamuni means sage of the Sakya clan (also known as Siddhattha Gotama- “THE” Buddha most people are referring to when saying “the Buddha,” though there are many Buddhas in Buddhism).

[2] The doctrine that there is no permanent “self” or “soul” that a person possesses.

[3] The verses of the Jataka Stories are considered to be canonical, but the narratives are considered to be more in the category of commentary.

[4] The four Nikayas are in the second “basket” of the Canon, called the Sutta Pitaka. There are actually five Nikayas in this basket, but the fifth (the Khuddaka Nikaya) is considered to be less reliable, containing later additions.

[5] The Pali Canon is the doctrinal source for Theravada Buddhists. Versions of this vary between countries (e.g. Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand), but there is agreement on the majority of texts which should be included in the Canon. The Pali Canon is divided into three “baskets”- the Vinaya Pitaka, the Sutta Pitaka, and the Abhidhamma Pitaka.

[6] The five khandas of which a person consists are said to be matter, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

[7] The Sutras refer to the second basket of the Pali Canon (the Sutta Pitaka).

[8] The five aggregates (khandas) referred to in endnote 6.

[9] The Pali of this word is atta. Rahula defines Atman as, “soul, self, ego.” (142)

[10] “A being totally dedicated to the attainment of the perfect enlightenment of a Buddha, for which one has to develop the perfections for many aeons.” (Pesala, 110)

[11] One of many hells (purgatories) in Buddhist cosmology.

[12] The state of one who is an Arahant (also spelled Arhat). Rahula defines an Arahant as, “one who is free from all fetters, defilements and impurities through the realization of Nirvana in the fourth and final stage, and who is free from rebirth.” (142)

[13] Herman explains his use of the word dogma in a footnote: “I see nothing sinister in the use of the word ‘dogma’ to describe a fundamental precept or authoritative tenet. Many Buddhists like to believe that they are dogma-free. I would suggest that no one is dogma-free, and to believe differently is to believe in at least one dogma.” (160) The two dogmas he points to are nirvana and the assertion that impermanence always leads to sorrow.

[14] Mahayana Buddhism is found mostly in China, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Taiwan and Vietnam.

[15] One of many hells (purgatories) in Buddhist cosmology.

[16] Dhamma can be translated as the body of teaching or the doctrine.

[17] Vipassana meditation is what makes Buddhist meditation unique, focusing on the transitory (anicca), unsatisfactory (dukkha), and non-self (anatta) nature of existence.

[18] This is a non-canonical work, written by Buddhaghosa, but very well respected among Theravada Buddhists.

[19] Jhana is also spelled Dhyana. Rahula defines Dhyana as, “’trance’, recueillement, a state of mind achieved through higher meditation.” (143)

[20] In this case the creator referred to is Brahman, although this is actually an argument against the existence of such a creator.

[21] For some examples of the reliability of the Bible, the following sites present some evidence from history, archeology, fulfilled prophecies, etc.:

http://www.apologeticsinfo.org/resource.html

http://www.letusreason.org/Apolodir.htm

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/historical.html

http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/article-index-b_1.html

The Windows update prank can easily trick someone when opened in full screen. It looks and acts like a real install page.

The Great Church Robbery

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:11:07 GMT

Introduction

We are going to focus on two main Greek words: “kleptos” is the primary New Testament word for “thief,” and “harpazo” is what a kleptos does—“to seize away by force; to rip off.”

Harpazo is to rip something off and a kleptos is the one performs this action. (This is where we get the word “kleptomaniac.”)To be absolutely accurate, some people try to tell us the word “rapture” is not in the Bible. It is in the Bible coming from the Latin Vulgate derived the Latin translation of “harpazo.” The word “rapture” comes from Latinizing the Greek word “harpazo,” and is most certainly in Scripture. However, it is in more than one place in Scripture. We are going to examine every place it occurs in the New Testament because every place it occurs teaches something about the Rapture. But we must take this a bit further.“Harpazo” plus “anastasis” equals “episunagoge.” The “snatching away” plus “resurrection” equals our “gathering together” to Him. The Greek prefix “epi” means “around.” So in other words, the Rapture and Resurrection are simultaneous; they are two aspects of the same event with the return of Jesus, which is called the episunagoge. It is functionally the same as “parousia,” the revelation of Jesus Christ that is coming. This is not “revelation” in the sense of “apocalypse,” but the revelation of the true believers. “Apocalypse” is a different word for “revelation” that means “unveiling.” This will not be an unveiling but takes place instantly–every eye shall ultimately see.

A Practical Example

I have a friend in England who is a computer software engineer. He is a nice guy with a family, and is an elder in a church near Stonehenge. He runs his own business with an interesting line of work. He is a computer consultant but he is hired by banks, credit card companies and corporations to hack into computer systems. He is actually hired to hack into computer systems to steal highly confidential information, usually of a financial nature, in order to test the strength of their security. He tells me that Chinese triads and Russian mafia are the most dangerous computer thieves. They are not like American gangsters but are usually ex-KGB agents from the old Soviet Union who have masters’ degrees and PhD’s, and are multi-lingual. If they do not themselves have degrees in computer science, they will hire such to do the hacking for them. He says this is a growing problem and therefore he has a growing business. He does the same things a thief will do: he hacks in and steals the information.When he gets a contract the people in the company do not know when he is going to do it and he does not tell them when or how he is going to do it. He does it remotely such as going through Hong Kong to hack into a system in England so they cannot trace it to him, the same kind of thing a professional hacker would do. He tries to steal that information before a real thief steals it, on the supposition that if he can do it they can do it. Therefore he is going to find out how to do it before they will. As it were, he comes to rob the thief. This is his livelihood. He is a Christian who has never stolen as much as a paper clip, but he does the same thing a thief does. He is hired to break into secure systems.

Aware of the Harpazo

“So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force …”

…harpazo Him—rapture Him. It is the same word. Jesus perceived that they were coming to “rapture” Him.

“…to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone. (Jn. 6:15)

Notice He was aware the rapture was coming. This same Jesus will make us aware the Rapture is coming. Every time we see this word it teaches something about the coming Rapture. He knew it was going to happen before it happened. We will not know the day or the hour, but we will know it is getting closer and we will know what action to take.Of course, they were coming to try to forcibly make Him king, and since His kingdom was not of this world (which was not the purpose for His first coming but the purpose in His second coming), He did not allow himself to be raptured and made king; He will come back and make Himself King when He returns. In other words, they wanted to rapture Him, but no, He is coming to Rapture us. But He knew it was going to happen.Grammatically it occurs here in the future-passive—it is “harpazomai,” but it is the same word.

Snatching by One Hand or the Other

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;”

(“Kill”—“thuso,” “destroy”—“apoleso” where we get the word “Apollyon.”)

“…I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches…

…”harpazos”…
…them and scatters them.” (Jn. 10:10–12)

The wolf “harpazos” them—raptures them. Going back to my friend in England, his job is to rob the thief, to steal the information before the thief can steal the information. He does the same thing the thief does. Satan comes to harpazo—to rapture, to snatch away by force.

“and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out…

…”harpazo” them…

“…of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out…

…”harpazo” them…

…of the Father’s hand. (Jn. 10:28–29)

This is saying that if we are in the hand of Christ, Satan cannot snatch us away from Him; he cannot touch the new creation. He cannot snatch us out of the hand of Christ.This Scripture does not address the issue of backsliding. People have taken it out of context and given it a meaning that is not warranted in the context. It does not say someone cannot get out of the hand, it simply says they cannot be snatched out of the hand, and has nothing whatsoever to do with a person choosing not to be in the hand of Christ. It simply says if someone chooses to be in the hand of Christ they cannot be snatched away.Unsaved people do not have a free will; their will is in bondage—they cannot choose Christ unless they are convicted by the Holy Spirit. They have to be empowered and convicted to choose Christ and it requires divine intervention for them to be saved. “Nobody comes but that the Father draws him” (Jn. 6:44). In our salvation we get back our free will when we come to Christ. He empowers us to be able to make that choice we could not make had He not so empowered us. Free will is restored at the cross; free will is something we get back; it makes it possible to choose and remain in Christ. John 10:28-29 has nothing whatsoever to do with backsliding or the will of the individual; it only says that the thief cannot do it. Very often this has been misapplied.

“When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.” (Mt. 13:19)

Somebody hears the Gospel, gets convicted, and they think about getting saved. No one can snatch them out of the Lord’s hand, but if they have not gone that far yet and the seed has fallen to the earth and died, we know what is going to happen: the devil is going to try to snatch it away. That is how he operates.We witness to someone, tell them the Gospel, they believe it and say they will come to church on Sunday, but the next day Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on their door. The devil sent them there. That is the devil coming to snatch away what was sown. But in Matthew 24 we see…

He is coming like a thief in the night. In other words, He robs the thief. Jesus comes in the character of the devil and snatches us away before the enemy does. It is the master gambit—He beats the devil at his own game. The devil is a kleptos. Jesus is not a kleptos but comes like a kleptos and does the same thing a kleptos does. In other words, to understand the nature of the Rapture we have to understand the nature of the devil. The Lord comes to rob the thief.

The Modern-Day Kleptos

Let us look at this idea of the kleptos who comes to “steal and kill and destroy,” how the devil does this, and how it manifests itself. Everybody gets robbed, but the question is, who is going to do it? We are either going to be “harpazoed” by the kleptos or “harpazoed” by the one who is likethe kleptos.In Psalm 50 the leadership of the nation was being castigated and they were told…

“When you see a thief, you are pleased with him,And you associate with adulterers. (Ps. 50:18)

Notice the relationship between impropriety and immorality. So often when we see these ministers fall from grace it involves spiritual pride, financial impropriety, and sexual immorality. It is usually one of those three things, and in some cases they hit the jackpot. The same guys fooling around with women are very often the same ones who are preaching Word-Faith or have their fingers in the cookie jar. This is not a new problem but, as described in this Scripture, existed in ancient Israel.Todd Bentley, a criminally-convicted homosexual pedophile who was in prison for molesting a seven year-old, claimed to become a Christian, had himself covered in tattoos, was kicking old ladies in the face, and night after night was preaching that the Lord showed him there were a thousand people attending each of his services who were going to give him $1,000. And he was getting the money, sometimes raking in over $1 million a night it would seem. The whole time this was going on he was being unfaithful to his wife and yet being trumpeted as a hero by Rick Joyner and C. Peter Wagner. After they prophesied over him that he was going to lead a great revival, four days later he abandons his wife and three children and takes off with this other woman. Soon after, he divorces his wife and marries her. Now they are trying to bring him back into ministry.

“When you see a thief, you are pleased with him,And you associate with adulterers. (Ps. 50:18)

He is an adulterer! They are pleased with him! This is only one contemporary example, but there are many examples of this. In other words, they are getting clipped already.

When I would heal Israel,The iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered,And the evil deeds of Samaria,For they deal falsely;The thief enters in,Bandits raid outside,And they do not consider in their heartsThat I remember all their wickedness.Now their deeds are all around them;They are before My face.With their wickedness they make the king glad,And the princes with their lies.They are all adulterers,Like an oven heated by the bakerWho ceases to stir up the fireFrom the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. (Hos. 7:1–4)

(Leaven, of course, is a figure of sin and false doctrine.)Look at this: these people are adulterers and they are thieves, but the kings and the princes are happy about their lies—they make the king glad!Why do we see major pastors and leadership figures lending credence to these con-artists? They make them happy with their lies! They make them happy with their thievery! This brought about the Assyrian Captivity—God’s judgment—on the ten northern tribes, and it is bringing God’s judgment on the contemporary church. As it says in Romans 11, if He did not spare the natural branches He will not spare you either. If Israel and the Jews could not get away with this kind of activity, neither will the church. And yet they continue in it.Todd Bentley leaves his wife and children and they are actually trying to bring him back. It means nothing to them. Money talks. They do not care about the adultery.

Your rulers are rebelsAnd companions of thieves; (Is. 1:23a)

Their leaders are in rebellion against God and companions with thieves!It is so shocking that it has been hard for me to believe this has happened, but when I recite these things in the public domain I am not throwing mud; I am simply stating facts.When Oral Roberts said a nine hundred foot tall Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him if he does not cough up $6.5 million by the end of the month He is going to kill him, people like Jack Hayford defended him and somebody gave him the money to save the hospital. (The hospital wound up closing down anyway and Jesus did not kill him.) He was on television crying, “Please, He’s going to kill me.” Apparently there was a nine hundred foot Jesus who was running a protection racket—that is what gangsters do. And yet there were pastors defending him.

Your rulers are rebelsAnd companions of thieves; (Is. 1:23a)

Jesus warned us how His Father’s house became a den of thieves. (Mt. 21:13; Mk. 11:17; Lk. 19:46) He did not use the word “kleptos” because a kleptos harpazos; these were swindlers.That is how the devil kleptos—he steals and destroys. Jesus is coming in the manner of the enemy to do the same thing the enemy does with an entirely different motive. He comes like a kleptos. To understand what Jesus is going to do we have to understand what the enemy does. The kleptos is always the enemy, but He comes like a kleptos.

The Example of Paul

Let us look at the other side. Everywhere this word “harpazo” occurs it teaches something about the Rapture.

And as a great dissension was developing, the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them and ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force…

(To harpazo him—rapture him. It is the same word in Greek.)

…and bring him into the barracks. But on the night immediately following, the Lord stood at his side… (Ac. 23:10–11a)

That is the Peshet, the straightforward meaning. Paul was going to be seized; they were going to rip him in half, literally tearing him to pieces. So the Roman commander dispatches his soldiers to rescue Paul before they could rip him to bits. Notice he harpazos Paul before the mob could harpazo him. This is a picture of the Rapture. The Antichrist is going to try to rip the body to pieces. “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather” (Mt. 24:28). But before that can happen, our Commander is going to send His angels to gather His elect. He will harpazo us before the enemy can. Every time we see this word it teaches something about the Rapture. Our Commander is going to snatch us away before the enemy can rip us to pieces; there will be a rescue.

There Is Always a Rescue

“But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. (Mt. 24:43) “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. (Dan. 12:1)

Notice that those whose names are in the book will be rescued. There is a rescue coming, and this rescue is the Rapture. In England we have Gerald Coates, and in America there is Rick Joyner—people who teach against the doctrine of the Rapture, saying there is no rescue. How is someone going to get rescued if they do not believe there is a rescue?In the Olivet Discourse Jesus gives a list of signs to look out for and He says, “I am coming like a thief in the night, so look out for these signs. This will tell you it is getting closer. If you had known at what time he was coming you would not have allowed your house to be broken into. Well, I am coming just like that burglar.” We are told by Paul that day should not overtake us like a kleptos (1 Th. 5:4); it is the world that is to be taken by surprise; it is the apostate church that is to be taken by surprise, not the faithful Bride. But in Matthew 24 Jesus says, “Be alert, watch for these signs, I am coming like a thief in the night” (Mt. 24:42-43).Suppose you were going to take your children or grandchildren down to Orlando to Disneyworld and somebody says, “Don’t bother to turn on the burglar alarm. Turn off the lights, leave the door open, drive off to Florida and have a good time.” Who is going to do that? Who is going to believe somebody who tells us that? If we visit the website of Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven Lie we are told to avoid End Time prophecy because it is a diversion. Jesus says to watch out, He is coming like a thief, to be alert, but who cares what Jesus Christ said if you have Rick Warren? Who needs the New Testament if you have the Purpose Driven Lie? Jesus commands that we be alert and watch for these things, but Warren says no. Do you understand who he works for? He works for the thief—the burglar.This is not a “mistake,” this is blatant. Jesus teaches to do one thing, Warren teaches people to do the other. It is unbelievable, but that is what is happening.

Paul’s Personal Example

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a man was caught up…

(…harpazo – raptured…)
…to the third heaven. (2 Co. 12:2)

He did not know if he was in the body or out of the body. When we are raptured we will not know if we are dead, we will just know that we are alive in Christ.The ancient Greeks had three concepts of heaven: the first was the atmosphere of the earth, the second was outer space, and the third was eternity. We have two Greek words for “time”: “chronos” and “kairos.” “Kairos” is the clock, but eternity is not a clock that keeps going; eternity is no clock at all. Yet there is in eternity “chronos” where we get the word “chronology.” It is an order of events, but they take place out of time, such as where it states in Revelation that the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). John says in Revelation, “And then I saw…and then I saw…” but he speaks of future events in the past tense and past events in the present tense—there is no “kairos,” just “chronos.” There is an order of events which take place out of time. Time as a clock depends on the second heaven (outer space), on planetary motion.Strictly speaking there is a time and a clock that works by particle emissions. It does not work by planetary motion but it still has to be calibrated in nanoseconds; it still has to express its measurements by planetary motion. Even the one clock we have that does not have to work by planetary motion still has to be calibrated in terms of planetary motion.So when we read in Revelation or Zechariah that the “shamayim”—“sky” is rolled up, this means that eternity meets earth; time and space meet heaven because the “second heaven” is “rolled up.”

And I know how such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows—

Notice that he says this twice because it is a mystery; he did not even understand it when it happened to him.

…was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak. (2 Co. 12:3–4)

Paul was raptured—“harpazoed,” caught up. This teaches about what it is going to be like to be raptured. We will not know if we are dead; we will just know we are alive. We will not know if we are in the body or out of the body.

Always an Earthly Return

When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away;

(…”harpazoed” him, raptured him…)

…and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea. (Ac. 8:39–40)

Notice when Paul was “harpazoed” we see him again back on earth and when Philip was “harpazoed” we see him back on earth. There is a Millennial Reign of Christ. Every time we see somebody “harpazoed” we see them coming back to earth. It is not a one-way ticket—it is a return ticket, only it will be back to the earth as it was before the Fall of man.Always remember that if someone has only six months to live, they actually have one thousand years plus six months to live. Believers go to sleep and then wake up again; death is for unsaved people.In Acts 8:39 he is “harpazoed” and they do not see him any longer in just the way that Enoch was snatched away and they did not see him anymore.

Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up…

(…”harpazoed”…)

…together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Th. 4:17-18)

I have heard people say the word “rapture” is not in the Bible. Should they rather say “harpazo”? The word “harpazo” is many places in the Bible, and every time it occurs it teaches something about 1 Thessalonians 4:17.

The Nativity Narrative

And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up…

(…”harpazoed”…)

…to God and to His throne. (Rev. 12:5)

As I have explained in other teachings, this is a Pesher interpretation of the Nativity narrative. Herod wanted to kill Jesus coming out of Mary, but Jesus by divine intervention was rescued. Herod comes and kills the other babies and so we see here the dragon was enraged with the woman and makes war with the woman and the rest of her offspring. It is a Pesher interpretation of the Christmas story (if you want to call it that), but it is a future event because as Jesus was taken to Egypt, the man-child is here taken up to God and to His throne.There is going to be a harpazo; there is always a rescue. In the context of Paul it is a rescue. Before the dragon could snatch the child away, God snatched Him away. Before the mob could snatch Paul away, God arranged providentially for the commander to snatch Paul away. There is always the context of a rescue. But if you do not believe there is a rescue, how are you going to get rescued?

The Amputation

For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief…

…kleptos…

…in the night. (1 Th. 5:2)

Remember that the “Day of the Lord” is inaugurated by the episunagoge. When the Church is removed, God pours out His wrath on the kingdom of Antichrist. This is the “Day of the Lord,” but it comes suddenly.Another term for “rapture,” as it were (or at least it is synonymous in its use for “rapture”), is “kolobo”—“the amputation,” as in, “Had those days not been cut short”—“kolobo” (Mt. 24:22).If someone has a highly metastasized cancer in an extremity or organ, he needs a surgical incision before it can spread to other organs. Or if someone has gangrene in an extremity it is necessary to amputate in order to prevent the entire body from dying. This is what is going to happen—the bad parts of the Body of Christ are going to be cut off; there will be an amputation. It will be cut short before the Body dies. When the shattering of the holy people happens (Dan. 12:7), the suffering of the faithful Church is going to be cut short. The faithful Church will not experience the wrath of God, but it will experience persecution, but that persecution will be cut short by an amputation, the kolobo. This is an important word in eschatology.

JUST Like a Thief

In 1 Thessalonians 5 it does not say that it will come like a thief, but “just like a thief.” How does the devil operate? That is what Jesus is going to do. Just like my friend back in England, they do not have a clue they are going to get robbed, they do not have a clue how he is going to do it, they do not even have a clue when he is going to do it. He might hack into their system at 2:30 in the morning when everything is closed but the system is running. He may hack into their system remotely through another computer in Asia or Africa. They do not have a clue. It says “just” like a thief—it is emphatic.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; (1 Th. 5:4)

It should not overtake us like a thief! I am frightened when people are ignoring End Time prophecy or are taught to avoid it by Rick Warren and company.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief…

(There it is again: like a kleptos.)

…in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. (2 Pe. 3:10)

That word for “elements” in Greek is “stoicheia” where we get the word “stoichiometry” for elementary chemistry and the period chart of the elements. The Greeks knew about elements, but they did not know about subatomic particles or subatomic physics. They did not know about positrons, electrons, neutrinos, or protons, they just had an idea about elements and had a word for “atom”—“atomos,” which meant “that which is most indivisible.” They did not know it could go any smaller than an atom elementally so that was the smallest to them. It was not until the 20th century that people knew an atom could be dissolved, but this fishermen from Galilee said that not only can an atom be dissolved but the biosphere can be destroyed by doing it. This was long before anyone knew about the critical mass of plutonium or cobalt or uranium 238. It is amazing, but that is exactly what it says in Greek, that an element can be dissolved, that which is indivisible, with enough explosive energy to destroy the biosphere.

“I will make it go forth,” declares the LORD of hosts, “and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by My name; and it will spend the night within that house and consume it with its timber and stones.” (Zech. 5:4)

This is referring to the flying scroll—“magillah” in Hebrew. It goes into the house of the thief and will leave that house in ruins.How many people used to be in crazy churches that were teaching seriously false doctrine, and the Lord got them out of it through His Spirit—through showing them what the Scriptures meant? This is the scroll that went into house of the thief. There are people who through no fault of their own are in these loony churches which preach money, ecumenism, and God knows what else—who do not know any better; it is all they were ever told. I was saved in a cult called “The Children of God.” You would not believe the things I believed when I was first saved, but that was all I knew. I did not know it was crazy. There are people is these places who just do not know any better, who are in ignorance; I was in ignorance. But the scroll goes into the house of the thief.

‘So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent.

“Sardis” comes from the Greek word “sarx”—“of the flesh.” It was the church who heard and knew the truth at one point

Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. (Rev. 3:3)

These are people who used to know the truth, and He is warning them to wake up and remember what they heard.There are churches which at one time stood squarely and solidly on biblical truth. Not many years ago you would have been hard-pressed to find a Baptist church that was not biblical. You would have been hard-pressed to find a Pentecostal church that was not biblical. I am only talking 30 years ago. They heard the truth, but they are not ready for the coming robbery.

(“Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.”) (Rev, 16:15)

He keeps saying it over and over and over: “I am coming like a thief.”The people who are caught up in this lunacy of the televangelists and things like that are being robbed already. I know Christian businessmen who have been taken to the cleaners by religious con-artists. They are being robbed already. I do not mean giving money to missions, to honest ministries, or to Christian charity, I mean that these are con-artists. They are fleecing the sheep. But there is a bigger robbery coming. If someone cannot see through an obvious false prophet, what is going to happen when theFalse Prophet comes? If we cannot see through a petty thief cum televangelist, what is going to happen when the real crook shows up?

Which Thief Shall It Be?

Jesus is coming like a thief. He is going to rob the thief. He is going to do exactly what my friend in England does. He is going to behave just like a thief and He is going to do exactly what a thief does before the thief does it. Everybody is going to get “harpazoed”; everybody is going to get ripped off; everybody is going to be snatched away. The only question is, who is going to do it?

The kleptos comes to harpazo in order to kill; the one who is like a kleptos comes to harpazo in order to save.

The kleptos comes to harpazo in order to destroy; the one who is like a kleptos comes to harpazo in order to rescue.

The kleptos comes to harpazo what is not his; the one who is like a kleptos comes to harpazo those who are His by His own blood.The kleptos comes to harpazo in order to bring death; the one who is like a kleptos comes to harpazo in order to bring life.

The kleptos comes to harpazo in order to steal; the one who is like a kleptos comes to harpazo in order to restore.

One way or another everybody gets “harpazoed.” You are going to be “harpazoed,” I am going to be “harpazoed.” Your family is going to be “harpazoed,” my family is going to be “harpazoed.” Your church is going to be “harpazoed,” my church is going to be “harpazoed.” We all get “harpazoed.” The only question is, who is going to do it?

We have no choice about being “harpazoed,” what we can chose is who we want to do it—either the kleptos or the one who is like a kleptos. That day should not overtake us like a kleptos—that day should not overtake us like a thief.God bless.

The Gates of Jerusalem

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:07:42 GMT

Introduction

Let’s look at the book of Nehemiah chapter 3...

Then Eliashib the high priest arose with his brothers the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors.

They consecrated the wall to the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel. Next to him the men of Jericho built, and next to them Zaccur the son of Imri built. Now the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate;

Nehemiah comes and he sees the devastation, a terrible devastation. And he goes to the king after weeping over the city, and he asks the king for a mandate to rebuild what’s been left in ruins. But there’s a spiritual meaning to what’s been left in ruins when he rebuilds the gates.

Now ultimately these gates are what you would see in the book of Revelation, the twelve gates. (Rev. 21:12 ) At different times in history there were different numbers of gates, but they’ve all basically been the same. To some extent they broadly resemble – or vaguely resemble – the pattern of the gates you have in the Old City of Jerusalem today, except that the city then was much, much smaller.

The Sheep & the Fish Gates

The first two gates we read are the Sheep Gate and, next to it,the Tower of Hananel (which means “God’s mercy”) and the Tower of the Me’ah, which means “one hundred”. That is the gate to which they brought the sheep into Jerusalem to be sacrificed in the temple. However, Hananel means “God’s mercy”, or something to do with the mercy of God. “Me’ah” is the Hebrew word for “one hundred”. Remember when Jesussaid if a shepherd loses a sheep, he’ll leave the ninety-nine and go after the one? ( Lk. 15:3-7 ) It’s like a dozen eggs: if one egg is missing, you don’t have a dozen. Or if one sheep is missing, you don’t have a proper flock. A proper flock had to be one hundred.

Sometimes, some of us go astray. Sometimes, some of us fallaway. Sometimes, young believers backslide. Sometimes, in times of crisis, we feel wrongly that the Lord has abandoned us, and we wander off. But the Good Shepherd comes after us. He doesn’t want to lose any.

The Sheep Gate. “My sheep will hear My voice,” He says. ( Jn. 10:27 ) But next to the Sheep Gate is the Fish Gate. “I will make you fishers of men”. ( Mt. 4:19 ) When you and I are born again, we get “caught”. Now, remember when the apostles fished and they kept one hundred fifty-three, but they threw the other ones back? There’s good fish and bad fish. Some people will go back to the world.

But then it continues, and it talks about the different people according to their families and tribes, rebuilding the gates.

Now the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and bars. Next to them Meremoth the son of Uriah...

...“Uriah” means “my light is God”...

...the son of Hakkoz made repairs. And next to him Meshullam the son of Berechiah the son of Meshezabel made repairs. And next to him Zadok the son of Baana also made repairs. Moreover, next to him the Tekoites made repairs, but their nobles did not support the work of their masters.

“The nobles did not support the work of their masters”. When people set out to rebuild what’s devastated, when people set out to repair the gates of God, when people set out to restore what used to be, one problem you’ll have is don’t trust the nobles. So often you’ll find – now there are exceptions – but the people who you’d think would be the most ready and certainly the most capable of contributing the most, the people who’ve been saved the longest, the people who would seem to know the Bible the best, sometimes the people who are the most educated or are the most affluent in a fellowship will be the ones who are most reluctant to get on with beginning again.

Most of the times God has worked, it has been usually – in fact, almost always – through poor people, through the working classes. Big revivals in South America: it’s the barrios, it’s the slums. John Wesley’s revivals in this country: it was the coal miners; they were like the lowest of the working class. At the time it was a terrible job. They had little kids, four years old dying of black lung disease. When the coal miners would get saved, their faces were black, just totally black with soot. And they came out of the mines and they would hear George Whitfield and John Wesley preach and they would begin crying because of their sins, and there were like white streams that go down the faces of these people. If you said somebody was a coal miner it was almost like saying they were a drug dealer or a prostitute or something like this. It was a profession that they associated with being a cutthroat because they paid so little the people probably couldn’t make a living doing it, despite the harsh conditions. It was absolutely unspeakable social injustice. And that’s where the Gospel prospered.

I’m not against middle class people or educated middle class people, but the middle class people God will use in rebuilding a devastated church will be middle class people who become servants of the poor and of the working classes. Usually it will be working class people who God will raise up to become upwardly mobile, who’ll get the thing going. Don’t trust the nobles. Don’t think the people who you’d expect to help you rebuild the gates are going to take to the work too quickly. People like that tend to like their comfort too much, they tend to like their position, they don’t like the boat rocked too much, they’d rather make due with what they have. Because if they try to rebuild something, it’s going to cost them something. It’ll cost them something. They don’t need the trouble or the aggravation. The nobles don’t support the work of the masters. They should; some of them do. But generally it’s the salt of the earth people that are going to get things done. It always was, it always will be.

Now if you’re a middle class person, don’t take it personally. I’m a middle class person; I’m only speaking the truth, I’m not trying to insult anyone’s class. I’m simply saying if it’s going to happen, it’s going to be because of the salt of the earth. If revival comes to Britain or to any of these societies, it will come from the council estates before it does the middle class suburbs. It’ll happen among single-parent families, it’ll happen to people who’ve been in prison, it’ll happen to people who’ve been unemployed – that’s where these things tend to come from, as it did in the days of Jesus. Who was it? Harlots, tax gatherers, thieves, political dissidents like the Zealots – those people came to Jesus. Who rejected Him? The religious people. It’s no different now.

As we look at the gates of Jerusalem in the Old City of Jerusalem today, God is showing us a lesson in history. As you walk through the Old City of Jerusalem, you’re looking at not one thousand, not two thousand, not three thousand, but more than three thousand years of history from the time of the Jebusites onward. And those walls and those gates tell a story, a story of revival and backsliding. Renewal and decline. And the same is true for the church. Even the walls of Jerusalem and its gates are a reflection of the history of the Jewish people, but also of what’s happened through the centuries with the church.

The Old & Ephraim Gates

Verse 6 of chapter 3...

Joiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah repaired the Old Gate; they laid its beams and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars. Next to them Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, also made repairs for the official seat of the governor of the province beyond the River.

So the next gate is the Old Gate. But we also know that next to the Old Gate there was another gate called the Gate of Ephraim. “Ephraim” means “fruitfulness” or “doubly fruitful”. And it was at the beginning of a long valley, a depression called “the valley of the cheese makers” or the Tyropean Valley. Now this valley runs through the present center of the Old City of Jerusalem. You see it here next to the Cardo. And you can see parts of where it was, the wall running parallel to it, excavated.

A Christian will progress; there’ll be a choice: two more gates, the Old Gate and the gate of Ephraim. We might be called like a sheep, we might be caught like a fish. When somebody’s first saved, the first few days it’s absolutely amazing. The scales have fallen off their eyes. Now they see the truth. But after two or three days they begin to come to their senses, or so they think. Is this real? Is this what I really want to commit myself to? Is this really the way I want to live my life? Is it going to be like this, that I’m not going to be able to go out and gamble and get drunk and take drugs and sleep with women and fool around with other men and cheat on my wife and to stop smoking? Is this really for real? Then the social pressures begin. Your old friends, your old desires, and within a couple of days you’re confronted with a choice.

Think of Matthew 13, the sower and the seed. Three out of four seeds don’t end up so well. The way I look at it, based on that (I’m not teaching this as a doctrine, I’m just saying as an observation) if one out of every four people I lead to Christ stays faithful to Him long term, I’m not complaining. If three out of four fall away I’m very sorry, but I guess that’s par for the course, in other words. I can tell you this: the people that I’ve seen stay the most faithful to Christ are the ones who’ve paid the highest price for it, people who had to count the cost ahead of time.

You see this in a lot of places. You see it, certainly, in Israel among the Jews. The social cost is much higher than it is for non-Jews most of the time. Among Muslims its even higher. People like that will count the cost more carefully before they get saved. In Ireland it’s Catholic people. If you’re seen as becoming a Protestant, you’re betraying your family and all this kind of stuff – the cost is higher. When people get saved in prisons, prison can be quite dangerous. You become a Christian, people will try to kill you, try to push you sometimes to the limit to see how far they can make you go before you react violently the way you used to. It’s not easy. Talk to people who’ve been in prison ministry. I talked to Noel Proctor . I mean, he was the chaplain in “Strangeways” in Manchester. It’s very difficult. There’s a much higher cost involved with those kinds of people. People who get saved under those conditions will tend to be less likely to backslide. Less likely. I don’t see it doesn’t happen, I’m simply saying you’ll find less of it because they’ve counted the cost more carefully to begin with.
Other people – most of us – we find ourselves in this situation: So you’ve come through the Sheep Gate, you came through the Fish Gate, but now there’s two gates in front of you. Which one are you going to go through, the gate of fruitfulness or the Old Gate, the gate of back to your old ways, your old friends, your old interests – which gate are you going to walk through? And again, this Old Gate lies at the precipice of a decline, of a valley. A long valley. A deep valley. The Tyropean Valley.
Valleys in the Bible represent times of trial. What does it say in Matthew 13: but when opposition comes because of the Word they fall away. ( Mt. 13:20-21 ) In the beginning they seem to grow really quick, but no depth. After somebody gets saved, they go through their first trials, sometimes prolonged periods of trial. We go through a valley.

Something for Everybody

Next to him Uzziel...

...”my strength is God”...

... next to him Uzziel the son of Harhaiah of the goldsmiths made repairs. And next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, made repairs, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall. Next to them Rephaiah the son of Hur, the official of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs. Next to them Jedaiah the son of Harumaph made repairs opposite his house. And next to him Hattush the son of Hashabneiah made repairs. Malchijah...”

...”my king is Yahweh”...

...the son of Harim and Hasshub the son of Pahath-moab repaired another section and the Tower of Furnaces. Next to him Shallum the son of Hallohesh, the official of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs, he and his daughters.

Notice there were things for men to do, there were things for women to do. There were things for people to do from all backgrounds, all trades, all professions, all walks of life. Everybody is involved.

The Valley & the Refuse Gates

Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They built it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and a thousand cubits of the wall to the Refuse Gate.

The next gate you come to is the Valley Gate, but that leads us to another gate called the Refuse Gate. Outside of the Refuse Gate was the garbage pit of Jerusalem, where the Tyropean Valley met another valley called the Valley of Hinnom. In this Valley of Hinnom it is where backslidden Judah sacrificed their children to Molech. ( 2 Ki. 23:10 ) But outside this gate where these two valleys came together – actually there was a third valley on this side called the Kidron, the three of them came together – you’d have the garbage pit which burned day and night. That garbage pit was called “Gehennom” – “Gehenna”.

When you travel with me around Jerusalem, when I show the people on the pilgrimages and the study tours, I tell them where I take them when I take them where this is, and I say, “Welcome to hell; I hope this is as close you ever get to going there.” This is literally hell outside of the Refuse Gate where these three valleys came together.

You see, we go through the Sheep Gate, we go through the Fish Gate. If we decide to hold onto our crosses and keep following the Lord Jesus, we go through the gate of Ephraim; we choose fruitfulness. The old nature comes up and how does God deal with it? We go to the Valley Gate. God uses the valley, He uses difficulty, He uses times of trial to deal with our old nature. But when we come to the end of the valley, we get to the Refuse Gate. Trials are difficult when you’re going through them, but when they’re over, you see how much garbage God has thrown out of our lives. That’s what He wants to do.

Philippians 1:6 , “...He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus”.

God wants to throw garbage out of our lives. And although we don’t like it – and understandably we don’t like it – one of the ways God removes the rubbish from our lives is by bringing us into times of trial. He brings us through the Valley Gate. What does it say in James? Count it as all blessing, my brethren, when you go through these trials. (Ja. 1:2)

Now as a young believer I made a big mistake; I misunderstood that verse. So I used to pray for trials. I wish God answered all of my prayers as quickly, as instantly, and as thoroughly as He answered those prayers. If you pray for trials, the likelihood is you’re going to get them. I don’t know if you pray for a Mercedes – you might not get that – but if you pray for trials, you can almost bank on it.

The Fountain Gate

Verse 14...

Malchijah the son of Rechab, the official of the district of Beth-haccherem repaired the Refuse Gate. He built it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars. Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, the official of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain Gate. He built it, covered it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and the wallof the Pool of Shelah...

...that’s the Pool of Siloach where Jesus would later heal the blind man; open the eyes of the blind man...

...at the king’s garden as far as the steps that descend from the city of David.

Now this Pool of Shelah, the Pool of Siloach, is where king Hezekiah’s tunnel, where we enter it now and go through Hezekiah’s tunnel where the water was brought into the Old City. Let’s look at the next gate.

As you proceed, not far away you come to the next gate: the Fountain Gate, where the Pool of Siloach was, where the water began to flow.

Now you’ve heard me say various times -- John 7:39 , Isaiah 44:3 – this freshly clean water that came from the Pool of Siloach entered the city through Hezekiah’s tunnel, this water was called “chay mayim” – “living water”. Which in Isaiah and John is always a type or figure of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s understand this in light of the present situation. In our sense of desperation over what is happening to our nation and the other protestant democracies and the state of the church, with Islam and New Age taking over – the church failing. Christianity is failing in this country. Christ is not failing, but the church is not winning. Ultimately the church is victorious because of Christ and His return, but right now we’re losing. We’re losing the battle to homosexuals, to New Age , to ecumenism , to everything. However, for the people wanting to see something happening, they want to see the Living Water flow, they want to see the fountain, they want to find it, but they’re not willing to do what’s necessary to make it flow. They don’t want to go back to the basics. The only way you’re going to get to the Fountain Gate is by going back to the basics.

Do you know, so many of the biggest churches of this country don’t even preach the Gospel? They don’t even talk about the blood of Jesus, or the cross, or repentance – that’s not what they talk about. They talk about power and victory and all that stuff -- the “ Kingdom Now ” stuff – without realizing that the only way you’re going to get the power or the victory is because of what Jesus did on the cross and when He rose from the dead. They’ve got everything wrong.

So they don’t want to go back and look at the choice we have to make. The choice we make is do you want the Old Gate. If you can really define “backsliding” in its simplest terms, you’d say it means “hoping in this world”. Backsliding is hoping in this world. When somebody’s backslidden, it means they’re trusting in this world.

Now think of it. What do you do when you have a guy like Andrew Shearman saying, “I repent that I ever said that this world is not my home; this world is my home. Heaven’s not my destiny, it’s only a benefit.” It’s what he’s teaching. That guy’s at the Old Gate; that’s the gate he wants.

Nobody wants to realize we have to go through a long valley, that there’s a lot of garbage in our lives. There’s certainly a lot of garbage in my life. But even more importantly, there’s a lot of garbage in the church that has to be gotten rid of. We all want the Living Water to flow, but it’s not going to flow until God gets the garbage out that’s clogging up the drains and clogging up the pipes and clogging up the water system. There’s too much rubbish. Too much rubbish and sewage that’s clogging it up, and the Living Water can’t flow. So people go out, and they turn on a garden hose, and pretend it’s raining. Again, it’s just so crazy.

One thing after another. Kansas City’s going to do it, Toronto’s going to do it – we’ve talked about this stuff enough – but no revival comes.

You know, most people in Toronto never even heard of the “ Toronto Blessing ”, except that they saw it on the news or something? It’s had no impact; it’s not even a big thing in Canada. I was in Canada in October and most people don’t even know what it is, don’t even care what it is. They haven’t got a clue. It’s only over here and in Australia and New Zealand and the continent that it’s big; in America and Canada where it comes from, it’s nothing. Very few people are into it. Very few churches are interested in it. When I went to that place, everybody in the Toronto Airport Vineyard church, which has now been thrown out of the Vineyard , was from some place other than Toronto. In fact, they were from some place other than Canada. It’s having no revivals; that’s nuts.

Living Water doesn’t flow that way. It flows when you get rid of the refuse, when the Lord has a free hand to do the things He needs to do in our lives and in the church to get rid of the garbage. When they get rid of the hype, and the “ Kingdom Now ”, and the replacementism , and the ecumenism , and the prosperity/money preachers , then maybe the water will begin to flow because the plumbing system won’t be clogged up any more with dreck.

The Water Gate

But the next gate is what we find at the other terminal of Hezekiah’s tunnel. The next gate we come to is the Water Gate. You have an underground tunnel that flows from the Fountain Gate to the Water Gate that was built by Hezekiah. It’s still there. We walk through it, we show you where it is. You can walk through it if you like. If you’re not claustrophobic, it’s interesting.

God doesn’t want us to just have a fountain; He wants us to have a pool. He wants us to be immersed in His Spirit. A Spirit-filled life. A Spirit-filled church. There might be a certain amount of water, but not enough to do what God wants.
People who are Cessasionists – churches which say the gifts of the Spirit ended with the Apostles – people like that, they have the Holy Spirit in some measure, but they’re unwilling to open to the fullness of the Spirit, including the gifts. Now I never seek the gifts above the Giver, I seek the Giver. But Cessasionism is as wrong on one extreme as the excesses of Toronto are on the other. There’s a balance. Who’s going to burn their money because money can be counterfeited? Nobody. Nobody should throw the baby out with the bath water, should they? Unfortunately, some people do.

But after the Water Gate, the journey continues and they make repairs. It’s a progression. We go from the Refuse Gate down to the Fountain Gate. After the Fountain Gate we come to the Water Gate.

The Horse Gate

The next gate that they come to after verse 26 is the Ophel. We point out where the Ophel is in Jerusalem.

The temple servants living in Ophel made repairs as far as the front of the Water Gate toward the east and the projecting tower. After them the Tekoites repaired another section in front of the great projecting tower and as far as the wall of Ophel. Above the Horse Gate...

Now we’re going on the east side of Jerusalem, which is the closest to what you see today to the archeology of the original Old City. This wall would have been on the same location – or approximately the same location – as the present eastern wall facing the Mount of Olives, separated from it by the Kidron Valley. The Mount of Olives is here. Not far away then, as you turn east, is the Horse Gate.

Horses in biblical times were not used for transport. In the ancient Near East, donkeys and camels were animals for transport. Sheep were used for meat and wool, cattle were used for meat, for hides, and for milk. A horse hand only one purpose, only one function: the horse was the animal of war. It was used for pulling chariots and for mounted soldiers for cavalry. That’s all.

You see, until we have a Spirit-filled church and a Spirit-filled life, we’re not really ready for war.

The church in this country is no longer in a spiritual state to take on New Age . It’s not in a spiritual state to take on Islam . We couldn’t win. Islam claims to have a moral agenda from Allah to restore with Shariah – Islamic law – a standard of morality that Christianity can no longer deliver. They claim that. If you read Salaam and these other Muslims who I consider militants – certainly Ahmed Deedat – they’ll tell you things like this. You wouldn’t have this crime in Britain if you had an Islamic state, you wouldn’t have this thing of single-parent families in an Islamic state, you wouldn’t have any of this. You wouldn’t have homosexuality in an Islamic state, you wouldn’t have any of this. Homosexuals? We kill them. Thieves? We chop off their hands. Rape? We castrate. Feminists? We flog them.

Shariah Islam can restore what this country doesn’t have morally any more. The church in this country can no longer deliver a standard of moral righteousness. At one time it could -- at one time it did – but it can’t any more.

The silliest, most absurd thing you see happening in the western countries is with the Kingdom Now , the Restorationists , they’re saying, “Victory! Victory! Harvest! Harvest! Power! Power!” and the opposite is happening. The opposite! Just look at the stuff, the “Nine O’clock Service”, that’s what the world sees. An evangelical archbishop saying we don’t have all the truth, we should look to the ones who aren’t even saved to get the rest of it? This is what’s happening, and these guys are yelling “Victory!” and rolling on the floor laughing? What, are they nuts? It’s absolutely absurd.

No, until you have a Spirit-filled church, you’re not ready to go to war. You can’t go through the Horse Gate until you go through the Water Gate, but you’re not going to get any water until God gets rid of the refuse. And He’s not going to get rid of the refuse until we realize that He has to get rid of it. We’re not even calling it refuse. The desire to trust in this world is refuse.

You’ve got a leading preacher, Andrew Shearman , saying this world is his home? They don’t even call it garbage. They don’t even recognize that’s what it is. No way, forget about it.

The East Gate

Well what’s the next gate? Verse 29...

After them Zadok the son of Immer carried out repairs in front of his house. And after him Shemaiah the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, carried out repairs.

The East Gate we call, sometimes, the Golden Gate. The East Gate is the gate that Jesus came through on Palm Sunday. The evangelical, Christian archeologist Dr. Jim Fleming is one of the people who discovered the Herodian stones under the present East Gate. What that means is we can be quite certain that the present East Gate is where the East Gate that Jesus came through was located. But it also is opposite a certain point on the Mount of Olives, where the High Priest had to stand with the red heifer on Yom Kippur and look through the East Gate into the Holy of Holies across the Kidron. That would tend to verify the theory of Dr. Asher Kaufman of the Department of Antiquities of Hebrew University that would put the location of the original temple not on the exact site of the Mosque of Omar – the Dome of the Rock which you’ve seen pictures of – but about seventy meters north of it. In other words, in order to rebuild the temple, you would not have to tear down the mosque.

Wouldn’t it be something if the Antichrist just had an ecumenical center up on the temple mount? Jews and Arabs worshiping together up on the temple mount?

You see that Jerusalem is the center of controversy of all the nations. And somehow the Antichrist will have to bring a false peace. One way – I’m not making a prophecy, I’m simply saying – one way it could happen, one way you could get Jews to negotiate over Jerusalem – even Orthodox Jews – was if you got the Muslims to agree to them to rebuild the temple up on the temple mount. OK, let us rebuild our temple, then we’ll allow you to have east Jerusalem. You have yours, we’ll have ours, we’ll all live together.

It’s interesting that the Israeli government asked the papacy, before Rabin was killed, they asked the Pope to play a role in Jerusalem being, somehow, a united city of all faiths. Jerusalem is holy to three false religions:

• Nominal Christianity – You’ll see in Jerusalem, when you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, you’ll see the people kissing stones and praying to icons and idols of all sorts, open idolatry and superstition.

• Rabbinic Judaism – The false Judaism of the rabbis which denies its own Messiah, Yeshua.

• Islam – On the Dome of the Rock, on the outside of the periphery is a quotation from the Sorat in the Quran, “God has no son”.

We’re told in John’s epistle, that which denies the Father-Son relationship, and denies Jesus is the Messiah is antichrist. Already the Antichrist is setting himself up to be worshiped.

I’m not saying the temple has to be rebuilt, I’m simply saying it looks like it’s going to be. Of course, the Abomination of Desolations I’m worried about is what’s already happening in the church: inter-faith worship, ecumenism. The church is the temple of God in seven places in the New Testament. There are different Greek words, as I’ve said before: “oikos”, “naos”, “heiron”. But in seven places we’re told the church is the temple or the tabernacle now. And when you see inter-faith worship with Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims and with Rome in so-called Christian churches, you’re already seeing the Abomination being set up in the temple. This is rebuilt in the image of the Antichrist, when set up it will only be a reflection of what’s already become a spiritual reality. And so it is.

The East Gate always has to do with the coming of the Messiah. We have a prophecy in the book of Ezekiel that the East Gate would be shut up after the Messiah entered. We had a sultan of the Turks when the Turks occupied Israel, who knew the tradition of the Jews that said the Messiah would have to come through the East Gate. And so what he did was, he ordered it sealed up so the Messiah would not be able to come through it, and he sealed up the East Gate. We read about this in Ezekiel 44:1 .

Then He brought me back by the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces the east; and it was shut. The Lord said to me, “This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut.

Now Jesus entered the East Gate on Palm Sunday. And this gate, right now as you see, is sealed up. So after the Messiah went through this gate, it would be sealed up. And it is. It was literally fulfilled. You can look at the gate. I show you the gate. But it also says that God would enter through it. Jesus was God; He entered through the gate and this prophecy of Ezekiel 44:1-2 is literally fulfilled: The coming of Jesus.

The Gate of Judgment

But then there’s one more gate. We call this gate in Hebrew, “the Gate of Judgment”.

When Jesus comes back, there will be a judgment. There’s two judgments: those for the saved and those for the unsaved. There’s two judgment seats of Christ: the “thronos” and the “bema”. The unsaved appear before the “thronos”, the Judge of the condemnation, and the saved are judged before the “bema”, the magnitude of their reward.

Rebuilding the Gates Today

We live in a time in most of the western countries where the gates are devastated, and where the Lord is calling for people who will mourn over the state like Nehemiah did and begin to rebuild. There were men and there were women. People from all backgrounds, all professions, working together as families. Different groups had different jobs. Different ones had different territory. And so it’s going to be. We’re not all going to have the same ministry, we’re not all going to have the same territory, but we’re all going to have the same objective: to rebuild that which was devastated.

Nehemiah went to something that used to exist and no longer did; it was broken down. He didn’t try to rebuild the Fountain Gate first, or the Water Gate first, or the Horse Gate first.
Forget about it. I wish we were in a good enough state we could take on Islam . We’re not. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t witness to Muslims. We should witness to Muslims. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t witness to New Agers, we should. Should we pray for their salvation?

Absolutely. But what it means is the church is not in the condition in this nation to throw back those powers the way the church is in the condition to throw it back in the Far East.

We have to begin rebuilding in order. Go back to the basics: The Fish Gate, the Sheep Gate. “My sheep will hear My voice”. ( Jn. 10:27 ) The Lamb of God that was slain for us. The Gospel is simply not emphasized or preached in so many churches any more. The hymns are about anything and everything other than the blood of the Lamb. In the Vineyard hymn book – in one Vineyard hymn book I read – they had like 80-something hymns; only 2 of them mentioned the cross or the blood. That’s crazy.

We have to rebuild the basic gates: The Sheep Gate, the Fish Gate. “I’ll make you fishers of men”. ( Mt. 4:19 ) OK, I thank God for this group, and the Warsaw group, and the Bangor group, and the one forming down in Rotherham, and the one down in Hastings – I thank God for these groups. We call it in Hebrew, “the shelter of refuge”. We show you the “Jewish Quarter”, the “Shelter of Refuge” or “refuge for the oppressed”. We need places like this for people who are churchless because of Toronto and the rest of it. But we just can’t be clubs for Christians who’ve been abused. We just can’t be a refugee camp for people that have come out of churches because of false doctrine, and because they were being financially fleeced all the time. That’s not good enough. We just can’t be a place where you want to come to because your church is ecumenical or Toronto-ized or whatever. That’s a beginning, but we have to begin preaching the Gospel and going fishing. These other churches are giving people hype, we’ve got to give them the truth.

Getting God's Plan for Evangelism

One the things we have to begin doing is to pray that we get God’s plan for evangelism. I thank God there’s tracts on the back. Take some tracts and give them out. I think that some of these meetings are going to have to begin to become evangelistic and prayer meetings praying for people to get saved. Let’s go back to the basic things: The Gospel, going fishing.

We can’t cast our nets until Jesus tells us where to do it. If we just go out with our own idea for an evangelistic program, it will be another Jim Challenge. We can’t go. He has to get in our boat and tell us where to cast the nets. But everybody can use a fishing rod. There’s nobody who can’t witness day-to-day and there’s nobody who can’t ask the Lord for His plan: “Jesus, please get in our boat and You show us where to cast our nets.” We’ve got to get God’s plan for evangelism. Go back to the basics: The Old Gate, the Gate of Ephraim, the Valley Gate.

Reversing the Current State

This nation would not be in the state it’s in, New Zealand would not be in the state it’s in, Australia would not be in the state it’s in, Great Britain would not be in the state it’s in, except for one reason: these nations and societies are in the state they’re in because the church is in the state it’s in. We’re supposed to be the “salt” and “light” ( Mt. 5:13-16 ) Until we repent, there’s not going to be any repentance in society.

There’s a lot of garbage – rubbish – stuff that’s clogging up the water works. The plumbing is jammed. Nobody wants to crawl down into a pit and clean it out: Dyno-Rod. But that’s what has to be done. We’ve got to realize this. There’s a lot of junk that’s in the church and in our lives that Jesus has to get rid of before the water can really flow again.

There’s no easy way out of this mess. I’m tired of people trying things, even things that seem honest and biblical like the “Minus to Plus” of Reinhard Bonnke . There was nothing wrong with it on paper, but it didn’t work. There’s no easy way out of this mess. Certainly the Jim Challenge is no easy way out. Toronto is no easy way out. The walls have to be rebuilt, the gates have to be repaired, there’s a lot of work to do. We’ve got to clean out all the rubbish that’s stopping up the drains and clogging up the water works; then the water can flow again. But the nobles aren’t going to support the work. It’s mainly going to be ordinary people. Always was, always will be.

But if we follow God’s plan instead of man’s, that rubbish is going to go. And then the water will begin to flow. When the water begins to flow, it will fill the pool: A Spirit-filled church.

Satan doesn’t like Charismatic churches, but he’s not afraid of them. Satan doesn’t like Fundamentalist churches, but he’s not afraid of them. But when you have Spirit and truth, a church that’s based on the Word of God but open to the fullness of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, working in unison, that’s the kind of church he does not want to see. And he will do anything and everything he can to prevent a church like that from coming. He’ll get the fundamentalists to shut off the gifts of the Spirit, to resist the Spirit, suppress the Spirit. He’ll use crazy charismatics to discredit the gifts of the Spirit so to give them a reason to do it. And then he’ll take the charismatics and make them loony, and keep them away from the Bible, saying stupid things. I heard the case of a Pentecostal minister last week. He said, picking up the Bible, “This book has failed us; we need more of the Spirit.” Yeah? What spirit?

Now the garbage goes, then the water flows. Then we go to war. Then we mount up for battle. Then we hitch the horses to the chariots. Then we can take on the forces of darkness.

Signs of the Time

The East Gate – the coming of Jesus. I said it a couple of times and I’ll say it one more time: If you asked me ten years ago why I thought Jesus was coming, I would have told you what Barry Smith says. Because of events in the Middle East, because of the reunification of Europe, the globalization of the world economy, the one-world money system and all this, I would have said that stuff. I still agree; he’s right. Hal Lindsay is right, Barry Smith is right, I agree with that stuff more now than I did ten years ago. But it’s not the main reason I believe Jesus is coming. The main reason I believe Jesus is coming is because of the level of deception in the church.

The main leader, the evangelical archbishop of Canterbury, an charismatic, evangelical, born again, Bible-believing Christian stands up in Wimbley in London and tells the leaders of the evangelical churches and denominations in this country that we don’t have all the truth that those that aren’t even born again do. They have truth, too and we need their help? That’s crazy!

A preacher stands up in the biggest Assemblies of God church in this country – it’s a student church; that’s why it’s so big, a lot of students go to it, they come and go – and he says this world is our home, I repent of ever having sworn this world is not my home any more.

Jesus is coming; the East Gate. But when He comes, there’ll be a judgment: The final gate.

Those gates were devastated in the days of Nehemiah and those gates are devastated today.

Nehemiah and those who joined him realized there was no easy way out of it. They realized what had to be done, they rolled up their sleeves, and they got to it, men and women alike. They all had their own jobs, their own past, their own areas of work, but they realized it had to be done. There was no easy way. It’s exactly the same today.

Those are the gates. The Baptist Union is not going to rebuild those gates; they’ve compromised with Rome. The Assemblies of God is not going to rebuild those gates. The Church of England is not going to rebuild those gates. 30 years of “Charismatic Renewal” – where’s the renewal? There is none. Those gates are not going to be rebuilt by the clergy or the leaders. The nobles will never support the work of their masters. Those gates are going to be built by the same kinds of people who always rebuilt them: People just like you. That’s who’s going to rebuild those gates.

We have a lot of work, and the hardest job – the hardest task – is prayer.

The Future History of the Church, Part 3

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:06:14 GMT

Elijah Then and Now

There is much more that I could say about this, but let me put it to you this way: we must understand Elijah.

King Ahab covets the vineyard – the Antichrist enters the beautiful land in Nahum – but he can't get the vineyard too easily.

So Queen Jezebel tries to get possession of the vineyard for him. This brings her into conflict with Eliahu HaNawbe, Elijah the Prophet. In the Last Days the Antichrist wants the vineyard and goes to the false religious system to get it. This somehow results in a conflict with Elijah. Elijah, Elisha, Samuel, and John the Baptist are all connected. Midrashically there are ways to connect things that the church doesn't think of because they're reading a Jewish book with a Greek mindset. Whenever you see things happening in the same geographical location in the Bible, there is a midrashic connection between those events. Where does the ministry of John the Baptist take place? On the plain of Jericho. This is the same location in which the ministry of Elijah ends and the ministry of Elisha begins. Samuel was the last of the judges, but the first of the prophets. John the Baptist was the last figure of the Old Testament but the first figure of the New Testament; when the Apostles looked for someone to replace Judas they didn't search out someone who was with Jesus from the beginning, but rather someone who was with them from John's ministry. (Acts 1:21-22) John was the pivotal figure; he was transitional. The New Testament era begins with John, not with Jesus.

John the Baptist and Samuel have similar circumstances surrounding their births. Wherever you see people born under similar supernatural circumstances there is a midrashic connection. Elijah, Elisha, and John had the same spirit. So the wicked woman turns the king against Elijah; the same happens with Herodias and King Herod: the wicked woman turns the king against John the Baptist. It is a pattern; the same things happen again and again. What happened in both these cases is somehow what happens when Elijah comes again in the end. There is a lot more that could be said about this, but it is very complicated.

Let's look at the book of Amos 8:11:

"'Days are coming', declares the Lord, 'when I will send a famine on the land. Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather a famine for the hearing of the Word of God.'"

Remember that the physical reflects the spiritual: when the Temple veil was torn, the physical event reflected a spiritual one. Jesus said there would be famines in the Last Days, (Math 24:7) but the physical famines are only reflections of a spiritual one. There had been no prophet in Israel for over 400 years when John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah to feed God's people during the famine, preparing for the Messiah to come.

There is going to be a famine in the end; but somehow, God's people in the spirit of Elijah are going to be fed and prepared for the Messiah to come. The way Elijah stopped the rain is the same way that the Holy Spirit will be absent from the world when the outpouring stops. Yet Elijah fed the Gentile woman supernaturally; she is a type of the church as are many Gentile women in the Bible such as the Queen of Sheba. Remember that Jesus said the Queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. (Math 12:42)

God's people are fed during the famine. On the Jewish calendar you have outpourings of rain and harvests. A Jew reading Revelation 10 and 11 would have called it a midrash on Joshua. You've got the same numerical pattern in both: in Revelation, the seven seals with the seventh seal having seven trumpets, a numerical subset. Those trumpets correspond to the Feast of Trumpets which corresponds with the last Trumpet and the trumpet blown on Yom Kippur – all of these things fit together, though I cannot go into it now. Anyway, you have seven with the seventh having a subset of seven. Then there is silence in heaven for half an hour. (For me that may be the most confusing verse in the Bible – how can a human measurement of time be applied to eternity? I don't understand that verse.) Next there come these two witnesses who are spoken of in Zechariah. The last Trumpet is blown, and the text says "This kingdom has become the kingdom of our God and of His Messiah."

Now, let's look at what happened at the capture of Jericho. They marched around the city seven times, once a day for seven days, but on the seventh day they had to march around it seven times. There you have the same numerical pattern present in Revelation. The two spies in Joshua were sent to Jericho to rescue the Gentile woman, Rahab, before the judgment came. They prefigure the ministry of the two witnesses in Revelation. Revelation midrashically replays the text of Joshua, though you won't find that in any commentary that I know of, because people with Greek minds wrote them all.

Moses fed the children of Israel to prepare them for the Exodus from Egypt. Joseph fed the whole world during the famine, but Moses fed all Israel to prepare them to leave Egypt. This, again, is a type of the Resurrection/Rapture. There was darkness on the first Passover, and only the Jews had lights on in their houses in order to eat the Passover. When Jesus faced His last days, He fed His disciples and prepared them for what was coming. In Acts 20, before Paul leaves for his last days, he goes to an upper room, breaks bread, and feeds the disciples. It says in Acts 20 that there were many lamps in the room; the eye is the lamp of the body. If the eye is sound, as Scripture says, the body will also be sound. (Math 6:22) In Zephaniah 1 there is an allusion to the Jewish Passover Bedichat Chametz, during which each person's house is searched by its inhabitants for leaven. Here in Zephaniah it says,

"I will search Jerusalem with many lamps, purging leaven".

Leaven is a figure of sin in the Bible (1 Cor 5:6-8). Jews had to get all leaven out of the house before they could eat the Passover, just as we are supposed to get rid of the leaven in our lives before we come to the Lord's Table. Once again, the old-time Brethren have a much more Jewish understanding of the Lord's Supper than other Christians do.

"I will search Jerusalem with lamps," (Zeph 1:12).

There will be a purging of the leaven from Zion through right teaching in the Last Days before Jesus comes.

"The eye is the lamp of the body," (Math 6:22).

Think of the armor in Ephesians 6, quoted from Isaiah. It says in Nahum and in Isaiah 52,

"How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news".

Ephesians 6 admonishes us to

"Put on the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel of peace".

The church is a body; its feet are its evangelists. But the eye is the lamp of the body; this refers to teachers, who see and give the light. Somehow, the ministry of Elijah is going to put the oil into the lamps of the teachers in the Last Days. Jesus fed the Apostles, who then took the bread when He fed the 5,000 and fed the people in groups of 50. 50 is the number of the Holy Spirit, of Pentecost. Elijah, through Obadiah, also fed the sons of the prophets in groups of 50. The food comes from one source, but then is broken down and given to several groups. I don't fully understand this, but that is the pattern, and somehow it will happen like that.

Elijah is going to feed the other teachers in the Last Days – whoever Elijah is, or however you understand it. Whether “Elijah” is a man, a movement, two people, or something else is something I won't go into. I will only teach something once I have understood it definitively and the Holy Spirit hasn't shown me fully what this means or how it works. James says, "Let few of you be teachers"; (James 3:1) God will hold me more accountable than He will those of you who are not teachers. Therefore I will not teach anything doctrinally until I am sure that God has shown it to me.

The Maccabees , in Daniel 11, are similar to Elijah in this way:

"Those who have understanding among the people will give insight to the many."

In Proverbs we saw that the wicked woman had truth that was like a two-edged sword, and she was smoother than oil. This is the nature of seduction. If people lack God's wisdom, they're going to be vulnerable; since we have something that is sharper than a two-edged sword, so will they. We will have the oil of anointing and they will have something even smoother. Not better, but it will be a counterfeit. With diamonds, if you don't have a professional eye, you cannot tell a counterfeit from a genuine stone. Some false diamonds, made of polished glass and worthless, can look so real that only a jeweler can tell it is false. There are some false diamonds that are such good reproductions that even the experts have a hard time spotting them initially and have to do all kinds of cauterization tests. In the same way, if Christians today are sucked in by things that are obviously erroneous – if they are fooled by a guy like Rick Godwin , who claims that Matthew 24 is not about the Last Days – what will they do when convincing lies confront them? If you can't stand on the dry land, how will you persevere in the thicket of the Jordan? (Jer 12:5) Again, if people are fooled by name-it-and-claim-it nonsense, what will they do when the real deception comes?

There will be a schism within the church in the Last Days, with a number of things that will divide it. One factor will be the churches that compromise and the ones that do not. Another thing dividing the church will be the role and calling of God upon Israel. A third thing will be the authority of Scripture and the way in which it is interpreted. Those are three of the issues that are going to divide; there may well be others. What happens with Elijah teaches about this tribulation.

As in the Days of Noah

Another indicator is where Scripture says that in the Last Days it will be "as it was in the days of Noah" (Math 24:37). In Peter's epistle, he describes the problem of Noah from one angle: Noah, a preacher of righteousness, was warning people who would not listen until it was too late. That is the message of Noah for unsaved people. As it says in 2 Peter 3:9-10:

"The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some count slowness, but is longsuffering toward us, wanting none to perish but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up."

I don't know what you make out of it, but before Mr. Einstein and Mr. Oppenheimer, nobody knew about sub-atomic particles in the sense of an atom gaining explosive energy when it is divided. Long before sub-atomic physics or particle physics, long before anyone thought of splitting an atom, a fisherman from Galilee not only said it was possible to split an atom, but that it is possible to get enough explosive energy to destroy the whole world that way. That is exactly what that passage is saying in Greek.

So again, Peter is giving a warning about the days of Noah for the unsaved. They didn't listen to Noah until it was too late, and unsaved people won't listen to us until it's too late either. Boats are types of the church. Noah's Ark, even in its dimensions, means something. Nonetheless, that is for the unsaved. They won't listen, because they'll be occupied with their sin and immorality, and only a remnant is preserved.

However, Jesus warns about the days of Noah in Matthew 24 from another aspect:

"'But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the Ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.'" (Math 24:37-39)

Eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage! The unsaved have to be warned about immorality; Christians must be warned about being caught up in temporal things.

There's nothing wrong with eating and drinking or with marrying and being given in marriage. However, the danger in these things to Christians in the Last Days is that they will become the primary focus of the Christian's life and believers will be absorbed in them. It is vital to remember this: The things that are for here are not the things that we are here for. There is nothing inherently wrong with getting married or going to a restaurant, but when those things become the focus of a person's life, that person has a problem: he or she will not be ready for Jesus to come back.

Not only that, there is also the danger of ministry becoming an idol, people building their own empires instead of the kingdom of God.

”Let him who is in the field”…

…the mission field…

…”not go back for his cloak”. (Math 24:18)

“'I will make you fishers of men”, Jesus said. (Math 4:19)

Think about that; they fished all night and caught nothing until Jesus told them where to cast their nets. (John 21:3-6) Fishing is a type of evangelism and that is the way it happens. When Jesus directed their fishing they had to call people in another boat to come and help them. When He directs our evangelism, the same miracle occurs. When revival breaks out in one church, it spreads to another.

When Peter is fishing in John chapter 21, and the call goes up that the Lord is waiting, he does something very peculiar. Normally, if you want to go swimming, you pull your shirt off and dive in the water; but Peter puts his on, because his shirt is a type of the garments of salvation in Isaiah and Revelation. He dives off the boat as soon as it is said, "It is the Lord", in John 21:7. At this time, Peter was fishing; in figure, he was engaged in his ministry. But as soon as Jesus came, he forgot the ministry because Jesus came first. There is a real danger that in the Last Days even the ministry can be an idol. Jesus must always come first; I wish more Christians thought about that. I need to think about it a lot myself.

How Much Time is Left?

Consider American basketball: there are African-Americans who play basketball almost like they're superhuman – it's unbelievable how good they are. It doesn't matter to them if there are two hours on the clock left to play the game or only 30 seconds. They play with such energy, vigor, and concentration that even though there are only ten seconds left in the game, they know that can make a difference and as far as they're concerned, there might as well be an hour left in the game. Yet as soon as the final buzzer goes off, that's it; it's over. That is how we should be: totally intent on what we're doing. It doesn't matter if there are three days left until Jesus comes or 300 years, we should be playing the game in the same way, with the same concentration, vigor, and intensity. But as soon as that buzzer goes off, that's it. We're done.

It's always ten minutes to midnight. In John's epistle he says it is the last hour; the idea in Greek is that time freezes.(1 John 2:18) Israel is God's timepiece for the nations. Why did the early Christians say it was the Last Days? Let me explain:

One day, Harold was watching rugby on television and Susan said, "When do you want your dinner?" It was then ten minutes to six so he said, "I want my dinner in ten minutes when the rugby game is over; the game ends at six o'clock.” So Susan puts his dinner in the microwave, pushes the buttons. All of a sudden, at ten till six, there's an injury on the rugby field, and they stop the clock. The medics come out and say they can't move the guy without a doctor. The doctor comes out and says they need an ambulance because they have to move him a certain way. They can't do anything about it, the rest of the game is delayed. But how many minutes are left in the game? Ten. Ten minutes ago there were ten minutes left in the game, but the game time hasn't advanced from that point. There are always ten minutes left in the game, but at any time the clock can be started again, once the injured man is removed. This time is the time of the Gentiles; it is Israel that is God's timepiece.

Nebuchadnezzar represents many things in the Bible; he is a very interesting and complex figure in Scripture. The seven churches of Revelation were seven churches that literally existed in Asia Minor in the 1st Century; they're also seven types of churches that can exist generally, especially in the Last Days before Revelation 4. But I am convinced that they also correspond to overlapping periods of church history. The Greek names of those churches also mean something: “Ephesus” is “not lasting”, “Smyrna” is “myrrh”, “Pergamum” is “divorced”, “Thyatira” is “continuing sacrifice”, and so on. (We have a series of tapes dealing with this in depth.) Nonetheless, those seven periods occur before we go on to Revelation 4 and the main part of the vision. Nebuchadnezzar is cut down and an iron collar is put around him. It says that for seven periods that iron collar is kept on him to prevent him from blossoming, but at the end of those seven periods the collar is removed and he blossoms again. It's the same idea. The age of the church occurs, to the best of my understanding, between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel. Somehow the age of the Gentiles comes to a close, as it says in Luke 21:24 and Romans 11, and then the clock is started again. There are always ten minutes left in the game; time is frozen.

Therefore, it is always the “Last Days”. So concerning the days of Noah, we have to warn the unsaved about their immorality, but we must also warn ourselves about becoming attached to this life. When you want to understand the days of Noah, you must go back and read the story of Noah.

The Nephilim Then and Now

When I was a young Christian, I was a hippie who got saved out of the drug culture. We used to witness eight hours a day sometimes because we thought Jesus was coming next week, so what did anything else matter? I met so many people who said their beliefs were based on gods on other planets, UFOs and such.

When Jimmy Carter became President of the United States, he declassified something called The Blue Report that was put together by the American Air Force, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Central Intelligence Agency. It was not all declassified, but Carter declassified a major portion of it. They found no evidence from exobiology for extraterrestrial life, but they had innumerable cases of people using parapsychology to conjure up extraterrestrial phenomena; there were even cultists who could make these things appear. Similar studies were done in Great Britain. Reading the Blue Report can be quite frightening. There is no scientific basis for belief in extraterrestrials, but a firmly recorded basis in the occult. Uri Geller, the Israeli spoon-bender, said that there were people on other planets trying to persuade him to be the Messiah.

The Nephilim, the fallen ones, are strange characters in Genesis. It would appear that they survived the Flood; whether the Nephilim who were in the land of Canaan when the Jews came to it are a different Nephilim from the ones who were spoken of before the flood is an issue over which theologians are divided; no one is really certain. Some say they are the same ones, some say they're different. If they are the same, it would mean they had survived the deluge somehow. Nonetheless, these things are “the fallen ones”, and we're told in Scripture that they copulated with human women.

Now, most of the popular “deliverance ministry” going around today is a lot of Ghostbusters-type nonsense with no Scriptural basis; I would seriously question whether most of these people could handle real demon possession if it ever faced them – it's no joke. But I once cast a demon out of a black necromancer who was having sexual relations with demons.

There was a witch in England on television in America, who gave her testimony when she got saved and told of having intercourse with a devil; people witnessed this. This kind of activity was around in the days of Noah, and it will be around again in the Last Days. Somehow demonoids – they were virtual monsters – will exist on the earth again, as they did in Noah's day. We will see an increase in occult activity, but particularly in this kind of high Satanism; even to the point of people having relations with demons. It already goes on, but it's going to increase.

Man is utterly fallen. I studied science in university, and I have no problem with science. However, it remains that man is fallen. So while I have no problem with science, I know what happens when you put science into the hands of fallen man. It is easy to visualize the kinds of atrocities that can be accomplished with biogenetic engineering; people can eventually take DNA, clone it, and re-create Josef Stalin or a whole race of Josef Stalins. There are things happening right now in genetics that when I studied biology in university would have seemed like science fiction; they no longer are.

I have no doubt – I am not teaching this doctrinally, this is my own opinion – that the world is being set up for a huge spiritual seduction in which UFOs and extraterrestrials along with other things of this type will play a role. It can be seen in David Bowie's albums and in Stephen Spielberg's movies, for example. The Bible talks about “the fallen ones”; the ones who fell from heaven, the Nephilim. The cosmos needs to be cleansed. I am quite convinced that extraterrestrial phenomena will be a large part of the spiritual seduction that is on its way. I am also quite afraid of the developments in biogenetic engineering – not the developments themselves, but seeing that kind of technology in the hands of fallen man. When combined with the occult, which scientology and other of these types of groups are already doing, the ramifications are terrible. Somehow, there was a physical manifestation of demons in the days of Noah; that will recur in some way in the Last Days before the Return of Jesus. I won't speculate on it further, but I do see the way things are heading. This is the kind of world that we have to prepare our children to live in; think about that and then tell me you don't believe in Christian school!

The Days of Lot Then and Now

Smyrna, the days of Elijah, and the days of Noah all teach about the Tribulation in some way, as does the sin of Sodom. Under the leadership of Simeon, who was a cousin of Jesus who replaced the Apostle James when James was martyred, the believers left Jerusalem for a place called Pella; not Petra, Pella. The believers thought that the Rapture of the church would happen in 70 A.D. When the Romans were through and they were rescued – Josephus wrote about this – they thought Jesus was coming then. This is a major type of the Rapture; it teaches what will happen at the end. This idea of being surrounded, God's people being rescued and destruction coming is quite significant. That's what happened at the fall of Samaria in 720, what happened in the fall of Jerusalem, and what happened when Jerusalem fell again on the same day in 70 A.D. under the Romans. The idea is that God's people will be rescued and judgment will follow.

Somehow the two angels who rescued Lot's family correspond with the two spies sent into Jericho to rescue Rahab and the two witnesses in Revelation; they all teach the same idea in some way. Lot's daughters thought the destruction of Sodom was the end of the world; the way his wife turned around and faced Sodom is like what Jesus warned about – don't turn back when the flight comes. Don't hold onto this world. Lot represents a weak believer and Abraham, who was interceding for Lot, represents Jesus. Salt preserves; once the salt stops preserving and the light stops being light, God will only intervene for those who are truly His, and judgment falls.

In the Last Days, even the true believers have a lot of problems. Lot is a good example, for in many respects he was a weak believer. Up to a point, he was comfortable living in such an evil place.

Isaiah 28 is one of the most important chapters of the Old Testament in teaching about the Last Days. It talks about the message at the end and says that it is “sheer terror to understand what it means”. (Isa 28;19) When the deep meaning of Scripture is revealed, there is going to be “sheer terror”. When Habakkuk saw the future what he saw was so frightening that he asked God to change it; God told him no. (Hab 2:1) Something really terrible is going to happen but God will intervene for those who are truly His.

Remember Lot's sons-in-law: when they were being warned they failed to take Lot seriously. They were therefore not rescued. He leaves, his daughters leave, and his wife leaves. His wife was being rescued, but she looked back. Jesus is coming for fervent believers – for those who want Him to come, who are not holding onto this world. Those are the ones who will once again be rescued from Sodom.

When It Goes Too Far

A baby is the ultimate emblem of God's love; even unsaved people can see that. If a couple has their firstborn, and – God forbid – that baby is in bad health, facing death, the baby's parents would willingly give their own lives if it meant that baby could live. God created that kind of love in order to teach how much He loves us. Jesus gave His life so that we could live. The baby might drive his parents nuts – may be colicky and all the rest of it – but still the parents would say, “This is my baby and I would die for him”. God creates that love to teach us how He loves us.

The point at which Israel went too far was when they sacrificed their babies to demons, to Moloch and other gods. In modern society, if you were to take all of the clinical reasons for abortion and put them together – such as ectopic pregnancy, vaginal cancer, radio-induced mutinogenesis of the fetus – they would account for a miniscule percentage of the abortions performed in any Western country. Most abortions are performed for non-therapeutic reasons; in other words, for social and economic considerations. Jesus called this “Mammon-worship”. Make no mistake about it: non-therapeutic abortion is theologically and spiritually related to demon-worship. God judged Israel for it and God is going to judge the United States and Great Britain for it. When someone takes these ultimate emblems of God's love and sacrifices them to demons, that's where God draws the line. We'll return to this in a moment.

The sins of Sodom are similar. You must understand the theology of human sexuality: the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church, Scripture says. (Eph 5:23) Sex in a Christian marriage is a reflection of Jesus going inside of His bride and causing her to be fruitful. This does not mean that sexual love in marriage is not erotic or pleasurable – what it does mean is that it is holy. God comes together in an act of creative love in Genesis and brings forth the Creation. The plural God comes together – the Hebrew word is “echad” – “oneness”, and makes the creation. He created us in His likeness; so when male and female procreate in His love, we replay the Creation. He is creative, so He makes us pro-creative since we're made in His image. Human sex as God intended it has a deep spiritual significance going back to the relationship between the Godhead as well as Christ's relationship with His church. A clear mark of Satan's is that he will always try to be the opposite of God. In God's design for sexual relations, it is giving and receiving pleasure and it is heterosexual. The two biggest forms of sexual perversion in the world today are undoubtedly homosexuality and sadomasochism. Both of those things bear the clear signature of Satan because of the principle of opposites. Instead of being heterosexual, sex is twisted to become homosexual. Instead of being the giving and receiving of pleasure, sex becomes the giving and receiving of pain. I am not saying it's wrong for married couples to enjoy aggressive sex; I am speaking of perversions.

The pop singer Madonna was interviewed once in Time or Newsweek Magazine; I read it. She put out a video about sex, and much of it was sadomasochistic. They asked her about this, why she found it sexually appealing, and her response was that she likes being humiliated and punished by a strict male authority figure because of her Roman Catholic upbringing. She has a point, in a way, if you know Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism puts guilt on people through its denial of the Cross. The Cross is what takes away our guilt, so because of their removal of the Cross with their doctrine of the Mass, Roman Catholics have a deep guilt problem. Oftentimes after a Roman Catholic gets saved, you'll see that it takes them a long while to grow out of this guilt complex.

There is in our society a blossoming of both homosexuality and sadomasochism. Recently in London, a lesbian headmistress in a school refused to let the children go on a class trip to see Romeo and Juliet because it was “blatantly heterosexual”. This describes the last days of Sodom; it also describes the last days of England and America. Judgment begins in the house of God and that includes “Christian” countries. Take, for example, what is happening in Hollywood/ Malibu, with the rise in earthquakes, forest fires, and landslides. God judged Israel for these things and He is also going to judge the Western nations for them also. We have much more than Israel did and are therefore even more guilty than they were.

False Prophets Then and Now

Finally, the Bible says, “Fallen is Babylon”. (Isa 21:9; Jer 21:9, Jer 51:8; 51:44; 51:49; Rev 14:8; 18:2) Scripture takes this theme from Jeremiah and Isaiah and uses it in Revelation, along with the theme of Daniel about the Temple being destroyed – see Matthew 24. Jeremiah, Daniel, and Isaiah were the prophets leading up to the Babylonian captivity. What happened in Israel during that time – leading up to and during the captivity – is a type of what happens at the end of the world. That is why Revelation and Matthew 24 take those themes and recycle them for the Last Days for both Israel and the church in different ways.

Let's look at Jeremiah 5:30-31:

"An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?"

The prophets prophesy falsely, the leaders lead on their own authority, and God's people love it. A modern example would be the fact that after John Wimber and Paul Cain made false predictions in the name of the Lord, the same people get on the same buses to go and see them again. Jeremiah was warning of God's judgment coming against their nation. Look at verse 27 in chapter 5:

"Therefore they have become great and grown rich."

They thought, like Laodicea, that because they were materially well-off, they were blessed by God and had His favor and didn't want to recognize that judgment was right around the corner. This is the Laodicean church. Jeremiah was telling the truth – “God's judgment is coming and we have to repent”. They were saying, “No, no, no, we're rich and God wants us rich”. He was warning of judgment, they were denying it. We have the same thing today with the Faith-Prosperity preachers and the Restorationists . "The prophets prophesy falsely, and My people love it so." Notice that it doesn't say they are not His people.

Look at Jeremiah 28. Hananiah makes wild predictions that fail to happen just like the Kansas City false prophets. In verse 15 it says this:

"Then Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Hananiah"

-- it doesn't say he is not a prophet –

"'Hear now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore, thus says the Lord: "Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have taught rebellion against the Lord."'"

You have made God's people trust in a lie, Mr. Wimber. You have made God's people trust in a lie, Bob Jones. You've made God's people trust in a lie, Paul Cain. They did it; it's a fact – you can see the videos and read the books and you'll see that they did the same thing. That is what happened then, that is what Jesus said will happen before He comes, and it is exactly what is going on now. These people are Gnostic and ecumenical: “It's OK to be a Roman Catholic and pray to the dead; God calls it an abomination, but that's all right.” What happened leading up to and during the Babylonian captivity is a major type of what happens to the church in the Last Days. The same is true of Sodom and Gomorrah and the period of Elijah's life dealing with Ahab and Jezebel, the age of the church of Smyrna, the days of Noah, and the last days of Israel and Samaria. Again, it was the sacrifice of babies to demons that caused God's judgment to fall before the Babylonian captivity, and I have no doubt that non-therapeutic abortion is going to be the impetus of God's judgment on the West.

Similarly, when Israel's society was falling to bits just before the Babylonian captivity and the hallmarks of God's impending judgment were all over, people were running around saying, “We're rich, God wants us rich, we're triumphant, we're the King's kids, you're a false prophet, Jeremiah”. It is the same today. The hallmarks of God's coming judgment are all over the place and the society is falling to bits. Yet we have people running around claiming that God wants us rich and we're the King's kids, the church Triumphant, etc. Again, this is what Jesus warned about repeatedly in Matthew 24 – false prophets deceiving the church.

Rick Joyner wrote a book called The Harvest which actually predicted a blossoming of communism that would take over the entire developing world, part of the United States, and various other major areas of the West. The exact opposite, however, has happened. Yet people will follow this man and others like him as true prophets. "The prophets prophesy falsely and My people love it".

When Terms are Redefined

Whenever you read the history of Kings and Chronicles, Jeremiah and Isaiah – the events leading up to the captivity – it teaches about the end. Remember Proverbs 5:10:

"Lest aliens be filled with your wealth, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner;"

King Hezekiah showed his treasure to the king of Babylon (2 Kings 20:12-18). There will be a blossoming of Babylon, the false religious system, in the Last Days. They will want the treasures of the house of the Lord. When you find Evangelicals who are ecumenical – people like John Wimber and George Carey – they are showing our treasures to the king of Babylon and the king of Babylon will plunder those treasures. What happened before the Babylonian captivity and what caused it to happen – the sacrifice of babies, the show of our treasures to the king of Babylon, the following of false prophets instead of listening to true ones, thinking that God wants us rich and because we are rich we've got it made – these are the same things that preceded it.

All of this Gnosticism and other errors are based in eliticism, or simply put, spiritual pride. Be very careful about this. I got a letter a while back from Roger Foster who did not like the fact that I challenged him on his annihilationism . He claims there is no eternal hell so I showed him that the Greek word used in regards to hell for “forever and ever” is the same term used to describe God's glory, the high priesthood of Jesus, and our salvation. Hence, if the torment of hell is not truly eternal, then neither is God's glory, Jesus' high priesthood, or our salvation. As soon as you begin telling unsaved people that if they don't repent and come to Jesus when they die they'll cease to exist, they will say, “So what? That's what we believe anyway”. Unfortunately, that is the theology in back of the March for Jesus. That is what Graham Kendrick and Roger Forster believe; people don't realize this. I like the idea of Christians standing together proclaiming Jesus and preaching the Gospel, but in Dominion theology proclamation into the heavenlies replaces evangelism. Graham Kendrick is a very talented musician and hymn writer; probably the best since Charles Wesley , many people would say. However, all of his songs contain these Dominionist ideas – "We proclaim, we announce, we are triumphant," etc. The problem is this: When you deal with Gnosticism its adherents will always use the same terms we use, but they will mean different things by them. Let me explain:

A Roman Catholic theologian and a Protestant one will have an ecumenical dialogue at a theological forum. The Protestant will say, "We're saved by grace" and the Jesuit will agree, "Yes, we're saved by grace". Well, it seems they both agree and the Reformation was a mistake. However, the Hebrew word for “grace” is “hesed”; it is God's mercy in the covenant. The Greek word is “charism”, meaning “gift”. The English word is “undeserved favor” from the Latin “grazia”. So when we speak of “grace” these are the things we think of. To a Roman Catholic, however, grace is an ethereal substance earned by the sacraments administered by a priest. Therefore they can both agree “we're saved by grace”, but they mean two totally different things by the term “grace”.

When you witness to someone in the New Age movement you may tell them, "I saw the light." You're thinking of the true Light that came into the world according to John 1. They will respond by saying, "I also saw the light"; only they mean an “illumination of cosmic consciousness”. You can both say that you saw the light when you give your respective testimonies, but you have two different definitions of “light”.

Similarly, when Restorationists use terms like “victory”, “kingdom”, “triumph”, “dominion”, “proclamation”, they mean different things by those terms than you do. They use Biblical terms in unbiblical ways just as a Roman Catholic or a New Ager will. Indeed, Roman Catholicism, Restorationism, and Gnosticism all come from the same place: Alexandria. They all have roots in that theology.

The Temple Then and Now

Now, we need to talk about the idea of the Temple. Jesus begins talking of the end of the world in Matthew 24 by discussing the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Jesus said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). He was herein talking about His body.

Man is made in God's image and likeness; we are like a temple. In Corinthians Paul says "Know ye not that ye are temples of the Spirit?" The Temple was like a box within a box within a box: the Outer Courts, the Holy Place, and the Qodesh HaQadashim the sanctum sanctorum, the Holy of Holies. The Outer Court corresponds to our physical bodies. The Holy Place represents our mind, emotions and intellect; our souls. Paul says to keep this holy. The Holy of Holies corresponds to where God's Spirit dwells within us. This is one way to understand and eliminate a lot of the confusion surrounding demons being cast out of Christians. Yes, even Christians may come under demonic influence and be oppressed or even invaded in their bodies or possibly their souls. But when you say “possessed” by a demon you are talking about a demon entering the innermost man, where in a Christian God's Spirit dwells. That cannot happen. A Christian who is following Jesus cannot be demon-possessed. The Greek word “ek ballo” is a very strong word meaning “cast out”; we get our word “ballistic” from it. This term is never used in connection with a Christian anywhere in the Bible.

Jesus spoke of His body as a temple. Remember: what happened to Jesus in His last days happened to the Early Church and to the Apostles in their last days. Those things together teach us about what happens to the church in its Last Days. Again, in John 2:19 Jesus said,

"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."

The physical temple was an emblem of His body. In Hebrew we call Hosea “Sohea”; that “sh” sound indicates a link with Jesus because of the structure of Hebrew. The Hebrew language is based on roots; when you have the same root in two different words, those two words are usually connected in some theological manner with each other. In Midrash, words with the same root, or shoresh, usually have an established Midrashic connection in their interpretation. That “sh” root in Hosea means “salvation”. Jesus' name is Yeshua; Isaiah's name is Ishiahu; Joshua's name is Yehoshua. Wherever you have that “sh” sound it has meaning pertaining to salvation, and all of those figures with an “sh” sound teach about Jesus in some way.

Look at Hosea 6:2:

"After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight."

So we see it: what happens to Jesus happens also to us. In seven places the New Testament refers to the church as the “temple” or the “tabernacle”. The Holy Spirit is like the cement that holds the bricks together. Take a look at 1 Peter 2:5:

"You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood"

We are the stones of the temple. The church is the holy house, the Temple, and we are the stones that comprise it. The Hebrew word for “fellowship” is “heet ha brut”. Peter's epistle was written to Jews and his ministry was mainly to Jews as we're told in Galatians. He writes therefore from a very Jewish perspective, and the Jewish view of “fellowship” was heet ha brut, meaning “bricks cemented together”'. It is one thing to come to church, but quite another to come to fellowship. Anyone may come into the building, but being a brick in the wall is something entirely different. If there is a brick missing from our wall, there is something wrong with the building; if a Christian is not cemented into it, there is something wrong with the church. He or she must get cemented in. We are the stones.

Midrashically, on Palm Sunday what happens? In Luke 19:37-40,we find this: Jesus comes onto the Temple Mount while the people are singing the Hillel Rabbah from Psalm 118 – "Hosanna to the Son of David". The Pharisees freak out, telling them to be quiet; but Jesus says, "If these remain silent, the stones will cry out", indicating the Herodian stones of the Temple. In other words, "If the Jews don't proclaim Me, the Christians will." The Pharisees and Jewish leaders believed themselves to be special because they were descended from Abraham. But they go out to hear John the Baptist in the wilderness and he tells them, "God could raise up Abraham's children out of the stones" (Luke 3:8). Somehow what happened to Jesus' body was replayed in the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Acts 15 shows the Tabernacle being restored as the church, quoting from Amos. That will also happen to us. The temple will be destroyed again, but then raised up in glory.

The early church had been meeting in Solomon's Portico right outside the Temple. At the same time God was making ready to destroy the old Temple, He was building a new one right next to it. When the new Temple was ready, the old one was destroyed. The same is true with us; God is building a new temple, a new tabernacle.

The old Temple in Jerusalem was demolished and the abomination of desolations was set up with the entrance of imperial Rome in 70 A.D. symbolizing political dominion over the house of God. Be careful of Erastianism , or state churches. The concept is totally dangerous. When Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and render to God the things that are God's", he was addressing three issues: The first issue was that even in Old Testament Judaism there was to be a kind of separation of “church and state”. The kings had to be descended from David while the high priests had to be descended from Aaron. That became convoluted during the reign of John Hurcanus during the period of the Hasmoneans which followed the time of the Maccabees . In context, Jesus was addressing this.

The Connection Between the Covenants

The second issue was the distinction between the two covenants. As it says in Jeremiah 31, the new covenant would not be like the old one.

"I will cut a new covenant with the house of Judah and with the house of Israel; it shall not be like the covenant I made with their fathers."

They had a state church: people in Jeremiah's day thought they were rightly related to God because they were part of the national covenant. Jeremiah came and said, "The new covenant won't be like that; God will write His law on your heart. It will be based on individual response." John the Baptist expressed the same thing. Jesus came and got rid of the state-church relationship; the Temple is destroyed.

Then Paul wrote in Romans 2, “That's it; it's over. There is a new covenant that is not like the old one.” But the very thing that Jeremiah predicts Jesus would get rid of, the thing John the Baptist predicts He'll get rid of, the thing that Jesus dies to get rid of, and Paul confirms that Jesus did get rid of it, gets put back in place by Constantine . Then the Reformers, instead of going back to the Bible, came and also put it back in place. Instead of a Catholic state church there was now a Protestant state church. In order to really reform the church and bring it back to the Bible, the first thing that had to be done was to destroy the unscriptural marriage between church and state. The second thing was to be rid of Augustine's false doctrine of the “visible and invisible church” which claims that the church is made up of the unsaved as well as the saved. They failed to get rid of these things and so in essence put back the old covenant.

Remember, before Satan paganized the church he Judaized it. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism are both Judaizations. They both put back Erastianism , a state religion, and they both persecuted believers who would not go along with it for centuries. The Antichrist will ultimately marry church and state in that way; that is the third thing Jesus warns against. Having a state religion is totally unbiblical. In fact, when you understand the real eschatology implicit in it, it is abhorrent. England has had homosexual kings such as King James and now has a New-Age king coming to the throne, all of whom have taken the title that belongs rightfully only to Christ – “head of the church”.

When you read Acts, you're not only reading past history, but future history also. When you read Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Kings about the Babylonian captivity and what led up to it, that too is future as well as past history. The same goes for Daniel and the story of the Maccabees that he predicted, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the days of Noah. God “declares the end from the beginning”, it says in Isaiah. (Isa 46:10)

The Typology of the Boat

Now for the ultimate picture: Again, this is typology; I am not basing doctrine on it, I am using it to illustrate the truth. In Mark chapters 4 and 6 we read of boats being storm-tossed; this is a type of the church in tribulation. The earth has to do with Israel, the sea with the nations – "Why are the nations in an uproar", etc. However, the ultimate boat is in Acts 27 with Paul being like the good and faithful servant in Matthew 24:45 who will give the proper food at the proper time just as Joseph fed the whole world and Moses fed the children of Israel in preparation for the exodus. Follow the typology. Acts 27:1…

"When it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners to one named Julius, a centurion of the Augustan Regiment."

Remember, Paul had to stand before Caesar; the Caesars are types of the Antichrist. Verses 2-3…

"So, entering a ship of Adramyttium, we put to sea, meaning to sail along the coasts of Asia. Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, was with us. And the next day we landed at Sidon. And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to his friends and receive care."

As it says in Daniel, they will receive a “little help” if you can understand the connection. (Dan 11:34) Verse 4…

"When we had put to sea from there, we sailed under the shelter of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary."

The word for “wind” in Greek is “pnuema” or in Hebrew “ruach”; these are the same words for “spirit”.

There are positive winds and negative winds, but the worst wind is the wind of the northeast. When a northeastern wind is blowing off the Mediterranean it goes through the Carmel mountain chain in Galilee and comes down onto the Sea of Galilee causing tumultuous waves. The ravines of the Carmel mountains cause a piston effect, which in turn creates these waves on the Sea of Galilee. This is the same wind that Paul's ship meets up with here. If you look at the Jewish calendar, which is agricultural, you will see on it the rainy seasons and which ways the wind blows. There are contrary and positive winds just as throughout history there are predominant spiritual forces. In the very end, however, the spiritual forces become tremendously contrary. Let's continue in verse 5…

"And when we had sailed over the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy, and he put us on board. When we had sailed slowly many days, and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus, the wind not permitting us to proceed, we sailed under the shelter of Crete off Salmone. Passing it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea. Now when much time had been spent, and sailing was now dangerous because the Fast was already over, Paul advised them, saying, "Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also our lives." Nevertheless, the centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship than by the things spoken by Paul. And because the harbor was not suitable to winter in, the majority advised to set sail from there also, if by any means they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete opening toward the southwest and northwest, and winter there. When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete."

Paul knew that they were headed for trouble; he warned them how to avoid it, but the majority didn't want to listen to the guy who really knew what was going on. Then, when the wind changed and things seemed to be getting better, they reacted with an attitude of "See, I told you he was a jerk".

Restorationists said when the Iron Curtain came down, "See, we told you Hal Lindsay was a jerk and the Russians aren't going to invade Israel." Yet anti-Semitism in Russia has done nothing but increase since that time and there are four Moslem countries that are part of the former Soviet Empire, at least one of which has nuclear weapons capabilities and a growing fundamentalist Islam. This is the same idea: “When men say "Peace and safety", then the end will come”. (1 Thes 5:3)

Bush spoke of a “New World Order”. A few weeks later he and Mr. Major were rushing thousands and tens of thousands of troops to the Gulf in what was probably the biggest war since the Second World War. Next they decided that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the New World Order and must be gotten rid of; but he is still down there. Then there was Yugoslavia, and then the Middle East. There will be no lasting peace anywhere in the world, particularly not in that area of the world, until the Son of David, the Prince of Peace, is recognized by Jew and Arab. There is a false peace in the Middle East; I don't know if it's the false peace predicted by Zechariah, but if not, it is certainly a prelude to it. Things seem to get better; but remember, this is like birth pangs. The pain seems to let up for a while, but then the uterine contractions begin all over again, worse than the last time.

Getting Rid of the World's Goods

Let's look at what happens next in Acts 27:14…

"But not long after, a tempestuous head wind arose, called Euroclydon. So when the ship was caught, and could not head into the wind, we let her drive."

The church finds itself unable to control its direction and its destiny.

"And running under the shelter of an island called Clauda, we secured the skiff with difficulty. When they had taken it on board, they used cables to undergird the ship; and fearing lest they should run aground on the Syrtis Sands, they struck sail and so were driven."

They give up trying to control its direction, only remaining concerned with keeping it afloat

"And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship."

The early Christians had to get rid of this world's goods. In the Last Days, if we aren't careful, the things we own will wind up owning us. The attitude we need is that everything we have belongs to Jesus; if I have a lot of money, in actuality I'm flat broke because it doesn't belong to me. I am only a steward of what belongs to Jesus. On the other hand, if I have nothing and am unemployed for four years, I am actually rich because I'm a co-heir with Christ. Any other attitude is unbiblical and unhealthy and will lead to trouble for us. They begin to jettison the cargo to save the ship. I know a place in Brazil where the Christians are very poor; the people sold their houses and cars in order to build a church. Would Christians in the West be willing to jettison their cargo like that and divest themselves of this world's goods in order to save their church? Not many.

Let's look further, beginning in verse 19…

"On the third day we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands. Now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up."

The sun and stars were not giving their light. Jesus told Abraham that his descendants would be like the stars of heaven. When the stars don't give their light – when Abraham's descendants hide their light – the glory of Jesus is obscured. Isaiah 13:10-11 …

"For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible."

This is what happens in Acts 27. The ship gets storm-tossed; the people who know what's going on are ignored by the majority that rules, and that doesn't want to know the truth.

If you'd like to know what will happen to the Charismatic movement, look at Isa 24:7-8:

"The new wine fails, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh. The mirth of the tambourine ceases, the noise of the jubilant ends, the joy of the harp ceases."

That is how the Charismatic movement ends. There is a place for joy and a place for worship as long as it is based on the truths of God's Word. Once you begin basing your doctrine on experience, standing on something other than the Bible, you have nothing left to rejoice about. There is only your own destruction to look forward to. However, Jesus wants to preserve us.

The Right Voice in a Crisis

Let's continue with verse 21 in Acts 27…

"But after long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, 'Men, you should have listened to me, and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss.'"

Most of the things that are going to happen to the church could, in theory, be avoided if people had the wisdom to listen to the teachers who are telling the truth, and to follow the pastors who are leading their flocks in the way of Scripture instead of following those who are tickling their ears. We see today many big Restorationists and the prosperity preachers in the United States with their big churches: do you know why their churches are big? Not because people are getting saved – those are not the churches where people get saved. People are getting saved at traditional Pentecostal churches such as David Wilkerson's and Nicky Cruz's. The reason the Restorationists and prosperity preachers have big churches is because they suck people out of other churches who want to have their ears tickled with prosperity preaching and Kingdom Now theology. Most of the destruction and judgment coming on the church could theoretically be avoided if people were willing to obey the Word of God and heed its warnings. Verse 22…

"And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood before me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying 'Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.'"

I am convinced that not only will we see an increase in demonic activity before Jesus comes, but also an increase in angelic activity. Verse 25…

"Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me."

Notice Paul's confidence and his countenance. You can always tell the difference between hype and anointing if the Holy Spirit has tuned your ears. Verse 26…

"'However, we must run aground on a certain island.' Now, when the fourteenth night had come, as we were driven up and down in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors sensed that they were drawing near some land. And they took soundings and found it to be twenty fathoms; and when they had gone a little farther, they took soundings again and found it to be fifteen fathoms. Then, fearing lest we should run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern, and prayed for day to come."

The number fourteen is interesting. Jewish genealogies considered fourteen to be an important number; double seven. They would re-sculpture the pedigree tables, only naming those ancestors who were of theological importance to the argument they were trying to make. For instance, in the genealogy of Jesus, they sculptured in fourteens and only named those ancestors who were of theological importance to the theological argument that Matthew was trying to make about Jesus being the Messiah. Fourteen has something to do with being halfway to the next event. Again, a good example is in Matthew 1:17:

"So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations."

This is an example of the way the number fourteen is used frequently in Scripture. (There is more to this subject of Biblical numerics than we have time for, and a lot more than I personally have time to study.)

Unity in Times of Testing

Nonetheless, let's continue. Verse 30 of Acts 27…

"And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, when they had let down the skiff into the sea, under pretense of putting out anchors from the prow,"

Many will fall away in the Last Days; let's look at backsliders. In Jude's epistle he describes backsliders inside the church. There are as many backsliders in the church as there are outside it. Proverbs says that the backslider of heart shall be filled with his own ways. (Pro 14:14) Backsliders often scheme when they try to leave. They stop coming to church, to fellowship, to prayer meeting, etc. on one pretense after another; they begin manipulating and scheming. What they're really trying to do is get away from the ship, because they have gotten away from the ship's Owner. Verse 31…

"Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, 'Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.'"

Remember, fellowship is always important. Like 1 Peter, the epistle to the Hebrews is a very Jewish book which draws on the Jewish concept of fellowship.

"Forsake not the assembling one with another, especially as you see the Day approaching" (Heb 10:25).

If too many bricks are removed from strategic places, the roof of the building will fall in. Christians are going to have to stand together, or they will never be able to stand-alone.

Let me qualify that: There is a unity of the Spirit and there is a unity of man. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; you cannot build a unity of the Holy Spirit on a lie. The ecumenical and interfaith movements are trying to do this, to build unity on a lie. True unity of the Spirit, however, can only be built on the truth. Ecumenism builds unity on a deception, they do have “unity of the spirit”, and the question is, which spirit? Much of what people are calling the “unity of the Holy Spirit” is really a man-made unity that compromises the truth of God's Word for the sake of organizational politics.

Getting Fed and Rescued

Acts 27:32…

"Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the skiff and let it fall off. And as day was about to dawn, Paul implored them all to take food, saying, 'Today is the fourteenth day you have waited and continued without food, and eaten nothing.'"

For three and a half years Elijah fed the Gentile woman. Now Paul comes in the way Moses, Joseph, Elijah, and John the Baptist came – like the good and faithful servant – to feed God's people during this time of darkness and famine. In the End, it will be the same; the good and faithful servant will feed God's people. Verse 33…

"'Therefore I urge you to take nourishment, for this is for your survival, since not a hair will fall from the head of any of you."

You really have to be some man of God to stand up when things are like this, when everyone thinks they're finished, and have His power and anointing to tell people, "You're not finished; Jesus loves us and He's going to get us out of this." When persecution comes the first ones to betray each other and fall away will be the ones described in Jude's epistle. When hard times come, the prosperity preachers and those who follow them will be the first to lose their faith. They have not been prepared to live a crucified life, one of hardship, so when hardship comes, they won't be able to handle it. Verse 35…

"And when he had said these things, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all; and when he had broken it he began to eat. Then they were all encouraged, and also took food themselves. And in all we were two hundred and seventy-six persons on the ship. So when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and threw out the wheat into the sea.

“'Cast much bread upon the water, and you will reap in a due season.” (Ecc. 11:1) Somehow the Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached during the Tribulation to the raging sea. The Gospel of the Kingdom is different from the Gospel in some ways; it is still the same Gospel, still good news, but it is different in character. The Gospel of the Kingdom is like Matthew's Gospel: Jesus talked about hell three times as much as He did about heaven in Matthew. John the Baptist also preached this Gospel of the Kingdom, the warning that God is going to pour out His judgment. They feed themselves here in Acts 27, and then they cast the rest of the bread on the water. Verse 39…

"When it was day, they did not recognize the land; but they observed a bay with a beach, onto which they planned to run the ship if possible. And they let go the anchors and left them in the sea, meanwhile loosing the rudder ropes; and they hoisted the mainsail to the wind and made for shore. But striking a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the prow stuck fast and remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the violence of the waves. And the soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim away and escape. But the centurion, wanting to save Paul, kept them from their purpose, and commanded that those who could swim should jump overboard first and get to land, and the rest, some on boards and some on parts of the ship. And so it was that they all escaped safely to land."

So the ship is destroyed, but the people in it are not. We should learn from this that if we cannot stand together, we couldn't stand-alone when the time comes. Acts 28:1…

"Now when they had escaped, they then found out that the island was called Malta. And the natives showed us unusual kindness; for they kindled a fire and made us all welcome, because of the rain that was falling and because of the cold. But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand. So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, 'No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow to live.' But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm."

In Revelation, it says that they took that old serpent who was the devil and cast him into the fire. (Rev19:20) This represents the judgment of Satan.

Jewish midrash reads the Bible differently than the church at large because the church at large has made the mistake that Paul warned them not to make in Romans 11, forgetting the root. We don't see the root because it is underground; however, if it were not there, the tree wouldn't be either. If the root were dead, so would the tree be. God is going to bless the church through the Jews in the Last Days. We will see that as more Jews begin coming to faith in Jesus, God will begin pointing the church back to its roots and teaching it how to interpret the Bible correctly. A little light will take you a long way, but when things get very dark you need a strong light. These things are sealed up until the time of the End; one of the things that indicates that we are in the Last Days is that the Holy Spirit has begun to unseal them.

The ship is destroyed, but those on it are saved; the stones are thrown down, but resurrected. Satan will be judged. That is what will happen. Eventually, the people on the ship in Acts 27 realized that Paul was telling the truth all along though the majority had refused to listen to him. They found out the hard way that he was right. The people of Sodom scorned the words of Lot and the two angels, but they found out the hard way that they were right. Those in Noah's day thought Noah was crazy, but they too found out when it was too late that he was right.

Giving Insight to the Many

In Daniel 11 we read that those who have understanding among the people will give insight to the many. (Dan 11:33) If it were up to me I would never teach the Bible. I would rather do nothing but evangelism – I want to see people saved and I would give this up in a minute to pursue that. The only reason I do teach is that enough people have told me that this is what God wants me to do, and I believe they are right. If God wants me to feed His people in preparation for the Last Days, then that is what I'll do.

There are wise and foolish virgins, the foolish ones do not have oil in their lamps and when they realize the wise virgins were right, they try to get it then. However, as we see in Matthew 25, they go to buy it and it is too late. When the night comes you need to have the oil in your lamp already. What I want is to see that all of you have oil in your lamps because you're going to need it. I want to see that all of you have grain stored up in your storehouses because you'll need it.

Yet at this time, when we should be storing up grain and buying oil for our lamps, when we should be facing the facts for what they are and prophecy is being fulfilled under our noses, we have the same thing they had in Noah's day, Jeremiah's day, Sodom's and Jerusalem's last days. What happened then is going to happen now; in fact, is already happening now.

A division is coming to the Body of Christ and there will be at least three issues that cause it: Once again, those who will compromise and those who will not. A lot of evangelicals are compromising: Baptists, Pentecostals, and Charismatics among them – division is already coming. Secondly, Israel and its role in prophecy. Division in the church over this issue is coming and in fact is already here. Thirdly, division will come over the authority of the Word of God and the way in which it must be interpreted. This is what is happening now.

Make no mistake about it – Jesus is coming. The time to get the grain and to purchase the oil is now. If you do, you will be a wise virgin. If not, you will be a foolish one. Jesus wants you to have it now; He is here, and He is offering it to you. Please take it.

The Future History of the Church, Part 2

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:03:59 GMT

Rome Then and Now

What happened during the Reformation was relatively mild in comparison to the tremendous revival taking place now in Roman Catholic countries, specifically in South America: In Santiago, Chile, 20,000 people leave the Roman Catholic church every week to become Pentecostals.

In Guatemala, 10% of the population left the Roman Catholic church within ten years' time and became Pentecostals . In the Philippines it is the same; in the United States, the number of converted Roman Catholics is incredible. In Ireland, more Roman Catholics are now getting saved than Protestants. In Italy there are over 1,000 Assemblies of God churches, none of them small and practically all of them new. While the Assemblies of God denomination is failing in countries that had the Reformation, it is prospering in Catholic countries. We will observe that the Mary issue will be incendiary; "Great is Diana of Ephesus" – see Acts 19:23-34 .

The Roman emperors were worshiped and God's people were killed for refusing to participate in it. 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 13 speak of the same thing. The emperor worship of Rome prefigures worship of the Antichrist. The kissing of the Pope's ring and other similar practices are derived from emperor worship. Once again, in the Last Days the Antichrist, the emperor will demand to be worshiped in some way. Those who will not do so will be persecuted for their refusal.

Scripture notes in Acts 5:37 , the nativity narratives, etc., that the Roman emperors took a census. When you really understand the way census was used in the Bible, you will understand why David's taking the census in Israel (1 Chr. 21) was even worse than his sin of adultery with Bathsheba. The Roman emperors used census to number people's heads and thus gain financial control of the world; this is what the Antichrist will also do. It happened in the time of the Early Church and it will happen again in the end. The worst emperors slaughtered the church and then turned against the Jews. It began with Nero in 62 A.D., and in 68-70 A.D. the tide turned against the Jews. In the 2nd Century emperors such as Diocletian, Marcus Aurelius, and Septimus Severitus were against the church, but then with Hadrian they went against the Jews from 120-132 A.D.

The early believers had an imminent eschatology; they believed that Jesus was coming back during their lifetime. We, too, will begin to see that happening. The general tide of world events politically at that time fulfilled specific eschatological prophecies. The events surrounding the destruction of the Temple, the burning of Rome, etc. – those things fulfilled prophecy. But once again, Jewish prophecy is pattern, and those same prophecies will again be fulfilled in the future. What I am basically saying is this: When you read the book of Acts, you're not only reading the history of the early church, you're also reading the history of the latter church. What happens to Jesus happens to the Apostles, happens to Paul, and happens to the early Christians; all of these things together teach what will happen to us. What happens to Jesus in His last days happens again to His Body in the Last Days.

What happened in the Early Church will happen in the latter church. The Book of Acts happens again. Forty-eight percent of the Gospel of John deals with the last week of Jesus' life; the Passion narrative. All four gospels devote at least one-third of their time to what happened in the last days of Jesus' earthly life. If it is read the right way, the New Testament does the same with us, speaking a great deal about what will happen in the Last Days. Jesus was betrayed, crucified, and raised victorious. We, too, will be betrayed, crucified, and raised victorious.

Deception Then and Now

It is important to realize that the kinds of deceptions perpetrated by Satan against the Early Church are the kinds of deceptions he will use against the church in the Last Days. The same heresies, false doctrines, and deceptions that the devil introduced into Christianity in its early centuries make a comeback in the Last Days.

In the Early Church people with a low Christology – people who did not believe that Jesus was God – were called “ Arians ”. Today we call them Jehovah's Witnesses ; the two are essentially the same.

In the Early Church they called the Sabbatarians and dietary legalists and Nomianists “Judaizers” (see Galatians). Today we call them Seventh-Day Adventists .

In the Early Church people who were hyper-Dispensationalist – who took Dispensationalism to a bizarre extreme and made a radical, tremendous separation between the Testaments – were called “ Marcionites ”. Today they are the Exclusive or Closed Brethren .

In the Early Church, the people who said that the Father was Jesus, the Son was Jesus, and the Spirit was Jesus were called “ Sabellians ” or “ Patripassionists ”. Today we call them Jesus-Only Pentecostals, or United Pentecostals . There is nothing new under the sun.

Undoubtedly, however, of all these lies and the many others, the two most damaging were the Montanists and the Gnostics , who were related to each other. The Montanists had over-realized eschatology; they believed that the kingdom was now. They made many crazy predictions and prophecies that revival was coming to their capital or that Jesus was coming there Himself in Phrygia or modern-day Turkey. They had all manner of wild predictions, but the way they sucked people into it was by putting a heavy emphasis on signs and wonders. “The Apostles had these things, the Bible teaches them, so we should have them” was their philosophy. Irenaeus , the pre-Nicean church father, wrote against these people while yet defending what was right about them. He did say that signs and wonders and the gifts of the Spirit are Biblical; but this particular group was using them to get people to believe other bizarre things. The same is true today.

In the Early Church people like Tertullian , the church father – people you would never have expected to get caught up in crazy errors – did. Today, too, I find people I never would have expected being caught up in the same kinds of Kingdom Now ideas of Triumphalism , Restorationism , and Dominionism . It works the same way, with the emphasis laid on signs and wonders, etc.

These people in the Early Church made insane predictions that didn't happen and led to total anarchy. At any turning point in church history, this same Kingdom Now theology has surfaced. The Montanists began to surface when the Roman Empire went into decline.

During the Renaissance, which was a very important turning point in the history of Europe, believers in Montanist doctrines were called the followers of Joachim of Fiore . This man, leader of Kingdom Now theology at that time, has such a similar philosophy to that of the Vineyard movement today that he could have written for their magazine. We see in them the same ideas, for example: there are supposedly three ages, the Age of the Father, the Age of the Son, and the Age of the Spirit; the Age of the Father being Old Testament Israel, the Age of the Son being the church age, and the Age of the Spirit being the latter-day rain, identified with their own movement. They believed they belonged to a new religious order that was going to take over all other religious orders. This is the same belief found today in John Wimber's Vineyard Movement.

During the Reformation, there were the Prophets of Zwickau . Now, if you're Brethren, Pentecostal, or Baptist, don't ever consider yourself a Protestant. If you had been around during the Reformation, the Protestants would have called you an “ Anabaptist ” and they would have killed you as fast as the Catholics would. Zwingli said, "So you want to be baptized again?" and cut a hole in the ice in Zurich in which they drowned the believers there who believed in believers' baptism. The followers of Luther , Calvin and Zwingli killed Anabaptists. If you're Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Reformed, then you're a Protestant; but anything non-conformist is not Protestant.

The Anabaptists were in most ways much closer to the Scripture than the Reformers were. The Protestants ran around pretending they had rediscovered the Gospel, when in fact there were people who had never lost it. Long before Luther, Calvin, or Zwingli, there were people on the Continent such as John S. Huss and the Bohemian Brethren , or in England the followers of John Wycliffe , or the Waldensians who were around for centuries – all of whom were Bible-believing Christians. There were always people who understood the basic truth and knew the church at large had gotten away from it.

However, in the time of the Reformation something happened. Feudalism ended, and capitalism began. The decline of the Holy Roman Empire – which was neither holy nor Roman – was occurring, and that Empire was being replaced with the nation-state; people began saying “I am English”, “I am German”, “I am Scottish”, etc. Therefore, the Pope no longer had the political leverage to exterminate Christians and suppress the preaching of the Gospel in the way that he had throughout the Dark Ages.

Additionally, Gutenberg invented the printing press. You no longer had the Vulgate, which was the Latin edition of the Bible that monks copied; instead you had people like Luther putting the Bible into German and Tyndale into English and so on, and Bibles could be mass-produced because of Gutenberg's invention. So the Bible went out, literacy increased, and the Pope lost his ability to stop the spread of the Gospel politically. That is why the Reformation happened. The only thing people like Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli did was get away with something that other people before them had always said, only the political and social circumstances were not ripe for them to live to tell about it. The idea that the Reformers rediscovered the Gospel is a perversion of history.

There were some Anabaptists whose capital was Muenster in Germany, near Holland. They followed these “prophets” called the Prophets of Zwickau, who made a lot of crazy predictions, prophecies, and practices, with excessive abuses of the gifts of the Spirit etc., which led to total anarchy. Today we have the same thing, only instead of the Prophets of Zwickau we have the Kansas City Prophets . After Paul Cain publicly made false predictions with John Wimber in England, the same people who witnessed these false prophecies will get on buses again to go hear a repeat performance by this man, who prophesied falsely in the name of the Lord. The Anglican bishop David Pitchers wrote a book called Some Said it Thundered, telling all Evangelical Anglicans to follow this guy. They did, and Paul Cain has since that time gone to Saddam Hussein, a man who has murdered God only knows how many tens of thousands of his own people, and apologized, repenting on behalf of the born-again Christians in the United States and Great Britain for “what we did to him”.

Proper Use of Midrash

Kingdom Now theology has always surfaced at pivotal points in history – there is nothing new under the sun. Related to it is something really crazy: Gnosticism .

Alexandria was where the Judeo-Christian world met the Orient. It was where Zoroastrian priests, Jewish rabbis, Buddhist monks, and Christians converged with the exchange of ideas. At the onset of the Christian era, the Hellenistic ideas of someone named Philo had already begun to come into Judaism. This was picked up by some of the people in Alexandria who were Christians, especially Origen – possibly Clement of Alexandria , but certainly Origen. Let me explain.

Midrashically, in the Jewish way of handling Scripture, you use symbolism, typology, and allegory to illustrate and illuminate doctrine, without ever basing doctrine on it. Take the Passover as an example with the symbolism of the Last Supper. When you understand the Jewish Passover and the Last Supper as a Passover, the symbolism of the Jewish ritual in the Passover seder will help you understand the Lord's Supper on a much deeper level than you otherwise could. The purpose of allegory, typology and symbolism is to illuminatedoctrine on a deeper level, never to be the basis of doctrine in itself.

Very briefly: A Jewish Christian reading John's Gospel in the 1st Century would have read John 1, 2, and 3 and he would have said that it was, of course, a midrash on Genesis 1, 2, and 3. He would have said that John 1, 2, and 3 narrated the New Creation, while Genesis narrated the Creation; therefore Genesis 1, 2, and 3 and John 1, 2, and 3 are a midrashic parallel.

God walks the Creation in Genesis, and God walks on the earth in the New Creation in John. The Spirit moves on the water and brings forth the Creation in Genesis, and the Spirit moves on the water and brings forth the New Creation in John.
God comes to separate the light from the darkness in the Creation in Genesis, and He does so again in the New Creation in John.
In the Creation in Genesis you have the small light and the great light; in the New Creation you have Johanan Hamadvil -- John the Baptist (the small light), and Yeshua ha Mashiach, Jesus the Messiah (the great light).

Midrashically, the fig tree is a metaphor for the Tree of Life that is in the Garden of Eden. The Tree of Life is in the garden, and the fig tree is in John. So midrashically, when Jesus sees Nathaniel “under the fig tree”, in Jewish metaphor Jesus was not merely saying to Nathaniel, "I saw you under a literal fig tree", although he did; He was saying midrashically, "I saw you from the creation; from the foundation of the world I foreknew you." That illustrates the truth; the Bible directly states elsewhere that there are “those whom He foreknew from the creation of the world”. ( Rom. 8:29 ) I am not a Calvinist , but there is a truth in it. The midrash illustrates that truth, but it is not the basis of it.

In the same way, "This is the cup of the new covenant in My blood", as Jesus said at the Last Supper, ( 1 Co. 11:25 ) shows that the Passover meal illustrates the doctrine of atonement while not being the basis for it. That is the way in which Jewish hermeneutics uses allegory. It's totally wrong to reject allegory in the way the Reformers did because the deeper things of the Scriptures will never be understood if we do that. On the other hand, however, it is just as wrong and even dangerous to base doctrine on it.

Gnosticism

What the Gnostics did was this: They claimed a subjective mystical insight into the types and allegories in Scripture, then reinterpreted the plain meaning of the Bible in light of this “gnosis”, which is the Greek word for spiritual revelation. They claimed to have special knowledge, and if you didn't see it, they would say you were under spiritual deception or in rebellion.

Roman Catholicism is based on Gnosticism . The Pope erroneously claims to be the successor of Peter; to have your hermeneutics right, you must first have your ecclesiology right. In other words, only the Pope, the Magisterium of the Church, can interpret the Bible. Therefore, although the plain meaning of Luke 1:47 is that Mary says she needs a Savior, Catholicism replies, “Yes, but you don't have the gnosis; the Pope has it because he's the heir of Peter, and he says that Mary does not need a Savior because she was conceived without sin.”

Hasidic Judaism is the same way. Their rabbis are called “rebbes” and they're the descendants of someone called Bal Shem Tov, the Besch in Judaism, a Jewish Gnostic who was into things like astral projection. The Hasidic Jews contend with each other about whose rebbe is the real descendant of Besch; who really has the spirit of the Besch. It's a form of reincarnation that comes from Hinduism . Therefore, for Hasidic Jews there are two ways to God: The Torah and the rebbe, the righteous one. The rebbe goes to God through Torah; you go to God through the rebbe. What the Torah says is not important; what the rebbe says about it is important.

Similarly, with Catholicism it is not what the New Testament says that is important, but rather what the Pope says about it that matters. With Sufi Moslems, it's the suf; with Shi'a Moslems, it's the imam, and what the imam says about the Koran. With Zoroastrians , it's their priesthood. With Hindus, it's the Brahman priests, the highest order of the caste system, or the guru. He goes to Vishnu and Krishna, you go through him. With Shamanism it's the shaman. To Tibetan Buddhists the essential figure is the Dalai Lama. All of these groups follow Gnosticism.

The essential issue in these forms of Gnosticism therefore becomes, “Who is your guru, who is your pope, who is your imam, who is your rebbe, who is your suf, who is your lama or your priest or your shaman?'” In Restorationism , the corresponding question is, “Who is your apostle, who is your prophet?”

Modern-Day Gnostics

Joel chapter 2 is the basis for the Manchild /M anifest Sons of God doctrines of Restorationism . Let's take a look at John Wimber's exposition of Joel chapter 2. Remember that Jewish prophecy is pattern, and therefore somehow this passage is about the Last Days. However, in its historical context it is speaking of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion. Joel 2 says this:

"Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm…
…There is a great and mighty people…
There has never been anything like it,
Nor will there ever be again
To the years of many generations.
A fire consumes before them,
And a flame after them.
The land is like the Garden of Eden before them,
And desolate wilderness after them.
Nothing escapes them."

That is what John Wimber, Paul Cain , David Pitchers , Gerald Coates , and the people in the house churches who follow them have said that the church triumphant is going to be. But let's look more closely

"Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
Like warhorses they run…
…They rush on the city,
They run on the walls."

It goes on from there to describe this army as locusts. The Restorationists say that the church triumphant will be this army of devouring locusts, that they will conquer all. But now let's look at verse 20:

"I will remove the northern army far from you,
And will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
Its vanguard in the Eastern Sea
And its rearguard into the Western Sea.
And its stench will arise, and its foul smell will come up,
For it has done great things."

God is going to destroy and judge this army because it is evil the way He judged and destroyed Nebuchadnezzar's army. That is the context exegetically, grammatically, historically, or any other way you would like to look at it. But John Wimber came along claiming a gnosis saying, “No, that's not what it means – it's the church triumphant”; if you don't see this, he will simply say that you are under spiritual deception. If you disagree, you'll be accused of having the spirit of Antichrist.

Another man who is guilty of this kind of thing is Andrew Shearman , though he is more eisegetical than actually Gnostic. He will take a text which says that the Gospel is preached until John, but then with the Kingdom, men enter it violently; he will twist that text. ( Mt. 11:12 ) What “violently” means here in its original Greek context is “pressed into”. It can be compared to this hypothetical situation: If you were taking a boat across the Irish Sea from Hollyhead in Wales to Dublin, and you put on a life jacket and got into a lifeboat, the other passengers would think you were crazy. On these ferryboats there are pubs, discotheques, casinos, etc. The people are thereby amusing themselves, while you sit in the lifeboat with your life jacket on, trying to encourage people to put on life jackets and join you because it will add to the comfort and pleasure of their trip. They would say you were nuts; but as soon as the warning whistle goes off and these people know the boat is sinking and they're doomed, they'll be pressing into the lifeboats and trying to get life jackets on in order to save their necks.

The Law and the Prophets are taught until John; in Galatians the Law is called our teacher because it teaches us that we are condemned and in need of salvation. ( Gal. 3:24 ) This is what the text means, but Mr. Shearman says, "No, this is the church triumphant. We're the mighty men who are going to do the conquering." This is nonsensical and doesn't come close to what the text means. There is no way anyone can read that text in its original context and come up with such a stupid conclusion, yet this is what the man teaches, and ifyou don't see it you're “under spiritual deception”. Again, it's not what the Bible says that's important, but rather what the person with the gnosis claims.

Two Forms of Gnosticism

This is what the Gnostics do today, and it is exactly what they did in the Early Church as well. In the time of the Early Church there were two forms of Gnosticism : the totally pagan form and the form that got into the church under the leadership of people such as Basil and Valentinus . The same applies today; there are two forms of Gnosticism. The utterly pagan form is the New Age movement; Gnosticism is really what the New Age movement is. It may have occult packaging and so on, but the core of it is Gnostic. The kind of Gnosticism getting into the church today is Restorationism . All of the visualization techniques among many other popular things Restorationists embrace – such as Joyce Huggett's books – are New Age ideas, totally alien to the Bible.

Using breathing exercises for prayer, as she describes, comes from yoga. She states also that the exercises of Ignatius of Loyola should be used as a model for Christian prayer. Ignatius Loyola was the founder of the Jesuits, a religious order designed to stop the spread of the Gospel in the Counter-Reformation . He was a man whose order is responsible for the death, torture, and murder of probably a half-million Christians. Yet his shamanistic exercises are being upheld in today's church as a model for Christian prayer! These are New Age ideas creeping into the church. These were also the kinds of deception faced by the Early Church; the same ones have come back.

It doesn't matter whether you call it “ Arianism ” or Jehovah's Witnesses ; it is the same thing. Charles Taze Russell and Judge Rutherford , the founders of the Jehovah's Witness movement, claimed a gnosis. If you don't agree with them, you're under deception. Roman Catholicism = Gnosticism. Shia Islam = Gnosticism. Sufi Islam = Gnosticism. Zoroastrianism = Gnosticism. Hinduism = Gnosticism. Shamanism = Gnosticism. The house churches = Gnosticism.

Just look at the damage that heavy shepherding and similar practices have caused people. This Restorationism is a natural bedfellow for all kinds of other errors, one of which is heavy shepherding. We deal with this more in depth in a separate teaching; I am simply saying here that it was a deception in the Early Church, and it is again becoming a deception now. A person who claims the gnosis is naturally going to become a heavy shepherd; what else could he be? Jesus, however, said that One is your Teacher, Who is in heaven ( Mt. 23:8-10 ).

God will do a new thing. If a couple has four children and they decide to have a fifth (God help them), God will do a new thing, but they will get the fifth child in the same way in which they got the first four. When God does a new thing, it will always be in character with the way He has always done things. What Gnostics will say is that everything can be abrogated because God is going to do a new thing in the Last Days; that is true, but it will never be out of character with the way He has always done things.
There is a lot wrong with abortion, but one of the things that bothers me most is the waiting list of couples who are trying to adopt a baby. This list is three miles long, while other people are killing children. There is no such thing as an unwanted baby. People will adopt handicapped children or just about any child if they want one badly enough; yet other people are killing them.

If a couple really loves each other, and they want to share their love with a baby, the mother never says, "I just can't face labor. I can't face morning sickness or contractions; therefore I am not going to have the baby. It's too miserable." The only thing she's thinking of is pushing the baby in a pram, taking him to the park on the swings, and going to the zoo to show him the zebras and the monkeys. Morning sickness and labor are not what occupy her mind; that's just what has to be gone through in order to get the child.

I'm glad I am not a female. I watched one of my children being born, and kept my eye on the monitor that measures the intensity and frequency of contractions. Every time the thing started moving I told my wife, "This is the last one, this is it! I wouldn't lie to you, baby," but I was lying. Forget those rugby players at Wiggin; women are the strongest creatures in the world! If one of those rugby players had a baby he'd be out for the season.

Increasing Tremors

Birth pangs and earth tremors – but particularly birth pangs – are the most common things Scripture uses to describe what is going to happen to the church before Jesus comes. Think of the nature of birth pangs: Contractions become more frequent and more severe, while letting up for a while in between. They are at their worst right before the baby is born. The same applies to the Last Days; the pressure grows worse and worse, and though it might let up for a while, it returns and continues in that pattern until the birth occurs. That's what Revelation is about; certainly that's what Jeremiah talks about. Jeremiah refers frequently to birth pangs; he is a prophet who prophesied for his own time, for the first coming of Jesus, and for the Last Days, sometimes almost in the same breath. Whenever you see something in Scripture about birth pangs, the Holy Spirit is trying to reveal something about what will happen to the church in the Last Days.

1 Thessalonians 5 is another example.

"When they are saying 'peace and safety', then destruction will come upon them like birth pangs upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape."

Read Jeremiah; whenever you see the idea of birth pangs, it is eschatologically significant. In addition, whatever you have in the science of obstetrics has its parallel in the science of seismology. Earth tremors behave in much the same way as birth pangs; before there is a major shift of plates causing a big earthquake, a number of smaller tremors precede it. They tend to become more frequent and more intense before the final quake actually occurs. In America and Japan they spend astronomical sums of money trying to discern patterns in tremors in order to predict earthquakes. But they do know that tremors operate under much the same principle as birth pangs. Tremors, too, teach something about what will happen in the Last Days.

The tremors increase, the birth pangs increase, and then the baby comes. Once the baby arrives, and the obstetrician or midwife hands the baby to the mother, all the pain, misery, and mess of labor and delivery is quickly forgotten. The only important thing is the baby, who is well worth it. A woman could be in labor for four weeks, but as soon as she has her baby it's all forgotten.

It will be the same way when Jesus comes; as soon as He appears, all pain and misery is forgotten. We should think about Jesus coming; we don't have to consider the tribulation that goes before it, just as a mother anticipates her child's birth rather than dreading labor pains. Yet we must realize that tribulation is going to happen in the Last Days; just as a mother realizes there is no getting around the birth process.

Examples Past and Present

What happened with the Maccabees and Antiochus Epiphanes happens again to Israel and the church in the Last Days in some way. The book of Daniel also happens again. What happened in the days of the Maccabees was this: a lot of Jews compromised with the Seleucids , allowing Hellenism and “Avodat Zara”, in Hebrew, or foreign worship, to begin taking place in the city of God and ultimately in the house of God. Things wouldn't have gotten that far if so many Jews hadn't been willing to compromise. The way the Maccabees stood up against it and others began joining them teaches something about what is going to happen when the Antichrist manifests. Antiochus Epiphanes did not simply come one day, slaughter a pig in the Temple, and set up an image of Zeus and of himself to be worshiped. Nor is that the way the future abomination of desolations will come. Things build up toward that point; the Jews compromised and compromised until one day things had gone so far they could no longer put a stop to it.

The same thing is happening now. The Church of England is a church where someone who will not agree to sprinkle babies for infant baptism cannot be ordained a minister, but someone who is prepared to deny the Resurrection of Jesus Christ can be consecrated a bishop, with two-thirds of the other bishops defending him – including Evangelicals. Canterbury Cathedral is a site of interfaith worship. The Greek word “demonoi”, Hebrew word “shiddim” – other gods are demons, as Scripture directly states in Deuteronomy and in 1 Corinthians. ( Dt. 32:17 ; 1 Co. 10:20 ) Hindu worship takes place in Canterbury Cathedral; 2,000 Anglican bishops signed a petition to stop it, but the Evangelical Archbishop stated that he “respects all religions”. That is an abomination of desolations in the house of God. People give up and give up and give up, continuing to compromise until it is too late.

In the same way, don't expect to see the Antichrist being worshiped in the church overnight. It doesn't happen that way, it happens the way it did in the time of the Maccabees, with God's people compromising repeatedly until things have gone too far to be stopped. Daniel 11:33-35 says this:

"Those who have understanding among the people will rise up and give understanding to the many. But they will be persecuted . . ."

(We discuss this on the Christmas/ Hanukah tape.) What happened with the Maccabees happens again in the Last Days. The book of Daniel is replayed; Jesus said directly that when we see the abomination of desolations being set up, we could know that our redemption draws near. ( Lk. 21:28 ) What happened with the Maccabees as Daniel predicted it has to happen again; Jesus said so directly. When you read Daniel, read Maccabees in the Apocrypha and see what happens. When you do, you will be reading about one of the main things that is going to happen to the church again. There will be an abomination of desolations.

The Physical Reflects the Deeper Spiritual

There are different words in Greek for “church” or “temple”: oikos, naos, hieron; in Hebrew it's ha hekal, beth mishkatn, beth migdash. In no less than seven places, the New Testament says that the church is the temple. When Jesus died, and the Temple veil was torn from the ceiling to the ground, a physically visible event did happen in the Temple. However, what was important was not that the Temple veil was torn; what mattered was what it meant: that sinful man was no longer separated from holy God because Jesus paid the price for our sins. (We deal with this on the Typology of the Templetape.) The old-time Brethren emphasized the typology of the Temple and in many fundamental respects, because of their emphasis on typology, the old-time Brethren were probably closer than the Gentile church has ever been to beginning to interpret the Bible as a Jewish book the way the Early Church did. Maybe they didn't go far enough; maybe a lot of things, but they were closer than the Gentile church otherwise ever got to reading this Jewish book as a Jewish book.

Nonetheless, when Jesus died and the Temple veil was torn, the physical event reflected a deeper spiritual one. If the Temple is rebuilt – and I don't say it won't be; there are many supposedly secret excavations going on in Jerusalem that everybody knows about – and if this image is set up in it, it will only be a reflection of a deeper spiritual reality. Make no mistake: the Antichrist will be worshiped in the so-called church and it will happen in the same way it happened with the Maccabees . Repeated compromise on the part of God's people until it's too late.

Look at the Church of England today as a modern example. They deal with this issue of women priests, yet the New Testament is clear that every Christian is a priest. If you are not a priest, you are not a Christian. The issue is not even Biblical, yet over the ordination of female priests people are standing up to walk out. Did you see anyone stand up to walk out when a bishop denied the Resurrection and Virgin Birth of Jesus, or when homosexuality was approved? Did you see anybody stand up to walk out over demons being worshiped in Canterbury Cathedral? No. People will only walk out over something not Scriptural. And where do they walk out to? Rome. That's almost like someone going to Brighton for a holiday and saying, "This place is a dump; I'm going to Blackpool".

Restraining Evil

Look at 2 Thessalonians 2:

"We request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed by a spirit, a message, or a letter as it were from us, to the effect that the Day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasia, the falling-away, comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the Temple of God, displaying himself as God."

We see in Isaiah and Ezekiel that Satan wants to be worshiped as God like the king of Babylon, etc.

"Do you not remember, when I was with you I was telling you these things? And you do not know what restrains him now, so that in his time he may be revealed; for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way."

There are three things that restrain evil: One is human government, which God ordains for that purpose. The New Testament tells Christians to pray for the authorities. The early Christians even prayed for the emperors because they knew that if the emperor was not being influenced by God's Spirit, he would be influenced by another spirit. I don't like politicians much, but I certainly pray for them, because I know that if I am not praying for them, they will come under other influences and will make it bad for us. When the Antichrist comes, human government will be given into his hand.

To understand how this happened in the Early Church, we must look at emperors such as Caligula , who persecuted the church. Another example is the medieval papacy, when the government was given into its hands. What makes the Great Tribulation unique is this: God is the God of history. But somehow, Scripture says that the Antichrist will seek to change the times.( Dan. 7:25 ) For a brief period of three and a half years, equating to the ministry of Jesus, the lordship of history will be given into the hands of Satan within certain parameters. Christians often make the mistake of saying that the last seven years of history will be the Great Tribulation. The Bible calls it the seventieth week of Daniel and “ha Tekufot ha Tsurot Yacov”, “the time of Jacob's Trouble”. Only the second half of that time can be proven to be the Great Tribulation. There will be tribulation before it, but the second half is much worse. If you want to say that the church will not go through the Great Tribulation, that's one thing; but that's not to say the church won't enter the last seven years. Neither is it to say that they won't be taken out sometime after the beginning of those seven years.

If you or I should die, God forbid, on the road tonight – Jesus came for us. We should always live our lives as if He could come for us at any moment, because He can. Whether He returns tonight or a million years from now has no effect on our walk with Him, because in any case He can come for us at any moment. But the Resurrection and the Rapture cannot happen until the identity of the Antichrist is revealed to the faithful: "Until the man of lawlessness is revealed".

So the first thing that restrains evil, human government is given into Antichrist's hands. The second thing that restrains evil is the church preaching the Gospel.

Understand about the metaphor of the night:

Jesus said, "Work while you have the light, for night will come when no man can work." ( Jn. 9:4 )
He's coming “like a thief in the night” ( 1 Th. 5:2 )
Is He coming “in the second watch of the night, or the third”? ( Mt. 24:42-44 )
“Watchman, watchman, how far is the night?” ( Is. 21:11 )
The ten virgins needed oil in their lamps in order to see in the night. ( Mt. 25:1 )
The Apostles were arrested at night, and so was Jesus. ( Lk. 22:54 ) That means something.

In the Song of Solomon, the bridegroom comes for the bride during the night. ( Song 3:1-5 )

The parable of the wise and foolish virgins, in Matthew 25, was told at Passover, at the same time the Song of Solomon was being read in the synagogues. In the Song of Solomon, it is evident by the gender of the Hebrew text whether it is the bride, the bridegroom, or the hosts of heaven singing the choruses. The story hinges on the two dreams of the bride in chapters three and five. In chapter three, she is ready for the bridegroom to come; in chapter five, she is not. When Jesus returns, it is either the church's best dream, or it's her worst nightmare. In Judaism, Nisan, the month of Passover, is the month of redemption. This is when the Song of Solomon is read in the synagogue, and that is what Jesus was preaching from at Passover in Matthew 25. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins replays what was being read in the synagogues that very week.

The night is the most frequent Biblical metaphor for the Great Tribulation. When Jesus was betrayed, it was night. Remember: His last days are like our last days. This night is coming. The Holy Spirit, we are told in John 14, convicts the world concerning sin. Somehow, He restrains evil and He unites the church and empowers us to preach the Gospel. God's Spirit “will not forever strive with man”. ( Gen. 6:3 ) Jesus said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." ( Heb.13:5 ) God's Spirit will never leave the hearts of His people. He will not be taken from us, but He will be taken from the world. In the book of Revelation (without being a Dispensationalist ), God goes back to behaving the way He did in the Old Testament. Grace, as it were, comes to an end.

There is a difference between the Spirit indwelling and the Spirit outpoured. The Spirit indwelt the disciples in John 20:22 ; Jesus breathed on them – pneuma in Greek – and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit then indwelt them, but He was not outpoured on the church until the Day of Pentecost, thus empowering them to preach the Gospel. He also brought conviction on the world as John 14 said He would. That will end. In other words, God's Spirit will be the reserve of His people. God will never take His Spirit from us, but His Spirit will no longer convict the world and will no longer empower the church to minister the Truth to the world in the way He does now. Grace comes to an end and His mercy is reserved for those who are His, though He does turn His redemptive attention towards Israel and the Jews during this period through the Great Tribulation. However, that is not to say that the church will be removed at the beginning of it. Too many people equate the taking of the Church in the Rapture with the taking of the Holy Spirit; that is not true – the Spirit indwells and the Spirit is outpoured. There is a gap.

Between the Ascension and the Day of Pentecost there was a gap. The Spirit indwelt God's people during that time, but He was not yet poured out and was not convicting the world. The converse happens in the Last Days. Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to be outpoured; in the time of the end, the Holy Spirit leaves, is no longer outpoured, and sends Jesus. God does not take His Spirit from us, but He is taken from the world. This period is the Great Tribulation; Satan is no longer restrained, and the church is rescued out of it – we do not go through the worst part of it. It says in Job,
"In six tribulations He will keep us, in seven He will deliver us". ( Job 5:19 )

I am quite convinced that the removal of the church takes place between the sixth and seventh seals in the book of Revelation.
There are a number of things in the Bible that teach about this period of time. The first is the period of time between Jesus breathing on the Apostles and the Day of Pentecost. Christ had risen, the victory was won, and His Spirit indwelt His people. But the church was not yet empowered to deal with the world, nor was the Holy Spirit restraining the world's evil or bringing conviction on the world. That happens again in the end. His Spirit will be only with us.

We have to understand the Church of Smyrna, as seen in Revelation 2. “Smyrna” comes from the Greek word “myrrh”, which was used in anointing bodies for burial. The way the Roman government acted in declaring every religion legal – religio licita – except ours will happen again in the end. The government in league with the Antichrist will declare every other religion religio licita, but come against us. The church of Smyrna is another thing that teaches about the experiences of the Last Days church.

Spiritual Seduction

The third thing is more complicated. We must understand Elijah; whether this means a man or something else in this context is an issue I cannot deal with now – we have a separate teaching on it. But it says in James that Elijah stopped the rain for three and a half years. That rain represents the outpouring of the Holy Spirit when it stops during the second half of the three and a half years. 1,260 days by the Jewish lunar calendar; two times, time and a half time. Elijah fed the Gentile woman during that period.
Now, look at what happens in the story as told in I Kings: Jezebel. (On the Antichrist tapes we develop this at length.) There are good girls, and there are bad girls. Whenever you see a “good girl” in the Bible, it teaches us something about God's woman, Israel or the church in some way. Shulamite in the Song of Solomon, Eve, Rachel, Rebekah, Sarah, Mary, Deborah, Jael, Esther – the good women in the Bible all teach something about the Bride of Christ in some aspect. The bad women in the Bible, on the other hand, teach something about the spirit of false religion, the bride of Satan. She is personified by Jezebel in Revelation. Certainly Queen Athaliah in the book of Kings is another example; her behavior is very much like that of Nero's mother. The way that Nero's mother influenced him negatively, becoming part of the cause of his turning against the church is the same way in which Queen Athaliah influenced her son in the book of Kings. All of the wicked women in the Bible teach something about that ultimate one; the spirit of false religion.

Let's look at Proverbs, please, and we'll read it midrashically: Now, I don't suggest that the teaching of Proverbs is not about a literal prostitute; it is. But in Midrash you have a difference between peshat and pesher. Peshat is the literal whoredom and idolatry and spiritual seduction is the pesher. This is, of course, about literal prostitution, adultery and immorality. But the character of this woman, or these women, describes the spirit of false religion. Very briefly, let's look at Proverbs 31. In verses 10-31 we find a description of Solomon's ideal woman. She goes to a field, like a mission field (v. 16). She gives food to her household, she considers a field and buys it, and she's a delight to her husband. In v. 18, she senses that her gain is good and her lamp does not go out at night. Is that familiar? That is the good girl. Now let's look at some of the bad girls.

Who said bad girls are more fun? They're not more fun, they're deadly. Let's look at Proverbs 5:

"My son, give attention to my wisdom”

– remember, people without God's wisdom are going to be deceived by false religions –

"that you may observe discretion, and your lips may reserve knowledge. For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech"

– oil is what you use to anoint people with. The devil is very good at counterfeiting anointing; how does he do it? With smoothness and suavity. The hype artists from America are smooth talkers. They're substituting anointing with hype, and people don't know the difference.

"But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood."

Take as an example a poor drunken sailor on payday. On his way back from the pub after last call, he sees a prostitute and goes with her, only to find out two weeks later he has contracted AIDS. That's the kind of metaphor the Scripture is using here.
"In the end, she is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword"

– look at that! The devil can counterfeit God's truth. Remember, in the Old Testament the devil is called “Star of the Morning” ( Is. 14:12 ); Jesus is called the “Bright and Morning Star”. ( Rev. 2:28 ) (We go into this on the Antichrist tapes.)

"Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of Sheol; she does not ponder the path of life, her ways are unstable. Now then, my son, listen to me: do not depart from the word of my mouth. Keep your way far from her; don't go near the door of her house, lest you give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one, lest strangers be filled with your strength and your hard-earned goods go to the house of an alien."

Who gave his strength to a wicked woman? Samson. Delilah is a type of the wicked woman; she seduces God's man into giving up his strength. The way that she brought Samson to destruction, but how God revived him in victory teaches something about the end. Sometimes you'll have a guy who really loves Jesus, who is sincere in his faith and his walk with God, but he's a sucker for some nasty woman. That can happen to people; however, it can also happen to the church: spiritual seduction.

We have to understand the relationship between idolatry and adultery. Israel's husband was to be Yahweh; the Hebrew word for “husband”' is “ba’al”, the same word as “master”. The abomination of desolations is called shikutz ha meshomenin Aramaic. Shikutz comes from the Hebrew word “shihetz”, meaning “slimy reptile”, or “detestable thing”. Satan has two modes of attack in Revelation: the serpent and the dragon. The dragon is the persecutor, the serpent the seducer. The way that the serpent beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden is the same way in which Satan tries to deceive the church.

Women are generally much more vulnerable to spiritual seduction than men are because they are more sensitive and God can speak to them more easily than He can to men, and anything that God intends for good Satan will twist and use for evil. God instructed that women have their heads covered; not literally covered, but because Eve was vulnerable to spiritual seduction, a woman needs to be under male headship in a protective sense. In that culture it meant wearing a headscarf, but the principle is true in every culture. I know a woman who always wears a head covering yet has the biggest mouth I've ever heard. If her husband dares open his mouth, he gets a smack. That woman's head is not covered.

Adultery = Idolatry

The word shikutz occurs many times in the Bible; unfortunately we usually translate it “your detestable things”: "O daughter of Zion, you have played the harlot. You have profaned My sanctuary with your detestable things." That word is shekitzim; it has to do with Satan as a deceiver, but is almost always applied to Baal-worship. Baal, again, is the Hebrew word for “husband”. The abomination of desolations will express Satan's desire to be God as we see with the king of Babylon in the Old Testament. He will attempt to take God's woman through spiritual seduction. That's what the abomination of desolations means: Satan using spiritual deception to try to take God's woman. Adultery and idolatry go together. Idolatry equals spiritual adultery. That is why when Israel goes into the sin of idolatry God says, "O daughter of Zion, you've played the harlot, you've gone after other lovers, etc." The language of marital infidelity is used to describe idolatry.

Proverbs 7:

"My son, keep my words and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablets of your heart, say to Wisdom, 'You are my sister', and call understanding your intimate friend'"

Remember, in the Last Days, understanding and faithfulness become closely associated. Why? Because those who don't have it will be vulnerable to deception.

"That they may keep you from an adulteress, from the foreigner who flatters with her words. For at the window of my house, I looked through my lattice and saw among the naïve, and discerned among the youths, a young man lacking sense passing through the streets near her corner. And he takes the way to her house in the twilight."

When? In the twilight, the evening. Remember, qol veh homer. Things that are always true become especially true in the Last Days. Spiritual seduction has always been around, but it intensifies before Jesus comes.

"And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. She is boisterous and rebellious; her feet do not remain at home. She is now in the streets, now on the squares, and lurks by every corner. She seizes him and kisses him, and with a brazen face she says to him, 'I was due to offer peace offerings today that I have paid my vows. Therefore I have come out to meet you, to seek your presence earnestly, and I have found you. I have spread my couch with coverings, with colored linens of Egypt'"

What is Egypt a figure of? The world.

"'I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh'"

It's a deathbed, though it smells nice. A corpse can be made to look pretty good, but it is no less dead with cosmetics.
"'Come, let us drink our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with caresses.'"

Now let's read verses 19 and 20:

"'For the man is not at home; he has gone on a long journey, he has taken a bag of money with him and at full moon he will come.'"

And she goes on to deceive the guy. You see, she knows that the man is not at home; she knows that Jesus has gone on a long journey, and that at “full moon” He will come. What, again, is full moon? The time at which the moon is reflecting the maximum amount of light from the sun. The Bible will have to be understood at some point, that despite the darkness there will be a ray of sun. But for those who do not have oil in their lamps, it will then be too late to go out and buy it. We must get the oil now.

Fall of the House of Saul

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:01:48 GMT

God Ceases Communicating with Saul

1 Samuel 28:6:

"And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets."

We are not certain what Urim and Thummim were, but we do know they were two kinds of stones in an ephod case on the high priest's chest. Urim has to do with the Hebrew word for lights; this is how they discerned God's leading and direction in some circumstances in Old Testament Israel.

We see in 1 Samuel 28:6 that God stopped giving light to King Saul; He stopped hearing King Saul. Saul's leadership was at this point totally backslidden, and had become treacherous. When leadership backslides, something else happens: God stops speaking to that leader or those leaders. God would not speak to Saul by prophets – perhaps God would send him false prophets, but no longer any true prophet, such as Samuel. One of the things that take place in this kind of situation is that God removes prophetic voices.

We don't think of it this way, but God does: The death of Samuel was not bad for Samuel. Samuel didn't want his sleep disturbed as we see in 1 Samuel 28:15. However, Samuel's death was bad for Saul.

"When a righteous man perishes, no one takes it to heart" (Isaiah 57:1)

That is a judgment of God. When God removes true prophetic voices, that is one of the final phases of His judgment. I personally believe that the untimely death of our friend Larry Thomas was God's judgment on the Assemblies of God; I don't believe God ever intends to give another warning to the Assemblies of God in America. I believe He will simply let them go their way into apostasy and decline, which in fact they already have begun to do.

What happens when God stops speaking to backslidden leaders? When we look at verses 11 through 16 of 1 Samuel 28, we see what Saul did:

"Then the woman said, 'Whom shall I bring up for you?' And he said, 'Bring up Samuel for me.' When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, 'Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!' And the king said to her, 'Do not be afraid. What do you see?' And the woman said to Saul, 'I saw a spirit (divine being) ascending out of the earth.' So he said to her, 'What is his form?' And she said, 'An old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle.' And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down. Now Samuel said to Saul, 'Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?' And Saul answered, 'I am deeply distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God has departed from me and does not answer me anymore, neither by prophets nor by dreams. Therefore I have called you, that you may reveal to me what I should do.' Then Samuel said: 'So why do you ask me, seeing the Lord has departed from you and has become your enemy?'"

The Divine Strategy in Starting a New Work

God let Saul go on and on and on while David was growing stronger. This is one recurrent principle you will see in God's dealing with His people. He spends a long time getting something new ready, focusing more on quality than on quantity. Once the quality has been founded, then the quantity comes. God will not allow the old thing to fall until He judges that the new thing is ready to take its place. God told Joshua that He would not give the whole land to him all at once; (Exo 23:29-30; Deut 7:22) (He allowed the Philistines, Canaanites, Jebusites and so on stay in the land for a season, “lest the land lie fallow”. God will even let something bad stay in place until He has made something good ready to take it over.

When Jesus came, died, and rose from the dead, there was a brief time period of about forty years during which there were two covenants that were technically in simultaneous effect: the Temple was not destroyed for forty years following the establishment of the New Covenant. This was a chance God gave the Jews to repent and accept Jesus as the Messiah before the Temple was destroyed in fulfillment of Daniel and Jesus' prophecies. (Math 24:1-2)

It is the same with Saul. God does not remove Saul all at once; not until David is ready to take over – and by David we don't simply mean David himself but his men as well, the outcasts of Israel whom God had trained up in the wilderness. Then and only then did Saul fall. In the same way, we will not see large denominations fall overnight. They fall progressively for a time, and then something comes which precipitates their going into a nosedive. God will keep them in place until something new is ready to take over.

Readying the New to Replace the Old

As I travel around the world, I do see that something new is beginning to take over. Sometimes it is found in a small country church; other times it is found in a mega-church such asTimes Square Church or Brooklyn Tabernacle, both in New York City. There are many such places; they tend to be independent Pentecostal churches. This is not exclusive, but they do seem to be the ones whom God spends a long time getting right, building them up qualitatively. Once He obtains the right quality of leadership and people involved, He then begins adding to their numbers. There is no explosive growth in the beginning.

All of David's choice men did not come to him at once, and two things had to occur before all Israel came to him. First, David and his men had to be made ready. Those outcasts of Israel had to become leaders. If a church begins to grow very large, it is important to know how many of the people could lead home groups and Bible studies, how many could take leadership roles, how many could go and plant other churches. We always say we're waiting for the Lord, and there is certainly a truth in that. But the other side of that coin is that the Lord is waiting for us.

The quality of teaching found in the churches and people whom God is raising up to found something new is vastly superior to that which is found in most churches. This is particularly true of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, most of which no longer have a clue. Here is the question, then: Are you waiting for God, or is God waiting for you? Someone can hear good Bible teaching week after week, but at what point is he ready and willing to put it into operation to feed other people? Not until we have reached that point can we begin to have legitimate, explosive growth. Remember that on the Day of Pentecost, the church began with only 120 members; but they were ready, so that was all it took.

The Last Phase of the House of Saul Part 1: When the World has More Integrity than the Church

But what will happen? The last phase of the house of Saul. Read with me, please, in 1 Samuel 29 beginning with verse 1:

"Then the Philistines gathered together all their armies at Aphek, and the Israelites encamped by a fountain which is in Jezreel. And the lords of the Philistines passed in review by hundreds and by thousands, but David and his men passed in review at the rear with Achish. Then the princes of the Philistines said, 'What are these Hebrews doing here?' And Achish said to the princes of the Philistines, 'is this not David, the servant of Saul king of Israel, who has been with me these days, or these years? And to this day I have found no fault in him since he defected to me.'"

Point 1: The Philistines knew that David did no wrong and at least wanted to behave honorably toward him. Saul also knew that David did no wrong. Many people with Saul knew David had done no wrong, but were out to get him anyway. This is phase 2 of the final days of Saul's house: When the world, the lost, the unsaved, has more integrity than does the church, it is a sick thing. Federal prosecutors brought down Jim Bakker. Why? Because the hireling pastors of America did not have the courage or integrity to do it first. So the world, knowing he was corrupt, showed more integrity than the church.

Exploitation of the Poor

One after another, Copeland , Hagin , Fred Price and so on and on – they prey on the poor and exploit them. Think about it – who are they mainly ripping off? The poor, the unemployed, single-parent families, ethnic minorities, people in the inner cities. They promise these people this, that, and the other thing. It's one thing to take it from the haves; but when you take it from the have-nots you have reached a new low. "He who oppresses the poor is a reproach to his Maker." (Pro 14:31) When you exploit the poor, it is a personal affront to God. In God's economy the rich are supposed to help the poor, the clever to help the simple – when you begin ripping people off who are already at a disadvantage, you are a reproach to your Maker. The world sees through this, and again, has more integrity than the church.

There is not a single television network in America that wouldn't remove a known con artist from their programming schedules. These are secular broadcasting companies – they put on lewd, violent programs that represent degenerate views of human sexuality – they do low things, but not as low as the things the so-called Christian networks will do. ABC has more integrity than TBN , though I don't like ABC. When you stand up and speak against this corruption, the world knows you're telling the truth. This is phase 1: When the world has more integrity than God's so-called people.

Part 2: When Saul's House Goes Too Far - The Occult

The second thing for which God is waiting is for the house of Saul to go too far. At what point have they gone too far? When they go into the occult. Arguably the most serious form of occult practice seen in the Bible is the sin of necromancy, or communicating with the dead. If a believer goes to be with the Lord, until the Rapture and Resurrection when we meet them in the air, we have one indirect line of communication left to them: We may talk to the same Jesus they may talk to. By the Holy Spirit, He transcends time, space, and eternity. Only He may cross that barrier and be both in time and in eternity simultaneously. The case we just read about with Saul is a special event that God allowed one time only.

When you see religions fooling around with the dead, it is a serious matter. We are not just talking about the spooky movie stuff that kids like; it's something more than Ghostbusters. Mormonism , for example, is big-time into this thing with the dead. The same is true of Roman Catholicism – when you walk into a Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox church, look at how dark it is. Also observe all the statues of dead people they put up before which people light candles and burn incense. Similarly, what do you see in Shintoism , the Japanese practice of ancestor worship? The same things. It is the spirit of death. At Lenin's tomb in Moscow, they've re-embalmed his corpse and made him into a godlike figure. This is the spirit of death. Even the architecture and atmosphere of these places reflects what they are; look at a cathedral and see how startling a resemblance it bears to a haunted house. Little children find these churches spooky when they go in. The literal darkness of these places reflects their spiritual darkness.

Only the Lord can transcend time, space and eternity. When someone else tries to put him or herself in the position to cross over this barrier between the temporal and the eternal, they are putting themselves in Christ's place. This is the spirit of Antichrist – “anti” literally means “in place of”. It is something grossly demonic. It isn't just that they're fooling around with the dead, but that they are attempting to do something that only God may do. All false religions will put man in God's place in some way.

Benny Hinn has stated on national television that the ghosts of Kathryn Kuhlman and Amy Semple-McPherson appeared to him in his room at night. This man communes with the dead, and has proclaimed that fact on so-called Christian television. The Bible calls this demonic – the man is an absolute necromancer. Yet none of this matters – neither that he said it nor that he did it – people still accept it as being from God. The church has proven her willingness to accept the demonic.

The Misguided Loyalty of Saul's Army

Saul's armies continued to follow him. Even people who knew Saul was wrong, such as his own sons, continued to maintain their loyalty to him. In the same way, even people who know these churches are wrong will remain loyal to them. This is very serious. Once you have reached this point, judgment cannot be far off. I am absolutely convinced that what happened to the PTL Club, with Bakker's scandal and all that, will also happen to TBN and Benny Hinn . It'll go down the same way.

There will come a crisis, and out of it will emerge something new. We read this in 2 Samuel 5:1:

"Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron …"

God's judgment on these people who have now gone into the overtly occult is inevitable. They were already involved long ago in many occultic things; an example would be Morris Cerullo with his Holy Ghost miracle handkerchiefs to take away debt – this is a practice called fetishism .

So what is delaying God's judgment from falling? Something that will emerge from the chaos that other people can come to and find the right way forward. Not until the new thing is ready will God allow the old thing to fall, although His judgment is now inevitable. I honestly believe we have now reached the point at which God told Jeremiah not to even pray for certain people any more. (Jer 7:16; 11:14; 14:11) Samuel basically asked Saul, "What do you want me to do about it?" I personally no longer even pray that people such as Benny Hinn will repent – I don't believe it is possible now, because God has given them over to their deception. I truly believe that the Lord has instructed that we ought not to even pray for TBN any longer. They have been given over by the Lord to the demonic practices they embraced.

Know Your Enemy

Let us continue in 1 Samuel 29:4:

"But the princes of the Philistines were angry with him; so the princes of the Philistines said to him, 'Make this fellow return, that he may go back to the place which you have appointed for him, and do not let him go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become our adversary. For with what could he reconcile himself to his master, if not with the heads of these men? Is this not David, of whom they sang to one another in dances, saying: "Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands"?'

Then Achish called David and said to him, 'Surely, as the Lord lives, you have been upright, and your going out and your coming in with me in the army is good in my sight. For to this day I have not found evil in you since the day of your coming to me. Nevertheless the lords do not favor you. Therefore return now, and go in peace, that you may not displease the lords of the Philistines.' So David said to Achish, 'But what have I done? And to this day what have you found in your servant as long as I have been with you, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?' Then Achish answered and said to David, 'I know that you are as good in my sight as an angel of God; nevertheless the princes of the Philistines have said, "He shall not go up with us to the battle." Now therefore, rise early in the morning with your master's servants who have come with you. And as soon as you are up early in the morning and have light, depart.' So David and his men rose early to depart in the morning, to return to the land of the Philistines. And the Philistines went up to Jezreel."

David knew his enemy. Something happens in churches: we tend to become Amish. The Amish people are a Mennonite sect whose ancestors in Holland were truly saved Christians. Most of them today, however, are virtually cultic and are unsaved. One of the reasons they went wrong was the sin of “party spirit”. Another mistake they made, however, was that they forgot how to be in the world but not of it. When a group becomes so introspective that they lose their capacity to understand and relate to unbelievers, it becomes evangelistically ineffective.

I don't advocate Christians listening to heavy metal music – personally, I hate the stuff. However, I do advocate understanding what it is. How else will you witness to people who do listen to it? It is stupid to spend hours of your time watching one idiot thing on television after another. But it's good to know what the world is watching and how they're thinking – that's their worldview. David learned to know his future enemy. The way that he overcame the Philistines was in having once become one; he wasn't ethnically a Philistine, of course, but he rode with their army. The Philistines for their part might have overcome the Amalekites if they had kept David; God might have blessed them if they had blessed David rather than ostracizing him. However, that was their loss.

David knew his opponent. People who were saved out of the world generally have an advantage in witnessing because they know the way unsaved people think. Personally, I don't have a great burden for drug addicts. One would think that I should, since I was once one of them. When I was a teenager I was addicted to hard drugs. I was fooling around with heroin by the age of 16, but once I got to college my god was cocaine. Maybe being around drug addicts reminds me too much of what I used to do and be, and that's why I don't like it. Seeing junkies reminds me of things about myself that I would much rather forget ever were; perhaps that is true. I do understand the drug culture, however; I understand the way a junkie thinks, what makes him tick. Holy huddles are detrimental. “Be in the world, but not of it”. David knew his enemy. Too many Christians are insular, ignorant of what the world is like. The usual exception to this is those churches which are worldly themselves. Largely, therefore, you have two rotten choices: be insular, or be worldly. Neither one is Biblical. It is no more Biblical to be Amish than it is to be worldly; rather there is a balance: “in it, but not of it”.

Notice that the Philistines accepted David up to a point. The world will always, always, always end up rejecting Christians; Christians have rejected the world already. Unsaved people only ever accept a Christian to a certain point. Never trust an unsaved person. Let me repeat that: never trust an unsaved person. Even if you are married to one, do not trust him or her beyond a limited point. "The whole world is in the power of the wicked one" (1 John 5:19); "Satan is the god of this world". (2 Cor 4:4) If a person is not covered by the blood of Jesus directly or indirectly, he or she is working for the god of this world, the devil. Again: never trust an unsaved person; at some point they will turn against you.

The House of Saul vs. the House of David

David leaves the Philistine army. Now, let's go on to read chapter 30:

"Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day,"

(The third day usually alludes typologically to the Resurrection; however, I won't go into that now

"that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep. And David's two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite, had been taken away captive. Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. Then David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech's son, 'Please bring the ephod here to me.' And Abiathar brought the ephod to David."

Let's understand what is happening here: God was no longer speaking to Saul through Urim and Thummim; instead, He was speaking to David through Urim and Thummim, giving David the light. People can have a bigger army, a bigger church, and a bigger name; but if God is no longer speaking to them, what good will that do for them?

Part 3: Saul's House is Defeated

The first characteristic of Saul's army is that it has less integrity than the world. The second characteristic of Saul's army, we saw, is that they go into the occult. The third is that they can no longer get the victory. The churches in this character cannot defeat Islam , which is rising in America, even in the Midwest. Neither can they defeat Mormonism or New Age , nor any other enemies of God. They have absolutely no power to stop abortion and homosexuality from being taught in public schools.

To review once more the characteristics of Saul's army: First, they have less integrity than the world. Second, God stops speaking to them and they go into the occult. Third, they cannot gain victory. The occult is rampant in the church: most of the visions and pictures they receive are clairvoyant, their prophecies are at best psychological or at worst occult, and now there is necromancy. Let's look at what happens to the house of David as the house of Saul goes into all this.

A Closer Look at David's House

David seeks the Lord. Remember, he is in dire circumstances: He has a small army, he is losing people, and he's even losing loved ones. He is up against both an external and an internal enemy.

Faithful churches these days find themselves in much the same situation. It's not enough to find ourselves up against a radical homosexual community – remember, homosexuals cannot procreate children; this is why they want yours, with their demands to have their lifestyle taught in schools and to lead Boy Scout troops, to take your little boys camping. But it's not enough to have that to deal with – on the other side, we've got Saul. We've got occultic churches. We're small, we're fighting on two sides, and we're paying a tremendous personal price.

Yet in David's day, that was where God was speaking. Saul had the numbers, but couldn't gain the victory. He had the name, but God was no longer speaking to him. I would rather meet in a closet with five faithful Christians who study God's Word, who hear Him through that Word and by His Spirit, than meet in an arena with five thousand of Saul's people. I don't care how many they have – they can't gain victory, and God isn't speaking to them. Better to be with a small group of people or in a small church where God is speaking – that's all there is to it. What good is it, after all, if God is not there?

Verse 8 of chapter 30:

"So David inquired of the Lord, saying, 'Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?' And He answered him, 'Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.' So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and came to the Brook Besor, where those stayed who were left behind." 'Besor' is the Hebrew word for 'gospel'. "But David pursued, he and four hundred men; for two hundred stayed behind, who were so weary that they could not cross the Brook Besor.

Then they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David; and they gave him bread and he ate, and they let him drink water. And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. So when he had eaten, his strength came back to him; for he had eaten no bread nor drunk water for three days and three nights." Again, when you see this, you have a typological reference to the Resurrection. "Then David said to him, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you from?' And he said, 'I am a young man from Egypt, servant of an Amalekite; and my master left me behind, because three days ago I fell sick. We made an invasion of the southern area of the Cherethites, in the territory which belongs to Judah, and of the southern area of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire.' And David said to him, 'Can you take me down to this troop?' So he said, 'Swear to me by God that you will neither kill me nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will take you down to this troop.'

And when he had brought him down, there they were, spread out over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing, because of all the great spoil which they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode on camels and fled." It is here comparing the four hundred who fled with the four hundred who were with David; there was a balance. "So David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives. And nothing of theirs was lacking, either small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything which they had taken from them; David recovered all. Then David took all the flocks and herds they had driven before those other livestock, and said, 'This is David's spoil.'

Now David came to the two hundred men who had been so weary that they could not follow David, whom they also had made to stay at the Brook Besor. So they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. And when David came near the people, he greeted them."

We looked at the phases of Saul: No longer hearing from God, having less integrity than unbelievers, into the occult, and unable to gain victory. Now we look at David: He had come to know his enemy firsthand – he did not know about his enemy, he knew his enemy. There is no light at the end of the tunnel; rather there is more darkness at the end of the tunnel. After that comes the light. Things get worse before they get better. The final phase, or test, of the new army, the new church, the new move of God, that which is in the character of David, is when it affects families.

Families are the cell groups of a church. No congregation is going to be any healthier than the families, which make it up. It doesn't matter how good the Bible teaching is, or how good the worship is, or how good the fellowship is; what happens in the church is never going to exceed the sum total of what happens in family devotional times or when husbands and wives pray together. In order to accurately gauge a person's spirituality, you must see what kind of husband and father or wife and mother he or she is.

The Test of True Leadership

There is one big acid test, which puts you in danger of losing things precious to you, even people whom you love. It is certainly the enemy attacking you – God isn't doing it. However, God does allow it up to a point and for a season for His own reasons.

David always typifies Christ as King and Shepherd. For instance, when Saul's sons remained loyal to their father instead of to David, that is a type of what Jesus said in Matthew 10:37:

"He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me".

However, notice that David suffered the same things his people suffered. In the same way there is nothing that we go through which Jesus, our Leader, has not already gone through. The characteristic of a godly leader: he suffers the same loss as his people. Look out for someone who stands up in a pulpit to tell you how to be spiritual with his mouth while his own life is not showing you how. Talk is cheap. Biblical leadership is always by example. This may affect different people in different ways: for me, certainly the demands of interim periods of family separation due to my being an itinerant minister have been a test. It is not easy to be away from my wife for weeks at a time. I've never had an affair, but you know what? There was a time, too, when Jim Bakker never had an affair. It only takes once; how does one stand up?

David lost things and people whom he loved for a short period and then he got them back. The test will come to different people in different forms. But God's future leaders will have been so tested in everything that everyone will know that they'll be able to stand up. God already knows who can and can't stand up – when He lets us be tested, it isn't for His own benefit, so that He can find out our strength. He wants us to know ourselves, and He wants the Body at large to know. Remember that His Word says, “Let the leaders first be tested. (1 Tim 3:10) We're told to look at leaders' family lives and similar things, yet today the church has leaders who get divorced and remarried. This is a sick thing.

So yes, the trial and testing is the enemy's doing, yet because God allows it you will know that you can stand. You will have a confidence you would not otherwise gain. Now, of course you must trust in the Lord and not in yourself –

“Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall”.(1 Cor 10:12)

-- but when you've been tested, you know you have kept your eyes on the Lord and are capable of keeping them there. He who is able to keep you from falling will do so; you know this because you've been so tested, and the Body of Christ also knows it. That is a leader whom God's people will follow. When things get tough, that is the kind of person whom others will look to. People want to identify with others who are stronger than themselves. For all of us, of course, that would be Jesus; so when you see a leader, don't look at him. Rather, look at the work of God in his life. That is the source of his strength and in a crisis someone who has been sorely tested and has passed the test is the sort of person who will be trusted. The last thing anyone wants in a medical emergency is an indecisive physician. You want someone experienced, who knows exactly what's happening and how to deal with it. The same applies for a leader in the church. David suffered the same loss as his people.

Then, look at this: those people, his people, talked about stoning him. You want to be a leader? How do you know when you are a leader? You know you're a leader when 2 Timothy 4:16-17 applies to you. When you are betrayed and stabbed in the back by the very people you gave your life and your guts for, yet you avoid becoming embittered or resentful. When things get tough, the people blame the leaders. What did the people say to Moses in the wilderness – “Why did you bring us out here to die?” (Num 16:13) What did the disciples say to Jesus in the boat – “Why did you bring us out here to drown?” (Math 8:25) And here we see what they say and do to David – “We followed you, and now look what happened to us, we've lost our families.” They turn on the leader. Family is where people are the most vulnerable: when marriage and children are at stake, that is when someone's faith will be tested the most, and it is very, very hard.

Emotional Exhaustion/The Source of Strength

Look at verse 4:

"David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep."

They reached the point of emotional exhaustion. Job did the same. I knew a Jewish man named Gershom: the Nazis killed his parents, his brother, his two sisters with their families, his wife and his five children right down to the baby. He himself narrowly survived the concentration camp. The next forty years of his life the man spent in hell. He was a zombie. He had grieved so much and so hard that he no longer had any emotional capacity for grief, until the day he accepted Jesus, Yeshua, as the Messiah in Haifa, Israel. He read the Bible and began to scream and cry, saying that he had finally found a Jew who had suffered more than he had. It was the first emotion that man was capable of displaying in over forty years.

Christians do good works because we've been saved, not in order to get saved. A person must reach the point where he or she realizes, “I cannot save myself; it has to be a gift.” We must know that we are totally lost, helpless, and unable to do one single thing for ourselves – then we can get saved. It is a point that must be burned into each Christian's soul; we should never forget that. Just as we cannot save ourselves, so we cannot sustain ourselves. David “strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (v. 6). He trusted in and sought the Lord in his crisis. Just think: he had these people with him in the wilderness that had forsaken all to join him there. They're being pursued on one hand by Saul and on the other by the Amalekites. Then they lose their families and want to stone him. On top of all his other problems, David himself had lost his own family. What a mess, yet he sought the Lord his God, and asked whether he should pursue the troop.

The natural propensity of the flesh in an emergency is always to take immediate action. In a crisis, we should never, ever, ever make any decision before seeking the Lord. If it must be made in a second, pray "Lord, help me". The flesh will always want to take over in an emergency. (We deal with this on our 2 Samuel 5 & 6 tapes.) David doesn't do this, however. In that crisis it would have been easy to assume, “of course we have to go after the troop,” but instead of that David stops and seeks the Lord, and God gives him the green light.

Crossing the Brook of Besor

Next, David crosses the Brook of Besor. Besor, again, means “gospel”. Notice that it is not enough to come up to the brook; they had to cross it. I repeatedly point out that Jesus never said to make converts, but rather to make disciples. (Math 28:19) The first Biblical step of discipleship is always crossing the Brook of Besor – baptism. Four hundred of David's men cross the brook, but two hundred are unable to.

I know how far I have come. I have been tested in most of these things, probably to some degree in all of them, even right down to the family thing. I've been sued by other Christians, attacked by Orthodox Jews and gangs of Muslims; I'm not saying that I'm a hero, but I know how far I've come. I also know, however, how far I have not come.

The Baggage Attendants

Let's look at verses 22-31:

"Then all the wicked and worthless men of those who went with David answered and said, 'Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except for every man's wife and children, that they may lead them away and depart.' But David said, 'My brethren, you shall not do so with what the Lord has given us, who has preserved us and delivered into our hand the troop that came against us. For who will heed you in this matter? But as his part is who goes down to the battle, so shall his part be who stays by the supplies; they shall share alike.' So it was, from that day forward; he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel to this day.

Now when David came to Ziklag, he sent some of the spoil to the elders of Judah, to his friends, saying, 'Here is a present for you from the spoil of the enemies of the Lord' - to those who were in Bethel, those who were in Ramoth of the South, those who were in Jattir, those who were in Aroer, those who were in Siphmoth, those who were in Eshtemoa, those who were in Rachal, those who were in the cities of the Jerahmeelites, those who were in the cities of the Kenites, those who were in Hormah, those who were in Chorashan, those who were in Athach, those who were in Hebron, and to all the places where David himself and his men were accustomed to rove."

Two hundred of David's men couldn't make it. However, for one thing, someone must watch the baggage. I could not do half of what I do if I did not have the kind of wife that I have. She is the helpmate God gave me and there is a reason for that. Not every wife could handle her husband being away so much. Pavia is also praying for me while I'm away; that's my reference point, my focus point. When I wake up in the morning I often don't know what country I'm in until I think about it. Not everybody can do what I do. Not everybody can do what Bill Randles does. Not everybody can do what you do. But there are people who don't do with us what we do, yet are with us in spirit.

Someone has to watch the baggage. These were people who rode with David, who had proven their loyalty, but were simply unable to go as far as other people could. David did not try to disenfranchise these people. He wanted them to get a piece of the pie. Remember what Jesus said in His parable of Math 20:1-6. In verse 12 some of the laborers hired by the owner of the vineyard are complaining:

"'These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.'"

In the same way, you sometimes hear Christians complain, "I've been a Christian for 60 years and now this guy who got saved six months ago is going to the same heaven I am?" God does not see things this way. God sees this: Whatever we have learned, we know He has given us the grace to learn. I learned what I learned in the same way David learned it, and if God uses you in the future, you will learn it that way too. I also know what I am in the process of learning, and God has given me the grace and strength to learn that also.

Grieving for Saul

In conclusion, 1 Samuel 31:1-5:
"Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. Then the Philistines followed hard after Saul and his sons. And the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchi-shua, Saul's sons. The battle became fierce against Saul. The archers hit him, and he was severely wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armor bearer, 'Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, les these uncircumcised men come and thrust me through and abuse me.' But his armor bearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it. And when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword, and died with him."

What is David's reaction to the death of Saul, who had been his enemy? In 2 Samuel 1:17-27 it says this:

"Then David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son, and he told them to teach the children of Judah the Song of the Bow; indeed it is written in the Book of Jasher"

(Jasher in Hebrew means “straight”.)

"'The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen! Tell it not in Gath, Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. O mountains of Gilboa, Let there be no dew nor rain upon you, Nor fields of offerings. For the shield of the mighty is cast away there! The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain, From the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan did not turn back, And the sword of Saul did not return empty. Saul and Jonathan were beloved and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they were not divided; They were swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lions. O daughters of Jerusalem, weep over Saul, Who clothed you in scarlet, with luxury; Who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan was slain in your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me; Your love to me was wonderful, Surpassing the love of women. How the mighty have fallen, And the weapons of war perished!'"

Only then did the tribes of Israel join themselves to David.

I have learned by God's grace how to fight the Philistine. I am not afraid of Islam or Mormons or Roman Catholicism or Orthodox Jews. I know how to witness to those people; the Lord taught me. I do not boast of it, but I know what He taught me. I know what it's like to be tested for taking a stand. I know what it's like to be rejected, even by my friends. I know what it's like to be betrayed by people who know I am right, but are looking out for themselves instead of for the sheep. I have learned most of those things the hard way. But what the Lord is teaching me now, and those like me, is how to be gracious.

I need to come to a point where I can say, "Boy, the Assemblies of God had some mighty men of God in their day. Boy, you know, Pat Robertson began right. Wow, but Jimmy Swaggart was once a man of God; what happened to him can happen to me if I'm not careful. ‘How the mighty have fallen’ – I didn't want this to happen." I know how to be angry with Saul; but I am just learning how to grieve over what has become of him. Saul is going to fall; his days are numbered. Saul's house must fall – they have gone into the occult and there is no longer any way out or any hope for them. This story includes a very rare case of God allowing someone to come back from the dead; when Samuel does, he asks Saul, "Why do you ask me about it? The Lord has become your adversary." God is their enemy; the question is when are they going to be hanging the dead from the walls of Mount Gilboa? When will the house of Saul fall? When will their corpses hang rotting on the walls of Beth Shan?

When I can grieve over it.

Conclusion

That's how far I have come and that's how far I have yet to go. I can only speak for myself, not for you or for your church. What I can tell you is that this is what is going on, and this is what will happen. When is God going to add to your numbers? When Saul falls. When is Saul going to fall? When you know your enemy. When you've been tested to the utmost and have stood faithful. When you've known rejection. When your family life has been affected. When you have become emotionally exhausted to the point of having no strength left, and when the Lord's strength is then magnified in your weakness. When you've crossed the Brook of Besor and learned how to be gracious to others. Then Saul will fall; then the tribes of Israel will join themselves to David at Hebron, the place of fellowship.

I know how to be disappointed over what has happened in the church. I know how to be angry about it, and there is a holy anger. But we must also learn to grieve. That is when Saul will fall and when David's house will rise. I know how far I've come. How far you've come in this process is a question you must answer. How far your church has come will be self-evident.

Oh, Saul is going. TBN is going, Hinn is going. Something new is rising. But when will Saul and his sons die on Mount Gilboa? When I can be as grieved as I am angry.

Ezekiel's Scroll

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:00:54 GMT

Ezekiel prophesied at a time when God's judgment of Israel was not merely impending, but had already begun; the Captivity was underway.

Eat What I Am Giving You

“Now you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.” (Ez. 2:8)

If we do not eat what God gives us, we too, will be counted among the rebels. What did God give Ezekiel? It was a kind of a book, a scroll.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth. (Ez.3:1-3).

Eat it. Fill your body with it. Metabolically, we are what we eat. And this is the scroll God says to eat – His Word. If we refuse to eat it, we are rebels.

The Scroll

What does God tell us about this scroll? It appears in many places in Scripture.

Then the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard again speaking with me, and saying, “Go, take the book…

…(i.e., the scroll)…

…which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land.” So I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book. And he said to me, “Take it and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. And they said to me, “You must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.” (Rev 10:8-11).

This scroll will always be sweet in your mouth but bitter in your stomach. We all want to know the truth; we all want to know the future. God will tell us the truth and He will even show us the future through His Word.

The True Prophets

A true prophet is, first of all, a man of the Word.

Daniel diligently studied the predictions of the prophet Jeremiah (Dan 9:2) in order to understand the future. As he studied diligently, he fasted and prayed and asked God to give him more understanding. Then God showed him visions of the future; things that are being fulfilled at this time in history. Why? Because Daniel was a man who studied the Word diligently. He fasted and prayed and asked God to show him. That is the kind of person God trusts with real revelation.

People who run around saying "Give me a word, give me a word, give me a word” and the so-called prophets who announce, "I have a word, I have a word, I have a word" are always people who do not have a word from God.

“I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in My name, saying, ‘I had a dream, I had a dream!’...“The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has My word speak My word in truth. What does straw have in common with grain?” declares the Lord. (Jer 23:25,28).

False prophecy is straw, but the word of the Lord is grain. When their doctrines are wrong, their prophecies will be wrong. A true prophet will first and foremost be a person of the Word, a person who eats the Word.

God tends to raise up prophets at difficult times, not good times. In both Testaments, prophets were raised up to deal with difficult issues at difficult times.

Jeremiah

We want to know the truth and we want to know the future. It is sweet in our mouths. But once we know the truth, once we know the future, it becomes bitter in our stomachs – we are now responsible for it. Once you eat it, your eyes are opened and you begin to see things for what they really are.

You who know, O Lord, Remember me, take notice of me, And take vengeance for me on my persecutors. Do not, in view of Your patience, take me away; Know that for Your sake I endure reproach. Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts. I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers, Nor did I exult. Because of Your hand upon me I sat alone, For You filled me with indignation. (Jer 15:15-17)

What happened when Jeremiah ate the scroll? The same thing that happened to Ezekiel. It was sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his stomach; and he could no longer sit in the circle of merrymakers.

People today are turning the church into a comedy club because they do not know the Word of God. Until they eat the scroll, until they come to the Word of God, they are going to keep sitting in the circle of merrymakers. Now the same people are going around conducting seminars on how to teach "laughing in the Spirit".

Jeremiah ate the scroll. And when he ate it, he could not sit in the circle of merrymakers, nor exult. Why not? For the same reason that Ezekiel could not.

When you eat the scroll, it is sweet in your mouth because you know the truth, and even know the future, but it will be bitter in your stomach. You will not sit in the circle of merrymakers; you will sit alone. You will not be able to sit with those people who are laughing and saying "Triumph and victory." because the hand of God will be upon you.

Tell Them Anyway

When you eat the scroll, which is sweet in your mouth but bitter in your stomach, and you can no longer sit the the circle of merrymakers, and the hand of the Lord is upon you, things become very complicated for you because you sit along. The people that you are trying to give your heart for, even your life for maybe, do not want to listen. God is going to tell you ahead of time that most of them won't listen. But He still says, "Tell them anyway."

That is what happened to Ezekiel. And, if you eat the scroll, that is what will happen to you. "They won't listen to you", God says, "Because they have not listened to me." They will not listen to the true prophets because they will not listen to the Word of God. They would rather sit around and invent their own doctrines, like "laughing in the Spirit," or that somebody can predict things that do not happen and still be a "prophet".

We do not stone false prophets to death any more, but the sin is no less serious. They need to repent and they need to be taken out of prophetic ministry and leadership. The church today will not do that. The church is in rebellion. Even the people in the church who know it is wrong no longer have the courage and integrity to stand up and say it is wrong, most of the time.

God is looking for people who will eat the scroll and who will not be afraid to tell the truth because His hand will be upon them.

Ezekiel - Chapters 8 & 9

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:59:49 GMT

Ezekiel, in Hebrew, means “in the strength of God”. His ministry was such that it could only be carried out in the strength of God. The names of the prophets almost always depict or describe the nature of what God is calling them to do as a ministry.

The events in the book of Ezekiel are at the onset of the Babylonian captivity that was first prophesied by Isaiah, then by Jeremiah and began in the days of Ezekiel. God had warned that such a judgment would come if the people did not repent. It began conspicuously; was clearly a fulfillment of God’s prophetic warning, yet people were denying that it was God's judgment. Everything was going down, but they kept claiming to be triumphant. This is similar to what we are seeing today in popular books such as The Unstoppable Church(when a more fitting title would be “The Unstoppable Mosque”), or from another aspect those in the Positive Confession mindset who claim their bodies lie to them when in reality they are very ill. People simply did not face the facts; they would not own up to what Isaiah and Jeremiah had been predicting all along.

Ezekiel began predicting that God's judgment was going to last and would become worse because the people's sin was lasting and worsening. They refused to repent even when they saw God's judgment coming. This is seen again in the book of Revelation: even though the judgments of God become more frequent and intense, it says that men harden their hearts, curse God, and continue to sin. ( Rev 9:20-21 ; 16:9-11 ) So it was in the days of Ezekiel, and so it will be in the Last Days. The book of Ezekiel has many parallels with the book of Revelation, and replays much of it.

Exekiel 9:4 says this:

"And the Lord said to him, 'Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in their midst.'"

There were people who saw the abominations happening in the city of God and in the house of God, and before judgment began, God said, "Seal those who are truly Mine; seal those who see what's wrong, who know what's wrong, and who grieve over it. Before the judgment comes, seal them."

Revelation 7:2-3 parallels:

"And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God. And he cried out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying ‘Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the bondservants of our God on their foreheads.’"

Prior to the implementation of the mark of the beast in Revelation 13, the seal of the Lord will be put on God’s faithful servants. We know from history and from archaeology that the mark or the seal in Ezekiel was the Hebrew letter tov. Today the Hebrew letter tov is written something like an “H” with a foot; however, in pre-Captivity Israel it was written as a slightly tilted cross, and its origin was probably an upright cross. The mark of the seal of God, as it was in the days of Ezekiel, is actually the mark of a cross.

"And they were told they should not hurt the earth, nor the grass, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads" ( Rev 9:4 ).

Once again, before God's judgment comes His people are sealed. The church enters the Tribulation but is rescued from the worst of it and is sealed by the Lord and somehow protected during the part it endures. The 144,000 who minister eschatologically have the seal of the Lord.

We first see the sealing of the Lord begin, not in Revelation or even in Ezekiel, but in the Torah, in the book of Exodus. The children of Israel went through most of the judgments on Egypt; the same judgments on Egypt recorded in Exodus are replayed eschatologically, and that is a major type of what happens in Revelation. The darkness, the smiting of the waters, and so on; the Hebrews went through part of it, but were delivered from the worst of it. So it shall be in the Last Days; God's people will be sealed. Exodus 13:9 says:

"And it shall serve as a sign to you on your hand, and as a reminder on your forehead, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a powerful hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt."

Before the judgment comes, those whose hearts are really God's – who see the abominations and wickedness and grieve over it – are sealed with the mark of a cross. In Revelation, those who see the abominations that are happening and grieve over them are sealed with the mark of a cross.

The judgment was already happening in Ezekiel's time. The captivity was underway, yet people were saying, "Oh, it's only a temporary setback; it's short-lived." In fact, however, Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah four separate times, each time with worse results. Just as the waves of evil followed one after the other, each worse than the last, so too do the judgments of God come in these kinds of waves. But His people are sealed; that is, those who are truly His.

The Temple Today

Much of Ezekiel's vision concerned the Temple. The 47th chapter of the book of Ezekiel is a millennial vision in which he saw the background of something we call in Hebrew, “Simchat beit Ha Shoyivah”; the rite or the ritual for the pouring out of the water on the Temple Mount which is celebrated as the Feast of Booths – Hag Succoth. The 7th chapter of the Gospel of John draws on this, but its meaning is always millennial.

New-Age “Christian” Patrick Dixon argued for altered states of consciousness. He claimed that every time there was a divine encounter in the Bible, people behaved irrationally and went into altered states of consciousness. This is the basis for his defense of things like The Toronto Blessing as acceptable. As an example, he cited Peter's reaction to the Transfiguration, calling his behavior mindless and ridiculous in wanting to build the booths there. Mr. Dixon called this absurd; I pointed out to him that there was nothing absurd about it, since Peter thought that the Transfiguration was the Messianic fulfillment of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. Moses and Elijah were transfigured with the Messiah, so Peter thought – without a trace of absurdity – that this was the arrival of the Millennial Kingdom. Mr. Dixon had apparently never thought of this. Within its context, Peter's behavior was altogether rational. His response was to challenge me with questions such as "How do you know? Were you there? Did you talk to Peter?" To which I responded, "I know what the Messianic symbolism of the Feast of Booths was in the Second Temple Period." To this Mr. Dixon had nothing to say. However, we see that any kind of poison goes into the cauldron these days. ( 2 Kings 4:38-41 )

There are at least seven places in the Bible that contain different Greek and Hebrew words for “temple” – naos, oikos, hieron, beth mishkan, beth migdash, Ha Hekal – and all are used in various contexts as types of the church. 1 Peter 2:5 , "You are the living stones of the holy house", for example. In Corinthians the church is called the temple, and in Ephesians chapters 2 and 4 the temple is a picture of the church. Rebuilding the tabernacle of David is mentioned in the book of Acts, with a quote from the prophet Amos that "I (God) will rebuild the tabernacle of David"; ( Acts 15:16 ) the New Testament reveals that the fulfillment of this, at least in part, is the Gentile church.

The Abomination of Desolation being set up in the Holy Place – the Holy of Holies -- spoken of by Daniel was fulfilled in part at several points during history, most significantly by Antiochus Epiphanes. Nevertheless, even though the temple may be rebuilt in Jerusalem and the Abomination set up in it, while a physical event would then be transpiring in a physical temple, it is in fact only a reflection of what is going to be happening spiritually. Always! When Jesus died on the cross, the Temple veil was torn from the ceiling to the ground, meaning that sinful man was no longer separated from a holy God. A physical miracle then happened in the physical temple. But the most important thing was what that miracle represented; that man was no longer separated from God because Yeshua, our high priest, died for our sins. So it will be with the Abomination of Desolation. Although an abomination may somehow be set up in a rebuilt temple – I don't dispute that this may occur – it will only be a reflection of what is happening spiritually; the Antichrist wanting to be worshiped in God's house.

Ezekiel sees abominations in the House of the LORD:

"And it came about after the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, that I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me. The hand of the Lord fell upon me there; then I looked, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of a man. From his loins and downward there was the appearance of fire, and from his loins and upward, the appearance of brightness, like the appearance of glowing metal. And he stretched out the form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head. And the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court where the seat of the idol of jealousy, which provokes the jealousy, was located. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the appearance which I saw on the plain. Then He said to me, 'Son of man, raise your eyes now towards the north,' (trouble always comes from the north) 'so I raised my eyes up to the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was the idol of Jealousy at the entrance" (Ez. 8:1-8)

“Son of man” is an eschatological title. Here Ezekiel, like all the other prophets, prefigures Jesus in some way. Jesus is never called the Son of God eschatologically; whenever we speak of His return, He is always the Son of Man coming down.

"And He said to me, 'Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel is committing here, that I should be far from My sanctuary? But yet you will see still greater abominations than these in My sanctuary; even in My sanctuary you will see greater abominations.'"

Again, this all hints at the ultimate Abomination of Desolation.

"Then he brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole was in the wall. And He said to me, 'Son of man, now dig through the wall.' So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance. And He said to me, 'Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing.' So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping thing and beast and detestable thing with all the idols of the house of Israel were carved on the wall all around. And standing in front of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel:"

-- and he names them! –

"with Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, standing among them, each man with his censer in hand, and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising. And He said to me, 'Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, "The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land."' And He said to me, 'Yet you will see still greater abominations than these which they are committing. You will see greater abominations in the house of the LORD; even in My sanctuary you will see greater abominations, O son of man.' Then he brought me to the entrance of the gate of the LORD's house, which was towards the north. And behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. And He said to me, 'Do you see this, son of man? Do you see this? Yet you will see still greater abominations than even these.' And He brought me into the inner court"

(Now, the further you go into God's Temple, the more holy it becomes in the Old Testament).

"And behold, at the entrance to the Temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, (where Zachariah was martyred) were about twenty-five men with their backs to the Temple of the LORD and their faces towards the east. And they were prostrating themselves eastwards, towards the sun. And he said to me, 'Do you see this, son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they have committed here, that they have filled the land with violence and provoked Me repeatedly? For behold, they are putting the twig to their nose. Therefore, I indeed shall deal in wrath. My eye will have no pity, nor shall I spare. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will not listen.' Then He cried out with a loud voice in my hearing, saying, 'Draw near, O executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand!' (The same as the judgments in Revelation when He dispatches the angels.)

And behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faces the north, each with his shattering weapon in his hand. And among them was a certain man clothed with linen and a writing case at his loins. And they went in and stood next to the bronze altar" (the bronze altar is a type of the cross) "Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold of the Temple. And He called to the man clothed in linen, at whose loins was the writing case. And the LORD said to him, 'Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst. But to the others He said, 'Go through the city after him and strike; do not let your eye have pity, and do not spare. Utterly slay all of them.'" (Ez. 8:6-9:6)

Yet God does not allow them to harm His people; He commands that first His own would be sealed, then the rest would be stricken. He commands in Revelation that the trees not be harmed – "The trees of the field shall clap their hands" ( Isa 55:12 ) – representing His people. That is what happens also in Ezekiel.

The Temple Today

Abominations in the Lord's House

God takes Ezekiel and shows him one abomination after another. It grows worse and worse and worse. The first abomination he sees is the Idol of Jealousy: idolatry in the house of the Lord. The Hebrew word for “to worship” is “hishtakvya”, the infinitive, “La Histachavot”; “to bow down”. When you see somebody prostrating or bowing down before a statue or a graven image, a common practice in Roman Catholicism, this is an act of idolatry.

It begins this way: God takes Ezekiel between heaven and earth and says, "Look. Now you're seeing how I see, from heaven. Do you see what they're doing in My house, in My sanctuary, where I'm supposed to meet with them?" Ezekiel looks and he is shocked. But God says to Ezekiel, "That's idolatry in My house, in My sanctuary. Yet greater abominations than these will you see, O son of man; even greater abominations than these will you see in My house," says the LORD.

Then God brings him and shows him further and further into the temple compound; every creeping thing, every crawling beast and detestable thing, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around. The Hebrew term is “shektzim”, where you get the derogatory word shiksa for a Gentile woman. You've heard me say, perhaps, that in the book of Revelation Satan has two modes of attack: the serpent and the dragon. The dragon is Satan the persecutor; the serpent is Satan the deceiver. These creeping things are called shektzim, which means “slimy reptiles”. They are pictures of demons from the snake cults of the ancient near East, but they have them as far west as India where there is snake worship and other such things. The Abomination of Desolation draws from that. Demons are in the house of the Lord; so now it goes from mere idolatry to open demon-worship.

From there, however, God says to Ezekiel, “Yet shall you see worse! Yet greater abominations than these shall you see in My house, O son of man!” And God shows him the religious leaders – their “pastors”, as it were, the Levites or cohenim – and he names them personally here and in other places. He describes Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan, standing among them; people who shouldn't be there, people you wouldn't have expected to be there, are there with their censers. Incense represents the prayers of the saints, but these prayers are not being offered to the true God. These people are not worshiping the true God. Jeremiah, Paul in 1 and 2 Timothy, and John in 3 John, all named publicly the leaders who persisted in leading the people astray. The apostles and prophets revealed them by name without hesitation.

So we see here in Ezekiel the idolatry happening, the openly demonic things going on, and now God's leaders are leading the people into it. God declares it to be a worse abomination than anything before and that the leaders are going along with it in the house of the Lord.

"'Yet greater abominations than these shall you see in My house,' says the LORD!" And the next thing He shows Ezekiel is the worship of Tammuz. Tammuz is the infant god, held by his mother the Madonna. The Roman Catholic Madonna with Child is a Catholicization of Tammuz-worship; that's all it is. Jeremiah 44 speaks of the women making cakes for the Queen of Heaven: this parallels with Catholic Mary-worship. Tammuz; Jesus is pictured as a helpless little baby, while His mother is portrayed as the strong, capable adult. This is the origin of the Catholic claims that Mary co-redeemed us, that she is the co-mediator, the co-savior. In reality, Mary herself said that she needed a Savior (Luke 14;7) but the lie of Tammuz says she is the savior.

"Yet greater abominations than these will you see in My house", God tells Ezekiel. "O son of man, do you see what they're doing now?" First it was the Idol of Jealousy, then demons. Next, the leaders going along with it – even leaders who should know better, leading the people astray – and then Tammuz-worship. What will be next?

"'Yet even greater abominations than these will you see in my house' , says the LORD." God brings Ezekiel into the inner court, between the porch and the altar. There he sees them openly worshiping the sun – openly praying to other gods. These Babylonian religions involved things other than simple worship; things such as immorality. Immorality and idolatry go together. In ancient Greece it was cult prostitutes, but this goes back before Greece; the corruption of sex in worship. All the initiation rites in Satanism involve some kind of sexually connotative ritual.

It gets worse, worse, and worse still. The judgments that God was warning about all along through Isaiah and Jeremiah were coming to pass, yet the people were ignoring them. They denied that it was the promised judgment, and continued in their sin. The leaders, meanwhile, stood there and said, "The LORD doesn't really care about this stuff anymore; it's all a game. It's just our job." There are so many people today in full-time ministry in the clergy – some of them Evangelicals – for whom it is no more than a career. Being in ministry is a job; it's not a calling, not a passion, not something God has given them as a vocation; it's just what they do to make a living.

Finally, God says, "Seal those who are truly Mine." There is no hope anymore; God will not pity nor spare anyone or anything except those who see this and grieve. God brings Ezekiel up to heaven and says, "Look down at My sanctuary," and Ezekiel is shocked. And God says, "There are other people down there who see what you see, and are shocked. They grieve over the abominations being committed in My house. They grieve over the idolatry, they grieve over the immorality, and they grieve over the fact that their own leaders are leading them into it. Those will be sealed; but now My judgment is coming. Yet greater abominations than these will you see," says the LORD. "O son of man, do you see what they are doing? Yet greater abominations than these will you see in the house of the LORD."

The Condition of the End Times Church

A white witch has become the first-ever pagan chaplain at a British university. “Susan Ladourne has taken over the post at Leeds University as chaplain in order to counsel students who believe in the occult. The 29-year old witch will guide students in magic, in pagan rituals and worship.” But then, greater abominations than these will we see. What's greater? The priests – those who should have known better – went along with the immorality, with the witchcraft. “The University's senior Anglican chaplain, Rev. Simon Robinson, affirms that the witch has a role to play. He states: ‘We already have chaplains from different religions.’” The priests stand with their censers while the abomination and idolatry goes on; their own leaders say it's all right, that God doesn't see it. That is exactly what happened here in Ezekiel; “God doesn't see it,” said the cohenim; “God doesn't see it,” said the Levites. And that is precisely what the Church of England's clergy are saying today.

"'Yet greater abominations than these will you see in My house,' says the LORD." "Living Together is No Longer a Sin", according to the Yorkshire Evening Post. "The Church of England changes attitude on family values; 'Living in sin is no longer a sin,' the Church of England announced today." I telephoned Lambert Palace, the official London residence of Archbishop George Carey, who I am told is a fellow Charismatic Evangelical. I called him up and left a message asking him to call me back. They wanted to know what I wanted, so I told them that I was reading in the New Testament, “Keep the marriage bed undefiled”; can the Archbishop tell me how I can keep the marriage bed undefiled when there is no marriage? They never called me back.

"'Yet greater abominations than these will you see in my house,' says the LORD." The Greek word “demonoi”, the Hebrew word “shedim”, is used in Deuteronomy and 1 Corinthians to state that other gods are demons. Both Testaments tell us that. Ezekiel saw shedim – creeping things, demons – being venerated in the house of the Lord, in God's sanctuary. Go to Canterbury Cathedral and watch the interfaith worship yourself. Visit Anselm Chapel – Buddhist, Moslem, Hindu, Sikh – all these worship there, and the "Christians" go along with it.

'Yet greater abominations than these will you see . "

Recently thirty-six bishops of the Anglican Church met to consider their stance on homosexuality. In a pastoral letter, issued after the week-long meeting in Windsor, they said that homosexuals living together in stable relationships could live lives of genuine Christian character despite it being at variance with conventional Christian morality.

A Baptist minister from Lister Hill Baptist Church in Leeds walked into our tape office in Leeds and said he came to me on the basis of Matthew chapter 18 because I objected to the fact that they had a transsexual transvestite who wore women’s clothes to church and had his children grow up with two mothers, the real one and the castrated one. This objection offended the church because this individual bakes the bread for Holy Communion in an Evangelical Baptist Church and they consider him a sister in the faith.

And this minister says that I am guilty of an abomination before the Lord because I opposed it. I showed him in Deuteronomy where God said it is an abomination and he said that that’s the Old Testament. That was his argument. What about the effeminate being cast into a lake of fire in Revelation? ( Rev 21:8 ) That’s the New Testament but he didn’t want to know. He walked out very angry. He came to me on the basis of Matthew 18 and I didn’t repent so that’s it. I’m accursed.

The Bishops say it’s okay, but God says it’s an abomination. The Bishop openly says “I know some gay men are bitches” (that’s the term he used) but most of us make better priests because we are more sensitive. A pastoral letter from bishops was distributed saying it’s alright. “Yet greater abominations than these you will see,” saith the Lord. “Yet greater abominations than these.”

The world sees charismania , not gifts, not charismata. I’m a Charismatic. I’m a Pentecostal but I disagree with the excesses and extremism. In 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul warns that our testimony will be destroyed. The antics of the Toronto Blessing movement brought scorn to the Church of God in the secular but publications like the Assemblies of God magazine Joy promoted it. John Arnott defended imitating an animal. The only place in the Bible where we see someone imitating an animal was when God’s judgment came on Nebuchadnezzar. I can show you one article after another promoting this very thing that led to the desecration and destruction of any credibility and testimony to this nation.

“Yet greater abominations than these will you see.” saith the Lord. “You see what they are doing in My house? But I’ll show you even greater abominations than these.” What was next? Tammuz worship; in other words, the god was made small and his mother was made big – the Madonna.

George Carey, an Evangelical Archbishop, wrote the book Call to Ecumenical Unity with Rome: The Meeting of Waters. He’s an Evangelical. He marched in the procession to Mary in Walsingham along with the Roman Catholic Cardinal Basil. This is modern-day Tammuz worship.

No compromise is offered to disaffected Anglican ministers and others who seek to join the Roman church. Those who are seeking to enter full communion with the Roman Catholic Church will be fully integrated into the life of the Roman Catholic community. They have to adapt the whole Roman Catholic menu as is outlined in the Roman Catholic catechism that bears the seal of the Vatican. Included in the menu is the teaching that the souls in purgatory must suffer for their own sins. How long? Until they have atoned for their sins. You must burn in purgatory and suffer for your own sins. That’s their menu.

But the Word of God says that blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. No! Take the whole menu. Praying for or to the dead; the Word of God calls it invoking familiar spirits. It’s an abomination. No! It’s on the menu. You have to take it. Praying for the dead, transubstantiation that bread and wine becomes Christ incarnate; you take the bread and wine and worship it and then you eat it. That’s idolatry and cannibalism. No! It’s on the menu and you have to take it. Teaching doctrines of demons by forbidding marriage, requiring celibacy. No! It’s on the menu. You have to take it. The Holy Spirit it the Spirit of Truth not error. You can’t have unity of the Spirit based on error -- only the truth, but Rome is a lie. The Bible is the truth.

“Yet greater abominations than these will you see in My house,” saith the Lord. “Yet greater abominations than these. Come, I’ll show you. You want to see? Come son of man. I’ll show you greater abominations than these in My house.” God told Ezekiel. And that is what He is telling us. “Yet greater abominations than these you will see.”

The hymn Onward Christian Soldiers is too militaristic for the new, politically correct hymn book approved by the thirty-fourth general synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. Hymns that refer to God in the male gender are also out. God is now considered to be both male and female; same as the pagan cult of mother earth; as in the following hymn:

Revival of Simony

The sin called “simony” was named after a character from the eighth chapter of the book of Acts, Simon Magus. Eusebius tells us a lot about this. He had a massive following all over the ancient Near East and in Asia Minor. He tried to persuade the Apostles to sell for money the power of the Holy Spirit. Peter called down the curse of God on him. He was filled with wickedness. Repent! God will strike you.

Last year it was twenty-five pound Holy Ghost miracle handkerchiefs that could take away all debt. And then there’s Morris Cerullo’s latest fund raising scheme. Send twenty-five pounds to Morris Cerullo who will be teaching daily in the school of the Holy Spirit on a vital prophetic end time revelation and he’ll be personally praying for each candidate. Here you’ll see the very special prophetic anointing, just send in your twenty-five pounds. But that’s nothing. Confirm your attendance by returning the attached coupon with the special registration fee of just twenty-five pounds and you will be assured of your part in the great move of God that is increasing the fame of the church. You’ll see the fresh anointing of God for just twenty-five pounds. The Holy Ghost is on sale. The Holy Ghost for sale; just send in your twenty-five pounds and you will be assured of the great move and anointing.

The magazine of the charismatic denomination Elim promotes this sin of simony. What did Ezekiel see? He saw their leaders; he saw the High Priest and he named them, Jaazaniah. Today it is not Jaazaniah, it is Kensington Temple ; abominations in the Temple of the Lord. As usual, Kensington Temple is committed to supplying a large number of counselors, some of whom have been saved for as little as a few months who are going to be counselors for the twenty-five pound mighty move of God. “Send your money now. Don’t delay.” That’s what Elim’s magazine says.

These scams do not escape the attention of the secular press. In a recent Sunday Times, there is a photograph on the cover of Morris Cerullo with the caption; “Would you buy a miracle from this man?” A man who has been indicted in America for tax evasion? Do you know how many people read the Sunday Times in this country? I wouldn’t buy a used toothbrush from this man. The world sees it. The world knows what he is. The world gets a hold of this stuff and uses it to discredit the Gospel in this nation and others. Yet many big names in the Evangelical church have joined with him on the platform, including Jerry Falwell , Charles Stanley , Hal Lindsay , and singer Sandi Patty. That’s just what Ezekiel saw; the leaders were promoting this abomination in the House of the Lord; the sin of simony.

“Yet greater abominations than these will you see”; idolatry, demon worship, Tammuz worship, sexual immorality, homosexual immorality, corrupt clergy. “ Yes, greater abominations than these will you see. Greater abominations than these will you see in My house Ezekiel. Greater abominations than these, in My sanctuary, I’m going to show you.”

Witchcraft’s role over Anglican priests and pagan sex rites; a holy communion service involving symbolic sex, no mention of Christ, is to be celebrated by a pagan priestess and a Church of England vicar today as part of an interfaith forum for witches and Christians meeting together. A “Holy Communion” service with witches and a symbolic act of sex. A sex rite in a Holy Communion service with witches, with Satan worshipers. “In My house,” saith the Lord.

Did God let Israel get away with it? Did God let Judah get away with it? No! He is not going to let England and America get away with it either. He is not going to let Elim get away with it. He is not going to let the Assemblies of God get away with it and He is not going to let the Church of England get away with it. He is just as angry today as He was in the 8th and 9th chapters of Ezekiel. His judgment is coming and His judgment is coming on His Church. The cup of iniquity is almost full. Why did God show Ezekiel the Temple? Because judgment begins in the House of God. God’s judgment is not coming on pimps. It’s not coming on prostitutes. It’s not coming on drug dealers. It’s not coming on crooked politicians in Westminster or cooked business men in the city, until it comes on the House of God.

Those Who Sigh and Groan

But before it comes God says “I’m going to send my servant and he is going to find those whose hearts are Mine.” And the Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, even through the midst of London, of Liverpool, of Manchester, of Birmingham, even through the midst of New York and Los Angeles and Chicago and Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand and Johannesburg in South Africa, go through the midst, where the people say they call on My name and put a mark on their foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over the abominations. Put My mark on the heads of those who sigh and groan over these abominations.”

I sigh and groan over witchcraft, joint communion services with witches and sex rites in God’s house. I sigh and groan. Homosexual bishops; I sigh and groan. Tammuz worship; I sigh and groan. Rodney Howard-Browne laughing at people burning in hell forever; I sigh and groan. Living together is no longer sin; I sigh and groan. The chaplain of the university in a Christian country is now a witch. If these things don’t make people sigh and groan, there is no hope. But you know what? They don’t sigh and groan. The only thing they are going to sigh and groan about is my audacity to stand up and tell you the truth. That’s the only thing they are going to sigh and groan about. They are going to sigh and groan about the Moriel Newsletter for telling you the truth. They are going to sigh and groan about Roger Oakland speaking frankly. That’s what they are going to sigh and groan about, but they won’t sigh and groan about the abominations in the House of the Lord.

What’s coming next now that Toronto has died down? Keep an eye on the Emerging Church and the Purpose Driven movements for even greater abominations leading up to the joining of Christian denominations with Rome. “Yet greater abominations will I show you,” saith the Lord. But I’ll tell you this, right now, that same Lord has His angel going through His churches. His angel is going through Baptist churches, His angel is going through Elim churches, His angel is going through Methodist churches, His angel is going through Assemblies of God churches, His angel is going through Brethren churches, and he’s saying that he sighs, he groans, he weeps, he mourns, and he’s saying she sighs, she groans she mourns, she weeps; mark him, mark her, mark that one, mark this one for My judgment will not tarry.

Friends, if it’s the last thing you do, if it’s the last thing you do before you finish readin this, make sure you have that mark on your head. That’s reality. The picture is not pretty, but for those who have the mark, you have nothing to worry about.

Paul says:

“Nevertheless the firm foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are His. Let everyone who names the name of the Lord, abstain from wickedness.” ( 2 Tim 2:19 ).

And Paul writes something very important about those who will be sealed by the Lord:

“Who also sealed us and gave us His Spirit in our hearts as a pledge”. ( 2 Cor 1:22 )

If the Holy Spirit dwells in your hearts you have nothing to fear. That’s the earnest pledge of God, your seal and those of us who are sealed; the proof of that is in our abstaining from wickedness.

Elijah: A Man Who Could Make It Rain

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:58:14 GMT

The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. ( James 5:16-18 )

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Elijah was a man who could make it rain. The Holy Spirit, through this text, is trying to tell us that, if he can do it, we can do it. We can make it rain. But what does that mean?

Rain is a Type of the Holy Spirit Poured Out

In biblical typology, different liquids typify the Holy Spirit in different aspects:

New wine is a liquid which represents the Holy Spirit in the aspect of worship. Another liquid is oil, which speaks of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But the living water, in Scripture, is always the Holy Spirit outpoured. The rain, outpoured, goes into the water table and becomes living water.

Jesus explained it this way:

"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:38-39).

Jesus said directly that living water is the Holy Spirit outpoured.

For I will pour out water on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants (Isa 44:3).

Once again, it says that God will pour out the water – that is rain – on the dry ground. And He says that this means He will pour out His Spirit. Rain is a figure.

Rain in One City, But No Rain on the Other City

And furthermore, I withheld the rain from you while there were still three months until harvest. Then I would send rain on one city and on another city I would not send rain; one part would be rained on, while the part not rained on would dry up. (Amos 4:7).
Why is it, for instance, that an evangelist like Reinhard Bonnke can preach in Africa and see thousands and thousands of people saved at a single meeting, but if he goes to Germany or England or Australia, nothing much happens? The answer is here in Amos 4:7. God would send rain on one city, but on another city he would send no rain. And the city without rain would have no harvest.

There is a sovereign work of grace in the outpouring of His Spirit. It is raining in Brazil, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and much of Africa. But in the Western Protestant countries which have had the Bible for 500 years, there is now a drought. God is turning His grace from the rich countries to the poor ones. White, Protestant Christianity is in numerical, moral, financial, theological and spiritual decline all over the world.

The church is growing in the Roman Catholic countries, the black countries, the olive-skinned countries and the yellow-skinned countries. The Anglican Church has declined massively in England, yet most of the African Anglican Bishops are outspoken evangelicals (Bishop Desmond Tutu being the notable exception). African Anglicans are terribly persecuted by Moslems in Nigeria. Throughout Asia the Anglican Church is very much alive. But in Britain, the Church of England is a dead church. The old time fire that happened in the Sunshine Revival in Australia, the Azusa Street Revival in California and the Sunderland Revivals in England with Smith Wigglesworth – that is what is happening now in places like Ecuador, Chile, the Philippines, Indonesia and Kenya. God will send rain on one city, while the city not rained upon will dry up.

Today we have people teaching formulas for Church Growth . That is nonsense. It doesn't work. There is a missing ingredient – the sovereign grace of God; His Spirit being outpoured.

His Word does not return void. (Is. 55:11) Some people will be saved, one here and one there, but, if you're talking about a massive harvest, no rain means no gain! But Elijah was a man who could make it rain and he was a man with a nature like ours. In other words, if he can do it, we can do it.

For the Sake of the Fathers and for His Name's Sake

I am convinced that God wants to give the Western Protestant democracies one more chance to repent before Jesus comes. God wants to give the Western countries another chance – not for our sake, but for His Name's sake. Not because we deserve it; we don't deserve it – our churches are, by and large, backslidden – but for the sake of our fathers.

As it says in Romans 11, God wants to give the Jews one more chance at the end of the world before Jesus comes. Why? Because when God looks at Israel, He doesn't just see Israel's sin and her ongoing rejection of her Messiah. When God looks at Israel, He still sees Jeremiah in prison. He still sees Isaiah being sawed in half by King Manasseh. He still sees Zachariah being martyred in the Temple. He still sees John the Baptist having his head chopped off. And he says "for the sake of their fathers, I want to give this nation one more chance."

Great Britain is the same. When God looks at Great Britain, He doesn't just see Britain as it is today, a so-called Christian country where Hindu gods are worshipped in Canterbury Cathedral whilst bishops deny the resurrection and the virgin birth. When God looks at Britain today, He sees all of it – past, present and future. He still sees John Bunyan chained to the wall of the Bedford County Jail for twelve years and writing The Pilgrim's Progress; He still sees John Wesley being stoned by mobs who were stirred up by the Church of England for preaching the Gospel; He still sees Tyndale being burned alive at a stake by the Church of Rome so we could have the Bible in English; He still sees Charles Haddon Spurgeon ; He still sees Ridley and Latimer and Hooper , martyrs of England. And God says "For the sake of their fathers, and for my Name's sake, I want to give this nation one more chance."

This is equally true of the United States. He still sees Jonathan Edwards and D L Moody and Harry Ironside . He sees the faithful Christians. He doesn't just see what we have today with the Prosperity Preachers – the Mammon worshippers and the heretics.
God wants to give these Western Protestant nations one more chance to repent. But for them to have that chance, it has to rain.
First of all, we have to face up to the fact that we are in a drought. And, until this drought ends, all the programs in the world will not bring about repentance and revival in the church. It takes rain. No rain, no grain. No rain, no harvest. Elijah was a man like us who could make it rain. And today, God is looking for men and women like us, who can make it rain.

Now Elijah the Tishite, who was of the settlers of Glead, said to Ahab "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word." And the word of the LORD came to him, saying "Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith which is east of the Jordan. And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there."

So he did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook. And it happened after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. Then the word of the LORD came to him saying "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." So he arose and went to Zarephath and he came to the gate of the city; behold a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink".

And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said "Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand." But she said "As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die."

Then Elijah said to her "Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus says the LORD God of Israel 'The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the LORD sends rain on the face of the earth.'"

So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted, nor did the jar of oil become empty; according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through Elijah. Now it came about, after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. So she said to Elijah "What have I to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance and put my son to death!"

And he said to her "Give me your son." Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living, and laid him on his own bed. And he called to the LORD and said "O LORD my God, hast Thou also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD and said "O LORD my God, I pray Thee, let this child's life return to him." And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother, and Elijah said "See your son is alive." Then the woman said to Elijah "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth."

Now it came about, after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying "To, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth." So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. (1 Kings 17:1- 18:2) And it came about, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him "Is this you, you troubler of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17)

Then Elijah said to them "Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape." So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. Now Elijah said to Ahab "Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower." So Ahab went up to eat and drink. But Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he crouched down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant "Go up now, look toward the sea" So he went up and looked and said "There is nothing" And he said "Go back" seven times. And it came about at the seventh time that he said "Behold, a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming up from the sea." And he said "Go up, say to Ahab 'Prepare your chariot and go down, so that the heavy shower does not stop you'". So it came about in a little while, that the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy shower. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. Then the hand of the LORD was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and outran Ahab to Jezreel. (1 Kings 18:40-46)

And it rained and it rained and it rained.

Some Background Information

The three and a half years in which it did not rain is a type of the three and a half years referred to in Daniel and Revelation, when the Spirit will not be outpoured at the end of the world. It is a type of what happens eschatologicallly, when the spirit of Elijah comes back into operation in some way, as predicted by the prophet Malachi. Similarly, the way that Elijah rescued the Gentile woman and her son teaches something about the way that God is going to use the spirit of Elijah, somehow, to take care of the Gentile church at the end of the world.

Elijah, Elisha and John the Baptist all had the same spirit. The Lord told Moses that He would "take of the Spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon" the elders of the people (Num. 11:17).

When events happen in the same geographical location it usually means that there is some spiritual and theological connection between them. Elijah's ministry ended on the plain of Jericho where Elisha received his mantle (meaning his authority), and John the Baptist's ministry occurred at the same place. The wicked woman, Jezebel, is a type of the woman Jezebel in the Book of Revelation – the spirit of false religion – who turned the king, the political power, into someone she could manipulate. On behalf of Ahab, she obtained Naboth's vineyard, which Ahab coveted. (1 Ki. 21) In scripture the vineyard speaks of Israel and, by extension or incorporation, the Church. The wicked woman tried to get the vineyard for the king. This brought her into conflict with Elijah and she persuaded the king to try to destroy Elijah. This is exactly the picture in the story of Herodias (Matt 14:3- 12) – the wicked woman turned the king against Elijah (John the Baptist).

Wicked women in the Bible all point in some way to the character of the wicked woman in the Book of Revelation where the conflict with Elijah is going to be replayed in the Last Days.

Why Did the Rain Stop?

The first thing in our study of how God takes a man like Elijah and turns him into someone who can make it rain is to learn why the rain stopped. The rain stopped because of the sin of God's people. The Holy Spirit is not being outpoured on the Western Protestant world because of its sin, which is identical to the sin of Israel in the days of Elijah.

Abortion replays the sacrifice of children to demons that we see within Israel and Judah in the Old Testament. The worship of other gods – the priests of Baal were not foreigners, they were Jews. Today it is the same. Across the Western Protestant world there is a dramatic increase of the worship of other gods – Islam , New Age , Hinduism . New Age is permeating many of the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches today. People are mixing Christianity with Paganism – that is where Roman Catholicism came from, and that is what is happening today in many Pentecostal churches.

Materialism - the Church is lukewarm, materialistic, filled with crazy doctrines. It has a version of "faith" that is not biblical – the worship of Mammon in Christian masquerade; covetousness disguised as Christianity.

That is why the rain stopped. The first and foremost responsibility for the decline of Western civilization does not lie with secular society, it lies with us. It was the sin of God's people that stopped the rain. the problems proliferating throughout our society – drugs, abortion, divorce, violence, crime – all testify to the failure of the church. God's people compromised and eventual Israel ended up with the priests of Baal. That is what happened in Elijah's day, and that is what is going on today. It is not raining in our countries, because of the sin of God's people.

Cherith

The first thing God told Elijah to do, was to go to the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan ( 1 Kings 17:3 ), and there the ravens would feed him.

Cherith was on the other side of the Jordan. When God told Elijah to leave his land and go to Cherith, he told him to leave behind his national identity, his cultural identity and his home comforts. On top of that, Elijah was to be fed by ravens. Ravens were not kosher – they were an "unclean" bird. God was going to provide for him in ways he would never have expected.

The drought is so critical in the Western world today, that people who would make it rain will have to be willing to go to Cherith.

Sometimes that will mean churches leaving traditional denominations that have compromised. Sometimes it will mean Christians leaving churches that have compromised, or that have gone into error and refuse to repent. And it will certainly mean trusting God to meet your needs in ways and in places you might not expect, even through things we consider to be almost unholy, like the ravens. Elijah had to be willing to put God first and his land second. So often today, the problem is that people are putting their land first – their culture, their identity, their denominations and their loyalties to those denominations – before obedience to the Word of God.

But the people who will make it rain will be the people who are not afraid to go to Cherith and trust God.

Zarephath

It is darkest before the dawn. Things will become much worse before they get better. The brook of Cherith will eventually dry up.

In verse 9 we see that Elijah has to go to a place called Zarephath. The word “Zarephath” comes from the Hebrew root meaning “to burn or to purify by fire”. For God to take somebody with a nature like ours and turn them into somebody who can make it rain, He needs to purify them by fire.

There is going to be a very difficult period – not just trial and testing, not just drought, nor even persecution – but all those things together. It will get to the point where the people you try to help will think you have betrayed them, as with the widow at Zarephath. But no matter how bad things get, no matter how dark it becomes, no matter how critical the drought, I can promise you two things: there will be flour in the dish and oil in the jar for those who are willing to be purified. Things are going to get bad before the breakthrough comes. But there is going to be flour in the dish and oil in the jar. You will have the Word of God and you will have the anointing of the Spirit, no matter what happens. You will have your grain and your oil when the others die from famine.

So she said to Elijah…

"What have I to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance, and to put my son to death!" (1 Kings 17:18)

Her son died. And she blamed Elijah. The very people you try to help will see the hardship and they will blame you. Things have been so bad for so long that the things we love most will have to die before they can be resurrected.
Much of the church in the Western world will have to die before it can be resurrected. New wine cannot go into old wine skins. (Mk. 2:22) That was one of the problems with the Charismatic Movement – they tried to store the new wine in the old wine skins. In order to renew a church you have to replace the wine skin. The things that we have loved the most will have to die before they can be resurrected.

Troublers of Israel

"Is this you, you troubler of Israel?" (1 Kings 18:17).

Is this you, you troubler of the church? Is this you, you troubler of the Baptist Union? Is this you, you troubler of the Assemblies of God?

You who are standing up against ecumenism and Kingdom Now and Faith-Prosperity and Name-It-and-Claim-It.
You who are standing up against false miracles and bogus healings.
You who are standing up against ministers making themselves rich by exploiting pensioners with lies.
You troublers of Israel!

That is what they said to Elijah and, if you want to make it rain, that is what they are going to say to you.
Next they go to Mount Carmel. Here the conflict occurs with Jezebel – the conflict with the spirit of false religion, with Roman Catholicism, ecumenism, Free Masonary , Islam , homosexuality, abortion and New Age . There is going to be a conflict, and those who win that conflict will be those who have been purified at Zarephath.

So much of what we call "charismatic worship" today – with the noise, the ranting and raving, and the hype – looks more like the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel than like Elijah. Notice that the priests of Baal really thought it would work, they thought they would get a response.

Our brethren today, caught up in ecumenism, Kingdom Now theology, Restorationism – all unbiblical, false and dangerous doctrines, all associated with hype and with prophecies that don't happen – actually believe these things. But the conflict will come and the people will see who the true prophets are.

The Rain Cloud

It begins small. It doesn't seem like anything is going to happen at first. Where is it?

With the priests of Baal it was all loud boasting and arrogance and cheering and hype. But God doesn't work that way. It begins small. Like a little hand coming out of the sea. It always begins small. But it gets bigger and soon the whole sky is filled with rain clouds. Lightning strikes and God's Spirit falls. And it rains and rains and rains.

There is no easy way to stop the decline of Christianity in the Western world. It has gone too far for too long. We have been sold down the river by our leaders. All the programs and hype and gimmicks in the world will not bring a harvest of souls. That takes rain. But the rain has stopped. Why? Partly because of the sin of society, but mostly because of the sin of the Church. And until there is repentance in the Church, there is not going to be a repentance in the world.

Why has the rain stopped? It is not primarily the fault of pornographers or pimps or prostitutes or drug dealers or homosexuals or abortionists. It is primarily my fault, because I know the truth and I have the message that can make the difference. It is our fault, because the church in the West is Laodicea (s), because we are trusting in this life and this world more than we are trusting in Jesus. It is not raining because of my sin and your sin.

Those Who Make It Rain

Those who make it rain will be those who are not afraid to go to Cherith – people who are not bound by tradition or institutions.

They won't try to put new wine into old wine skins. They will do what God tells them and trust God to provide for them in ways they don't expect.

They will be people who are not afraid to be purified, people who will go to Zarephath, people who are willing to see things that they love die, knowing that these things will be resurrected in purity. It will be difficult. But no matter how difficult it gets, I promise you that there will be oil in the jar and flour in the dish.

And those people who are purified will go to Carmel and stand in front of Jezebel – in front of false religion and Free Masonry and homosexuality and Roman Catholicism and Islam. They will stand in front of the prophets of Baal – those who dare to call themselves ministers of the Gospel, but who compromise with false teaching.

There will be a conflict. And those troublers of Israel are going to win.

Egypt, Babylon, or the Palm of God

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:56:59 GMT

Introduction

We have spoken a number of times concerning things that teach about the Last Days. There are a number of time periods in Israel's history, outlined in the Bible, that prefigure what will happen in the Last Days.

In watching news reports about the riots on the Temple Mount recently, I was reminded of one of the things that convinces me that we are in the Last Days. Specifically, there is much arguing over the propriety of custody of the Temple Mount.

I learned yesterday that a major American university in Massachusetts has banned their evangelical students' fellowship. It has been banned from the campus as a hate group because of their belief that homosexuality is wrong. Although this is under appeal, it sets a national precedent. If you believe what the Bible says about unnatural sex, the Bible becomes hate literature and you become a hate group, and the First Amendment does not protect inciting hatred. This also convinces me that it is the Last Days.

When I look at the apostasy in the church – the people on their way to ecumenical unity, Pensacola and other similar demonic deceptions – all of these things point to the Last Days.

I, of course, live in England, and I see what's happening: how people are having a single currency shoved down their throats even when they don't want it, how they're going into a federal, non-democratic Europe – entailing not just the loss of national sovereignty but also the loss of democracy – the decisions made by bureaucrats behind closed doors whom you did not vote for and cannot believe in. These things are being forced on people, yet they are sitting back and taking it. Of course, parliamentary democracy in its modern sense was born out of the influences of biblical Christianity, and now that Christianity has been abandoned in Europe, all the democracies that Christianity helped give rise to will likewise be abandoned.

Persecution of the church is already looming in America; if you don't agree with homosexuality, you are a bigot, and it becomes the equivalent of a hate crime to speak against such things.

Other Examples of "Last Days"

The last days of the 1st Century, before the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, is one of the things that teaches about the end. The last days of Samaria in 720 BC is another thing that teaches about the End. However, we are now looking at about 585 BC, the last days of Judah before the Babylonian Captivity. Above all else in the Old Testament this teaches about the end. It is evident in the New Testament where it talks about eschatology – especially in the teaching of Jesus about the Last Days – that the themes from the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel about the Babylonian Captivity are being recycled. The destruction of the Temple talked about by Jesus in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 comes straight out of Jeremiah. Jesus warns repeatedly about false prophets and this theme is also prominent in the Major Prophets. "Fallen, fallen is Babylon" in the book of Revelation (Rev 14:8; 18:2) (comes straight out of Isaiah and Jeremiah. (Isa 21:9; Jer 51:8)

The same things that happened in the last days of Judah, when Jeremiah's message was rejected, will happen in the Last Days full-stop, both to the Jews and to the church; it will be repeated. Remember that a Judeo-Christian perspective of prophecy regards it as cyclical.

Let us begin to understand this: What will happen to faithful churches and the faithful remnant in the Last Days? What should we expect? There are various teachings that could explain some of this; for example, the Maccabees. However, we're looking at it now from the point of view of the Babylonian Captivity. In Jeremiah chapter 40, the Captivity is underway. Nebuchadnezzar invades Jerusalem four times. What you see happening right now, with the interfaith movement, the ecumenical movement, and the New Age movement, is about the Babylonian Captivity.

During the Middle Ages, Martin Luther came to realize there had been a Babylonian Captivity of the church under the medieval papacy. He understood the spiritual character of Babylon, this marriage of the political system of the world to a corrupt religious system: this was the “Holy Roman Empire”, which was neither holy nor Roman. This will happen again; we can see the Captivity coming. There are people everywhere who believe in having one “apostle” over a city, which is an ancient error begun by Ignatius of Antioch that is called “monoepiscopacy”. That is how the papacy began to evolve; it is an ancient deception that is making its comeback. The problem, of course, is that most of my fellow Pentecostals and Charismatics are too ignorant to realize that these are things that have happened in the past which will result in the same thing that happened in the past: a Babylonian Captivity of the church.

The Babylonian Captivity

Let us begin in chapter 40 of Jeremiah:

"Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard, had released him from Ramah, when he had taken him bound in chains from among the exiles of Jerusalem and Judah who were exiled to Babylon. Now the captain of the guard had taken Jeremiah and said to him, 'The LORD your God promised this calamity against this place, and the LORD has brought it on it and done just as He promised, because you people sinned against the LORD and did not listen to His voice. Therefore this thing has happened to you. But now, behold, I am freeing you today from the chains which are on your hands. If you would prefer to come with me to Babylon, come along, and I will look after you. But if you would prefer not to come to Babylon, never mind - look, the whole land is before you. Go wherever it seems good and right for you to go.' As Jeremiah was still not going back, he said, 'Go on back, then, to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the cities of Judah, and stay with him among the people. Or else go anywhere it seems right for you to go.' And the captain of the guard gave him a ration and let him go.

"Then Jeremiah went to Mizpah, to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, and stayed with him among the people who were left in the land. Now all the commanders of the forces that were in the field, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam over the land, and that he had put him in charge of the men, women and children, those of the poorest of the land who had not been exiled to Babylon.

"'Now as for me, behold, I am going to stay at Mizpah to stand for you before the Chaldeans who come to us. But as for you, gather in wine and summer fruit and oil, and put them in your storage vessels, and live in your cities that you have taken over. Likewise also, all the Jews who are in Moab and among the sons of Amon and in Edom, who were in the other countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant for Judah, and that he had appointed over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan. And all the Jews returned from all the places to which they had been driven away, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and gathered their wine and summer fruit in great abundance.

"Now, Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were in the field came to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and said to him, 'Are you well aware that Baalis the king of the sons of Amon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?' But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam did not believe them.

"Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke secretly to Gedaliah at Mizpah, saying, 'Let me go and kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and not a man will know. Why should he take your life so that all of the Jews who are gathered to you would be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?' But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said to Johanan the son of Kareah, 'Do not do this thing, for you are telling a lie about Ishmael.

"Now it came about in the seventh month that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah the son of Elishama of the royal family and one of the chief officials of the king, along with ten men, came to Mizpah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. While they were eating bread together they were in Mizpah. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and the ten men who were with him arose and struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword, and put to death the one the king of Babylon had appointed over the land.

"Ishmael also struck down all of the Jews that were with him, that is, with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans who were found there, the men of war. Now it happened on the next day of the killing of Gedaliah, when no one knew about it, that eighty men came from Shechem of Shiloh where the ark had formerly been, and from Samaria with their beards shaved, their clothes torn, and their bodies gashed, having grain offerings and incense in their hands to bring to the house of the LORD. Then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping as he went. And it came about as he came that he said to them, 'Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam!'

"Yet it happened that as soon as they entered the city, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and the men that were with him slaughtered them and cast them into the cistern."

The faithful remnant of the last days of Judah faced what the faithful remnant of the Last Days of the church will face. They had three choices: Egypt, a figure of the world; Babylon, a figure of false religion; or the palm of God.

Trying to Get Along

Yet for the sake of trying to keep peace, Gedaliah tries to tell people to honor the king of Babylon. "Look, we have to go along with the system; we don't want to be deported too. We don't want to find ourselves re-scattered. We don't want to be taken away; we want to keep what we have, so we have to agree to pay homage; go along with the system." This is very much what happened in the 1st Century. The reason the early Christians got themselves into trouble was not what they believed, but their refusal to pay homage to the Emperor, who at that time had become the equivalent of the king of Babylon. The mystery religions of pagan Babylon were now in Rome, in the pantheon, and the Emperor as the pontiff was the head of it. What the king of Babylon was in Jeremiah's day, the Emperor was in the 1st Century. It was not what they believed, but what they did not believe that got them into trouble. "You can believe what you want, as long as you go along with the program." We will find this mindset increasing in the Last Days, even among the faithful remnant. We will have visible leaders who will try to compromise with Babylon, and they will give you what seem to be pastoral reasons: "I'm trying to protect you." "I'm trying to secure what we have, to preserve what remains." Even among the faithful remnant, expect a concerted effort to bring you into line with the status quo. They will come with very persuasive and very logical arguments along that line.

God will judge such people and their motives; they won't survive either. Gedaliah was even warned to stop what he was doing, that he was going to get himself killed; but he refused to listen. Do not think for one moment that you can make some kind of peace with the king of Babylon. Do not think that there can be any accommodation or cessation of hostilities. We cannot “get along” with the king of Babylon.

They were invited to come to Babylon; that was their first choice. Is your church going to join the ecumenical movement? Is your denomination going to join the World Council of Churches ? The False Prophet will eventually gain control over this and use it to support the Antichrist. That's the first choice; expect it to happen in the Last Days. You will find people who will try to rationalize and gloss over the issues – “Well, maybe I don't agree with them, and I understand that we're the faithful remnant, but we have to try to get along with them.” We will find this being said; but ultimately, there is nothing in that but death. Notice that not only did Gedaliah die, but those of the poor and simple who followed him died with him. Down that road lies death; there is no peace with Babylon.

More than that, Babylon cannot be changed. Let's look at Jeremiah 51:49 Babylon is under judgment in verse 49; Babylon is to fall for the slain of Israel. In verse 60 Jeremiah writes on a scroll of the calamities that will come on Babylon. In verse 24, it says that God will repay Babylon for what Babylon has done. But in verse 6 Jeremiah is saying, “Flee from the midst of Babylon; each of you save his life.” In other words, 'Get out of there!' Get out of ecumenical denominations; God's purpose is to destroy them.

In verse 9, we find that there was attempted healing applied to Babylon, but she was not healed.

We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; Forsake her and let us each go to his own country, For her judgment has reached to heaven And towers up to the very skies.

Babylon cannot be healed. It has not changed from the time of the Tower of Babel to the Babylonian Empire to what you see in the book of Revelation; it cannot change. One of today's myths is this: The Roman Catholic Church has changed since the second Vatican Council. Well, the second Vatican Council documents all affirm the Council of Trent. You have two kinds of doctrine in the Roman Catholic church: proxima fadi and di fadi. A proxima fadi doctrine can be changed; the pagan mass can be changed from Latin to English. A di fadidoctrine cannot be changed; the mass itself cannot be changed, nor can purgatory or any doctrine like it. The Roman Catholic church admits this.

Jer 5:19 says that all of mankind is stupid, devoid of knowledge. People are stupid; Jeremiah uses very strong terms. Throughout his book, he says things that would sound crude if we were to say them. He uses two different words for human stupidity, and neither one of them is pleasant. Look at Jeremiah chapter 10:8:

"But they are altogether stupid and foolish in their discipline of delusion."

One of the words he uses for “stupid” means a perversion of logic to justify what is known to be wrong. People know that certain things are wrong, but they pervert their logic in order to ease their conscience. When Jeremiah says they are stupid, he doesn't mean they are congenitally stupid, that they are slow learners or have a birth defect, he means that they willfully pervert their logic. This is exactly what we see happening today; people who should know better, even theologians like J. I. Packer, are perverting their logic. And what is the purpose of it? To make a deal with Babylon. But those who follow Gedaliah will wind up like Gedaliah.

The first offer to be made, then, is an invitation to go to Babylon. But let us continue

Going to the World

Jeremiah 41:16

“Then Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him took from Mizpah all the remnant of the people who had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah after he had struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam; that is, the men who were soldiers, the women, the children, and the eunuchs whom he had brought back to Gibeon.”

Johanan did not hate Gedaliah; he simply tried to warn him to stop being so naïve, or he would go to destruction and bring the people with him. Expect the Johanans who say that to be ignored, just as they ignore the Jeremiahs until it is too late. Just as they found out that Jeremiah was right, so they also found out that Johanan was right. Ultimately, however, what is left is what's pure. There is a sifting process in motion here; the deception comes, but even the deception that comes from Babylon is part of the sifting process. The Lord only wants those who are really, really right.

Let us look at what happens: Johanan gathers them, and in verse 17 he brings them back from Gibeon.

“And they went and stayed in Geruth Kimham, which is next to Bethlehem, in order to proceed into Egypt because of the Chaldeans, for they were afraid of them since Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed over the land.”

They go to Geruth Kimham, which is next to Bethlehem. We must understand why they did that. By this time the throne of David had been lost. There was no longer a living descendant of David on the throne. Their longing was for the house of David to be restored, which they began to see in Messianic terms. The whole concept of the Messiah, while it was always there, really begins to develop and evolve after the Captivity. They knew about the Messiah, but it really began to crystallize and clarify after the Captivity, that He would restore this lineage of David. God had promised the Jews that there would always be a descendant of David on the throne of David. Now either Jesus is spiritually on the throne of David, and will one day rule from Jerusalem on the throne of David, or God has broken His promise, which Scripture tells us He cannot do.

Geruth Kimham means “the lodge of pining”. It was situated next to Bethlehem, which was the city of David, where the house of David had originated. So they are pining the loss of the lineage of David, and longing for it to be restored. That is why they go to Geruth Kimham. What you will find in the Last Days among the remnant is this: they will go to Geruth Kimham. They will reach such a state of despair that their only aspiration is the return of Jesus. They realize that nothing will ever make it the way it used to be; nothing will restore Christianity to what it had historically been. Nothing except the return of Christ. The church becomes a lodge of pining, where the only hope we have to hold onto is the promise of Jesus' coming. We will see this desperation.

However, in the midst of that desperation, the pressures of practical reality begin to set in. So, not wanting to go to Babylon – that didn't work, and the ones who tried it are dead – the next temptation is to go to Egypt, which, as we know from Jeremiah 30:31 and many other places in Scripture, is really going to the world for help. In the beginning, Egypt is Egypt and Babylon is Babylon. Nobody at this point expected that Babylon would also conquer Egypt. Ultimately, the Antichrist gets practically all of it. There were some Jews who found refuge in Edom, and it's interesting to see in Daniel that that area seems to escape some of what the Antichrist will be able to do. The area of Petra, it would appear from Daniel, provides some refuge. For some reason, it will not be under Antichrist's domain to the same degree. This is very mysterious and I don't fully understand it. However, there were Jews going there; that is where some of the faithful remnant went when Jerusalem was under siege. It would appear from Isaiah chapter 16 and others that there is some future eschatological significance to this area around Petra in Edom.

Let's look more closely at Geruth Kimham: Under this pressure, there comes a pressure to go to the world for help. The same thing happens with Hezekiah in Isaiah 30 and 31; it becomes an issue again. They fear the Babylonians, so they go to the world. The world, its governments, its legal systems, etc. – it will not protect us in the Last Days. The only reason that any government has at any time protected the rights of Christians is because of Christian influence in that government. Paul instructed the churches to pray for those in authority, even the pagan Emperor, that they might lead peaceable lives. Paul himself appealed to Caesar – we can do that, but ultimately Caesar too, who is another figure of Antichrist, turned against the Early Church. The world offers nothing, but things become so desperate that many people will want to go to the world.

Seeking Counsel

Let's continue in chapter 42 verse 1:

"Then all the commanders of the forces, Johanan son of Kareah, Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people, both small and great, approached and said to Jeremiah the prophet, 'Please let our petition come before you, and pray for us to the LORD your God - that is for all this remnant, because we are left but a few out of many, as your own eyes now see us - that the LORD your God would tell us the way in which we should walk and the thing that we should do.' Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, 'I have heard you. Behold, I am going to pray to the LORD your God in accordance with your words. And it will come about that the whole message which the LORD will answer you, I will tell you. I will not keep back a word from you.' Then they said to Jeremiah, 'May the LORD be a true and faithful Witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole message which the LORD your God will send you to us. Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the LORD our God, to Whom we are sending you, that it may go well with us when we listen to the voice of the LORD our God.'"

The faithful remnant knows that Jeremiah is a true prophet and that all the other guys to whom the kings were listening were liars and deceivers who are now either dead or in Babylon. The faithful church will ask, "What should we do, Lord? We're in this situation in Geruth Kimham, we're longing for Jesus to come back, for His kingdom – it's the only hope we have. But on one hand, we can't go to Babylon – look what happened to those who tried it – and on the other hand, the only alternative seems to be Egypt. What should we do? We'll listen to You; we'll do whatever the Lord says." Well, unfortunately, during times of pressure there are Christians who will say, "We will do whatever the Lord says, as long as it's in agreement with what we want."

Jeremiah 42:7…

"Now it came about at the end of ten days that the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah."

Notice that; Jeremiah went and sought the Lord, and the Lord answered ten days later. Be careful of people who think they can go around prophesying and giving words and hearing from the Lord this, this, this and that; that is clairvoyance and soothsaying, not prophecy. True prophets don't go around claiming that kind of revelation all the time. What they do is point people to the Scripture, and if they do get a revelation, it's always based on Scripture. Jeremiah seeks God. Now, ten days is a significant figure in the Bible. Forty and ten are the two numbers most associated in Scripture with testing. If you recall, in Revelation 2:10 Jesus says that the church of Smyrna will be persecuted and put in prison for ten days, and this seems to correspond to the ten major periods of persecution under the emperors.

Jeremiah 42:8…

"Then he called for Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were with him, and for all the people, both small and great, and said, 'Thus says the LORD God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your petition before Him: "If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I will relent concerning the calamity I have inflicted on you. Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing. Do not be afraid of him,' declares the LORD, 'for I am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand. I will also show you compassion, so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your own soil. But if you are going to say, "We will not stay in this land," so as not to listen to the voice of the LORD your God, saying, "No, but we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall not see war or hear the sound of a trumpet or hunger for bread, and we will stay there," in that case, listen to the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah: Thus says the LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel: if you really set your mind to go into Egypt and reside there, it will come about that the sword which you are afraid of will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine about which you are anxious will follow closely after you there in Egypt, and you will die there. So all the men who set their minds to go to Egypt and reside there will die of the sword, of famine, and of pestilence, and they will have no survivors or refugees from the calamity that I am going to bring on them.

“For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, as My anger and wrath have been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so My anger and wrath will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt, and you will become a curse, an object of horror, an imprecation and a reproach, and you will see this place no more.' The LORD has spoken to you, O remnant of Judah: Do not go into Egypt. You should clearly understand that this day I have testified against you, for you have only deceived yourselves. For it is you who sent me to the LORD your God, saying, 'Pray for us to the LORD our God, and whatever the LORD our God says, tell us so we will do it.' So I have told you today, but you have not obeyed the LORD your God, even in whatever He has sent me to tell you. Therefore you should now clearly understand that you will die by the sword, by famine and by pestilence in the place where you wish to go to reside."'

Where Should We Go?

Well, they went to Egypt, they went to the world. Let's understand this: they did not go to the world because they were seeking the carnal pleasures of Egypt. They went to the world in a time of great duress – fear of the king of Babylon. When the Antichrist comes, he is going to invoke a tremendous fear. Those dwelling at Geruth Kimham will have that choice: Do we go into Babylon? Do we go into Egypt? Do we go into the interfaith movement, or do we simply go to the world? Or do we place ourselves in the hand of God, remain where we are, and trust Him?

That was the choice they had, and that will be the choice faced by the faithful remnant in the Last Days: Egypt, Babylon, or the palm of God. Those who went to Babylon found death. Those who went to Egypt were pursued by the sword and by famine in the world. There is no safety in Egypt. But God says, "Don't be afraid of the king of Babylon. If you will stay in this land I will build you up and not tear you down. I will plant you and not uproot you." God's promise is always good, though it is very difficult to see and believe that when all around you is calamity: the sword, the famine, the king of Babylon whose power seems invincible. Yet that will be the choice and there were, and will again be, people even in the good churches who make the wrong choice. However, once more, they will have been warned.

Let's go a bit further: in chapter 43:1-3 it says this:

“But it came about that as soon as Jeremiah, whom the LORD their God had sent, had finished telling all the people the words of the LORD their God..

– that is, all the words –

…that Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, "You are telling a lie. The LORD our God has not sent you to say, 'You are not to enter Egypt to reside there'. But Baruch the son of Neriah is inciting you against us to give us over into the hand of the Chaldeans so they may put us to death or exile in Babylon."'

First the backslidden nation and its leaders and false prophets rejected Jeremiah. But the heat gets so intense in the last days of Judah that even in the faithful remnant there is a rejection of Jeremiah, orchestrated by the arrogant among them. It would almost seem to be a contradiction in terms; how could there be people in the faithful remnant who are arrogant?

You know what? If you want to see a big mess today, look at discernment ministries. The very ones who realize the nature of deception, the ones who realize what Pensacola and Toronto are, and what the ecumenical movement is, the very ones who know that these things are wrong – the very ones who understand the demonic nature of faith-prosperity preaching, the ones who understand what's wrong – within the ranks of those organizations you will find good and bad; and yes, you will find people who are downright arrogant.

Jewel van der Merwe is under tremendous attack at the moment; Bill Randles and myself were attacked in England by someone else in a discernment ministry, simply because we are not Cessationists . Yes, arrogant men. There are some people who were very strongly influenced by Neo-Nazis in Australia; they are vehemently anti-Semitic and are constantly worsening. They are attacking Arnold Fruchtenbaum and myself, to name a few.

Even among the remnant, look out. The fact that someone realizes the nature of deception does not necessarily mean they are one of us. They may be in our circle, but there are people in our circle who have their own agenda. Remember: Satan wants to infiltrate the remnant. The mainstream Judah was gone; he already had them. It was only the remnant who presented a problem for the king of Babylon. The same is true today; Satan isn't worried about what is going on inside First Assemblies of God – he has those people deceived already. Now he wants to get people into your church. And he'll do it.

Just because someone realizes what's wrong, they are not automatically right. There are good people in the discernment movement and there are also bad ones. In fact, I would say that there are as many bad ones as there are good ones. This is the world; they will attack anyone who truly tries to protect the sheep. They will attack the Jeremiahs, and they will attack the Baruchs. I've seen Dave Hunt attacked by people in discernment ministries; in fact, Dave Hunt is under attack right now by them. I have seen Bill Randles attacked, Philip Powell attacked, Jewel van der Merwe attacked, yours truly attacked, and by whom? By people outside of discernment circles? No – by people who are supposedly in discernment ministry. These people are quite arrogant.

Realize something: a good, faithful church will attract refugees from all the bad churches around it. Some of those people who come to your church will be utterly sincere; however, there are other people who, again, have an agenda. They are against any kind of authority unless it's their own, against any kind of commitment unless it's on their terms, and they will latch onto a good church simply because it becomes a platform for them from which they wish to exercise their own interests. Once these good churches no longer accommodate what they want, they will turn against those churches. This happens everywhere; simply because someone is against what you are against does not guarantee that they are for what you are for. Real deception will increase in the Last Days. Just as they attacked Jeremiah and Baruch in the last days of Judah, so they are attacking Dave Hunt and Jewel van der Merwe today. It happened then, and it's happening now.

Babylon Overthrows Egypt

But let's look further, at Jeremiah 43:5-7:

“But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took the entire remnant of Judah which had returned from the nations to which they had been driven away in order to reside in the land of Judah. The men, the women, the children, the king's daughters - every person whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the grandson of Shaphan, together with Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah, and entered the land of Egypt. For they did not obey the voice of the LORD, and went as far as Tahpanhes.”

Johanan seemed to be a good guy earlier. The deception in the Last Days becomes like intrigue. Early on, one of George Washington's best generals in fighting the American Revolutionary War against the British was Benedict Arnold, who later became one of the British Army's best generals against George Washington.

Jeremiah 43:8-10:

“In Tahpanhes of Egypt, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: "Take large stones in your hands and hide them in the mortar of the brick terrace which is at the entrance of Pharaoh's palace at Tahpanhes in the sight of some of the Jews, and say to them, 'Thus says the LORD God of Israel: "Behold, I am going to send Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, My servant, and I am going to set his throne right over these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his canopy over them."'

Even Egypt came under the dominion of the king of Babylon. Look at Revelation18:3, which says:

“For the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her.”

The kings of the earth; the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality. In the Last Days, the prosperity of the nations will depend on their relationship to Babylon. Revelation 13:11:

“The beast came up out of the earth and spoke, and he had two horns like a ram and like a dragon.”

The earth is Israel; the other beast comes up out of the sea, which is the nations. Jeremiah 44:30:

“Thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I am going to give over Pharaoh Hophrah, king of Egypt, into the hand of his enemies, into the hand of those who seek his life, just as I gave over Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and seeking his life.’”

If God gave the Hebrew king over to the king of Babylon, how much more quickly will He give the pagan king over? If the king of Babylon can get control of so much of the church, what is there to stop him from gaining control of the world? Nothing. It is a false security; a deadly false security.

Going to Egypt

But let us continue: Jeremiah 44:12-14:

“I will take away the remnant of Judah that have set their minds on entering the land of Egypt to reside there, and they will all meet their end in the land of Egypt. They will fall by the sword and meet their end by famine; both small and great will die by the sword and famine, and become a curse, an object of horror, an imprecation and a reproach. And I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt just as I did those in Jerusalem, with the sword and with famine. So there will be no refugees or survivors for the remnant of Judah who have entered the land of Egypt to reside there, and then to return to the land of Judah to which they are longing to return to live. For none will return except a few refugees.”

In the Bible going to Egypt is always a picture of backsliding. When somebody backslides and goes into the world, the Holy Spirit convicts them and tries to bring them back. In the Last Days, however, it's different; very few of those who go into the world in the Last Days will make it back out. Going back to Egypt is dangerous at any time, but in the Last Days your chances of getting back to the Lord once you leave Him are very slim. How many people, for instance, are cured of AIDS? The odds are similar; very few will make it.

They had a choice: Babylon was death and Egypt was death; the only right choice was to stay in the palm of God.

The Queen of Heaven

In Jeremiah 44:19, this is going to be a big issue in the Last Days. I will tell you what the penultimate deception is going to be, the ultimate being the Antichrist. Do you notice in the book of Revelation that when the Antichrist is spoken of, there is always the figure of a woman in the background? She is the penultimate; he is the ultimate. And here is what it will be…

“And,” said the women, “when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”

Verse 24…

“Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, "Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt: thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel - 'As for you and your wives, you have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled it with your hands, saying, "We will certainly perform our vows that we have vowed to burn sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven, and pour out libations to her." Go ahead and confirm your vows, and certainly perform your vows. Nevertheless hear the word of the LORD: All Judah who are living in the land of Egypt, behold, I have sworn by My great Name,' says the LORD, 'Never again shall My name be invoked by the mouth of any man of Judah in the land of Egypt, saying, "As the LORD lives". Behold, I am watching over them for harm, not for good, and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will meet their end by the sword and by famine until they are completely gone. And those who escape the sword will return out of the land of Egypt unto the land of Judah, once more few in number. Then all the remnant of Judah who have gone to the land of Egypt to reside there will know whose word will stand; theirs or Mine. And this will be the sign to you,' declares the LORD: 'I am going to punish you in this place so that you will know that My words will surely stand against you for harm.’”

The Queen of Heaven. The title of Pope John Paul II's book is Totos Tuam Maria, "All To You, Mary". He prays to Mary. The veneration of Mary is Biblically a form of worship. The Catholic Church doesn't call it worship, but something next to worship called “hyperdulia”. What they don't know is this: the Hebrew word for idolatry is “avodah zarah” – “to serve”. By using the terms they use they essentially admit that they are practicing idolatry, though they don't see it that way. However, if they knew what they were doing it would be if a person bows down, that is an act of worship. They take it further, showering her with flowers and fancy garments, bowing down to her and singing Ave Maria. Mary worship will grow; she is the pseudo-Christianization expressed culturally in many other cult deities. “Great is Diana of Ephesus” - remember what happened at Ephesus in the book of Acts? (Acts 19) Paul spoke against the worship of Diana and it caused a riot. When you warn against the veneration of Mary you will get an angry and violent response. She is the current expression of the Queen of Heaven to whom they will be sacrificing cakes. What began with Fatima and Lourdes, Medjugorje, Guadalupe – all over the world – will continue to grow. Mount Carmel, in Israel, has been the site of many supposed apparitions of Mary. It also happens to be the very same place where Ashtaroth, a female goddess, was worshiped in the Bible. Catholics are going to get more and more into it and you will find Protestants going along with it. Already we have Evangelical bishops marching in Walsingham, England, in a procession to Mary. This will continue to grow worse.

God says, "I will not give My glory to another."(Isa 42:8) God says, "There is one intercessor between God and man, Jesus the Righteous." (1 John 2:1) Their worship of Mary contradicts these things, among others. Understand that the thing they call “Mary” is not truly Mary; they only think it is she. Similarly, the Mormons call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – but their Jesus Christ is not the one of the Bible. Their Jesus is the half-brother of Satan. The Mary of the Catholic Church is not the Mary of Scripture. I'm not speaking against the real Mary – she was the greatest woman who ever lived. She was the mother of the Messiah but she herself proclaimed her own need of a Savior in the Magnificat, in Luke 2:47: “My. . . spirit rejoices in God my Savior”. Just as in denouncing the Mormon “Jesus” I am not denouncing the real Jesus, so in denouncing the Catholic Mary I am not denouncing the real Mary. What they have comes straight from Babylon – the pagan Queen of Heaven. As the Mary-worship grows, you will find Evangelical Protestants going along with it in increasing numbers. That will be the next trend.

What is the Bottom Line?

How does this end? You have Egypt, you have Babylon, or you have the palm of God. The obvious is, don't go to Babylon and don't think you can make peace with it. Don't go to Egypt, because if you do your chances of getting back are very slim. Don't think you can preserve your faith in the world; it won't work, just as the men from Judah who resided in Egypt could no longer call on the name of the Lord. Both ways end in death.

Expect people in discernment ministries to display arrogance; they will attack their own brethren in those circles in the way that Baruch and Jeremiah were attacked in their time. You will find people who had been leaders against the deception, just as Johanan was, turning against others in the circle. Why? Because they are going into the world. Expect it to happen.

Expect the veneration of Mary to begin growing very much larger; not only among the Catholics and the Greek Orthodox, but even among so-called Protestants, even Evangelical Protestants. Already we have Charismatic Catholics who pray in tongues to Mary. Expect this to happen.

But what's the bottom line in all of this? What about those of us who want to stay in Geruth Kimham, who are longing for Jesus to come back? What does God say to those who will not go to Egypt, who will not go to Babylon, and who will not burn incense to the Queen of Heaven?

"If you will indeed stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down. I will plant you and not uproot you."

Finally, God tells Jeremiah this in chapter 45:5…

“’But you, are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them, for behold, I am going to bring disaster on all flesh,’ declares the LORD. ‘But I will give your life to you as booty in all the places where you may go.’”

Don't expect much out of this place. I've always tried to raise my children with the following philosophy: Plan for the future, but don't plan on it.

Don't seek great things for yourself. If God gives you a great ministry, praise the Lord! But don't seek that – seek to survive. If God gives you some material success, don't let it go to your head – use it for God's glory, but don't seek it and don't pursue it. Pursue survival. How quickly can a stock market crash? How quickly can the Middle East explode into a thermonuclear holocaust? How quickly can a handful of Islamic terrorists with biological weapons wipe out half of Sydney or New York, thinking of it as jihad?

No, my friends; we will have our lives as our booty. "If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up," says God. "Don't be afraid of the king of Babylon, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand." That is His promise.

The Divine Aristocracy

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:53:29 GMT

Introduction

Let us look at a few verses in Proverbs before turning to our main text in Ecclesiastes.Proverbs 8; 6-11:

"Listen, for I shall speak noble things, and the opening of my lips will produce right things. My mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All of the utterances of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing crooked or perverted in them. They are all straightforward to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction, not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold; for wisdom is better than jewels, and all desirable things cannot compare with her."

Instruction from God, we are told, is better than silver. Knowledge of Him and of His Word is better than gold, and wisdom is better than jewels.

The world has its aristocracy; they will always look for gold, silver, jewels, annuities, investment portfolios, securities, etc. The world will look to material wealth – its aristocracy must and will have all of these things that will not matter in eternity. God says, however, that only the things that last forever are real riches. Silver, gold and jewels will not get you off the road to hell, nor will they get you into heavenly Jerusalem.

Two Aspects

There are two aspects to this: First, we often forget that “the meek shall inherit the earth”. (Math 5:5) There will be a literal millennial reign of Jesus. When that time comes, God's aristocracy will rule and reign with Christ on this planet. Then there is the second aspect, which is eternity.

One way to understand this is as follows: there are certain things in life and in Scripture that teach us now about the Millennium. For example, antediluvian man lived to be hundreds of years old, and that teaches how it will be again in the Millennium. Other experiences such as the love you feel for a beautiful newborn baby, or the thrill of looking on an unblemished landscape where pollution has not disturbed the natural environment – the best things in this life can give us a dim view of what the Millennium will be like; it will be what would have happened on this planet if Adam and Eve had not sinned. In turn, the Millennium will be used by God to teach us what heaven will be like. When Jesus reigns in Jerusalem, He will personally teach us the things of the Father. The meek will inherit the earth: God's aristocracy will take over this planet. The Jehovah's Witnesses completely corrupt this, but it is nonetheless a biblical truth.

Then there is eternity, to which the only treasures we may bring are knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. The world can and does have data; however, there is a big difference between data and knowledge. There are people who have degrees in theology from the finest universities, who know all about the Bible; yet they have no idea what the Bible is about. They have data, but no knowledge. To gain knowledge one needs understanding. One may have data, but to know what the data means requires understanding, and gaining understanding, in turn, requires wisdom. The world has its folly, which it calls wisdom, but it totally lacks true wisdom.

God's aristocracy has something better than gold, silver, and jewels. The world will always measure wealth by the things that perish, while God measures wealth by eternal, imperishable things. However, just as the world measures wealth by material riches, so also do worldly churches. The standard of a worldly church is the same as that used by the world.

As It Applies to the Church

We have an example of this in what Jesus said to the church of Laodicea:

"You say you are rich, that you have need of nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked." -Rev 3:17.

The general superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Australia wrote a book called You Need More Money, in which he claims that the fact that God has blessed his ministry financially proves him to be in good favor and standing with Him, while those who disapprove of his ministry are not blessed with material wealth and are therefore out of God's will. That is a classic example of someone using the world's standard to judge the things and the people of God. Jesus, however, tells the church of Laodicea that they, who think they are rich, are the ones who are truly impoverished. Remember: Laodicea's first problem is that it doesn't know it is Laodicea. Jesus tells them to “buy salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see” (Rev 3:18). Suburban middle-class Protestantism does not know that it's not ready for Jesus to come back. It is the faithful remnant in Laodicea who know and who buy eye salve.

Why do faithful Christians so often struggle more than worldly believers? Why do good Christians so often have more trials than do worldly Christians? Why do good, biblical churches so often struggle more than worldly churches? Because it is those whom He loves that God corrects. The others become, as it were, illegitimate children.

So we see from Scripture that Laodicea measures wealth in the same way the world does; but how does Jesus measure wealth? He tells Laodicea "You have the wealth, but you're impoverished," yet He tells the church in Smyrna this in Rev 2:9: "I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich". The name “Smyrna” is derived from the Greek word for myrrh, which was used to anoint dead bodies for burial in the ancient world. Remember that Jesus was buried with a mixture of aloes and myrrh; myrrh has to do with death. The Magi brought very significant gifts to Jesus: gold because He would be King, frankincense because He would be Priest, but then myrrh because He would die, would be a Sacrifice anointed for burial.

Which are the truly rich churches today? The rich churches are those that do not hope in this world: Christians in persecuted churches belong to the true divine aristocracy. I am not saying you must be persecuted in order to be in the aristocracy, but you must be willing to be persecuted, and if necessary, to give up material, financial position and security for the cause of the Gospel of Christ. God has His aristocracy: those who have wisdom, knowledge and understanding. These are the riches of His nobility. (The Hebrew word for “aristocracy” and “nobility” is the same.)

God's Philosophy

With this background in view, please turn to Ecclesiastes 9. You may have heard me point out that just as Proverbs is God's psychology book, so Ecclesiastes is God's philosophy text. The Greeks had Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates; the Germans had the 19th-century rationalists like Nietzsche and Hegel; the English had Hobbes and Beetham. In Hebrew Ecclesiastes is called “Kohelet”, the Preacher. God's philosophy is simply this: This world is fallen and it is futile to put trust in it; it is all vanity. If you trust it, you'll be very disappointed. Fear God and keep His commandments, trusting Him for something much better. This place is fallen.

God's philosophy stated in brief actually says, “Make the best of a bad thing”. It tells people to make the most of their youth, to make the most of their marriage, because these things are fleeting; it tells us to fear God and keep His commandments rather than put any trust in the things that are temporal. If trust is placed in this world, it leads to bitter disappointment at the very least. That is God's philosophy.

Ecclesiastes 9:1 :

"For I have taken all this into my heart to explain it, that righteous men and wise men and their deeds are in God's hand. Man does not know whether it will be love or hatred; anything awaits him. It is the same for all: There is one fate for the righteous and one for the wicked, for the good and for the clean, and for the unclean, for the man who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not offer a sacrifice. As the good man is, so is the sinner. As the swearer is, so is the one who is afraid to swear."

In the New Testament, James tells us in his epistle not to boast about tomorrow, but to say “if the Lord wills”. (James 4:13-15) This is particularly or acutely true of salvation – “now is the appointed time, today is the day of salvation”. (2 Cor 6:2) You do not know what is on the agenda; nobody knows but the Lord Himself. Yet we do know that because the world is fallen, something has happened: good people and bad people both die. The rich and the poor go to the same grave. The good people – that is, those who are justified by faith in Christ – will have the hope of the Resurrection.

However, the fact is that the rich man cannot take his wealth with him; it ends with his death. It makes no difference how high and mighty a person is: once he dies, it's all over. Once Princess Diana cashed in her chips, she was in exactly the same situation as the next person who may have been totally unknown in his lifetime here.

Our office in England is near the castle of George Harrison of the Beatles – we tried to witness to him a few times and gave him the book Death of a Guru, but it was difficult to even get him to hear us because he was so steeped in Hinduism . He died chanting Hare Krishna in Los Angeles, the newspapers tell us. Well, his castle is no longer his; he did not take it with him to Nirvana. As far as we can know, he took nothing with him into hell. It is the same for all mankind in the end.

The Contrast of Good and Bad People

Continuing in Ecclesiastes 9:3:

"This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead."

God sees the fact that both good and bad people end up dead as an evil. “The whole world lies in the power of the wicked one”. (1 John 5:19) Expect no enduring justice in this world. God can and will intervene for His purposes on behalf of His people, but don't expect much from this place.

Continuing in verse 4:

"But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion."

The reference for this would be 2 Samuel 9:8 . The most miserable, downcast born-again Christian is infinitely better off than the most successful, together unsaved person. The most depressed, basket-case excuse for a Christian is still infinitely better off than an unsaved person who has got it all together, no matter how big their investment portfolio is or how much property they own or how professionally successful they are. A sick dog is always better than a dead lion; unsaved people are dead.

Thanatology

Ecclesiastes 9:5:
"For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten."

The only reward that an unsaved person will receive is what they can get out of this world, which will be over before they know it.

What does it mean that the dead know nothing? It is amazing to me how many Christians ask me what happens when we die. Studying the subject of death in the Bible is called thanatology, from the Greek word “thanos”. (We're thinking of doing a conference on this subject.) When you die, will you go to be with the Lord, or will you go to sleep? Well, time as we know it exists only relative to us. In eternity, there is “chromos”, from which we get the word “chronology”; it means an order of events outside time. What most of us are inclined to do is to think of eternity as a clock that keeps going forever. We translate the Greek term “kairos” and the Hebrew term “olama olamin” as “forever and ever”, but their meaning is not exactly that, although it does include that. It is not a clock that continues “forever and ever”, but rather the absence of any clock at all.

The Bible talks about the deaths of Christians as sleep for two reasons: First, when you go to sleep, you wake up again. The next thing a person knows after they have fallen asleep is that they are waking up, just as Christians who have died or “fallen asleep” before Christ comes will arise at the Resurrection having been unaware of the time that passed between their earthly death and the Resurrection event. Relative to us, relative to time, those who have died in Christ are asleep and awaiting the Resurrection. They are unconscious of anything that is going on in this world.

The second reason the Bible uses the illustration of sleep is this: a person's consciousness enters a different realm while they sleep. Neurophysiologists tell us that everybody dreams. They derive this information from observing brain wave activity, eyes flickering, etc. In a dream, it is possible to talk to and be with people who are dead as if they are alive again, and it makes sense in the context of the dream. It is possible to see past events happening in the present. It is also possible to dream of future events which have not yet happened. Somehow, the past, present, and future can all be the same in a dream. You have chronos, a chronology of events, but no time.

Think of what happens to John in the book of Revelation: he enters eternity and sees the 24 elders in Revelation 4, who are the 12 patriarchs of Israel and the 12 apostles. He, of course, is one of these apostles and elders, and so sees himself in eternity. Another example from Scripture is the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world; outside of time. Scripture tells us that we are already seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Eph 2:6) – part of our problem is that we do not see ourselves from an eternal perspective, the way Ephesians describes it. We are already the aristocracy. When we die, we enter eternity, which is a different realm. Therefore, relative to the one who dies, he is with the Lord. But relative to this realm, this earth, the next thing that one will be aware of is the Resurrection.

Part of the problem with Calvinism is that they try to apply time to eternity. Because Calvinism is based on humanism , Calvinists try to figure things out intellectually which can only be comprehended intellectually to a certain point. They like to emphasize that we're predestined – well, of course, because relative to eternity every choice has already been made. Do I believe in eternal security? Yes, because we are already seated with Christ in heavenly places; in eternity it's already happening. I believe in eternal security as the Bible teaches it. But once saved always saved? No – relative to us it is a variable. Again, this is a thing we can only understand to a certain point.

In England we call American football “gridiron”; it's not so popular, though some people like it. I, however, prefer a game called rugby. So when I have to speak at a church and there's a rugby match on, I try to get someone to videotape it for me. (I do NOT like it when people tell me the scores, which has happened to me twice.) Then, when I get home, I watch the match. Relative to the players, the match is a done deal; it's over. I, however, can be just as involved in the game after the fact (as long as nobody tells me something they shouldn't) as if I were watching it in real time. Relative to me, the match is still going on and can go either way. Our relationship to time and eternity is something like that; to try explaining it any further is beyond me – that is the most the Bible tells us.

'The dead know nothing'; they are asleep. When people are asleep or comatose, they are unaware of the events around them, but that is not to say that they don't have any consciousness: their consciousness has simply entered a different realm. Those, then, are the two reasons the Bible uses sleep as an illustration of what death is like for believers.

In Memoriam

Continued in Ecclesiastes 9 verse 5b:

"For the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore shall they have a share in anything done under the sun."

So once you leave this place, it's a done deal. Verse 7:

"Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works."

Jesus said that He had meat to eat which was to do the will of the Father. Ecclesiastes is drawing there on pascal imagery, the fulfillment of which is found in the Lord's Supper, by which we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. When we take the Lord's Supper, we're remembering what Jesus did for us. It is an appetizer before the Marriage Supper of the Lamb; although the world is perishing, we can eat the bread and drink the cup with gladness, because we know where we came from – the cross and the empty tomb – and we know where we're going – Heaven. Therefore we can eat and drink with a glad heart. The Lord's Supper should really be the centerpiece of our fellowship and worship. Fellowship is important, worship is important, exposition of the Scripture is important – it is all important, but the centerpiece and the highlight should be the breaking of bread. We proclaim His death until He comes; it's where we came from and it's where we're going. It is a memorial, but it is also a prelude to the Marriage Supper.

“For God has already accepted your works”. Look, please, at 2 Timothy 1:9:

"(God) who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,"

Now, you know that in the Bible when it says “Christ Jesus”, with the Messianic title preceding His personal name, it speaks of Him in eternity. When it says “Jesus Christ”, personal name first and Messianic title second, it refers to Him on earth. God has saved us and called us: there is a difference between salvation and calling. What the New Testament really says about election has more to do with our calling than with our salvation. Just as we are already saved from eternity – to us it's a variable, but to eternity it's completed – so our works, the ministry to which God has called us, was also ordained from eternity. Before you were born, before you were born again, before the planet was even created, God ordained what He had for you to do. Now, according to Matthew 25, the magnitude of our eternal reward will depend in large measure upon whether or not we are faithful to God's calling. “God has already approved your works”. why? Because they were ordained from eternity; it has already happened. If you have the gift of evangelism, that was ordained from eternity; if you have the gift of a pastor, that was ordained from eternity. The same goes for music ministry, the gift of helps, the gift of teaching, or God's calling of a person to a third-world country as a missionary. “Eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with gladness” (Ecc. 9:7) – take the Lord's Supper with joy, because what you are doing God has already approved from eternity.

It is God's philosophy that we must see things from the eternal perspective, as Ephesians states. That is one of the barometers of spiritual growth: the older you get in Jesus, the more you should view your life from the perspective of eternity. Unsaved people have nothing to live for but fear of the grave, so they become obsessed with this life and this world. We know that God has already approved our works; so if there's a believer who by the will of the Lord is in prison for his faith, God has already approved that he will be there as a witness to his faith. He can still eat his bread and drink his wine with gladness in spite of his circumstances in this life, for he knows where he is going. We see this in Paul when he was in prison; he knew that he was in the will of God and so rejoiced.

Earthly Relationships

Let's continue in Ecclesiastes 9:8:

"Let your garments always be white, and let your head lack no oil."

The perpetually white garments point to those who wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb. The “garments of salvation”, as Isaiah calls them, or the “wedding garment” in the Gospels – let them be white all the time: live a godly life. “And let anointing be always on your head” - we should always be trying to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. When we come to church it is fairly easy to be spiritual; however, when I'm stuck on the tarmac at O'Hare Airport, about to miss a connection, my blood pressure tends to go through the ceiling! At times like those it is difficult to remember that I am still under the anointing and need to keep my garments white. When you work with an unsaved person, or persons, it is very difficult to keep your garments white and oil on your head at all times. To do this we must keep the eternal perspective.

Ecclesiastes 9:9:

"Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun."

Marriage was designed to be a blessing. Because of the fall of Man, however, there is a curse on the relationship between men and women that can be partially reversed in Christ. A godly marriage is a blessing. The Bible says to make the most of it. There are reasons to make the most of it: one of these reasons would be that it is one of the things that teach about eternity.

Again, let's go back to the sh’ma: Sh’ma Israel Adonani Eloheynu Adonai echad; "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is Oneness", Jesus said, quoting Moses. (Mark 12:29) The oneness that takes place in marital intimacy is a picture of Christ's intimacy with His bride the Church, and God's intimacy with Israel. The kind of intimacy that takes place in a godly marriage is a small hint of the intimacy that the Church will have in eternity with Christ as a corporate Bride; this is much of what the Song of Solomon is about. But the fact that it says “while your life is fleeting (or vain)”, well; no one stays young and good-looking forever. Romance can become a little difficult in your geriatric years, so make the most of it in your youth! God's philosophy of life is very practical. Christians can become so heavenly-minded that they're no earthly good. The Bible is never like that – rather, it deals with life for what it is. It deals with the realities of living in this world, while also dealing with whate are eternally, showing a balanced relationship between the two.

Making the Most of This Life

Ecclesiastes 9:10:

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going."

Again, make the most of this place. You won't be here that long, so get the most eternal value out of it that you can. It's a fallen world, but make the best of your life; don't waste it. Backsliders waste their youth and they waste their lives. In comparison with eternity, what is the 80-90 years you have on this earth? Nothing. Yet in comparison with the 80-90 years you have in this world, one year, five years, ten years – these are long stretches of that time; too much time to waste on straying away from the Lord. Backsliders are the biggest time-wasters there are; everything a backslider does is a sheer waste of time and of life because none of it is of eternal value, and they know better.

Continuing with verse 11:

"I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all."

Some Christians say they don't believe in luck. However, we see here that God does. There is certainly Providence – God can and does intervene on behalf of His people. Yet the fact of the matter is that due to the way of this world, the race is not always to the swift, nor is the victory always to the strong. (Ecc. 9:11)

The only thing a cow can do is chew grass, but boy, can that cow chew it well! You will find people often who are interested in the arts, who may be multilingual, well-educated, well-traveled, and yet they struggle financially because their interests are so diverse; they have no focus. On the other hand, there are people who are not very clever, yet they open something like a gas station, work 16-hour days and save their money, and soon have two of them. How do simple people do this? Look at immigrants who come to America from countries where there is no Judeo-Christian cultural influence and no economic opportunity, only social injustice. For example, take people from India, how they'll come to England or to America and how hard they will work to get their children an education. They very often wind up with money. I stay at a Ramada Inn in the United States at times that is owned by an immigrant from India, while the janitor's great-grandparents were born there. Why is that? Because the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong; time and chance overtake them all. Now, there are practical principles in the book of Proverbs for success, yet it holds true that time and chance play a significant role in this world.

One of the most brilliant founding fathers of the United States was William Morris of Pennsylvania. He foresaw how the state and the city of Philadelphia would develop, and got into land speculation. Every single thing he predicted would happen, did happen. Yet his timing on his investments was wrong, and he went bankrupt. He was a great visionary, and possibly America's first urbanologist. He saw the way things were going to develop, but his timing was all wrong. Sometimes people who are not too clever wind up with money while people who are very clever wind up broke – “time and chance overtake them all.” That is all the more reason not to trust in this world. If you are wealthy, maintain the attitude that you are merely God's steward and that all your wealth is truly His to do with as He sees fit. God's philosophy is that if you are rich in material things, count yourself broke, for it belongs to Jesus rather than to you. But if you are poor, without material wealth, count yourself rich because you are a co-heir with Christ. Do not trust this world; there is no justice and no guarantee of anything, although that is not to say that God cannot and will not intervene on behalf of His people.

Continuing with Ecclesiastes 9:12:

"For man also does not know his time: like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them."

The most successful businessperson in a city, who has worked hard and accumulated much wealth, is suddenly diagnosed with a pre-terminal disease. This sort of thing happens every day – people get caught in a snare. Unsaved people live it up, carry on as they please, but then die suddenly, and that is it for them.

Who Will Escape?

Now we begin to get into the aristocracy: Verses 13-18:

"This wisdom I have also seen under the sun, and it seemed great to me: There was a little city with few men in it; and a great king came against it and besieged it, and built great snares around it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that same poor man. Then I said: 'Wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard rather than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good."

Let us understand this imagery of a city: We see the same imagery of a surrounded city in the fall of Samaria, in the fall of Jerusalem in 585 B.C., and again in the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Jerusalem, of course, is a picture of Heaven in the book of Revelation. In both Hebrews and Revelation we see that earthly Jerusalem is a shadow of the heavenly Jerusalem; in fact, the writer of Hebrews calls it a copy. (Heb 12:22) The city is under siege: those who knew the way out of the siege, like Elisha during the famine and siege of his time, or Jeremiah in his time, were despised. In 70 A.D. it was the same after the martyrdom of James for the leader or senior pastor of the church in Jerusalem, a cousin of Jesus named Simeon. He was there when the Roman siege of Jerusalem that had been prophesied by Daniel and again by Jesus began. We can read about this in Eusebius and Josephus. God's people escaped from Jerusalem, both in Jeremiah's day and in 70 A.D. because they had wisdom. However, those who had wisdom were not the ones held in high esteem. Jeremiah and Simeon were looked down upon. The ones who knew how to escape were despised. In the Last Days it is the same. Remember the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 – the events of 70 A.D. prefigure the Rapture of the church. The way the believers came out of Jerusalem and were rescued is a type of the Rapture happening before the tribulation really gets bad.

Gold, silver, and jewels will not help you escape; only wisdom, knowledge and understanding will. Jesus said, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded. . .”(Luke 21:20) and those with wisdom knew how to interpret the signs. Eschatologically, all of this comes into play: the people who understand that wisdom is better than what the world calls strength are despised, and their wisdom is not heeded, just as the people didn't listen to Jeremiah or to the believers in 70 A.D.

Verse 17 again:

"The words of the wise heard in quietness are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools."

You are better off in a home Bible study with six people where Jesus is lifted up and Scripture is truly expounded than in a huge, massive church where people are rolling on the floor in hysterics, shouting, and going ape over the latest nonsense or hype. There is no wisdom in it. “The words of the wise heard in quietness are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools”. The word “fools” here is not “raca”, not a belittlement of a person's natural lack of intelligence or a mockery of someone's congenital birth defect; rather, it speaks of people who are willfully fools, who pervert their logic. Jesus told us that if we call someone a fool due to a natural lack of intelligence we are in danger of hellfire – we are never to berate people because they are not intelligent naturally. However, when those who do know better behave foolishly, the Scripture berates them in places such as Jeremiah and Ecclesiastes.

When you see churches today taking part in the errors of hyper-Pentecostalism, with the shouting and hysteria and general foolishness that goes on, that is what Scripture calls “the shouting of a ruler among fools”. You are far better off in a tiny church where there is wisdom and where the Word of God is accurately taught and explained, where someone will tell you how to escape this besieged city before it is too late.

Don't Take the Bad with the Good

Verse 18 tells us that “wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good”. I have seen this many, many times: it happens when a new church is founded, because every new work will be tested. Every time a new church is planted a lot of zeal, enthusiasm and prayer goes into it; the Lord moves and does things. But then one person comes in with his or her own agenda. That person can sink the whole ship. Sometimes it only needs one person to sow seeds of discord in a congregation and ruin it. One of the things I have learned is what the Maccabees learned: many will join us in hypocrisy in the Last Days. The fact that someone is against what you are against does not at all guarantee that they arefor what you are for.

Most of the people who will read Dave Hunt's books or listen to my tapes or read Bill Randles' books or things like this are sincere Christians. Many have been burned by crazy churches or exploited financially or something similar to that, yet they themselves are sincere, genuine Christians. However, there is a small percentage that will simply use good teachers or good churches as sounding boards for their own agendas. Give them enough time and they will fall out with you. These are not people who have righteous indignation and are standing against heresy or immorality; these are people who could not fit into any church. These are people with a rebellious spirit, who cannot accept any leadership or any commitment except on their own terms. Very small numbers of them can destroy a whole church. In a church of 200 people, 5 can cause a split. "One sinner destroys much good."

Let's continue with Ecclesiastes 10:1:

"Dead flies make the perfumer's oil stink; so a little foolishness is weightier than wisdom and honor."

There is a foolish argument which says that because a thing is not all bad it must be good. We address this in The Sons of Zadok, explaining the Greek word “parasaxousin”, meaning to put truth next to error, and looking at the word “acatharsis”, meaning a mixture of truth and error, and their uses in Scripture concerning a mixture of good and bad doctrine. When you hear someone saying, "We have to eat the meat and spit out the bones," you are hearing man's flawed wisdom. The Hebrews were forbidden to make a garment out of flax mixed with wool; God did not allow it.(Deut 22:11) A little leaven leavens the entire lump of dough. (1 Cor 5:6)This does not give us the right to find fault over every little doctrine, but it does require us to take a stand over the things that are fundamental.

Here in Ecclesiastes 10:1, however, this principle is described in a specific manner: “dead flies make the perfumer's oil stink”. Fragrances in the Bible are types of worship. Remember that Scripture calls the prayers of the saints incense, (Rev 8:4) and that when God was angry with Israel and they offered Him burnt offerings, His response was to say “I will not smell your fragrances”. (Lev 26:31) So let's say I come home from Hong Kong with a bottle of duty-free perfume as a gift for my wife, only there's a fly carcass floating in it. What would have been a nice gift is ruined by one small thing. (Interestingly, the Latin philo-genetic name for a fly is “musica domestica”, or “house music”, because of the buzzing it makes.) When the carcass of a fly begins to decompose in a bottle of perfume, its enzymes interact chemically with the perfume, and this causes it to give forth a very foul odor rather than a sweet fragrance.

Again, fragrances Scripturally refer to worship. I've been to church services where they are singing good choruses and good hymns and the Holy Spirit is moving, but then they suddenly begin to go into something unbiblical – usually something pneumo-centric, directed toward the Holy Spirit, which is unbiblical since the Holy Spirit is never prayed to in the Bible. He is only prayed to or worshiped within the context of the Trinity – He Himself always points to Jesus. Our faith is Christo-centric, not pneumo-centric. In any case, back to this church service: Ten choruses or hymns are all good, and one is wrong. But it only takes one fly to spoil the ointment. The Father wants to be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth. This idea that we have to take the good with the bad is man's flawed wisdom, not God's perfect wisdom. For saying this, I am often called “critical”. Somehow, being Biblical has now become being critical. Nonetheless, this is a scriptural truth: it doesn't take more than one fly to ruin the perfume. Something that was sweet-smelling thus becomes revolting, because death is in it.

The Chronic Sinner

Continuing with Eccelsiastes 10:2:

"A wise man's heart directs him towards the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him towards the left."

This reminds me of what Jesus said in Matthew 25 concerning the separation of sheep and goats, sheep on His right hand and goats on His left. There are some believers who are always going towards the left; always going the wrong way. I can't explain why, but it is always the same people who follow one silly trend after another piece of nonsense and get into trouble. In England, who is taking the Alpha courses? The same people who are involved in Toronto . Who is into Pensacola ? The same people who are into Promise Keepers . It's always the same people getting into weird stuff; they do it chronically.

Now, a young believer can come to Christ with a lot of baggage and get themselves into a lot of trouble. However, when you see people who chronically get into spiritual and doctrinal trouble, it's a serious thing. “A wise man's heart directs him towards the right, but a foolish man's heart directs him towards the left”.

For example: I knew a girl in England who was a lawyer. When she was in university, she would come with friends who were in the Christian fellowship on campus to some of my Bible studies in the North of England. She graduated and eventually her friends came to one of my meetings and told me they were very concerned about her because she'd gotten involved with some group that seemed on the surface to be born-again, but were actually more like a cult. This group had persuaded her to go to Chicago with them, and her friends asked me to see what was happening to her.

Several weeks later I had to be in Chicago – my wife was with me – and I found a way to contact this young woman. I had to make a deal to meet her in front of a department store because our meeting had to be surreptitious due to the extreme heavy shepherding and control this group exerted. I met her, talked with her, and took her to talk to my wife. I couldn't believe what she told me. This is an educated woman, yet this group she was in was telling people who were clean and healthy to marry people who were HIV-positive and trust the Lord to preserve their lives and health. Some of them were dying of AIDS as a result of obeying this. I took her to a mission, showed them my minister's card (this is the only reason I am ordained: so I can have a minister's license which gets me into hospitals and jails and, in my case, sometimes out of one), and got them to keep her there. I told them not to let anyone talk to her, and promised I would return the next day. Next, I called her parents (who were not saved) and told them what she was involved with. The next day, I took her to O'Hare Airport personally and put her on the plane with a stern warning that if I ever saw her there again I would do something unpleasant with my size 12-½ extra-wide boot. In any case, this girl went back to England. A while later she came to the Moriel church we planted in the South of England and told me she was in another crazy church. I saw her again several weeks ago, and she told me she'd been married to someone from that crazy church, but was now out of the church as well as separated from her husband.

There are just some Christians who are always like that, with one thing after another. Now, a young believer can come to Christ with a lot of baggage and get themselves into a lot of trouble – I understand that. I was saved out of the hippie movement, so I know what that's like. However, when you see people who chronically get into spiritual and doctrinal trouble, it's a serious thing. “A wise man's heart directs him towards the right, but a foolish man's heart directs him towards the left.”

Ungodly Rulers

Let's continue in Ecclesiastes 10 with verses 3-5:

"Even when a fool walks along the road his sense is lacking, and he demonstrates to everyone that he is a fool. If the ruler's temper rises against you, do not abandon your position, because composure allays great offenses. There is an evil I have seen under the sun, like an error which goes forth from the ruler:"

This is a ruler from whom we should not back down; an error goes forth from him. Therefore we know that this ruler is not God or of God – no error goes forth from God, and from Him we had all better back down. This, on the contrary, is a ruler we must stand up to, from whom error comes. Obviously this is the ruler of this world, the devil; however, it is also those who operate in his character. We must link this to what was in the previous chapter (remember, there are no chapter divisions in the original text), where we are told that “the words of the wise heard in quietness are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools”. Ungodly leaders of the church operate in the character of Satan. Why did Jesus call the Pharisees a generation of serpents? (Math 23:33) Because Satan was also a serpent and a beguiler.

2 Corinthians 11:13:

"For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers disguising themselves as apostles of Christ."

They try to look like the genuine article.

"And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light; therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their deeds."

Wicked leaders who come to deceive operate in the character of Satan, as Jesus describes in Matthew 23, serpents and deceivers - -or as Paul states, liars trying to look like angels of light. Do not back down from such rulers any more than you would back down from Satan himself.

Notice how these rulers operate: we are told in Ecclesiastes10:4 not to abandon our position if his temper rises. These men hate to be challenged because they cannot respond biblically. If you are being attacked for upholding God's Word there is a holy anger that may come on you like it did on Moses when he found the people worshiping the golden calf, but you will always be able to respond biblically. These wicked leaders cannot respond biblically, so instead they say things like "You have a rebellious spirit", "Don't you trust us?", or "You're divisive". The divisive man, according to /romans 16:17, is the one who departs from biblical truth. They get angry when you confront them, but do not back down from them.

People ask me everywhere what they should do about the state of their church or the attitude of their pastor. However, they are asking the wrong person. I am not the Holy Spirit, nor is any man, however godly; we must all ask Jesus what we should do in our particular situations. If you find yourself in a bad church, you either stay in and fight or stand up and leave. If God tells you to stay in and fight, that is what you must do; if He tells you to leave, then that is what you must do. If you stay and fight, however, expect to be thrown out. But whatever you do, do not stay in and pretend everything is all right. Don't back down from these guys who rant and rave or have people behaving like fools. "The shouting of a ruler among fools" – don't back down from people like that; they operate in the devil's character. False prophets are exposed and proven by their false prophecies.

Who Are the Truly Rich?

Continuing with Ecclesiastes 10:5:

"There is an evil I have seen under the sun, like an error which goes forth from the ruler: Folly is set in many exalted places, while rich men sit in humble places."

Who are the rich here? Those with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Who are the poor? Those who lack the same. Laodicea says "Blessed be the Lord, I have become rich and have need of nothing", not knowing that they are truly impoverished. Smyrna cries, "We're being persecuted!" They had nothing, but Jesus told them they were rich. Again, the meek shall inherit the earth.

Think of the Gospel in the same way you think of the novel by Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper. That book was a docu-fiction based on King Edward VI of England, son of Henry VIII. In it, Edward who was heir to the kingdom found a look-alike who by some genetic accident was the spitting image of him: a peasant boy from the streets of London. He persuaded this peasant boy to switch places with him, so the peasant began living like the prince while the prince began living like the peasant.

This teaches us a couple of things: First about Jesus – the theological term is “kenosis”, meaning that although He was God, Jesus came in human form, in the form of a servant. Jesus never once used His divine power while He lived here on earth, though He could have. He only did what He saw His Father doing. (John 5L19) Satan tried to tempt Him to use His divine power, but He refused. Jesus only did what the Father did through Him by the Holy Spirit. He came in the form of a servant, identifying with us in order to save us.

Second, this novel teaches us about the present condition of the Western church: In The Prince and the Pauper, the prince finds himself out on the street. And although he is the genuine aristocrat, the real heir and noble, his power does him no good. The pauper begins to take the game seriously: he pretends he is really the heir to be king, and in an attempt to keep himself in that position he begins doubling the guard and other similar things.

Ultimately it is straightened out, but while the pauper was playing prince, he displayed his ignorance of affairs of state. He was not groomed for a position of authority and had no understanding. For example, he did not know what the royal seal was and was using it as a nutcracker. He did not know what he was doing and that is exactly what we have today in the church: we have peasants in pulpits. They don't know what they are doing, though they are in the position of authority and most often are trying their best to safeguard their position. In fact, they will go so far as to prevent those who should have the position from getting it: all they are really about is self-preservation. Those who know what to do with power and resources, the true nobility, are in humble places. "I have seen an evil under the sun" – God calls this evil and folly: "Folly is set in exalted places while rich men sit in humble places." (Ecc. 10:6) The pastor who preaches the truth has a small church while the peasant who is churning out an endless diet of hype from his pulpit has a huge church. This is not right; God calls it evil.

Once I was watching the news in Japan right after North Korea had fired a missile over Japan and the Americans were scrambling to stop the North Koreans. Korea was a country that could not feed its people, yet found the resources to build missiles. Countries like India and Pakistan have behaved in much the same way – they cannot feed their populations, yet they attempt to acquire weapons of mass destruction while developed countries are attempting to shut them down.

To return to this news report in Japan, however, it stated that in Korea the government was distributing what it called “New Food” to the people. This “New Food” resembled green fettuccini, but was only 30% wheat; the other 70% of its makeup was leaves. The manufacturers put it through a chemical process in order to make it resemble pasta, but it actually had no nutritional value whatsoever. The cellulose content of this “New Food” was extremely high, and the digestive enzyme for the metabolism of cellulose is synthesized in the appendix. The human appendix, however, is too small to enable us to digest cellulose, though animals such as rabbits are able to because of their relatively large appendixes. The result was that the people who ate the “New Food” became bloated: it gave them the sensation of fullness, of having eaten food, yet they were in reality dying of malnutrition. This is a precise parallel to what is served in many churches today: “New Food”. What the people are fed has no nutritional value, yet because it creates a false sensation of fullness they don't know they're starving to death. All the false prophecy, verses taken out of their proper context, hype artistry, pop-psychology and God knows what else is “New Food”.

Peasants, you see, can only give out peasant food. "Folly is set in exalted places, while rich men sit in humble places." The people who have true wisdom and understanding tend to be found in the smaller churches, although there are exceptions.

There Is No Wisdom

Continuing in verse 7 of Ecclesiastes 10:

"I have seen slaves riding on horses,"

The word “slaves” here in Hebrew is “avedim”, the same word used for the Hebrews in Egypt. Slaves are figures of unsaved people; their lives are spent making bricks for Pharaoh. The New Testament tells us that a man is enslaved by that which overcomes him. Unsaved people are enslaved to their sin, but we who know the Lord and follow Him have been set free and delivered from Egypt.

". . . and princes walking like slaves on the ground."

Today we see people who are enslaved to their passions and desires, riding in limousines, driving BMW's, and generally living the high life while the real aristocracy tries to get by with Fords. The aristocrat lives like a peasant, the peasant lives like a noble, and God says that this is an evil under the sun.

Verse 8:

"He who digs a pit may fall into it, and a serpent may bite him who breaks through a wall. He who quarries stones may be hurt by them, and he who splits logs may be endangered by them. If the axe is dull and he does not sharpen its edge, he must exert more strength. Wisdom has the advantage of giving success."

In 1 Peter 2:5 we see that the house we build is the church and we are the living stones of the Temple. We explain in our Typology of the Temple teaching how this works: we are the stones of the Temple; its components are figures of different Christians.

When you chopped logs in the ancient world you used an axe; but if the blade was dull, it took more energy and force to chop the logs – it would not cut smoothly or easily and you would also have projectiles flying in your face as it splintered. Remember the Old Testament story of how the axe-head floated: he had the axe handle, but because it had no blade, or in other words because there was no wisdom, it was ineffective and even unusable.

Notice how many churches today go from one program to the next, trying to build something. Yet what is built is shabby: the stones are not evenly cut, and nothing fits together properly. You are better off in a church of 100 people that is solid and well-built than in one of these huge things that fall to bits at a breath of wind. For example, what happened to the church in Pensacola , Florida that was headquarters of the famous so-called revival? It split. What's left of Toronto , where a similar false revival was held? Practically nothing. The one in England was Sunderland; it is now a small group meeting in a hotel. They crumble, because the stones were never fitted together. There was much energy, exertion and hype put into these movements, but they came to nothing. Why? Because the head of the axe is dull – there is no wisdom.

Where's the Discernment?

Continuing in verse 11:

"If the serpent bites before being charmed, there is no profit for the charmer."

Remember, the serpent beguiled the woman; Satan is a deceiver. I have a photo of myself in India attempting to charm a serpent. I played the flute, opening with a rendition of Blue Suede Shoes. The snake seemed to take exception to this and became cantankerous, so I switched to Amazing Grace in order to calm it down. A serpent can kill you; spiritual seduction is deadly. Where is discernment? If you don't know how to charm the serpent, it will bite you. In America, they really only have one very dangerous rattlesnake in the Southwest and then they have a cottonmouth. These are tame garden snakes in comparison with some I have seen in Australia and Africa or in Israel. America really doesn't have bad snakes.

These churches with an emphasis on experientialism talk very much about the gifts of the Spirit; so where is their gift of discernment? Why are they unable to charm the serpent? They are fooling around with a powerful enemy which has the potential to kill with its bite; snakes are known to burrow into houses, into the walls unnoticed. Spiritual seduction operates in the same manner. "If the serpent bites before being charmed, there is no profit for the charmer." It's too late to charm a snake after it has done the damage it is capable of; the flock must be protected ahead of time.

Ecclesiastes 10:12:

"Words from the mouth of a wise man are gracious, while the lips of a fool consume him. The beginning of his talking is folly, and the end of it is wicked madness."

Compare this with what we read in chapter 9:3:

"The hearts of the sons of men are filled with evil and insanity."

The end of his speech is “wicked madness”; more than simply madness, it is wicked madness. For a good example of this, watch our video of Rodney Howard-Browne and Kenneth Copeland . When Mr. Howard-Browne begins talking, his words are foolishness; he talks nonsense. Yet the end of it is exactly what the Scripture describes: wicked madness. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control, not the wicked madness that these people were led into by those men. It was actually demonic. You have to be out of your mind to do the things these people will do. The only unsaved people I have ever seen who will participate in the kinds of things so-called Christian people were doing in Pensacola , Toronto , and the imitators of such places, were Hindus practicing Kundalini yoga –“Kundalini” meaning “serpent spirit” - and headhunters in Indonesia. In England we have many believers from India, former Hindus and Sikhs who came to Jesus. When we showed the videos of Toronto and Pensacola behavior to the Indian pastors who'd come out of Hinduism they immediately identified it as Kundalini yoga, a practice they had been delivered out of by Jesus. “Wicked madness”. When they speak, it begins foolishly, with no doctrine given or exposition of God's Word; it inevitably ends in wicked madness.

Verse 14 of chapter 10:

"Yet the fool multiplies words. No man knows what will happen; who can tell what will come after him? The toil of a fool so wearies him that he does not even know how to go to the city!"

Do we realize what this means? What is the city? Jerusalem, or Heaven, drawing from Revelation 21. These people reach the point where they don't even know how to be saved. Jack Deere of the Vineyard movement could not explain the Gospel. In England, a poll was performed of 200 people who had taken Alpha courses; of these 200, four could explain the Gospel in New Testament terms – justification by faith, salvation by grace, etc. - 4 out of 200 knew what the Gospel was. They don't even know the way to the city. Today's Charismatic movement is composed largely of people who were never even saved, particularly since Wimber taught his “cheap grace” doctrine, because the Gospel is not even explained to people any more. They don't know the way to the city, and this is very frightening.

Peasant Rulers

Verse 16:

"Woe to you, O land, whose king is a lad and whose princes feast in the morning. But blessed are you, O land, whose king is of nobility and whose princes eat at the appropriate time, for strength and not for drunkenness."

We are now talking about the aristocracy, the nobility. “Blessed are you, O land, whose king is of nobility” – what is nobility? Wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. But cursed is the land whose prince is a youth, “whose king is a lad and whose princes feast in the morning”. To realize what this means we must keep in mind Paul's warning not to appoint a new convert as a leader in the church. Whenever I hear of someone who has been saved for one or two years and is already attending or thinking of attending seminary, my first question is, “What for?” Those who profit from theological seminary training are those who have already been operating in ministry and know their gifts. A scholarly education in academic theology is an asset to someone who already has that ministry and that gift, but it will not impart that ministry or that gift to one who has not been given it by God.

Now, God does not count youth biologically; rather, He counts youth spiritually. You may have someone who grew up in a believing family, who perhaps became saved at the age of 6 or so, and by the time he's 25 that man is no longer a youth. He may be spiritually and emotionally quite capable of coming into leadership. On the other hand, you may have someone who is 60 years old and newly saved who in God's sight is a youth. The Scripture therefore is not speaking of biological youth, but of spiritual youth. "Woe to you whose king is a lad". When you see young believers put into positions of leadership, look out, because you will certainly have a problem. Paul says they will be swollen with conceit.

And yet, “blessed are you, O land, whose king is of the nobility and whose princes eat at the appropriate time, for strength and not drunkenness.” This refers exactly to Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse. Let's look at that, beginning in verse 45:

"'Who, then, is the faithful and sensible servant whom his master put in charge of his household, to give them the proper food at the proper time. Blessed is that slave, whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions'"…

(This alludes to the Millennium.)

…"'but if that evil servant says in his heart, "My master is not coming", and shall begin to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards,'"

Beating the fellow slaves is Nicolaitanism, or heavy shepherding as seen in Ezekiel 44. Jesus hated this. Heavy shepherding is done by control freaks and of course goes hand-in-hand with financial exploitation and many other evils. But let us look at what happens: as we saw in Ecclesiastes, when the king and the princes are of the nobility they eat for strength and not for drunkenness. Being “drunk in the Spirit” is a very popular thing with those who are into the Toronto and Pensacola types of movements. If we look at Joel chapter 1, we read “awake, ye drunkards”; three times in Peter's first epistle, he says “be sober in spirit”, not drunk. (1 Peter 1:13, 4:7, 5:8) In this light, we may understand better how demonic the doctrines and practices of Rodney Howard-Browne , Kenneth Copeland , and the others like them truly are. Drunkenness is one of the specific seductions of the Last Days.

They are peasant rulers; God's rulers are of the nobility. These peasant rulers may have all the gold, silver and jewels now, but that will certainly be corrected in the Millennium, and they will never possess the real treasures of wisdom, knowledge and understanding. They will never know how to get people out of the city when it is under siege, or charm the serpent before it bites. They are peasants, and how can a peasant know how to run an economy?

In England and in the USA there are lotteries. A study was done and published in a serious newspaper which showed that most of the people who gamble are working-class, or blue-collar people, who are usually less educated. There is nothing wrong with being blue-collar or less educated, but it is a fact that most of the people who gamble are. When these people won the lottery, most of them were broke within ten years. They were swimming in money, but lacked the education to manage and invest it properly. Giving a peasant money is wrong and unwise; first they should be taught to manage it.

Continuing in Ecclesiastes 10:18:

"Because of laziness the building decays, and through idleness of hands the house leaks."

Remember that Laodicea is lukewarm; it is lax and lazy, so it eventually caves in.

Verse 19:

"Men prepare a meal for enjoyment, and wine makes life merry; but money is an answer to everything."

Practically, money does solve problems; however, the wrong people usually seem to have it. We must remember verse 7, “peasants ride on horses while princes walk like slaves”; God has provided all of the money and resource that the Body of Christ needs for God's work, but it has been misallocated. The peasants have pilfered the treasury. One of the reasons we have TBN, Hinn and Copeland is that it is Satan's way of taking the money that should be going into missions and evangelism and squandering it on nonsense.

Verse 20:
"Furthermore, in your bedchamber do not curse the king"

-- remember, we are all kings, with Christ as the King of kings –

"and in your sleeping-room do not curse a rich man, for a bird of the heavens will carry the sound and a winged creature will make the matter known."

Ultimately this points to God, of course, and yes, we must be careful what we think or say about God. However, this also means that when peasants say things about you, you will know about it. They are just peasants: people who do not have wisdom, understanding, or knowledge of God's Word. They are not the nobility. Again, as Jesus said to the Laodicean church: “You say you are rich and have need of nothing, not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.” Yet the church of Smyrna, persecuted and materially poor, Jesus called rich; they were the nobility. Gold, silver and jewels will not get you out of the besieged city, nor will they get you into the eternal city. The church of today, Laodicea, does not know the way to that heavenly city.

We Will See Who Is Rich and Who Is Poor

God calls it an evil that princes walk while slaves ride in BMWs. Wisdom is better than material wealth; and “the words of the wise heard in quietness are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools.” You are always better off in a small church that teaches the truth than in a large one that feeds on hype. The serpent will bite these peasant rulers; their structure will spiritually cave in. Yet God has a nobility: He does not call His people to be peasants; He has an aristocracy. As in the story of The Prince and the Pauper, we may not be in practical possession of the treasures yet, but they belong ultimately to the faithful: the meek shall inherit the earth. The way it is now is an evil; but it is an evil that will be corrected by God.

Those who are in control for now are peasants, without wisdom, understanding, or knowledge; but God does have a nobility. Sometimes for now the princes walk instead of ride; sometimes the nobility is in the small church rather than the big one. You are more likely to find the rich man sitting in a humble place, while the peasant sits in the exalted place. You are more likely to find the rich man walking while the peasant rides in a limo; but the noble is still a noble and the peasant is still a peasant. The peasant knows he is a peasant, though he may successfully delude himself with his false riches for a time. A peasant can be nothing other than a peasant, and a noble can be nothing other than a noble. When the city is under siege, then we will discover who is rich and who is poor. When persecution and opposition come, the nobility and peasantry are revealed for whom they really are. When the serpent bites, it is clear who's who.

“Woe to you, O land, whose king is a lad and whose princes feast in the morning; but blessed are you, O land, whose king is of the nobility and whose princes eat at the appropriate time, for strength and not for drunkenness.”

The Lord does not call you to be a peasant. Our Ruler is a noble King and He has given you blue blood. He has called you to be in His aristocracy. He wants you to claim your treasure. It is waiting for you – you are entitled to it because He has bequeathed it. He has told us what to do: go after the wealth – don't be a peasant. Gain control of the wealth that is yours, and let the peasants have what perishes. To you the Lord would say, “Take My instruction, and not silver. Take knowledge of Me and of My Word rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than jewels, and all desirable things cannot compare with her.”

You are of the nobility. You are of the aristocracy, though it may not be evident yet. The time is coming, however, when all will see who is rich and who is poor.

The Death of Reason and the Return of Jesus

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:51:31 GMT

Introduction

Political Correctness has gone mad in the secular world and has overtaken most of the Evangelical Church. Biblically, blindness is one thing, but willful blindness is quite another. Due to this suspension of reason, the stage is being set for Jesus' warning that "For this reason" He will come at an hour when He is not expected.

For God has not given us a spirit of timidity but of power and love and discipline. (2 Timothy 1:7)

In this verse we see it is not of the Holy Spirit to be cowardly. The context of the passage suggests a willingness to suffer for the sake of proclaiming Christ (as Paul did), for upholding sound teaching and having no sense of ignominy in this proclamation and upholding (verses 8-14). If God's Spirit is infusing our spirits with the true character of Christ it will be evident in a power to proclaim Christ and uphold right doctrine, and in a love that furnishes us a desire to do it.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you. (2 Tmothy 1:8-14)

In this text, Paul directly and strongly relates this to the Last Days and the Return of Christ (verse 12). This contrasts with many situations in these Last Days where cowardice in the church results in a lack of love so that evangelism is either abandoned (e.g. Ebenezer Fund) or where the gospel presentation is diluted (e.g. Nicky Gumbel's Alpha Courses), and where the upholding of truth is compromised. Contrary to the will of God expressed for us in the text and as demonstrated in the apostolic example of Paul, many Christians today find a sense of ignominy in proclaiming Jesus as the only Way of salvation in an age of interfaith and ecumenism.

The third element of the new spirit God gives us is discipline, or "sound mind". The Greek term here is “sophronismou”. This term means “sound judgment” resulting in the capacity to control one's behavior accordingly. The "soph" prefix of this term carries the meaning of wisdom in Greek. (When linked to the Greek word for human love it forms our English word “philosophy”). It is almost the same as the Greek word sophoi, meaning "wise ones", those with an informed ability to reason logically. Sophoi is also a Greek translation of the Hebrew "wise ones" or chakamim—those possessing the divine wisdom mentioned repeatedly in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes that governs their actions. It is not however the same Greek term for “self-control” (ekreitei) as in the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, (although by definition it relates to it) but sophronismou is rather a spiritual nature resulting in the mental ability to think and act logically and reasonably with wisdom in accordance with God's Word.

Where it is lacking, real power and real love are also in deficient supply, but cowardice is not. Bearing in mind the eschatological (end times) emphasis Paul injects, let us examine, in light of this passage, the erosion of this “sound judgment” which, on the basis of God's Word, should be reflected in sound action.

The Current State of Affairs

The Body of Christ can never stop the world from being the world. Once the true Church fails to be salt and light, however, the world will only become more worldly. Once we go beyond this and the true Church becomes like the world, it can no longer be considered the true Church.

Secular society in the Western world is no longer secular but has a new spirituality (which is actually the old Gnosticism that threatened the early church in new packaging) called "New Age", which is essentially modified Hinduism, Buddhism, Shamanism and mysticism. From the Fourth Dimension heresy of Yonggi Cho to the Paradigm Shift of the late John Wimber and his ecumenical Vineyard Movement that has so influenced Sandy Miller, David Pytches, Nicky Gumbel and British Restorationism, the New Age Neo-Gnosticism is now the experiential theology of the British Charismatic Movement. So too, in recent years, we witnessed the Kundalini Yoga of John Arnott, Rodney Howard-Browne and John Kilpatrick that deceived most of both Elim and the Assemblies of God. This did not begin with Peter Wagner or the Kansas City Prophets, however neither did it begin with Wimber or Arnott, nor even with William Branham or E W Kenyon, the harbingers of Copeland, Hagan, Hinn etc.

This is the third time that Eastern religion has invaded and seduced Western Christendom. The first time was during the Pre-Nicean church in the era of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Basilides and Valentinus, whose Gnosticism in the form of perverted hermeneutics (style of biblical interpretation) was imported into the West by the Neo-Platonist Augustine of Hippo, the hero of John Calvin but also the chief doctrinal architect of Roman Catholicism. The second time was when the Crusades imported the influence of Islam and Hinduism into Western European Christendom before the Renaissance. The rosary beads, hideously attributed to the Virgin Mary via Dominic (the founder of the Dominican Order responsible for the torture and murder of perhaps half a million people in the Catholic inquisitions, whom the Roman church considers a canonized saint), in fact originated from the Vishnu prayer beads of the Hindu world, brought from the East by the Crusades and spice traders. Today, however, is the third time Eastern religion has invaded the evangelical church of the West. Because the Charismatic Movement had no biblical doctrine but its theology was largely experiential and mystical in orientation, it was inevitable that it would take its so-called doctrine from Eastern mysticism instead of from the Word of God.

This is not to deny a biblical understanding of charismatic gifts of the Spirit, or a genuinely scriptural understanding of Pentecostalism. Cessationism (the belief that gifts of the Spirit ended with the first century Apostles) is itself a wrong doctrine, originating in its current form with B. B. Warfield, but having roots in some of the Reformers, who were reacting against the bogus miracles of medieval Catholicism. Cessationism was not believed by Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitfield or D. L. Moody any more than Toronto or Pensacola were believed by the saner generation of earlier Pentecostals.

This sad saga, however, is long established and Moriel's readers are already well aware of both the errors of Cessationism on one extreme, and the bogus counterfeits of hyper-Pentecostalism and charismania on the other. But the yet newer wave of deception has not been the New Age beliefs. The newer wave of deception has rather followed on the heels of this existing deception in the form of the political correctness of secular society entering the Church.

Suspending Common Sense

To an academic, "criticism" simply means the scholarly study of something. It does not mean "fault-finding". It simply means literary criticism as in the critical examination of something in order to understand it intellectually. In the media, "criticism" simply means to review a book, a play or a film. In The Word of God, the Greek word kritikos means to judge something spiritually according to the Bible (Hebrews 4:12). It is related to the Greek word diakrino, meaning to investigate something (such as a prophecy, for instance) on the basis of Scripture in order to discern whether or not it is of God (1 Corinthians 14:29). Understood biblically, Christians are directly commanded to "be critical" by the Word of God. What the academic world, the theatrical world or even the Word of God means by "critical", and what the term "critical" means in an era of political correctness and in a politically correct church are two entirely different things.

Being critical becomes redefined as mere fault finding or contention. Sadly, we currently have an entire generation of mainly charismatic and Pentecostal Christians who have never been to a proper Bible study in terms of exegesis of Scripture (didaskein—Greek), nor heard a proper sermon in terms of expository preaching (homilea—Greek). The exposition of Scripture is replaced by psycho-babble, anecdotes, verses out of context and, too often, just plain hype and con-artistry. Since such people never had actual pastors in the biblical sense of shepherds who feed the sheep, they die slowly of malnutrition, eating straw instead of grain (Jeremiah 23:28) and have no grasp of the biblical doctrine that Paul says is essential to Christian growth and health (Titus 2:1). Consequently, they wind up believing anything, including the very deceptions we are warned would come in the last days (2 Timothy 4: 3-5). They accuse those who follow the command of the Lord (1 Timothy 1:3) in condemning unbiblical doctrines, of being unloving and divisive. The modern state of affairs has become one where such people simply do not know any better and do not understand that it is rather those who depart from the teachings of Scripture who are divisive (Romans 16:17), not those who will attempt to protect the Body from such deception.

When someone is really starving, they will eat anything set before them, including toxins which will make them ill, but their condition is compounded by the prolonged lack of nutriment, resulting in a failure of the immune system, so they will not have the means to identify and counteract infectious invasions.

It is like a charlatan on the old American frontier, pedaling snake oil as a miracle cure that makes those who consume it ill, but his living depends on them continuing to consume it, so he warns his customers to avoid a legitimate physician as a bad and dangerous person. This is precisely what we see today, for example, in the attacks of Robert Schuler, W. De Artega, and Wynne Lewis against Dave Hunt. The message is always the same: what the Bible calls being discerning now becomes the sin of being negative or critical which, when examined biblically, is not sin but virtue. If we accept such a perverted definition of being critical it would mean that the Hebrew prophets, the Apostles and, for all of their faults and mistakes, even the Church Fathers and Reformers should never have been used by the Lord to say, write and act as they did, but instead should have allowed the mystery of iniquity and demonic deception to destroy the true Church for the sake of some unbiblical definition of "unity", contrary to the true unity of the Spirit, which demands a basis in doctrinal truth (John 17:17-23) in order to be united in Christ.

Once the critical faculty is suspended, reason is automatically assassinated. People engage in every form of circumlocution and spin leading to what amounts to plain stupidity.

Homosexuality & Lesbianism

Let us, first of all, see this trend in secular society, before we begin to understand how it infiltrates the Church.

As one example, we are, in today's world, supposed to ignore the fact that in the animal kingdom penetrative same-sex relationships do not exist among any other primate species. We are supposed to ignore the fact that same-sex relationships cannot reproduce; but since homosexuals are unable to have children they demand children of others by proxy, claiming equal rights of adoption and access to surrogate motherhood to bring children up as homosexuals in homosexual relationships. We are expected to ignore the fact that a homosexual and lesbian minority demand the right to impose their will on a heterosexual majority, insisting that heterosexuals have their children taught, in tax-funded schools, that homosexuality is as normal as heterosexuality and that children, often from dysfunctional family backgrounds, must discover their own sexuality on the basis of this presupposition. Social policies on everything, from education to same-sex marriage rights, are demanded (increasingly as well as affirmative action policies in favor of homosexuals) while we are expected to ignore the scientific fact that, zoologically, homosexuality among humans is unnatural.

We are expected, for the sake of political correctness, to ignore the medical evidence that among practicing homosexuals, average life expectancy may become reduced by as much as 25 years. We are expected to ignore the medical statistics that homosexuals are more inclined to suffer dozens of maladies and kinds of trauma than non-homosexuals and, in the developed world, are statistically thousands of times more prone to HIV infection. We are expected to ignore psychological studies, some of which indicate that partner abuse is far more widespread in same-sex relationships than in heterosexual marriages, and that substance abuse is often considerably more prevalent amongst homosexuals.

We are also expected to deny in our understanding of the homosexual and lesbian psychology that nearly all homosexual males lacked a positive father image, just as most lesbians lacked a wholesome mother image. Instead, we are expected to pretend that there is some conclusive scientific evidence that people are born with that orientation when, in fact, genetically none exists.

If we raise the issue of the scientific, medical and social evidence concerning the abnormal nature of homosexuality or the detrimental impact it has on longevity, we are considered to be homophobic. (The fact that homosexuals are very often heterophobic does not, of course, factor into the equation). In other words, in a politically correct environment, we are expected to turn a blind eye to reality and to behave irrationally in our consideration of homosexuality and lesbianism. Reason becomes the enemy of social harmony.

Several years ago I believed myself led of the Lord to warn that the compromise among Anglicans, Methodists and Reformed churches on the issue of homosexuality and the clergy would soon become an issue among Pentecostals. Those who faulted Jim Bakker for his ecumenism, money preaching, extravagance and heresy were portrayed as evil and "touching God's anointed", (a pathetic distortion of the story of David and Saul at Ein Gedi). In the aftermath of Bakker's public fall and being sent to prison for his criminal activities, his homosexuality was revealed by former associates. Just as an Elim superintendent in the North of England was found to have engaged in homosexual activity, now Roberts Liardon, the American counterpart and friend of Elim's Colin Dye, has been found to be a practicing homosexual. Yet those who had been warning about Liardon for years were the ones who were condemned. Heresy is very frequently a symptom of immorality!

Islam

We see an equal abrogation of sane thinking in the popular disposition towards the Islamic religion. Political correctness states that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. History and current events show the diametric opposite to be the case. Yet in the aftermath of September 11th, Tony Blair and George Bush Junior, rush before the TV cameras to insist that Islam is a religion of “peace and tolerance”.

We are expected to ignore the fact that thousands of Muslims demonstrated in Trafalgar Square against the institution of democracy, demanding that Britain adopt the feudal Islamic form of government. We are expected to forget that Muslim history supports the contentions of Osama bin Laden that his is the true Islam and that Muslims not agreeing with terrorism and murder have apostatized from true Islam. Abu Bakir (father-in-law of Mohammed) contended on behalf of Mohammed that the only assurance of salvation was to be a shaheed—a Muslim who dies killing infidels in a jihad becomes a martyr.

We are expected to forget that Islam admits that Mohammed was a filthy pedophile who married a 6 year-old girl Aisha, and took her virginity when she was the age of 9. We are expected to forget that 70-80 year old Saudi men were exposed on prime time American TV buying little girls from impoverished families in India, justifying it on the basis of the fact that their prophet Mohammed was a pedophile. Islam is still, we are expected to believe, a civilized religion.

We are expected to ignore the fact that even small Christian girls, abducted in Muslim societies, are forcibly subjected to clitorectomy (female circumcision), often performed on queues of them with the same rusty razor blade under dangerously septic conditions in the name of the faith of the Quran.

We are similarly expected to ignore the fact that 1,000 British girls a year are taken to Islamic countries and forced to become one of the four wives of people they have never met, often not infrequently blood relatives as old as 60 years of age. Islam, we are told, is a moral religion and such practices, we are expected to believe, have nothing to do with Islam. Who, other than Muslims, religiously engage in such disgusting abuses of human rights?

If Islam is a civilized faith of justice and virtue, where is the justice in the feudalism of nearly the entire Islamic world? Where is the justice and virtue in a religion that allows pedophilia in imitation of its founding prophet, polygamy and the oppression of women, and even slavery? If Islam is the faith of tolerance (as Bush, Blair and their Muslim acquaintances insist), where does tolerance exist anywhere in the Muslim world? The answer, of course, is that it exists nowhere in the Muslim world.

If Islam is a faith of peace, as the politically correct media continually misrepresents it as being, why are there three times as many armed conflicts in the world involving Islam today as there are all of the other religious people groups in the world put together? Once more, the White House, Number 10, and CNN expect us to relegate common sense to the status of prejudice, in a new worldview designed to facilitate a New World Order (a term first coined by Bush Sr.) where reason becomes unreasonable.

In this "new think", we are expected to believe that neither Lockerbie nor September 11th nor the assassination of Robert Kennedy nor the suicide bombing of American embassies nor the endless stream of Islamic outrages perpetrated against the nation Israel had anything to do with Islam. Who did such things? Was it the Quakers? Now a Byron, California school system is requiring 7th Grade students to take courses in Islam. One thing we may be certain that the syllabus will not contain, however, is the fact that no place in the Muslim world would courses on Christianity be allowed, let alone required as mandatory curriculum. Such an absence of reason means that Islam will not have to destroy the West with jihad, the West has become far too adept at destroying itself.

We are expected to believe that, as was demonstrated by the involvement of senior Bush administration officials with Enron, and the fact that Bush and Cheney are owned and operated by Texas oil interests has nothing to do with their unwillingness to stand up to the House of Saud and the Wahhabi sect of Islam in Saudi Arabia, which decapitates Christians and finances Islamic extremism globally.

We are expected to forget that Bush's father was vice-president of an administration that supplied weapons to the Islamic terrorist government of Iran, and then denied it. We are expected to forget that, as a former CIA Director, Bush Senior saw American commandos training Gadhafi’s terrorists in Libya, and as President he left Saddam Hussein in power and now the disgraceful Bush legacy of Islamic appeasement is perpetuated by his son, who appeared on TV after September 11th singing the praises of Islam at an Islamic institution in Washington and allowing the U. S. postal service to issue a stamp commemorating Ramadan. Islam is a religion which interprets kindness as weakness and by calling for a Palestinian state in the aftermath of September 11th, the only signal Bush's attitude is to Islam is "terrorism works, we are winning the jihad, allah is giving us the victory, America is making concessions out of fear." We are expected to pretend that none of this has anything to do with the politics of Arab oil and the economics of petro-dollars recycled through the banks of London and New York.

We are expected to forget that 18 months prior to September 11th Vladimir Putin warned Tony Blair that the Islamic terrorism he was fighting in Chechnya would soon arrive in the West and that the Western position towards Serbia, who was fighting the Islamic Kosovo Liberation Army, backed by Al Qaeda, was unbalanced. Blair and Clinton intervened militarily on the side of the Muslims in defiance of the NATO treaty, which only allows intervention when a NATO country is attacked.

We are also expected to forget that prior to September 11th the Israeli Government had repeatedly warned the White House that the Islamic terrorism they live with would soon become a reality in the American mainland, whilst Bush held a Ramadan celebration in the White House!

We are expected to believe it despite the fact that in one poll 40% of British Muslims and more than 90% of Saudi Arabian professionals expressed support for bin Laden. We are expected to forget that British TV broadcasted well-educated Pakistanis at one of Pakistan's most elite private schools regretting only that Bin Laden did not kill more people. Instead of protecting British and American citizens, Blair and Bush reject the clear need for the mass deportation of Muslims not holding British or American citizenship and the closure of mosques funded by militantly orientated Islamic interests and governments but would rather leave their own citizens at risk of further terrorism. "Islam", the politicians tell us "is a religion of tolerance and peace that believes in justice"—something only an imbecile could possibly believe.

In being expected to believe that Islam is a peaceable, tolerant and just religion, we are expected to suspend our powers of reason and to ignore the irrefutable fact that there is not a single Muslim country in the world that is an authentic democracy and that there is not a single Islamic country in the world where Christians are not persecuted. Our politicians expect us to believe their rhetoric and to accept at face value the propaganda of Muslims living in the West, that their religion is not one of hostility towards the West nor towards the Judeo-Christian faith, despite the fact that while the Saudi Arabians fund the construction of mosques all over Britain, America and elsewhere, these same heathen savages, who decapitate people for becoming Christians, will not allow the construction of a single church in Saudi Arabia. These are clear facts the Blair Government and the Bush White House expect us all to ignore.

We are expected to forget the 200,000 Christian refugees in East Timor—Islam is a religion of “peace and tolerance”.

We are expected to forget the 50,000 murdered in the Southern Philippines—Islam is a religion of 'peace and tolerance.'

We are expected to forget the World Trade Centre, Lockerbie and the Pentagon—Islam is a religion of “peace and tolerance”.

We are expected to forget the Saudis hanging a 15 year-old boy for his Christian faith while their country is under the strategic protection of America and Britain—Islam is a religion of “peace and tolerance”.

We are expected to forget thousands upon thousands of Muslim barbarians rioting in the streets of Britain's cities, demanding the murder of Salmon Rushdie, a British citizen, for authoring a book they didn't like—Islam is a religion of “peace and tolerance”.

We are expected to forget the Islamic genocide in the Sudan and the church burning in Nigeria—Islam is a religion of “peace and tolerance”.
We are expected, by the BBC, CNN, the British and American governments and the Anglican Bishop of Wales (who like Desmond Tutu favors homosexual and lesbian ordination) to ignore the fact that the heathen pedophile faith of Islam, based on murder, terrorism, hatred of Jews, and the decapitation of Christians divides the world into two camps: “Dar al Islam” (the world of Islam) and “Dar al Harb” (the world of the sword).
If you do not ignore factual reality and refuse to live in the fantasy world of political correctness created by the media, politicians, and spiritually and morally dead churches, you are the one who is somehow daft, morally deficient, and detached from reality!

Political correctness has indeed gone mad and reason is a casualty of a misguided sense of what brotherhood and equality actually are. Now we are expected to further ignore the absolute and incontrovertible fact that in their own backward countries, Muslims uniformly deny to others the same rights and privileges they aggressively demand from Great Britain, the USA and other more civilized nations.

Social Welfare & Euro-Federalism

When the British Welfare State was formulated by Sir William Beveridge in the aftermath of the Second World War, a single parent family was a war widow with children whose husband and father was killed, either in the Blitz, or the forces or Merchant Navy in the struggle against the Nazis, the fascists or the imperial Japanese.

The sense then was that the tax payer and the Government had a moral obligation to help these war widows and orphans whose breadwinner was killed in the war. Now a single parent family may be a young mother with 4 or 5 different children from 3 different drunken yobbo football hooligans whom the taxpayer is expected to support in addition to his or her own children. Everyone knows this to be true. Everyone knows this to be an injustice and an inequality, and everyone knows this was not why the Welfare State was established. But we are expected to forget this. We are expected to pretend that these single mothers and absentee fathers are the victims, instead of the working taxpayers.

There is not an economist or banker in the world who does not realize that once a nation loses control of its money supply its government becomes irrelevant. Once a nation loses control of its capacity to control its economic destiny it automatically forfeits its capacity to control its political destiny. As we see Daniel's prophecies fast taking shape in the confederation of a non-democratic Europe with an ecumenical/inter-faith religious establishment, the British Government has lifted control of the nation's monetary system out of the realm of voter accountability and placed it into the hands of the Bank of England, restructured along the anti-democratic lines of the American Federal Reserve System, as a stepping stone to junking the pound sterling. We are expected to ignore the fact that the future of British government will not be British but European, and will not be democratic but bureaucratic.

We are expected to forget that in the last federal Europe, the Germans dominated the Holy Roman Empire in league with the papacy and we are expected to forget what that meant and what it will certainly mean again. As Romano Prodi said, the Euro was not an economic move, but a political one. The European Common Market was the direct result of the Second World War. Thanks to the Europhiles of all major British political parties, contrary to popular myth, Germany won the War.

As the European agenda is propagated in the school systems, Britons are supposed to forget their history. They are expected to not have their children taught the truth, that it was the desire to be free from the scourge of Roman Catholic heresy and its blood butchering papacy and its murdering Jesuit henchmen from the 16th and 17th centuries onward, and that it was the ambition to pioneer the parliamentary democracy which Rome opposed, and gun powder plotting Roman Catholics like Guy Faulks tried to destroy that united the United Kingdom.

The Scots are expected to forget that it was the pro-papal agenda of Bonnie Prince Charles acting at the behest of Catholic France in league with the papacy that prompted the Presbyterians to fight with the disliked English against Roman Catholic Bonnie Prince Charles who was born in Rome. Britons are expected to ignore that it resisted everyone from Catholic Spain's Armada to Catholic France's Napoleon and to the Roman Catholic Adolph Hitler and all others who tried to make Britain part of Continental Europe, and which the Roman Catholic church in Britain is trying to make it become today, even telling Catholics to vote for pro-European/anti-British candidates. What the Armada, Napoleon and Hitler could not do with invasion and war, Britain's own politicians are now doing with the mere stroke of a pen, as the heritage that was once the glue of an empire dissipates in a post-Christian/neo-pagan UK. It is not reasonable to pretend that this is not the very obvious case, but since when is political correctness reasonable?

Evolution

Educators continue to predicate all bio-medical education on Darwinian presuppositions. We are expected to overlook the fact that there is no proven instance of DNA transmutating across the species barrier in the natural environment. We are expected to overlook the fact that the kinds of mutations and permutations that would be necessary for evolution to take place would be mutations of a kind that works to the detriment and ultimate extinction of a species, not to its advancement. We are expected to overlook the fact that any genetic pairing involving nucleic acids requires previously existing information. The replicative functions of RNA require an existing bio-database; and information cannot exist without the pre-existing intelligence to create it. Nonetheless, reason is suspended and we are expected to assume a hypothesis whose plausibility is, at best, precarious and certainly unproven, as if it were a fact.

We are expected to deny the fact that there is an absence of transient forms and tremendous gaps in the fossil record that can only be explained by mere conjecture that we are further expected to treat as fact. In a generation that has seen ethnic cleansing on a genocidal scale unprecedented in human history, where other races are portrayed as sub-human, we are expected to ignore that Darwinism, applied anthropologically and taken to its natural conclusions, was the basis of Hitler's holocaust. We are also expected to forget that this same anthropological application of Darwinian presupposition would relegate non-whites to the status of genetic inferiority to Caucasians providing a supposedly scientific basis to racial superiority.

The scientific dilemma created by the abject premise of Darwinism, however, extends well beyond life science and social science, but even spreads its tentacles into physical science. We are expected to discount the fact that when the world of cosmology and particle physics was in a tumult of debate over questions surrounding propositions such as "Plank's Constant" and "Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle". Albert Einstein, the greatest theoretical physicist since Newton, retorted "God does not play dice with the universe", putting a nail into the coffin of known causal random effects on the basis of pure mathematical improbability. Yet this same caliber of mathematically quantified improbability is the very standard upon which evolutionary views of physical existence depend.

We are, for example, expected to ignore the odds in enzyme synthesis against the right combination of amino acids finding the right balance of covalent relationships and forming bonds to begin the complex process of forming extremely long protein molecules. Peptides must form according to a precise genetically controlled prescription into chains of polypeptides to make even a single protein which must be able to biochemically interact with other proteins in an organism which must maintain a level of homeostasis (chemical balance) enabling it to survive in, and interact with, an ecosystem containing countless other organisms of equal complexity. The notion that the entire biosphere could happen to evolve by chance on one particular planet conducive to sustaining life, and not on the other planets in our solar system, is statistically ludicrous.

In the name of modern science, we are expected to neglect the fact that the founders of modern science, from Newton and Pascal to Keppler to Pasteur and Einstein, were uniformly theists, believing in an intelligent creator, to say nothing of the fact that others, such as Rutherford and Faraday, were professing evangelical Christians.

There are both scientifically and theologically good and scientifically and theologically bad versions of creation science. There are, however, no good versions of Darwinism, scientifically, theologically or otherwise. The Word of God specifically warns of such foolishness concerning futile speculation about His creation; "professing to be wise they become fools" (Romans 1:21-24), and God gives them over to such foolishness to allow them to believe what a logical mind would call unbelievable.

Medical Science

We are expected to ignore the neo-natal survival of premature babies at earlier and earlier stages of gestation. We are expected to ignore the avalanche of advances, not only in neo-natology, but in ante-natal obstetric surgery, genetic medicine, improvements in amniocyntotic (embryonic fluid), ultra sound and magnetic resonance diagnostic technology, and in rehabilitative pediatric medicine, all of which provide less and less clinical grounds for non-therapeutic abortion and are on the verge of making the only difference between abortion and infanticide semantic. Yet it is not politically correct to confront the medical and scientific facts in regards to abortion for what they are. Medical science is supposedly based on logic. But now gynecologists are expected to adopt abortion policies void of logic. Euthanasia is the next battle on the horizon.

The social dimension of this human catastrophe, however, is even more outlandish. There are actually organized black markets for illegal adoption of children from the Third World and the waiting lists of childless couples wishing to adopt a baby, even a handicapped baby, are longer than the amount of babies available for adoption can satisfy. The social reality is that there is no such thing as an "unwanted baby". Yet because there are unwanted pregnancies, we are expected to ignore the fact that there is no such thing as an unwanted baby and pretend as if there is, even though everyone knows there is not. Not only are human fetuses being aborted, human reason is also.

We are expected to ignore, in contemplating the problems of reduced attention capacity in children, the fact that children today are the third generation groomed by a television culture, now reinforced by computer games and other electronic pastimes. resulting in very short attention spans. The decline of the nuclear family, due to the divorce rate and out of wedlock births, contributes to instability in a child's home environment during his or her formative years. All this we are expected to ignore.

In medical science the best way to diagnose a disease is to use some tool, such as an X-ray, a CT scan, a blood or urine analysis, or a biopsy. In the absence of this, the worst way to diagnose a disease is, instead of beginning with a disease and finding a cure, to begin with a cure (or supposed cure) and find the disease; if you cannot find what is wrong with someone, find out what therapy or medication they are responding to is used as a last resort in trying to identify the source of their complaint. Today, as we ignore the social and environmental factors affecting attention span in children as too politically incorrect to address, instead we prescribe Ritalin. No one at Moriel is stating categorically that there is no such thing as attention deficit disorder (ADD), but unlike hyperthyroidism (a hormonal imbalance also creating attention disturbances), the medical journals state that there is no pathology to diagnose ADD.

So, too, we are expected to ignore the psychological impact of peer pressure to live up to the manufactured image of a super-model or a female pop video icon as possible causes for the tragedy of increased anorexia amongst teenage girls. Instead, the syndrome BDD (bodily dysmorphic disorder) becomes the cause, despite there not being a physician in the world who can diagnose its existence with any objective pathology of a definite organic nature.

More preposterous still is GDD (gender dysmorphic disorder), which is the name given to the condition supposed to explain why homosexual men wish to have sex change surgery. We are expected to ignore the plain scientific fact that there are X and Y chromosomes and sex is determined by what we are chromosomally. It is not politically correct to take note of the fact that the DNA in every cell of our body says that we are either male or female. Instead, these people suffer from GDD, a disorder corrected by surgical intervention in the form of emasculation, a sex change surgery which they now demand be funded by the national health plans. It is politically incorrect to accept the scientific fact that in order to change someone's sex you would have to change the genetic constituency of every cell in their body.

Inter-Faith Unity & Ecumenism

What we call reason is no longer reasonable. When secular society abandons reason for the sake of political correctness, that is one thing. But once the Church does it, we are dealing with something that has much more lethal repercussions both socially and spiritually.

As we have noted many times, the seminal blame for this, however, is not to be found in either the corridors of power or in the godlessness of secular society. Rather, it is to be found in a Church that has failed to be salt and light. How can Evangelicals remain in the Church of England that ordains homosexuals? How can supposedly saved Christians financially contribute, via their parishes, to the diocesan funds that pay the salaries of homosexual clergy? Evangelical Anglicans are expected by their leaders to ignore these irrefutable facts, because it is not politically correct to do otherwise.

False religions are, by definition, irrational (including counterfeit expressions of Christianity). Only the authentic faith of the Bible is grounded in reason (Isaiah 1:18, Acts 17:17). This is not to say that the Gospel is merely an intellectual faith, but it is to say that unlike false religions, it is intellectually defensible. Empirical evidence affords us an apologetic foundation for our faith in Jesus and the Scriptures. It is unreasonable for Hindus to believe in an unjust caste system based on a belief in karma that values the life of a cow who is well fed above that of a hungry abandoned baby on the streets of Calcutta. It is not logical to drink cow urine or water from the Ganges believing it to be sacred and dying of cholera.

There is simply no empirical evidence for the claims of The Bagavagida, or The Tibetan Book of the Dead. There is certainly no logical reason for faith in a divinely inspired authorship of the Quran, or The Book of Mormon.

The Quran confuses Mary the mother of Jesus with Miriam the sister of Moses, who lived 1,000 years before. The Quran states that Haman from the book of Esther was an official in the court of the Egyptian Pharaoh, many centuries earlier than when he actually appeared in the court of the Persian king. The Quran teaches that upon growing weary in the evening, each night the sun sets into a miry pit. No one in their right mind can believe such rubbish. Just as no one in their right mind can believe in a righteousness of a depraved pedophile sexually violating a 9 year old child as Mohammed did. It is just not reasonable.

No-one can believe in a surrat containing the Quran's teaching of Umma, the doctrine that Muslims are one nation and one people. In fact, most jihads are Muslims fighting other Muslims and not so-called infidels. The actual reason Islam must make war against the Christian and against the Jew is because, without a common enemy, these savages will war against each other as they always have done.

The Jordanians in Black September of 1970, systematically exterminated upwards of 10,000 Palestinians in 12 days, to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. In the war between Iran and Iraq, 1.5 million Muslims, many of them children, were killed by other Muslims. After invading Kuwait and being driven out by America and Britain, Saddam Hussein once more turned his sword against his own people, annihilating countless Shia Muslims in southern Iraq and earlier murdered thousands of Kurdish Muslim women and children with nerve gas, just as the Syrian Government used its air force to eradicate somewhere between 20 and 35 thousand of its Shia Muslim citizens in a single series of air strikes directed against civilian populations, while in its notorious hypocrisy, Muslims decry limited American and British air strikes against terrorist targets or the internment of genocidal barbarians.

The simple fact of the matter is that the Quran is wrong and proven wrong. There is no umma and never will be. Whenever Western countries have had wars, at least one of the participants was not a democratic nation. While radical Islam denounces Western democracy in favor of the Islamic caliph system, the fact remains that no two Judeo-Christian democracies have ever had a war while Muslim nations have rarely had anything except war, usually against each other, a bloody history that continues to this very day. Reason dictates that, as a religion, Islam is something that simply does not work as its history and contemporary events prove beyond any reasonable doubt. Belief in the unworkable demands the rejection of reason.

Joseph Smith was a convicted swindler and Brigham Young, with 23 wives, a proven false prophet. Nobody in their right mind would believe that someone who said Quakers living to be 1,000 years old resided on the moon, as Smith did, nor on the sun as Young did in his Journal of Discourses, Volume 17. Only an ignorant bigot would believe that black people are the descendants of fallen angels and are ugly, wicked and mischievous, and that any white person marrying a black should be killed because of the Mormon law of atonement. Yet this is what Brigham Young taught. It is simply not reasonable to believe such evil men were God's prophets. The first requirement of being a Mormon is to abandon any sense of reason.

This is even more true when one examines the repeated legacy of false prophetic predictions by Charles Russell and Judge Rutherford, the founders of Satan's Jehovah's Witness cult. No one reading the Torah could reasonably believe that the Talmudic Judaism of the rabbis is the biblical Judaism of Moses and the Prophets (now fulfilled in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah). It is just not reasonable.

As the Reformers, themselves from the intelligentsia of the Roman Catholic clergy discovered, no-one reading the New Testament could reasonably argue that either the Roman Catholic church or the Eastern Orthodox church are the Christianity of the New Testament. This is why Roman Catholicism to this day denounces scriptura sola and why it placed the Bible on the index of banned books for so many generations, actually burning those who read it for witchcraft and often placing an eternal anathema on their souls.

None of these false religions have a reason based faith, unlike the faith of the bible. All demand that one suspends reason.

The Jesuit founder, Ignatius Loyola, taught "that if the papacy says it is daylight when it is dark outside, we must believe it is night." Catholicism can simply not accept common sense. Its pagan ideas of transubstantiation, derived from Aristotle's misunderstanding of physics and chemistry, where something could be atomically one substance on an elemental or stoichiometric level invisible to the human eye, but appear to be something entirely different on a visible level, known as its mere "accidents". The advent of molecular chemistry, however, debunked this peculiar concept of physics and chemistry as demonstrable nonsense, yet Roman Catholicism continues to believe it to be true of its Eucharist. It began with a misunderstanding of the scientific nature of matter, but once science understood molecules it was proven utterly wrong. To continue to believe something disproved is superstition and superstition requires an absence of logic. It is just not reasonable to believe in the mass. Yet in order to be a devout Catholic, one must be devoid of reason.

What About Contemporary Evangelicals?

The abrogation of reason, unfortunately, is not the exclusive domain of evolutionists, homosexuals, politicians, the media, or false religions. The abrogation of reason has been preached repeatedly by apostate evangelicals, such as Rodney Howard-Browne, Kenneth Copeland and John Arnott from among a long list. Such nonsensical and maniacal paths to apostasy have been adopted and promulgated by such figures as Paul Weaver, Colin Dye, John Glass, Sandy Miller, David Pytches, Gerald Coates, Bryn Jones and others. Death of reason in the world is rivaled by a death of reason in the church.

When the Scriptures, no fewer than six times in both testaments, issue strict caveats against spiritual drunkenness, and portray animal imitation as a divine judgment, it is unreasonable to believe that deceptions stemming from such abominations can possibly be of God. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control, and God does not contradict Himself or He would not be God. To remain in churches led by such false shepherds is unreasonable given their proven track record of failed routes to revival, from the afore-mentioned to Jim Challenge to Alpha courses.

According to The Brierley Report, the UK has seen a 22% decline in church attendance in the first ten years of Alpha alone, with Anglicanism losing approximately 1,000 per week and a 16% decline in the number of charismatics and Pentecostals since the laughing experience, while Islam has become the fastest growing institutionalized religion in the UK and the Mormon cult the fastest growing supposedly Christian sect. Reason demands that the false leaders who misled the Church into these deceptions be abandoned by their flocks, but reason is openly preached against.

It is both dangerous and unreasonable to ignore physical symptoms of illness. Doing so can result in premature death. Yet the bastardized gospel of Copeland and Hagin urge biblically ignorant Christians to do this very thing. It is not reasonable, but they do it and consequently place themselves at risk of self-inflicted death.

It is no more reasonable to call the faith of the prosperity preachers the faith of Hebrews 11 than it is to call Talmudic Judaism the faith of Moses or Roman Catholicism the faith of the Gospels and Epistles. Yet now professing evangelicals sacrifice reason and true faith for a false faith that in the end is but faith in “faith” and not in Christ, and therefore no faith at all.

It is not reasonable in light of the warnings of the Olivet discourse, Deuteronomy 18, Jeremiah 23 and 28 to continue to heed the words of those proven to have prophesied falsely in the name of the Lord. The Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons do this, but so too do the adherents of the ministries of Gerald Coates, Rick Joyner, and the Kansas City (false) Prophets. It is not reasonable to be a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness for these reasons, but for these exact same reasons neither is it reasonable to be a member of New Frontiers.
I have rarely encountered as much illogical and emotional reaction to a challenge than I have from Reformation Protestant Christians in general and Calvinists in particular. Unlike, as in Biblical narrative where both the good and bad points of hero figures are portrayed for what they are, a sure mark of "religion" and religiosity is the tendency towards hagiography (misrepresenting religious heroes as totally sanctimonious figures, where reference to the human imperfections is omitted and mention of them considered virtually blasphemous). Roman Catholics call it "canonization of saints".

The Jehovah's Witnesses do it with C. T. Russell, the Mormons with Smith and Young, and, not least of all, the Muslims with Mohammed. Orthodox Jews even resort to it among some of the most sinister characters in rabbinic history, such as with Simon Bar Kochba (who kicked a 90 year-old rabbi in the head and killed him and bought the nation into destruction and dispersion as a false messiah), and Rabbi Akiva who persuaded the Jews that Bar Kochba was the Messiah.

Nonetheless, many Lutheran Missouri and Wisconsin synod churches do precisely the same with Luther, calling him "the Beloved" and expecting everyone to join them in dismissing Luther's polemic against the Jews, which later inspired Hitler, and his "stab them in the back" position during the Peasants' Revolt. Luther and the Reformers may have been the founders of what came to be called "Protestantism", but they certainly were not the founders of the Reformation; they more or less hi-jacked it. It was actually Erasmus who first pointed the Church back towards the Scriptures (and attacked the papacy for its hypocrisy and corruption in the most vitriolic terms imaginable!) and the Baptist sects (whom the Protestants and Catholics alike would persecute) who were the most Biblical Christians.

In Northern Ireland, extreme Calvinists engage in open revisionism (the rewriting of history), pretending that the Pope did not bless William of Orange with a papal decree centered in Vienna, controlled by the Catholic Hapsburgs, and likewise behave as if there were not Catholics from Holland fighting with William at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. More absurdly, they expect everyone to join with them in pretending that Irish republicanism was not founded by reformed Protestants in the Home Rule movement by figures such as Isaac Butt, James Napper Tandy, Charles Parnell and Wolfe Tone. They act as if their Protestant forebears were always for the British crown when, in fact, at the close of the eighteenth century the British crown massacred their Protestant ancestors fighting the crown for Irish independence. There is simply no logic to Orange Protestantism, but bigotry is never logical.

Reading the Quran and Islamic history, the Taliban were indeed genuine Islam. The only thing the Taliban regime actually amounted to was Islam taken to its logical conclusions. Yet, the police states of the Reformed church in Calvin's Geneva, Zwingli's Zurich, Knox's Scotland and Puritan England and Massachusetts were the Taliban of their day, complete with the judicial flogging and execution of women on religious grounds as public entertainment. Whenever one points out that Mohammed was a pedophile to a Muslim, they become extremely disturbed, not because it is a lie, but rather because it is true. I have experienced similar responses evoked from Calvinists by citing George Whitfield's support of the institution of slavery; again, not because it is false, but because it is true.

The history of injustice in Muslim society is paralleled by the history of injustice in Calvinistic society, from the apartheid of South Africa to the slavery of the American South to the Plantation period of Ireland, all endorsed from the pulpit by the Calvinistic clergy and sanctioned by the Reformed churches of those places at the time. Muslims resent someone looking at the reality of their own societies for what they are just as some Reformed Christians share the same aversion for the same reasons. It is not reasonable, but neither hyper-Calvinism nor Islam are reasonable, because neither one works.

Just as Islam was unable to prevent Muslims from massacring each other, so too Calvinism was unable to stop Calvinists from massacring each other in the Puritan war against the Presbyterians. Both killed each other. And just as Islam requires a common enemy to stop fighting amongst themselves, the recent shoving spectacle by Protestant Parliamentarians in Stormont illustrates how, in principle, the same thing can be true of Calvinists. This is a reasonable observation, but the political correctness of Northern Ireland insists that reason be jettisoned.
Just as Muslims become enraged when you point out its failure to bring unity, so too, Calvinists become angry when you document its similar failure. As we have often noted, the fatalistic Islamic doctrine of Insha'Allah and the Calvinistic misunderstanding of the biblical doctrines of election and predestination are essentially two variations of the same thing in two different religious and cultural packages—one Islamic, and one Protestant.

In Hinduism it is not reasonable to exhibit the serpent spirit demonic manifestations and animal imitations of Kundalini yoga or find an allure in Brahman priests or gurus as little gods who prey upon and exploit them and to believe them to be untouchables whom it is blasphemous to criticize. Yet in Vineyard, Elim and other churches where Hindu-oriented New Age deception has been given a Christian label by David Blake, John Arnott and others, we see the same demonic manifestations. Like any Hindu guru, Rodney Howard-Browne and John Arnott urge people in the name of spirituality to suspend analytical thought in order to become “more spiritual” in what the Bible calls a counterfeit spirituality. So, too, the same allure is paid to the faith-prosperity con men whose followers are the Bhagwan Rajneesh devotees of hyper-Pentecostalism, and the untouchable status of Brahmans becomes an exegetically twisting of “touch not my anointed”. Just like a guru propounding yoga, Pioneer's Patrick Dixon calls altered states of consciousness and irrational behavior “spiritual experiences” (which they may be, but not from the Holy Spirit whose fruit is self-control as stated in (Galatians 5:23).

Worse still was Elim's David Blake's defense of the animal imitations common in Hindu mysticism as Christian, published in the Elim tabloid (and called “excellent” by the Elim leader of the time Wynn Lewis). But in The New Testament, it is only backslidden Christians whose behavior is compared to that of animals (2 Peter 2:12). Remarkably, the term used here is aloga from the Greek term alogos translated (e.g. Acts 25:27) “irrational and unreasonable”, but whose etymological root is "without the logos". The logos is of course the Word of God and the logos is the incarnate Word of God—Jesus Himself. Where His Word is negated, Jesus is negated, and consequently so are reason and rational behavior.

Indeed, the message of the Gospel itself is God wanting to reason with man about our sin and how it can be forgiven (Isaiah 1:18). The Gospel is reasonable.

Conclusion

In order to accept the unreasonable with the attitude of nonchalance we see in so much of the contemporary church, a deranged strain of complacency is required. It is a pitiful complacency that treats reason as unreasonable and substitutes the reasonable with that which can never be supported with reason, let alone justified by God's Word. Such complacency in the Last Days always relates to the church of Laodicea. But this complacency accepting the abrogation of reason is not primarily the usual complacency of Laodicea that stems from being deluded due to being lukewarm and materialistic; it is rather one that comes from the spirit of deilias actually meaning “cowardice” that Bible translators euphemistically call "a spirit of timidity". It is what happens when we fear other men instead of fearing God—we lose the logos. As a direct result, we lose power, we lose love, and then we lose the power and the love of "reason".

This is precisely what Jesus warned the elect would happen before His return. He told us that in just such an age, where reason has been sacrificed to the point that the reasons He gave to be alert for His return are ignored is the time He would return. We have apostatized from reason because we have apostatized from the Word of God. Truth no longer matters (2 Thessalonians 2:12). This is why doctrine (the teaching of Jesus) no longer matters in the Church, but is seen as divisive and undesirable, forgetting that Jesus Himself is both the Word and the Truth, and once we depart from the Word and the Truth, we have departed from Him.

What is happening today defies reason, because reason has been rejected. It is for this very reason that the Son of Man is coming at an hour when people do not think He will (Matthew 24:44).

The Death of Absalom

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:48:45 GMT

Civil War

2 Samuel 18:1:

“David numbered the men who were with him, and set over them commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds.

And David sent the people out, one-third under the command of Joab, one-third under the command of Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother, and one third under the command of Ittai the Gittite. And the king said to the people, ‘I myself will also go out with you.’ But the people said to him, ‘No, you should not go out, for if we indeed flee, they will not care about us – even if half of us die, they will not care about us. But you are worth ten thousand of us, therefore now it is better that you be ready to help us from the city.’”

This was a terrible situation: Hebrew was not fighting Philistine, Hebrew was not fighting Canaanite, Hebrew was not fighting Amalekite – Hebrew was fighting Hebrew. There was the war between Israel and Judah, and the war in the last chapter of the book of Judges, which was a civil war, that broke out when a man’s concubine was gang-raped and her body hacked up and sent throughout the nation. (Judges 19) That was the worst of all the wars in Judges. Here we see it happening again.

In the same manner, the worst battles that we as Christians will have to fight will not be against unbelievers; rather, they will be part of civil war. The worst battles are against your own kind where believer, as it were, raises his sword against believer. Now, I am of course not referring to a physical sword like the Puritans used, but rather to the spiritual sword, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Fighting Canaanites, Philistines, no problem; fighting Moslems, Freemasons, Roman Catholics, no problem. But what happens when brother fights brother – or, in this case, when father fights son.

Rebellion in the Camp

Jesus said plainly that he came to bring division, to turn parents against their children. (Luke 12:41-53) This certainly happens when someone from an unbelieving family becomes a believer. It happens to an extreme point among Jewish families, Moslem families, and sometimes Catholic and Gypsy families. However, it also happens in this case with people who theoretically already did believe, but went into rebellion. We live in an age and in a time when there is a major rebellion in the camp of the Lord and families are divided. For example, look at the division brought by the Toronto phenomenon.

The rightful leadership which God appointed was usurped by Absalom and an awful lot of people – in fact, in some places most of the people – followed Absalom. I will not go into it at great depth now, but Absalom is one of the people in Scripture who typify the Antichrist. In the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem is the alleged place of Absalom’s Pillar (though the archaeologists are by no means convinced that it is the actual Pillar of Absalom), and to this day you can see Orthodox Jews throwing stones at it. (2 Samuel 18:18)

A Counterfeit Christ

A division has occurred in the camp. Verse 9:

“Now Absalom happened to meet the servants of David, for Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak.”

If you can follow the typology, the fact that he is riding on a mule indicates that he is counterfeiting Christ.

“And his head caught fast in the oak, so that he was left hanging between heaven and earth,”

He was hanging on a tree; do you see here how he counterfeits Jesus?

“While the mule that was under him kept going. And when a certain man saw him, he told Joab, and said, ‘Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak.’ Then Joab said to the man who told him this, ‘Behold, you saw him; why then did you not strike him there to the ground? I would have given you ten pieces of silver and a belt!’ And the man said to Joab, ‘Even if I should receive a thousand pieces of silver in my hand, I would not put out my hand against the king’s son, for in our hearing the king charged you and Abishai and Ittai, saying, “Protect for me the man Absalom.” Otherwise, if I had dealt treacherously against his life – and there is nothing hidden from the king’”

David here is a type of the true Christ – “nothing hidden from the King”.

“’Then you yourself would have stood aloof.’ Then Joab said, ‘I will not waste time here with you.’ So he took three spears in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak.”

“Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Gal 3:13) – Absalom’s death was one thing; but the manner in which he died would have carried a particular connotation for the Jews because of that quote from the Torah. Haman was hanged from a tree, and in the same way the Messiah was cursed for our sin and hung on a tree. So, Absalom is pierced through while he is hanging on a tree. Again, whom does this look like? He is a counterfeit of Jesus.

The Worst Crisis

Let me tell you about the most difficult thing that you will ever face as a Christian if you have not faced it already. It is the most difficult thing that I have ever faced as a Christian. There is no trial, no crisis, nothing in your Christian life that will be more difficult than this: the death of an unsaved loved one. Nothing is more difficult to face up to than the death of an unsaved loved one.

I get anguished letters from women with unsaved husbands. I have never known a Christian woman with an unsaved husband who was happily married – even if he’s a good guy, I have never met a single Christian woman who is not miserable over it and whom it does not torment every day. Any Christian who gets married to an unsaved person is simply out of his or her mind; it is begging for trouble.

My father died, as far as I know, unsaved. To the extent of my knowledge, my father is in Hell; no hope, no way out. Ultimately, only God knows what transpires in that fleeting moment between life and death; yet in the entire Bible – the entire New Testament – there is only one deathbed conversion, so to speak: the good thief that was crucified with Jesus. What could be worse than having unsaved or backslidden children? Nothing.

The worst situation that you or I or any Christian will ever face will be when we have unbelieving loved ones who die. They die in rebellion.

Loved Ones: Saved and Unsaved

My mother is unsaved. She has had two heart attacks and one stroke. She has cataracts and is battling cancer in both extremities and she was recently diagnosed with arthritis though she is only 62 years old. I am quite concerned because I love my mother and I desperately want her to be saved; but the fact is she is not saved. She has been witnessed to many times and it only ends in arguments. Anything that my sister or I could say to her has been said to her. She sees the change in my life – she knows that when I got saved I stopped sleeping around and taking cocaine, but she is still not saved. I think about this every day and all that I can do is pray for her. Do you have an unsaved mother, father, husband, wife, or child? What is it that you think about every day and what is your worst fear? We must be honest.

You may go to churches where they sing the hymns and bring in the guest speakers who hype people up, claiming victory and all that – that’s rubbish. This is reality. All the hype and froth is not going to see you through this kind of a crisis when you are confronted with it.

It is a wonderful thing when you have a physical relative who is also a believer in Jesus – thank God for my wife, for my son, for my daughter, for my sister. I thank God for these people who are physically related to me, who will also be with me forever in eternity. It’s wonderful, but then there are the others: the ones whom I love no less, and whom Jesus loves no less. My wife’s parents are Holocaust survivors and ex-Refuseniks. My children witness to their grandparents; they went through so much with so-called Christians telling the Gestapo where they were hiding and having a grandfather machine-gunned in the street – terrible, terrible things. What could be worse? Only one thing: if they did not get saved at the end of it all. There is nothing worse than that.

Let’s face the facts for what they are: we all have unsaved loved ones. People we love and care about deeply – may God in His mercy save every one of them, but the fact is that the likelihood is that some of them will not be saved. God is willing; I only wish that they were. Moreover, it is nothing but God’s grace that makes me any different.

The Two Messengers

Let us continue in verse 15:

“And ten young men who carried Joab’s armor gathered around and struck Absalom, and killed him.”

It is interesting that the basic contingent of Roman legionnaires was ten men. I think it probable that it was one of these basic contingents of ten who escorted Jesus to the Cross and there crucified Him.

“Then Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing Israel, for Joab restrained the people.”

The entire north of Israel went out against David with Absalom.

“And they took Absalom and cast him into a deep pit in the forest; and erected over him a very great heap of stones, and all Israel fled, each to his tent.”

Their hero came to nothing; a horrible story.

“Now Absalom had in his lifetime taken and set up for himself a pillar, which is in the Kings’ Valley, for he said, ‘I have no son to preserve my name.’ So he named the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day. Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said, ‘Please let me run and bring the king news, that the Lord has freed him from the hand of his enemies!’ But Joab said, ‘You are not the man to carry news this day, but you shall carry news another day. However, you shall carry no news today, because the king’s son is dead.’ Then Joab said to the Cushite,”

– a “Cushite” in Hebrew is a person of black skin, basically an Ethiopian –

“’Go, tell the king what you have seen.’ So the Cushite bowed to Joab and ran.”

The first non-Jew, it is worth noting, was a Cushite – an Ethiopian. The first person to embrace the Christian faith was a black man.

“Now Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said once more to Joab, ‘But whatever happens, please, let me also run after the Cushite!’ And Joab said, ‘Why would you run, my son, since you will have no reward for going?’ ‘But whatever happens,’ he said, ‘I will run!’ So he said to him, ‘Run.’ Then Ahimaaz ran by way of the plain and passed up the Cushite.”

Boy, he must have had one good pair of trainers to outrun a soul brother! They win all the medals at the Olympics.

“Now David was sitting between the two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate of the wall, and raised his eyes and looked, and behold, a man running by himself. And the watchman called and told the king, and the king said, ‘If he is by himself, there is good news in his mouth!’ And he came nearer and nearer.”

The term in Hebrew for “good news” is “bissorah”; its Greek equivalent is “evangelion”. What does it mean? It means “gospel”. “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings bissorah – the gospel of peace.” (Is 52:7)

“Then the watchman saw another man running, and the watchman called to the gatekeeper and said, ‘Behold, another man running by himself!’ And the king said, ‘This man also is bringing bissorah – good news.’ And the watchman said, ‘I think the running of the first one is like the running of Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok.’ And the king said, ‘This is a good man, and he comes with good news.’ And Ahimaaz called and said to the king, ‘All is well!’ and he prostrated himself before the king, with his face to the ground, and he said, ‘Blessed is the Lord your God, who has delivered up the men who lifted up their hands against my lord the King!’ And the king said, ‘Is it well with the young man Absalom?’ And Ahimaaz answered, ‘When Joab sent the king’s servant and your servant, I saw a great tumult, but I did not know what it was.’ Then the king said, ‘Turn aside and stand here,’ so he turned aside and stood still.”

Ahimaaz knew very well what had happened, but he only wanted to give the good news. He did not want to bring the bad news, only the good. However: if you do not know the bad news, you won’t know how good the good news is. We have a tape on the Law; on it we explain that unless you know you are condemned, you cannot understand what good news the Gospel really is. What makes the good news so good? The bad news.

Grace: Cheap or Priceless?

“You know, there’s a cure for your ailment!”

“Oh, I didn’t know I was sick.”

“Well, here’s the x-ray of your chest; there’s the bad news that makes the good news so good.”

We live in an age when what is being preached most of the time is cheap grace. The Bible says, “Buy without price,” because it is free to us. However, that does not mean it is free altogether: it cost God everything when He gave His only Son. There is no price, but it will cost us our lives in this world, and it cost God His Son’s life.

“Just put your hand up and accept Jesus . . .” “God loves you . . .” “The Lord is here tonight to bless you . . .” “The four spiritual laws . . .” “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life . . .” Did Peter ever preach this way? It’s no wonder Bill Bright has signed up with the Roman Church, taking Campus Crusade down the tubes. “God loves you and wants to bless you; put your hand up and accept Jesus into your heart”. Is that not what we have normally heard over the past twenty, thirty years? Look at the book of Acts – did Peter preach that way? No – it was “Save yourself from this accursed generation!” Read Charles Spurgeon , John Wesley , D.L. Moody , George Whitefield – the people whom God used to bring revival to Britain. Did they preach that way? No! Today, however, it’s all about positive thinking and pop psychology. We want a positive image, so we have everything from smoke machines to strobe lights to rock bands in order to look just like the world. This is cheap grace.

Love and Justice

Look at the Charismatic “renewal” – what was it? “Oh, the love of Jesus, the love of God, the love of Christ”. Unless you understand the justice of Jesus you cannot understand just how much love it actually took for Him to go to that Cross for us. God became a man to take the rap for what I did - ?!!? Wow. But today we have churches that want a positive thrust that reject justice and God’s wrath as being too negative.

Any number of people will run with the good news – “God loves you!” “There’s victory, there’s blessing, there’s salvation!” – no problem. But my son, my mother, my father are dead without Christ? I don’t want to tell people that. This is what you get very often in Jewish evangelism. Often a Jewish person will say something like this: “My grandfather was a holy Jewish man, a rabbi – and when you Christians arrested him and put him into an oven in the name of Jesus Christ, do you know what he was saying in Auschwitz as he died in the name of Christianity? “Sh’ma Yisra’el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad” – those were his last words and you want to tell me that because he would not accept this Christ in whose name he was murdered he is now in Hell?” It sounds difficult, does it not?

Yes, we must tell them that about their Jewish grandfather, but we must also say it about our Polish, Italian, or Irish grandfathers, or anyone who died rejecting Jesus Christ. A good response to this protest from a Jew is this: “There is only one God – the God of the Jews; there is only one salvation – the Messiah of the Jews. Gentiles must accept your God and your Messiah; if you reject your own God and your own Messiah, you must face the consequences just as they must.”

The First Messenger: No Reward

But we only want to give people the good news; no one wants to bear ill news. But what happens to those who only want to give the good news? What does it say? Verse 22:

“’You will have no reward’”.

In other words, why bother? The wise man delivers souls. (Prov 11:30) Those who turn many to righteousness, Scripture tells us, will flicker in eternity with glory. (Dan 12:3) This does not include cheap grace, however. If you are preaching cheap grace, you are preaching no grace. They will have no reward no matter how many altar calls or celebration praise meetings they have. Those who preach such a message will have no reward. Thank God by His grace He saved me. Why, I have no idea, and I do not expect I will ever know, at least on this side of eternity. I had friends who were less crazy than I was who are dead without Christ. Why me instead of them? I don’t know. I do know that it has nothing to do with me; whatever the answer is, it will not be found in me. But the good news is that I am saved. The bad news is that so many people whom I love and care about are not.

The Second Messenger

Along comes the black man – he’s a lot more honest, straightforward, and down-to-earth. He does not play games or mince words or try to finagle his way out of giving the bad news along with the good. Verse 31:

“Behold, the Cushite arrived, and the Cushite said, ‘Let my lord the king receive good news, for the Lord has freed you this day from the hand of all those who rose up against you.’ And the king said to the Cushite, ‘Is it well with the young man Absalom?’ And the Cushite answered, ‘Let the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up against you for evil be as that young man.’ And the king was deeply moved, and he went up to the chamber over the gate and he wept. And thus he said as he walked: ‘Oh, my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!’”

In the Hebrew text David’s words are much more emotive: “Oi, Avshalom, beni beni Avshalom, beni!” “’Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’”

King David/King Jesus

“I wish it was me hanging on that tree, who was pierced through, instead of you, my son.” We must understand once more the typology here: King David could only wish that he could have hung on the cross and been pierced through in place of someone he loved; but praise God, Jesus the Son of David could actually do that. What King David could not do, King Jesus did. When King Jesus hung on that tree and was pierced through, He was pierced through for me and He was pierced through for you, if you are saved. If you are not saved, you need to get saved.

This illustrates the difference between the two covenants of Law and Grace. The Law could point us to our need for salvation, but it could not step in and save us; only the Messiah could save us. What the Law could not do, the Messiah did. What the first Davidic king could not do – die in the place of those he loved – the second Davidic king, Jesus, actually did.

In Deep Mourning

“Then it was told to Joab, ‘Behold, the king is weeping, and he mourns for Absalom.’”

David mourned as so many of us have mourned: My son died in sin, he is dead in rebellion, unsaved. “Yeah, but he broke your heart,: the reply comes. “He went astray; you brought him up in the truth, and he knew God’s ways from the earliest days of his youth and he rebelled against God as well as against you, and he became a reprobate!” Yes, but he is still my son. “But he tried to kill you!” He is still my little boy; that’s my little boy in that tree. David did not love him any less.

This is no day of victory; it is one of mourning. Oh, I will give you the good news, but I will also give you the bad news.

“So the people went by stealth into the city that day, as people who are humiliated steal away when they flee in battle.”

In other words, they had won, but they behaved as if they had lost. Oh, thank God I have been saved and thank God for the victory in Jesus that He gives us! That’s the good news. I praise God and thank Him for my salvation every day, but I also mourn the death of those whom I love who did not gain the victory, who did not gain salvation.

“And the king covered his face, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Absalom, my son! My son, my son Absalom!

Oi, Avshalom, beni! Beni, beni, Avshalom, beni!

Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, ‘Today you have covered with disgrace the faces of all your servants, who today have saved your life and the lives of your sons and daughters, the lives of your concubines, by loving those who hate you and by hating those who love you. For you have shown today that princes and servants are nothing to you, for I know this day that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today you would be well pleased.’”

There is a truth in that: at least when saved people die they do not go to Hell. I would always rather see saved people die than unsaved people die. That is the sentiment: it is right, yet wrong, wrong, yet right. It’s ambiguous, is it not? There is a tension.

But Joab continues:

“’Now, therefore, arise; go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, surely not a man will pass the night with you, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.’ So the king arose and sat down in the gate, and when they told all the people, saying, ‘Behold, the king is sitting in the gate,’ all the people came before the king.”

Once again, it is a wonderful thing when your loved ones and mine are saved. However, the fact is that there are people I have never known who will read this, some of you whose faces I have never seen who, if you are born again and you love Jesus, I am closer to in the eternal sense than I am to my own mother. Although I am closer to her in the physical and emotional sense, I am closer to you in the ultimate sense. The good news, and the bad news.

Biblical Hatred

The Gospel uses the Greek word “miso”, and I suppose that Jesus might have used the Hebrew-Aramaic word “sina”: If you don’t hate your parents, and even your own life in this world, you are not worthy of the Lord. (Luke 14:26) The word in Greek here is what our word “misogyny” is derived from; it is a strong word meaning “hate”. This does not simply mean that you are using the term “hate” as relative to your love for God because your love for God is so great as to make your love for all else seem like hate. That is some of the explanation, yet not all of it. The word is indeed “hate”. The key here is “life in this world”. I love my mother; but because I love her, I hate her life in this world. My wife’s parents are nice Jewish people whom I love; but I hate their lives in this world. I even hate my own natural life in this world. You cannot love people who have cancer if you do not hate cancer. In the same way, you cannot love people who are on their way to Hell because of sin if you do not hate the sin.

There is nothing but the grace of God that gives us a position any different or any better. There is only one verse in the Bible that I disagree with, and that is where Paul claims to be the chief of sinners; he’s muscling in on my racket there.

Good News and Bad News

Let us continue: the good news and the bad news. Romans 1:16:

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of salvation to everyone who believes – to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

Is that not good news? The gospel is the power of salvation to everyone – Jews and non-Jews alike. Since my family is a mixture, I get it both ways. That is the good news; now let’s look at the bad news: Romans 2:9

“There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

Since the Gospel is available to the Jew first because of covenant, the consequences of rejecting it are upon them first also. Deuteronomy 18 states that God would raise up a prophet like Moses and put His words in His mouth, and whoever did not listen, God would require it of him. In John 5 Jesus said that if the Jews had believed Moses, they would believe Him also. As I have said many times: the issue is not that Jews reject Jesus; that is not their problem. It is the result and the consequence of their problem. Their problem is that they reject Moses and the Torah.

Yet the fact remains that there is bad news as well as good. God loves Israel, Jesus loves Israel – that is true. But they are under the curse of the Law – Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28. Why the Holocaust? Why the Inquisition? Why the Pogroms? Because of the Curse of the Law – either Yeshua takes the curse and becomes the curse on the tree or they are still under it.

My wife will tell you that it was a tragedy when the pogromists pulled the trigger and killed her grandfather in Romania, but she will tell you that it was an even bigger tragedy that he did not know Yeshua as his Messiah when they did it. The good news? Yes, salvation is for the Jew first, and God loves Israel. The bad news? The consequences for rejecting Him are also on the Jew first, says Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus under inspiration of God in His Word.

Christian Anti-Semitism in Its Worst Form

It is something like this: There is salvation in no other name under heaven save Jesus. (Acts 4:12) I have stood and stood and stood against anti-Semitism perpetrated in the name of Christianity. I did a video in Northern Ireland against British Israelism. I knew what that was and how ludicrous it was, but I had no idea how anti-Semitic in character it is. When Elim began teaching that Jesus Christ had no Jewish blood I hit the roof and have been banned from Elim ever since. I am someone who has stood time and time again at the expense of my own ministry and livelihood against anti-Semitism in the church. But the worst form of anti-Semitism is to tell a Jew the good news without the bad.

Jewish rejection of Jesus precedes Christian anti-Semitism. In the book of Acts, the Jewish establishment was persecuting Messianic Jews before any Christian ever persecuted a Jew. Jews were persecuting Jewish believers before there was any Christian anti-Semitism. In the 2nd Century, during the time of Justin Martyr, the rabbis were even going so far as to incite the Roman authorities against Gentile believers in Jesus.

I received a tape from Israel along with a number of phone calls and letters which were unbelievable. I and all those who heard it with me were shocked – this tape says that Jews who died in the Holocaust do not go to Hell even though they rejected Jesus. Rather, because God loves them and they were persecuted, they went to Heaven without Jesus. The Bible says, however, that there is salvation in no other name. 9Acts 4:12) I don’t like to think of Jews being in Hell – I don’t like to think of anybody being in Hell. But the fact remains.

This tape goes on to say that the Bible does not mean now what it meant when it was originally written. So although Paul says that their blood will be required of your hands if you do not preach the Gospel to the Jews, because of anti-Semitism that is no longer true. It was true only for the 1st Century. Because of the anti-Semitism that has occurred since then, this tape claims, we no longer have the right to preach the Gospel to the Jews.

Witness vs. Vision

This tape then goes on to say that although many Jews are being saved, they are not being saved through the witness of Christians – we should not be preaching or witnessing to them. I am expected to believe that Jews for Jesus and Helen Shapiro and CWI and OM are all wrong. This tape claims that the vast numbers of Jews that have been saved were saved because Jesus appeared to them personally or because they had a vision. I have been an evangelist to the Jews for over twenty years. By the grace of God, I have led dozens of Jews to Christ in many countries. I have heard or read the testimonies of hundreds of Jewish believers. I know exactly one – a guy in New York whose name is Jay Edelstein – who was saved because of a personal appearance of Jesus.

So the odd one did have a vision, but this vision was in collaboration or in connection with people bearing witness of the truth to him. Most Jews were saved in the way that Helen Shapiro or Stan Telchin were saved. Moriel sells four books of testimonies of Jewish believers in Jesus. According to what is on this tape, most of those people had to have been saved because they had a vision of Jesus. But not one of those testimonies actually claimed a personal apparition of Jesus to the people involved.

Feminist theologians and women pastors are among those who want to say that the Bible does not mean now what it meant then, along with homosexuals who are trying to justify the gay clergy. Liberals and heretics are the ones claiming that the Bible no longer means what it did when it was written. The idea that we should not witness to Jews, but rather just pray to the Lord to save them by granting them a vision, is a lie.

The good news and the bad news. The bad news is that anybody who does not accept Jesus is damned to eternal judgment; the good news is, many people – including many Jews – are hearing the good news with the bad news, repenting, and accepting Jesus as their Messiah. I will tell you all the news – the good and the bad.

The king’s son is dead; my wife’s grandfather was shot dead by the Nazis; her family perished in the Holocaust. Yet I can show you Holocaust survivors who accept Jesus and who have been saved – why? Not because true Christians were afraid or ashamed to witness to them because of what false Christians did in the name of Christ, but because true Christians loved them enough to tell them that those persecutors were not Christians.

The Danger of Seeking Solitude

Let us continue: “’Something worse will befall you,’” the king is told. “If you stay up here and mourn continually by yourself, something worse will befall you.” There is one thing that is worse than the death of an unsaved loved one – only one thing. What is it? It is getting into a closet to suffer by yourself. What does the Lord say in this situation? Let’s look at Matthew 12: 46-48

“While He was still speaking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and His brothers were standing outside seeking to speak to Him. And someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.’ But He answered the one who was telling Him this, and said, ‘Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold My mother, behold My brothers. Whoever does the will of My Father in Heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother.’”

I hope that my mother comes to the Lord. I hope my brother gets saved and I hope that my wife’s parents accept Jesus. I hope your parents and unsaved husband and loved ones get saved. But if they don’t, you and I will find ourselves in the situation in which David was. Jesus spoke directly of many falling away and betraying one another, did He not? (Math 24:10) He said that in the Last Days that would happen within families. I can promise you this: It will hurt now, and that pain is something that you and I must live with. But there will be a time when it will not hurt anymore; as impossible as it is for us to fathom’ the Lord can take that pain and loss away. God can do anything.

Revelation 21:4:

“He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will no longer be any death, there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away.”

If you have recently lost a loved one who was unsaved, you have my condolences; a time will come when it will no longer hurt.

Conclusion

In the meantime, there is good news and there is bad news. We know the bad news, but this is the good news. There is something I must face as I think of my sick mother. There is something you have to face as you think of your unsaved aging parents, or your unsaved husband, or your unsaved wife: what is the way to cope with this? What did Jesus say? All I can say is what He said: You are my mother, you are my sister, my brother; he or she who does the will of my Father. (Math 12:48-50) You are not alone in what you are going through.

Let us take a few minutes to pray for the salvation of our unsaved loved ones – there is nothing more important.

The Day of the Lord

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:47:24 GMT

The Return of Elijah's Ministry

We’re looking at the “Day of the Lord”. Now, in Hebrew the day of the Lord is not called “the Day of the Lord”, it’s actually called the “Day of Yahweh”.

From the fall of man, until that time, it is “the time of Satan”. Jesus said directly that Satan is the god of this world. This will intensity in the Last Days. Certain things happen. What happens is this: God is the God of history. He exercises lordship over history. But with the manifestation of Antichrist, we’re told in the book of Daniel he will think to change the laws and the times. ( Daniel 7:25 ) And they will be given into his hand for two “times, a time, and a half time”. Revelation and Daniel both break the last seven years of history into two halves of two “times, a time, and a half time“ – 3-1/2 lunar years, 1,260 days by the lunar calendar, thereabouts.

There are a number of things that teach about this “times, time, and a half time”, one of which foreshadows it – prefigures it – is what happened in the days of Eliyahuw Hanawbe, Elijah the prophet. Remember, it was 3-1/2 years when it did not rain. During that time he was in conflict with Ahab and Jezebel. Understand the pattern – this is Jewish midrash. Naboth‘s vineyard was coveted. Jezebel turns the king Ahab against Elijah because Elijah tries to defend Naboth’s vineyard. The wicked woman turns the king against Elijah.

Jesus uses Jezebel as a metaphor for the spirit of false religion in the book of Revelation. “You tolerate the woman Jezebel who beguiles My servants, who seduces My servants.”

John the Baptist – “Yochannan Hamadvil” – and Elijah – “Eliyah Hanawbe” – have the same spirit. They’re not the same person, but they have the same spirit, same anointing, same commissioning, same calling, same character. John the Baptist comes before the First Coming of Christ in the spirit of Elijah. And again, the wicked woman Herodias turns Herod against “Elijah”. It’s the same pattern.

We have to understand that will happen in the Last Days. The vineyard – that is, Israel – will be coveted. In fact, the church will be coveted. Christendom will be coveted. At this time during this period, the ministry of Elijah will again come into play in some way. The false religious system of the world personified in Jezebel will turn the political system against God’s people, bringing it into conflict with Elijah. What happened with Elijah happens with John, and it happens again in the Last Days. There is nothing going to happen that has not already partially happened. Now, the Last Days will be singularly unique, but there are things in the past that foreshadow it. If you want to know what’s going to happen, look at what did happen. Prophecy is pattern. Having said this, let’s understand what “the Day of the Lord” is.

The Day of the Lord

We’re going to look at the “Day of the Lord” as it concerns both Israel and the church. 2 Corinthians 1:14 .
Just as you did partially acknowledge us, that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you.
This is not the “Day of Yahweh”, but the “Day of the Lord Jesus”. The New Testament explains in greater depth and in greater detail something the Old Testament Hebrews only understood in parts. We know that the “Day of the Lord” is inaugurated with the return of Christ.

Matthew 24:22 , look at what is says carefully. In the Olivet discourse, Jesus says this:
And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.

That word there is “koloboo”. “Koloboo” in Greek is how they translate the Aramaic. It is a word for “amputate”. Had it not been cut short – had it not been amputated – nobody would survive. You think of gangrene in a limb or an extremity. No orthopedic surgeon takes any delight in amputating someone’s limb. But if you have medistatic bone cancer, osteocarcinoma, or if you have a form of gangrene, and it’s a question of letting the body die or amputating the limb, he will amputate the limb in order to save the body. That’s the way it is. It will take a radical intervention by the Lord Jesus in the form of an amputation to preserve human existence. There’s going to be an amputation.

Once that amputation takes place, once the faithful are removed, God pours out His wrath on the kingdom of Antichrist. He pours out His wrath on the kingdom of Antichrist. We must draw a distinction between “tribulation” and “wrath”; they’re different words in Greek. God’s people – the faithful church – will never experience the wrath of the Lord. But the cohorts of Antichrist will experience the wrath of the Lord. The “Day of the Lord” takes place when the church is removed. The faithful bride, the faithful church is literally amputated, taken out of here. When that happens then God pours out His wrath. This is the “Day of Yahweh”, the “Day of the Lord”.

We’re told in the Hebrew Scriptures – one of the passages – “be ye not anxious for the day of the Lord”. ( Amos 5:18-20 ) We shouldn’t want it to come. We should want Jesus to come, but the “Day of the Lord” is something completely different.

The Babylonian Captivity

Let’s begin looking, please, for the book of Joel, the Hebrew prophet Joel. Joel was the first prophet who prophesied for the Babylonian captivity. And like all of Israel’s prophets, Joel prophesied for at least three time frames. He prophesied for his own time and the events leading up to the Babylonian captivity, he prophesied for the First Coming of Jesus, and he prophesied for the Second Coming of Jesus, sometimes all in the same breath, certainly in the same passage. When we read Joel, or prophets like him, we have to always be aware what was for his own time, what was for the First Coming of Christ, and what’s for the return of Christ. Or what is for a combination – both, when things happen again. What happened with the Babylonian captivity teaches about what will happen in the Last Days.

Now, you remember Nebuchadnezzar built the image, didn’t he, to be worshiped. Nebuchadnezzar desecrated the Jewish temple. The image – if you read the dimensions in Aramaic – it comes to six-hundred and sixty-six with the steps and so forth in the book of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar entered the “Beautiful Land”. And in the last days of Judah before the captivity, the people were being misled by their leaders. There were only a few people like Jeremiah and Barach telling the truth. The people on a popular level chose to follow the false prophets who were telling them things like, “Victory’s coming.” “Blessing is coming.”

“Prosperity is coming.” They were being given this one message by all these prophets. People like Jeremiah were giving the opposite message. The people on a popular level chose to follow the false prophets and negate the voice of the true ones. The Last Days will be the same way. Most of Christendom will follow the false prophets and reject the people telling the truth. Israel will reject the true voices God has sent to it: Messianic Jews, Jewish believers who preach the Gospel. They would rather follow the deceptions of the rabbis. What happened then will happen again.

It Happened Again

Now, it also happened in 70 A.D. The same, exact pattern that happened in the last days of Judah with the Babylonian captivity happened in 70 A.D. In the Olivet discourse, Jesus begins talking about 70 A.D. before He talks about anything else. “Not one stone will be thrown down upon another”. Pay attention.

The mystery religions of Babylon that began with the Tower of Babel, with Nimrod – those mystery religions that began in Babylon – made their way through Asia Minor, particularly the city of Pergamum, “where Satan’s throne is”, and from there into the Greco-Roman world. Today those same mystery religions are preserved in things like Free Masonery, Roman Catholicism, the Greek Orthodox Church, and so forth, but the root of those things is in Babylon. The early Christians identified Rome with Babylon because they knew that Rome had become the new home of those mystery religions. That’s why in his epistle, Peter writing from Rome says, “She who is in Babylon greets you.”

The Babylonians destroyed the first temple on Tishah be’Av, roughly the 9th of August. They surrounded the city as Jeremiah predicted. The Romans destroyed the second temple in 70 A.D. the exact, same day: Tishah be’Av. The first temple and second temple were destroyed the same day. But it was only the early Christians who understood this is the same as Babylon. The Jewish believers escaped. They remembered what Jesus said, “When you see it surrounded, flee to the mountains.”

A Type of Rapture

After the apostle James had been martyred, a cousin of Jesus names Simeon was the pastor – the senior pastor – of the church in Jerusalem. The Romans inexplicably withdrew the siege very temporarily and the Jewish believers escaped to a place called “Pellah”. Not “Petra”, but “Pellah”. They thought that was going to be the Rapture. And in fact it was a type of the Rapture, but they escaped. The way that those believers escaped before all hell came upon Jerusalem is exactly what will happen in the end.
If you want to know what the “Day of the Lord” will be like, read Josephus’ “The Wars of the Jews”. What happened inside Jerusalem after the believers escaped is what will happen to the whole planet. It’s a microcosm of what will happen to the whole planet. Starvation became so terrible, women began fighting over afterbirth. They were waiting for women to deliver babies so they’d have something to eat. That is what happened in Jerusalem. More than that, the partisans – their own people, the sikim, the Zealots – were more cruel and barbaric than the Romans were. It was something inside the city as well as outside. The “Day of the Lord” is prefigured by what happened in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. after the church was removed.

Now there are many other things in the Bible that teach about the “Day of the Lord”, what this period will be like, but for our purposes think of what happened in 70 A.D. Only those who followed Jesus made it out of there; the others were left and something terrible happened. And it will happen again.

Now, in 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the temple, they set up Pagan incense on the temple mount where the Holy of Holies had been and began worshiping the incense, worshiping their gods where the Holy of Holies had been. After the believers escaped, they understood this to be the “shiqqutzim meshomem“ – the “Abomination of Desolations.” Once again, what happened then is a microcosm, a shadow, a picture of what will happen at the end.

Now, I’ll go through this again for the sake of new believers. Joel prophesied about the Babylonian captivity. What happened at the time Joel prophesied – predicted – is a picture of what will happen in the Last Days. But it also fulfilled partially in 70 A.D. What happened in 70 A.D. as Jesus warned in the Olivet discourse in Matthew 24, that is a picture of what the “Day of the Lord” will be like. Only it will not just be something local in Jerusalem, it will be the entire planet; an entire planet of people going through that kind of a situation. Can you imagine an entire planet of people waiting to fight over a maternal afterbirth to have something to eat? Can you imagine? If you read Josephus, it is shocking. It is horrific.

Now, Jeremiah laments this. The book of Lamentations is called “Eichah” in Hebrew, and it’s read on Tishah be’Av. It’s read the day the temples were destroyed. Ritually in the synagogues to this day, the rabbis read the book of Lamentations – “Eichah” – where Jeremiah laments the destruction that took place. Only Jeremiah was also rescued, wasn’t he? He got out of there with his followers. Before this happens, the faithful people always have a ticket out. Our task in this conference is to make sure you have a ticket.

The Insects

With this in view, turn with me to the book of Joel, chapter 1. “Yo’el Hanawbe”.

The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

Verse 4.

What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten;
What the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten;
And what the hopping locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

Joel uses insects the way that Daniel uses monsters. These insects are pictures of political entities – invading political entities. Daniel generally uses beasts, Joel uses insects, the book of Revelation uses both. Notice there are four swarms of locusts, four different swarms of locusts. The Babylonian captivity of the Jews took place in four invasions. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians invaded four times, and each time there was a greater and greater deportation of Jews.

This idea of a systematic deportation is exactly what happened in the Holocaust of the 1930’s and 40’s. They built a wall around the Jewish ghettos – the “shtettles” – and they would deport a certain amount the first time, a certain amount the second time, a certain amount the third time, and then the rest the fourth time. That’s exactly what happened with the concentration camps in the 1930’s and 40’s, very much in the character of Nebuchadnezzar; the same demonic spirit.

Deception in the Last Days

Now, you’ve got these four swarms of locusts. Look what follows it in verse 5. What does Joel say?
Awake, you drunkards, and weep;
And wail, all you drinkers of wine,
Because of the sweet wine
For it’s been cut off from your mouth.

Understand the deception being perpetrated against the body of Christ today. I’m going to speak very directly.
This is a Calvary Chapel . In the earlier years of Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith kicked somebody out of Calvary Chapel essentially. His name was John Wimber . He was part of Calvary Chapel and Chuck Smith booted him out, gave him the boot – in effect. Because he began teaching things that were based on experience instead of on Scripture: Experiential Theology . Wimber went into mysticism , he went into Gnosticism , he went into New Age philosophy putting it into Christian terms. And he would later align himself with people from Kansas City who said they were prophets. One of these people, Mike Bickle , said the rapture of Elijah was a judgment. Telling people “rapture” of God is a “judgment”? “Elijah was too negative”, so God had to remove him in judgment.

Another one of his prophets was Bob Jones. That was his name. A man found to be in serious sexual immorality (this was publicly known – I’m not throwing mud), but another was Paul Cain . Paul Cain, John Wimber, Mike Bickle – they came to England and they had a big, huge conference in London in August of 1990. And they told the people from England and from other places that the “Latter Day Rain” was going to happen, the “Manifest Sons” would be revealed, there’d be a great outpouring of God’s Spirit. And this revival would come and begin in England and then spread to Germany and then into continental Europe.

Well, it so happens I live in England (most of the time), and I can tell you that since the “great revival” prophesied for October of 1990 – that’s when they said it would happen – five times more mosques than churches have been built in England. For every church that’s been built, five mosques have been built since 1990. The Methodists close one church a week, the Church of England closes two to three churches a week, one mosque a week opens in England. They prophesied falsely, they predicted things that didn’t happen, and they made these predictions in the name of the Lord. It was then revealed about two years ago that Paul Cain is an alcoholic and a homosexual. But you had all of these Charismatics (and I am a Charismatic – I certainly am not a Cessastionist ) following people who were making these predictions, who were alcoholics, who were homosexuals, and were telling people things they wanted to hear.

The people cheered them. They believed this was the “Latter Day Rain”, the “Manifest Sons”. And then they went on to say they were “the locusts who were going to devour”. We’ll come to that in a moment. Look at the next verse, 5.
Awake, ye drunkards, and weep.

The same churches who follow the Kansas City crowd followed people from Toronto , Canada and later Pensacola , Florida. And there was a South African gentlemen (who doesn’t like me) named Rodney Howard-Browne . (He actually denounced me in front of about 8,000 people in Melbourne, Australia because I put out a video showing what he was doing.) And he actually goes around singing a song – I’m not kidding you, this is the song – “Drinking at Joel’s Place”. He sings a song, “Drinking at Joel’s Place”, telling people to get drunk in the Holy Ghost and to fall in hysterics.

Now, that is what they are saying about the book of Joel. Look what Joel says about the book of Joel. They say they’re drunk, Joel says sober up. They say to laugh, Joel said to weep. No revival has ever begun with people laughing. Every revival has begun with people weeping in repentance.

Can There Be Revival?

Can there be a great, End Times revival? The Bible speaks more – much more – of a great, End Times falling away, of a great, End Times apostasy than it does a revival. Now, there is to be a second outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Israel and the Jews during this time. That is true. But it will come during the time of “Jacob’s Trouble”. During “HaTekufa ha Tsorat Yakov”, the darkest hour of their history that takes place at this period. It will not be a happy time.

If revival comes – pay attention – it will be like the revival before the Babylonian captivity. What was the revival before the Babylonian captivity? It was the revival of King Josiah. The sin had become so treacherous, particularly the genocidal sacrifice of Jewish children to demons like Molech under King Manasseh. King Manasseh sacrificed and killed all these kids. So even though a repentance did come, even though a revival did come, God said the axe won’t fall in your lifetime because you’ve been faithful, but the axe still must fall; things have gone too far. Pay attention.

I don’t say revival can’t come. I don’t say the “Day of the Lord” cannot be, in theory, be delayed. But the axe must fall. Why? Look at it. 40 million babies aborted in the United States in non-therapeutic abortions since “Roe vs. Wade”. 40 million! Had they not done that, the Social Security system would not be in trouble. That same generation responsible for “Rove v. Wade” is now going to reap the whirlwind...euthanasia will be the next battle. The demands on the public health care systems, on Social Security, “We can’t let these people go on living into their 90’s and into their 80’s with improved medicine – we have to let them die.” Otherwise the system – mark my words – it will go from “voluntary” euthanasia to “involuntary” euthanasia. That fetus had no choice about being aborted, neither will that generation that aborted them. They will reap what the sowed. It is inevitable that the judgment of God must come on the western world. It must fall on the Protestant democracies.

If revival comes, the most you can do is delay the inevitable. Things have gone too far. “If my people, who are called by My name will turn and pray, I’ll heal their land” – that is true; but it can only be true in the way it was in the days of Josiah. Things have just gone too far. Too far. This is not to say we shouldn’t pray for revival – we should – but understand when it comes it will only delay the inevitable. A chance for more people to be saved. God will increase and return His grace ultimately back to His ancient people Israel.

Sober Up

So for this to come about, Joel is saying, “Sober up.” Today, major denominations are telling people, “No, get drunk”. The word is “sobreizo” in Greek. We’re told to practice self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is “egkrateia” – “self control” – they are saying be out of control. If someone is not in control of themselves, the Holy Spirit is not in control of them.

I went to Toronto , Canada on business and I visited that lunatic asylum with the cross on the roof to see what was going on. The first thing that I noticed was that everyone was talking about experience, nobody was talking about Jesus. And they kept saying, “I couldn’t control it! I couldn’t control it!” Well, the fact that you couldn’t control it proves it’s not God. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.

Just think of somebody that used to be an alcoholic who becomes a Christian. An alcoholic, let’s say. I was a cocaine addict when I was a teenager, but let’s say somebody’s an alcoholic. The Lord delivered me from cocaine – actually He did – but for somebody else, the Lord delivers them from alcohol addiction. If that person goes into a pub or a bar and begins drinking again, is the Holy Spirit in control of them? No. A beer to them is what cocaine is to me: death. If the Holy Spirit was in control of them, they’d be in control of themselves. When people sin, the Holy Spirit’s not in control of them, are they? When we sin, the Holy Spirit’s not in control of us at that instance. We’re grieving the Holy Spirit. “I know it’s God, I just couldn’t control...” The fact that they couldn’t control it proves it’s not God we’re told twice in the New Testament. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is “egkrateia”. Now, notice that they’re saying the diametric opposite of what Scripture says.

Blow A Trumpet

Chapter 2:1 of Joel.
Blow a trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm on God’s holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
For the day of the Lord is coming near;
A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness.
Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains,
A great and powerful people;
Their like has never been seen before,
Nor will be again after them
To all the years of all generations.
Fire devours before them
A flame burns after them.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them
But after them a desolate wilderness,
Nothing escapes them.
Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
And like war horses, they run.
As with rumbling of chariots
They leap on top of the mountains,
Like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble,
Like a powerful army drawn up for battle.
Before them people are in anguish;
All faces grow pale.
Like warriors they charge,
Like soldiers they scale the wall;
They each march each his way,
They do not swerve from their paths.
They do not jostle one other,
Each marches in his path;
They burst through the weapons,
They are not halted.
They leap upon the city,
They run on the walls;
They climb up into houses,
They enter through the windows like a thief.
The earth quakes before them,
The heavens tremble,
The sun and the moon are darkened
The stars withdraw their shining.
The same as the Olivet discourse.
The Lord utters His voice before His army;
For His camp is exceedingly great,
He who executes His word is powerful.
For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome,
Who can endure it?
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“Return to Me with all your heart,
And with fasting, weeping and mourning;
Rend not your garments but your hearts.”
Return to the Lord,
He’s gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love
And He relents.

But they wouldn’t blow the trumpet in Zion. This corresponds in figure to the Hebrew Feast of Trumpets. Today, the rabbis gave the Feast of Trumpets a completely different meaning than the Scripture does. “When the people in the city hear the shofar, will they not tremble?” It’s a convocation and a warning. It’s the Jews being regathered to Israel for the Great Tribulation. The Jews are not going back to Israel for a picnic or a blessing; they’re going back to be deceived by the Antichrist, to make a covenant with death, and to go into a holocaust in which two-thirds of them will be wiped out.

My children were born in Galilee. My own children are Israeli Jews born in Galilee. I firmly believe in the prophetic purposes of God for Israel and the Jews, I believe in Israel’s right to exist as a nation. I’m appalled at the pressure America and other governments put on it to acquiesce to Islamic barbarism. Nonetheless, I’m still left with the fact that there is no peace without the Prince of Peace. There is no blessing without the atonement of the Messiah.

When you see Jews getting on planes and ships going to Israel, they may as well be getting on a train going to Auschwitz or Buchenwald. There are organizations claiming to be “Christian embassies”, claiming to be “wings of eagles” who say, “Just get the Jews back to Israel and God will save them.” Two-thirds of them are going to be wiped out. Yes, all Israel will be saved, those who look upon Him who they pierced will be saved, but the others are going to be killed. The Jewish people need Jesus the Messiah. Do not support any organization or ministry that does not give the Jews the Gospel.

Now, one of the reason our ministry supports Brad Antolovich – Calvary Chapel Jerusalem – is because, oh they’re bringing Jews back from Ukraine and Russia, and they’re helping Jews with humanitarian aid, but they’re giving the Jews what they need the most: the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah. There are good ministries and there are bad ones. Unfortunately, a lot of the money goes to the bad ones.

Changing the Meaning

The rabbis changed the meaning of Trumpets. You know what they call it now? “Rosh Hashanah.” “Happy New Year”. Now, biblically they should be saying, “Oy v’voy”, “Woe upon woe!” When the trumpet is sounded, let the people tremble. But instead of saying, “Oy v’voy”, “Woe upon woe!”, the rabbis are telling Jewish people to say, “Happy New Year!” But they’re not saved; they don’t know their Messiah, Yeshua.

What do you do when the church, when its leaders instead of telling people to sober up are telling them to get drunk? Or instead of telling them to fall down and weep, they’re telling them to fall down and laugh. Israel’s blind, the church is blind. So much of Israel is blind. Only a small remnant, albeit a growing remnant of Jews, no the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. The proportions are not much different. In a Calvary Chapel you general don’t see the same degree of error you see in most other churches and denominations today, but they’re all going with this kind of stuff, one fad after another. Pensacola , Pepsi-Cola, Purpose Driven , anything as long as it’s not biblical, they’re going to do it.

Pay attention. Jesus said directly, “When you see these things happening, lift up your head, your redemptions draws near.” The book of Revelation is the only book of the Bible with a special blessing promised for reading it. There’s a blessing for reading all of it, but there’s an actual, literal blessing – Jesus promises a blessing for reading it. So who are people listening to? Events are happening in the Middle East today, but the Scripture warned us. Things are happening in Europe. The re-confederation of Europe in non-democratic Europe is exactly what Daniel said and is happening today. “When you see these things happening, lift up your head, your redemption’s draws near.” We see the “Day of the Lord” drawing near, so who are people listening to? I’ll tell you who they’re listening to: They’re listening to a man in California named Rick Warren who said don’t study Bible prophecy, it’s a diversion. Jesus says when you see this stuff happening, you better get into this book and understand what’s going on. “Oh no, don’t do that”, says Rick Warren. Who cares what Jesus Christ said? Why do we need Him when we have the Purpose Driven? I can prove it; he said it, as well as at least a dozen other things co-equally as crazy and as dangerous. You see the deception?

Increasing Deception

There are three kinds of people in God’s economy as the “Day of the Lord” draws near: There’s the Jews, the Gentile nations, and the church composed of both Jew and Gentile. There’s the Jew, the Gentiles, and the church.
Satan has the Jews deceived; they don’t recognize their Messiah, except for a faithful remnant. Satan has the nations deceived. That leaves the church. He’s trying to deceive you and me.

When they asked the Lord Jesus at the Olivet discourse, “What will be the sign of Your coming at the end of the age?”, He spoke of wars one time, rumors and wars one time, famines one time, earthquakes one time, pestilence one time – one time, one time, one time – persecution one time, but He warned of deception perpetrated against the Elect four times. In fact, the first words out of His mouth – “Lord, what will be the sign of Your coming at the end of the age?” – “See to it that no one leads you astray.” The first words out of His mouth. He warned about deception perpetrated against you and me, your family and my family, your church and my church – He warned about that four times more than any other sign of the end.

If you asked me when I was a young believer back in the early 70’s, or even if you asked me 15 years ago, or even 10 years ago, why I though it was the Last Days, I would tell you, “Israel, the European Union, destruction of the environment, globalization of the world economy” – I would have told you all that stuff. Now in fact, I’m even more convinced that stuff is prophetically significant now than I was 10 years ago; I’m even more convinced that stuff is prophetically significant now than I’ve ever been. But it’s no longer the clearest signs. The clearest signs of the return of Jesus and the approach of the “Day of the Lord” is deception perpetrated against the Elect: The numbers and caliber of the people who are believing it and buying into it and subscribing into it.

How can anybody in their right mind think they can be out of control when the Bible says be in control? How can anybody in their right mind say don’t study prophecy, when Jesus said we should? Deception. He’s got the Jews, he’s getting the church. “Blow a trumpet”. No, it is not “Happy New Year”, it is “Oy v’voy”.

The Locust Armies

Now these armies of Babylon, represented by locusts, appear again in the book of Revelation. In other words, what happened with Nebuchadnezzar is a shadow of what will transpire eschatologically in the future, the Apocalypse. You understand? What happened with the Babylonian captivity will happen again. Turn to Revelation 9, please.

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet...

(Now, remember the trumpets.)

...and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and air were darkened with smoke from the shaft.

What does it say in Joel? The sun will be darkened, a star will fall from heaven.

Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth. And they were given power like the power of scorpions on the earth.

Well, here’s the locusts, they’re coming again. Look what they did the last time. So what does the church do? What should we do? We should blow this and warn people Jesus is coming. “No, don’t do that,” says Rick Warren . “That’s a diversion.” What are they doing? Can you believe it? These locusts are the demon cohorts of Antichrist. These locusts, who had a literal fulfillment in the Babylonian army, are a picture of the demon cohorts of Antichrist in Revelation 9.

I have been – not to churches – to stadiums. Stadiums – not with hundreds, not with thousands, but with tens of thousands of born again Christians, supposedly – and you know what they were singing?

“We run on the city, we run on the walls,
Great is the army who carries his word.”

They think they’re thinking about themselves. They think they’re singing about them. They think, “Daddy’s locusts”. These are the great army. Yes, it’s called Yahweh’s army, it’s His army of judgment to bring His own people to repentance like the Babylonians were. They’re actually singing about the demon cohorts of Antichrist and they think they’re singing about themselves.

The Absence of Doctrine

“Blow a trumpet in Zion, Zion. Here we come. Latter Day Rain , Manifest Sons , the Manchild , Kingdom Now .” This whole global peace plan, you know what it is? Kingdom Now theology. Over-realized eschatology, post-millenialism. Hyper-Charismatics don’t have any doctrine; they go by experience, feelings, mysticism . They don’t have any doctrine.

So where do they get their doctrine? They go to hyper-Calvinists called “ Reconstructionists ”, the followers of Rushdoony , David Chilton , Greg Bonson, Gary North . Reconstructionists, people who believe that the church has to take over the institutions of government and finance and establish the kingdom of God before Jesus comes. So you have a hyper-Calvinist kook and a hyper-Charismatic kook, where does this Charismatic get his eschatology? Where does a “kook” get his doctrine? Well, quite obviously and quite logically, he gets it from another kook.

• “Kook” + “Kook” = “Kingdom Now”.
• “Kook” + “Kook” = “Manifest Sons”.
• “Kook” + “Kook” = “Manchild”.
• “Kook” + “Kook” = “Global Peace Plan”.

There is a global peace plan, but you know what bothers me most about Rick Warren’s “Five Point Global Peace Plan”? It’s not God’s. It’s about education, it’s about social welfare, it’s about all those things, but it doesn’t talk about the Gospel. It doesn’t even talk about salvation.

They are being set up for this. They actually sing this. They’re singing about Antichrist’s army and they think it’s about them! Pay attention. David Hocking and myself were talking about this in Germany. Remember when Jesus warned, “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases like the heathen do”? In Hinduism it’s a mantra. Over and over and over and over. The whole “Mary” thing in Catholic countries is so strong you can’t tell them, “Look, Mary says she needs a Savior” because they’ve said too many rosaries. Like Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it’s the truth.”
They get into the mantra. So we have what some people call the “7-11 choruses”: 7 words, repeated 11 times. Where do these people get their theology? They get it from mindlessly singing choruses as if they were a mantra. The people in these churches who went to this lunacy – you see, there’s no exposition of the Word, they just sing and sing the same thing over and over, but it doesn’t dawn on them much of what they’re singing is not even Scriptural. They become inundated by it like a mantra. It is the same as Hinduism .

The Eastern Invasion

This is the third time – third time – eastern religion has permeated – invaded – the western church. Jeremiah warns of it in chapter 5: “My people are filled with influences from the east.”

The first time it happened was with the post-Nicean fathers, particularly in Alexandria; that was the first time eastern religion invaded western Christendom, with the Gnostics .

The second time was when the Crusades brought the influences of Hinduism and Sufi Islam into Europe. The second time was the Crusades. The whole thing with little girls dressed like brides for the community and counting their prayers on beads, that was all copied from Muslims and Hindus. The flagellation things in the monasteries and convents, that was all copied from Shi’a Muslims. That was the second time.

This is the third time eastern religion has invaded the western church.

2004, the National Pastor’s Conference in San Diego, the keynote speaker – I’m only telling you what was on the agenda – 11:30 to 1, Rick Warren . After a coffee break, you know what the next session was? Yoga. It’s on the Internet. (At least it was.) The National Pastor’s Conference! These are Evangelical pastors! Yoga! They don’t have a clue what’s happening.

That day should not overtake us like a thief. He’s coming like a thief in the night, but it shouldn’t overtake us like a thief. It’s going to shock people, it’s going to surprise them, but it should not shock or surprise us. Let’s look. What should we be doing?

The Proper Context

Turn with me again to the book of Joel 2.

Blow the trumpet in Zion,

...verse 15...
Call a solemn assembly,
Gather the people, consecrate the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children, even nursing infants,
Let the bridegroom leave his room
And the bride her chambers.
There’s a reason for that. Remember Jesus warned they’ll be marrying and given in marriage?
Let them gather between the vestibule and the altar,
Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers weep
And say, “Spare Your people, O Lord.”
Make not Your heritage a reproach,
A byword among the nations.
Spare Your people, O Lord.

A “text”, out of context, in isolation from its co-text, is always a “pretext”. Satan is great at taking Scriptures out of context. Look what he did with Jesus. He tried it with Jesus. That whole argument between Satan and Jesus in Matthew 4 was from the book of Deuteronomy. Satan would pull a verse out of context, Jesus would answer him in context. Whatever Jesus answered was from Deuteronomy because everything Satan raises from Deuteronomy – he was great at taking certain verses out of context. It’s simple: A text, out of context, in isolation from its co-text, is always a pretext.

So they’ll point out in Peter’s charigma in the Book of Acts 2 that he quotes from Joel 2:28 .

Afterwards it shall come to pass I’ll pour out my Spirit on your flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy.

That’s true. But first of all, in its context, it’s mainly focused on Israel and the Jews. Secondly, it doesn’t precede calamity, it follows it. They’re buying into a big lie. Buying into a big lie. It doesn’t matter what you say.

Does It Matter To You?

Last week I was in Hawaii and the Lord put in my way the biggest con-artist, false prophet, money preacher in the world. Eyeball to eyeball, I with him. Eyeball to eyeball, I told him he was a false prophet, that I can prove he’s made these predictions in the name of the Lord that didn’t happen, that he needs to repent and get out of the ministry. It doesn’t matter what I told him. No, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have told him. Ezekiel says tell them anyway, even if they won’t listen. It’s like serving an indictment, but they won’t listen. It just doesn’t matter to them. The question is, does it matter to you? Do you want a ticket out of here? The “Day of the Lord” is coming.

There is a message. The message is not, “Get drunk”, the message is not to lose self-control, the message is not, “Happy New Year”. The message is you pick up your Bible; this is the message. What does it say in Amos? “Set the trumpet to thy mouth.”

Blow a trumpet in Zion.
Sound an alarm in my holy mountain,
The day of the Lord draws near.

You see CNN today? You watch Fox News today? The “Day of the Lord” draws near. But when the biggest preachers in the world are giving the flock the opposite message, what chance will the sheep have from these wolves when their own shepherds give them over?

No, there is a message. The message is the “Day of the Lord” indeed draws near.

Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Consecrate a fast, call an assembly, a solemn assembly,
Gather all the people, consecrate the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children, even the nursing infants.

Remember what Jesus said about the nursing mothers.

Let the bridegroom leave his room
Let the bride her chamber.

Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Sound an alarm in God’s mountain!
The day of the Lord draws near

Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord weep
And let them say, “Spare thy people, O Lord.”

God bless.

The Crucified Life

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:46:16 GMT

Introduction

Some people try to tell us that signs and wonders and miracles will cause the unsaved to believe.

At Passover in Jesus' time, famous rabbis would come together and debate. At one particular Passover the rabbi who everybody wanted to see was someone who could feed thousands of people with a little boy's picnic basket, who could walk on water, who could heal the sick and even raise the dead. The people wanted Him to put on a show. They had a “signs and wonders” gospel. They also wanted somebody to get rid of the Romans, the way the Maccabees had gotten rid of the Greeks. They had a “ Kingdom Now ” gospel. And, if you understand the Hallel Rabbah from Psalm 113 to 118, which they sang to Jesus, they were singing "give us prosperity now." They had a “prosperity” gospel.

These people did not want a Messiah who was going to be a Suffering Servant. They wanted one who was going to make them rich.

Purge the Leaven

Passover begins with the purging of the leaven. Jesus would not put on a show. Instead He purged the leaven. Leaven is a figure of sin, particularly sins of pride, because it puffs up. Pride is the kind of sin that undergirds other kinds of sin. If somebody has a greed problem, for example, their underlying problem is pride. If somebody has a lust problem, their underlying problem is pride. Pride is the sin that underlies other kinds of sin. Pride is also associated with false doctrine. That is why Jesus said, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees". ( Mt. 16:6 ).

The Sanhedrin was responsible for the inspection of lambs at Passover. They checked for up to seventy-four different blemishes. If unable to find a blemish on a lamb, they would approve it for sacrifice. But they perverted the Torah, turning their Levitical role into a business. The religious leaders were twisting the Word of God for their own aggrandizement, exploiting God's people and profiteering on the blood of the lamb.

Instead of getting rid of the Romans, God got rid of them. God is much more concerned with the sin in my life and in your life than He is with the sin in the lives of the unsaved.

Jesus cleaned the moneychangers out of the temple because judgment begins in the house of God. Having cleansed the temple, they brought the lame to Him and He healed them. These signs follow. ( Mk. 16:20 ) Jesus would never allow signs and wonders and miracles to be amplified above repentance.

The same thing happened at Hanukkah, the Jewish feast of miracles, They wanted to stone Him and He said, "I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?" ( Jn.10:32 ).

If signs and wonders are really the key to revival, why did they cry out a few days later, "Crucify Him", when they knew that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, and healed the lame and the blind? The prosperity preachers, who claim they have all the miracles, have been around a long time, but no revival has come; rather the Gospel has been disgraced by their scandals.

Doubting Thomas

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymas, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples were therefore saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." And after eight days again His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and said, "Peace be with you."

Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing." Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"

Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed'" ( Jn. 20:24-29 ).

Thomas is a picture of all human doubt. Jesus was manifest to them in the breaking of bread – the bread of His Word. When Jesus rose, He wanted to show them that He was not a spirit, so He physically ate something.

After Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb, He was seen eating with Lazarus ( Jn.12:1-2 ). When He raised the little girl from the dead, He said that something should be given to her to eat ( Mk.5:43 ). Spiritual bodies do not need to eat, so the Bible uses the idea of somebody eating after being resurrected to show that it is physical resurrection. Jesus was identifiable: not at first, but He was recognized in the breaking of bread. He was able to do things like walk through walls. That teaches something about our future. What happened to Him, will happen to us.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who are asleep ( 1 Co.15:20 ).

When the high priest was out in the Kidron Valley at sunrise on the first day of the week after Passover, he had to bring the first of the grain offering up through the East Gate into the temple. All four gospels tell us that Jesus rose at sunrise, at the very time when the high priest was bringing in the first fruit. Jesus was the first fruit of the resurrection. Our resurrection and His are the same event, only He is the first, so His resurrection teaches about ours. Moses, Jesus and Elijah were transfigured together. Elijah – a man who never died (he was raptured), Moses – somebody who did die, and Jesus.

That is what overthrew Pagan Rome. It is a terrible tragedy of history that Papal Rome became no better than Pagan Rome afterwards but, nonetheless, the early Christians overthrew the power of Pagan Rome. Tertullian said, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." These people loved not their lives unto death. Paul wrote to the Romans quoting from Psalm 44, "For Thy sake, O Lord, we are being put to death all day long."

The Apostle Paul

What was the proof of Paul's anointing as an apostle? Was it all the churches he planted, all the people who were saved, the fact that he could stand up and debate famous rabbinic leaders and win the debates? No, that was not his proof. It was not even the miracles, including raising someone from the dead (Acts 20). None of that was the proof of his anointing. The proof of his anointing was this – "I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus" ( Gal. 6:17 ). He used the Greek word “stigmata”, which gives us the English word "stigmatize." He was willing to be accursed in his flesh in a visible way for the sake of Christ.

Romania

My wife is a Romanian Jew. Her parents are Holocaust survivors. They suffered under the Nazis and narrowly escaped with their lives. Most of the family was killed. Then they suffered under the Communists. My wife grew up as a "Refusnik" and immigrated to Israel when she was eleven years old.

Ceausescu was a terrible, evil man, but the church grew in Romania. Revivals happened among Gypsies and people who had previously been unconvertible. Many Jewish people were saved. Richard and Sabena Wurmbrand (Voice of the Martyrs) came out of that Jewish community. So many of the believers we know in Israel were Jews from Romania. What made the church in a country like that grow? What did people see to make them believe? They saw a crucified body that had been resurrected.

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. ( Gal. 2:20 ).

They did not just parrot the words. The revolt in Romania that overthrew Ceausescu began in the place that had the highest concentration of evangelical Christians in Romania.

I have met many Christians who lived in the power of the resurrection. I have met many Messianic Jews who live in the power of the resurrection. I remember about ten years ago in Israel, while the Iron Curtain was still standing and very few Jews were able to get out of Russia to come to Israel. Some did and some of these were believers who were saved in underground Pentecostal and Baptist churches.

"Jesus Loves You"

I remember one brother who had a wife and five children. He had been some kind of a leader in one of the underground churches. The KGB imprisoned him for years. His family, at certain times, did not know if he was dead or alive. The KGB beat him repeatedly and tortured him, but he would not deny his faith. They gave him psychotropic drug injections in large quantities, intravenously and electro-shock treatment repeatedly. He is only a middle-aged man but he looks like a very old man because of what they did to him.

He is in Israel now. He is a Jew. His wife leads him around by the hand. There is only one phrase he can say; it is the only thing he ever says: "Jesus loves you."

They gave him electro-shock torture, they gave him psychotropic drugs, they tried to destroy his faith in Jesus the Messiah. But that was the one thing they could not destroy. They destroyed his life in this world, they destroyed his mind and his health. They destroyed everything, but his faith in Jesus. That man has a crucified body that walks and lives in the power of the resurrection.

Rose Warmer

My wife and myself are very privileged to be the friends of a Jewish woman from Hungary who was a second generation Jewish believer, Rose Warmer.

During World War II, Rose had an opportunity to escape from Hungary. The Lord spoke to her directly and said, "No, I want you to go to the Gestapo and turn yourself in as a Jew." She did. Very few people, either Jews or Gypsies, survived Auschwitz. She is one of the very few who did. What happened to her in Auschwitz was unspeakable. They were taking Jewish women by the thousands and thousands every day, stripping them, shaving their heads, pulling their teeth out, gassing them, and then putting them in ovens.

She volunteered for that. When she went to be with the Lord there were a lot of other people waiting for her, a number of those Jewish women who were gassed to death, who heard the Gospel of the Messiah Jesus from a Jew who believed it, before they died. Rose Warmer had a crucified life. That woman had a crucified body that lived in the power of the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah.

I have known people like that. Many of them suffered for their faith. Many, not all. I have known many Christians like that, godly people. It is usually not the guy with the big mouth, like me, it is usually the little old lady who washes the church steps, who fasts and prays every day. It is usually people like that. I have known a lot of people like that over the years. They stand out. I can point to this one and to that one. You can see them. But there is a big difference between seeing individual Christians and a crucified body.

We are the body of Christ. When the world sees us as a crucified body that has been resurrected, they will listen to our message and respond.

Revival?

Jesus' death is ours. His resurrection is ours. The world is skeptical about us and our message, and they are going to become more skeptical. What is the solution? Prayer, of course. The preaching of the Gospel, absolutely! But there is only one thing that is going to put this nation back on the track to real revival. There is only one thing that is going to make this hardened nation reconsider the claims of Jesus. It will not be some confidence trickster from America with big rings and a fancy limousine telling them that God wants them rich. It will not be people behaving like lunatics in some Toronto church. Their weird behavior will prevent people from believing. What will make them believe is when we have a response to their request, "Show me a body that has been crucified and resurrected. Let me see."

Paul could say, "Here!"

Rose Warmer could say, "Here!"

Richard Wurmbrand could say, "Here!"

A crucified body is where each and every one of us can stand up and say, "Here!"

Show Me Jesus

Richard Wurmbrand is a Jewish believer. He is a friend of my wife; they speak to each other in Romanian. He tells about a Romanian peasant who had been saved and imprisoned and tortured by the Communists for his faith.

There was also a scientist from the Academy of Science in Bucharest, who was not a Communist. He did not believe in God, he was just a scientist who was not a Communist, so they put him in prison and they tortured him. There was a small room with maybe forty people living in it, teetering on the brink of starvation, everyone of them having been beaten repeatedly. The Romanian peasant, who was not an educated man, was going around witnessing to the other people who were dying with him. Wurmbrand was there. The scientist, who had been a prominent intellectual, began mocking the peasant. He said to him, "How can you be happy? How can you say you have joy when this is happening to you? You don't even know if they have killed your family." Every day they carried out two or three dead bodies, and each of them wondered whether they would be next. "Why are you happy?" The peasant said, "I've told you many times, I am happy because of Jesus."

Remember Jeremiah? Jeremiah had a delight. He could not sit in the circle of merrymakers, but he still had joy. The scientist said, "Jesus! You are happy because of Jesus! Do you see Jesus?" "Oh, yes, I see him every day," replied the peasant.

"Do you talk to Jesus?"

"Oh, yes, I talk to Jesus every day."

"Does Jesus talk back to you?"

"Oh, yes, He talks to me every day."

"What does Jesus do? Does He ever smile at you?"

"Oh yes, Jesus smiles at me."

"Show me how He looks when He smiles."

And the peasant said, "Like this." And the Shekinah glory came over the face of this peasant. The scientist fell down on the floor and began pounding his fists on the floor and said, "You have seen Jesus Christ." And he became a believer.

Laodicea

We are living in the days of Laodicea ( Rev. 3:14-22 ): a lukewarm church that is proud, materialistic and oblivious to its true state.

Laodicea's first problem is that it does not know that it is Laodicea. It does not realize that it is lukewarm. It thinks that, because it is well-off materially and financially, it is well-off spiritually, but it is not. There is a faithful remnant in Laodicea. Jesus says, "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous, therefore, and repent". ( Revelation 3:19 ). I want Him to correct the things that are wrong in me, because when He comes, I want to be ready.

"Here It Is!"

Toronto is not going to bring revival. Kansas City could not bring revival. Jim Challenge could not bring revival. The “ Decade of Harvest ” did not bring revival. None of that stuff brought revival.

These people do not believe any more. They are too skeptical. And, to tell you the truth, when I look at some of the things going on in the name of Christianity today, I do not blame them. If I was not already saved, I would be very skeptical.

"Show me. Let me see. Show me, then I will believe. Let me see a body that has been crucified and resurrected, then I will believe."

They are going to believe when we can say, "Here it is!"

Christmas is Coming

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:44:09 GMT

Introduction

The word for “Christmas” in Hebrew is “Hag Ha molad” – literally “The Festival of the Birth”.

It says in Romans 14:4 not to judge anyone for what religious festivals they celebrate, and along similar lines, it says in Colossians 2:16-18 not to let anyone judge you; it is a matter of culture and context that is strictly between you and the Lord. I could care less whether someone celebrates Christmas; it doesn't matter to me. What I do care about is the theology of Christmas, or the Nativity. When He was born, who knows? That He was born, we all know.

My family, being Israeli, celebrates Hanukah. It is Hanukah now. In John 10 Jesus celebrated Hanukah – the Feast of Dedication. This is very important in understanding the advent of Antichrist among other things through Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees. We have a Hanukah party to which we invite unsaved Jewish people, which my family is doing this week while I am in America. Again, at our house we don't have Christmas, we have the Nativity. We go to our church, and we go to the carol service; that's all. We may do things for missions and for needy families, but nothing more than that. Christmas is strictly a church thing for us; we have Hanukah as our celebration.

Christmas and the Last Days

What does Christmas, the Nativity, have to do with the Last Days? This may surprise you, but the answer is everything.
You may have heard me say before that we will never understand the Second Coming of Christ until we understand His First Coming. What happened in His First Coming is replayed, recapitulated, in His Second Coming. When Jesus was born, the Roman emperor was Caesar Augustus – formerly Octavius. He was the first Roman emperor to be deified in his lifetime. Thus there was a Roman emperor presiding over the Roman Empire and being worshiped as a god when Jesus arrived the first time. This emperor took a census, ascribing numbers to people – not actually putting numbers on them, but ascribing one to every person in the known world. There were actually two censuses taken by Augustus, both for this purpose: that he might gain financial control of the world. When Jesus comes back, the same thing will happen: we will have a resurrected Roman Empire headed by someone who is virtually deified. This demi-god will number people's heads in order to economically control the world. What happened at Jesus' First Coming will happen again at His Second. Christmas is not just a past event; it is a future event, a prophetic event.

The book of Joel, the book of Revelation, and the Olivet Discourse tell us about signs in the sky and the cosmos heralding the return of Christ. Of course, as we know, there were signs in the sky and the cosmos heralding the birth of Christ. The Jews were in their own land, but under the thumb of this Roman emperor. How did he get there? By seduction – the Roman general, Pompeii, seduced the Jews and entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Whenever you see somebody other than the High Priest on the Day of Atonement entering the Holy of Holies, it is a picture in some way of the Antichrist. What happened with Pompeii in Rome will happen again. These events that we see happening in Europe and in the Middle East are setting the stage.
Jochanan ha Matbiel – John the Baptist – came in the spirit and power of Elijah. He was born just before Jesus and appeared just before Him. The prophet Malachi predicted that in some way, Elijah will come again; Jesus confirmed this.

There were many false prophets in Israel when Jesus came the first time, and many will be here when He comes back. The general backslidden state of the faith that should have believed in Him then is no different in many ways from the backslidden state of the faith that should believe in Him now.

Jesus' First Coming teaches about His Second. Christmas is neither here nor there; the Nativity, however, is very important. If we do not understand how He came the first time, we will not understand His return. There are differences, of course, but one is a picture of the other.

I have spent a lot of my time for the past 20 years as an evangelist to the Jews thinking about one question: How could it be, with 2,000 years of history preparing for the Messiah to come, being in a covenant relationship with God and having the Scripture, that so few Jews were ready for Jesus to come the first time? Paul tells us that the devil blinded their eyes. ( Rom. 11:25 ) There were 2,000 years of preparation for Jesus to come, Israel had a covenantal relationship with God, and they had the Scriptures. Yet in spite of all this, only a remnant was ready for Him to come. The same thing will be true when He comes back, only it will not only be Israel, but also the so-called church.

What kinds of Christians are going to be ready for Jesus to come again in the Last Days? If you want to know the answer to this, look at the kinds of Jews who were ready for Him to come the first time. If you want to know what kinds of Christians are not going to be ready for Him to come back, take a good look at the kinds of Jews that were not ready for Him to come the first time. His First Coming teaches about His Second; we will never understand His Second Coming until we understand His First. Obviously He will not come as a baby the second time, being born of an earthly mother. There are differences between the two comings, but essentially one prefigures the other.

Those Who Were Not Ready

Before we look at what kinds of Jews were ready for Jesus to come the first time, let's look at Jews who were not ready. When we see what kinds of Jews were not ready, we will know what kinds of Christians will not be ready. A is to B as B is to C.

Turn with me, please, to Matthew's Nativity narrative in Matthew 2:1 :

"Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.' When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: "But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel."'

What we see here is that some of the people who were ready for Jesus to come the first time were people whom you would not have expected to be ready. These Magi, or wise men, were from Persia. They were the chaplains of the ancient Medes and Persians. Somehow in ancient Persia there was a religion that has been changed over the centuries, called Zoroastrianism . It was monotheistic; they believed that there was one God and that man was responsible for his own sin. They believed there was a battle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness; they held similar beliefs, in other words, to those of the Essenes and the Christians.

During the Babylonian Captivity, when Persia overtook Babylon in fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies, some of the Persian kings came to believe in the Jewish God, having already been predisposed to monotheism. There was a lingering Jewish influence in that place. We read about Esther, for example, and Darius the Mede, as well as the prophecy of King Cyrus by Isaiah the prophet over 200 years before Cyrus' birth. We read in Ezra and Nehemiah what happened there. All the way through the Hasmonean period to the time of Jesus, the Persians favored the Jews. In fact, until the Shaw of Iran fell, the Persians – Iran – favored Israel. I have no doubt in my mind that the Prince of Persia, the principality against which Daniel prayed and fasted for three weeks ( Dan. 10:13 ; 20 ), is still there today in the form of Shia Islam, that Islamic fundamentalism in Iran. People in modern Christian circles like to call demons like this one “territorial spirits”, which is not a good translation or interpretation. The Greek word is “arche”, the Hebrew word “shedim”; a better translation for these words is “principalities”, meaning demonic powers over nations. We have many crazy people today doing “binding and loosing”, among other nonsense, but there is no doubt about the fact that there are principalities over nations. The book of Daniel reveals that, and in Gerasenes the demons going into the swine begged Jesus not to send them out of the region. ( Lk. 8:31-33 ) There are territorial spirits, if you want to use that term, although it is not a particularly good interpretation. They do exist. In Belfast, you see murals of ancient Celtic war gods on the walls, both in the neighborhoods where Protestants are recruited and in those where Catholics are recruited.

You see, those wise men understood how to interpret the signs of the time. Sadly, there are born-again Christians who cannot see the significance of contemporary events in the Middle East. They are blind to it, as if the book of Zechariah was not in the Bible. They cannot see what is happening in the EEC – they don't understand the globalization of the world economy, the destruction of the environment, or any of these other signs, as wise men do.

So the Magi came to see the Messiah, non-Jews, people you would not have expected, because they saw the Star in the East. Here we see that they come to Jerusalem, where Herod heard them and was troubled – and all Jerusalem with him. This was the city where David said that the Messiah would come. This was where the Temple was; the focus of their identity and their Messianic hope, yet almost nobody who lived there wanted Him to come.

You will find many churches with the same attitude; drive up the road, look at the churches you pass, and ask yourself how many of them really want Jesus to come back. All Jerusalem was troubled; oh, they had the rituals, the liturgies, the festivities and the holidays, but when it looked like He was showing up, they were all troubled. Especially troubled were the national and religious leaders. Think about this.

It gets even more frightening, however – these guys knew the Scriptures. Herod wanted to know where the Messiah would be born, and they told him what Micah 5:2 said, that He would be born in Bethlehem. They had head knowledge of the Scriptures, but not heart knowledge. When He showed up, it was the last thing in the world that they either expected or wanted. Do you think it will be any different when He returns?

The Trap of Satan: Backsliding

Almost every lie of Satan perpetrated in the church today is designed with one purpose: to get God's people to hope in this life and this world. By definition, that is what backsliding is. Kingdom-Now theology, Dominionism , Triumphalism , Calvinistic Reconstructionism – what are they all trying to do? Set up the kingdom now; trust in this life. Faith-prosperity, the money preachers – teaching the sin of covetousness and calling it faith, the worship of Mammon and calling it the worship of God – what is it about? Trusting in this life.

Gerald Coates and Rick Joyner say that the Rapture is a lie of the devil, a fantasy and a myth. They mock it, comparing it to Star Trek's "Beam me up, Scotty". What is their purpose? It is to cause the church to forget about the Rapture and trust in this life. What do you think the ecumenical movement is about? Building the brotherhood of man – once again, trust in this life. All Jerusalem was troubled when He came the first time, and Jerusalem will be troubled again when He returns – and I don't just mean Jerusalem, Israel.

Their national and religious leaders, who knew the Scriptures, did not want Him to come. For 2,000 years God had been preparing them for His coming; the whole reason for their very existence as a nation and a people was His coming. Yet very few wanted Him to; and it will be no different when He returns.

Those Who Were Ready

But what kind of Jews were ready for Him to come? Let's look: turn with me please to the gospel of Luke chapter one.
In Luke 1:46-55 we have the Magnificat, which if you read it in Greek would be a literary replay of the song of Deborah, found in Judges 5 from the Septuagint. The angel Gabriel – whose name means “mighty one of God” – came and told Mary that she was the greatest woman who ever lived. "Blessed are you among women - God Almighty is going to be physically incarnated inside of you." Her name was not Mary, but Miriam, the same as Moses' sister. The Hebrew root of “Miriam” is “bitterness”. She did not have blonde hair or blue eyes, but rather dark, Semitic features. She has also never been to Medjugorje, Guadalupe, Fatima, or Lourdes. Her name is Miriam, and she was probably no more than mid-teens in age when Gabriel gave her this momentous announcement.

What does the greatest woman who ever lived say in response to being told that that is who she is? Verse 46 and 47:
"'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.'"

The greatest woman who ever lived called God her Savior, stating that she needed to be saved from her sins. If the greatest woman who ever lived needs a Savior, where does that put me? None is righteous, no not one. ( Rom. 3:10 ) All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. ( Rom. 3:23 ) The word “Theotokos”, “Mother of God”, is not in the Greek New Testament. She is told that she would be the mother of the Messiah, who would save His people from their sin, and she responds by saying "I rejoice in God my Savior". God Almighty is going to be incarnated inside of her, and all she can say is that she needs to be saved!

If the greatest woman who ever lived states that she needs a Savior, I believe her. I do not believe that she would lie, and even if she did, God certainly would not put that lie in His Word. So, whom should I believe? Mary herself or the lie of the Immaculate Conception which claims that she was conceived without sin? What has happened is that you have the pseudo-Christianization of Minerva, Diana of Ephesus, etc., and the application of these to Mary in fulfillment of the prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The Madonna with the baby was originally derived from Tammuz-worship, which Ezekiel contended with. Jeremiah warned of the worship of the Queen of Heaven.

Miriam said she needed a Savior. God would become a Man, take my sin and put it on His Son, the Messiah, and take His righteousness and put it on me. Why should God become a man to take my place?

When I was a young Christian I used the cliché "Jesus is my personal Savior". However, I did not really understand all of what that meant. I thought it meant that He was my personal Savior because I personally accepted Him; but that is only half of what it means. What “personal Savior” means in its totality is that if I was the only person who ever sinned, He would have had to be born of Miriam and gone to that cross and risen from the dead just for me. For me alone; why should God die for me, a cocaine addict? Why should God become a man and die for me? Why should He rise from the dead to give me eternal life? Maybe for Miriam we can understand it more; yet she stated her need of a Savior.

The religious people did not think they needed a Savior; they had rituals and celebrations. The devil gets more people into hell with religion than he does with all the dope, all the immorality and gambling and alcohol abuse put together. Arguably, the two most influential people on human civilization have both been Jews: Karl Marx and Jesus Christ. There is a great difference between them; they are, in fact, on opposite ends of the spectrum except on one point: religion is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on humanity. The Gospel is not religion, it is relationship!

“I need a Savior”; that is what Mary said. She was a teenage girl who was not concerned with Brittany Spears' videos on MTV or with her own personal vanity. Her response was to state her need of a Savior. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Him to come the first time.

I really like Miriam; I love Miriam, and esteem her. I think Miriam is sensational, is fabulous, is terrific, and I cannot wait to meet her. But I want nothing to do with the blonde bimbo that Mary has become due to the so-called Church.

Zecharias & Elizabeth

Miriam has some family: in Luke 1:5 & 6 we read about them:

"There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

Now, remember that the Sanhedrin, the clergy, were corrupt – it was a racket. It was Hinn , Copeland , and Hagin ; that is what it was like when Jesus came the first time. Yet despite the popular corruption and hypocrisy of the clergy, there were individuals within it who were righteous.

I know individual pastors in the Assemblies of God who are heartbroken over what has happened to that denomination. In England, I know Anglican vicars who are heartbroken over what has happened to the Church of England. I know Baptists who are heartbroken. As bad as it is, and as bad as it is going to get, there will be people like Zacharias who are righteous, devout, and godly. No matter how corrupt the system and its clergy become, they will not go along with it. There may not be many of them, but they will be there. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time, and that is the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to come again.

Simeon

Let's look still further: in Luke chapter 2:24 we read that Mary brought a pair of turtledoves as her sacrifice; she brought a poor person's offering. There is a liar from America named John Avanzini who came to England and said that Jesus' family was rich, not poor. One of our people asked him publicly at the meeting why, if that was the case, Mary brought a poor person's offering; his response was to have the ushers usher her out. She asked the wrong question.

Luke 2:25 :
"And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him."

The Sanhedrin did not want Jesus to come; all Jerusalem was troubled, but Simeon was longing for Jesus to come. In fact, it was his only reason for staying alive – verse 26:

"And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ."
Under the old Covenant, the Holy Spirit was only for certain people at certain times – high priests, kings, prophets, and certain other individuals. Only they had the Holy Spirit in some sense; not until after Pentecost was He for all who believed. The gifts of the Spirit then operated only in a primordial sense in and through those who had them. Verse 27:

"So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law"

(They got me when I was a baby, but they sure wouldn't get me now. This, of course, means circumcision. When my son was circumcised at eight days old, I had to hold him and say the Hebrew prayers when the rabbi came in. The rabbi took a cotton ball, dipped it in some wine, and squeezed it into the baby's mouth. I asked what the wine was for, and was told it was to deaden the pain. I said, “If that kid could see that knife, he'd ask for some Jack Daniels.”) But to return to the point, verse 28:

"he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said, 'Lord, You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your Word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel."

This man, Simeon, was filled with the Holy Spirit and had been promised that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. He was old, his hair and teeth and eyesight were going, he couldn't get a date, but he knew he would not die until Jesus had come. He had what we call in New Testament terms the gift of faith.

The New Testament does tell us that we all have a measure of faith. We're saved by grace through faith, ( Eph. 2:8 ) without faith it is impossible to please God, ( Heb. 11:6 ) and anything not done in faith is sin ( Rom. 14:23 ), Scripture tells us. Separate from this, however, is the gift of faith, which not all of us have. It is the capacity to trust God absolutely for things that are not specifically written in Scripture, which the Holy Spirit has revealed to you. Most people with this gift are intercessors. Hebrew and Greek both make a distinction between prayer and intercession. People who have this gift can truly intercede in prayer, believing and knowing – not wishfully thinking, or trusting in the futility of their own minds – but holding on to a promise they know by faith that God has truly given them. Although he probably would have denied it himself, I would say that George M?ller in England had that gift of faith; he took in many, many street kids and would need astronomical sums of money by the next day, then pray and miraculously receive it in time.

Just think of this old man, longing for the Consolation of Israel, filled with the Holy Spirit. He only wanted Jesus to come – that was all he cared about, and it was the only reason he had to get out of his bed in the morning.

Anna

Not only was there a little old man, there was also a little old lady. In verse 36 of Luke 2 it says this:

"Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher."

(Forget British Israelism and Armstrongism ; these people kept their tribal identities into the second and even third centuries.)
"She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in at that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem."

For years and years and years all this little old lady did was pray, fast, and serve God in His house. Then she just couldn't stop telling people about Jesus – all those who were looking for the redemption of Israel. The world finds young women attractive; God is different. Read the book of Proverbs – God finds older women attractive, in the spiritual sense. Here was this little old lady, whose whole life was spent in prayer and service to God, and finally in telling people about Jesus. That was the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time; and that is exactly the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to return.

Faithful Shepherds: Then and Now

But then, back in Luke 2: 8 , there were some shepherds:

"Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'"

Followed of course in verse 14 in the Latin Vulgate by, "Gloria in Excelsis Deo” – “Glory to God in the highest”.

The Hebrew word for “shepherd” and “pastor” is the same word; the same applies in Greek. These are shepherds who watch their flock – not hirelings. There is a great spiritual darkness coming at the end of the age; you have heard me point it out a number of times:

"Watchman, watchman, how far is the night?" ( Is. 21:11 )
"Is He coming in the second watch of the night or the third?" ( Mk. 13:35 )
"He is coming like a thief in the night." ( 1 Th. 5:2 )
"Work while you have the light, for night will come when no man can work." ( Jn. 9:4 )

But there will be those faithful shepherds who watch over their flock no matter how dark it gets.

I once did a conference with Chuck Missler at which I saw an English-born pastor from Zimbabwe, where terrible things are happening. He was in England for a few days and when asked how he was he replied by expressing his thanks for the prayers said on his behalf. He told us how bad things were in Zimbabwe and that most of the white people as well as the educated blacks had left or were leaving. I asked if I would be seeing him around and he replied that I would not because he was returning to Zimbabwe the next day. "My sheep are there," he said. Here is a white man who gives his whole life to take care of black people who are dying of AIDS; they are his sheep. I know a good Christian doctor who could make a good living in America who is down there with him. They aren't leaving; why? It's a dark place and it's getting darker, but they are shepherds. That is the kind of Jew who was ready for Jesus to come the first time, and that is the kind of Christian who will be ready for Him to return.

In Summary

Who is not going to be ready? "Herod mourned, and all Jerusalem with him." The Sanhedrin were troubled. The theologians were pulling their hair out. They won't be ready – people like that rarely are. But the individual clergy like Zacharias and his dear wife, or Joseph the foster father of Jesus – a man who was just, or a teenage girl who said, "I need a Savior", or the shepherds who watched their flocks, or a little old lady whose whole life was spent in prayer and serving God and telling others about Jesus, or an old man who longed for Him to come and was filled with the Spirit of God – they are a different story. They were the kinds of Jews, who were ready for Him to come the first time, and I promise you, they will be the kinds of Christians who are ready for Him to come the second time.

My prayer for all of you, for your families, for myself and for my family, when I look at these Jews who were ready for His first coming, is that by the grace of the God of Israel we will be among the faithful who will be ready the second time. My dear brethren in Jesus, make no mistake about it: Christmas is coming.

My favorite Christmas carol is Hark the Herald Angels Sing for this reason: the music was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, a Jew, and the words were written by Charles Wesley, a Gentile Christian. It is one of the greatest Jew-Gentile collaborations I know of. Would you join me in singing it?

Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Joyful all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies,
With th'angelic hosts proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!.

Christian Cults

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:43:01 GMT

Introduction

In the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, Jesus warned about false teachers, false prophets,

false Christs. Now when I was a young Christian it had been my basic assumption this meant Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, things like this. I have no doubt that the proliferation of cults that we have seen in the last century, particularly the last 20 years is, in itself, of prophetic significance; I do not question that. But those are not the false teachers and the false prophets He was mainly warning of. He was warning of those who would come in the Last Days, if possible, to deceive the elect. ( Mt. 24:24 )

Some, of course, have said that it is not possible for the elect to be deceived. That is a lie in itself. Jesus would not warn about something so much if it was not even a possibility it could happen. However, He warned about ones who would come to deceive Christians. If Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses deceive a Christian, it is basically someone who is newly saved who does not know anything. They are not going to get somebody who has been saved three years, four years, or five years, etc.

It Begins with Men

There is a theological definition of “cults” and a sociological definition of “cults”. The two, at some point, inevitably converge.
Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? ( 1 Cor. 1:12-13 )

“I of Paul”, “I of Cephas”, “I of Apollos”, “I of Christ”. Those who are saying “I of Christ” were the ones saying, “We do not have any leadership or need for leadership. Jesus is our Leader full-stop. We do not recognize any pastoral authority.” There were some who were saying that while others were saying, “He’s mine, he’s mine, he’s mine”, making a man a guru.

What a cult does is shift the focus onto a man, sometimes even a dead man. There are cults today – and I mean Evangelical cults – which are more popular now than when their founders were alive.

The Assemblies of God rejected the ideas of people like William Branham when he was around. The ideas of E. W. Kenyon were abhorrent to mainstream Pentecostals. The Manifest Sons / Latter Day Rain deceptions – Restorationism , Kingdom Now , and the rest of it – these things were popularly rejected by the mainline Pentecostal denominations including the Assemblies of God in the 40’s and 50’s. They were seen as cultic. Now these things once seen as cultic and heretical have become increasingly mainstream and there are people today who are Branhamites.

The leader of the cult could be a dead person. These are not cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormon cults, these are cults where people believe the true Gospel. When somebody is saved through one of these groups there is a problem. When a Mormon is saved, no problem: Joseph Smith was a false prophet so we know that the whole Mormon church has gone the way of a lie. When a Jehovah’s Witness gets saved, no problem: Charles Taze Russell was a false prophet so we know the whole Watch Tower Society is finished. But when people are born again through a Christian cult there is a big problem with groups which are theologically “churches” but sociologically “cults”.

Eventually these groups which are theologically “churches” but sociologically cutltic become heretical. Eventually these groups get into apostate doctrine. But in the beginning they begin with the true Gospel.

When somebody is born again through one of these groups the leaders or the leader has a tremendous amount of spiritual and psychological influence and even control over people because they really were born again.

I was born again through “ The Children of God ”. For the first five years of my Christian life I was involved with groups like that. Another one was “ The Church of Bible Understanding ”. Another Christian cult is called “The Bible Speaks”, sometimes it is called “Greater Grace”. What makes these things so dangerous and so bad is they preach the true Gospel. You cannot write them off entirely the way the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons can be written off entirely. There is a big problem. The people who have been in these groups and the people who have been saved through these groups are in bondage. They are in spiritual and psychological bondage to these groups.

The First Marks of a Cult

Notice the apostles like Paul went against this mentality. Did Paul save you? It is Jesus who saves, it is the Gospel which saves – it is not a church. The Roman Catholic Church claims it is the instrument of salvation, that the sacraments administered by their priests is how people are saved ex opere operato. These groups will preach Christ, but somehow the distinction is not made between the Christ and the cult.

Paul has a go at their first characteristic, something that later in Galatians he calls “a deed of the flesh”. ( Gal. 5:19 )
“…factions,” ( Gal. 5:20 )

Sometimes translated “partyism”, perhaps better translated this way as “factions”. The first mark of a cult is what Paul calls “the sin of party spirit”. The sin of party spirit is where the group claims a monopoly on biblical truth. With the party spirit and what will engender the party spirit is some form of Gnosticism , from the Greek word “gnosis” meaning “mystical knowledge”.

The Gnosticism in the Roman Catholic Church is called the sensus plenior – “the fullest sense” of Scripture. Now there is a fuller sense of Scripture, but what they claim is that the pope as an heir of Peter has the infallible insight to define what it is and to determine doctrine on that basis.

In Gnosticism it is not important what the Bible says exegetically, it is important what the leader says about the Bible.

John Wimber’s movement called “ The Vineyard Movement ” is based on Christian Gnosticism, a heresy in the Early Church. For instance a basic teaching of the Vineyard and the Latter Day Rain Movement and the Kansas City Prophets is Restorationism and what they call “Joel’s Army”.

The run on the cities, they rush on the walls,
Great is the army who carries His word.

This is compared to locusts. In its historical setting this was Nebuchadnezzar’s army, an army God used to judged an unrepentant Judah, but it is also a type of the army of the Antichrist in Revelation. The same locusts in Joel are replayed in Revelation. So whatever this army is in the Last Days it is the army of Antichrist and in Joel 2:20 God says, “I will destroy it. The stench will go up to heaven, I will cast it into the western sea”. The Vineyard Movement teaches that this is them. Anyone desiring to be part of an army God is going to judge and destroy should join the Vineyard Movement; join the Manifest Sons of God or the Latter Day Rain Movement.

It does not matter to them what the Bible says it is, it only matters what the gnosis says it means. “God has shown me.”

Copeland and Hagin both come from Kenyon . Forget about the fact Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished” ( Jn. 19:30 ) and “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit” ( Lk. 23:46 ), the Kenyonites say, “God has shown me that Satan got the victory on the cross, not Jesus. Jesus was tortured in hell for three days and three nights as one nature with Satan and then this demon cum Jesus was born again in hell and rose from the dead.” It is a different “Jesus” and a different gospel denying the Master who bought them.

The Prosperity preachers? “God has shown me.” These things are all cultic.

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. ( 1 Pe. 21:20-21 )
And right after this we have the Greek word “parasaxousin” – they put truth next to error. They make the interpretations of things like biblical prophecy a matter of their own interpretation. It is not important what the Bible says, it is important what the leader claims it says.

Men Establishing Themselves

When these two things (“party spirit” and Gnosticism) come together, look out – it is inevitable a third thing is going to come.
Jesus hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans. ( Rev. 2:6 ) Historically we cannot be sure who they were. Some have speculated they were followers of someone named Nicolaus who it is speculated was a son of one of the deacons listed in Acts 6, but nobody knows. Those are stories derived from tradition. What we do know is what “Nicolaitinism” means in Greek. “Nico” – “suppression” of “the laity” – the people. The set themselves up as overlords.

Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel…
(Now the Hebrew word for “shepherd” and “pastor” is the same.)

… ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. (Ez. 34:1-5)
Biblical leadership is by example, not lording it over others. Jesus castigated the Pharisees for this, yet it got into the Early Church.

When “party spirit” is present it is usually attached to something called “Gnosticism”. “Oh, but he understands the Bible better than we do.”

There was one case where the guy went totally nuts and said things that were utterly heretical, yet he did have a lot of insight into the Bible. Beware of leaders who believe their own publicity. When somebody who is genuinely gifted allows people to put them on a pedestal, look out. “We don’t understand what he’s doing, but he’s closer to God than we are. He has more insight.” That may be true, but when that person is observed doing things directly contrary to Scripture, “Choose this day whom you will serve.” ( Joshua 24:15 ) But by that point they are usually too far in bondage.

The next thing is Nicolaitanism, the heavy shepherding. “Who are you to question us? Who are you to challenge us? You have a spirit of rebellion.”

The Personality Type of a Cult Leader

I am sure a forensic psychiatrist would tell you the same thing, but the personality type of a cult leader is virtually identical to the personality type of a dictator. There have been forensic psychological autopsies on many dictators including Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. When a team did the forensic analysis on the personality of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin in the 1940’s for the British and American allies, they were united in agreement that neither Hitler nor Stalin would have had the guts to fight in the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of the Bulge, and certainly would not have been able to stomach doing themselves what they had others doing in concentration camps.

Cult leaders are like dictators – they are personally insecure. A cult leader is a personally insecure person who surround their self with others who are more insecure than they are so that he may control them and, through them, go to the people. A cult leader will very rarely deal with someone without his honchos with him to shout them down. A cult leader will send one of his parakeets who will basically just ape everything the cult leaders tells them. The cult leader is insecure and his agents, his deputies, will always be insecure people who are easily manipulated.

Not everybody is the same, but one thing is for sure: when someone is born again they begin to change spiritually. And as they change spiritually they will change psychologically. God changes people from the inside out. As they grow in Jesus they become secure in Christ and then become secure in who they are in Christ. In a Christian cult this fails to happen, groups which in the beginning are theologically “churches” but sociologically “cults”. The people do not become secure in Christ. Their security becomes based on this relationship to the leader. It is only a matter of degrees, but they are all the same.

The only difference between most of the house church movements who are into Restoration theology is a matter of degrees as to how cultic they are. They all go the same way. The only thing different about Jehovah’s Witnesses or David Koresh is they have gone further down the road. Given enough time, although these churches are theologically “churches” and only sociologically “cults”, they will get into heretical doctrine. Not just minor error, but some kind of fundamental error. “ The Children of God ” did that, “ The Church of Bible Understanding ” did that, and given enough time such will engage in doctrinal error. But that is only the beginning.

These people are insecure so they will fear people who know things they do not.

We should not make a god out of education by any means. Apollos and Paul were formally educated, Peter and John were not. Yet the apostolic authority possessed by Peter and John was no less than Paul’s. However, as Peter says in his epistle, “These things are complicated; it is better for Paul to explain them”. ( 2 Pe. 3:15-16 )

Once somebody’s background – their intellect – has been crucified, once a believer learns to trust Christ and not their intellect, their intellect becomes a very good servant. “Intellect” is a good servant but a dangerous master; but “ignorance” is a deadly master. “Intellect” is a good servant but a bad master; “ignorance” is not only a bad servant and an even more deadly master.
These people will be found to automatically demean anything like a seminary or a Bible college, somebody who reads Greek – they will fear such people. They will have to demean them and put them down within their group and get others to laugh at them because they know they have encountered someone who knows something they do not. They know because someone can read the original Greek or Hebrew or been to seminary are a threat to them. It is much the same with dictators: they fear people who know something they do not so they have to demean it. “You don’t need this!” And they will point out things that are in and of themselves true: “Look at how the universities are filled with Ph.D.’s who know Greek and Hebrew who themselves are on their way to hell; they’re not even saved!” They will play that angle up, but they will not look at the other side of the coin. They will only emphasize things which suit their purpose to control people.

When dealing with the leader of a cult one is dealing with a personally insecure person who can only control people by making them insecure.

Beyond Doctrinal Error

Ultimately they will come to this doctrinal error themselves, but inevitably at some point one of two things, if not both, will occur, the first being financial misconduct as described in Ezekiel 34. “You butcher the sheep to eat well yourself, but look how they live”.
One example in America owned five airplanes and took holidays in the Bahamas with his second wife while the people were living in rat-infested slums in high-crime neighborhoods. Some lived in the worst neighborhoods in New York City cleaning carpets 14 hours a day giving all the money to the cult while saying it was supposedly for the children in Haiti. Well maybe some of it was, but it was also for five airplanes that only he and his wife flew.

Financial misconduct is the first. Almost inevitably that disparity will be found to exist. They give themselves a lifestyle they probably could not get in the secular world because they would not be clever enough, much like most of the Pentecostal ministers today. 90% of the Pentecostal ministers would not have the lifestyle they have if they were not Pentecostal ministers. They would not be good enough to make it in a secular business trade or profession.

The second eventually found with these people in most cases is sexual misconduct – immorality. It may go on secretly for some time before it is uncovered.

In the short-term of a cult, these are the warning signs to get out. There will be the sin of “party spirit” in some way related to Gnosticism . They will claim some slant on doctrine which others do not see and followers have to be initiated into it. Eventually it will be discovered that if people do not get out then, they will find financial impropriety and exploitation. Very often they will twist the Bible’s teaching on topics like tithing to do this. And there will be immorality, usually of a sexual nature, sometimes even of a deviant sexual nature.

How This Comes About

Before Satan paganized the church in the 4th Century, we know from the New Testament his first trick was to Judaize it. This is not the same as “Jewish-ize” because the church isJewish theologically. Israel is the natural root. (Rom. 11) We should understand the Scriptures from a Judeo-Christian perspective, not a Hellenistic one. The Lord revealed His given Word through His people, a nation with a given culture, and we have to understand that. It is necessary to theologically understand biblical Judaism to understand biblical Christianity. Jesus fulfills the Law. Satan’s first seduction was to put people back under the Law instead of the Law pointing to Christ.

This has nothing to do with observances. As a family who are Israeli Jews whose children were born in Galilee, we keep the Passover for reasons of culture and testimony to unsaved Jews. There’s a Mezuzah on the door, we even speak Hebrew at home. We have Hanukkah, we have Purim, we have all the Jewish feasts. We go to a church on Sunday but a Messianic fellowship on Saturday – Shabbat. This is not about people who are culturally Jewish keeping their own culture to witness to Jews in their own culture, that is not wrong. Neither is witnessing to Jews by people adopting that culture for testimonial reasons as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9. The issue is when someone either says it is necessary for salvation or for sanctification. “Well, you might be saved by grace, but…”

When it is asserted that it is necessary for salvation that is “legalism”. When asserting it is necessary for sanctification, where one is saved by Jesus but they also have to do “this”, “this”, and “this”, that is known as “nomianism” from the Greek word “nomos”.
Today there are two kinds of groups to be aware of who are trying to live under two covenants. One is the extreme axis of the Messianic Movement. This does not encompass the good Messianic Bible teachers such as Arnold Fruchtenbaum or people who help Christians understand the Jewish background of the New Testament. This does not involve those who worship in a Jewish cultural framework in order to evangelize Jews. The issue is with those who try to make people keep the Law in a compulsory way.

David Kriss is a dangerous, dangerous man located in Melbourne. But he is not the only Messianic extremist. In England they had Philip Sharp who wound up in jail. He abandoned his Israeli wife and children and had the people crown him King Messiah in a meeting. He’s a “Messianic Jewish Rabbi”. Some of these guys are nuts. There is some kind of Halachic community in Queensland I would not go near with a barge pole.

Again, this does not include the likes of Arnold Fruchtenbaum or Art Katz. This is not about the good guys but the nuts. But it is not only Messianic Jews who are doing this, out to rebuild the wall of partition. There is another group of people who are trying to live under two covenants: Seventh-day Adventists . Most of the followers of David Koresh were Seventh-day Adventists.

Once people get into one serious, fundamental doctrinal error like trying to live under two covenants, they become automatically prone to a more serious one. Once people accommodate one fundamental doctrinal error they automatically predispose themselves to something more serious and even more dangerous. It is only a matter of degrees.

It is hard to believe what went on when reading about Koresh, but there have been Evangelical cults that could get people to do things that are unbelievable. When the tragedy with Koresh occurred, 129 pages of Internet material were downloaded and read very carefully. David Koresh followed this pattern to a “T”. Remember, Seventh-day Adventists claim to be born again or at least saved, but there is a lot of false doctrine: the “party spirit”, the Nicolaitinism, and all the rest – going under the Law. He would hold 13 hour Bible studies always about the book of Revelation and always about himself. He would become violently angry, throwing chairs and things if people did not pay attention or fell asleep during the Bible studies. These Bible studies were all designed to brainwash people for a coming apocalyptic cataclysm of some description in which they were led to believe by insinuation, by nuance – never directly stated – that their salvation would come about through their relationship with him in this coming fate.
They were so brainwashed that when they shot it out with the FBI they believed that was this coming event in Revelation. But it did not begin that way. What will make people do this? He had to become the sole authority figure. He had these people believing that he was semi-divine. Talk about a Gnostic! Only his semen was divinely imbued, so only heshould procreate children. He did not want husbands to be respected by their wives and children, so he got into this whole humiliation thing. He wanted people to only recognizehis authority. He would have an attractive woman stand up in a meeting and make her lift up her dress then point to the men, “Who’s been aroused by this?” And then he would begin castigating them publicly for lust. They guy was a nut.

He had a boudoir upstairs while the men slept in military style barracks and only the women would go up, whichever one he summoned. Except these were not always adult women – there were children as young as 11. Many of those people who were killed were undoubtedly people he sired. So he had to berate these men so their wives would not look upon them as a spiritual authority.

Then he would humiliate women. He would do that differently. He made these Seventh-day Adventist style dietary rules which he would modify periodically. So if they went out and bought the wrong kind of chicken or something he would scream at the top of his lungs then post a list. Whichever names of the women were found on the list would be queued up, stripped, and beaten with a paddle. They would queue up every day if their names was on the list. Then they would have to come out undressed in front of their children and he would say, “Do you see what happens to bad mommies?”

How did he get them to do this? Once someone can get people to give them their 11 year-old daughter it is a natural next step that they will die for that person. How did it begin? One serious false doctrine. Once someone gets into one serious false doctrine they become predisposed to another one.

When reading something like Kingdom of the Cults and some of the stuff Joseph Smith did (another sex pervert), perverted sex is a big thing among cults.

The true Mormons are the fundamentalist ones. They are the ones who truly follow Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. Moriel USA was doing an outreach to Mormons at Manti, Utah and I met one with eight wives. How did these guys get these women to go along with this? It was not hard to understand because guess how old they were when they married them? These guys are pedophiles – that is how they do it.

When the Saved Do the Same Things

But there is something even more frightening than David Koresh or the Mormons. What about born again Christians – saved Christians, who did the same thing?

It was on the front page of the New York Post in 1978. A cult which broke away from the Lutheran church in Minnesota, Evangelical Lutherans, were putting children into a metal chair, tying them down and giving them electric shocks for not paying attention in Sunday School and the parents would stand there watching the teachers electrocute the kids.
There was another one in California that would beat people to drive the demons out of them. The people would allow themselves to be beaten.

There was a young girl in England, a law student, who came to a few of our Bible studies who was originally from Gibraltar. She spoke Spanish. She graduated and became involved with a cult called Raima. Because she spoke Spanish they sent her to Chicago to the Spanish-speaking ghettos. Her friends told me they were really concerned about this group. They had good reason to be concerned. These were saved Christians, but the same pattern of Gnosticism, heavy shepherding, Nicolaitinism, and all the money went to the group. Because she was bilingual and well-educated she had more freedom than other women in the group. She was allowed to come out to meet me and my wife.

In this group the leaders were telling people who were clean to by faith marry people who were HIV-positive and just trust the Lord. They were marrying people with AIDS. They were contracting AIDS. Babies were born HIV-positive. People were dying.

Their leaders arranged marriages and they actually signed their own death certificates with their marriage certificates and they died. These were born again.

I took her to meet my wife, I talked to her, I phoned her parents in England. I took her to a rescue mission and said, “Lock her up, don’t let her out of here. I’ll be back tomorrow.” I gave them $50 or whatever and got an airline ticket back to England. I took her to O’Hare Airport after calling her parents and told her, “If I catch you on this side of the Atlantic again, lady, that’s 12-1/2 extra wide – guess what I’m going to do with it?”

They were telling people to marry people who were HIV! How do they get this kind of control? It did not happen overnight, it began with “party spirit” connected to Gnosticism connected to Nicolaitanism.

Taking It a Step Further

Once it is forgotten that Jesus is our wisdom ( 1 Cor. 1:30 ) they begin looking to a man for the wisdom. When believers stop being a Berean, when they stop testing things, they forfeit to that person a kind of control over their life that God never wanted anybody to have except Himself. (Even He never forces Himself that way or manipulates.)

It gets to the point where even if they say and do things not biblical, people will not question. Even if the say and do things which are immoral, people will not question. They lose their capacity to think rationally. Again, it only becomes a matter of degrees between the so-called “Christian” cults and the ones which are obviously pseudo-Christian.

While in Utah last year the Mormons all had these t-shirts which read, “ Brigham Young said it, I believe it, that settles it”. Now whenever a Jehovah’s Witness is cornered they change the subject; that is what they are trained to do. A Mormon will revert to their testimony, the subjective proclamation, “I have a burden in my bosom and I testify to you that the Church of Latter-Day Saints is true”. That is supposed to settle every issue. No matter how many logical arguments you confront them with which they cannot answer, their testimony is supposed to be the ultimate explanation. It is completely subjective.

The Mormons came into Utah while we were there and I said, “I like your shirt” and they said, “Hallelujah” or whatever, to which I said, “So you believe there are Quakers living on the moon? You said if Brigham Young said it, you believe it. This man believes there are Quakers on the moon because Brigham Young said it!” Here it is, straight from the Mormon church’s Journal of Discourses where Brigham Young and Joseph Smith said there were Quakers living on the moon to be a thousand years old. And Brigham Young said they’re on the sun, too.

I saw a black guy and said, “You know what? The New Testament says the first non-Jew to accept Christ was a black African from Ethiopia. The first person not from any Jewish background whom Jesus saved was a black man. But do you know what the Mormon Church says, what Brigham Young said about you? You are a descendant of fallen angels, you are ugly, mischievous, and a depraved nigger. Who do you want to follow: Jesus who loves you or a Mormon who says you are ugly, mischievous, depraved, the descendant of fallen angels, and who calls you racist names? Here, Brigham Young said it! You will believe it according to your shirt! This man is ugly, mischievous, and depraved because God made him black!” And how did the Mormon reply? “I testify to you I have a burning in my bosom! I know the Church of Latter-Day Saints is true!” And what did I say to him? “I have a burning in my bosom and I testify to you I know there’s Quakers a-livin’ on the moon!”

Logic goes out the window. The plain teaching of Scripture goes out the same window. Subjectivism steps in.

A Sobering Thought

The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. ( 1 Pe. 4:7 )

Remember the video of Rodney Howard-Browne and Copeland where they advise, “Just get drunk, don’t pray”?
Therefore, prepare your minds for action…

…be drunk in spirit?

…keep sober in spirit… ( 1 Pe. 1:13 )

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. ( 1 Pe. 5:8 )

I was once riding in a 4 x 4 near Victoria Falls along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe on my way to a speaking engagement at a church. We were going through the bush – lion country, and could see a giraffe. The person driving said, “It’s getting dark now, at this time of night lions go after that kind of giraffe.” So I am looking out for lions and all of the sudden there goes the wheel. “Be sober in spirit. The lion is trying to get you.” If I ever wanted some whiskey it was then. This was no Tarzan movie. This was the real bush in real Africa with real lions, it was getting dark, and I was scared. Admittedly I could only say two things: “Lord Jesus” and “Jack Daniels”. But the last thing I needed to be was in an inebriated state where I would not be vigilant.
Three times Peter says, “Be sober”. Paul warns, “But you, be sober”. ( 2 Ti. 4:5 ) In fact this same Peter whom they quote in Toronto meetings they were drunk on the day of Pentecost says these men are not drunk. ( Acts 2:15 ) They heard the mighty deeds of God, not drunken hysterics. So they are shown that the Bible says to be sober repeatedly and not drunk in the Spirit as Rodney Howard-Browne is teaching.

The pastor of Faithland in Melbourne was not into Toronto but had five friends who were – five Pentecostal ministers. Some of their churches I have spoken at in times past and they are all into Rodney Howard-Browne. I showed them the videos of Howard-Browne and Copeland in Toronto and they could not defend what was on it. They knew it was heretical, they knew it was carnal and even demonic, but they still insisted they were going to Toronto to see Howard-Browne. Why? They were not “blind”, they were willfullyblind. These were the leaders, misleading whole congregations! Jesus Christ will hold them accountable as shepherds as it says in 1 Peter 5 for misleading the flock.

The fruit of the Spirit is egkrateia in Greek – “self-control”. ( Gal. 5:22-23 ) So this is shown to them along with what it says in Peter: “Be sober”, “Be sober”, “Be sober”. But look at their answer. Did they answer biblically? No. Did they answer logically? No. Did they answer cultically? Yes. “I was blessed! I know it was right because of what happened to me!” What does a Mormon say? “I got a burnin’ in my bosom and I know it’s true!” It is not logical. Logic goes out the same window with the Bible. It is only a matter of degrees.

There is not much difference any more between the Assemblies of God and the Mormons, they have gone the same way, just further down the same road. Now there are some good, individual Assembly of God churches; I think they need to come out, in my opinion. They are going down the same road. It is just a matter that one is further down the road than the other.

Further Down the Same Road

The psychological bondage which happens has a demonic character. When the people leave they are automatically ostracized by the other people still in the cult. It is like Catholicism. You left the one true church so it is a mortal sin, go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass “Go”, do not collect $200. That is it – the unpardonable sin. The other people will turn against those leaving because those leaving are free while those remaining are in bondage. But are they free? No they are not, not right away.

A person can be taken out of the cult but they are so confused and have been so hurt and manipulated it takes a longer time to take the cult out of the person. It is like that rock songHotel California – “you can check out any time you want but you can never leave”. The person can be taken out of the cult but to take the cult out of them is not so easy. They remain in psychological and spiritual bondage to it, particularly if they were saved in it. And they cannot be accommodated in other churches because other churches cannot understand what they went through. There is a secret fear that they have, “What if they were right?” This battle takes place within and sometimes it goes on for years.

Sometimes people have had nervous breakdowns and become mentally ill because of it. Some have turned to alcoholism and drugs. Some have committed suicide. Marriages have broken up because of it.

Another common phenomena is they have been so hurt and so burned they can never trust another church or another leader again. The solution to a bad church then becomes no church. The solution to bad leadership becomes no leadership. Actually the right solution to wrong leadership is right leadership, and the solution to bad church is good church. But they cannot accept that. Others do not understand what they have been through. No one understands what is going on inside of them. They can come to a church but they do not fit in until something happens. It takes time for that to happen, but it eventually happens.

This is a big problem and it is getting bigger. And before Jesus comes back it will be bigger still.

First formulated by a social psychologist named Leon Festinger, he was interested in the social psychology of religion and he identified the phenomena called “cognitive dissonance”. I do not know if he was a Christian or not, but even secular sociology and psychology can see the phenomena. Cognitive dissonance states when people become cemented to a sect with this heavy control by the leadership, and the leaders make predictive prophecies which fail to happen, instead of the people using their noggin and coming out, they will become even more committed to the sect.

One of the things to do when the Jehovah’s Witnesses come to the door is to show them back copies of The Watchtower where their leaders have predicted things which have failed to happen. You can show them from The Watchtower and Awake magazines where it quotes Deuteronomy 18, “Those predicting things in God’s name that don’t happen are false prophets”. ( Dt. 18:22 ) They can be shown this from their own literature quoting the Bible. But when logic goes out the window, the Bible goes out the window. They cannot see it.

What can be done with the fact that men like Gerald Coates predicted an earthquake in New Zealand that never happened? In the Elim cult all forty-four churches were taking survival course lessons or something like that.

What do you do with the fact that Rick Joyner has made major predictions in his book The Harvest which failed to happen? He said Communism was going to be triumphant and five months later the Iron Curtain came down.

What do you do with the Kansas City Prophet s, men like Paul Cain and Mike Bickle who said the greatest revival in Britain’s history would come to Great Britain in October of 1990 and fan out to Germany? In the last 10 years more mosques have been built in England than churches.

What about men who are proven false prophets such as Benny Hinn prophesying falsely in New Zealand, or Rodney Howard-Browne seen on TV in Australia with Phil Pringle predicting revival that did not come? What do you do with these men who make predictions that do not happen? Deuteronomy 18 says to get away from them, do not be afraid of them, and have nothing to do with them. In a cult, though, it does not matter.

Is there any difference between what the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons do and the people who will still listen to Benny Hinn or Rodney Howard-Browne? No, there is no difference. They have only gone further down the same road. This is known as “cognitive dissonance”. Even secular psychology can identify it. Even the world sees it for what it is. They become even more committed to it.

They will always make an excuse to defend it or set another date or something like this. Then when that does not happen they will get that wrong, the same as the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

These guys have been predicting revival for years. No revival comes so they predict another one. If Toronto does not come we will get the Alpha . If the Alpha does not work we will get the Pensacola . When Pensecola does not work we will get Pepsi-Cola®. When that doesn’t work we will try Seven-Up®. It does not matter. There will always be the next fad. People will swallow anything. Why? Because they have become incorporated into a cult. It is cultic. It is following men.

“Yeah, but the Word of God says I shouldn’t listen to you anymore.” It does not matter to them because they are in bondage and it is terrible. Saved Christians are dead, Families and marriages have been destroyed by these kinds of people.

Not only that but these people are frauds and Charlatans themselves! They are highly insecure and usually do not know a fraction of what they want you to think they know. They fear anybody who does know more than they do. That is why they will demean any kind of education or learning. They are as bad at one extreme as those who lift it up and make a god of it on the other.
It is like what Arnold Fruchtenbaum says, “I don’t care if you are Plymouth Brethren, I don’t care if you are Open Brethren, I don’t care; but don’t be ignorant brethren.”

In the Same Manner as the Sanhedrin

If somebody was saved through this and it was the only thing they ever knew, it is understandable how this could happen to them. But what happens when people get into this who are not saved through it? That is even worse in terms of being even more pathetic.

Suppose you have been in one of these groups. It will follow the same pattern shown here. The way the leader operates, the fear of knowledge – anyone who knows what he does not, using others to be his messengers, he has some special insight into the Bible where if someone does not see it they are into rebellion because they do not submit to his authority, others turn against you to put you under condemnation or put a curse on you. (They will always tell you about the people who left the group and died; they will not tell you about the ones who stayed and died.) They are very selective about how they handle things. These people operate just like the Sanhedrin.

Jesus said to the Sanhedrin, “Why do you arrest Me and bring Me in here for a kangaroo trial? Why didn’t you come after Me in the Temple where everyone could see it?” These guys will never openly debate in front of a video camera or in an auditorium in front of the open public; it always has to be in front of their cronies.

Michael Brown, the deceiver of Pensacola , a so-called theologian and great Hebrew scholar, when I talked with him discovered he could not even speak a word of Hebrew. He came to Israel some years earlier saying that the national forest fires which destroyed 22% of Israel’s forests was the emblem of God’s Holy Spirit being poured out on Israel. He had people waiting up all night for the second Pentecost. He was supposed to debate me about Pensecola. The date was made at a church near New York mid-week so people could come from any church without missing their own church, a neutral venue. He finds out I have the Joe Chambers videos where Kilpatrick is caught lying about the vibrating girl and right away he cancels the debate, demanding it be held at a Pensecola place on a Sunday night. Why? Because cult leaders will only fight you on their own turf.

It will always be like the Sanhedrin putting Jesus on trial. They will never stand openly. It has to be only where they control people. They will never go into a fair fight; they do not have the ability or the guts. These are insecure people. That is how they operate. It is like being afraid of a tiger with no teeth. These people are frauds.

Recovery

Sometimes it takes months, sometimes it has even taken people years to take that person out of that central role in their life and put Christ in that role instead. These people are in unspeakable bondage. And unless you have been in that bondage you do not understand where they are coming from. You will not even be able to grasp what their problem is. Why can they not fit in?

Not only that, but they will even say a lot of true things. “The church is lukewarm.” “The cult was more zealous.” “You are Laodicea.” Well, that is true. That is the danger. They are not just telling “lie” lies, they are telling Satan’s lies – perversions of truth. But look at the results, look at the damage; it can be found every time.

They begin sociologically as “cults”, theologically “churches”, but give them a few years – not more than ten. Then you will find heresy, you will find financial corruption, you will find immorality. But maybe at the end of it you will find Jesus.
If you are in bondage to one of these groups the Bible says…

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. ( 2 Corinthians 3:17 )

By virtue of the fact you are in bondage tells you that is not God’s Spirit.. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. If you are in bondage that tells you it is not of God’s Spirit – it is a different spirit: a “party spirit”, a deed of the flesh, a sin, the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. The deeds of the flesh are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit. You are in bondage.

It might take a couple of months and sometimes it has even taken people a couple of years, but the sum of the matter is this: you keep your eyes on Jesus and one verse will become a reality like you have never known.

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. ( Jn. 8:36 )

God bless. <img src=

The Burning Bush - Hineni

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:42:00 GMT

Introduction

“Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.

So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, "Why are you striking your companion?" But he said, ‘Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and said, ‘Surely the matter has become known.’

“When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. When they came to Reuel their father, he said, ‘Why have you come back so soon today?’ So they said, ‘An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and what is more, he even drew the water for us and watered the flock.’ “He said to his daughters, ‘Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.’ Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, ‘I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.’

“Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.”

“Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.’ When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said also, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

“The LORD said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.’

“But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?’ And He said, ‘Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.’ Then Moses said to God, ‘Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, “'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.'” Now they may say to me, “'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?’" God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM,’ and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “'I AM has sent me to you.'” Exodus 2:11-3:14

Moses as a Type of Christ

So we have this famous story of Moses and the burning bush. The first thing we have to understand is that Moses typifies Christ. According to Deuteronomy 18:18 the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses. Remember, it’s trying to show this. A wicked king was determined to destroy all the Jewish children. Moses was protected through the faith of his parents in Egypt for a season and then he comes out of Egypt and goes to the promised land. So Jesus faced the same prospect. A wicked king was going to destroy all the Jewish male children and Jesus was protected in Egypt for a season through the faith of his parents and then he comes out of Egypt and returns to the promised land. It’s showing Moses as a type of Christ.

But in Hebrew you have a word play: “Moshe” – “to draw out”-- and he lives up to his name. He was drawn out of water and so you see the same word in the Hebrew text. He drew out the water for us and always his name is being played out in the text of Exodus. These things don’t come across well or they don’t come across at all virtually in the translations. Now remember, just like Jesus, the first time he comes to save his Jewish brothers, they reject him. They accept him the second time when their anguish and their suffering has become excruciating and they’re desperate, and so it is with the Jews; the Jews don’t accept Jesus at His first coming, they’ll accept Him at His second coming. Initially they looked upon Moses as an Egyptian, the same as they would look upon Joseph as an Egyptian.

Remember, Joseph’s brothers didn’t recognize him at the first coming either, they recognized him at the second and wept bitterly. And so it is with the Jews – they look upon Moses not the first time but the second. The way they saw him was as an Egyptian, while Jews think of Jesus as a Gentile. They think of Him as a Gentile. Moses -- he’s an Egyptian -- that’s how people see him. Similarly, with Jesus, give him blonde hair and blue eyes. They thought Moses was an Egyptian. They thought that Joseph was an Egyptian, a Gentile; well Jews think that Jesus was virtually a Gentile. Now this is not true, they objectively know He’s a Jew, but subjectively they relate to Him as a Gentile. This conditioning was to look upon Him as a non-Jew. It’s the same with Moses, same with Joseph. He looked like an Egyptian, he talked like an Egyptian – you know he was an Egyptian prince – He’s an Egyptian; he’s not one of us.

It’s showing Moses here as a type of Christ. But also with what we see with Moses is what you see with Jesus. He tries to save his own people and they reject him but the Gentiles accept him. Remember? When he tries to stand up for his own people they reject him. So he goes to Midian and to the Midianites and when he stands up for them, they accept him. Then his own people turn to him. And so it is with Jesus. At first they reject Him, the Gentiles accept Him, and then His own people turn to Him. It’s showing Moses as a picture of the Messiah.

An Old Testament Manifestation of Christ

Another feature is “The Angel of the Lord”, the definite article. Not an angel but the Angel as we talk about on the Vow of the Nazarite tape and as we talk about on the Judges 1 & 2 tape. The Angel of the Lord with the definite article, Ha Malak Adonai, is a Christophony, an Old Testament manifestation of the Messiah. It’s not an angel because it is God Himself. The text says that God spoke to Moses from the bush but “the Angel’”spoke as God from the bush to Moses. In Judaism the Angel of the Lord is called the Metatrone, the one who dwells at the center of the throne. Now the Metatrone is here – the Angel of the Lord is here – He’s talking to Moses and He’s identified as being God.

The Hebrew word for angel, like the Greek word “angelos,” means “messenger”. So the Metatrone, the Angel of the Lord, is God’s messenger yet He is God Himself. The idea of God becoming a man is unfathomable in popular Jewish thinking, however Jacob wrestled with the Metatrone, the Angel of the Lord, an embodiment of God. Adam heard God walking in the garden. The incarnation of Jesus, while important, was not in the absolute sense a precedent. God had come in incarnate form before. He walked in the garden with Adam but He was also the Angel of the Lord. Hence we see this is a Christological passage. It talks about the Messiah, God’s messenger who would come and dwell with His people. Even the idea of the bush not being destroyed even though it burned. Remember in Isaiah Jesus was incorruptible: “He will not suffer His Holy Ones flesh to see decay.” His corpse did not rot in the earth.

Moses is a good picture of anybody who really wants to serve God. In fact, he’s one of the best pictures. The first thing we see about Moses is this: Moses as a prince of Egypt, grandson of Pharaoh, was educated in the wisdom of Egypt before he was educated in the wisdom of God. He had the best education anyone in the world could have had, but when he encountered the God of his fathers he realized what Egypt had amounted to nothing. Somebody can be totally uneducated and once they meet the true and living God, among other repercussions, they will become smarter. Moses was trained in the wisdom of Pharaoh before he was trained in the wisdom of God. Now the Egyptians deified Pharaoh. Pharaoh was a divine being to them. Egypt in the Bible taught in 1 Corinthians is a metaphor for the world and whenever you see a man worshipped as God other than Jesus Himself it typifies the Antichrist who is coming. Pharaoh was worshipped and deified as God. Moses could have been in that family but we are told in Hebrews that he chose the reproach of Christ instead of the pleasures of this world. He was a prince of Egypt, he had the best Egypt had to offer in terms of position, power and education, but he chose the reproach of Christ. Moses already knew about the Messiah, and it was the Angel of the Lord he would meet.

So, he tries to help one of his own people and his own people reject him and he has to flee for his life. He flees to the wilderness and winds up where the law would eventually be given – Mt. Horeb.

So here we have Moses, in figure like Christ. He takes a Gentile bride, the church. He comes to save his own people and he is rejected. He goes into the wilderness and is accepted by the Gentiles, by the non-Jews who think he is an Egyptian. It is an amazing thing that not only Jews look upon Jesus as a non-Jew, but even a lot of so-called Christians look upon Jesus as a non-Jew.

Into the Wilderness

This pattern of being forced into the wilderness as a result of rejection is a recurrent characteristic of those whom God calls. We think of King David. The prophet Samuel anoints him and instead of him assuming the throne he has to leave town in a hurry to the cave of Adullam and then out into the wilderness.

Then there is Rabbi Saul of Tarsus. A Pharisee of the Pharisees from the Rabbinic school of Hillel, disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, and grandson of Rabbi Hillel. Whereas Moses had the finest education Egypt had to offer, Paul was educated in the best Yeshiva. He was an educated Roman citizen and a Rabbinic well-versed in Greek philosophy, fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin, and had been an enemy of the Gospel. But he spent years in the wilderness just like David and Moses.

As Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights; Jonah gave Nineveh 40 days to repent; it rained 40 days and 40 nights when Noah was in the ark; and the children of Israel sojourned 40 years in the wilderness. It is always 40.

As a new believer, I had a naive idea. I said “Lord I’m educated in science and Lord I make a few thousand a week. And Lord now I’m going to give it all to you.” I wind up in Israel thinking I’m going to be an evangelist to the Jews in Israel in the Last Days. I had a miserable, rotten job filling prescriptions because it was the only thing I knew how to do. I thought when I got saved my days of selling drugs was over. I’m trying to explain to old ladies in Yiddish how many to take because they didn’t know Hebrew but I didn’t know either at the time, not well. I’m out in the middle of nowhere. So I looked out the window and there was sand. Why was there sand? Because I was in the desert. Literally, there were Bedouins with camels. I left New York to live in a wilderness? I gave up a high paid position for this? This is what You brought me here for? The wilderness, this? I thought You brought me here to use me! “Oh no, that comes later. I didn’t bring you here to use you in Israel, I brought you here to use Israel in you!”

Rejection. I discovered that much like the Jews in New York, a lot of the Jews in Israel didn’t want to hear about Jesus either. Only in New York sometimes they would throw rocks. In Israel some of them weren’t beyond throwing hand grenades, at least the Yeshiva boys. We got stoned on the promenade in Haifa. We were actually chased by mobs with rocks. I used to give out tracts for Jews for Jesus in New York and old ladies used to spit on me, and sometimes the JDL, (Jewish Defense League) would come and harass me.

I was on a kibbutz trying to improve my Hebrew and I began teaching evangelistic Bible studies to small groups of Israelis. A lot of people didn’t get saved. What did You bring me here for? I used to be able to write checks and send money away to missions and evangelism. Now I’m broke all the time. I was the prince of Egypt, now I’m nothing. I thought You said You were gonna use me. Nope. Rejection. Wilderness. Moses didn’t know why this happened to him. Alright, You’re the God of my fathers and I tried to stand up for my people and I tried to do what was right and I tried to use my position, my power, my education for You, Lord and I just wound up rejected and exiled to the desert. Something was happening in that wilderness that he didn’t understand at the time. How was he able to lead the children of Israel 40 years through that same wilderness? He was able to lead the children of Israel, a nation of 1.5 million adults plus Egyptian stragglers plus children through that wilderness for 40 years because he had spent 40 years in it himself. Wilderness is a place of death, scorpions, cobras, and vultures swarming overhead. No water -- unless you find an oasis. One here, one there. How do you survive in the wilderness? Well, that’s what you must learn, Moses.

After I taught you how to survive in the wilderness, then I can use you to lead a whole nation through the wilderness.

You see, we’ve come out of the domain of Pharaoh when we got saved, we’ve come out of Egypt but we have yet to enter the promised land that flows with milk and honey. We’ve come out of the world but as 1 Corinthians 10 says we haven’t entered heaven. We are sojourning in the wilderness.

The reason Moses was able to do it was because he spent so many years in that wilderness. There are things that no university, no seminary, no Bible College can ever teach you. The finest theological institutions in the world can teach you about the Bible but its only in the wilderness where you can be taught what the Bible is about. To know about the Bible is good, an academic knowledge of Scripture is helpful, it’s practical. I’m not demeaning learning Greek and Hebrew, literary criticism and Biblical history and archeology. It is good to know about the Bible but it’s not good enough. It is important but it’s not what is most important. Learning about the Bible is necessary but what comes first is learning what the Bible is about. That, no man can teach you. That is something only God can teach you. How can you lead people through wilderness? Let the leaders be tested! How does this person handle this appointment? Crisis in health? Marital struggles? Problems in ministry? Financial setback? How does this person handle those things? Once this person has handled those things in the strength and wisdom of the Lord then and only then is that person equipped to be God’s vehicle to encourage others through that same wilderness. Only then does God say “go” to Pharaoh.

After You've Been Through the Wilderness

Only once we’ve been through the wilderness will an academic education be of any practical value. I’ve seen people with the silly notion that they’re going to go to university or Bible college then they’re going to go into the ministry. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t even work that way in secular profession. Take a defense contractor in the States like Boeing or Macdonald Douglas. They’ll try and recruit people with Masters Degrees or Doctorate Degrees from the best engineering schools. They’ll go to Imperial College in London or they’ll go to MIT or something like that. They’ll get the best people. And then they’ll say; “Now we’re going to train you to be an engineer!” “But I graduated MIT!” “No, you work for us five years because it will take five years before we get any real use out of you!”

You graduate with a degree in Medicine in the States; you become an intern and then a resident. In Britain you become an assistant Registrar and then a Registrar. “But I’ve already been to medical college!” “No, no, no, no.”

You finished Law School, now you have to do your articles and go clerk. Do Paralegal work. Then you become an assistant Solicitor, then you become a Junior Solicitor. Five years from now you can call yourself a Lawyer. “But I have a degree!”
It doesn’t work that way in Engineering, it doesn’t work that way in Medicine, it doesn’t work that way in Law; much less does it work that way in Ministry. Only after you’ve been through the wilderness will the education do you any good. Now go to Pharaoh. Now you’re qualified.

You can become very disoriented in the desert; everything looks the same. Because of dehydration you become prone to see things like mirages. You don’t know where you’re going! You can see which way the sun rises and the sun sets and that will give you some bearing but the best way to navigate through the wilderness is at night. The Bedouins use the stars. It’s quite a skill to learn how to survive in the wilderness but to see a whole nation survive in the wilderness. Never despise the day of small things. When God calls you, and everyone of us has a ministry, the first thing to expect is rejection because we can only be the Lord’s ministers in the character of Christ. The first thing Christ experienced was rejection.

“Who hath believed our report, to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed, he grew up before him like a tender shoot out of dry ground, he had no form or comeliness that we should look upon him, we esteemed him not.”

That’s what Isaiah said about the Messiah in Isaiah 53:1-2. Before God can use you, you have to experience rejection.
God prepares people for the extraordinary in the ordinary. Only after you are no longer in the wilderness -- only in retrospect -- do you see what God was doing in that wilderness. When Moses was in the wilderness he didn’t know that his own people who rejected him were going to be brought to a place of desperation where they would accept him. His mission field wasn’t ready yet.

Similar Examples

The same can be seen in the life of David after Samuel anointed him to be king. “Well, David you’re gonna be king. Saul is pursuing you, he’s going to kill you.” Rejection -- the outcasts of Israel joined themselves to David. Everyone who was in debt; every loser; every nobody. But we read later on about David’s mighty men -- the commanders of his army; the generals of the Israeli armed forces. Who were these generals in the Israeli armed forces? Who were the commanders of the army of the Lord?

Who are David’s mighty men? The same losers! The same outcasts! The same down and out people who joined him at the cave of Adullam. God took these losers and made them into David’s mighty men. God took these nobodies and made them into the commanders of the armies of the Lord in the wilderness. First they learned how to outfox Saul, then they learned how to outfox the Philistines. Then they conquered the Philistines. Where did they learn it? David taught them.

David’s a type of Christ, the Son of David, Ben David Yeshua. The Lord himself, the Son of David will teach you things in the wilderness you’re never going to learn anywhere else -- how to outsmart the enemy. But it wasn’t pleasant out there. Just think of Moses -- “I was a prince of Egypt, I had all this money, power, position, privilege, I’m an educated man and I’m out in the wilderness. ‘God, you said you called me, I was drawn out of the water for this?’”

Rabbi Saul of Tarsus: “I’m going to be an apostle to the Gentiles, I have to sneak out of town in a basket at the wall?” Something happened to Paul though in Arabia. Paul was actually able to write about the last supper in 1 Corinthians 7 in a way that’s almost mysterious. He said, “I received from the Lord that which I also delivered unto you”. He wasn’t at the last supper. How did he receive it from the Lord if he wasn’t there? Where did he get it? He got it out in the wilderness! He got it out in the desert. It may have been in the desert where he was caught up into the third heaven in 2 Corinthians whether in body or in spirit he didn’t know but he saw things that he couldn’t tell you about because they were too unspeakable, too amazing, too incredible. So it is with Rabbi Saul of Tarsus. So it was with King David; so it was with Moses. So it is with anybody who really wants to serve the Lord.

The Purpose of the Wilderness

But after a long time, almost out of the blue, something happens to Moses in that wilderness. At some point, David came in from the cold. He returned from the wilderness he’s in, at some point Paul came back from Arabia. At some point God is going to call you back in from the wilderness, after he’s taught you everything you need to know to be prepared for what lies ahead. In this fallen world there is no other place and no other way to learn it and those things are essential.

When God has you in the wilderness, not only is He preparing you for your mission, he’s preparing your mission for you. Things are going to be tough but now we begin to understand what God is really doing. And out of nowhere God speaks to him from a burning bush and says, “Here is the sign. When you lead these people out, you’re going to come right to the same mountain. This is where I’m going to give you the covenant, the Law, the Torah.”

In other words, in the ministry you can never lead someone to a place where you haven’t already been yourself. After you’ve been there, after you know what it’s like to encounter the living God then He can use you to bring somebody else there. But unless you’ve been there yourself, you’re not bringing anybody else.

Moses was eighty years old when he encountered God in the burning bush. One of the lies of the world is the idea of retirement. The only thing retirement should mean for a Christian, if their health permits, is now you are able to serve God full-time instead of part-time. The world says your prime is when you are middle-aged. But God says your prime is when you are old-aged. It’s just the opposite of what the world says. Somehow the church has allowed the world to put its perverse model on us. God however, doesn’t see it that way. God sees all the other stuff as preparation for old age. He doesn’t see it the way the world does.
Unfortunately, the church listens to the mentality of the world, more than it does the mentality of the Lord. Your secular career in business is over now. You no longer have to hustle to make a living and put the kids through University because that’s done. The testosterone and estrogen levels have depleted. The lusts of the flesh are not going to wax as heavily against you. The world says youth, middle age. God says, no youth/middle age, that’s preparation for old age. The Hebrew word for “elder” means somebody who’s older. Do not allow the world’s idea to come into your thinking as a Christian. The Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation when he was in his 90s, an incredible age in his time in history.

The Result of the Wilderness

The man or the woman who God brings into the wilderness will be entirely different than the man or the woman who God brings out. The one who goes in know their strengths, the one who comes out knows their weakness. Then they know God’s strength! His strength is always magnified in our weakness. The man or woman who God brings into the wilderness is one person, the man or the woman who God brings out although itss the same person are completely different in character, in perspective, in demeanor.

When he goes in, he knows all about his abilities, when he goes in he’s confident. When he goes out he has no confidence in himself. Then God can use his background. Once we learn not to trust our education, our cleverness, our background, our position, once we learn not to trust those things, once we learn our insufficiency, then God will use those things. Our strength has to be in Him. The person who goes into the wilderness knows their strength, the one who comes out only knows their weakness that they may experience God’s strength.

And so it happens, the pattern gets clearer. You want God to use you? The first thing to anticipate is rejection. You will be rejected by your own brothers, your own sisters, and your own people. That’s the rejection that hurts. Jesus was rejected by His fellow Hebrews, Moses was rejected by his fellow Hebrews and Joseph was rejected by his fellow Hebrews. Joseph, Moses, Jesus, Paul, you, me get rejected by their own people. All that education, all that experience, all that money, power, position, prestige goes into the wilderness with you where it means nothing. It means absolutely nothing until God speaks from the burning bush. And speak He will. “How can I go?” Because, I’m sending you! “Who are you?” I am who I am! You see when Moses was a prince of Egypt Moses knew who he was. What he needed to find out was who God is.

You never find out who God is until you meet Him in the wilderness. Anybody can be spiritual when things are good. Something will happen to you in the wilderness. You won’t know what it is; in the beginning it will intrigue you. Let me get a closer look at this. For then you’ll quickly realize you’re standing on holy ground. It is on holy ground where God wants to use you to bring others to Him. Bring them to the holy ground. “Lord that’s why you brought me out here?” Yeah! “But they rejected me.” They weren’t ready and you weren’t either. Now they’re ready and so are you. “But how can I do it, I can’t talk there, I can’t do this.” Oh yes you can, you could always do it; if you couldn’t have done it you wouldn’t have been here, I wouldn’t have wasted my time bringing you to the wilderness if you didn’t have the capacity to do it. Then, you thought you had the capacity to do it, now you realize you only have the capacity to do it in My strength. Go do it, go do it. From the burning bush he hears the voice of Jesus and he responds with “Hineni,” (Here I am, what would you have me to do?)

There is not one of us that God doesn’t have a calling in our life for some ministry. I don’t know what it is. It may be something to do with leadership; it may be in a mission field or evangelism. If God has really called you to something, step one will be rejection; step two will be a wilderness; step three will be a burning bush.

And I promise you, that man or that woman who comes out of that wilderness is going to be very, very different than the one who first went in.

(1) It is usually believed that the Tetragrammaton Yahweh, YHWH is He who was, He who is and He who is to come, I am who I am. And in Simcha Torah and in John Chapter 8, they picked up stones to stone Jesus because He said “before Abraham was in Greek Ego Ami, I am!” Jesus identifying Himself as God.

The Book of Ruth

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:40:44 GMT

Introduction

The book of Ruth is read in the Jewish Synagogue at the feast of Pentecost, which is the first day, as it were, of the Gentile church. The book of Ruth tells the story of a rich, powerful Jewish man who takes a Gentile bride and exalts her, the way that Jesus, on the day of Pentecost, raised up the Gentile church, as the Bride of Christ.

Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem…

…meaning “the house of bread”…

…in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and two sons. And the name of the man was Elimelech…

…which means “my God is King”…

and the name of his wife Naomi; and the names of his two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. And they entered the land of Moab and remained there. Then Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died; and she was left with her two sons. They took for themselves Moabite women as wives.

(The Moabites were particularly despised by the Jews because of the maltreatment of them during the Exodus period.)

…the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. And they lived there about ten years. Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; and the woman was bereft of her two children and her husband.

Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the land of Moab, for she had heard in the land of Moab that the Lord had visited His people in giving them food. So she departed from the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her; and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. And Naomi said unto her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. May the Lord grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband." Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, "No, but we will surely return with you to your people." But Naomi said, "Return, my daughters. Why should you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? "Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband to-night and also bear sons, would you there-fore wait until they were grown? Would you refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; for it is harder for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me."

Ruth's Loyalty

And they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. Then she said, "Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; return after your sister-in-law." But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you will die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me." When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came about when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was stirred because of them, and the women said, "It this Naomi?" And she said unto them, "Do not call me not Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has afflicted me?" So Naomi returned, and with her Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned from the land of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

This is read in the synagogues at the Feast of Weeks, when the barley harvest in underway in Israel.

Boaz Will Redeem Ruth

And Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, shall I not seek security for you, that it may be well with you?" "And now is not Boaz our kinsman, with whose maids you were? Behold, he winnows barley at the threshing floor tonight. Wash yourself therefore, and anoint yourself and put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he is finished eating and drinking. And it shall be when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies, and you shall go and uncover his feet and lie down; then he will tell you what you shall do." And she said to her, "All that you say I will do."

So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in- law had commanded her. When Boaz had eaten and drunk and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain; and she came secretly, and uncovered his feet and lay down. And it happened in the middle of the night that the man was startled and bent forward; and behold, a woman was lying at his feet. And he said, "Who are you?" And she answered, "I am Ruth your maid. So spread your covering over your maid, for you are a close relative." Then he said, "May you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter. You have shown your last kindness to be better that the first by not going after young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you whatever you ask, for all my people in the city know that you are a woman of excellence. And now it is true I am a close relative; however, there is a relative closer than I. Remain this night, and when morning comes, if he will redeem you, good; let him redeem you. But if he does not wish to redeem you, then I will redeem you, as the Lord lives. Lie down until morning."

So she lay at his feet until the morning and rose before one could recognize an-other; and he said, "Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor." Again he said, "Give me the cloak that is on you and hold it." So she held it , and he measured six measures of barley and laid it on her. Then she went into the city. And when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, "How did it go, my daughter?" And she told her all that the man had done for her. And she said, "These six measures of barley he gave to me, for he said, "Do not go to your mother-in-law empty handed." Then she said, "Wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter turns out; for the man will not rest until he has settled it today."

The Marriage of Ruth

Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there, and, behold, the close relative of whom Boaz spoke was passing by, so he said, "Turn aside, friend, sit down here." And he turned aside and he sat down. And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, "Sit down here." So they sat down. Then he said to the closest relative, "Naomi, who has come back from the land of Moab, has to sell the piece of land which belonged to our brother Elimelech. So I thought to inform you, saying, 'Buy it before these who are sitting here, and be-fore the elders of my people. If you will re-deem it, redeem it; but if not, tell me that I may know; for there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am after you' " And he said, "I will redeem it." Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also acquire Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of the deceased, in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance." And the close relative said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I jeopardize my own inheritance. Redeem it for yourself; you may have my right of redemption, for I cannot redeem it."

Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning the redemption and the exchange of land to confirm any matter: a man removed his sandal and gave it to another; and this was the matter of attestation in Israel. So the closest relative said to Boaz, "Buy it for yourself." And he removed his sandal. And Boaz said to the elders and to all the people, "You are witnesses today that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and Mahlon. Moreover, I have acquired Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, to be my wife in order to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance, so that the name of the deceased may not be cut off from his brothers or from the court of his birthplace; you are witnesses today." And all the people who were in the court, and the elders, said, "We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel; and may you achieve wealth in Ephrathah and become famous in Bethlehem. Moreover, may your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar bore unto Judah, through the offspring which the Lord shall give you by this young woman."

So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife; and he went in to her. And the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. And the women said to Naomi, "Blessed is theLord who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him."

The Line of David Begins Here

Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her lap, and became his nurse. And the neighbor women gave him a name saying, "A son has been born to Naomi!" So they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David. Now these are the generations of Perez: to Perez was born Hezron; and to Hezron was born Ram, and to Ram, Amminadab, and to Amminadab was born Nahshon, , and to Nahshon, Salmon, and to Salmon was born Boaz, and to Boaz, Obed, and to Obed was born Jesse, and to Jesse, David (Ruth 1:1-4:22).

The genealogy of Jesus does not begin in Matthew chapter one, it begins in Ruth chapter four.

My family is a combination of Jew and Gentile. My wife and I have seen two false religions in our lives: nominal Christianity (which does not teach that salvation comes from the new birth) and Rabbinic Judaism (which rejects its own Messiah).

Why Us?

The book of Ruth tells the story of an old woman who feels that God Himself is against her. She was forced out of her land for some time, her husband died, her sons died and she was left alone. She feels bereft, embittered, rejected. She feels that the hand of God is against her.

This is a picture of my wife's parents, Jews who were in the Holocaust, their families murdered by people who claimed to be Christians. Some of the Jewish writers after the Holocaust wrote, "One and one half million Jewish children kicked into ovens. God must hate us." Many Jews have asked, "Why us? Why the holocaust? Why the inquisition? Why the crusades? Why always us?"

Jews know they are different from other people, but they do not know why.

Something Special

There is nothing special about Jews. There is nothing unique about Jews. Jews are people who need to be saved, the same as anyone else. There is something very special about the God of the Jews. There is something very special about the covenant of the Jews. There is something very special about the book of the Jews. There is something very special about the Messiah of the Jews! But until they see Him, they will not under-stand the rest of it. The Jewish people today are in the character of Naomi. They feel rejected, cursed by God.

For nearly two thousand years the Jews were outcasts from their own land. They have re-gathered because they heard things were beginning to get better and out of desperation they are returning to Israel. They are coming back the same as Naomi did. They are coming back with the burden of rejection, of pain, of a sense of anguish and agony of their souls. If you talk to them about God, even religious Jews express the feeling that God is against the Jewish people.

Orpah

There are two Gentile women. Every Gentile Christian and Gentile church will come either in the character of Ruth or in the character of Orpah. Orpah seems to be quite polite and pleasant. But, once her own interests are at stake, she goes back to her people and to her gods.

Notice that: "To her gods" (Ruth 1:15). The post-Nicene Church, after Constantine “Christianized” the Roman Empire, the Church lost sight of its Jewish roots, something that Paul warned should not happen (Rom 11:17-18).

I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? "Lord, they have killed Thy prophets, they have torn down Thine altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life." But what is the divine response to him? "I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. What then? That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; just as it is written,

"God gave them a spirit of stupor, Eyes to see not and ears to hear not, Down to this very day" (Romans 11:1-8).

The Church lost sight of their Jewish roots. Then what happened? Paganism invaded Christendom – the emergence of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, perverting the original Christianity of the New Testament, which was a Jewish Hebraic faith. They went back to their old gods once they lost sight of their Jewish roots!

Ruth

But then there is Ruth. "Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God" (Ruth 1:16). The New Testament speaks that kind of language.

Remember that you were at a time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Eph 2:12-13).

You have been brought near, like a close relative – the Hebrew concept of a “relative” is someone who is close to you.

Romans chapter 11 speaks the language of incorporation, not of replacementism. Gentile Christians who repent and accept Jesus replace Jews who reject Him. But the tree stays the same. It is not a different tree, the church is not the “New Israel”. By a sovereign act of God's Grace, Gentile Christians are spiritually grafted in and become descendants of Abraham by faith. That is the meaning of the book of Ruth.

Levirate Marriage

To go further, we need to understand certain things about the Torah. The Torah had geriatrical and legal provisions. Remember that the book of Ruth records the beginning of the lineage of David. However, the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew has certain discrepancies when compared with that in Luke. There are two main ways to account for those discrepancies. One of the ways is called “Levirate marriage.”

When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. And it shall be that the first born whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out from Israel. But if the man does not desire to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate of the elders and say, "My husband's brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband's brother to me." Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, "I do not desire to take her," then his brother's wife shall come to him in sight of the elders…

There had to be ten of them, a “minyan”…

…and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall declare, "Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house." And in Israel his name shall be called, "The house of him whose sandal is removed (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).

Let me explain this.

Importance of Genealogy

Kings had to be descendants of David, priests had to be descendants of Levi, High Priests had to be descendants of Aaron. The tribal inheritance allocated by Joshua had to be preserved according to Torah. So a legal descent had to be perpetuated. Otherwise, how would you know who the high priest was going to be? How would you know who the king was going to be? How would you know what was the inheritance of your family? And ultimately, how would we know the Messiah?

The lineage had to be established and perpetuated. There is a biological bloodline, and a legal one. One of the genealogies in the New Testament gives a legal descent; the other gives the biological, or genetic descent. That is one of the ways you account for the discrepancies; there are other ways, but that is one of the two main ones.

There was only one form of birth control practiced in ancient near east – ex-vaginal ejaculation. Today you will find Christians teaching against birth control for married people based on the verse that says there was a sentence of death if you practiced ex-vaginal ejaculation. But the only situation where that was forbidden was in Levirate marriage. It was designed to prevent you from reducing your brother's widow to a concubine, a sex object. The reason for having sex with your brother's widow was to procreate offspring on his behalf for two reasons.

The first reason was financial provision for his widow. The Hebrew word for “honor your parents” (it has to do with honorarium) does not mean you have to agree with every word of your parents, just because they are your parents. It means it is something heavy for you that you are expected to carry. The same thing as a mother is supposed to take care of the baby when it is little so, when she is old, that baby is going to be responsible for her in God's economy. Having children was a form of welfare provision for the aged. The first reason for Levirate marriage was so the brother's widow would have provision for her old age.

The second was the inheritance. The off-spring would perpetuate the family inheritance. If the land went out of the family line, due to debt, in the year of jubilee there would be a restoration of it to the family. The Pharisees taught that you could legally deny giving help to your parents by dedicating your goods to God – rendering them “corban” (Mark 7: 11-13). They invalidated the commandments of God by their teachings. Jesus attacked them for this.

Your responsibility to your parents was woven into Jewish thought. It is perpetuated in the New Testament, which says you will not have a long life in this world if you do not look after your parents in their old age (Eph 6:2-3).

We read in Ruth that the widow's brother would not raise up children on behalf of his brother in order to keep his brother's name from being cut off. This is a typology of Jesus. The Jews who, under the Old Covenant, died faithful to God needed somebody to come after them to redeem them. When someone procreated children on behalf of their deceased brother and took his land, it was called a “right of redemption”. A Jew who died under the Old Covenant needed someone from among his kinsmen to come after him, someone who would redeem him, prevent his name from being cut off from his fathers, and prevent him from losing the inheritance of promise. It points to Jesus.

How were the Jews under the Old Covenant saved? The same way we are. Hebrews tells us that the blood of animals could never take away sin. They could only cover the sin, if accompanied by faith and repentance, until the Messiah came and He would take them away. Under the Old Covenant the Jews were dependent on someone to come after them, to bring their redemption. It all points to Jesus.

Gleaning

Another form of social provision was gleaning. We need to understand this. Narrow pathways would separate the fields of the different farmers or families. The Jews were forbidden from harvesting the corners of their fields. Why? As a form of social welfare provision, the poor, the widows, the orphans, the socially disenfranchised, even sojourners (foreigners traveling through the land), had the right to glean.

This is what we see in the book of Ruth. Ruth arrives with her mother-in-law who says, "Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara; for the Lord has dealt bitterly with me." When Jewish people today come back to their own land after the holocaust and after what happened with the Communists, they have a feeling of "God did this to us”.

Orthodox Jews will look at Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 and admit that their experiences reflect the curse of the law as recorded in those passages. What happened to them was somehow God's hand. Not all Jews make this admission, but the ultra-Orthodox certainly will.

I Will Bless Them That Bless Thee

Boaz, a Jewish man, said to Ruth, a Gentile woman, "Let your eyes be on the field that they reap, and go after them. Indeed, I have commanded the servants not to touch you. When you are thirsty, go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw."

Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground and said to him, "Why have I found favor in your sight that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?" And Boaz answered and said to her, "All you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me" (Ruth 2:9-11).

I will bless them that bless thee, and I will curse them that curse thee. (Gen 12:3) Not because the Jews are special, but because the God of the Jews and his covenant with their fathers is special. God will honor his covenant, and it does not depend upon the faithfulness or unfaithfulness of man. His covenant depends on the faithfulness of God. This is illustrated to us in the story of Abraham, who is the father of all those who believe, both Jew and Christian.

And it came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch that passed between these pieces (Gen 15:17).

That flame is the same as the pillar of fire called the Shekinah of God, the Holy Spirit.

The term for making a covenant in He-brew is "to cut a covenant." The corpse of an animal is cut in half. Both parties making the covenant would pass through the two halves of the carcass. When God made His covenant with Abraham, only the flame passed through, not Abraham. Why? Because God knew from the beginning, that His people would be unfaithful in keeping the covenant, but He would not. Praise the Lord that His covenants do not depend on the unfaithfulness of Israel or the church, but they depend on the faithfulness of God Himself.

If God is finished with Israel because they broke the covenant, give me one good reason why God should not be finished with the church also. Anything that the Jews have done wrong, I can say the same about the church, or worse. What has the church done? The same thing Israel did, gone after other gods. Look at New Age in the Church.

Sacrificing Babies to Demons

What did Israel do before the captivity? They sacrificed their babies to demons. Yes, they did that, and that is when the judgment fell. God said, "No more. I will put up with idolatry. I will put up with immorality. I will put up with social injustice. But I will not put up with you sacrificing babies to other gods, to demons."

If you take all the medical considerations warranting abortions into account, they would account for less than 1% of all abortions performed. More than 99% of all abortions are performed for non-therapeutic reasons. They are not carried out for any clinical or medical reason. They are carried out for social and economic reasons, what Jesus called the "worship of Mammon."

Make no mistake about it, non-therapeutic abortion, theologically and spiritually, is a form of demon worship. If God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either. If Israel and the Jews did not get away with that abomination, neither will the Western Christianized world.

Learning from Israel's Mistakes

Now these things happened as examples for us. (1 Cor 10:6)
The mistakes of Israel were recorded so that the church would not make the same mistakes. The church should learn from their errors. But have we? No! We have everything they had, and much more. They only had the Old Testament, but we have the New also. They only looked forward to the coming of the Messiah; the Church already has the Messiah. Under the old covenant the Holy Spirit was only for certain people at certain times: High Priests, Kings, and Prophets. Now the Holy Spirit is for all who believe.

On top of that, we have their example to learn from, but we do not learn. If God is finished with the Jews because they broke the covenant, how much more should He be finished with the church. Praise God that His faithfulness is what determines the validity of the covenant, not our unfaithfulness. Otherwise we would be as finished as the Jews ever were. But God is not finished with the Jews. The judgment of God would have fallen on the United States a long time ago, except for two things.

One, salt preserves. The USA still has more evangelical Christians and churches than any other Western country. Three out of four dollars spent on missions, Christian charity and evangelism comes from North America, while three out of five full time missionaries to poor countries come from America.

The other reason is that America has treated the Jews better than any other nation in history. Otherwise God's judgment would have come on them long ago. Amsterdam is the most wicked city in the developed world. I have seen depravity in a lot of cities. In Bangkok they are selling the kids into sexual slavery. Amsterdam is just as bad. If you were to walk through Amsterdam and Holland you would not believe the moral depravity. It is unspeakable, an absolute disgrace. However that country protected the Jews during the Holocaust. I am convinced that God's judgment would have prevailed, but they blessed the Jews. "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee." (Gen 12:3)

That does not mean that God's judgment is not going to come. It just means that it has been delayed by grace. "Why are you showing me favor?" asked Ruth. Because you blessed my people. God will bless those Christians, churches and nations who bless His people. Not for their sake, but for the sake of His own name. And, by extension, God will even bless unsaved people who bless Christians.

Second-Class Christians

"I have commanded my servants not to touch you," says Boaz. Where they eat, you eat. What they drink, you drink.

The Hebrew word to “bow down” and “to worship” is the same word. When you see a Roman Catholic bowing down before a statue and praying, that is idolatry in the Hebrew language. That is why the Roman Catholic church took the second commandment out of their catechism for so many centuries. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them (Deut 5:8).

I lived on Mt. Carmel in Galilee. At Mount Carmel they have apparitions of Mary, the same as in Fatima and many other places – demonic apparitions. The people there carry a statue of Mary from her summer home to her winter home. Why? Mary does not like the cold weather! Twice a year they carry the statue down the mountain and put it in the church in the middle of Haifa. They bow to it, pray to it, burn incense to it, and sing to it. I had a friend who was a Charismatic Catholic monk. He would come to our meetings, waving his hands, and be one of us, “Hallelujah!” Then, when they carried the statue down, he would be there with the rest of the idolaters, singing, burning incense, bowing down and worshipping the statue!

When the Jews and Moslems saw this idolatry, they thought that was Christianity. The born again Christians, the Messianic Jews, had to explain to them that it was not. Satan's first tool for getting Jews into hell is false Christianity – Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, idolatry.

A Woman of Excellence

Which countries protected the Jews in the Holocaust? The ones with high evangelical Protestant populations: Denmark, Holland. Which ones betrayed the Jews? The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox countries, Latvia, France, Romania.

If you go to Israel today, you will see the young volunteers working on the kibbutzes. Some are from Canada, Japan, Argentina, Holland. "What country are you from?" "Oh, Holland," they will say. "Maybe you would want to come for tea tonight? We know it was Christians in Holland who saved my Grandmother during the Holocaust."

"Where are you from?" "Denmark," they would say, and the people would tell how the Nazis occupied Denmark and ordered all the Jews to wear yellow stars The Danish King, who was a Christian, came out wearing a yellow star and said Jesus Christ was a Jew. Anyone who believed in him had to identify with the Jews. Everyone in Denmark had to put on a yellow star.

A woman of excellence. The Jews teach about it in the high schools in Israel. If you love the Jews, get out of false churches. Get out of anti-Semitic churches. Get out of Jew-hating churches. Get out of idolatrous churches. Get out of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and so-called evangelical Jew-hating churches.
Then he said, "May you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter. You have shown your last kindness to be better than the first by not going after young men, whether poor or rich (Ruth 3:10).

What does it say about Jesus, in the fourth Servant Song of Isaiah?

He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And one from whom men hide their face, He was despised and we did not esteem him (Isaiah 53:2-3)

The Key to Their Redemption

And now it is true I am a close relative; however, there is a relative closer than I (Ruth 3:12).

I am next in line, but he is first in line. He has the right of redemption from Elimelech – to buy the land, to get the inheritance, to take you, to procreate children for his deceased brother. At first this man – whoever he is, he is not named for some reason, only being referred to in Scripture as he whose sandal was removed – says, "Yes, give me the inheritance. I want it." But when Boaz tells him that he also has to take the Gentile woman (Ruth 4:5), he changes his mind.

"I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I jeopardize my own inheritance" (Ruth 4:6).

The inheritance I want. The promise of my fathers I want. The right of redemption I want. The blessing I want. But I do not want anything to do with that shiksa (derogatory Yiddish slang, meaning “a Gentile woman”). Yet it was that shiksa who was the key to him getting his promise, his blessing, his redemption.

He whose sandal was removed is not named. Those Jews who will not come to the body of Christ to receive their inheritance will not be named. Their names will be blotted out. Only those who come to the body of Christ will receive their redemption. That Gentile woman is the key.

Take the Grain to My People

Boaz gave Ruth six measures of barley (Ruth 3:15).

And she said, "These six measures of barley he gave to me, for he said, 'Do not go to your mother-in-law empty-handed'" (Ruth 3:17).

What did Jesus tell the Gentile church? "Take the grain, and give it to my people Israel." Be very careful of organizations that want to bless the Jews without giving them the Gospel. In the same way that God used the Jews to give the Gospel to the Gentiles in the 1st Century, God is using the Gentiles to give the Gospel to the Jews in the last century. For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their restoration be but life from the dead? (Rom 11:15).

Make no mistake about it, God is going to bless the Church through Jewish people again before Jesus returns. The first Christians were Jews; the last Christians are going to be Jews. Give them the grain. The challenge is to bring the Good News back home again.

This particular man refused the right of redemption. So they went through the ritual prescribed in Deuteronomy 25. Then the marriage took place and, eventually, a baby boy was born.

Redeemer and Restorer

At the wedding they said to Boaz,
"May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built the house of Israel" (Ruth 4:110.

The typology here comes from Genesis. Jacob came for a bride from his own people. He desired Rachel, but he did not get Rachel at first, but Leah. After he learned to love Leah as much as he did Rachel, he got Rachel as well. In the beginning Leah had all the babies, her womb was most fruitful. But then Rachel conceives.

Israel shall be a fruitful vine. Jesus came for Israel. He wanted to marry Israel, but He did not get Israel. He ends up with the bride He did not desire at first, the Gentile church.

After He learns to love the Gentile church, then He gets Israel. In the beginning, the church has all the babies. But in the end, Israel becomes a fruitful vine. "Both of whom built the House of Israel."

Don't let Rick Godwin or any of these other lying heretics tell you different. Both of whom built the House of Israel. The church is Jew and Gentile, one bride.

Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed is the Lord who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him" (Ruth 4: 14-15).

The baby who was born from this union between Boaz and Ruth was called the redeemer from Bethlehem.

"May His name become famous in Israel."

Who came from Bethlehem? Who is a Redeemer? Who is famous? The lineage of David stems from a union between Jew and Gentile because the salvation that would come from it would be for both Jew and Gentile.

May He also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law.is better to you than seven sons (Ruth :15).

The Gentile woman who gave birth to this baby called Redeemer is better to her than seven sons. There are Gentile Christians who treat the Jews better than their own kind. More than that, this baby who is called "the Redeemer from Bethlehem" becomes a restorer of life to the Jewish woman.

Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her lap, and became his nurse. And the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, "A son has born to Naomi" (Ruth 4:16-17).

He is a Jewish baby. And so begins the line of David from whom Jesus would come.

A woman of excellence can take a Jewish baby, born in Bethlehem, called the Redeemer, a restorer of life to the Jewish people, and present Him to this Jewish woman, who was bereft, who was grieving, who was scorned, who was embittered, who felt that God Himself had set His hand against her. But when the Jewish woman receives the child, she says, "This is really my baby here. He is really my Messiah. This baby is the restorer of my life." Then all of her grief, all her anguish, all her pain, all her bereavement and rejection is taken away by that baby.

All of these brides, these good women in the Bible, teach about the Bride of Christ from different aspects. Ruth teaches us about the Bride of Christ as the one who would give the Redeemer back to the Jewish people. That Bride is you.

And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man shall confess him also before the angels of God" (Luke 12:8)

The Book of Jonah

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:39:27 GMT

Before we turn to the book of Jonah, turn very briefly please to the book of Acts chapter 2:24 and 27.

"And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power."

In verse 27 we have a quote from the book of Isaiah and the Psalms,

Because thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Thy holy one to undergo decay.

It was impossible for death to hold Jesus in its power: it was a theological, spiritual and logical impossibility.

We are told in the book of Hebrews that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son – as a type of Christ – because even then he knew that God could raise his son up from the dead to fulfill his purpose. (Heb 11:17) It is an example of how God puts somebody in a “death situation”, with the assurance that his resurrection power is going to be found in it.

With these things in view turn with me to the book of the prophet Jonah.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep. So the captain approached him and said, “How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.” Each man said to his mate, “Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.” So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.

(Now in Proverbs 16:33 it says: the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.)

Then they said to him, “Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.”

Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, “How could you do this?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. So they said to him, “What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?”—for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.” However, the men rowed desperately to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them. Then they called on the Lord and said, “We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O Lord, have done as You have pleased.”

So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. Then the men feared the Lord greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

We're not told it was a whale. The Jews translate this literally as in modem Hebrew leviathan. Whales are not usually indigenous to the Mediterranean, we don't know what kind of fish it was, we just assume it was a whale. (Strictly speaking, of course, a whale is a mammal not a fish – it has no gills).

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, “I called out of my distress to the Lord, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice. For You had cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me. So I said, ‘I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, But You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple. Those who regard vain idols Forsake their faithfulness, But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.”

Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

Now the word here for overthrown is nechpakeh. It's the same word used in Genesis for the destruction of Sodom, the most terrible destruction and judgment on a city that the Jews had a record of in the Torah. By using that particular term nechpakeh it would have conjured visions of what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. - -

Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.”

When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.” The Lord said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?”

Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. So the LordGod appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered. When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.”

Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.” Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?”

Now understand that this is a very arid climate – it's not that the air conditioning isn't working – this was a grueling situation to be in.

Now the idea of not knowing the difference between their right hand or their left hand in the Hebrew text is this: you'd have the term “yad”, right hand is “yemani”, as in If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, may I forget my right hand." Im eshcacak yerushalim tishcah yemani (the King James mistranslates it "my right hand forget her skill" – it's not what it says in the Hebrew).

The Right Hand of the Lord in the Bible

“The Lord will bring salvation with his night hand”. Isaiah has the same 'to whom has the arm - same Hebrew word yad - of the lord been revealed?' The Right Hand is a type of Jesus in the Old Testament. What it is basically saying is, "these pagans don't know the way of salvation, they don't know the difference between the right hand and the left hand they don't know how to save themselves." It's the right hand of the Lord that brings salvation. That would be the implication from the Hebrew term: the right hand.

Quite a story! It was probably written during the reign of Jeroboam, somewhere between 814 and 783 BCE. We also know from history that there was an Assyrian king who became a monotheistic king, his name was Adad-Nirari III who reigned roughly from 810 to 782 (there was actually one Egyptian pharaoh who became a monotheist and there were a couple of kings of Babylon who became monotheists – see the book of Daniel). It may have been this king who turned to the true God.

Jews were always called to be lights to the Gentiles – even in the Old Testament. They didn't do it the same way we do it now but if salvation was to come from the Jews, as Jesus said in John chapter four, they were still to be his witnesses to these nations and show them the true God. Today rabbis complain about "Christians" proselytizing Jews, forgetting that the Jews themselves, based on what Moses originally decreed, were supposed to be out trying to win people to believe in the true God! The very fact that they are not doing that, shows that they are no longer practicing a true Judaism.

The Story of Jonah

He was reluctant to go to Nineveh and not without good reason. These were, to say the least, not the nicest people in the world: they were “bad people”; they were total heathens! More than that, as a Bible-believing Jew, he would have read the prophecies of his predecessor the prophet Amos and he would have seen what God decreed and predicted through Amos about Nineveh. So he would even have had a biblical basis for not wanting to go there. It was not just that he knew God would have compassion on them but that they might kill him. He knew that, on the face of it, they were destined for judgment as the prophet Nahum had predicted (and this happened at a later point when they turned back to their pagan ways). He had good reason not to go.

But let's begin with Jonah's name. “Yonah”, meaning, in Hebrew, “a dove”. What images would this conjure up? One is in John 2:16. Jesus drove the people out of the temple who were selling doves. (This comes from Leviticus 14. A dove was an animal deemed suitable for sacrifice and as such it was a type of Christ – as all these animals were). In the Song go Solomon 1:5, he tells the lover that her eyes are like doves.

“Eyes” because doves are monogamous birds and they only have a relationship with their partners, they don't procreate with other doves. So too in Genesis 8, first Noah sends out a bird that the Torah would later decree to be “unkosha” – a raven, but the second bird he sends out is a dove. All these images would have been conjured up in the minds of Jews. In the New Testament Mathew 3:18, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus as a dove. All these images might highlight some aspect of Jonah and his character but probably the most important is found in the Psalm of David 55:4-6,

My heart is in anguish within me, And the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me, And horror has overwhelmed me. I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.

The idea is this: wanting to escape from the calamity that has come upon you; and Jonah was a man that wanted to escape

But what about this calamity? What does it mean for us? What we have to understand about Jonah is the first thing we have to understand about all the Hebrew prophets: every single Hebrew prophet is a type of Jesus, a type of the Messiah, every one of them foreshadows Him, who he would be and what he would do. There is no Hebrew prophet whose life does not foreshadow or typify the Messiah who would come after them to bring in the Redemption which they prophesied.

Let's Look at Jonah as a Type of Jesus

Turn with me please to 2 kings 14:25 . That's the first place we read about Jonah in the Bible.

He [Jeroboam] restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which He spoke through His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.

Notice that Jonah was sent to his own people the Jews first. Only after this was he sent to the Gentiles. In Matthew 15:24 we read the following:

But Jesus said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. "

Jesus was first sent only to His own people, then only at a later point was He sent to the non-Jews. We are told that Jonah was from this particular area Gath-hepher. Gathhepher is in walking distance from Nazareth. Now there was something unique about Jonah in this.

Turn with me to John 7:52 – something here that the Sanhedrin overlooked!

They answered and said to him, "You are not also from Galilee are you? Search and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee." (or as they say in the same chapter, verse 41) "The Messiah is not going to come from Galilee, is he?"

No prophet comes from Galilee? They were wrong. Jonah came from Galilee! He's the only one except for Jesus who was from Galilee.

Jonah : 4-6, a terrible storm comes, and the word for “wind” in Greek in the New Testament is “pnuema” and in the Hebrew it is, of course,” ruach”, but in both it is also the word for “Spirit”. In this storm sent by God, during the storm Jonah sleeps in the boat and the other people are frantic about this, "How can you be sleeping in the boat during the storm?"

[We have a tape on this, The boats of the bible on Mark chapter 4 and 6, where we explain the typology of the boats in greater depth]

But let's look very briefly at Mark 4:37-38.

And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”

What happens to Jonah prefigures what will happen to the Lord Jesus. Jonah becomes a type of Christ.

Now let's understand this a bit more. Jonah 1:12, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea then the sea will become calm for you." Jonah, of his own choice, was willing to lay down his own life to bring salvation to others, including gentiles. John 10:17-18,

For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I might take it again, no one is taking it -from me but that I lay it down of my own initiative.

Jonah was willing to lay his life down to bring salvation and deliverance to others, so the Messiah, who Jonah prefigures, was willing to lay His life down so salvation would come to others.

Turn with me now please to Luke 11:30…

For just as Jonah became a sign to the Israelites, so shall the son of man be to this generation.

We know from Kings that Jonah was the son of Arytittai. He prophesied during the reigns of Jeroboam, both of them a very bad man and king. There were two Jeroboams: one was as bad as the other. At the preaching of Jonah the Gentiles repented when the Jews would not; at the message of Jesus the Gentiles accepted what He said at a time most Jews did not. Not all Jews rejected him – not all Jews rejected Jonahm, but basically it was the Gentiles not the Jews who repented in the days of Jonah and it was the Gentiles not the Jews who repented in the days of Jesus.

Jonah 1:17 tells us this: The Lord appointed a great fish.

The Lord Sent the Storm

Jonah prayed in the stomach of the fish…he said. “I called out of my distress…and He answered me”, etc.

The Lord appointed the storm, the Lord appointed the great fish. Now this was a “death experience”. Some argue from the Hebrew text that Jonah may have actually died biologically, from the implications of what “Sheol” could mean. But certainly the connotation would be there of a “death place”. It was the Lord who appointed Jonah to a place of death; the Lord consigned him to it.

In Acts 2:23 we read,

'this man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.

Isaiah 3:10 it was the will of the Lord to smite him. Jonah was delivered up by the foreknowledge of God to a place of destruction, Jesus was delivered up by the foreknowledge of God to a place of destruction. Jonah “died” in the sea. He died, as it were – his death experience. (Whether he died or not people may debate but his death experience took place in the sea.)

Turn with me please to Psalm 69. This is of course a Psalm of David which is Messianic prophecy in the literary genre of Hebrew poetry. It is in this Psalm, for instance, we read in verse 21,

they gave me gall for my food and they gave me vinegar to drink,

…a prophesy of what would happen when the Lord Jesus was on the cross. However, this Psalm which looks ahead to the death of Jesus begins,

Hoshanna Elohim: save me oh God from the waters that have threatened my life.

Metaphorically then the death of Jesus is represented in Hebrew prophesy as a drowning experience.

Now we just sang this wonderful hymn, "When peace like a river attended my soul; when sorrows like sea billows roll". This was written by Mr. Stockwood but what many people don't know and what I didn't know until five or six years ago is that he composed it after his family drowned where, of all places, a building of the American colony hotel now stands in Jerusalem. It was after his family died that he actually wrote it in Jerusalem. The idea of “sea billows roll” is the drowning experience that happened to his family, but also in biblical typology particularly the Psalms you see, when people are under this kind of death experience, it is alluded to as drowning and points to Jesus.

Jonah 3:8 ,

But both man and beast in sack cloth and ashes repented after Jonah had told these people, "Repent, repent, repent, God will destroy this city in forty days."

And he goes on to say,

"perhaps if you repent God may turn back - (in verse 8) he may relent."

Recently I actually had a long email from somebody trying to justify people who predict things that don't happen. He was trying to justify Rick Joyner, Gerald Coates and these guys by saying, "Well, was Jonah a false prophet? Look at what Jonah predicted and it didn't happen." That was his argument to justify these false prophets! However, the text of Jonah makes it very clear that it was a conditional prophecy that says "if you don't repent this is what's going to happen." He never said that it was going to happen full-stop. It was conditional. It's an unfit comparison, but they always have to pervert the Bible out of context.

Nonetheless we see that Jonah gave a direct message of “repentance because the judgment is coming.” In the Gospel of St. Matthew 4:17, Jesus began to preach, "repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jonah gave a message of repentance so that judgment could be averted, so it was with Jesus and his disciples. "Save yourself from this wicked generation."

Jonah 2:4,

So I said, "I have been expelled from thy sight from before Thine eyes. "

The Hebrew says that Jonah was expelled “from before the presence of God”. God could not look upon him, God wouldn't look upon him, he was cast away from before God's eyes. We look at the Gospel of St. Matthew 27:46, "Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani" - "my God, my God why have you forsaken me". Jonah was cast away from the presence of God's sight, God would not look upon Jonah, so God would not look upon Jesus.

Jonah 1:17, he was three days and three nights in the stomach of the great fish and, as Jesus of course tells us in Matthew 17:39-40, that's a picture of the resurrection. As Jonah was three days in the stomach of the great fish, so Jesus would be three days in a tomb. Jonah is, like all of Israel's prophets, a type of Jesus. He teaches about the Messiah who would come after him; every Hebrew prophet does. When you read their lives carefully, they teach something about the Messiah and Jonah is no exception.

Jonah is given over to this death experience but there were things in Jonah's life that were blocking him from being conformed to what God wanted him to be.

He resisted God's will. He didn't want to do what God wanted him to do and, again, not without good reason: he knew what Amos had said about this nation that he was been sent to, he knew these people were bad. Who wants to be sent to a place like that where you might get killed?
Secondly, he lacked the compassion of God. He understood the judgment and anger of God but he lacked the compassion of God and he was very good at something which we say in Yiddish: treching, complaining. Trech, trech, trech, complain, complain, complain. Somebody who with good reason doesn't want to do what God wants them to do. What God was asking him to do was very difficult, to go to a people he didn't even like, a people who were going to hate him because he wasn't one of them. In terms of the ancient world, he was from the West they were from the East.

Just by virtue of the fact that he was a Hebrew, a believer in the true God – not a pagan – and that he was from the West of the known world and they were from the East, that made him a target just by going there. His complaint was not without good reason. The things he was concerned with were valid points, humanly speaking. It was difficult for him to understand how God could have such compassion on such barbarians.

You know for me it would be like, I suppose, going to fundamentalist Muslims who put a bomb on an airplane at Lockerby, or who want to kill my Israeli family, or perhaps like a Jew being sent as an evangelist to the generation of Germans who carried out the Holocaust. There were good reasons, humanly speaking, why he could not feel or experience the compassion of God for these people. These were bad men.

The Jonah within Us

It says the word of the Lord came twice to Jonah. Now the word for “word” in Hebrew is “davar”, but in Greek its “logos”. It doesn't mean a message so much as it means a person. Jesus is the Logos/davar in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit was only for certain people at certain times: high priests, kings and prophets, But the Holy Spirit still communicated Jesus to them the way He does us. It was only Jesus' identity that was not there but it was still Him: "the word came", it means "the Lord Jesus came", it was a christotological encounter with Christ in Old Testament terms. Again, when Adam heard God walking in the garden, that was Jesus. When Jacob wrestled with the Metatrone (angel of God), it was Jesus. Jesus was in the Old Testament the same as in the New. When the word of the Lord came, it was an encounter with Christ.

When the Lord asks you or me to do things we don't want to do, or when there are things in my character or your character that are blocking what God wants, the Lord's not going to give you just a message, he's going to come to you. Jesus is going to stand in front of you, you're going to “see” Him. The message is going to be obvious once He comes and you'll know what's wrong with you! It's the encounter with the person, not just the word or the message or a letter or a telegram, a fax, an Email – it's the person. When Jesus comes to us we'll know where we stand, when we stand in front of Him.

The Name of Jonah

In the Hebrew part of the world today Jews normally name their children after dead ancestors but in the Bible they named them after biblical characters in Israel's history. In Hebraic thought, “son of” does not simply mean offspring – biological descent or pedigree – it means “in the character of”. Turn with me please to Matthew 16:17 . Jesus said, "Blessed are you Simon bar Jonah" – that's of course Aramaic and not Hebrew. The Hebrew would be “ben Jonah”. Now why is Jesus calling him by his surname as well as his first name? True his father's name was Jonah but there's more to it than that: it's providential that Peter's name was “Bar Jonah”. He's in the character of Jonah – and so are you and so am I.

Here they go to the place Caesarea Philipp,: a place where the Greeks had worshipped Pan and a place where the Romans worshipped Caesar Augustus. Here in Matthew 16:22 Peter was very angry and wanted Jesus to deal with and judge these pagan Gentiles for defiling the holy land just as Jonah wanted the Lord to judge the Gentiles. Jonah didn't want to go to the Gentiles did he? Neither did Peter – in the character of Jonah. In Acts I0, the story of Cornelius and the “non-kosher” food, Peter did not want to go to the Gentiles just as Jonah didn't. "You are Bar Jonah"; "Peter, you are in the character of Jonah, you don't like these Greeks and Romans, you're in the character of Jonah, he didn't like the pagans either, you're in the character of Jonah. He didn't want to go where I wanted him to go."

Look at John 21:18,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.”

Peter, in the character of Jonah who didn't want to go.

Look at Galatians chapter 2:11-12. Jonah had an attitude…

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.

Jonah didn't want to get involved with these Gentiles, nor did Peter bar Jonah want to get involved with Gentiles!

There are a lot of people I don't want to get involved with. As a younger believer I went through terrible, terrible battles of hatred and I mean hatred. I remember I saw the film The Hiding Place - Corrie ten Boom and what the Nazis did to these Christians, these believers in Holland who protected Jews: how they murdered the old man and raped the women and so forth – and I was so angry. I began praising God for creating hell not just for Nazis but for Germans - I hated Germans. When we take our tours to Israel and go to Yad vashem [the Holocaust Memorial] I stay in the bus. I don't go in there. I remember once I visited the Nazi death camp at Dachau where the Germans did the experiments on the Jewish children. I just think of my own children. I think even of that little girl hiding in the movie Schindler's List. I could just picture my son Eli in that situation. I battled with hatred towards Germans.

My father was in the American military in the second world war. His family was from Merseyside. His mother was from there. (She left before the war and came back after the war) When my father came with the American navy, he saw what the Germans did to Liverpool, how they destroyed everything including where his mother was from. And I had this hatred of German people. It took me a long time through the Lord bringing German people into my life – whom I love and who are believers – to lose this hatred.

There were some people who hated gypsies: "these people were crooks, they're connivers", but there was someone along the road who had the compassion of the Lord for the gypsies and now they're the fastest growing church in the United Kingdom, lives radically changed.

To take another example: I've been attacked by Muslims even in England – physically attacked by gangs on Speakers' Comer for preaching the gospel – and it's not a racial thing: I love Asian Christians: they're great people. But when I read what the Muslims do in Pakistan to Christians or what they do to Christians in Saudi Arabia I get angry. I look at the Amnesty International website and I just get so angry. One of the great blessings of my life, one of the great thrills of my life, was when I spoke about Islam in Auckland, New Zealand and some Iranians, who had just come to New Zealand from Iran, Shia Muslims, repented and accepted Jesus and renounced Mohammed and the Koran and became believers. I know people who were anti-Semitic before they got saved: some crooked Jewish landlord did something to their aunt Milly thirty years ago and so they hated Jews. But after they got saved the Lord gave them a love and a burden for the Jews they couldn't explain and they couldn't even understand.

There's things in us, things that are not irrational, things that have some logical basis – sometimes even an apparent biblical basis. There were reasons Jonah didn't like these people. He had read what Amos said about them, he had read what God was going to do, so it was not totally irrational. In fact, it was totally rational. There were good, logical reasons humanly speaking. But he could not see and understand the compassion of God. No matter how bad these people are, when the word of the Lord comes to us and we stand before Jesus, we see that no matter how bad they are (even compared to us); we're all infinitely bad compared to Jesus. You know the sort of thing.

"Single mothers on council estates be warned: you've got five kids from three different yobbos and we're having to support them. Why do I have to pay taxes and support my family? To pay for these kids? Why don't these yobbos that you pick up in the pub support their own kids? Why should I have to?" It's rational but where's the compassion of Jesus for these single mothers? When I see them on the news doing these things, throwing bottles at football games, they don't care about football – they just care about getting drunk and throwing bottles. It's tribalism. "Please beat their heads in", that's me! Not altogether irrational but where's the compassion of Jesus? I've known yobbos who've got saved, I've known Muslims who've been saved, and I've known prostitutes who've been saved, and I've known drug addicts who've been saved: I used to be one! Where is the compassion of Jesus?

So Jonah gets plunged, God creates a storm, God appoints a death and there he finds himself buried in the guts of a fish, underneath the Mediterranean somewhere between Turkey and Tel Aviv. Now this particular experience is one of the things in the Bible which theologically teaches about life after death. But it also is one of the things that reveals something about what will happen to Jesus. When He died on the cross for our sin, when His Father couldn't look upon Him, when His Father's voice went into the depths of Sheol and raised Him from the dead. We are told in Acts 2:24 that death itself could not contain Jesus Christ, the grave was not strong enough to contain him, death itself was not strong enough to control Jesus or to hold him in.

Turn with me please to 2 Corinthians 4:8-14

we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you. But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed, therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.

As the prophet Hosea puts it in chapter 6:2, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is our resurrection because his death is our death. Look at what Hosea says, He will revive us after two days; and the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him.

Because Jesus’ death is our death. His resurrection is our resurrection, could death contain Jesus? No! Can death contain you or I? Because of Jesus, no! There are no shortage of things in my life that block what God is wanting me to be and things in my life that are blocking me from really doing what God is wanting me to do. Sometimes I feel like I am being put to death when I complain about my neck, when I complain about being rejected by so much of the popular church because I won't go along with what's going on. Then I get a copy of Brother Andrew's News Letter and I read of Christians living in almost sub-human poverty, imprisoned and their families unable to support themselves. My kids have a roof over the' head – what do I have to complain about? Yes my neck hurts but I have pills. There are people whose necks hurt and they don't have the money for a pill. I have a pill in my pocket if my neck goes into spasm, I carry it around with me. All that bothers me. Why am I being put to death?

Why is it that ministries who teach the truth are always struggling for money but the ones who are corrupt rake it in? Because they struggle for money too, only they are expanding their corruption! Honest ministries are trying to expand the truth; they have to struggle and trust God. Death works in me. Why, Lord, if I am teaching the truth? I was only upholding the Trinity yet people who were part of Moriel began using my name a few weeks ago to endorse people who denied it. When I took the stand, they slandered me, they said I was mentally unbalanced from my automobile accident. Maybe I am unbalanced, but not from my automobile accident. Who needs this. What those people did was wicked but the real question is why did God allow it? What is God saying to me in this? God will deal with them but what is He saying to me? When my neck hurts the way it does today, (I am going to have to take a pill pretty soon!) what's God saying to me? What's God saying to you, when you are in the fish's guts? Remember Jesus said He's like Jonah. It seems like God himself banishes us from his presence. We are behaving in a way we think is reasonable and at least it's not irrational. We had reason on our side but we are in this bad situation. Sometimes lousy employment, sometimes no employment, financial hardship, health problems, problems in the church, problems in the ministry, problems in the family, problems in the marriage – problems, problems, problems. It seems like the Lord has banished us from His presence. He put us in a tomb, h=He left us in a grave. Oh! not the Ninevites, not the Mormons or the Muslims, not the yobbos or the prostitutes! He puts us in the grave.

He's banished us from His sight. But death could not contain Jesus and death cannot contain you either. I've said a thousand times the test of a true Christian is not that they don't have trials. On the contrary, if you don't have trials you're not a Christian. You have tribulation in the world. The test of a Christian is not that you don't go into the fish's guts, the test of the trial is what happens when you're inside of it.

Turn with me to Psalm 18:4-6. There are direct parallels in the Psalm to what happened to Jonah in that fish's gut.

The cords of death encompassed me, And the torrents of ungodliness terrified me. The cords of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, And cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

We may have been banished from his sight but not from his ears. Psalm 42:7,

Deep calls to deep at the sound of thy waterfalls and all breakers and waves have rolled over me

Just like Jonah.

Psalm116:3-9

The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol came upon me; I found distress and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I beseech You, save my life!” Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For You have rescued my soul from death, My eyes from tears, My feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the Lord In the land of the living.

Even if you die there is a resurrection, there is a millennial kingdom.

(verse 15) Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his godly ones.

Even if we die we see him not in the land of the dead but in the land of the living. What does Job say? (Job 19:25-27)

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!

Even if we die we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. "Out of the depths I cry to thee O Lord", wrote David. (Psalm 130:1)

When you're in the depths you've been banished from God's own presence. Your arguments are rational – at least to your own mind, certainly they are logical and even to a degree biblical. There you are in the stomach of the fish, the waves have overtaken you, you are not only drowning but are perhaps drowned. The bars of Sheol give you no way out and you can't even see the Lord: He has banished you from His presence. But these Psalms don't tell us He looks upon us, they say he hears. Then and only then did the fish regurgitate Jonah out onto the beach. He must have looked a mess and smelt even worse but he was ready for action! When you go through a mess like this you might not look so good.

The Boiling Pot

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:37:52 GMT

Introduction

For me, Ezekiel was always the single most difficult book of the Old Testament (arguably of all Scripture) to understand, but in more recent years I believe the Lord in His grace has been giving more Christians more insight into the Book of Ezekiel. Remember, in both Corinthians and in Hebrews, we have a distinction between “milk” and “meat.”

“Milk” is baby food and is right for young believers and “meat” is for older believers, and we are told in Hebrews if we continue to give people “milk” there is not going to be calcification of the bones and baby is not going to grow properly (Heb.5:12-14). This has happened to many churches and many movements; they just continue to teach “milk” and never go to “meat.” It is dangerous to give babies meat, but it is also dangerous to give growing people milk because they are not going to grow if that is their primary diet.

The New Testament is mainly milk. There are heavier books in it such as Hebrews, and there is deeper veiled content midrashically in the Gospels (particularly John). There are elements of meat in the New Testament, but it is primarily milk. The Old Testament, although there are drops of milk in it, is primarily meat. Always remember, “The New is in the Old concealed, the Old is in the New revealed.” Of course, the Plymouth Brethren have been saying that for generations, but not until a German academic said it in Latin did it become academically acceptable.

Say there was a medical nurse in the hospital, she liked nursing, but she became interested in medical science, so she decided to quit her job as a nurse and go to medical school to become a medical doctor. When she was a nurse, all she had to learn was how to tourniquet a wound and stop the bleeding; when she began to study medicine she had to understand protein synthesis and how blood clotting works. She did not have to know this when she was a nurse; it is more complicated as a physician. Nurses and paramedics save people’s lives, but when someone really wants to get into it, they have to go into biochemistry and physiology and the deeper things like that.

Or think of a policeman who decides to quit his job and go to law school. There he is studying the same subjects, but much more deeply. He has to learn the rules of evidence; he has to learn Latin; he has to learn things he did not need to know as a cop that he will need to know as a lawyer.

Thank God for the New Testament, but the fact of the matter is that about 70% of Scripture is the Old Testament. However, there is an exception. The big exception is the Book of Revelation.

The Link Between the Old Testament & Revelation

From a literary perspective, the Book of Revelation can be considered to be Old Testament literature. It is the most Hebraic—most Jewish of the New Testament books, even more so than John’s Gospel, even more than Matthew. It draws on Old Testament themes and motifs more than any other book in the New Testament. From a literary perspective it is like Old Testament literature. In fact, if we were to read the Old Testament in the Greek Septuagint, we would see how incredible are the parallelisms to the Book of Revelation.

The literary link between the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation are the apocryphal books, particularly 1 & 2 Enoch. Those books are not a basis for doctrine, but they are biblically important history and literature. One would have to understand the literary transition to get the theology right, and it would be important to read 1 & 2 Enoch. It gets very, very complicated.

There is another reason. In the Last Days God turns His grace from the Gentile nations back toward Israel and the Jews. The times of the Gentiles comes to an end. Jesus warned of this in Luke 21; Paul warned of this in Romans 11. God will turn His grace back toward Israel at the end of the age, and that is another reason why we see the Book of Revelation being like an Old Testament book in its content. But there is a further reason.

We need to be careful not to take the truths of Dispensationalism too far. It is a basic truth, but some people take it way too far. Nonetheless, understand that right now we are in the covenant of grace; a time comes when grace comes to an end. God’s Spirit will no longer strive with man (Gen. 6:3). When the Holy Spirit comes, He will convict the world of sin (Jn. 16:8); when grace comes to an end, the Holy Spirit will no longer convict people of sin. God will revert to dealing with mankind the way He did in the Old Testament. It is the God of wrath. Those same judgments seen in the Book of Exodus are recapitulated in the Book of Revelation and replay the curses of Egypt on the Jews. He goes back to dealing with the nations the way He did in the Old Testament. The era of grace comes to an end. This will really take off with “the day of the Lord.” Once the faithful Church is removed between the sixth and seventh seal, the day of the Lord is inaugurated, and then it is basically an Old Testament scenario. There is a tribulational temple in Revelation 11, and God turns His redemptive focus back toward the salvation of Israel in very, very terrible circumstances—the worst hour of their history.

The Book of Revelation is theologically different from the rest of the New Testament. It has as much in common with the Old Testament as it does with the New. It was not even authored in the same time period, but authored at the end of the first century after the rest of the New Testament had already been written. It was a further revelation beyond the earthly ministry of Jesus. Everything that had been provided, up that point, were the Apostles explaining the Old Testament and the teachings of John the Baptist and Jesus. Everything the Apostles wrote in the Epistles and Gospels were things Jesus taught while He was here or that were developed from the Old Testament based on the teachings of Jesus. In Revelation, Jesus actually gives an additional, final revelation to John on Patmos.

There are many books that are important in understanding Revelation, most obviously Daniel. Another is quite obviously Zechariah, another as already mentioned is Exodus, but not least of all, and in some aspects most important of all, is the Book of Ezekiel. We do not study Ezekiel just for the sake of understanding Ezekiel, but for the sake of understanding the future. The key to understanding the future is properly understanding the past. As we get closer to the return of Jesus, we should be aiming for the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation to become clearer and clearer and clearer.

Again, we can learn to be a paramedic or learn to be a nurse, but that is at most advanced first-aid. But if we are going to study medical science, that is quite another thing. Or if there is an electrician who decides to become an electrical engineer, he is going to have to go back and study electro-physics and equations for four years. One has to go back and get the background. When we go back to Ezekiel to get this background, understand why we are doing it: it is to understand the future; it is to understand what is going to happen.

The Same Then As Now

In Ezekiel’s day, the Babylonian Captivity was well underway. The prophecies of Joel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Micah had been vindicated and the false prophets had been indicted. Nonetheless, the people still continued in their sin and their rejection of the truth and in their persecution of the true prophets and acceptance of the false ones. In the Last Days, it is the same thing. Expect people to continue to listen to proven false prophets.

It does not matter how many false prophecies Rick Joyner or Cindy Jacobs make, they are still going to follow those people the same as they did in the days of Ezekiel. It is the same motifs recycled: the Temple, the false prophets, and the Babylon motif (“Fallen, fallen is Babylon”) all come from the time of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah around the events of 585-586 BC. To understand the future we have to understand the past. Ezekiel is a type or shadow of Jesus eschatologically. He is called “son of man” same as Christ, a picture of Jesus coming again.

In Ezekiel 23 we are presented with “Oholah” and “Oholibah.” “Oholah”—“tent” or “tabernacle; “Oholibah”—“My tent/tabernacle is within her.” Ezekiel laments the fact that the two southern tribes Judah and Benjamin, along with the Levites and refugees who came south from the ten tribes of Israel during the revivals of Asa and so forth, had become just as corrupt as the ten northern tribes. Judah had become as corrupt as Israel. The same thing happens in the Last Days.

Thirty or forty years ago, when Christians used terms like “the harlot church” or “Babylon” or something similar, it was colloquially understood in Christian nomenclature that one was talking about the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, liberal Protestantism, the World Council of Churches, or a cult like the Jehovah’s Witnesses—that was “Babylon” or “the harlot church.” What is happening now is the same thing that happened in the days of Ezekiel. Today we have mainstream evangelical denominations that are just as much a part of the harlot church. The kind of stuff we see on TBN and such, or coming from the ecumenical movement, these are just as corrupt as the harlot church. What does the term “evangelical” mean anymore? It certainly does not mean what it does in Scripture—“evangelion.” It no longer means what it did, now that all kinds of people claim to be “evangelical.”

But that has always been the case in Europe. In Continental Europe, the term “evangelical” simply meant “Lutheran” as opposed to “Reformed”—as opposed to Calvinist. It did not necessarily mean “born again.” Now America is becoming the same as Europe. What does “evangelical” mean? It is just a term that does not really mean anything anymore. Judah became as bad as Israel. Now mainstream evangelical denominations have become as bad as the World Council of Churches, the papacy and so forth.

It Gets Worse

This is the background of Ezekiel 23 where he invokes the background of the motif of the harlot bride borrowed from Amos and Hosea, and also picked up in the New Testament in James 4. Israel becomes an unfaithful bride of Yahweh as the Church becomes an unfaithful bride of Christ in the apostate church. Ezekiel takes this motif of comparing the immorality to idolatry, equating idolatry with adultery: Oholibah—“My tabernacle is in her.” Because the holy ark and the Temple were in Jerusalem, the Jews thought they were special. They had the Lord and they had the truth, but once they become apostate—morally corrupt and looking to Babylon, it was not just bad, but Ezekiel said, “You are worse than your sister Oholah” (Eze. 23:11).

We all know what the Roman Catholic Church is, but at least officially they denounce things like abortion, homosexuality and same-sex marriage. We know that among their clergy this stuff goes on, and even worse things like pedophilia, and they cover it up. We know what they do in practice is different than what they preach, but at least officially they do not sanction these things.

Recently in England, at the Anglican Synod in London, one hundred twenty Anglican pastors—vicars, put their signatures to a document demanding the right to perform same-sex marriages. Remember, America was evangelized by Britain, the mother country spiritually as well as politically. The Church of England (also called the Anglicans or Episcopalians), the United Reformed Church, the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church and the Methodist Church are all ordaining homosexuals and lesbians, but even the Roman Catholic Church would not officially do that. What they do and what they teach are two different things, but if we were to look at a Roman Catholic book of theology, we would not find a single Roman Catholic scholar or theologian who would deny the historicity of the virgin birth or a literal resurrection. Not one. But we have no shortage at Yale Divinity School, or Princeton Divinity School, or Harvard, or so-called Protestants denying these truths. Protestantism has become worse than Catholicism, worse than what it set out to reform. It is more morally depraved and spiritually bankrupt than what it came from. So, too, Oholibah became worse than Oholah; Judah became worse than Israel.

Look at the money preachers, what they do, and their complete lack of ethics. There are unsaved people who would not prey on the poor and uneducated and elderly the way those money preachers do on TV. There are unsaved people who have more ethics than those predators of Satan.

This is what took place in the last days of Judah, and that is what happens in the Last Days, full stop. It is what happens in the last days of the Church, and it is what happens in the last days of the Jews before the Messiah comes. This is the background of “Ezekiel”—“the strength of God.”

The Beginning of the End

And the word of the LORD came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, saying, (Ezekiel 24:1)

I do not speculate on dates of the return of Jesus, but this is a superscription—it tells us the timeframe in which these events took place when this prophecy came true. I only mention this in passing, but that date by the Hebrew calendar and how far it was into the Captivity may be an indication about the time when the Antichrist will be revealed.“

…the word of the LORD came…” Jesus is the Word. In Greek He is the “Logos,” in Hebrew He is the “D’var.” False prophets will always give us a word which is not prophecy but clairvoyance. “The word came”—Jesus came. It was an Old Testament revelation of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Unlike in the New Testament, of course, in the Old Covenant the Holy Spirit was only for certain people at certain times: high priests, prophets, kings, judges and patriarchs. The message came from an encounter with the Lord. If a message does not come from an encounter with the Lord, it is a false message; they are putting the focus on the message instead of on the Lord. The focus should be on the Lord, not the message. False prophets will always give someone a word; true prophets will always point them to the Word. There is nothing the Lord has to reveal to any of us, predictively or otherwise, that will not be doctrinally based on what is already revealed in Scripture, and the focus will always be on the Lord Himself, not on the message. Once that happens, then the message is real and we can act on it.

The King of Babylon

“Son of man…”

(Again, this is an eschatological type of Christ. When we see “son of man,” it is pointing to the Last Days in some way.)

“… write the name of the day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day. (Ezekiel 24:2)

Nebuchadnezzar was worshiped in the Book of Daniel as God. Whenever we see a human being other than Jesus deified and worshiped, be it the pagan emperors of Rome or in this case the king of Babylon, it is a shadow or picture of the Antichrist. As Jesus was God and became a man who was worshipped, the Antichrist will be Satan, as it were, in an incarnated form, seeking worship. That the king of Babylon is directly associated with Satan is further confirmed by other Scripture.

that you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon, and say,

“How the oppressor has ceased, And how fury has ceased!The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked,The scepter of rulers

(As we see in Daniel, when Jesus comes back, He will put an end to human government.)

Which used to strike the peoples in fury with unceasing strokes,Which subdued the nations in anger with unrestrained persecution.The whole earth is at rest and is quiet;They break forth into shouts of joy. Even the cypress trees rejoice over you, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying,‘Since you were laid low, no tree cutter comes up against us.’

Remember, the trees of the field will clap their hands (Is. 55:12); we shall be trees of righteousness (Ps. 1). These cypress trees and cedars that Hiram sent down from Lebanon were used in the main construction of the Temple. The Church is described seven times in the New Testament as the temple, and these “Gentile” trees which came from Hiram when the Gentiles were at peace with the Jews under David and Solomon are figures of believers. When Jesus opened the eyes of the blind man, the man saw men as trees walking (Mk. 8:24). A good tree cannot bear bad fruit (Mt. 7:18). The trees are going to be happy when Satan is judged.

“Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come;It arouses for you the spirits of the dead, all the leaders of the earth;It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones.They will all respond and say to you, ‘Even you have been made weak as we,You have become like us.Your pomp and the music of your harps Have been brought down to Sheol; Maggots are spread out as your bed beneath youAnd worms are your covering.’

God has a sense of humor which is sardonic and satirical; He mocks His enemies. On the cross, Jesus, the King of kings, was mocked. The way Jesus was mocked on the cross is the way Satan is going to be belittled and ridiculed for all eternity. Part of the judgment of Satan is that he is going to be perpetually mocked, ridiculed and belittled for all eternity (Is. 14:16). His first sin was pride and that is where judgment is going to fall on him in large part.

Your pomp and the music of your harps Have been brought down to Sheol;

(This very closely parallels Daniel 2 when they had to worship the image.)

“How you have fallen from heaven,O star of the morning, son of the dawn!You have been cut down to the earth,You who have weakened the nations!

Notice how Satan tries to counterfeit Jesus. Whereas Jesus is “the bright and morning star,” (Rev. 22:16) what is Satan called here? “Star of the morning” and “son of the dawn.” Jesus rose at dawn. Antichrist will attempt to counterfeit Christ and he will put on a resounding imitation.When we understand Luciferian theosophy, their argument becomes (and this is even incorporated into elements of Freemasonry) that they see God and Satan as the same. Because we are imago dei, beings made in God’s image and likeness, and because there is good and evil in us, they think there must be good and evil in God. They reason, “How can we have light without dark? How can we have good without evil? God requires evil so there can be good. God requires dark so there can be light.” But there is no darkness within Him we are told (1 Jn. 1:5). These are the convoluted theories to which Luciferians ascribe. And looking at it from a human perspective, it appears to make sense. Satan manifests himself as an angel of light (2 Co. 11:14), and we see that here very clearly. It is almost the same in Hebrew as what Jesus would be called.

“But you said in your heart,‘I will ascend to heaven;I will raise my throne above the stars of God,And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north.I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;I will make myself like the Most High.’ (Is. 14:9-14)

Satan as the Antichrist

Who is that? Who wants to be God? It is obviously speaking about Satan who is called “the king of Babylon” is Isaiah 14:4, but it also says “the recesses of the north”—which can also be read as the “sides” of the north. It is the same as Psalm 48:

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,In the city of our God, His holy mountain.Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth,Is Mount Zion in the far north,The city of the great King. (Ps. 48:1-2)

This is talking about the temple. Antichrist in his human form will take his seat in the temple of God (2 Th. 2:4). He wants to be worshiped both by Israel and the Church. He will take his seat within Christendom and he will apparently take his seat in Jerusalem in the rebuilt tribulational temple according to 2 Thessalonians and Revelation 11. This is the king of Babylon.

“Son of man, write the name of the day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day. (Eze. 24:2)

That may be the day by the year of the lunar calendar that the Antichrist sets up the “shiqutz ha meshomem”—the abomination of desolation. (I am not being dogmatic about this, I am only saying it is a possibility that has to be weighed into account as something that could possibly be.)Ezekiel is talking about Satan, but he is talking about Satan coming in a human form; he is talking about Antichrist. What happened then is a picture of what is going to happen. The Babylonians desecrated the first temple as the Romans did the second temple on the same day of the year—T’sha B’Av.

The Parable of the Boiling Pot

“Speak a parable to the rebellious house and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,“Put on the pot, put it on and also pour water in it; Put in it the pieces, Every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder; Fill it with choice bones.Take the choicest of the flock, And also pile wood under the pot. Make it boil vigorously. Also seethe its bones in it.”‘ Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, “Woe to the bloody city, To the pot in which there is rust And whose rust has not gone out of it! Take out of it piece after piece, Without making a choice. For her blood is in her midst; She placed it on the bare rock; She did not pour it on the groundTo cover it with dust. That it may cause wrath to come up to take vengeance, I have put her blood on the bare rock, That it may not be covered.” (Eze. 24:3-8)

Remember, the life is in the blood (Gen. 9:4). The Jews were not to consume the blood or get into the ritual consumption of blood (Lev. 17:14). This in part, of course, has a New Testament meaning for the Roman Catholic abomination of the Mass where they claim wine is transubstantiated into blood and they drink the blood in a vampire ritual. The Apostles condemned the consumption of blood in Acts 15. It is a complete vampire religion. It is cannibalism and is utterly condemned by both the Old and New Testaments, what Paul calls “the cup of demons” (1 Co. 10:21). If it was the real blood of Jesus, no one should be drinking it because the Apostles said not to drink the blood (Acts 15:28-29), but they get into these blood-sipping rituals. It is also making an allusion to the human sacrificing of their children, sacrificing the blood of their children which was a big thing. Well, it is also a big thing today. In supposedly what is an evangelical country, we have aborted 50 million babies. A country that is supposedly the most founded on New Testament principles is just as guilty of the same thing being spoken about by Ezekiel.

The Physical Nature of the Pot

God says, “boil the pot.”Today we have a mixture of ceramic and diamonds, and before that we had Teflon®, invented by the American space program. In the ancient world they did not have this; what they had were two other metals: “barzel”—“iron” and “nachosheth”—“copper” or “bronze.” (The Nehushtan—the bronze serpent in Numbers 21 which Moses raised in the wilderness, has the same root.) In the same way that we would coat a pot or skillet with Teflon®, they would use bronze. That is as far as metallurgy went in those days; they did not have alloys much as this was just after the Bronze Age. Long before the advent of microbiology, God knew that microbes have a capacity to induce corrosion by oxidation. If we go back to high school or the first year of college, we learned that if we react iron with heat we are going to get iron oxide gas which will be noxious. If a welder does not wear protective equipment, he is an ultra-high candidate for emphysema. It is dangerous to breathe iron oxide gas; it is lethal. By not cleaning the pots correctly, microbial film would build up and begin to oxidize the metal. In chemistry, when something is being oxidized, something else is being reduced.This is true even with us. By breathing we are destroying tissue—it will kill us, but by not breathing it will kill us quicker. Because of sin, bio-entropy has set in and oxidation will kill us. We eat, but to convert carbon to energy our body requires energy in Krebs Cycle—this requires oxygen. Eating will kill us, but not eating will kill us quicker. We are under a curse because of sin.They would not clean the pots correctly, allowing the grime to build up and build up and build up, and it began to oxidize the iron. The iron would then rust, and then when boiling water was poured into it, the rust particles would go into the boiling water. But then they would boil meat in it, so the particles permeated the muscle tissue of the animal.

The Condition of the Pot

‘Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD,“Woe to the bloody city!I also will make the pile great.Heap on the wood, kindle the fire,Boil the flesh well And mix in the spices,And let the bones be burned.Then set it empty on its coals So that it may be hot And its bronze may glow And its filthiness may be melted in it, Its rust consumed. She has wearied Me with toil, Yet her great rust has not gone from her; Let her rust be in the fire! “In your filthiness is lewdness.

(Again, using the sexual illustration.)

Because I would have cleansed you,Yet you are not clean,You will not be cleansed from your filthiness againUntil I have spent My wrath on you. (Eze. 24:9-13)

They got to the point where the pot was so filthy it began to corrode, but then something happens: God commands to make it corrode even faster. The rust is already coming off, but even so put boiling water into it; turn it up as hot as you can get it to make even more rust go into it. God gives it over to its filth. “You want it to be an unclean vessel? I will make it an unclean vessel!” Make it worse by turning up the heat on the vessel—make sure the copper is glowing, then place it empty on the coals and make it really hot! Get the best meat; go down to the kosher butcher and get the best stuff and throw it in.

The Contrast to Elisha’s Pot

In the days of Elisha there was the toxic stew, there was poison in the pot (2 Ki. 4:38-41). Elisha was able to throw grain into the poison stew. He was able to put grain into the poison pot and the grain was able to absorb the toxins. Right doctrine will clean up false doctrine. Grain can be put into the poison stew—right doctrine will correct wrong doctrine.In Pentecostalism, the Azusa Street Revival went off the rails at a very, very early point, but another generation of Pentecostals came around and began bringing in right doctrine and straightening it out, from which we got the Assemblies of God and such. (Not the way they are now, but the way they were at one time.) People began putting grain into the poison stew. Unfortunately this never happened in the Charismatic Movement; there was very little right doctrine put into it and that is why it has never brought a revival. The poison can be cleaned up with the grain; the toxins can be removed from the stew with the grain. But now it is a situation where it is not the content of the pot that is poisoned, it is the pot itself. We have a remedy for the poison in the pot, but there is no remedy for a corroded pot.

Modern Examples

One example is the Assemblies of God in which people tried in recent history to set things right. There were people like Opal Redding, Larry Thomas and even David Wilkerson who were trying to warn the Assemblies of God 25-30 years ago that there was poison in the pot and that they needed to get right doctrine in there. We are way past that today. Since the Pensacola garbage, the pot is poisoned; now it is unsalvageable. No amount of good is going to remedy it. God says, “Put in the choice meat, the best meat you can get, but it is still going to come out poisoned.” There is no amount of “good” that can be put into an utterly backslidden movement or denomination or church that is going to change it. On the contrary, they come under the judgment of God. When they chronically refuse to repent, God turns up the heat and makes it worse; He makes them even moredepraved.

Today it is not just liberal Protestants compromising on same-sex marriage, we have Tony Campolo and others compromising on the homosexual issue; now we have Evangelicals doing it! This is but one example. Abortion will be next. “What about the good things?” No amount of good is going to change it anymore. No amount of good is going to save the Assemblies of God. This is but one example.

My fear is that when Chuck Smith is not around anymore, Calvary Chapel is going to go the same way. We do not see it so much because Chuck is here, but there are Calvary Chapels going away from the original teachings of Chuck Smith and company and it is getting weird already. It is like what John Wesley said to the Methodists: “If this is what they are doing when I’m alive, what are they going to do when I’m dead?” They are going the same way. They have divorced and remarried men in the ministry and all sorts of stuff. It gets to the point where God says, “Turn up the heat!” There is nothing we are going to be able to do because it becomes unsalvageable; no amount of good is going to change it anymore. In Great Britain, the Evangelical Alliance cannot be saved.

But it is not only like that, but God makes it like that; He gives it over to it. According to 2 Thessalonians, He makes it more like that (2 Th. 2:11-12). He says, “Go ahead; try to put good stuff into it and see what comes out.” It does not matter how good the meat is, even if it is the best of the best, it is coming out contaminated.

No Amount of Good Will Help

“Oh, but what about all the people being saved?” Being saved into what? A lunatic asylum? Jesus said to make disciples, not converts (Mt. 28:19). No good is going to come out of it. We can put good into it, but it is not going to come out good. What does Jesus say in Matthew 23? They go to the ends of the earth to make one convert and he becomes twice as much a son of hell as he used to be (Mt. 23:15). He might have been alright when he went in, but he is no good when he comes out.

No amount of good is ever going to change a cult. It does not matter how much good, how much truth, one tries to put into it anymore. Anybody and anything that goes in good is going to come out bad because the pot itself is corroded; the pot itself will poison the meat. It is no longer the contentof the pot that is poisoned, it is the pot, and it reaches a point where God says, “Turn up the heat! I’ll make it ever worse! You didn’t want to clean this stuff up? I told you to clean this stuff up!”

God always warns them. Israel had multiple prophets before Ezekiel. Up north there was Amos and Hosea, down south there was Micah, Isaiah, Joel and Jeremiah—there were many before Ezekiel. God warned them.

I can go back and show warnings which were written in the 1950s, 60s and 70s by people like Martin Lloyd Jones in England, Francis Schaffer in the United States, and A. W. Tozer, all giving warnings in decades previous that would have seemed impossible—unthinkable—at the time when they wrote it, but it happened. Over a hundred years ago, Charles Spurgeon warned what would happen to the Baptist Union in Britain. Over a hundred years ago, J. C. Ryle warned what would happen to the evangelical branch of the Church of England. It is documented. These organizations do not want to sell these men’s books anymore; they are right and they are proven right, the same as Micah was proven right, the same as Isaiah was proven right, the same as Joel was proven right. They were proven right, but the people still chose to follow liars. That is what happened in the last days of Judah and that is what happens again in the Last Days: the situation becomes unredeemable. They go beyond the point of no return and God says, “Turn up the heat!”

That has happened to the Assemblies of God; that has happened to every major denomination in the United Kingdom. And if something does not happen quickly, it is only a matter of time before it happens to Calvary Chapel. Even though there are good people and good pastors in it, the movement as a whole is going away from their heritage and what they were taught.

The Inevitability

“I, the LORD, have spoken; it is coming and I will act…

It does not matter if we believe it or not.

Look at what they say today as they psychologize the Church: “That is negative, I don’t receive it.” It is like witnessing to an unsaved person. We can tell them the Gospel, tell them about judgment, and they say, “I don’t believe it.” It does not matter whether they believe it or not; its being true does not depend on whether or not they believe it.

A medical doctor tells someone, “You’ve got to quit smoking.” “I don’t believe it.” “Here is the x-ray showing bilateral plural carcinoma.” “I don’t believe it.” It does not matter whether they believe it or not, it is irrelevant. If an alcoholic is so addicted to booze they get sclerosis, it does not matter whether they believe it or not. They are going to reject the truth because God has given them over to the error.

“…I will not relent, and I will not pity and I will not be sorry; according to your ways and according to your deeds I will judge you,” declares the Lord GOD.’ ” (Eze. 24:14)

Remember, it is always in accordance with their deeds. If someone wants false prophets, God will send them false prophets.

Until now we have been speaking about what is happening in the evangelical movements and denominations, broadly speaking. I am not saying that there are not, individually, good pastors and good local congregations within those movements. I am not saying there are no independent churches and house churches that are faithful to the Lord. I am not saying we cannot find an individual Assemblies of God church or pastor that are not of God—there are some. I am talking about the movement as a whole, but anything good within them is going to be turned bad unless they get out of it. “Come out of her My people” (Rev. 18:4). What is going to come about in the next ten years if the Lord has not returned? Within Western Evangelicism over the next ten years, is what comes next.

And the word of the LORD came to me…

Jesus comes to him again.

Now understand that if you are heeding what I am saying, you should pour yourself a cup of tea or cup of coffee, and turn on David Frost on the television. You should not be reading this if it is only me talking. If, however, it is by God’s grace the Lord speaking through me according to what is in His Word, I am just the messenger boy—it is the Lord saying this. That is the decision you have to make. You have to ask the Lord to show you whether this is Jacob speaking out of his own hurt or his own resentment or his own cantankerousness, his own motives, choices or whatever, or is this what the Word of God is really teaching us? If, God forbid, I am speaking of myself, woe to me. Teachers will be judged more strictly than the rest (Ja. 3:1). I am not going to be absolved if I am teaching something false. On the other hand, if I am teaching something that is true, you are not going to be absolved if you do not act on it.

The Bride is Going to Die

And the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Son of man, behold, I am about to take from you the desire of your eyes with a blow; but you shall not mourn and you shall not weep, and your tears shall not come. “Groan silently; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban and put your shoes on your feet, and do not cover your mustache and do not eat the bread of men.”

(In other words, these were Near Eastern mourning rituals. Today it is called “sitting shiva.” Jews bury the corpse before the next sundown and then mourn for seven days.)

I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And in the morning I did as I was commanded. The people said to me, “Will you not tell us what these things that you are doing mean for us?” (Eze. 24:15-19)e>

Nobody in their right mind wants to be a prophet. Amos said, “I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet” (Amos 7:14). If anyone goes around claiming to be a prophet, the likelihood is they are a false one. Nobody in their right mind wants that lousy job. Who wants to be rejected? They must not only be identified with the people they are speaking to, they must be identified with the Lord and what He is going through.

The Bride of Jehovah was going to die; the Bride of Christ is going to die. Ezekiel had to experience this in his own life and live it out, playing it out in front of society so they would see it. “She is the desire of your eyes, but with a blow I am going to take her. Do not mourn, do not weep—no tears shall come. Groan silently—keep your grief to yourself; let nobody see that you care.” Don’t sit shiva, don’t go to the funeral, don’t mourn, don’t grieve—openly and publicly display yourself as somebody who just doesn’t care. “Your wife is dead!” “So what?”

It is like the guy who paid a scalper a thousand dollars for a ticket to the Super Bowl. He is way at the top where he can barely see the game, and with his binoculars sees an empty seat down on the fifty yard line. So he goes down there and says to the guy sitting next to it, “Is this seat free?” They guy said, “Yes.” So he says, “How can that be?” He says, “My wife has been with me at every Super Bowl for the last thirty years, but she died.” “That’s terrible. Why didn’t you give the ticket to a relative?” And he replied, “They’re all at the funeral.”

He was not only not to care but to let the people see he did not care. “Let them see that, to you, it means nothing whatsoever.”

The people said to me, “Will you not tell us what these things that you are doing mean for us?” Then I said to them, “The word of the LORD came to me saying, ‘Speak to the house of Israel, “Thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Behold, I am about to profane My sanctuary…

(The Temple is going to be destroyed. The king of Babylon was coming—Antichrist is coming. He is going to take over Christendom as well as what he is going to do in Jerusalem.)

… the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes and the delight of your soul; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword. You will do as I have done; you will not cover your mustache and you will not eat the bread of men. Your turbans will be on your heads and your shoes on your feet.

(They are going to go to Babylon, too.)

You will not mourn and you will not weep, but you will rot away in your iniquities and you will groan to one another. Thus Ezekiel will be a sign to you; according to all that he has done you will do; when it comes, then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.’ ” (Ezekiel 24:19-24)

“Your wife is dead!” “I don’t care.” “Are you going to go to the funeral?” “No.” “Are you going to go to the burial?” “No.” Are you going to go to the memorial service?” “No.” “Are you going to sit shiva?” “No.” The bride is dead.

The Assemblies of God are dead! Who cares? If Jesus Christ does not care anymore, why should we? Protestantism is dead! It is morally dead, it is doctrinally dead—who cares? It is not even worth mourning over. She is such a disgusting bride she is not worth crying over. “Get on with your life. Get on with your daily routine. Pretend as if nothing of any significance happened because nothing of any significance did happen.” It does not matter to God anymore, why should it matter to you? That is going to be the next ten years.

But notice there is another thing beside the bride: “your sons and your daughters.”

A lot of these mega-churches—not all of them, but a lot of them running these youth programs based on the worship of “worship,” not the worship of God, have used entertainment to draw people, so they are going to have to use entertainment to keep people. The world will always have a better rock concert; the world will always put on a better show. Once the thrill is gone, the kids are going to wander away. They will go into the world and whatever. They will slowly rot away.

It Rots to Death

In England, the Muslims open one mosque a week; the Methodists close one church a week. Reports such as The Barna Report show that after Toronto it was massive—a 17% decline in church attendance among Charismatics and Pentecostals. The first mega-church, the flagship mega-church which the others imitated—the Crystal Cathedral—has $56 million in debt and it is closed up. That is the first, the Titanic. The Bismarck has been sunk; now for the others. Who cares?“

Oh, the Crystal Cathedral! It was the emblem of the mega-church! It was the flagship for all these big churches!” Schuller is gone, it is $56 million in debt, the Catholics bought the joint—who cares? Jesus does not care. That heretic Schuller had the Islamic mufti preaching in his church, and said he would not mind if his grandchildren became Muslims! Schuller said Jesus Christ went to the cross to magnify His ego! That church belongs dead! Who cares? It is not coming back.

They always talk about these things coming back, but they rot to death. Notice they do not disappear all at once; they die a long, slow, painful death, experiencing a steady period of decline. They just rot and rot and rot and rot. The iron corrodes, corrodes, corrodes; the rust oxidizes, oxidizes, oxidizes. It just rots away. I am not saying that all of these movements are going to disappear overnight; they are going to rot. And the rot has already set in for many of them. This is only the beginning. This is what we are going to see in the next ten years. Do not even mourn. But then what? What does this mean for us?

A Time for the Word

As for you, son of man, will it not be on the day when I take from them their stronghold, the joy of their pride, the desire of their eyes and their heart’s delight, their sons and their daughters…

(They are going to lose the youth.)

…that on that day he who escapes will come to you with information for your ears? ‘On that day your mouth will be opened to him who escaped, and you will speak and be mute no longer. Thus you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the LORD.’ ” (Eze. 24:25-27)

To understand this, we have to go back Ezekiel 3 where the Lord told Ezekiel, “I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth. You will not be able to warn them anymore until I open your mouth” (Eze. 3:26-27). Until now we have not been able to warn them—it does not work. God has given them over to it and these movements will not listen. The Lord makes our tongue cling to the roof of our mouth, it says in Ezekiel 3, but a time is going to come when He is going to put His Word in our mouth and our tongue will no longer cling to the roof of our mouth. A message is going to be given and then they are going to know a prophet has spoken (Eze. 33:33).

The Near-Term Future for Us

That is the future for them, but what is the future for us? What should we be looking at in the next decade or so if the Lord does not come back? “I will take from the desire of their eyes and their heart’s delight; he who escapes will come to you with information for your ears.” There are going to be people walking through our door in Australia, South Africa, around the United States, in Great Britain—all over the place—who have had enough of the mainstream churches and denominations.

I go all over the world and I see the same thing everywhere: more and more people are meeting together in homes and in small groups, or meeting in American Legion halls or schools—they have just had enough. If they cannot find a decent church, they will go meet in a home. They will find fellowship with others who still believe the Scriptures. They will meet in a home if they have to. Sometimes the home groups grow and they have to go find a hall or something like that, but one thing is for sure—they are a semi-underground church and not part of the mainstream, and they tend to be populated with refugees. “Those who escape will come to you with information.”

There will be those who will walk through the door and say, “I used to go to the Assemblies of God; do you know what has happened over there? Do you know what they are teaching now?” Yes, we know. They are always going to come with information. At some point the epiphany comes and they realize what has been going on and finally get the point. It is about those who escape. What do we do? We are here for those who escape. They are going to come through our door.

There is a problem with this, a problem that I have been going on about for at least fifteen years: such groups can tend to become like refugee camps for people who leave bad churches. I think it is altogether fitting and scriptural to fulfill that function. It is necessary to be here for those people the same way as there was somebody here for us. The danger is we become introspective; it becomes based on what we experienced in some bad church. It becomes like Alcoholics Anonymous who are always talking about their past, bad experience instead of looking to the future. Yes, that is one-half of the equation in that we have to re-evangelize the church and get people out of these loony churches—that is true, but not at the expense of evangelism. It cannot be based solely on “they’re wrong,” it has to be based on, “they got it wrong, we have to get it right.” We should be growing by evangelism as well as picking up refugees. That is the problem such groups are facing: they tend to become self-help centers for people who were burned in bad churches.

But pick up refugees we will. Those who escape are going to come through our door confused, looking for answers. “You mean I’ve been believing error for ten years?” “I’ve been believing and following false doctrine for twenty years?” “I got saved twenty years ago and 90% of all this junk is false?” They do not know what to believe. They have been misled, they have been lied to, very often exploited financially, and they are confused and hurt, but they managed, by God’s grace, to escape. They walked through that door looking for somebody to talk to, looking for somebody who will just listen, looking for somebody who can understand what they are saying and who can be used by the Lord to give them a perspective and a sense of direction.

Conclusion

Those guys in these backslidden movements and denominations are waiting for the king of Babylon. That is their future. They are waiting for the coming of the Antichrist. They may not know it, they may not believe it, but that is what they are waiting for. They are being set up for it. By following these false prophets, they are being set up for the Antichrist. They are waiting for Antichrist; we are waiting for Christ.

They are about the past; we, the remnant though we are, are about the future. They are about error—false doctrine; we are about the truth. They are about a compromised gospel; we are about a straight Gospel. They are about a compromised standard of morality; we are about an uncompromised scriptural standard of morality.

Remember, we are far better off—infinitely better off, being part of something that is growing slowly than being a part of something that is dying quickly. Once she dies, who cares?Who among us has lost a night’s sleep over what has happened to the Crystal Cathedral?

Who among us lost a night’s sleep when Jim and Tammy went down the tubes? Of course not; it is not worth crying over! That is the past, we have to think about the future. Ezekiel 24 is the future—what the next ten or so years are going to be like.

God bless.

Binding & Loosing

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:37:05 GMT

Wrong Weapons

If you picked up a fork, how much soup do you think you would be able to eat with it? Not too much. You could try, but it wouldn't work. Put down the fork, and pick up a spoon – use the right utensil – and you will be able to eat the soup.

Today, we have an emphasis on Spiritual Warfare. The Lord has given us a lot of weapons and strategies, a lot of battle tactics and utensils to achieve the things we are called to do. Today you will find people using the wrong weapons to deal with the subjects of the flesh, the devil and the world. You would think after a few minutes of eating the soup with a fork, people would have the sense to realize that something is wrong – this is not working, I must have something wrong.

In many areas the church is trying to use biblical teaching about binding and loosing as an instrument to deal with something it was not designed to deal with. They are using the wrong instrument, something that could never possibly achieve what they are thinking or hoping it can. There is a biblical teaching about binding and loosing, and it is the appropriate teaching, weapon and strategy for what it was designed to deal with. But principalities? Powers in the heavenlies? Sin? Wickedness in high places and in the world? It was not designed to deal with those things! We have been trying to eat soup with a fork!

Charismatic Failure

After thirty years the Charismatic Renewal has failed to deal with the moral landslide of our society. Instead, during the last thirty years the New Age Movement has replaced Christianity as the spiritual consciousness of Western society. The Charismatic Movement has failed to bring about Revival.

We have more crime, more divorce, more homosexuality, more abused children, more substance abuse, and we have more of everything bad or evil now than we did thirty years ago, before the (so-called) Charismatic Renewal.

The Church itself is far weaker and is in far worse shape now than it was thirty years ago. And still there you see us, with the fork, trying to eat the soup. We are still using the same silly instruments wrongly. A person with reasonable intelligence would know there is a problem. There is nothing wrong with binding and loosing. It is not the instruments and utensils that are at fault.

Slain in the Spirit?

In those days I, Daniel had been mourning for three entire weeks. I did not eat any tasty food, nor did meat or wine enter my mouth, nor did I use any ointment at all, until the entire three weeks were completed ( Dan.10:2-3 ).

Daniel fasted for three weeks. An angel came, and Daniel fell down terrified. But I heard the sound of his words; and as soon as I heard the sounds of his words, I fell into a deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground ( Dan. 10:9 ).

He was not rolling on the floor in hysterics, like you see with Toronto . He had nothing at all to do with what they call "slain in the spirit". Both Daniel and John were terrified. The people fell backwards when they came to arrest Jesus, all the other times, they went forwards. ( Jn. 18:4-6 )

The angel said, "O Daniel, man of high esteem, understand the words that I am about to tell you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you." And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling.

Then he said to me, "Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia" ( Dan. 10:11-12 ).

The Bible always connects the spiritual battles in heaven with what you see on Earth. In the vision of Zechariah, the high priest was standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan was standing before the throne making accusations ( Zech. 3:1 ). Same with Job ( Job 1:9-11 ). Whatever was happening in the heavens was reflected in what was happening on the Earth.

Now Satan was cast down on the Earth. Revelation records a battle happening in the heavens and the same going on in the Earth. This always happens in spiritual warfare.

The Bible uses the term "principalities"; it does not say territorial spirits, although you could use that term. Daniel saw a demonic force over modern day Iran – the "prince of Persia." In Gerasenes, when Jesus cast the demons out of the demoniac, the demons said, "don't send us out of the region" ( Mk. 5:1 , Lk. 8:26 ). These spirits are territorial, they have specific areas as their principality. There is a biblical basis for this, but how do we deal with it? First, let us understand how we do not deal with it.

Unbiblical Ideas

I have no doubt that the same spiritual force is at work behind Iran today as that which Daniel saw. Daniel fasted and prayed for three weeks before receiving help. Today Christians read a book by C. Peter Wagner and decide to take authority over that same spirit. And they believe that the problem will go away in three seconds. They think it is that easy.

No, it is not that easy. Demons are powerful. Some are more powerful than others, Jesus said, "This kind only goes by prayer and fasting" ( Mt. 17:21 ).

The church today labors under the burden of unbiblical ideas. Before we find out what is biblical, let us find out what is not biblical. Let us find out what the Bible says about binding and loosing.

Paul in Athens

Acts chapter 17 tells the story of Paul in Athens. Athens was the European center of pagan religion. Rome looked to Athens for its culture, for its religious ideas and for its philosophy. Pagan religion started with Nimrod in Babylon, made its way through Pergamum into Greco-Roman cultures, and from there into Western culture.

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was beholding the city full of idols ( Acts 17:16 ).

He was seeing the temples of the demons, and their places of worship.

So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present ( Acts 17:17 ).

"Those who happened to be present" included followers of Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, Astarte, Hermes, and so on. These people were all under the influence of demons. What did Paul do? Did he recite the formulas taught by John Dawson and C. Peter Wagner : "I bind you, I loose you, I take authority over you in the name of Jesus"? There are people in "deliverance ministry" who use this formula to save face and fortune. Their”'ministry” and income depends on forgetting the fact that it does not work
.
This is a deception which is known as Dominionism , or Triumphalism , or Kingdom Now theology. The idea that we are going to conquer the world for Jesus Christ before He comes back and set up His Kingdom is bogus.

Not of This World

The idea that we can use the principles of the Scriptures and the prayers of the saints to bring a moral influence into our fallen world and set up the Kingdom of Jesus is absurd. Any time God's Law has been used to reconstruct society; it has brought spiritual and theological death to the church, and general decline to society, government and culture. ( John 18:36 ). The two hyper-charismatic extremes – taking control of the planet, on one side, and withdrawing into a bunker out of fear, on the other – are the central pillars on which most of this error was built.

There are times when the door of the Ark is closed ( Genesis 7:16 ), and there are times when we can only strengthen the things that remain ( Revelation 3:2 ). But we are not supposed to go on the defensive in these last days. On the contrary, we are supposed to be happy, looking up, for our redemption draws nigh ( Luke 21:28 ). Before the end, the gospel of the Kingdom must first be preached to every nation ( Matthew 24:14 ).

Evangelism: The First Weapon

Paul preached the Gospel in the shadows of the demons at Athens.

The first weapon to overrule the powers of darkness in our society is evangelism: we are to reason the Gospel and to witness of the truth. The leaders of the March for Jesus think marching will restrain the powers of darkness. But the March for Jesus is lead by false teachers. They believe in "co-redeemers", and "co-saviors". They pray to the dead. They believe they are going to Purgatory for their sins, even though the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Roger Forster teaches that we cannot be sure there is an Eternal Hell.

In the United States there is violence, crime, pornography on television, legalized abortion, Christian clergy saying not to believe in the virgin birth, and urging that we ordain homosexuals and lesbians.

Islam openly claims to have an agenda from God to restore the moral fabric of this society and put an end to crime. They state that Judaism and Christianity are morally and spiritually bankrupt. Islam claims that it can do what Christianity has failed to do.
Some people think we can roll on the floor and laugh because God is doing a wonderful thing in our nation. That is the mentality of the Rodney Howard-Brownes and John Kilpatricks of this world. The question is: Which God?

Others are saying: "Bind and loose", "Speak dominion", "Go forth in power marches".

They can claim all they want. It is New Age , Islam , homosexuality, crime, witchcraft and tribal religions that are going on in power, not the church. We need a march of repentance and genuine salvation. The blood of Christ Jesus redeems from all sin. Go forth in the power of the cross. Repent and be saved. Without proper theology, there will be no doxology.

Binding the Strong Man

And knowing their thoughts He said to them, "Any kingdom divided against it-self is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall his kingdom stand?

And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house ( Mt. 12:25-31 ).

Taking Scripture Out of Context

In the temptation of Christ recorded in Matthew 4:1-11 , Satan twisted Scripture out of context. In Genesis 3:1-7 he did the same with Eve, creating doubts. "Hath God said?" Satan did it with Eve, did it with Adam, even tried to do it with Jesus. How did Jesus respond? The whole argument between Satan and Jesus came from the book of Deuteronomy. Satan quoted from Deuteronomy out of context, and Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy in context. "It is written." "That's right, but it is also written."

Satan laughs at Christians who seek to use Matthew 12:29 out of context. What is the context of "binding the strong man" – Matthew 12:29 ? The context tells us that the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan: the context is exorcism, casting out demons. This is the closest we come to a description of the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit in the New Testament: not a definition, but an illustration of it. The religious leaders were attributing to Satan that which they knew was of God in order to keep themselves in positions of power, for their own financial and social advantage. They knowingly misused their position to turn people against the truth. The same thing is occurring today where religious leaders are turning others away from the truth. This happens, for example, when they tell people: "Don't read Christianity in Crisis by Dave Hunt", while knowing that book tells the truth.

Discernment of Spirits

In cases of real demon possession, a person cannot be saved until you first cast out the demons. The New Testament will help you determine and discern biblically whether it is an authentic demon or not. If you do exercise the discernment of spirits, it will always be with the Bible as your guideline.

Demon possession is accompanied by irrational behavior. People throwing themselves into the fire, gashing themselves, living in tombs, displaying superhuman strength or superhuman intelligence, counterfeiting the gifts of the spirit. Signs and wonders can be displayed by demons. Another sign is the presence of a physical malady without any pathology for it (i.e., a physical ailment with no medical reason for it).

Read Dr. Kurt Koch. Read good books on the subject. In cases of demon possession, the person's spirit is inhabited by an evil spirit. The Holy Spirit cannot enter them until the demon is cast out. You cannot set a demon possessed person free merely by witnessing to them.

Jesus is the Rock

And Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose o earth shall be loosed in heaven." Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ ( Mt. 16:17-20 ).

These verses are used as the basis for Roman Catholic heresy that Peter was the first Pope, that Peter was the rock. The Pope claims he can do whatever he wants because he has the keys. Whatever he binds is bound, and whatever he looses is loosed. But “Peter” means “pebble” in Greek. “The rock” is Christ.

For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ ( 1 Co.10:1-4 ).

None of the early church fathers ever said that Peter was the rock. They all say that Christ was the rock.

Galatians 2:11 records the fact that Paul opposed Peter to his face because of his hypocrisy. What? Paul rebuked the Pope? It is absurd. Who presided over the first Church Council at Jerusalem, recorded in Acts 15? Peter? No, it was James. James convened the first council, not Peter. The Catholics have no biblical or historical evidence for their doctrine.

If Peter was the first bishop of Rome, how come it was Paul that wrote the Epistle to Romans, not Peter? Peter's ministry was primarily to the Jews ( Gal. 2:7 ). Giving these keys has nothing to do with “Papal authority”. This is ridiculous.

Who Has the Keys?

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this: "I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.

Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews, and are not, but lie - behold, I will make them to come and bow down at your feet, and to know that I have loved you. Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth. I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, in order that no one take your crown ( Rev. 3: 7-11 ).

Philadelphia was a good church with little power; not like the big churches today which are run by world-famous, rich, influential men, who are all after more power. The Lord Jesus Christ put before the church at Philadelphia an open door, which no one can shut, because they had little power. These were faithful Christians making up one of the best churches; it was not a flaky church. He told them, "You have no power; I have to open the door for you". Jesus has those keys. He never gave them to anyone else.
And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as a dead man. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Write therefore the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall take place after these things. As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches" ( Rev. 1:17-20 ).

"The living One has.the keys of death and Hades" ( Rev. 1:18 ). Jesus has the keys to death and Hades. Jesus has the power to say who goes to hell and who does not. The Pope claims that he has the keys. He does not. Only Christ Jesus has the keys for that.

Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered ( Lk.11:52 ).

The Pharisees were misusing their knowledge of the Scriptures to create a power base for themselves, politically and financially. They were holding the power of death and hell over people, much like the Popes of the middle ages and some hyper-Pentecostals today.

Spirit of Antichrist

The spirit of Antichrist is a man putting himself in the place of God. One of the most dangerous Antichrist spirits in the world today is not in Catholicism, it is in Kingdom Now theology.

The Greek term “antichrist” does not mean “against Christ”, it means “in place of”, one who acts vicariously for Christ. In English, one who acts vicariously – in the place of another – is termed a “vicar”. The true Vicar of Christ is the Spirit of the Most High God, even the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter ( Jn.14:15-17 ; 16:7-11 ). He acts in the place of Jesus. When you put someone in the place of the Holy Spirit and say that he is the “Vicar of Christ”, he becomes Antichrist, a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit.

The Papal title “Vicar of Christ” is translated in Greek as antichristos. Every Pope who puts on that title is saying, "I am Antichrist". The Holy Spirit is the true Vicar of Christ.

Praying to the Dead

But this is not just a Catholic phenomenon. Earl Paulk from the United States communicates with the dead. He says, "I know what the bible teaches about witchcraft, séances, and familiar spirits, but for every counterfeit, there is a real." Note: Paulk begins with the counterfeit, not the real. The Word of God is true. Let's begin with the real. Whatever does not agree with the Word of God is the counterfeit. We know that in Scripture we have that which is real.

Men like Earl Paulk, Kenneth Copeland , Rodney Howard-Browne use the counterfeit to try to find what is real. They talk to the dead as to the "cloud of witnesses", taking that verse out of context to mean that you can talk to the dead. This is an abomination to God. The Catholics talk to dead saints and familiar spirits. When King Saul called up evil spirits and talked to the dead ( 1 Sam. 28:7-19 ) it was an abomination. Saul was judged unto destruction for doing that.

People, who claim to get revelation knowledge from dead people, as Earl Paulk does from his dead sister, are committing abomination. When Benny Hinn gets the anointing from the bones of the dead bodies at the gravesides of Aime Semple McPherson and Kathryn Kuhlman , he is committing abomination.

Only the Bible

Every false religion in the world says: "the Bible AND something else", "the Word of God AND the inventions of men." What did Jesus say about the inventions of men? He condemned them. It is the Word of God and nothing else! The Pharisees were condemned for "teaching as doctrines the precepts of men" ( Mt.15:9 ). Satan tried to Judaize the church before he paganized it. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic religions paganized everything by Judaizing them first, putting people back under the law.

Earl Paulk says it is the voice of older prophets speaking to him with the words of God, and therefore it is God speaking to him.

These false teachers and prophets say it is Antichrist who is coming against them. Oral Roberts , Earl Paulk, Jim Bakker , Kenneth Copeland – who says he could have died on the cross instead of Jesus Christ – if you speak against their false teaching they say that you are of the spirit of Antichrist.

They say it is God speaking, not them. Morris Cerullo says when you look at him, you are not looking at a man, you are looking at Jesus Christ.

We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him ( 1 Jn. 3:2 ). Christ in you, the hope of glory ( Col. 1:27 ).

Yes, but, "We are Christs"? No! That is the spirit of Antichrist.

It began in Catholicism, but today it is in hyper-Pentecostalism. There are many Antichrists. Anyone who puts their self in the place of Christ is Antichrist. But there is only one true Vicar of Christ, and that is the Holy Spirit. And there is only one true basis of authority - God's Holy Word.

What these religious lawyers try to do is to use this authority for themselves – defining doctrine so as to secure their social, financial and political power base. Roman Catholicism has always done this.

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from men; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness ( Mt. 23:13 , 28 ).

The Custody of the Vineyard

"Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a winepress in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey.

And when the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. And the vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them.

But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and seize his inheritance.' And they took him, and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?" They said to Him, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers, who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons."

Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures, 'The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief corner stone; this came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes'? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it."

And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them ( Matthew 21:33-45 ).

Jesus has promised that the people who use the vineyard for their own selfish purposes will lose all claims to it.

First Church Council

And after they had stopped speaking, James answered, saying, "Simeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for his name. And with this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written.[and he quotes from Amos 9:11- 12 ] Therefore it is my judgment that. ( Acts 15:13-15 , 19 ).

It was James speaking, not Peter, so how did the Catholic Church come up with their story that Peter was the leader? This is why the Catholic Church put the Bible on their Index of Forbidden Books.

Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole Church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. and they sent this letter by them, "The apostles and the brethren who are elders, to the brethren in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia who are Gentiles." ( Acts 15:22-23 ).

The apostolic brethren spoke corporately. Jesus gave the keys of knowledge to the apostles so that they would know what the Scriptures meant. Acts chapter 15 is apostolic binding and loosing in action. Acts chapter 15 is the apostles using those keys to interpret Amos 9:11-12 .

Defining Doctrine

Acts 15 clearly describes the use of the keys. What did they bind? Keep these four commandments. What did they loose? The Law of Moses from the people, as the Messiah had fulfilled the Law.

They defined doctrine. They explained: "This is what Jeremiah meant; this is what Amos meant. Now we have the keys of knowledge, we understand the scriptures. The Rabbis have rejected their Messiah and are going into error. But we have the authority, we bind and we loose."

The apostles did not use that authority for heavy shepherding; they used it for correcting wrong doctrine.

Apostolic Authority is Always about Doctrine

It is always used for correcting wrong doctrine. Apostolic authority was always plural and it was always about doctrine.

And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-gatherer.

Truly I say unto you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven.

For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst (Matthew 18:15-20).

Look at the context. This is about going to your brother about sin, not doctrine. If someone refuses to repent of his or her sin, you can bind and loose. What does that mean, and how did the apostles apply it? Not the way people are applying it today; that is not how the apostles applied it. We read the teachings of Jesus and the rest of the Bible through the prism of the teachings of the apostles.

Think of the Epistles as inspired commentary, God's commentary. The Epistles are the prisms of the apostles. They tell you in a clear and most practical way what the rest of the Bible means, what the teaching of Jesus means.

Dealing with Persistent Sin in the Body

It is actually reported that there is im-morality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst. For I, on my part [ie, as an apostle], though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Co. 5:3-5).

What did Paul do? He used his authority to bind a wayward believer. What is the context of the reference to binding and loosing in Matthew 18? When the person would not repent of their sin, the church had the authority to bind him, with the view of seeing him restored.

Look at the context: they were pronouncing judgment on a soul for his restoration. We have looked at the two times Jesus used the term "bind" – the Greek word deo – and it does not have anything whatsoever to do with what so many preachers are telling you to do today. Apostolic authority exists to define doctrine and to deal with persistent immorality and perverse sin in the body.

The Gospel Looses

For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, though she is joined to another man (Rom. 7:2-3).

All mankind is under the law of sin and death, of which the Mosaic law is a symbol. Understand what the Law of Moses meant. The Jews are more accountable, because they had it written down. The Jews had the oracles of God and salvation was available to them first, and the responsibility was on them first.

I have a balloon here. If I let go of it, the law of gravity says the balloon will fall down. But if I pump helium in the balloon before I release it, the law of buoyancy will make the balloon go up and not fall. The law of buoyancy is a stronger law than the law of gravity. It will supersede the law of gravity.

The Law of Moses teaches that we have a fallen nature. There is nothing wrong with the law. It teaches that we need a Messiah; we need a stronger law to keep us from falling. Christians do sin, but they have a choice that unsaved people do not have. We have buoyancy, we have helium. We don't have to sin, because we have the Holy Spirit. Therefore, like the Jews, we are more responsible for our sin than the unsaved person. The law is our tutor. It teaches the need for a Messiah to save us. The purpose of the law is to show us we cannot keep the law. The Gospel looses, forgives; setting people free from the law of sin and death. The Gospel frees.

"Penance"?

If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; and if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained (Jn. 20:23).

The idea that, by these words, Jesus introduced the Roman Catholic sacrament of “Penance” is absurd. There is no such thing as “Penance” in the Bible, nor any record of it being practiced by the early church fathers. Telling your sins to the priests was a Babylonian custom. In the early church there were no prayers to the dead, no prayers to Mary, no Pope. There was no “Penance”, but there was repentance. People would ask each other for forgiveness for a wrong done, but they never went to a "priest" for this. Those things all came later. They are human inventions, created for the same reason as the Pharisees' teachings: money and power; the same reason the hyper-charismatic churches are inventing doctrines today: money and power.

Setting People Free

And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who for eighteen years had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all.

And when Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your sickness." And He laid His hands upon her; and immediately she was made erect again, and began glorifying God. And the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the multitude in response, "There are six days in which work should be done; therefore come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day."

But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall, and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?"

And as He said this, all His opponents were being humiliated; and the entire multitude was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him (Lk. 13:10-17).

Demonic oppression can bind people. This woman was not demon possessed; she suffered from demonic oppression. That can make people sick.

Yes, there are gifts of healing.

Yes, we can anoint the sick. Yes, we can pray. And yes, we can do what Jesus did. He laid his hands on her and immediately she was freed. No one says we can't loose in this situation. Jesus never did anything except what He saw His Father do.

The Power Was Present

And it came about one day that He was teaching; and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing (Lk. 5:17).

We can pray for healing and anoint with oil. If somebody has sickness caused by sin (as in James 5:14-15 and in Ps. 32:3- 5), if that person repents, the sickness will leave because it is the consequence of sin.

We can pray for the sick, but, if you are going to tell people to get out of that death bed, or get out of that wheelchair, or get out of that coffin, the dunamis (Greek, "power") had better be there, as it was for Jesus.

Paul prayed three times for freedom from demonic oppression (2 Co.12:7- 9). God said no. "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." God said he would leave Paul under this for His own purposes. You can only do what the Lord tells you to do.

He will never allow us to experience more temptation or problems than we can handle.

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it (1 Co. 10:13).

You can pray, repent and be saved. If you truly believe in your heart, you will be saved. His grace will be there; certain things will always be there for us. But some things are not provided in every situation. It is how God leads in the situation. We cannot bind and loose every circumstance as we see fit.
Lazarus Raised from the Dead

He who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings; and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go" (Jn.11:44).

This is a perfect picture of what happens in salvation. When I was in Israel, at Bethany, where Lazarus was buried, the Lord showed this to me. It turns out that I wasn't as spiritual as I thought, because George Whitfield was shown the same thing some two hundred years earlier by the Lord. "Remove the stone. Lazarus, come forth. Unbind him, and let him go" (Jn. 11:39,43,44).

This is midrash. When we witness to an unsaved person, the only thing we are doing is rolling away the stone. We are making it possible for them to hear the voice of Jesus. You can witness and witness till you are blue in the face to someone who is unsaved, but until they hear the voice of Jesus it is useless. When we witness, the only thing we are doing is rolling away the stone.

I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.

My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one (Jn. 10:14-15,27- 29).

All we can do is roll away the stone; tell the unsaved, and pray. But that is it. There comes a time when you have done all you can. Then it is up to God. Only the Son of Man can call that which is dead unto life.

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live. For just as the Father has life in Him-self, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself (Jn. 5:24-26).

If you are not born again, you are already dead spiritually. Jesus wants to call you from death unto life, to forgive your sins and give you eternal life. Only the Son of Man can call that which is dead unto life. "Lazarus come forth." But when Lazarus came out, Jesus said "You unbind him." What is it that we loose? Discipleship, baptism, counseling. Do you understand? YOU unbind him.

This is the "fellowship of the saints". We all come into the kingdom of God with baggage from the world. When people become Christians, they arrive spiritually oppressed, emotionally bound, with all kinds of problems. They need discipleship.

Prayer for Those in Authority

There are biblical and unbiblical versions of “binding and loosing”. As you see, none of it has anything to do with what most Pentecostal churches are teaching today. The preaching of the Gospel will always come first. (Paul preached the Gospel.) Prayer and fasting come next. (What did Esther and Daniel do?) And third comes intercession and prayer for those in authority, for the political leaders who have authority over God's people.

First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Ti. 2:1-4).

You may not like politics or politicians, but if they are not influenced by our prayers, they will be influenced by some-thing else.

Loss of Christian Influence

When did the Third Reich happen in Germany? When Evangelical Christianity declined and “higher criticism” had replaced it. What did the Germans do? They became genocidal exterminators, butchers of whole civilizations. The Germans went back and did the same things that they had done in their pre-Christian times. The Gospel stopped being preached. The church compromised. Then the Government came under the influence of wickedness.

Now in England they are starting to hold Pagan festivals again. Where? Stonehenge, Glastonbury, the same places where the Druids, Wicca (Anglo-Saxon witch-craft) and the pre-Christian Britains did. It does not matter what they are called, they are Druid high priests. It is the same things occurring in the same places.

When the preaching of the Gospel becomes compromised with false leaders (such as George Carey), the ancient territorial spirits, if you want to use the term, resurface. The government comes under the influence of wickedness and godlessness. Outside the English Parliament it says, "Our Father Who art in Heaven". On the inside there are Moslems, atheists, Free-masons, and God-only-knows what else, voting on the appointment of Anglican Bishops.

In Japan, the philosophy of the corporations is based on the old Shogun model of the Shinto religion. It has always been around.

First, the preaching of the Gospel. Second, prayer and fasting and intercession of God's people, especially for those in Government.

The One Who Restrains Evil

God ordained Human Government to hold back evil, and if it is not being influenced by our prayers it will certainly become an instrument for evil itself. The early Christians even prayed for the Roman Emperors, so that the Gospel could prosper under their rule.

When will the Antichrist be openly manifested? When the lordship of history is given into the hand of Satan for a fixed period of three and one half years.

And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he may be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose activity is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.

And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness (2 Th. 2:6-12).

The spirit of Antichrist is already here. But He who restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. The Holy Spirit will not always function in the way He does now. Grace will come to an end. We need to be careful about taking Dispensationalism too far, but the age of grace will come to an end. In the book of Revelation, God goes back to dealing with man the way he did in the Old Testament. Wrath. Judgment. Grace comes to an end. The power of the Holy Spirit to convict the unsaved and to empower the church to preach the gospel will come to an end.

The Spirit of Truth

But once the Holy Spirit is grieved by sin in the Church, once the light becomes dim and the salt loses its taste, what are we going to have? The resurgence of wickedness. It is the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that makes the church age possible. Once He is grieved and withdraws, the innate evil of the world system will quickly re-emerge.

If you love Me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth. (Jn. 14:15-17).

But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, be-cause they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.

In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world (Jn. 16:7-11,33).

It is the prayers and fasting of God's people for those in Government, and the preaching of the Gospel that restrains wickedness.

Restraining Wickedness

These three are the only things that will restrain wickedness in the world today:

Preaching of the Gospel;
Prayer and fasting, especially intercessory prayer for government leaders;
The convicting power of the Holy Spirit.

These are the correct ways to use the instruments of binding and loosing. If you want to get somewhere use the correct instrument – put down the fork and pick up the spoon.

Bible Versions

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:35:16 GMT

Introduction

I cannot tell you how many times people have come to me with a copy of a book such as Gail Riplinger's New Age Bible Versions, very confused about which Bible version to read, and asking:

"Is it true that only the King James Version follows the original Greek and Hebrew texts?"
"Is it true that all the other texts have been mutilated in some way?"
"Do you know that New Agers say ‘The Christ’?"
"Do you know there was a lesbian on the translation committee of the N.I.V?"

Now, is there any basis for all this stuff?

Let's begin at the beginning. During December 1996, I went into hospital for tests on my neck. I consulted one of the most highly respected neuro-radiologists in Africa – a British educated Jewish woman who came to faith through our ministry in South Africa. Dr Hilda Podlas is a professor of neuro-radiology. (She writes for medical journals and lectures on the subject.) And in Britain I had a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan on my neck.

All the neuro-surgeons and neurologists, consulting together, came to the same conclusion: We could operate on your neck, but there is not a sufficiently high enough probability that surgery would either reduce the pain or prevent future degeneration. If there was any reasonable chance of either or both of those outcomes we would recommend surgery, but as things are we cannot make that recommendation.

I went to see the best specialists in South Africa and Britain, and all the experts agreed. No problem.

Incidentally, I had those medical tests thanks to my membership of a health insurance fund. How I came to have that health insurance is an interesting story.

When I was in Bible College, my church in London had a new heat pump installed in the basement of the building. But it was not implemented correctly. One dark, rainy night, when I was leaving the building, I noticed boiling water pouring off the main roof onto a lower roof. I did not know what it was, but I was afraid that it might cause an electrical fire. So I decided to investigate — not by going back inside and up the stairs to look out a window with a torch to see what it was, but by climbing up on the spike-topped cast iron railing that surrounded the old building. The railing was wet. My foot slipped. And one of the spikes went through my ribs and into my chest, driving my pectoral muscle into my lung. I was impaled and there was no one around.

That was only the beginning of calamities. Getting off the spike was the second. And the third was that the British National Health Scheme was in such a bad way that the hospital staff asked me to "be a good Christian" and sign myself out of hospital while I was still in need of treatment. They promised that they would send visiting nurses around to repack my chest.

We had no money for private health insurance (I was a seminary student at the time) and I wanted to "be a good Christian", so I signed myself out of hospital. Then my chest became infected and I almost failed my last year of Bible College. So I said, "I can live like this, but God forbid that it should happen to my wife and children". And although it cost us a lot of money by our standards at the time, we have had health insurance ever since.

I went into hospital last December to have the tests on my neck. But somebody goofed up. I was supposed to have a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, but they had me down for something called a “cerebral angiogram”. Some clerk not trained in medical terminology goofed the thing up. Thanks to my medical training, I knew the difference between the two procedures and was able to redirect the hospital staff. I spotted the mistake in time and everything turned out all right. But what would have happened if I did not have that medical knowledge? Anyone who didn’t know what a cerebral angiogram was would have had the wrong test.

Expert Knowledge Versus Uneducated Opinion

Here we have two cases: in one case we have expert medical opinion all agreed; in the other case we have an untrained clerk arranging for someone to undergo the wrong procedure.

The debate about Bible versions is no different. There is a divide between scholarly people who can read Hebrew and Greek, who have studied theology and biblical archaeology and textual criticism all their lives, and a group of vocal individuals who do not have the scholarship background to be making the claims they do.

Gail Riplinger seems impressive. She has letters after her name - "B.A.", "M.A." and "M.F.A." from Cornell University and Harvard University. Very impressive. What she doesn't tell you is that her degrees are in "Home Economics"! Gail Riplinger has no relevant theological or language qualifications at all.

Dentists and Lawyers

Last week I visited my dentist to have a cap put on a tooth. My dentist is Maurice Green, a Jewish guy who prayed with me to receive the Lord many years ago. His son is the Vice Principal of London Bible College and the Chairman of Jews for Jesus in the U.K. Maurice is a very good dentist.

I also visited my lawyer last week. My barrister is Rex Makin, who is considered to be the best litigation attorney in the North of England. Good for Rex Makin, but he is not going to cap my teeth. Maurice Green is an excellent dentist, but I don't want him to represent me in a court of law.

"Expert" Opinion?

What happens when an average person, not trained in Hebrew and Greek, reads a book like Riplinger's New Age Bible Versions, a book produced by someone not qualified to write on the subject?

If you are going to pontificate on Bible versions you should have been to seminary. At the very least you should have done basic studies in theology. You should have studied Hebrew and Greek, and completed some university-level studies in Textual Criticism. You should have a better than passing acquaintance with Biblical Archaeology – you should understand how we came to have the various manuscripts that we do today.

Gail Riplinger was interviewed by Wayne House, a conservative, evangelical Christian scholar. Wayne House reports that she "repeatedly mispronounced terms used by biblical scholars" (1) . After he had asked her four times, "She hesitatingly admitted that she could not read Greek". (2)

It is not a simple matter to reach an informed opinion regarding biblical texts and correct translations.

When I consulted the experts regarding my neck, there were three neural radiologists, two neuro-surgeons and four or five neurologists, all looking at the same MRI scans. Each of them expressed their personal opinion. They weren't looking to make a political decision, they were looking for a right decision. They were considering a technical problem, with each bringing their own technical perspective and professional experience to bear on the question. Medicine is not an exact science. There is always a margin of discrepancy.

The same applies to Textual Criticism. It is not as easy as people make it out to be. With Gail Riplinger we have someone who doesn't know what she is doing, causing enormous upset in the lives of untrained Christians. Wayne House points that the only good thing about Riplinger's book is that it "is not any longer than it is and that the foolishness of its various claims are transparent when one takes the time to study them". (3)

I have to agree with him. New Age Bible Versions is rubbish, absolute rubbish. This is not to put down the King James Version, and it is not to endorse other versions.

Personally, I do not think the New International Version (NIV) is a good translation. It is structured on a thought-by-thought basis, rather than a word-by-word basis. Whenever you take that approach to translation work, you end up with too much of the translator's personal interpretation.

All translations carry a certain amount of interpretation. If you had a speaker in one language with three fluent speakers of that language translating into another language in which they were also fluent, the three translations would differ in many ways. There is always a subjective element in translation work.

The Greek of the New Testament (koine) is trying to convey Hebraic or Aramaic thoughts to a Hellenistic world. Which is not to say that you need to be a Greek or Hebrew scholar to understand the Bible. You don't. But if you are going to make definitive pronouncements – this is the right one and that is the wrong one – you had better know what you are talking about. Some of the conclusions that Gail Riplinger has arrived at are absolutely absurd.

Acrostic Algegbra

There is such a thing as acrostic algebra in the Bible; see Psalm 119, for example. Many English translations insert headings – aleph, beth, gimel, daleth, etc. – above the relevant sections. And there is also such a thing as biblical numerics and numerical typology – twelve apostles, twelve tribes of Israel, one hundred and forty-four, multiples of four and seven, and so on. Certain numbers are associated with certain things.

There have been people like Ivan Panin - (1855-1942) a Russian who spent many years in the United States -- who developed a system of numerical analysis late last century and early this century. His system is still being debated. But Gail Riplinger teaches an absurd form of alphabetical algebra, where she subtracts the letters of carefully selected abbreviations from one another in order to end up with the letters SIN, which is supposed to show God's disapproval of translations other than the King James Version.

Wayne House conducted a parallel exercise with the abbreviations for the Cunard's Authorized (CA), King James II (KJ2), Hayman's Epistles (HE), Revised English Bible (REB), New International Version (NIV), New American Standard Bible (NASB) and Barclay's New Testament (BNT), and came up with the letters CHRIST. What does that prove? In fact, if you reverse the last three letters of Gail Riplinger's first name and add the first letter of her surname you get the letters LIAR. What does that prove? And if someone were to declare that God had told them to carry out this piece of alphabetical acrobatics – as Riplinger claims regarding her absurd exercise- what would that prove?

The whole thing is insane.

Riplinger "Inspired"?

In a newsletter, Riplinger effectively claims divine inspiration for her own book . (4)

"Daily, during the six years needed for this investigation, the Lord miraculously brought the needed materials and resources – much like the ravens fed Elijah. Each discovery was not the result of effort on my part, but of the direct hand of God – so much so that I hesitated to even put my name on the book. Consequently, I used G. A. Riplinger - God as author and Riplinger as secretary." If God wrote this book, I would like to know why He made so many mistakes. Doesn't He know Greek and Hebrew?

Responding Responsibly

There are genuine problems with some translations that exist today. For example, The New Inclusive Bible is a censored, politically-correct translation that is heretical.

There is a legitimate problem, but it must be addressed in a legitimate way. There is a New Age infiltration of the church going on today. But it must be addressed responsibly, not irresponsibly. When real problems are publicly and irresponsibly addressed by people who cannot be taken seriously, the arguments for truth become discredited. A lot of what is said in the name of Creationism is neither theologically nor scientifically responsible. Plausible arguments are easily discredited when advanced by crazy people. Hence the battle against the teaching of secular evolution is often damaged by Creationists.

When God needed somebody to defend the Messiahship of Jesus to the Jewish establishment, He got a Pharisee to do it. When He needed somebody to carry the Gospel to the Greco-Roman world and write the Epistles – taking Jewish thoughts and communicating them to people with a Greek world-view – He got somebody who knew how to do it. It is unfortunate that people try to do things that they are not called or equipped to do.

Quoting People Out of Context

In page after page, Riplinger attacks people. She does not attack people's views or teaching, but rather she slanders them, usually by taking things they said out of the context in which they said it. And on that false or distorted basis, she tries to say they are this or that or the other. In a court of law, the rules of jurisprudence prevent this method of argument; Riplingers' attacks would simply be thrown out. Neither would it stand up in academic theology. In a scholarly debate her methods would be torn to bits.

For example, she attacks Edwin Palmer, the executive secretary of the NIV committee. Riplinger accuses Palmer of denying that the Holy Spirit played a role in the conception, the "begetting", of Jesus and tries to link his views to Mormon theology. (3)

She probably doesn't know it, but the Greek word is monogenes, which includes far more than the English word "beget". Palmer made the statement (5) – "The Holy Spirit did not beget the Son" – in relation to the eternal begetting of the Son from the Father within the Trinity. It had nothing to do with Mary's begetting of Jesus. Riplinger quotes Palmer – out of all context – then follows with another quote from the Mormon, Brigham Young, regarding the physical conception of Jesus through Mary. Palmer (6) says directly, in another place in his book, that the "Holy Spirit was needed at the very start of Jesus' human life, at his incarnation. By the word incarnation we mean the act by which the second Person of the Trinity, remaining God, 'became flesh and lived for a while among us' (John 1:14)."

Riplinger has taken one statement by Palmer, out of context, in order to falsely accuse him of denying the Holy Spirit's involvement in Jesus' physical conception, when Palmer – in the same book – has explicitly stated that the Holy Spirit was involved.

Wayne House (6) comments that, "This is careless scholarship or confused theology at best, but it may be outright deception on her part to prove her ill-founded theory about the supposed heresies of the NIV."

Riplinger's method of suggesting that Edwin Palmer is a heretic is identical to that used against Jesus. "We heard Him say, 'I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.'" (Mark 14:58).

They took the things He said out of context, and out of the overall context of His teaching, and falsely accused Him. This is the method of Satan – the accuser of the brethren ( Revelation 12:10 ). I do not like the NIV, but I am not going to go around telling people that Edwin Palmer is like the Mormons just because I disagree with him from a scholarly perspective. Our disagreement does not make the man a heretic.

New Age and "The Christ"

Riplinger charges that the translators of the NIV use the term "the Christ" in the same way as New Age people do. It is true that when New Agers say "the Christ", they mean "the Christ within". They are not referring to Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, they are referring to their spiritualist concept of the Christ. It all goes with their Gnostic idea of the Cosmic Illumination of the Inner Self.

It is true that New Age people do that. However, the Hebrew Old Testament uses the term HaMessiach – the Messiah (or “the Christ” or “the Anointed One”), because there were many messiahs – many “anointed ones”. Every king, every prophet and every priest was an 'anointed one'. The use of the definite article was necessary to indicate the ultimate “anointed one” who was to come.

Jesus is apart from and above all the other “anointed ones”, and this fact is indicated by the use of the definite article. The HaMessiach of the Old Testament becomes the ho christos – the Christ – of the New Testament. There is no problem here, except that Gail Riplinger says there is a problem. "Real references to Jesus as 'the Christ' are rare: however, new versions literally paint their pages with this pawn". (7) Let's look at the facts. The phrase "the Christ" appears 19 times in the King James Version. It appears 48 times in the NIV. The Greek ho christos appears 59 times in the (so-called) Textus Receptus. If you take into account all the instances of ho christos in its other case forms, the total number of times "the Christ" appears in the various Greek texts is:

Textus Receptus (1551) = 169
Majority-Byzantine = 166
Nestle-Aland 26th Ed. = 146

Which is to say that, if we take Riplinger at her word, the manuscript on which the King James Version is based contains more "New Age" references than the manuscripts used in the modern versions.

Her argument is, itself, stupid.

If the term "the Christ" is proof of heretical tendencies, then the King James Version is far more heretical than the translations that she attacks.

The whole thing is absurd. Gail Riplinger is a charlatan and a fraud. I don't know how much money she has made out of her book, but I know the damage she has done to many Christians.

The King James Version as the Bible of Paul and the Apostles

Riplinger's basic argument is that any biblical manuscript which doesn't agree with the King James Version is an "addition" to the Word of God. But what do you do if the "addition" appears in manuscripts that pre-date the documents that the King James Version draws upon? In that case we can argue that it is the King James that contains the "additions", not the other way around.

There are many ancient biblical manuscripts; some are better than others. We have over ten thousand significant fragments of the New Testament; the oldest of which dates from the second century. By comparison, we have only 420 copies of the Conquests of Julius Caesar, which shows that God is watching over His Word to perform it. Until the late 19th Century, most texts used by Bible translators were constructed from a compilation of manuscripts that went back to the 7th Century. Some were 4th Century, but most were 7th Century. Since the end of the last century we have access to far more manuscripts than previously. Riplinger urges that we ignore these and stick to the ones used in the translation of the King James Version.

The Textus Receptus

The KJV translators used something known as the Textus Receptus (meaning “the received text”) for the New Testament. Riplinger attacks all the alternative manuscripts as unreliable. But the Textus Receptus comes from something known as the Majority Text, which is not a source document in its own right. The Textus Receptus draws on at least four other source manuscripts, with the dominant source being from the Byzantine text tradition. Another text, called the Alexandrinus, draws on the same source. The Textus Receptus – in common with other texts that the King-James-Only people condemn – has the same source!

How can you say that this is the only right one, the others follow bad source texts, when they actually have a common source text? It is an absurd argument, but the average person would not know that. Riplinger says that, under the influences of Origen at Alexandria, all the other texts were mutilated to point away from the Deity of Christ.

Origen was a heretic. I do not deny that for one second. He had crazy, Gnostic ideas (ultimate reconciliation, Satan is going to be saved), he castrated himself. The guy was nuts. I am no fan of Origen. However, Origen also wrote something called the Hexalpha, where he published the six Greek versions of the Bible available in his time alongside one another, so that people could compare them. What we know about his life shows that Origen was not trying to push any one version. These people claim all the other versions were mutilated, except the (so-called) Majority Text, which came to be the Textus Receptus and what evolved from that. It is pure conjecture. There is no proof Origen ever did what they say. On the contrary, the Hexalpha indicates that the exact opposite is more likely.

Appeal to Immorality

Then they say "there was a lesbian on the translation committee of the NIV". Who “authorized” the Authorized Version? It was not God, but a homosexual pedophile king who sodomized little boys – King James I of England. Does that negate the validity of the translation? Perverse as someone's sexual orientation may be, it has nothing to do with the quality of their scholarship. If you want to proceed at that level, the first translation you need to get rid of is the King James.

Deviations

What do you do with the fact that the King James Version deviates repeatedly from both the Textus Receptus and the Hebrew Masoretic text?

What do you do when the Textus Receptus says one thing and the King James mistranslates it? Or the words do not appear in the Textus Receptus and the King James adds them? Or the words appear in the Textus Receptus and the King James leaves them out? And what about the words found in the Textus Receptus which do not appear in any Greek text?

According to the King-James-Only people, the only correct Old Testament text is the Masoretic. But when the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, it usually does not follow the Masoretic Text, but the Septuagint. Does that make the New Testament heretical?

Dead Sea Scrolls

In this century we have seen the hand of God in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The 22% of the Scrolls published so far show there has been no mutation (changing) of the Bible text over the centuries. I would have to argue that any Bible Version which pre-dates the Dead Sea Scrolls is, for scholarly purposes, obsolete. Not because they tell a different story, but because they affirm the accuracy of the texts handed down to us.

While many people have come to faith through the preaching of the King James Version, I am convinced that the KJV translators would have produced a slightly different version if they had had access to the materials available today. There are good translations and there are bad translations. The King James is a valid Bible. The NIV, although I don't like it, is a valid Bible. The New American Standard Bible is a valid Bible. The Message, the New World Translation, the Inclusive Bible, the Couples Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible are not good translations.

The Bible is the Word of God in the Word of Man. That doesn't make it any less the Word of God, but neither does that make it any less the Word of Man. The minor discrepancies in the source texts available to us do not affect the historicity of the relevant events – that God became a man in the person of Jesus, that He taught these things, that He went to the Cross and died for our sins, that He rose from the dead, that we should live this way accordingly, that this is our future, that certain things are going to happen. None of these facts or doctrines are affected.

The Word of God is still true. God is still watching over His Word to perform it. There are no problems with our Bible.

(1) House, H. Wayne 1994, A Summary Critique: New Age Bible Versions, in Christian Research Journal, Fall 1994, Christian Research Institute International.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Riplinger, G.A. 1993, New Age Bible Versions, A. V. Publications, p.344.

(4) Palmer, Edwin H. 1974, The Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids Michigan, p.83.

(5) Ibid, p.65.

(6) House, H. Wayne 1994, A Summary Critique: New Age Bible Versions, in Christian Research Journal, Fall 1994, Christian Research Institute International.

(7) Riplinger, G.A. 1993, New Age Bible Versions, A. V. Publications, p.318.

For more detailed information on the general subject of English translations of the Bible, see: Carson, D.A. 1979, The King James Version Debate: A Plea for Realism, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids.

Lewis, Jack P. 1981, The English Bible: From KJV to NIV, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids

Anointing

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:34:25 GMT

The Anointing

Acts 2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind,

and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when tthis sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others were mocking and saying, “They are full of sweet wine.”

But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel:

‘AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ GOD SAYS, ‘THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT AND THEY SHALL PROPHESY. AND I WILL GRANT WONDERS IN THE SKY ABOVE AND SIGNS ON THE EARTH BELOW, BLOOD, AND FIRE, AND VAPOR OF SMOKE. THE SUN WILL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, BEFORE THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS DAY OF THE LORD SHALL COME. AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.’

“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. For David says of Him,

‘I SAW THE LORD ALWAYS IN MY PRESENCE; FOR HE IS AT MY RIGHT HAND, SO THAT I WILL NOT BE SHAKEN. THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE; BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE.’

“Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT ONE OF HIS DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID HIS FLESH SUFFER DECAY. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:

‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, “SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.”’

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Small & Waiting, Betrayed & Afraid

And on the Day of Pentecost it is the book of Ruth that is read in the synagogues, the story of a Jewish man taking a Gentile bride. It is the Jewish Feast of Weeks—“Hag Shavu’ot,” from Leviticus 23. This is the second of the pilgrim feasts when Jews would come from all over the world to celebrate this feast, and when the book of Ruth is read in the synagogues.

This particular Day of Pentecost, however, was one like no other. There was a very small church comprised of a very miniscule percentage of the population of the Jews who lived in the land of Israel at that time. Possibly no more than five hundred committed followers of Jesus existed, and we can only be sure that one hundred twenty of those were really solid in their commitment. As the lines get smaller and smaller, the circles concentrically begin shrinking: we have the apostles, the seventy, the one hundred twenty, and then five hundred or so—a very small church. But the church on the Day of Pentecost was the church that was waiting for something to happen. It was waiting for an anointing. (The the Hebrew word “mishchah,” the Greek word “chrisma”). It was a church that was not anointed. More than that, this was a church that had been betrayed. It had been betrayed not simply by enemies who pretended to be friends, it was betrayed by men among their own number. Describing Judas in the Old Testament, Jesus speaking through the Old Testament prophet says, “My friend lifts his heal against Me.” ( Ps. 41:9 ; Jn. 13:18 ) Judas was called the friend of the Lord.

There are two kind of people who are going to be very close to Jesus: people who really love Him, and people who are backslidden. That is what was happening at the Last Supper. The apostle who Jesus loved was reclining on His chest on one side, but on the others side was Judas. Jesus will always leave the ninety-nine to go after the one.

Backsliders and very holy Christians both have something in common. Backsliders are under the continuous conviction of the Holy Spirit to repent, to return to Him. Jesus does not abandon backsliders, they abandon Him. He gives Judas the place of honor, and by giving Him the sop at the Last Supper, He gives Him the sign of acceptance, beseeching Him to repent. Backsliders are under the continuous conviction of the Spirit. But very holy Christians have the same kind of problem. They are also very close to Jesus, but the closer someone gets to the Light, the more they see the dirt and the little specks that all the people do not see. Very holy Christians usually do not have a very high opinion of themselves because they are too close to Jesus to be that deceived.

The early church was betrayed by one of its own, by one of its own who was one of its leaders, hand-chosen by the Lord Himself.

The second thing that is characteristic of this church is that it is such a small percentage of the Jewish society and it is quivering and it is terrified. Its leaders are afraid. Jesus died for them—He gave them a promise, but its leaders were afraid. The church was afraid. It was very small. Other people were caught up in their own religion, but the church was not only not anointed, it was betrayed, it was very small and it was afraid. And its leaders were afraid. There is no question that this church was a church that had no power, had no anointing and that was sold down the river, but all of the sudden, something dramatic happened.

The Outpouring of the Spirit

We have to understand the Jewish background of “Hag Shavu’ot” to understand this. He begins talking about “I will pour out.” Different liquids represent the Holy Spirit from different aspects. The “new wine” is the joy of the Spirit in worship. Oil—“shemen” in Hebrew, is the anointing of the Spirit. But the idea of rain water—fresh, clean rain water being poured out is “chay mayim:” “living water.” In John 4 Jesus says, I will give you the living water ( Jn. 4:10-14 ), but in John 7:39 He says what the living water is:“this He spoke of the Holy Spirit.” Different liquids teach about the Holy Spirit from different aspects.

So this outpouring draws on the language of rain to teach about an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The whole idea comes from a lot of places in the Old Testament, one of which is Isaiah 44:3 ...

‘For I will pour out water on the thirsty land
And streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring
And My blessing on your descendants;

The outpourings of water have to do with outpourings of the Holy Spirit.

In Israel we have the early and latter rains. These correspond to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Church and at the end. When this happens the result is that the Spring rains prepare the Spring harvest and the Autumn rains prepare the Autumn harvest. This has a spiritual equivalent.

The rabbis tell us that the Torah—the Law—was given to Moses on this same feast, the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Pentecost. Only when the Holy Spirit was given on this anniversary of Moses giving the Law, something happened: when the Law was given on Mount Sinai, 3,000 fell; but when the Holy Spirit was given 3,000 were saved. Grace is greater than the curse of the Law; one undoes the other. The society was under a curse, but this outpouring of the Holy Spirit had the power to break that curse and to give a harvest.

Who Gets Anointed?

But look who gets anointed. Is it the Church who gets anointed? No, it is not. It is not the Church who gets anointed. Look at Acts 2:32 . Who gets anointed?

“This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:

‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD,
“SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND,
UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.”’ (Act2:35)

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Jesus was anointed, not the Church.
What Peter was drawing on here was Psalm 133. To understand Pentecost, we have to read Psalm 133.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!

(Now notice this...)

It is like the precious oil upon the head,
Coming down upon the beard,
Even Aaron’s beard,
Coming down upon the edge of his robes. ( Ps. 133:1-2 )

Aaron is the High Priest. Hebrews tells us that Aaron the High Priest is a symbol of Jesus. In the epistle to the Hebrews, He is our High Priest. The oil is poured on Aaron’s head by Moses, and it goes off of his head, over his body, down his shoulders, down his arms, all over his torso, and down to his feet. To get the oil on the hands, on the feet, on the shoulders, on the torso, we have to be under the head. One reason the Body of Christ is not anointed today is because it is not under the headship of Christ, it is under the headship of man.

We can have a very able hand, a very good foot, but it is useless unless it is attached to the body. And the body is useless unless it is under the head. The anointing is poured on the Lord Jesus. If the Body of Christ is not under His headship, it is not going to be anointed.

Unity of the Spirit

But then there is something else. What happens after the Church is anointed? They were all together, of one mind, of one accord. What does Psalm 133 say?

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity! ( Ps. 133:1 )

It is talking about the unity of the Spirit. If there is not a unity of the Spirit, there is no anointing. Another reason there is no anointing in the Body of Christ today is because there is not a unity of the Spirit; there is a unity of man. The Holy Spirit in Hebrew is “Ruach Qodesh”—the Spirit of Holiness. There can be no unity of the Spirit where there is an absence of holiness.

I firmly believe in the gifts of the Spirit, always have, and practice them myself. But it is one of my most frequent complaints (because I believe it is the complaint of God Himself) that the level of carnality and worldliness among Pentecostals and Charismatics is much higher than it is among Baptists or Plymouth Brethren or fundamentalists. Of all the churches in the Bible, it was not the legalistic or nomianistic Galatians, or the confused Thessalonicans that had to be reminded of the Holy Spirit, it was the charismatic Corinthians. That is equally true for today. There is no unity of the Spirit if there is an absence of holiness.

The first commandment is, “I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not make other gods (or have strange gods) before Me.” ( Ex. 20:3 ) And the second commandment in the original Hebrew is this: “You shall not make a graven

image of anything in heaven above or earth beneath...you shall not bow down to them or serve them.” ( Ex. 20:4-5 ) In the north of England there are many people who are born-again Christians who are saved out of Roman Catholic backgrounds. They come out of that church seeing the truth of the Gospel, seeing that what they were taught and brought up to believe is not what Jesus taught. When someone bows down before a statue and lights candles and prays to the dead it is referred to in Hebrew terms as a “familiar spirit.” It is an act of idolatry and superstition. It is an utterly abhorrent sin.

To tell someone in the name of Christian unity that they can continue to practice this sin is no different than telling a homosexual who gets saved he can stay homosexual, or an alcoholic who gets saved to keep drinking, but that is exactly what is happening. There is no anointing because to be anointed is to be under the headship of Christ, not the headship of men who are teaching things contrary to Christ.

Secondly, the body must be unified. But the Holy Spirit—the unity of the Spirit—is the Spirit of holiness. When there is open immorality, open idolatry being practiced in the name of Christian unity, there is a problem.

I read the book by the Right Honorable George Carey. (What is “right” and what is “honorable” are issues I will not go into. It is not my place.) Nonetheless, the book is called The Meaning of Orders, a call by this person who claims to be a born-again Christian to reunite with the church of Rome. Those who are a saved Roman Catholic know very well that they are said to have left the one, true church. Unless one goes to confession and returns to mother Rome, they are going to hell. We can accept the other quote/unquote “Protestants” because they do not know any better. So on one hand, this church is telling them they are going to hell because they left it, but leaders in their churches, in their denominations, are uniting with these people, going into idolatry. Why is there no anointing?

The Spirit of Truth

But He is not only the Spirit of holiness, He is the Spirit of truth.

There are two kinds of division. One kind of division is not of God; the other kind of division is very much of God. The kind of division that is not of God is that division which divides Bible-believing Christians from each other; the kind of division that is of God is the kind that separates Bible-believing Christians from ones who do not believe it. Or worse still, who say they believe it, but their lives show differently. He is the Spirit of truth; He is not the Spirit of error. No one can build the unity of the Spirit based on error.

When we see people saying we are saved by the sacraments, we should pray to the dead, we are going to atone for our own sins in Purgatory—when that is being taught and we see born-again Christian leaders saying that it is OK to believe that and we should be one with these people, that is the spirit of error; it is not the Spirit of truth. Paul says there will be factions among you to prove which is true. ( 1 Co. 11:19 ) There are factions that are of God. Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to bring unity, I came to bring the sword, to bring division.” ( Lk. 12:51 )

I see the same thing in Ireland that I see in Israel. When a Jew gets saved it is said, “You betrayed your people” because Christianity is so associated in the Jewish mind with anti-Semitism and the pogroms and the inquisitions and the holocaust. “You betrayed your people. You have become one of those people who murdered your ancestors.” In Ireland it is the same. When a Roman Catholic gets saved it is seen that way. “You have become a Protestant. You have become part of the people who perpetrated the Potato Famine, and the war crimes of Cromwell, and the genocidal war crimes of the Puritans—the people who divided our land.” They are seen as a traitor to their people.

It is very difficult for a Jewish person who gets saved to explain to his family the difference between a “Bible-believing” Christian and what his family think Christians are. And it is very difficult for a Roman Catholic, in Ireland particularly, to explain the difference to his family between a “Bible-believing” Christian and what they think a “Bible-believing” Christian is, which to them is a Protestant. I know a case in Belfast where a Roman Catholic girl got saved. She came to an Assemblies of God church—a Pentecostal church, and the priest told her if she did not return to “the holy mother the church”, he would have the IRA deal with her.

He is the Spirit of truth; He is not the Spirit of error. No one can base a unity of the Spirit on error.

I am not talking about secondary doctrinal issues that exist among all of us. I am talking about the essential issues: how are we saved, the authority of God’s Word, the definition of sin. If it is not under the Head, there is no anointing going on the Body. And if the Body is not united in the Spirit, it is not going to be anointed.

It is the Same Today

Look at the church today. What do we have? The same thing as on the Day of Pentecost. On the average Sunday in England, 1.2% of the people go to church. Most of those are Roman Catholics who believe it is a mortal sin to miss mass. It seems like “Mother and Son Day,” “Memorial Sunday,” Christmas and Easter drag the overall statistics up to about 8% a month in England, but it is only 1.2% of the people who go to church on a given Sunday, and most of them are not saved. We are a very, very small minority, the same as the first Christians.

Secondly, we have very, very little power. Very little real power.

Thirdly, we too have been betrayed, and we have been betrayed by those we count among our leaders.

I used to be a Baptist—a Baptist who believed in the gifts of the Spirit, but I was a Baptist. I had to leave the Baptist church even though my own church stood with me because of the leadership of the Baptist Union who entered the Ecumenical Movement to be united with the Roman Catholic church and with liberal Protestant churches. I oppose this. I know many, many people in the Baptist church who knew it was wrong, but they were afraid to rock the boat. They were afraid to say anything about it.

There is an organization called “The Church’s Ministry to the Jews.” It is evangelical Anglican. When they learned there was going to be an evangelical Archbishop of Canterbury, they were elated. They thought, “That is it; we won! Hallelujah! Thank You, Lord, for such a faithful, faithful leader!” He became the Archbishop of Canterbury. He went on the radio with a chief rabbi, denounced giving the Gospel to the Jews, withdrew his patronage of the church’s ministry to the Jews, and totally went against the cause of giving the Gospel to the people of Jesus. Paul said the Gospel to the Jew first and they will be judged first if they do not accept it ( Ro. 1:16 ), but “No,” says the Archbishop. Even a liberal would not have gone that far. This is the same one who wrote this book telling us we should go back under Rome.

About 2,000 evangelical Anglican clergymen signed a petition asking him to stop the worship of foreign gods in Anglican churches like Canterbury Cathedral, where they have Tibetan monks (Lamaist monks who believe the Dalai Lama is the incarnation of God), African witch doctors, Brahman priests from Hinduism, Muslim Imams, Orthodox rabbis and the rest of it, all getting together with the Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy in Canterbury Cathedral. “No,” says this born-again Christian leader, “I respect all religions.” In 1 Corinthians 10 and Deuteronomy, other gods are “demons” (Greek—“daimonoi,” Hebrew—“shedim”). “No,” say our leaders, “we respect all religions.”

Why is there no revival? Why is there no anointing? That is some idea of unity. Think about what is happening.

In England one out of every three males have a police record—a criminal conviction—before the age of 30. One out of three! In the inner cities it is one out of two, and in certain Council Estates it is more than three out of four. One-third of all children are born out of wedlock. In certain places like Liverpool it is two out of three and it is socially accepted. The crime rate is going through the roof. There are over two million auto break-ins every year in England. But it is growing at the rate of 32% a year! That is what is happening out there. This society is going to the wall. But the reason this society is going to the wall is because the people who God has called to prevent it from going to the wall are not anointed. Why are they not anointed? Because they have been betrayed, because they are afraid, and because they are not united. At least not united in Jesus.

Man's Ways

Many people have concocted all kinds of ways to deal with this problem. Nobody in their right mind will look out that window and think everything is alright. Wigan has the best rugby team in the world. Nothing wrong with rugby, it is a good game. But every Sunday that stadium, for the game, will be filled with people every time. Nothing wrong with rugby, it is a good game, but it is only a game. It is not going to matter a million years from now. Those children in that Council Estate, one of whom out of three are going to wind up in jail, they are going to matter a million years from now.

If we were to have a heavy metal concert with a rock band that openly admits to Satan worship, they would sell out. If we were to have strip club, the place would be filled. But when we have a church that is not preaching the truth, yet claims to be the Church, it is no worse and no better than a strip club or a heavy metal concert or whatever. There are different ways that people have tried to get this anointing they say we all need.

The Charismatic Movement is twenty-five years old in England. Look out there; is there any anointing? Where is the revival? I got saved in a revival. I saw what a revival is. I saw tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of hippies saved. We were out there getting stoned out of our minds, getting venereal disease, and radically changed by the power of Jesus overnight. I saw revival. I saw what it is like when there is a revival.

When Wesley had a revival in the north of England, the society was radically changed. The crime rate nose-dived, immorality plummeted, social injustice plummeted. Building societies to get housing for the working classes, the school system, literacy for the working classes, things like the Guardian newspaper and the trade unions to defend the rights of the disenfranchised, prison reform, hospital reform, slavery abolished in the British Empire, child labor abolished in the British Empire (children 4 years old were digging in coal mines in Wales and in Newcastle)—those things were changed directly because lives were changed by the power of Jesus. That is a revival.

To see a revival today, go to Korea. To see a revival today, go to Kenya. To see a revival today, go to Brazil. To see a revival today, go to Indonesia. To see a corpse, come to the western world. Look at the characteristics.

Anointed for Burial

Teaching in the Bible in the original Greek: “didaskein” (which is like a Bible study), something called “homilia” (which is like a sermon), and something called something called“kerygma,” which is preaching of the Gospel, mainly to the unsaved. This is Peter’s kerygma, and he begins talking about Jesus from two aspects: the suffering Jesus who was crucified and the conquering Jesus who had dominion.

This comes directly from Judaism: “HaMashiach ben Jozef” and “HaMashiach ben David:” the Messiah who is the son of Joseph and the Messiah who is the son of David. First Jesus comes as a suffering servant like Joseph, but then He comes as a conquering king at His return like David. In His First Coming He comes as a suffering servant; when He comes back to set up the Millennial Kingdom He is a conquering king like David. The point is this: before Jesus was anointed for dominion, Jesus was anointed for burial.

For it was fitting for Him .for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. ( Heb. 2:10 )

Jesus did not need to suffer. He did not have a fallen nature for God to deal with. But He underwent a process theologians call “kenosis,” and He identified with us even though He had no sin. For our sakes He put Himself into a position where God had to perfect Him by suffering as an example to us and to win the victory for us on the cross. Before the Lord Jesus was anointed for dominion, He was anointed for burial. Before the Church can be anointed for dominion, it has to be anointed for burial. It is very easy to see why all of these well-intended (but I must say unscriptural) formulas for anointing have not worked.

The Charismatic Movement is twenty-five years old in England. Can we say the schools are any better? Is there any less crime? Is there any less homosexuality? Any less divorce? Any less racism or hatred or social injustice? Are more people coming to church? Are more lives being changed? Is there any less sexual abuse of little children? No, there is more. After twenty-five years, what do we have to show for it? Nothing – absolutely nothing. I remember people saying with well intentions that this Charismatic Renewal was the key. This Charismatic Renewal had a unity, but it was not the unity of the Spirit. “It is OK whatever your church is, whatever your church believes. If you want to be a Roman Catholic, you want to pray to the dead, you go ahead.” No anointing.

Then there is the name-it-and-claim-it people: “Faith-Prosperity,” that is the key. Go to America; the only key they have now is the key that locks them up in jail (the ones who have been caught already – the others are still wanted men). These people have made “born-again” a household joke coast-to-coast, and these same people (and same kinds of people) are coming into this country even at this minute, even at this very hour. Faith-Prosperity proponents say that is the key to getting the anointing. “Just believe it, brother. Reach out and claim it by faith.” Well, if we want to know about faith, the best way to begin is by reading the faith chapter, Hebrews 11.

and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.

(“Believe God for that Cadillac ®, brother. Just believe God you are going to prosper, your business will prosper. Believe God you are going to grow, your church will grow.”)

They were stoned, they were sawn in two...

(Why? Because of their faith.)

...they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword...

(Why? Because of their faith.)

...they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute...

(Destitute! Impoverished! Their faith did not make them rich, their faith made them poor! They were not hoping in this world, they were hoping in what is going to come. I am not saying we should trust God for poverty, but we should trust God whether we have riches or poverty.)

...afflicted, ill-treated...

(They experienced sickness.)

...(men of whom the world was not worthy)...

(Living in mansions in Beverly Hills? No.)

...wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval... (How?)

...through their faith... ( Heb. 11:36-39 )

These so-called people who say their so-called Faith-Prosperity Movement is the key to the anointing, they are not teaching faith in Jesus, they are teaching faith in “faith.” This is faith. Anointed for dominion? Yes, but anointed for burial first.

Man-Made Ideas

I have seen so many failed businesses up and down England and all over America coast-to-coast. Christian businessmen who, wanting to pull through, understandably were seduced by these people telling them, “Just write a check for 500 and God will bless it and multiply it back”, and they did it. Now, if God tells you to write a check for 500 or 5,000, you do it, but you let God tell you, not some conniver.

The Charismatic Movement promised something, but it could not deliver. Why? It is not scriptural so it could not produce an anointing.

The Faith-Prosperity Movement promises something it cannot deliver. No one has to believe me, all they have to do is talk to one of the thousands of Christians who lost their businesses or their homes or their jobs. Why? Because it is not scriptural — no anointing.

About the most ridiculous and pathetic of all these man-made ideas for anointing (well, actually there are two) is the Restoration Movement. To restore something it has to be something that existed to begin with. It began with Arthur Wallace in the late 60s. He wrote and said a lot of good things, although a lot of wrong and very unscriptural things, but it began in the 60s. The movement has been blossoming for about 16 years. Where is the revival? They cannot deliver any revival because they are trying to restore things that never existed.

The first is not apostolic authority, but their version of apostolic authority. Their version of apostolic authority is not the version of apostolic authority in the New Testament. What they call apostolic authority is something known as “heavy shepherding.” It never existed in the New Testament, so they are trying to restore something that never existed. The second thing they are trying to restore is Kingdom Now theology, the idea that we are going to conquer the whole world for Jesus, set up His kingdom, then He is going to come back. This view says it depends on us. It does not depend on the return of Christ as such, it does not depend on God’s prophetic plan of which Israel and the Jews play a pivotal role — it does not depend on that, it depends on us and our movement.

Many people propagate this: Roger Forster, Terry Virgo, Gerald Coates. In America it is the likes of Kevin Connor and Rick Godwin. There are people who are trying to come to England now with this stuff from the States. It is what they are teaching. That movement has been around 16 years. Where is the revival?

No Such Place as Hell?

I firmly believe in Bible-believing Christians standing together and proclaiming Jesus. The March for Jesus seems to be a good idea to me in and of itself. But what do we do when the people who organize the March for Jesus say, “Jesus did not die to save people from going to hell, there is no such place”? Someone can march all they want, but if they do not think that the lost are going to perish, do not expect God to bring a revival through their marching. That is what Graham Kendrick believes. The man is an excellent hymn writer, but that is exactly what he believes: there is no such place as hell. That is what Roger Forster believes. And they are leading all people in these marches with this philosophy, thinking they are going to bring revival.

The apostles said, “Save yourself from this wretched generation.” ( Acts 2:40 ) They knew about the Lake of Fire that burns forever and ever, as it were. The preaching of Wesley, the preaching of Spurgeon, of anybody whoever God every anointed to bring revival talk about the holiness of God and the judgment of those who reject the Gospel. Today, what do we have? The leaders are saying there is no such place.

I had a tremendous respect at one time for John Stott. When liberalism was at its real apex theologically, he stood up for the Gospel and the authority of Scripture. I respected him personally, but not doctrinally — I never thought much of his sermons or his books, but I respected him. Now he is telling his people there is no such place as hell.

It is Not Scriptural

These are the leaders. How is there going to be a revival? Do these people really think — really think — that they are ever going to stop what is happening to this society? Do they really think with leaders like this we are going to stop society from going to the wall and seeing revival with man-made ideas, a false unity? Of charismania? Of Kingdom Now theology and Restorationism? Of Ecumenism, sometimes going into open idolatry? They think they are going to bring a revival?

The Kingdom Now movement has been here sixteen years. I just watched a video recently of what happened in the Docklands Arena. I watched it again. We all know what happened with Mr. Wimber and his Kansas City Prophets. They came and they said revival is coming in October of 1990. He said, “We are the Joel’s army”. And then the other Kansas City Prophet came out and he said, “We are going for 100% accuracy — none of God’s Words will fall.” So what he is saying is he is speaking God’s Words and it is going to be 100% accurate. “I do not care what anybody says, you are going to go out of here seeing a visitation and a revival.” That was 2-1/2 years ago. In the last 2-1/2 years since the visitation and the revival, which was predicted by them to commence in October of 1990, more mosques have been built in England than churches. That is the truth.

I am not knocking or throwing rocks at anybody or anybody’s intentions or motives. I believe that people who get caught up in this nonsense are sincere people. I believe they are people who really are concerned with what is happening to this country and who really want to see Jesus lifted up and to see souls saved. I believe the people who are getting caught up in all these movements really have good intentions. But the devil knows they have good intentions; therefore he puts them on a road, a road to nowhere.
Once again, the Charismatic Movement has been here over twenty-five years. It made a promise it cannot deliver. Why? Because it is not scriptural.

The name-it-and-claim-it Faith-Prosperity people, if we really look at what they believe, if you we at the doctrines of Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin, it is their own doctrines, their own books. They quote E. W. Kenyon, “Jesus did not win the victory for us on the cross, He did it when He descended into hell.” That is what they believe. The cross is not central to their theology. But look how popular it is among people who want to have their ears tickled. But what happens? It cannot deliver. Their businesses go bankrupt anyway. They made a promise they cannot deliver. Why? It is not scriptural.

The Restoration Movement, the Kingdom Now Movement, they make a promise they cannot deliver. It should have happened in October of 1990, but it did not happen. They go around marching, making these proclamations: “Now is the time for us to march upon the land,” they are saying. “We are building a kingdom of power, not of words.” Well I have heard their words, where is the power? They have not got any.

We have had these people coming (again I am not slinging mud, I am just stating facts) like Rick Godwin and David Shearman. They come and they are giving these seminars such as “Training for Raining.” We hear what they are saying: “Thank You, Lord God, that Your kingdom is advancing forcefully, that Your kingdom is advancing mightily.” Whose kingdom? Satan’s? One-third of the kids in this country are going to wind up in jail! 1.2% of the population goes to church on Sunday, most of them are not even Christians! More mosques are being built all over! Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, New Age is being taught in schools, even the Church of England schools. They are teaching children to use condoms in sex education in schools. Whose kingdom is advancing forcefully?

These people may be perfectly honorable in their motives and their intentions — I am not attacking them. What I am attacking is their doctrines. I do not question these people’s sincerity or their integrity; it is not for me to judge, but what is for me to do is to say that what they are teaching is scriptural or not. (A) I look in the Bible and I see that it is not scriptural, and (B) I look out there and I see one thing: they all promise something they cannot deliver.

What is the Answer?

Peter says what happens on Pentecost is a shadow of what will happen at the end of the world. He did not say “this is that,” in Greek it is “this is like that.” ( Acts 2:16 ) There were no signs of blood and fire and vapor as it is stated in the text from Joel 2, those things did not happen on Pentecost. It says “this is like that.” Somehow what happened then is a shadow of what happens at the end. What happened then teaches us what happens at the end. At the end, once again, we have a body that is been betrayed, we have a body that is afraid, that is miniscule, whose leaders are terrified, and that is not anointed.

The central theology of the Kingdom Now people, the Manifest Sons of God, or the Joel’s Army teaching is all the same. What these people do is engage in something called “Gnosticism.” Instead of dealing with what the text says exegetically, they read things into it which it does not say, claiming some kind of revelation. But they say something about Joel’s army which is not what it says in Joel.

God's Word through Joel

Joel is someone who prophesied very little for his own day, in fact almost not at all. He prophesied almost exclusively for the end of the world. But we know he either prophesied right at the beginning of the start of the Babylonian Captivity or right before it, and he is talking about the armies of Babylon. And look what it says…

Blow a trumpet in Zion,
And sound an alarm on My holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
For the day of the LORD is coming;
Surely it is near,

(Now that is an eschatological statement – it is about the end of the world.)

A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness.
As the dawn is spread over the mountains,
So there is a great and mighty people;
There has never been anything like it,
Nor will there be again...

(He is talking in his own time, about Nebuchadnezzar’s army of Babylon. That is what he’s talking about for his own time, but he is saying this teaches about the end of the world.)
A fire consumes before them
And behind them a flame burns.
The land is like the garden of Eden before them
But a desolate wilderness behind them,
And nothing at all escapes them. ( Joel 2:1-3 )

The Kingdom Now people say that this is them, their movement. And it describes this army. But look what happens with this army…

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD,
“Return to Me with all your heart,
And with fasting, weeping and mourning;
And rend your heart and not your garments.”
Now return to the LORD your God,
For He is gracious and compassionate,
Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness
And relenting of evil.
Who knows whether He will not turn and relent... ( Joel 2:12-14a )

In other words, Joel says if the people repent, God will call this terrible army back. And what happens to this army?

“But I will remove the northern army far from you,
And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
And its vanguard into the eastern sea,
And its rear guard into the western sea.
And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up,
For it has done great things.” ( Joel 2:20 )

God is going to judge and destroy Joel’s army, but that is who John Wimber says he is! John Wimber actually says, “We are the locusts.”

“Then I will make up to you for the years
That the swarming locust has eaten,
The creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust,
My great army which I sent among you. ( Joel 2:25 )

He called it His army, but it is His army in the sense of Nebuchadnezzar, the army of Babylon. It is an evil army. The way God judges His people is by bringing other evil people against them to make them repent. He has always dealt with Israel that way. That is the context. It is an evil army that God is going to destroy, but the entire Kingdom Now philosophy is based on the fact that we are this army, or at least they are, those in their movement.

Recalling Judgment

But what happens in the midst of all this prediction of doom and gloom?

“It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days. ( Joel 2:28-29 )

If there is a repentance, God pours out His Spirit and calls His judgment back. That is the key to the anointing. That is the key to get what the Kingdom Now people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Ecumenical people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Faith-Prosperity people promise but cannot possibly deliver. That is the key to get what the Charismatic people promise but cannot possibly deliver.

Joel’s army? The church is not Joel’s army; Joel’s army is what is judging the church. If we repent, God will recall that judgment and pour out His Spirit. That is the key.

That is what happened in the early church, and that is what is happening today. We have been betrayed, we are small and quivering, our leaders are afraid, and we are not anointed. It is all going to the wall. There is one hope: We repent or we perish. God bless you, and thank you.

God bless, †††
James Jacob Prasch

Abraham's Journey

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:33:14 GMT

Introduction

Open with me, please, to Genesis 12. In Hebrew we call the book of Genesis “B’reshit” – “in the beginning”. This is about 2,166 years before Jesus was born.

Now the Lord said to Abram…

(This time “Abram” – not yet “Abraham”.)

“Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took Sarai…

…which means “my princess” in Hebrew…

…his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.

Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.

Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. It came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. Please say that you are my sister…

…and in fact she was his half-sister…

…so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you.” It came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. Therefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels. But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and go.” Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they escorted him away, with his wife and all that belonged to him.

So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his wife and all that belonged to him, and Lot with him. Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. He went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. And the land could not sustain them while dwelling together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to remain together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land.

So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if to the right, then I will go to the left.” Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. So Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they separated from each other.

It Began Before Haran

There were things known by the ancient Jews that were not written down in the Bible in the Old Testament but were later recorded in the New. In Stephen’s apology before his martyrdom in Acts 7 he tells us something about Abraham’s journey that Genesis doesn’t. In Acts 7:2 he says this…

… The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’ Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this country in which you are now living.

The book of Acts tells us that God called Abraham in Mesopotamia – Ur of the Chaldees. Genesis picks up the story in Haran much later.

Abraham is the father of all who believe – Jews, Arabs, even Muslims look to Abraham. Arabs call him “Ibrahim”, Jews call him “Abba Abraham” – “father Abraham”. The “father of all who believe” means theologically he’s the prototype. His experiences prefigure what would happen to his progeny, his descendants.

The Typology of Egypt

Understand “coming out of Egypt”. In a famine Abraham goes into Egypt; he dwells there. God judges Pharaoh and Abraham comes out of Egypt and goes into Israel. Later on his descendants, the sons of Jacob, in a famine go into Egypt. God’s judgment comes on Pharaoh – a wicked Pharaoh, and Abraham’s descendants do what Abraham did: they come out of Egypt taking the treasures of Egypt with them into Israel. So what happens to Abraham happens to his biological descendants the Jews.

But then we’re told in 1 Corinthians by Paul it happens to us. Egypt is a figure of the world, the Promised Land is a figure of heaven, and as Moses made a covenant of blood sprinkled it on the people, bringing them through the Red Sea into the Promised Land is the way Jesus brings us out of the world through baptism into heaven. (1 Cor 10) We came out of “Egypt”. Pharaoh’s, of course, a figure of the devil, the god of the world but he’s also a major type of the Antichrist who is to come. So Abraham comes out of Egypt, his descendants the Jews come out of Egypt, and our salvation because he’s the father of all who believe – we come out of Egypt.

Now a lot of people would have a problem, particularly liberal theologians in Matthew 2:15 ….

…“Out of Egypt I called My Son”.

…when King Herod dies. Matthew quotes from the prophet Hosea 11:1 , only Hosea is talking about the exodus of the Jews. How does Matthew take something that in its context applies to the Jews in the exodus and say it’s about Jesus?

Well because the Hebrew understanding of prophecy is “pattern”. Abraham comes out of Egypt, the Jews come out of Egypt, we come out of Egypt, and Jesus who’s the seed of Abraham therefore must come out of Egypt. He fits the pattern. God again judges a wicked king – Herod – and in the character of Abraham the seed of Abraham, Jesus, comes out of Egypt. Hebrew prophecy is a pattern. Ultimately the coming out of Egypt is the Rapture and resurrection of the church. Those judgments on Egypt in the book of Exodus are replayed in the book of Revelation: the darkness, the blood, etc. And the way that Pharaoh’s counterfeited the miracles of Moses and Aaron is the way the Antichrist and false prophet will counterfeit the miracles of Jesus and his witnesses.

They brought Joseph’s bones with them out of Egypt into the Promised Land because the dead in Christ rise first; we come out together. It’s a picture of the resurrection. That’s theultimate coming out of Egypt. Hebrew prophecy is always a pattern, multiple fulfillments. But each fulfillment is a “type” or a foreshadow of the final fulfillment. That’s Abraham. His experiences are replayed by the Jews and by believers: we come out of Egypt.

The Typology of Egypt

Promises to Abraham

God gives Abraham five promises:

God’s judgment would have fallen on the United States of America a long time ago except for two reasons: three out of every five dollars spent on missions, evangelism, and charity come from North America; the other reason is America has treated the Jews better than other nations. Holland would be the same. The immorality in Holland is unbelievable but they protected the Jews in the Holocaust. I’m convinced that is the only things that has stayed God’s hand. If you’ve ever been to Amsterdam you wouldn’t believe it.

In any event He will bless those who bless the Jews and He’ll curse those who curse the Jews. When the Nazis took over Germany, if you saw the film Schindler’s List, they built walls around the Jewish shtetls, the ghettos. And any Jew climbing over the wall would be machine gunned. Then what happened? Once the Third Reich collapsed a wall was built around Berlin, the great capital of the Reich, and any German climbing over that wall was machine gunned. And that wall didn’t come down until Hess died in Spandau Prison. Not until the last Nazi responsible for what happened in the 30’s and 40’s was dead did that wall come down.

My grandparents were from Britain. Britannia ruled the waves. If you told my grandparents a time would come when the sun would set every 24 hours on the British Empire they would have laughed at you. Britain revoked the Balfour Declaration after promising the Jews the right to return and Jews went to concentration camps. Even after the war when the holocaust was known to have happened the British put the Jews back into detention camps in Cypress to prevent them from coming to Israel so as not to offend the Muslims. Now the sun sets on the British Empire every 24 hours. I know because I live there.

The Spanish Inquisition. You had the Spanish Main. Spain was the big world power, they were the preeminent ones in the New World until the Inquisition. In 1492 Columbus discovered America, right after that under Ferdinand and Isabella at the behest of the Roman Catholic church the inquisitions begin. It didn’t take too long before Francis Drake sunk the Armada then Britannia ruled the waves. “I’ll bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee.”

Abraham's Children

Now this is not anything to do with the Jews – it’s for the sake of God’s promise to Abraham. And you’ll also find this is true of the church because the believers are also Abraham’s children. Nations that have blessed the church have been blessed and prospered and nations that have persecuted the church have come under God’s judgment. Just look what happened to Eastern Europe.

There’s an almost hypostatic relationship between anti-Semitism and persecution of the believing church because born again believers and Jews are the only two kinds of people the Bible calls “God’s chosen”. ( Ps 105:6 , 2 Thes 2:13 ) In Genesis 3:15 ….

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed…

The “woman” being Israel but by extension and cooperation the church. You’ll find that the two kinds of people that Satan has always hated the most are Jews and born again Christians because they’re the two kinds of people who are descendants of Abraham and who are called “God’s people”.

Who do the Communists hate the most in Russia before the Iron Curtain came down? Jews and born again Christians. Who do the Roman Catholic church persecute the most? Jews and born again Christians. Who do Muslims hate the most? Jews and born again Christians. The Eastern Orthodox Church would be the same. God will bless those who bless Abraham’s descendants, both his biological descendants and his descendants by faith. And He will curse the ones who curse. Those who curse the Jews or who curse the true church touch the apple of God’s eye. ( Zech 2:8 ) But there’s more to it.

A Journey Like Ours

It’s Abraham’s journey. His journey is a journey like ours. The text of Genesis tells us the journey begins here in Haran when his father dies. That’s when he responds to God’s call. But the New Testament tells us that is not when God’s call began. God’s call began here in Ur of the Chaldees.

Ur of the Chaldees was where the tower of Babel had been built, approximately, and it’s where the Babylonian Empire would later arise. Abraham’s father was an idol-monger. We’re told in Jewish tradition, in the Talmudic literature, that his father was an idol-monger. And there’s a story in the Talmud – it’s only a story, that Abraham took a hammer (a “pattiysh”) and smashed all of his father’s statues – idols, except for one, and he put the hammer into the hand of the one remaining idol. And his father came in, Terah, and said, “Who killed all of these gods?” And Abraham said, “That god did, the one holding the hammer.” And his father said, “That’s impossible! It’s only a piece of stone with no life or breath in it!” And Abraham said, “Exactly, father – exactly.” That’s just a story from the Talmud. His father was an idol-monger.

Not until his father dies at a crisis point in his life does he respond to the call God gave him in his youth at a much earlier time in Ur of the Chaldees.

So often that happens to people. God is drawing them, God is calling them always, but not until a crisis point in their life will they respond to His grace and His call. Sometimes it isbereavement, other times it’s financial calamity, a crisis in health, a combination of things. God calls and calls and calls but when people don’t respond He’s out to save people. He’ll even use calamity for them to be saved.

You see, those whom He foreknew. ( Rom 8:29 ) I’m not a Calvinist but God did know us before the creation of the world and He begins drawing us from conception, from childhood. When somebody is born again, when somebody comes to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus, when you’re first saved, not only does your future make sense, not only does your present make sense, but even your past. It all clicks. Once you come to know the Lord you realize why your life was the way it was. Things you can’t really quantify, perhaps the kind of thoughts that went through your head in bed before you fell asleep at night, perhaps experiences you had, or just impressions, none of it made sense. It had some kind of a metaphysical aspect to it, perhaps, but you couldn’t quantify it. Yet when you get saved you realize, “That was God drawing me all along to this point and this time when I came to know Him through His Son”. When somebody’s born again not only does their future make sense, not only does the present make sense, but even the past makes sense. God is drawing us all along.

But just like father Abraham – Abraham our father, so often it takes a crisis for us to respond to His grace, His call. But then the real journey begins.

Leaving family is a difficult thing, but so often that’s what the Gospel requires. This is certainly true among Jewish people. It’s also true among Muslim people. But I’ve known Roman Catholic people, I’ve known people from Communist families, I’ve known people from Greek and Russian Orthodox families – it’s the same principle. Paul says that in 2 Thessalonians that even the Gentiles have the same kind of rejection as the Jews did from their own families. Jesus came to bring division. ( Luke 12:51 ) It’s wonderful when families get saved but the fact is death separates and the only way you can be with your family is if they get saved, too.

So he begins his journey and the first stop on his journey after meeting the Lord is Shechem – “Shakem”. “Shakem” is a kind of word for “shoulder” in Hebrew. Not an anatomical shoulder but the idea of carrying a burden. It’s near the city of Nablus today. And at Shechem Abraham dwells under an oak called, “the oak of Moreh”. It’s the modern Hebrew word for “teacher” but it’s the ancient Hebrew word for “knowledge”, particularly knowledge of God.

The Typology of Trees

You have to understand something from Jewish midrash about dwelling under a tree.

If a Jewish Christian of the 1st Century was reading John’s gospel – John 1, 2, and 3 – he would have said that John’s gospel is a midrash on the creation in Genesis. The new creation in John 1, 2, and 3 is a midrash on the creation in Genesis 1, 2, and 3:

He would have said God walked the earth in the creation. (Remember Adam heard God walking in the Garden? That was Jesus.) Now God walks the earth in the new creation; the Word becomes flesh. ( Jn. 1:1 )

He would have said God comes to separate the light from the dark in creation in Genesis, but now God comes to separate the light from dark in the new creation in John.

He would have said the Spirit moves on the water and brings forth the creation in Genesis. Born of water and of Spirit, God brings new life from the water in the new creation.

He would have said in the creation in Genesis you have the small light and the great light, but in the new creation you have “Johannan Hamadvil” – John the Baptist the little light and “Yeshua HaMashiach” – Jesus the great light, one bearing witness to the other, reflecting light of the other.

He would have said on the third day in the creation in Genesis God does a miracle with water. Lo and behold in John 2:1 , the wedding at Cana, it says it was the third day. God does a miracle with water.

He would have that said God began his plan for the creation of man with a wedding, a marital union between Adam and Eve. Hence now God begins His plan for the new creation for man with a wedding at Cana, Jesus’ first public ministry is at a wedding.

That’s how he would have looked at it that way. The new creation is a midrash on the creation.

But then in John 1 Nathanael asks Jesus, “How did you know?” and Jesus says, “I saw you under the fig tree”. ( John 1:48 ) Whatever literal fig tree Jesus saw Nathanael under, that fig tree in midrash is known as the “peshit” – “the simple meaning”. (This is not Gnosticism now. Gnosticism uses symbolism as a basis for doctrine, in midrash you use symbolism toillustrate doctrine.) The peshit was, “I saw you under the fig tree”. But the “pesshur” – “the deeper meaning”, was “I saw you from the Garden, from the creation of the world”. In Judaism the Tree of Life, the “Ets Chayim”, is represented by a fig tree. So Jesus was saying to him, “Creation or new creation, I know you because I knew you from the Garden, from the foundation of the world. I saw you under the Tree of Life” – the Ets Chayim, the fig tree.

So here Abraham is under an oak tree. “Oak” in Hebrew is called “elon”. It’s a very hard wood; it’s a strong wood; it’s a wood of strength. Whenever you see someone dwelling under a tree in the Bible, typologically it means something in Jewish midrash. Before King Saul was killed he was under the Tamarisk tree. ( 1 Sam 22:6 ) When he was in a state of despondency Elisha was under the juniper tree. ( 1 Kings 19:4 ) But here Abraham is under the oak of Moreh – he’s in a place of strength due to the knowledge of God.

“Shechem” is where you lay your burden down and you come to your first knowledge of God. And there he builds an altar and sacrifices. At any turning point in our relationship with God He will require us to build an altar. In Hebrew we call an altar “mizbeach” and it has only one purpose, to sacrifice something. No sacrifice, no progress.

From Shechem to Bethel

So far so good – he comes to Shechem. But then he moves on to his next stop. His next stop is called Bethel, in Hebrew “Beyth El” – “the house of God”. After somebody comes to know the Lord the first thing they should normally do is come to church. Now Bethel is on the west, a place called Ai is on the east. “Ai” in Hebrew meant “a heap of ruins”. Abraham builds another altar at Bethel and he turns his back to the east where he came from where the tower of Babel was, where Babylon was. His past, the east, where he came from becomes a heap of ruins and he faces the house of God. It is the same pattern the high priest would have to sacrifice on. He’d have to turn towards the east, towards Babylon, and face the west. There he builds another altar. Once more, sacrifice.

When you come to church it costs you something. I don’t just mean what you put in the collection basket. It means you turn your back on your past. Your old friends become acquaintances who your only interest in having any dealings with is to witness to them. Maybe some of your old interests are things you have to give up, at least for awhile.

For me I couldn’t listen to any kind of music except for traditional hymns because I associated music, especially rock music and classical music, I associated that with taking drugs. I used to listen to the stuff when I was stoned. I couldn’t listen to that music for a couple of years. A few years later as I grew in my faith it didn’t bother me anymore, it didn’t disturb my focus anymore, but it had to go on the altar for awhile because it took my eyes off Jesus. After I grew in my faith it doesn’t matter now. To me it’s just music now. I grew and now it doesn’t matter, it’s just music, but at one time it would have caused me a problem. It’s not the same things that have to go on the altar for everybody but something will have to go on the altar. We turn our back on the past. Now obviously this means turning from sin, but it costs us something.

So far so good. But you know, there are people who never make it to Bethel. I call them “Shechem Dwellers”. They understood the Gospel and maybe made a profession of faith, but that’s as far as they went. They go no further.

I knew one “Shechem Dweller” in London, England in Speaker’s Corner where I will sometimes still preach the Gospel on a Sunday afternoon and get heckled by the Muslims, etc. This one guy’s name was Robert – a nice guy, he has a big board front and back they call a “sandwich board” in England. And it says, “Christ died for our sins” on the front and the back and he goes around Speaker’s Corner. And the Christian preachers there all know each other so I said to him, “I have to go now, Robert, it’s time for the evening service in my church”. And he asked me what church I went to and I told him what church – it was a Baptist church in London at the time, and I said, “I have to go”. And I said, “What church do you go to?” And he said, “I go to a High Anglo-Catholic church”. I said, “Why don’t you go to an Evangelical church?” He said, “Well, I went to an Evangelical church once but everybody was already born again. There was nobody to preach to. “ He was totally sincere; he meant it. He knew the Gospel, but that’s about all he seemed to know. He never came to Bethel.

Well, Abraham makes it to Bethel and he builds that altar and he turns his back on his past. But then something goes wrong.

Going to Egypt

Matthew 13 tells about the seeds falling on different kinds of soil. If the devil cannot get somebody to backslide or fall away with the passions of the flesh or the lusts of youth or something like that, if he can’t get you to fall away for those reasons he’ll try something else: crisis – calamity. He’ll make you think you have to take your destiny in your own hands, or that God has somehow abandoned you when things become difficult. And you have to begin making your own decisions. And it’s easy for a young Christian to be dissuaded.

You see, when people are first saved they have their first love and they think they’re going to be Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John the first day and go out and do miracles. They think they can do everything. They have their first love, they have a lot of zeal, but they don’t have a any experience, a lot of knowledge, and they don’t know anything although they think they know everything. But after they’ve had their first trials a few months later they realize they know very little. They have their first love – we have to give them that, that’s something we tend to lose, but they don’t have any wisdom or experience or knowledge. And that’s when they get in trouble.

So what does Abraham do? He goes to Egypt. What is Egypt a picture of? The world.

Look at Isaiah 30, what Isaiah says about going to Egypt. King Hezekiah was a good king but he was being badly advised. He was in a strategic crisis. He had the Assyrians infringing on one side on his east and he had Egypt on the other. He was caught in the middle between two superpowers. And he was being advised to go to Egypt for help. And the prophet Isaiah warns against these people who were telling him to do that, to act in a crisis by his own wisdom by going to Egypt. Look at Isaiah 30:1 …

“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “Who execute a plan, but not Mine, And make an alliance, but not of My Spirit,

Again, when you see people into things like Ecumenism, they’re making alliances that are not of God’s Spirit. They’re going to Egypt, the religions of the world.

In order to add sin to sin; Who proceed down to Egypt Without consulting Me, To take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh And to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

Notice it’s not that they go to Egypt but they go without consulting the Lord. Whenever you get involved with the world you must have the Lord’s wisdom and guidance in it. You get involved in the world’s legal system? You must have the Lord’s guidance in it. You get involved with the world’s financial system, the world’s health system, it’s school system – whenever you get involved with the world you need to consult the Lord. I wouldn’t advise so much as swallowing an aspirin without praying first. Whenever you get involved with the world you need to consult the Lord. But he didn’t. In a crisis the flesh will tend to gravitate to what the flesh considers strong: the world.

Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation.

Whenever somebody goes to the world they wind up in a state of humiliation. Backsliders always do. They wind up in a state of ultimate humiliation. Look what happened to Abraham. He went so low he was actually willing to give his wife over sexually to another man and apparently it happened.

You Can Never Be the Same

You see, you can never meet Jesus and be the same. Once you’ve come to know Him you’re either going to be better or you’re going to be worse, but you can’t be the same. If you go back to the world you will sink to a level of moral depravity that was worse than anything you did before you were first saved. You can’t meet Christ and be the same; you’re either going to be better or you’re going to be worse. If you go back to the world you’ll become more depraved than you were before you first came to know Him. You’ll sink to a level.

Not only that but you’ll wind up in a state of humiliation. Look at Isaiah 31:1 …

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help And rely on horses, And trust in chariots because they are many And in horsemen because they are very strong, But they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord! Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster And does not retract His words, But will arise against the house of evildoers And against the help of the workers of iniquity. Now the Egyptians are men and not God, And their horses are flesh and not spirit; So the Lord will stretch out His hand, And he who helps will stumble And he who is helped will fall, And all of them will come to an end together.

There’s no help in Egypt! The strength of horses were flesh not Spirit. The old creation will always look to the flesh; it will always look to the things the world considers strong: money, political power, influence, prestige. Whenever you get involved with the world, if God is going to use the things of the world, it will be on His terms, never on the world’s terms. Whenever you get involved with the world you need the mind of the Lord. But the flesh wants to trust the things of the world; the flesh wants to trust what the world considers strong.

Abraham finds out the hard way it doesn’t work. And there he goes. He goes all the way in what ancient times was known as the Wilderness of Shur. The Wilderness of Shur, roughly speaking, was the eastern area of the Sinai Desert and the western area of the Negev. It is a long, hot journey all the way down to “Mitstrayim” – Egypt. (In Hebrew we call Egypt “Mistrayim”.) And then all the way back to Bethel in Genesis 13:1 .

Resuming the Original Journey

You see, you pick up where you left off. He could have been further on his journey to where God wanted him to be but instead he wasted his time. Backsliders waste their time, they waste their life. Compared to eternity what’s 10 years or 20 years? Nothing. But compared to the 80 or 90 years at the most probably you have in this world, 10-20 years is a long time to waste. Backsliders are wasting their time, they’re certainly wasting their youth. And it will all come to nothing. They’ll wind up in a state of humiliation. They’ll either get out of Egypt or they’ll die there, and you pick up where you left off. All that time wasted for nothing. Back to Bethel.

Then he resumes the journey he should have came on to begin with. From Bethel he proceeds further south. He goes through the hills of Judah, from the mountains of Samaria to the hills of Judah. It is a long, arduous journey from Bethel to Hebron, but not nearly as difficult as going all the way to Egypt and all the way back. He comes to Hebron. “Hebron” derives from the Hebrew word for “fellowship” – “heet ha brut”. The Hebrew word “heet ha brut” for fellowship means “bricks held together”. Now Peter draws on this in 1 Peter 2:5 : we are the stones of the temple, the church being the temple. We’re the “living stones”.

On Palm Sunday when Jesus comes into the Temple Mount from the East Gate and the people are singing the Hallel Rabbah to Him ( Ps. 113-118 ) – “Hosannah to the Son of David”, the Sanhedrin says to Jesus tell the people to be quiet. And Jesus says, “If these remain silent the stones will cry out”.( Luke 19:40 ) What He was saying in Jewish midrash is that if the Jews don’t proclaim Me as Messiah the Christians will. John the Baptist said God could raise up Abraham’s children out of the stones (Math 3:9) – Christians as the children of Abraham.

Hebron is the place of fellowship – stones cemented together.

Suppose I came into a building and I said to the pastor, “This is a nice church you have – quite a building, but there’s a lot of bricks missing in the wall. Where are all these missing bricks?” Well there they are – they’re stacked up in the middle of the floor. What good are the bricks stacked up in the middle of the floor? For the bricks to be any good they have to be placed into the wall, fastened to the other bricks. It is one thing to come to church; it is another thing to come to fellowship.

Hebron was a long, arduous journey through the mountains, and upon getting to Hebron Abraham had to build an altar. If you want to come to fellowship it’s going to cost you something. Anybody can come to church, sing the hymn, pay a tithe, bring their offerings – “Hello, brother, how are you? See you next week.” Anybody can do that.

Now it’s not wrong to do that. When you’re a new Christian you come to Bethel but it’s wrong to stay in Bethel. You have to come to Hebron, you have to come to fellowship. Because at the place of fellowship Abraham dwells under some other oaks, the oaks of Mamre. (This is near the place today called Kirath-Arba on the West Bank, a very troubled area. It has the cave of Machpela where the Patriarchs are buried.) “Mamre” in Hebrew means “firmness” or “vigor”. The “oaks of strength”. And it’s only when he gets to Hebron, dwelling under the oaks of Mamre, that he’s in a strategically strong position to rescue his kinsman Lot. He couldn’t rescue his kinsman Lot if he’s up in Bethel, he had to be down in Hebron close to where Lot was.

From a Church to a Fellowship

You see, we want to see our families saved, our neighbors saved, our friends saved, we want to see our countrymen saved from the pagans – the Canaanite in the land. From New Age, from Islam, from occults, from false Christianity, but you’re never going to do that by going to church.

I was a missionary in the Middle East for years – listen to me. There is not a church in the world – I don’t mean in the Greek sense of “eklesia” but in the sense of “congregation” – there’s not a church in the world that can take on a mosque and win. You hear what I said? There is not a church in the world that can take on a mosque and win. If you want to take on a mosque you better be a fellowship. If you’re going to take on Islam you better be in the place of firmness, vigor, real strength.

There’s not a church in the world that can take on the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses – they’re too committed. They’re more zealous for a lie than most Christians are for the truth. No church can take on a Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall or a Mormon temple. None. Not a church in the world can take on those places; a fellowship can – not a church.

Bethel Will Come to Trouble

Do you dwell in Bethel or do you dwell in Hebron? Well if you’re dwelling in Bethel you’re going to have a problem. Turn with me to Amos 4:4 …

“Enter Bethel and transgress; In Gilgal multiply transgression! Bring your sacrifices every morning, Your tithes every three days. Offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened,

…(sin, false doctrine)…

And proclaim freewill offerings, make them known.

Enter Bethel and transgress? Oh, you bring your tithe and your offerings, but you bring a sin offering from that which is leavened.

For so you love to do, you sons of Israel,” Declares the Lord God.

For so you love to do, you Plymouth Brethren! For so you love to do, you Pentecostals! For so you love to do, you Presbyterians! For so you love to do, you Baptists!

“Oh, I come to church! I pay my tithe!” It is leavened. Spiritual pride, sin, false doctrine. “Oh, I come to church, alright! I do my bit! I pay my tithe! I’m alright!” The flesh loves religion. The old creation will always try to justify itself by rule-keeping, by going back under the Law. Look at Amos 5:5 …

“But do not resort to Bethel And do not come to Gilgal, Nor cross over to Beersheba;

(All these things mean things in Hebrew.)

For Gilgal will certainly go into captivity And Bethel will come to trouble.

You see that? “Bethel will come to trouble”. The church will let you down. If it hasn’t happened already, sooner or later I absolutely guarantee – I promise you, the church will let you down. The reason the church will let you down is because the church is made up of people who are just like you and just like me. The church will let you down. A church can’t stand. “Bethel will come to trouble”. It’s a fellowship that will stand.

We have some believers here who were Christians under the Communists in Romania. Churches meant nothing. The Communist police would get rid of any church; it’s fellowship that stood. People who have a sense of commitment, community, family; people willing to stick their neck out for each other, those are the things that stood under the persecution. And persecution will return before Jesus comes even to countries we consider to be democracies. “Bethel will come to trouble”.

There’ s no security in the church; there’s security in Hebron – that’s where the strength is. That’s where the oaks of Mamre grow.

Bethel Dwellers

What is a “Bethel Dweller”? There’s a lot of ways to pick them out. One way, of course, is people who come to church Sunday morning but they won’t come to the evening service. Not for any good reason like work or sick children or something like that. Just because they’d rather watch the football instead of video recording it and watching it when they get home. That’s the “Bethel Dweller”. Today you can video tape the game if you like sports, but those people have a problem. Or people who will come on Sunday and do their bit but they won’t come to the mid-week meetings, people who consistently do that. Not for valid reasons like sick children or responsibilities of work or things like that, I just mean people who make excuses not to be there. Those people have a problem. Their priorities are wrong.

But there’s a sure way to tell a “Bethel Dweller”. I’ll tell you how to pick out a “Bethel Dweller”: they’ve been saved 5 years, they’ve been saved 10 years, they’ve been saved 60 years or more and they don’t know if they are an “eye”, a “foot”, or a “hand”. They don’t know what their gifts are, they don’t know what their ministry is, they don’t know if they have the gift of teaching, they don’ t know if they have the gift of evangelism, if they have the gift of helps – they don’t know what their gifts are. They don’t know where they fit into the wall so they just stay a brick on the floor. They come to church, they pay the tithe, they sing the hymn, and say, “I’ll see you next week”. That is a “Bethel Dweller”.

Most Christians in the Western world are “Bethel Dwellers”. In most of the churches I go to in the Western world it is 15% of the people who do 85% of the praying. Call a prayer meeting, see how many people come. It is 15% of the people who do 85% of the ministry. It is 15% of the people who do 85% of the giving. I don’t mean in terms of the amounts, I mean in terms of ability – portion. It’s 15% of the people who are in fellowship; the others go to church.

“Bethel will come to trouble”. I shouldn’t be laughing about it. But “Bethel will come to trouble”. I’m telling you the church will let you down. And in the Last Days it will let us all down.

You never get anything just coming to church. A young Christian? Fine, come to church, but then you have to come to fellowship and build that altar. It will cost you something to come to fellowship. It costs: time, finance, spiritual attack – there will be a price. No altar, no sacrifice; no sacrifice, no progress.

We're All Somewhere On This Map

Take a look at a map of Abraham’s journey. Everyone is somewhere on that map. Even those little children out there in the nursery or Sunday School – they don’t know it yet but they’re in Ur of the Chaldees. Through the faith of believing parents they are already being drawn by the Lord to the way of salvation. God is already calling them. We don’t baptize babies but God does see the children of Christians different than He sees the children of the world.

Maybe you’re in Haran, you’re at that crisis point. If you’re reading this and you have not been born again and have not accepted Jesus, you’re reading this for a reason. Not your own reasons, God’s reasons. Your life doesn’t make sense, but if you turn to Jesus it will because becoming a Christian is very easy. Perhaps the things you’ve read today are complicated, but when you’re born a baby doesn’t know too much – he learns. When you’re born again it’s the same thing: you learn more as you go on. But being born is easy and so is being born again.

I’m not talking about the hype or nonsense you see with the con artistry like you see in the preachers from America or on TV, that’s not born again, that’s con artistry. I’m talking about the Gospel. The Gospel is simple. The same kind of love you have for your own baby, if you have a baby, God created that kind of love to teach how much He loves you. And the same as you would give your life willingly to save the life of your baby, that’s what Jesus did when He went to the cross for your sin. That’s what He did. You see, we’ve all rebelled against God’s love and rejected His authority. We’ve gone under the influence of someone called the devil, the god of this world. That’s why none of man’s political or economic systems will ever work, that’s why we destroy the environment, that’s why marriages fail, that’s why we want to be good and do good but we all do things we know are wrong because we have a fallen nature and the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one.

To God one man without sin is worth more than all the men with sin. That’s how Jesus could die for everybody because one without sin is worth more than all with sin. God becomes a man and He takes our sin. All the wrong things I did, all the wrong things you did, God puts them on Jesus. And then God takes His righteousness and gives it to us. And as He rose from the dead He will raise us from the dead unto eternal life. That’s the Gospel.

You have to turn from sin. Ask God for the power to turn from sin and He will give you that power. He delivered me from cocaine addiction when I was in University, a terrible addiction. The devil had a grip on my life but Jesus was more powerful than the devil, He was more powerful than the cocaine. What He did for me He can do for anybody. He’ll do it for you. He’ll give you the power to turn from sin if you ask Him. He’ll take your sin and give you His life.

If you don’t know Him you’re in Haran, you’re at the point of crisis. You can go from death to life today. You don’t have to go to hell, you don’t have to go to judgment, you can become a child of Abraham today.

Perhaps you are in Bethel where you come to church. The devil comes to church every Sunday. He’s very religious. The devil gets more people into hell with religion than he does with all the dope, all the substance abuse, all the compulsive gambling put together. Religion’s a drug.

You know, the two most influential people in history were both Jews: Karl Marx and Jesus Christ. There’s one thing they agreed on: religion is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on humanity. Religion will get you nowhere; it’s Jesus Christ that will get you someplace. Religion is not the solution to the world’s problem. Look at Northern Ireland – that’s religion. Religion is not the solution to the world’s problem, religion is the world’s problem, Jesus is the solution.

But perhaps things went wrong. Perhaps it was the law of the world, the things the old nature liked, passions of the flesh, sexual immorality, ungodly relationships, drugs – whatever it is – love of money or perhaps things just went wrong. You felt God abandoned you. He didn’t, but you felt like He did and you began to wander and assume the management of your own existence no longer as the junior partner but as the senior one and you went to Egypt. You’re back in the world.

There’s no hope for you there; you’re only going to wind up in a state of humiliation. You’re either going to come out of there or you’re going to die in there. There’s no such thing as a “successful” backslider. It’s a theological impossibility. You are wasting your life, you are wasting your youth – just wasting it. You’ve got to come back to Bethel, come back to the Lord and His house and pick up where you left off.

That’s where most people are – Bethel, but that’s not where God wants us to be. He wants us to be in Hebron. He does not want us to be bricks in the floor, He wants us to be bricks cemented into the wall. He wants you to know your place in the body, He wants you to be in the place of firmness and vigor so you can rescue your kinsmen from the kings of darkness. That’s where He wants you to be.

Where are you? The little kids are in Ur of the Chaldees – that we can agree on, but are you in Haran where you’ve never accepted Jesus? Are you at that crisis point? You could begin your journey today. The Bible says, “Boast not about tomorrow for you know not what tomorrow may bring”. ( Pr. 27:1 ) Now is the appointed time, today is the day of salvation. If you don’t know the Lord, you contact us. Don’t continue without coming to know Him.

Maybe you’re in Egypt. Please – God doesn’t love you any less, this life is too short, stop wasting it. Youth flees; don’t waste it. We’re told in Ecclesiastes, “Youth flees”. ( Ecclesiastes 12:1 ) Don’t waste it.

But most of you are where most Christians are – at least in the Western world, most of you are in church. Most Christians are in Bethel. I have one hope and one prayer for your church. This is my hope and my prayer for your church: that soon it will no longer be a church. My prayer for you is that your church will become a fellowship.

A Prophet Like Unto Moses

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:31:23 GMT

But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in my Name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die . ( Dt. 18:20 )

False Prophets

It does not matter if people predict something in the Name of the Lord because they are inspired by a demon, or if they do it by the futility of their own mind. Either way, a false prophet is a false prophet.

And you may say in your heart, “How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?” When a prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing, which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.( Dt 18:21-22 )

Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie. Therefore thus says theLord, ‘Behold, I am about to remove you from the face of the earth…’” ( Jer 28:15-16 )

Hananiah predicted things that did not happen.

Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in my Name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds.” ( Jer 14:14 )

These false prophets were deceived by what was in their own mind.

There were a lot of false prophets running around in Jeremiah's day, but even after their prophecies were proven to be false, people continued to follow them:

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and my people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? ( Jer 5:31 )

It does not say they are not His people, nor that they are not prophets, but He does say that they prophesy falsely and the people love it so.

Now, when Jesus warned about false prophets in the Last Days, many people think He was talking about the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, the Hare Krishnas, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that the proliferation of these cults is of some prophetic significance, and they are certainly false prophets. But those are not the false prophets Jesus was warning about. He said:

For false christs and false prophets will be raised, and they will give signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible even the elect. ( Mark 13:22 )

A Prophet Like Moses

The Talmud says that Deut 18:18 is about the Messiah:

I shall raise up a Prophet to them from among their brothers, like you; and I will put My words in His mouth; and He shall speak to them all that I shall command Him.

We know that it is about Jesus, who was a prophet like Moses.

Born Under an Oppressive Foreign Rule

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and in the event of war, they also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us, and depart from the land.” So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh, storage cities, Pithom and Raamses. ( Ex 1:8-11 )

Moses was born under an oppressive, foreign rule.

Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ( Lk 2:1-2 )

Jesus was born under an oppressive, foreign rule

Threatened by a Wicked King

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” ( Ex 1:15-16 )

A wicked king decreed that Moses and the male Jewish children be killed.

Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its environs, from two years old and under. ( Mt 2:16 )

A wicked king decreed that Jesus and the male Jewish children be killed.

The Faith of the Parents

And the woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.( Ex 2:2 )

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king's edict. ( Heb 11:23 )

Moses' life was saved and preserved through the faith of his parents.

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise and take the Child and His mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy him.” So he got up, took the Child and His mother during the night and left for Egypt. ( Mt 2:13-14 )

Jesus' life was saved and preserved through the faith of His parents.

Protected in Egypt

And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said, "Because I drew him out of the water." ( Ex 2:10 )

Moses received protection in Egypt for a time.

And he arose and took the Child and His mother by night, and departed for Egypt; and was there until the death of Herod, that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying "Out of Egypt did I call My Son." ( Mt 2:14-15 )

Jesus received protection in Egypt for a time.

His Wisdom Not Surpassed

Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses… "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us as well?" Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man that was on the face of the earth. ( Numbers 12:1-3 )

There were people trying to compete with Moses because of his wisdom.

And it came about that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them, and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and answers. ( Lk 2:46-47 )

ed to compete with Him, but they could not do it.

Rejected by the Jews

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” ( Ex 32:1 )

Moses was rejected for a time by the people of Israel.

But the governor answered and said to them, "Which of the two do you want me to release for you?" And they said, "Barabbas." And Pilate said to them, "Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?" They all said, "Let Him be crucified!" ( Mt 27:21-22 )

Toward the end of His life, Jesus told the Jews: "You shall not see Me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'" ( Matthew 23:29 )

For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. ( Rom 22:25 )

Jesus was rejected for a time by the people of Israel.

Accepted by the Gentiles

And he (Moses) went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, "Why are you striking your companion?" But he said, "Who made you a prince or judge over us?" When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian. And Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses . ( Ex 2:13 , 134 , 15 , 21 )

Moses was rejected by the Jews, but accepted by the Gentiles.

Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear. ( Rom 11:20 )

I permitted myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me; I permitted Myself to be found by those who did not seek me. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, "Behold, My servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry. Behold, My servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, My servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame. Behold, My servants shall shout joyfully with a glad heart, but you shall cry out with a heavy heart, and you shall wail with a broken spirit. And you will leave your name for a curse to My chosen ones, and the Lord God will slay you. But My servants will be called by another name.” ( Is 65:1 , 13-15 )

Jesus was rejected by the Jews, but accepted by the Gentiles.

Criticized by His Family

Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. ( Num 12:1 )

Moses married a Cushite - a black African woman.

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." ( Mk 3:20 :21)

Moses was criticized by his family because he took a Gentile wife. Jewish people criticize Jesus because, in figure or in type, He took a mainly Gentile wife, the church. The book of Ruth is read in the synagogues on the day of Pentecost – the story of a Jewish man taking a Gentile wife and a baby who was called “the redeemer” in Bethlehem being born.

Willing to Bear Their Sin

Then Moses returned to the Lord, and said, "Alas, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves. But now, if Thou wilt, forgive their sin and if not, please blot me out from Thy book which Thou hast written!” ( Ex 32:31-21 )

Moses prayed to God to forgive the sins of his people and Moses was willing to bear the consequences of their sin and their guilt.

But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." ( Lk 23:34 )

For you have been called to this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. ( 1 Pet 2:21-24 )

Jesus prayed to God to forgive the sins of His people and He was willing to receive the consequences of their sin and their guilt.

Fasted Forty Days and Nights

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. ( Ex 34:28 )

Moses fasted for forty days and forty nights to bring a covenant to God's people.

And after he had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry . ( Mt 4:2 )

Face to Face with God

Since then no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. ( Dt 34:10 )

Moses had a face to face relationship with God.

No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. ( Jn 1:18 )

Jesus had a face to face relationship with God.

His Face Shone

.Whenever Moses came out and spoke the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone. So Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went in to speak with Him. ( Ex 34:34 , 35 )

When Moses met God face to face, he glowed supernaturally.

And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. ( Mt 17:2 )

Jesus glowed supernaturally like Moses.

A Voice Was Heard

In Exodus we read that God spoke to Moses directly from heaven and a voice was heard.

And Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” "Father, glorify Thy name." There came therefore a voice out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." ( Jn 12:23 , 28 )

God spoke to Jesus directly from heaven.

Tomb Guarded by an Angel

In the epistle of Jude, verse 9, we read that an angel guarded the tomb of Moses.

And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his garment as white as snow; and the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. The angel answered and said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen." ( Mt 28:2-6 )

An angel guarded Jesus' tomb.

Revealed God's Name

Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, 'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; And He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you." ( Ex 3:13-14 )

Moses revealed God's name to God's people.

I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world. And I am no more in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, the name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one even as we are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me. ( Jn 17:6 , 11 , 12 )

Jesus revealed God's name to God's people.

Fed the People

When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, as frost on the ground. When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.” ( Ex 16:14-15 )

Moses fed God's people in large numbers, supernaturally.

And ordering the multitudes to recline on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up towards heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitude, and they all ate and were satisfied. ( Mt 14: 19-20 )

Jesus fed God's people in large numbers, supernaturally.

Showed Signs and Wonders

Since then no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, for all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to per-form in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. ( Dt 34:10-12 )

Moses did miracles, signs and wonders as no other man before him had ever done.

But the witness which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me. ( Jn 5:36 )

The Lord Jesus did works, did signs and wonders, and did miracles, as no one else has ever done

Made a Covenant with Blood

Then he took the book of the covenant and he read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!" So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words." ( Ex 24:7-8 )

Moses went to a mountain, made a covenant with blood and covered God's people with that blood.

And while they were eating Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” And, when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins." ( Mt 2:26-28 )

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. ( Heb 9:11-12 )

The Lord Jesus went to a mountain, made a covenant with blood and covered His people with that blood.

There were many great men of God in the Old Testament – Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Samuel, David - just to name a few. But there was only one prophet like Moses, the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Messiah of Israel.

A Chink in the Armor

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:30:27 GMT

Introduction

Greetings dear friends in the wonderful name of Jesus.

When the Holy Spirit gives us more than one account of something in the Bible it's important and, just as you have four gospel accounts of the same story, in the Old Testament you have Kings and Chronicles, two aspects of the same thing, plus whatever prophet or prophets prophesied during that time. You will find three and four aspects of the same episodes in the Old Testament just as you have in the Gospels. When the Holy Spirit gives us more than one record of something, it's important. Turn with me please to 2 Chronicles 18. This is the parallel account to what we find in 1 Kings 22, but we're reading now from 2 Chronicles 18:1-19:3. Starting in verse 1…

Now Jehoshaphat had great riches and honor and allied himself by marriage with Ahab.

The Danger of Nepotism

Look out for nepotism. Point 1: It is a point of vulnerability. Family loyalties get in the way of doctrinal loyalties. When you see people allied by marriage, or this pastor is that pastor's cousin, or his sister is married to the pastor -- when you see family connections, look out. Anything God intends for good the devil will use for evil. God created families, He created the family structure. But you know what? Jesus said He who loves family more than Me is not worthy of Me. (Math 10:37).

My wife's family are Holocaust survivors, Jews from Eastern Europe who survived the Holocaust. When my wife came to believe that Jesus, Yeshua, was the Jewish Messiah, she was told, "Now you're one of them. They killed us, now you've become one of them." Family loyalties. The devil will use something God intends for good for evil if he can.

Nepotism is the first thing that can predispose a good Christian to compromise with things that he knows are wrong. But let's continue reading this sorry episode about Jehoshaphat. His name in Hebrew is Yahowshaphat (yeh-ho-shaw-fawt) – “Jehovah shall be judge” or “shall judge”.

Jehoshaphat & Ahab

And in 2 Chronicles 18:2-7 …

Some years later he went down to visit Ahab at Samaria. And Ahab slaughtered many sheep and oxen for him and the people who were with him, and induced him to go up against Ramoth-gilead. Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “Will you go with me against Ramoth-gilead?” And he said to him, “I am as you are, and my people as your people, and we will be with you in the battle.”

Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the Lord.” Then the king of Israel assembled the prophets, four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall we go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I refrain?” And they said, “Go up, for God will give it into the hand of the king.” But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not yet a prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of him?” The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me but always evil. He is Micaiah, son of Imla.” But Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.”

I hate him, he never prophesies good. False prophets will always tell people what they want to hear. True prophets will only tell people what they need to hear.

2 Chronicles 18:8-19:3 …

Then the king of Israel called an officer and said, “Bring quickly Micaiah, Imla’s son.” Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah were sitting each on his throne, arrayed in their robes, and they were sitting at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets were prophesying before them. Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made horns of iron for himself and said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘With these you shall gore the Arameans until they are consumed.’” All the prophets were prophesying thus, saying, “Go up to Ramoth-gilead and succeed, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.”

Then the messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying, “Behold, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king. So please let your word be like one of them and speak favorably.” But Micaiah said, “As the Lord lives, what my God says, that I will speak.”

When he came to the king, the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I refrain?” He said, “Go up and succeed, for they will be given into your hand.” Then the king said to him, “How many times must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?” So he said,
“I saw all Israel Scattered on the mountains, Like sheep which have no shepherd; And the Lord said, ‘These have no master. Let each of them return to his house in peace.’”
Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?”

Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right and on His left. The Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab king of Israel to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘How?’ He said, ‘I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You are to entice him and prevail also. Go and do so.’ Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of these your prophets, for the Lord has proclaimed disaster against you.”

Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, “How did the Spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you?” Micaiah said, “Behold, you will see on that day when you enter an inner room to hide yourself.” Then the king of Israel said, “Take Micaiah and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son; and say, ‘Thus says the king, “Put this man in prison and feed him sparingly with bread and water until I return safely.”’” Micaiah said, “If you indeed return safely, the Lord has not spoken by me.” And he said, “Listen, all you people.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up against Ramoth-gilead. The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will disguise myself and go into battle, but you put on your robes.”

So the king of Israel disguised himself, and they went into battle. Now the king of Aram had commanded the captains of his chariots, saying, “Do not fight with small or great, but with the king of Israel alone.” So when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “It is the king of Israel,” and they turned aside to fight against him. But Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him, and God diverted them from him. When the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him. A certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel in a joint of the armor. So he said to the driver of the chariot, “Turn around and take me out of the fight, for I am severely wounded.” The battle raged that day, and the king of Israel propped himself up in his chariot in front of the Arameans until the evening; and at sunset he died.

Then Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned in safety to his house in Jerusalem. Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord and so bring wrath on yourself from the Lord? But there is some good in you, for you have removed the Asheroth from the land and you have set your heart to seek God.”

When Good Leaders Become Involved with Bad Ones

King Jehoshaphat was a good man, a righteous man. Every king of Israel was a backslider. Most of the kings of Judah were backslidden, but Jehoshaphat was a good king, in fact a very good king. What happens when good leaders become involved with bad ones? I do not believe in guilt by association. The Bible says nothing about guilt by association. But guilt by cooperation? Guilt by participation? Guilt by identification? When a good man will get on a platform or on a television program with somebody who is heretical, with someone who is apostate or immoral, you are implicitly endorsing that person's ministry and allowing yourself to be identified with him.

I was watching some TBN just yesterday. I couldn't believe how horrific some of it was. When an unsaved person watches that, they think that being born again is a con job. They've made "born again" a household joke all over the world, at least for people all over the developed world. It's getting more and more difficult to share Jesus, to preach the Gospel, to give the message of salvation to the lost because of what Satan has done with “Christian” TV, so-called. We'd be better off with no Christian TV than 99% of what we have today and I'm convinced of that fact. Anything that powerful Satan had to corrupt, and he's done it. Unsaved people see the idiot box and they think we're all idiots. They think we're all con artists. If good men go on there they become identified with the bad men. When Jehoshaphat rode in the chariot of Ahab, he became confused with Ahab.

But let's look at the passage from the beginning. Again the Holy Spirit has given us more than one account. In the I Kings version at the end of chapter 21 Ahab repented. (1King 21:27-29). Bad kings are great for repenting, but every time they repent they come back twice as notorious as they had been. If Benny Hinn repents again I'm going to duck for cover. Every time that man repents he comes back worse. What does this mean? Why? He is married to Jezebel. Jezebel is a biblical metaphor for the spirit of false religion. What does the Lord Jesus say of Jezebel? Revelation 2:20 ...

‘But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

It is a Satanic seduction by false religion of which the woman Jezebel is typologically the personification. In other words, she represents spiritual seduction; that's what Jesus said. You become like the people you're married to.

I'm married to a Jewish neurotic. I think it's the family history of escaping Pogroms. My wife checks the gas jets three times before we go to sleep, and she checks every window in the house at least twice. We live in England. Here it is, late at night, she put the lights out and she'll say to me in Hebrew "Yacov, did you check the window in the kitchen?" "Yes, Pavia I checked the window in the kitchen, good night." Did I check that window in the kitchen? Now, she's making me nuts. I take a flashlight down three flights of stairs, the kids sleep on the second floor – we sleep on the top and the kitchen is on the ground floor – so there I go late at night.

You become like the people you're married to. Well, Ahab is married to Jezebel, the seductress who beguiled Israel into pagan demonic belief. What happens next? Jehoshaphat is a good king but there's a family connection: Nepotism.

I know two Jewish mission boards that were undermined, basically destroyed by nepotism -- two mission boards to the Jews became family enterprises. I've known churches where family loyalties destroyed the fellowship. If somebody disagreed it was like going against the family. Dangerous thing. Anything God intends for good the devil will use for evil and nepotism predisposes us to certain things.

The Enemy Within

But going back to 2 Chronicles 18 here is the line you'll always get – this is what Ahab will say. "We have a common enemy. My people are as your people, my God is as your God, we're brothers. We have to have unity; we have to be united to overcome the opposition. Can't you see, the abortion rate is going through the roof? Can't you see homosexuality is influencing the schools and the media? Can't you see Eastern religion and the cults are growing? We can't afford to be divided. We have to stand together to save God's land. We have to be united. We can't go on bickering against each other. Oh, I know we've had our differences but we can't afford that anymore. There's a common enemy. My people are as your people; my God is as your God. After all we're all born again Christians." Sounds very convincing, sounds very logical. To a degree it even sounds initially biblical.

As I pointed out yesterday, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and He is the Spirit of Holiness. There cannot be a unity of the Spirit where there is heresy and immorality. Oh, we have a common enemy! An external enemy is easy to deal with; an internal enemy is something else. When Jesus warned about false prophets of the Last Days He was not primarily warning about the Moonies or the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons. I have no doubt that the proliferation of the cults is in itself of some prophetic significance, but those are not the false prophets He was mainly warning us about. He's warning about those who would come into evangelical churches and try to seduce us. It is the internal enemies that are the most dangerous. Until we deal with the enemy in here we are not going to be in a position to deal with the one out there.

But you'll always get the same story "Don't be negative. Don't be too critical. We have to unite. We have to stand together in face of the common threat." And then as the family element comes in, look out.

Look how the king ingratiates himself. Ahab puts on a big party, a big splurge. He slaughters all these animals and he throws a big, big banquet. That's what he does. These people know how to ingratiate themselves. People with an agenda know how to con and manipulate. They learn it from their wife, Jezebel.

Look at how many people have met John Paul II. The Vatican a few months ago issued a statement saying it was the one true Church. In Mexico in 1999 John Paul II told the Catholics to "rise up against the Protestants", quote unquote. He makes no secret of his agenda. A man who says Mary co-redeemed us? A man who prays to the dead? Makes no secret of his agenda. Yet one evangelical after another will call him the "holy father" despite the fact that Jesus said, "call no man your father." And they say, "Oh, the pope was so wonderful, so gracious. He's such a kind man. How can you speak against him? I met him, he was so this, he was so that ..." They know how to ingratiate themselves. What does Paul say about Lucifer? He comes as an angel of light. And so will his servants. They know how to ingratiate themselves, just like Merodach-Baladan came to seduce Hezekiah. ( Isaiah 38:1-8 )He brought him some presents. "I heard you were ill." Oh, what a caring person. He was the king of Babylon, he had an agenda, but he was a manipulating con artist.

Well, king Jehoshaphat gets sucked in. There's a family connection but then there are other connections, "Yeah, we have a common enemy. We can't be negative. We shouldn't be critical. We don't want to be divisive." The word "divisive" in Romans 16:17 is dichostasia (dee-khos-tas-ee) where you get the English word “dichotomy”. It says divisive people are the ones who leave the teaching of the New Testament, who depart from the doctrine of the Apostles.

I'm not divisive by warning about Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland. If the Benny Hinns and Kenneth Copelands have gone away from the teachings of the New Testament, they are the divisive ones by biblical definition. I haven't departed from New Testament doctrine. If I did, please show me where, I want to repent of it. But these days it's the one who upholds New Testament doctrine who becomes divisive. They make an idol out of this unity but it's not the unity of the Spirit. Paul tells us in 1 Cor 11:19 there must be factions among you to prove which is true. That word for factions in Greek is hairesis (hah'-ee-res-is) where we get the word “heresy”. Heresy is meant to bring division. And so much of what's being propagated in the Church today is purely heretical.

But let's go further. Jehoshaphat gets sucked in but he has his doubts. He's a good king and he is, to some degree, hearing from the Lord. Notice what they do at the banquet. One false prophet after another, 400 of them, come and put on a show and give positive words. False prophets will always tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. They'll always tickle your ears and be well paid for the privilege. They are con men. A true prophet was outnumbered 400 to 1.

Well, I'll tell you what, for everybody telling the truth today in the prophetic there are "400 false prophets" in the body of Christ. What Jesus said would happen in the Last Days is happening. Very few are telling the truth, many are compromising with what they know is false, but very, very, very many are giving you a lot of hype and false doctrine.

Only one man stood up, Micaiah, but at the end of the day it was only his prophesy that mattered. You see in the days of Jeremiah and Baruch there were thousands of false prophets – thousands – but nobody has ever heard of them. At the end of the day everybody heard of Jeremiah. It is only Jeremiah who really speaks God's word and who is going to matter. That's the bottom line, the one prophet who tells the truth. So Jehoshaphat says, "Let me hear him."

Now you have to understand the Hebrew language. There's a connection between the name “Micaiah” – "he who is like unto Yahweh", and “Jehoshaphat” – "Jehovah/Yahweh" In Hebrew there's a root that shows etymological similitude. If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it. It's one of those things they teach you in theological cemetery, I mean seminary. There's a kindred spirit of some sort here. Micaiah comes. Now notice what Micaiah says when they ask him. At first Micaiah says "Yeah, go ahead, God will give them into your hand." He says the same things the false prophets say. God's judgment comes in three phases on a backslidden people.

God First Stops Correcting

The first phase is "Yeah, go ahead." He stops correcting. It is the son whom He loves that he corrects. ( Heb 12:6 ) Why is it that faithful Christians have the most of what we call in Yiddish "suris" problems, trials, and difficulties? It's because God has given the carnal Christian over to their own fleshly desires. He's only trying to correct the faithful ones. That's why faithful Christians have more problems than unfaithful ones. It's only the son He loves whom He corrects. The others are backslidden, if they were ever saved to begin with. God stops correcting! Watch out when God stops correcting, when He gives them over. In Romans He gives people over to unnatural depravity, ( Rom 1:24-25 ) then that happens to those who claim to be His people. It's like the prophet Amos' son Loammi--"they're not my people anymore". ( Hosea 1:9 )God gives them over. "Go ahead, do it" says Micaiah.

Now King Ahab knows this is not what God is saying. You see these wicked men, wicked leaders, know they're crooked. It says in Timothy that they are both deceiving and being deceived. For they are deceived themselves but they also know their deceivers. (2 Titus 3:13 ) "Go ahead, do it". Ahab knows it and says "That can't be right". Ahab knew it. So tell me, says Ahab, and Micaiah says, "I'll tell you: I saw Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep which have no shepherd."

Next God Removes Leadership

Now you have to understand the role of the kings of Israel as a shepherd. King David is the Old Testament shadow of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Jesus is the Good Shepherd in John 10. In Psalm 23 Yehovah ra'ah – “The Lord is my shepherd”. David is the Old Testament type or shadow of Jesus as King. How good a pastor (the word for “pastor” and “shepherd” is the same word in Hebrew and Greek), how good a pastor/shepherd somebody is in the Church is how much like Jesus they are. Peter tells us that in his epistle. 1 Peter 5;1-4) How good a shepherd a pastor is depends on how much like Jesus he is. The Old Testament shadow of this is seen in how good a king was, and that was measured by how much like King David he was. That's why you see kings in the book of Proverbs or kings in Chronicles compared to David. "He went after Me like his father David" or "You have not sought Me as your father David did". David becomes the barometer of faithfulness because he's the shadow of Christ as Shepherd. Here Micaiah says "These people, they don't have any shepherd." He's telling the king, as far as God's concerned, you're not a real leader.

That is the second stage of God's judgment on a backslidden people. He removes leadership and replaces them with pulpit politicians. He removes leaders, He replaces them with hirelings. He removes leaders, He lets them have theocrats -- not shepherds. First phase of God's judgment, He stops correcting -- treats people just like the world, gives them over. Second stage of his judgment, he removes real leadership. People wind up with the leaders they deserve. That's true of nations in the book of Daniel. He establishes kings and removes kings (Dn 2;21). It's true in the political realm and it's true in the Church. He removes leadership.

Finally God Sends Deception

But then comes the third phase of God's judgment and that's the frightening one. He sends a deception. Remember in Kings and Chronicles and in Samuel, one time David numbered the people – the Lord motivated him to do it – and another time it was the devil. Was it the Lord or was it the devil that motivated David to number the people? Well, it was actually God using the devil.

Turn with me please to 2 Thessalonians 2 where it speaks of the antichrist, the man of perdition. It's speaking of the Last Days. It's speaking in verse 3 of the apostasia, in Greek, the “falling away” that will come with the manifestation of the antichrist. But look what it says in verse 11…

For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

The Truth is the Word of God. Jesus is the Truth; He's the Word, the Logos. If somebody doesn't love the Truth of Scripture, they don't love Jesus Christ. They can say all they want, have all the hallelujahs they want -- if they don't love the Truth of the Word of God they don't love the Word of God Who is Jesus, the Incarnate Logos. If you don't love the Bible you don't love Jesus Christ as far as God's concerned, that's it. "If you love Me keep My commandments." 9John 14:15) You don't love Him if you don't love His Word. And if people don't love the Truth, they don't love Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. ( John 14:6 ) And if they don't love Him it tells us why. It's because, in some way, they are taking pleasure in wickedness. When you find so called Christians who don't love the truth it's because they are taking pleasure in wickedness. Therefore the Lord will send upon them a deluding influence that they may believe what is false.

How will the antichrist con people? He's the ultimate judgment. God gives them over to his influence. If people can't see through an obvious false prophet and false teacher like Benny Hinn – if you can't see through Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland – what is going to happen when this stuff comes down? Therefore the Lord will send a deluding influence. In the book of Zechariah typologically the antichrist is called the "agent of God." It's a frightening prospect. It is a judgment.

Several years ago, in England where I live, I was frantically trying to stop the explosion of the things like the laughing and drunken revival from Toronto and Pensacola. I was trying to stop it but the Lord said "No, don't. You're not going to stop this." You can only warn the elect. You can rescue those who are honestly deceived but you can't stop it. Why? What you see today with the money preachers – the faith prosperity heretics, what you see with Toronto; what you see with the ecumenical movement – these things are not simply deceptions; they are judgments from God on a backslidden Church. It is God's judgment on Laodicea. ( Rev 3:14-22 ) The Lord will send a delusion that they may believe what is false. Remember that Laodicea is blind and it's first problem is that it doesn't know it's Laodicea. The Lord will send a delusion. Judgment begins in the house of God. It will not begin on Freemasons it will not begin on false religions; it will not begin on corrupt businessmen on Wall Street or corrupt politicians – it begins in the house of God. Judgment will come on the Church before it comes on this nation, and it's coming on this nation. For abortion alone it must come, but it will come on the Church first.

The Working of God's Judgment

Phase 1, God stops correcting. If you can't see through this, all the scandals with PTL and the rest of it--if you can't see through it God will give you over to it. He'll stop correcting.
Phase 2, He'll remove real leadership. And he's already done that in Great Britain. America is going the same way.
Phase 3, then He'll send a delusion.

Notice what God tells these lying spirits "Go and prevail." Go and succeed. Now when God sends a delusion look out. However He does nothing without revealing it to His servants, the prophets. ( Amos 3:7 ) Micaiah knew it. Those who really love Jesus and read His Word will understand by the Spirit of God what is going on. When the Lord sends this kind of a judgment, those who are truly His will know it. Three stages of judgment and, my friends, my great fear – and in fact it's no longer a fear it is past that – we've come into that third phase. God is certainly, certainly not correcting these people anymore. He's given them over, treating them like the unsaved, and many of them are unsaved. He's removing leadership, and thirdly He's going to give them over.

Riding in Ahab's Chariot

So there they go to battle now. Look at Jehoshaphat, a righteous king who should have known better. He was suspicious to begin with, he had a true word from a true prophet, and yet there he goes riding in Ahab's chariot. Why did Ahab want him in the chariot? Why does TBN want to get people like Chuck Missler, Josh McDowell Greg Laurie on it? Why do they want to get good men, godly men on it? There are three reasons.

First, they're trying to give themselves a credibility they can't get otherwise. People then think, "Well, if so-and-so is on there and he's a man of God it must be all right." They're trying to get an endorsement. They're trying to give themselves a credibility that they couldn't get on their own. "I know I'm no good but if I align myself with somebody who is good God will bless me." That's how they think. "If he's in on it then God will have to bless us ‘cause he's a good guy."

Secondly, they're looking for a fall guy. They're looking for somebody to be left holding the bag when the ship sinks. "It’s his fault." Ahab always has an agenda. But there goes Jehoshaphat! Even though the Lord warned him, he gets in that chariot. And what happens when he gets in that chariot?

Three, he becomes confused with Ahab. They think its Ahab. When you ride in Ahab's chariot you become confused with Ahab, people confuse you with him. When people see good preachers on platforms at conferences and on television with heretics, you become confused with them.

I know very, very well that Chuck Missler, Greg Laurie, and Ray Comfort are men of God. I know that Josh McDowell s a man of God. I know what they believe. They believe largely what I believe. These are not bad men; these are good men like Jehoshaphat. But when they get on a platform or on the TV screen with bad men, people put them in the same category and my fear is they make themselves a target. Some people will tar them all with the same brush. Yet men like , , and will have no part in heresy and hype-artistry. It is a disgrace how apostate money preachers misuse the names of godly men to give themselves credibility, even though the honest preachers do not share the mammon worship which the Prosperity disguise with Christian jargon. "Oh, he's one of them." And a young believer will see this. It gives heretics credibility, even though the good men know personally it's wrong.

Now Jehoshaphat has made himself a target. He's allowed himself to be confused with Ahab and now he's a target and the arrows are flying. Ahab wants somebody to hold the bag, and I'm telling you that TBN and Hinnand that crowd – they are going to go the same way as the PTL club. And I tremble for the good brethren who have allowed themselves to be identified with that wickedness, but they're going to be caught in the crossfire when it happens.

But let's go further. Jehoshaphat calls out to the Lord. God intervenes. The Lord steps in and saves his neck. God will stand by right men. Right men can make bad mistakes. Godly men can make serious errors. Some of the greatest men in the Bible did some of the most foolish things. In my own life as a Christian I have done things that have been so, not just wrong, but stupid, I don't know how I could have done it. I take no pleasure in admitting this, nonetheless it is true. But God is gracious. God saved Jehoshaphat's neck the first time.

The Chink in the Armor

Let's see what happens next. So they go after Ahab. Ahab is trying to be slick, trying to find the fall guy, but he didn't take account of something. There was a chink in his armor. In Ephesians 6:13 we see what that armor is. The chink here is where the breastplate met the shoulder. The breastplate of "righteousness". Sin finds people out – finds the chink in the armor.

I once saw a Roman legionnaire's armor on display in Rome. It's very big and the biggest is the breastplate. The breastplate of righteousness. When Paul spoke about the armor he used something that Jews would have understood because the armor is also in Isaiah, but it’s also something the Greeks and Romans would have understood well. The armor was there, the breastplate of righteousness. Ephesians 6:13 tells us we are to put it on so that you may stand firm. Ahab put on his armor but there was a chink in it and that arrow found it. He came into judgment and was destroyed. They didn't get the victory over the Arameans. They didn't get it. Look at what he says in 1 Kings 22:3 …
Now the king of Israel said to his servants, “Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we are still doing nothing to take it out of the hand of the king of Aram?”

"We've got to get the victory over these unbelievers, over these pagans, over the homosexual lobby, over the pro abortion lobby, over the Moslems, over the Freemasons, over the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses. We've got to get the victory. We have to claim the land back for Christ. We've got to stand together." That's what they say. They will never get the victory over the enemy. Never! A false brother is not your ally. He is your liability. He'll never win. God won't use people like that. There's a chink in their armor.

So what happens next? They lose the battle but a gracious and merciful God intervenes on Jehoshaphat's behalf. Then in 2 Chronicles 19:2 …

Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord and so bring wrath on yourself from the Lord?

Should you help the wicked? They hate the Lord. These money preachers hate the real Jesus Christ. They worship mammon. They may call their god "Jesus", but their god is mammon. They call the sin of covetousness "faith". They have a different god, a different "Jesus". They hate the real Jesus. They don't want a Jesus who says, "Pick up your cross and follow me" they want a "Jesus" who is going to give you another Mercedes. And they admit it. They're false brethren. And when you ride in his chariot – you ride in his Mercedes, you get on his TV show – you're going to get confused with him and make yourself a target, and nothing other than the intervention of the merciful God will save your neck. Why do you get involved with those who hate the Lord? Why are you on that idiot TV show? Why are you on that platform with these heretics? Can't you see you'll be confused with them? Can't you see that you're going to give the impression, to the unbelievers that you agree with them?

The Danger of Not Listening

I only wish that Jehoshaphat, a good king, had listened. But we find out 2 Chronicles 20 that he didn't. Verse 35…

After this Jehoshaphat king of Judah allied himself with Ahaziah king of Israel.

He does it again…

He acted wickedly in so doing. So he allied himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish, and they made the ships in Ezion-geber. Then Eliezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat saying, “Because you have allied yourself with Ahaziah, the Lord has destroyed your works.” So the ships were broken and could not go to Tarshish.

The second time, God's judgment comes. The first time God rescues him and rebukes him. The second time, "Are you going to do it again?" And they do it again. They lose all they've built.

You see men of God, who built what God has blessed and used, put those things at risk for the folly of riding in Ahab's chariot, for going on idiot TV. Why? is a man of God. is a man of God. a man of God. is a man of God. There are enough churches, enough people, and enough money in to make their own Christian TV channels. They don't need to get involved with those people, and I say that in love. But it's not just them. How can good men get involved with the Ecumenical Movement? How can you get involved with these people?

This is Hawaii – you see more of it on the mainland, but on the mainland in most Calvary Chapels nearly three out of four people are ex-Roman Catholics. How many people here are ex-Roman Catholics? Put your hands up. See these people? The Roman Catholic Church says, "You are going to hell because you left the one true church; because you no longer believe that salivation is by sacraments; because you no longer believe that you have to atone for your own sin in purgatory." Yet major evangelical leaders – , , , one after another – are lining up with the very "church" who’s cursing them, that is sending their families to hell? I've got a Catholic mother who trusts in a statue of Mary for her salvation instead of Jesus Christ. How can good men get involved with that? But then again, once God corrects them, how can they be involved? But they're doing it.

The Overall Working of Judgment

Nepotism, family loyalty, friendship – "I've known him 20 years. My brother's married to his sister" – all this predisposes you to it. Then they give you the line, "We have to be united. We have to stand together. We have a common enemy. There's a common threat. We're all brothers. We're all born again, one Faith one Baptism. Let's stand together. We can't be negative, we can't be critical, and we have to accept each other." Why do you love those who hate the Lord? God warned Jehoshaphat. See, he knew those 400 false prophets were false. All these guys – the Kansas City Prophets and all these hype-artists – Rick Joyner, one after another – are proven false prophets by biblical definition. They are proven false prophets. They're as false as the false prophets of any other cult. Jehoshaphat knew it. They give a big banquet, a big show, a big celebration praise, a big Pensacola Pepsi Cola Seven-Up, whatever it is this week. One after another, prophesying victory, but there is no victory. Now God's judgment comes. He stops correcting, He removes real leadership, and He gives them over to it.

And they get angry with Micaiah they smack him. They say, "You're the false prophet." Bang. "Lock him up till I get back." And Micaiah says, "No you're not coming back, otherwise I'm a false prophet."

Notice only a true prophet will prophesy something in the name of the Lord and say "hold me to it." A Rick Joyner or a Gerald Coates will never do that. A Kim Clement will never do that. They hate the true prophet even though he's right.

Then Jehoshaphat goes right out and steps into Ahab's chariot. He becomes confused with Ahab and they begin shooting him. God is merciful, but then God rebukes. God corrects but he still doesn't listen, he does it again. Then his ships are broken up and he never makes it to Tarshish.

Conclusion

What a tragedy when God has blessed and raised people up and given them something to do, then all they've built crumbles. They never reach the goal. They never make their appointed destiny. They never get to where God meant for them to go and do what He has for them to do. They lose it. When you ride in Ahab's chariot, you become identified with Ahab. You're in bed with him; he's in bed with Jezebel. You're in bed with the pope, the pope's in bed with the Dali Lama. That's what it comes to.

That's the way it was, that's the way it is, that's the way it's going to be.

The prayer of my heart is that the Jehoshaphats of our day, the godly men, men I know are good men, will get out of that chariot before they get shot. Get off that idiot TV box, get off that platform, don't give Ahab a place in your church, don't distribute that literature, don't sell those books in your bookshop, do not love those who hate the Lord your God.

Jehoshaphat was a good man, a good man who made bad errors. And right before our eyes there are good men today making that same bad errors. May God in His mercy correct them and protect us. God bless you and thank you.

The Reign of King Asa

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:29:35 GMT

The Reign of King Asa

Turn with me please to 2 Chronicles chapter 13, the end of 2 Chronicles 13. We are looking at the subject tonight, “God’s warning to good men” in the reign of King Asa.

The reign of King Asa, God’s warning to good men. God’s warning to good women. God’s warning to all of us, but especially God’s warning to good leaders and to good pastors. Remember the kings of Israel were called shepherds by the prophets. God told the prophets of Israel to call their kings shepherds and the Hebrew word for shepherd and the Hebrew word for pastor is the same word. Roeh, roeh, and theres much to be learnt in pastoral ministry in studying the kings of Israel. There’s good shepherds and bad shepherds, there’s good pastors and bad pastors and the typology of the kings of Israel teach us about good and bad pastors but it applies to all of us. God’s warning to good men as we see in the reign of King Asa.

What we see here in verse 20 of chapter 13, “and Jereboam a bad king of the north did not again recover strength in his days of Abijah, now Aviyah, Abijah means my Father is Yahweh, and the Lord struck him and he died but Aviyah, Abijah became powerful and took 14 wives to himself and became the father of 22 sons and 16 daughters. Now the rest of the acts of Abijah and his ways and his words are written in the treaties of the prophet Ego. Now that word treaties, we translate treaties, what does yours say, mine says treaties, what does the King James say? Stories! The Hebrew word is Midrash, enquiring into. Some people try to say “well midrash is not in the Bible” its because they dont read Hebrew. Midrash certainly is in the Bible and that’s exactly what the word is. The Midrash!

Asa in chapter 14 succeeds Abijah in Judah. Asa was a good king, his father was not a bad king and his son was a pretty good king but Asa begins as a good king. So Aviyah, Abijah, slept with his fathers. Now the idea of being gathered to the fathers is what we call in Hebrew “the Avot” Avot is the plural of Ava, father. We have to understand this.

We have the Hebrew world Sheol, meaning the netherworld, the place where the spirits of the souls and the dead went. Sheol, Sheol! Sheol had two halves, two sections. One section was Geheno, Gehena. Now Gehenna was the area, was named after the area outside of the refuse gate of Jerusalem where they burned the rubbish. It was the tip that burned day and night but it was the place of abomination where Molech worship was practiced. It was where the Kidron Valley and the Tyropean Valley came together and they sacrificed human babies to demons, Molech worship and it was a symbol of hell. Jesus said to the Pharisees “How will you escape the judgement of Gehenna?” So Sheol had two halves. One half was the place of Gehenna for those who were wicked and then there was the big chasm between the two that you couldn’t cross and then the other side was the place of the Avot, normally referred to as the “bosom of Abraham”. In Luke 16, you see Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus was in the bosom of Abraham, he’s in the place of the Avot, he’s gathered to the fathers, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the other was in the place of the damned, Genhenna with the chasm in between. Now notice hell is eternal, it’s conscious. Lazarus was able to answer the man being tormented and the rich man was able to see the blessings of Lazarus and the Avot. Of course, we have people today, like Roger Forster teaching that there is no such place as hell, that hell is just a place of annihilation. If you don’t repent of your sins, when you die you won’t exist anymore. That’s what the “March for Jesus” people teach, it’s what Roger Forster teaches. If you don’t repent when you die you won’t exist anymore. This is of course what unsaved people believe anyway. What’s the point of giving them the gospel if they’re going to be annihilated. But that’s not what the Bible teaches.

Lazarus was conscious and the rich man was conscious and they saw what each other were doing.

Now the problem we have is when the New Testament translates this concept, it translates this place Sheol into Hades. Hades, it took the Greek equivalent and just called Sheol - Hades. So far that’s not too bad except that when the King James Bible was translated it mistranslated Hades - Hell. So when it says when Jesus went to hell, they think he went down to hell. This is where Copeland and Hagan get their crazy doctrine. He didn’t go to hell, he went to the Avot. He went to Sheol, to Hades, he went to the Old Testament saints who died faithful under the law. Those who were in the bosom of Abraham, waiting for the Messiah to come. Once the Messiah came and died for sin, then they could enter eternal Heaven. But of course all the money preachers, the Copeland, Hagin people and all these crazy people, they twist this idea of the Avot.

“He was gathered to his fathers and they buried him and his son Asa became king in his place. The land was undisturbed for ten years during his days and Asa did good and right in the sight of the Lord his God for he removed the foreign altars and high places tore down. The sacred pillars he cut down, the Asherin and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers and to observe the law and the commandment, and he also removed the high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah and the kingdom was undisturbed under him and he built fortified cities in Judah since the land was undisturbed and there was no-one at war with him during those years because the Lord had given him rest for he said to Judah, Let us build these cities and surround them walls and towers, gates and bars, the land is still ours because we have sought the Lord, we have sought him and he has given us rest on every side. So they built and prospered.

Now notice he directly relates the rest that he had and the prosperity he was getting to the fact that the people were faithful to God. “Now Asa had an army of three hundred thousand from Judah bearing large shields and spears and two hundred and eighty thousand from Benjamin.

(Judah and Benjamin were the two southern tribes together with some of the Levites, the other ten tribes were the northern ones) And they were bearing shields and wielding bows, all of them were valiant warriors.
All of them were valiant warriors! Pay attention! The people in the north were imitating the way of the pagan gentiles, they were taking on the religious beliefs of the pagans. The people in the south stayed faithful. The people in the south did not have the same wealth or numbers as the people in the north. They had ten tribes, the south only had two plus the Levites. They didn’t have the wealth but the Lord was with them, that’s where the temple was and they had the throne of David. David is the Old Testament shadow of Christ, as good shepherd and as king. So they had the Lord. They had the inheritance, the heritage of David. They didn’t have the money or the numbers. Now the north also had a big army, much bigger than theirs but they were not all valiant warriors. Only people who are really faithful to God will be valiant in spiritual warfare. OK. To God quality is always more important than quantity. 15 SAS are better than 15,000 girl scouts.

To God quality is always more important than quantity. They may have the numbers, they may have the money. They may have most of the real estate but they are not going to be valiant in war. Let’s look at them. Do you see them leading Muslims to Christ? No, of course not, they are compromising with them. In fact they are imitating them.

Let’s understand what’s happening. Remember the oldest enemy of the gospel in these islands were the druids. The first opponents of the gospel on these islands were the druids. The ancient celtic religion, Stonehenge crowd. Now just the week before last, you had them all going to Stonehenge didnt you, for the solstice, the rebirth of paganism in Britain . Post-Christian neo-pagan Britain are returning to paganism.

You go to Belfast, I’ve got to go to Belfast in a few days, you see the murals on the walls in Belfast, both the Catholic ones and the Protestant ones, the ancient celtic war gods and mythical heroes. Cohowin and Arene. Arene was the old hag who demanded the blood of the youth so she could keep her beauty. These are the images used by the para-military and terrorist organisations when they are killing kids.

The same demonic powers. Some people call them territorial spirits, a better translation is principalities. The rebirth of paganism in Britain. So the oldest enemy of the gospel and in Ireland of course it was Patrick, St. Patrick who confronted the druids. Now the oldest enemy of the gospel in these islands are the druids, but the leader of the Church of England is one. And, he’s a druid who ordains homosexuals and who appoints homosexual bishops. You understand, this is just like Israel .

When you read the Torah, what it emphasizes and they had to keep all the law, they kept the Torah, they kept the commandments. Among those commandments, if you look at Leviticus, there was a lot of the commandments dedicated to avoiding unnatural sexual practice including bestiality, including incest and certainly including homosexual and lesbian relationships, that they’re unnatural and perverted. Now we’re making laws in this country where if you say that, you’re guilty of a hate crime. What an insult to minorities. They’re saying that’s the same as making an ethnically derogatory remark. They’re saying that’s the same as calling a Jew a kyte, a black a nigger or an Asian a Paki. You’re telling me that Jews, that blacks and Asians are the same as homosexuals? Nobody ever went to hell because of the color of their skin, or because of their race. Nobody ever went to hell for being an Asian, or a black or a Jew. There’s nothing wrong with being an Asian, being a black or a Jew. That’s not perverted or unnatural but that’s what they’re trying to tell us. And they’re going to make a law that if we say this, they can arrest us. That if a church teaches this, you’ve just lost your registered charity status. Now you’re taxable. And they will get these laws and if they don’t get these laws, Europe will impose it.

That’s how its going to work. But even more sick, is that the established churches will support it. The Methodists will support it, the Presbyterians will support it, the United Reformed Church will support it, the Church of England will support it. Give it a few years, you’re going to see Pentacostals support it.

It’s the end times. Absolutely right!

So Israel became just like the pagan nations around it. I was speaking at a church at Somerset before I went to New Zealand. I had to take a long way around to get to this church in Somerset, (I had to go like this) to avoid all the new-agers going down to Stonehenge. I had to go 40, 50 miles out of my way to avoid the traffic jams, they were coming from all over the place. But now the leader of the church of the country is one. He’s appointing homosexual bishops. Sad, that’s exactly what happened here. They became pagan and immoral just like the nations that surrounded them. Yet, they tried to keep the name of being Jews. Just like today, they’re trying to keep the name of being Christian. But Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments.

Notice what the text says, they did not keep his statutes. Now God told them in Deuteronomy “keep my statutes that it may be well with you”. God does not tell us to keep his statutes for his sake. God is God. He doesn’t need anybody to do anything. He says keep my statutes for your sake. If people kept his statutes, there would be no crime, there would be no social injustice, there would be no HIV infection. If people kept his statutes, it would be well with us. People wouldn’t be dying of aids, if we kept his statutes. But they become like the pagan nations and this is global. You know I go to Africa a lot. Unlike in England , most of the black African Anglicans are born again. In Uganda, in Kenya , most of them are really saved. It’s only Desmond Tutu’s crowd in South Africa , that aren’t and he wants to ordain lesbian priestesses and he hangs out with the witch doctors. Almost every black african anglican is born again, except for his crowd. He’s like here, he’s like the ones you have here. Terrible, terrible, terrible. What do you have, Israel and Judah. To a Kenyan, homosexuality is perverted. Its amazing, when you see people removed from the decadence of the affluent western world, when you see people in the third world who live in a simple culture how come they don’t have any endemic homosexuality? You don’t find it among rural black africans or asians, they don’t have it.

The only place that I’ve ever seen homosexuality in the third world is in asia, where they were turning little kids into homosexual prostitutes to cater for westerners in Thailand, that I saw. The Buddhists were selling little boys and little girls.... It was the only time I ever saw homosexuality in Asia. I’ve never seen it in Africa. Never. It’s only when they get influenced by the corrupt western world. In their own culture, to an African, its perverted. Giraffes wouldn’t do that, what human beings are going to do it! It’s sick to them. They wouldn’t even think of it. They wouldn’t even think of it. Israel and Judah!

That Tutu’s crowd, oh they’re influenced by the west, international, same here, there’s Israel and you have Judah. Let’s look!

He begins getting rid of all this stuff and God blesses him. Verse 9 “Now Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of one million men and three hundred chariots and he came to Mareshah."

Now he’s outnumbered Asa a little less than 2:1.

“So Asa went out to meet him and they drew up in battle formation in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah. Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said Lord there’s no one besides thee to help in the battle”

Notice, “no-one other than you God” These guys they had more chariots, a bigger army, they’re tougher than we are. “Nobody but you” to help in the battle between the powerful and those that have no strength, so.... “help us O Lord our God for we trust in thee and in thy name have come against this multitude O Lord, thou art our God, let not man prevail against thee”

Notice “let not man prevail against us?” - no - “let not man prevail against you.” When you see these people pushing immoral agendas like homosexuality or paganism and faithful Christians and faithful churches are trying to stand against it - they’re not coming against us. they’re coming against the Lord Himself. They make themselves the enemy of God.

Principles of Persecution

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:28:15 GMT

Principles of Persecution

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who over-comes shall not be hurt by the second death" (Revelation 2:8-11).

Fruits of persecution

Let's look briefly at some of the fruits of persecution.

And Saul was in hearty agreement of putting him to death.

And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

And some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him.

But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house; and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word (Acts 8:1-4).

The apostles could not see the greater vision of God and they were still tied to the temple. They could not see God's purpose to take the gospel to the Gentiles.

That is one aspect. But notice that some left and others did not.

We could argue that they forgot the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:23: But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes.

But what is really important here is that persecution caused an introspective church to become missions-minded.

Forgetting evangelism

The church began when large crowds of people were present in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost.

An attitude of: "Let the unsaved come to us and hear the gospel" developed amongst believers. They forgot mission. They forgot global evangelism.

By the time of Acts 10, Peter needed further revelation. He had forgotten the Great Commission: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.

The church, including the apostles, began misunderstanding and forgetting the teachings of Jesus.

Even Peter needed further clarification about what Jesus meant.

They forgot mission-mindedness. The church had become inward-looking. "The apostles are our pastors. God is blessing us. The church is growing. The Jews come here anyway for the festivals, the pilgrim feasts, so they will hear the gospel when they come here. Why should we go to them? God will send them to us."

They did not understand God's purpose for the Jews to be lights to the Gentiles. I recall when I immigrated to Israel in the late 1970s. I had been trained to do Jewish evangelism by Jews for Jesus in New York.

I was saying to the believers in Israel,"Listen, we can go out and begin witnessing." And they said, "No that's America. You don't do that here. You're going to have problems."

I realised that we were going to have problems, and I understood that this was not America, but if we got Israelis to do evangelism in an Israeli way, it could succeed. But the local believers were simply not witnessing.

And I remember when the Likud came to power with the religious parties and the Baptist house got burned, things began to change.

After that they torched our meeting places at Tiberius and Beersheba. Then local Christians began standing up and saying, "Hey! They're going to burn us anyway. What are we afraid of? We may as well be hung for a pound, as for a penny."

God uses persecution to get the church going. Once a church stops being mission-minded, it will eventually stop being evangelistic. And once it stops being evangelistic, it will eventually stop being evangelical in its doctrine.

Persecution is God's panacea, His way of dealing with the problem. Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Persecution gets things going. If they are going to persecute us anyway, we may as well do what we should have been doing all along.

False doctrine leads to decline and persecution

And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The One who has the sharp two-edged sword [That is, the Word of God]says this: "I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.

But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality (Revelation 2:12-14).

But to the church at Pergamum, He had to say: "Thus you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans" (Revelation 2:15). The word Nicolaitian comes from a combination of nico = "suppression" and laity = "of the people."

They set up a clergy class. They put back an Old Testament motif, Judaizing the church. Instead of 'the priesthood of all believers,' they went back to a kind of Le-vitica priesthood. The extremes of this are the Roman Catholic doctrines of holy orders, the Mormon priesthood, etc.

But Nicolaitanism is simply the suppression of the people, 'heavy shepherding' in the sense of Ezekiel 34.

The very fact that leaders become heavy shepherds - as opposed to being good shepherds, imitating Jesus, leading by ex-ample the way Jesus did, and as Peter said they should, instead lording it over the people - proves that they have already gone wrong in their hearts.

Such leaders always end up going into wrong doctrine and leading the whole church with them.

What happened over and over in Old Testament Israel, in Kings, Chronicles? All that was needed was a despotic king. God warned them when they said, "Give us a king" (1 Samuel 8:9-18), that they were making a mistake.

The church has a tendency to degenerate to the point where they accept heavy-handed leaders who do not lead by example, but by Nicolaitanism. Persecution comes in order to clean the bad stuff out. Once persecution ends and we begin to feel comfortable in this world, the bad stuff comes back in. The church becomes identified with the world again, and the world's values and methods begin getting into the church. And we have to go through the whole cleansing process again.

When did Christianity really go off the rails?

When Constantine made it the religion of the state and it was no longer persecuted. The damage that men like Constantine and Augustine have done is with us to this day, haunting us.

First principle

The first principle of persecution is this: When persecution is coming - before the persecution comes - Jesus warns the faithful church, and He warns the unfaithful church.

How do you determine between the faithful and the unfaithful? The ones who have 'ears to hear' are the faithful. The ones, who do not have 'ears to hear,' they hear, but not spiritually.

If there is one characteristic of persecution, it will always separate the faithful from the unfaithful.

Persecution will always create a clear distinction between those who really love Jesus, those who are not hoping in this world, and those who are trying to live with their feet in two kingdoms.

"He who has an ear, let him hear."

The first thing we see about persecution is that the Lord Jesus always warns the faithful church, and He also warns the unfaithful church, but only the faithful church will listen.

"O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among the ruins.

"You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the day of the Lord.

"They see falsehood and lying divination who are saying, 'The Lord declares,' when the Lord has not sent them; yet they hope for the fulfillment of their word.

"Did you not see a false vision and speak a lying divination when you said, 'The Lord declares,' but it is not I who have spoken?" (Ezekiel 13:4-7).

Peace, peace

They have misled My people by saying, "Peace!" when there is no peace(Ezekiel 13:10).

This is reiterated three times in Jeremiah and again in the New Testament. The false prophets tell people that there is "peace, peace," when there is no peace and they make predictions that do not happen.

We think of peace as the Greek idea, "an absence of conflict." The Hebrew term for peace has little to do with that. It comes from the Hebrew infinitive,l'shalem, "to pay, to fill, or to fulfil." Peace in Hebrew has to do with being filled, fulfilled, wholeness. L'shalem leads to shalom.

We have peace with God because the Messiah came to l'shalem, to pay the price for our sin. We have wholeness, we have completion, we have shalombecause the Messiah came. He is our peace.

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you (John 14:27).

To the world, 'peace' is an absence of conflict. In his dictionary Samuel Johnson said sarcastically, but accurately, that peace is a period of preparation and deception between two wars.

Biblical peace has nothing whatsoever to do with the world's peace.

Jesus did not promise us the world's peace. His peace is not an absence of conflict; it may include that, but not necessarily. You can be in the worst conflict of your life, and have shalom. Or you can be in a serene position with a total absence of conflict, but not have shalom.

"Not as the world gives."

These people saying, "peace, peace," were not simply saying, "no conflict, no trouble, no invasion, no persecution." They were saying that everything is wonderful; everything is going smoothly; could not be better. Everybody is healthy, blessed, and prosperous.

And that is what they are saying today.

"Revival is just around the corner. Great blessing is coming." And, of course, they predict things that do not happen and whitewash over their failed prophecies.

Whitewashing over the failed prophecies

And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash; so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall.

So I will tear down the wall which you have plastered over with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation is laid bare; and when it falls, you will be consumed in its midst.

And you will know that I am the Lord (Ezekiel 13:10,14).

Instead of building the church up for the coming invasion, instead of preparing God's people for what is really coming, they are telling them that everything is going to be all right.

Invasion was coming; the Babylonian captivity was imminent. The people were misled by their leaders, who kept telling them, "The house of the Lord, God's people, are victorious; we are triumphant," and all that kind of stuff.

But the opposite was happening.

Jesus warns the church

God was trying to warn, but only those who had 'ears to hear' heard.

Nothing happens in the persecution of the church that did not happen in the persecution of Israel and the Jews. The one teaches about the other.

And they heal the brokeness of the daughter of My people superficially, saying, 'Peace, peace," but there is no peace (Jeremiah 8:11).

Prepare for persecution

The first characteristic of persecution - and how to prepare for it - is that Jesus warns the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful have ears to hear.

I have no doubt in my mind right now that, by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is telling the church to prepare for persecution.

He is telling the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful will hear.

The unfaithful will follow leaders who are saying, "We have shalom; everything is all right; God is moving; we have blessing," oblivious to the reality.

Rodney Howard-Browne tells people that everything is all right and they roll on the floor, laughing, while it is obvious that the country is going to the wall.

The false prophets are saying, "Shalom, shalom." But anyone in their right mind, picking up a newspaper, knows the truth is the opposite.

Second principle

Persecution is the devil at work, but God has a hand in it. Jesus said to the church at Smyrna, Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested (Revelation 2:10).

Smyrna comes from the Greek word for "myrrh," meaning "death" or "anointing for burial." They anointed Jesus' body for burial with myrrh (John 19:39-40). In the Song of Solomon, the bridegroom goes to the mountain of myrrh [Calvary], to die for His bride (Song of Solomon 4:6).

Persecution comes from Satan. But God not only brings life from death, but good from evil; He turns persecution to His own ends. As Tertullian said of the early church, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

Only people who really love Jesus are willing to die for their faith. Only people who do not love their life in this world are willing to surrender it. God uses this fact to weed out the false and unbelieving, and bring doctrinal and moral purity to His Son's bride.

The problem in persecution is that the first ones to get persecuted are the ones who need it least.

Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered (Mark 14:27).

It was always the lambs without blemish, like Jesus, who were slaughtered first. The problem with persecution is that it is the Christians who do not need to get persecuted who tend to be the first victims. The others run away.

When it becomes a legal offense to be a Christian only a genuine Christian is going to say, "I am a Christian," knowing that they will lose their life.

Jeremiah

Persecution is the devil at work. But, like a gambit in chess, God turns it to His own purposes.

Third principle

The foremost way the New Testament gives us to prepare for persecution is the hope of the resurrection.

The first thing that Jesus said to Smyrna was, "The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life" (Revelation 2:8).

The resurrection of Jesus and our resurrection are the same event. When we are baptized, we die with Him, but when we are resurrected, we are raised with Him. Closing in His message to Smyrna, Jesus said, "I will give you a crown of life. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death"(Revelation 2:10-11).

The idea is one of constantly looking to the resurrection.

You see the same thing in 2 Corinthians 4. He talks about being persecuted in verse 9 and carrying about the dying of Jesus. His death is ours in verse 10.

Then, in verse 14, He says, "knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and present us with you." His resurrection is ours. Jesus never said, "I am going to die for your sins." Jesus said, "I am going to die for your sins. Now you get up here and die with me."

Jesus did not say, "I am going to rise from the dead to give you eternal life." He said, "I am going to raise you up with me. You die with me, you live with me." If your hope is in something other than the resurrection, you will never stand in a real persecution.

At the same time that the Lord Jesus is preparing the faithful church for persecution, Satan is trying to deceive the faithful church into thinking it is not going to happen; "We are going to be victorious! Kingdom Now! Shalom, shalom!" and the very opposite is happening.

Fourth principle

The poor are the rich because they will receive a martyr's crown.

The poor Christians are the rich ones, and the rich ones are the poor ones; just like the Dylan song in the 1970s said, "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose."

What did Jesus say? "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich)" (Revelation 2:9).

Even bad churches mentioned in Rev-elation had good people and good things, and good churches had bad people and bad things. Smyrna is the exception. When we know we are going to be killed for our faith, and anything that we could possibly hold onto is already gone, when we have nothing to live for except the hope of Jesus and being with Him in the resurrection, you will see how unworldly minded we become.

But instead of having a church warning us about the natural propensity of the flesh to cling to a hope in this world, we now have a backslidden, Kingdom Now church teaching us to trust in this world.

Blessed are the poor

Who do you think are the rich? Do you think it is some Laodicean church in the suburbs of Minneapolis, where the people are listening to prosperity preachers, naming and claiming sports cars and Cadillacs? Or is it the Christians in China meeting in a rice hut, hiding from the police?

Who is rich? I will tell you who is rich! When we get to heaven we are going to find out who has the big mansion. The poor are the rich; it is going to be those Chinese guys.

Fifth principle

"The blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan" (Revelation 2:9).

Here the Lord Jesus is almost certainly alluding to an addition to the synagogue liturgy, a curse, where they pray that the name of Jewish believers in Jesus will be blotted out of the book of life.

There are Christian Zionist organizations that say that we can bless Israel, without giving them the gospel. They want to have good relations with the rabbis and the Israeli government, and they will stand on a platform with these orthodox rabbis in Israel and shake their hands and get their picture taken.

And then that rabbi on Saturday prays that the names of my children will be blotted out of the book of life because they are Jews who believe in Jesus.

In the days of the early church there were two kinds of religions: religulo licita and religulo illicita - legal religions and illegal religions. Judaism was one of the legal religions. Once Jewish believers were ex-communicated from the synagogue, they were no longer part of a licensed religion, and they were therefore vulnerable to persecution. In those days Christianity was simply Messianic Judaism, a messianic sect within the Jewish faith.

The false Jews (Romans 9-11) are those who reject their Messiah. Those Jews who accept Jesus are the "faithful remnant of Israel." The others will be cut off from their own olive tree. They have the name of Jews, they are anthropologically Jews, by covenant they are Jews, but they will be cut off.

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is out-ward in the flesh.

But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit (Romans 9:6).

They may have the birth, the religion, the culture, the circumcision, but they do not have the heart.

False brethren

The principle here connects persecution with false brethren.

When I go past a Jehovah Witnesses Kingdom Hall, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go past a mosque, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go past some kind of a liberal church or a Roman Church or a Mormon Church, I see a synagogue of Satan. When I go by a Hindu temple, I see a synagogue of Satan.

Rabbinic Judaism is a false religion. The synagogues of today are deceptions, which lead Jewish people away from the way of salvation into a system that rejects Torah, substitutes Torah with human tradition, and leads them into destruction.

Rabbinic Judaism is as much a false religion as any other false religion. It is as much a false Judaism as the Roman Church or the Mormon Church is a false Christianity.

That which denies the Father and Son is Antichrist. On the Dome of the Rock it says, quoting from the Koran, "God has no son."

Islam is Antichrist

There is a difference between contempt for an institution and its doctrines, and the people in it.

I love Roman Catholic people. Because I love Roman Catholic people, I hate their church. I love Jehovah Witnesses. Because I love Jehovah Witnesses, I hate their Kingdom Halls. I love Moslems. Because I love Moslems, I hate their mosques.

And I love Jews. Because I love Jews, I hate their false synagogues. I want them to return to thetrue synagogue, the gathering together of God's people who accept their Messiah, Yeshua.

Tremble at His word

Persecution does not begin outside of the church, or outside of the community of God's people. It always begins within.

The first persecution of the church took place within Judaism.

We hear a lot about Christian anti-Semitism, and what was done by Christians to Jews. That is very, very true. But unsaved Jews persecuted Christians long before any Christians persecuted Jews. Persecution will not come in the West by the police knocking on your door or by the government passing laws to outlaw the preaching of the gospel. Persecution always begins with those who say they are brethren, but are not - nominal Christians persecuting faithful Christians.

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at His word: "Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name's sake, have said, 'Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy.' But they will be put to shame"(Isaiah 66:5).

The Hebrew rendering could perhaps better be translated, "Your brothers who hate you because of the Word."

These are the ones who do not heed the Word, hating those who do. They exclude you because of what is in the Bible.

Blaspheming Islam

The Conference of Christians and Jews in Britain is about to adopt a statement which will respect "all faiths," but not respect people's right to all faiths, and condemn proselytizing, condemn trying to convert, condemn trying to get people to leave one faith and join another.

If you say that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but by Him, you have blasphemed Islam.

The growing financial power of Islam, recycling massive amounts of petro-dol-lars through the City of London, speaks more to politicians and businessmen than the likes of Christians.

Already, we have seen British and American troops in Saudi Arabia, defending Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait fund the construction of mosques all over England, but will not allow one church to be built in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. They are funding militant Islam.

They are funding the conversion of people, particularly young black people, to Islam all over the world.

The British government cares about arms deals, petrodollars, and oil. They do not care about you and me. They certainly do not care about the gospel.

The precedent, however, is not being set by the political and financial influence of the Islamic world, but by George Carey, withdrawing Anglican patronage from Jewish evangelism and going on the radio with the Chief Rabbi, denouncing Jewish evangelism.

The first stage of persecution is never unsaved people or the governments of the world persecuting Christians. The first stage of persecution, from the time of Stephen to today, has always been false brethren persecuting true believers.

Jeremiah

Then they said, "Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest, or counsel to the sage, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come on and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words" (Jeremiah 18:18).

The judgment of God was coming on a backslidden nation. Jeremiah was telling the truth, the others were lying.

Jeremiah was telling the truth; he was calling their bluff in public.

He was saying stuff that they did not want people to hear. More importantly, it was stuff that they could not deny.

"Look at the rising immorality and idolatry in our society. The Babylonian Em-pire is rising and breathing down our neck and they are coming after us.

You think that because you are rich and prosperous today, it is going to be like this tomorrow?

Look at these prophets that keep predicting things that do not happen, and prophesying blessing which does not come. Do you really believe things will continue like this? Look at the facts!" In public, Jeremiah was pointing to facts that were irrefutable and the establishment had to stop him from telling the truth. Today it is the same.

They go after Dave Hunt. They go after me. They go after anybody who tries to tell the truth.

They can never deny what you say. They just go after you for saying it.

Everybody knows it is the truth. But people are rolling on the floor and claiming that God is doing a great thing! You know the story. I do not want to go into it again: the Methodists and the church of England voting to allowing homosexuals to be ministers, the financial insolvency of the Assemblies of God in the UK, the service in Sheffield with the women dancing topless in the church, which was broadcast on the BBC News. This stuff is not new. Persecution is not coming; persecution is here. Do not worry about the Freemasons, the parliament, or the EEC. Persecution begins in the church, not outside.

Formal, legal persecution is simply the natural outcome of persecution within the church.

Before Jesus warned about Satan casting you into prison (Revelation 2:10), He warned about those who say they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9).

Sixth principle

The devil is about to cast some of you into prison (Revelation 2:10).

Persecutions, historically, have tended to be local and sporadic. It is not every-body always getting it. Even in China and places like that, it is not always everybody getting it at the same time.

Something happened in Smyrna, however. With some of these emperors, like Diocletian, persecution became universal throughout the Roman Empire. In the last days normal persecution will become compounded by some kind of eventual, universal declaration against the gospel.

The Antichrist is going to condemn Christianity in the same way that the emperors did.

Do not think that in a time of persecution we are all going to get it. That is not the way persecution works. It has never been like that, except under these emperors. It did happen then and it will happen again in the last days.

The outlawing of the gospel became universal, but not everybody was killed. In the days of Queen Mary hundreds of leaders were killed. Others fled. It will be like that.

Some get away, some do not. Some flee, some do not.

The Lord tells some to get out of there; He tells others to stand.

Persecution is not every Christian being wiped out! It will eventually come to that, but not in the near term.

It will be sporadic; here and there; localized. Things will seem to get better for a while and then worse again.

Seismology and obstetrics

The two metaphors Scripture most uses to explain how persecution works are borrowed from seismology and obstetrics.

If you believe the tectonic plate theory, geophysical pressures cause an increased friction on the fissure where the plates come together, resulting in tremors.

The tremors become more and more frequent, more and more acute, and some are worse than others are, but they are all indications that the big one is coming.

These build up until finally there is a major shift in the plates, which produces a big earthquake.

The other is the phenomenon of birth pangs.

Contractions become more and more frequent, then they are alleviated for a while, and then more frequent again, then they slow down, then they become more intense.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now (Romans 8:20).

It gets worse, then it seems to get better for a while, then it gets worse, but the contractions become more and more frequent until the baby is born.

Think of what labor is like. Is labor having contractions the whole time? No. It comes. It stops. It comes. It stops.

You can have an easy labor or a more difficult labor.

Ultimately the labor of this world will become so terrible that there will be one massive cesarean section, called the Rapture. The Lord will get us out of here.

Seventh principle

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days (Revelation 2:10).

The Lord never allows us to suffer more than we can take.

In the early church there were ten fixed periods of persecution under ten emperors: Nero (AD 54-68), Domitian (81-96), Trajan (98-117), Hadrian (117-138), Marcus Aurelius (161-180), Septimus Severus (193-211), Maximin (235-238), Decius (249-251), Valerian (253-259) and Diocletian (284-305).

The persecution was for a fixed period. The St Bartholomew's Day massacre of the Huguenots in France lasted just one day!

The Great Tribulation, the second half of the seventieth week of Daniel, the time of Jacob's trouble, is fixed at three and a half years. God is the God of history; by Him kings reign.

One of the things that makes the Great Tribulation unique is that, for a limited period of time, within certain parameters, the lordship of history is given into the hands of Satan, to the Antichrist.

Jesus had three and a half years, so the Antichrist demands equal time.

One day. Ten days. Three and a half years. God sets parameters. As in the case of Job (1:12; 2:6), the Lord sets limits. He never allows His people to suffer more than they can handle.

It is easy for me to say, but I can look to someone who has been through it. When Corrie ten Boom was asked about finding the strength to suffer persecution, she said, "When I was a little girl in Holland and we were taking the train into Amsterdam, my father never gave me the ticket till it was time to get on the train." What a saint of God! Before she went to be with the Lord, she called the prosperity preachers 'false prophets.' And she was right!

There is a midrashic parallel between Revelation and Genesis. The blood of Abel, the first martyr, cries out (Genesis 4:10). The blood of the faithful martyrs cries out from under the altar (Revelation 6:9-10).

The sovereign hand of God always regu-lates how far persecution can go. Either He says, "This far and no further," or else, finally and ultimately, there will be the big cesarean section and His people will be removed from the earth. Harvest is past, summer is ended, and we are not saved. Is there no balm in Gilead? (Jeremiah 8:20,22).

This is the cry of those who missed the Rapture, just like Revelation 12. The rest of her offspring went to the wilderness and the dragon goes after them once the man-child is taken out of the way.

Pressured

I know your tribulation. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison. and you will have tribulation ten days (Revelation 2:9-10).

The Greek word for tribulation is thlipsis, which actually means, "being pressured, to the point of anguish."

The pressure gets worse and worse, just like the seismological pressure in an earth tremor, just likes the birth contractions. The pressure gets worse and worse and worse, until a definite event occurs.

Do not fear. or run away

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. (Revelation 2:10).

The Greek word for "fear" here is phobeo, which is the source of the English word "phobia."

The full meaning of phobeo is not simply "to fear," but to have a fear that will cause you to run away.

This does not mean that you should not flee from persecution. It means that you should not flee from your faith - which is the thing that is attracting that persecution.

In other words, do not allow fear to make you abandon your faith

Look to the resurrection. Keep your eye on the baby, the end product, on what you are expecting to get out of all this. Then you will be able to handle it.

I have never met a mother who said, "I am never going to have another one." Most women I know, if they are young enough, after they have one child and it gets older, want to have another one. It is not something that they dread. Why? Be-cause it was worth it.

The Bible always uses that kind of language. Do not phobeo. Do not try to run away from the persecution. It will be worth it. Do not allow fear to make you aban-don your faith.

Those who are trusting in this world will phobeo. Under the pressure ofthlipsis they will fear what is going to happen to them. And because they are trusting in this life and in this world they are going to run away from Jesus.

Think about it. I know a lot of Chris-tian girls who are midwives and obstetri-cians. They have delivered hundreds of babies. I have never known one of them to say, "I don't want to get married and have a baby of my own. I don't want to go through that."

They all say they want to have kids just like everyone else. They do notphobeo. They know what is involved. They have seen it. They still want to have a baby of their own.

Who is going to phobeo? The ones who only love themselves, who only love this world and trust in this life are going to phobeo.

Jesus tells the rest of us, "Do not phobeo." If you are not trusting in this life you do not have anything to fear, because your hope is in the resurrection.

In other words, the most the devil can do is to kill you, but he can only kill your body; he cannot touch your soul.

Jim Elliott

We see most of the bad people and bad things from America. Unfortunately the good people and the good things from America, like Dave Hunt and David Wilkerson, do not get as much publicity as the con men.

One of the best Christians America has ever produced was Brother Jim Elliot. He said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

Boy, did that brother understand! And his life showed it. He is the kind of guy I want to look up to.

Demonstrating your faith

Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested. (Revelation 2:10).

Fear not. Do not phobeo. Do not run away from your faith. Why does Satan put them in prison? Why does God allow it?

So "that you may be tested." The Greek word peirazo means "to tempt, to assay, to prove or to examine." It is an acid test. God allows it to happen for His own reasons. The Bible teaches that the "heroes of faith" were tested.They were stoned, they were saw in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

And all of these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided some-thing better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect (Hebrews 11:37-40).

One of the lies being propagated today by the 'Kingdom Now' preachers - the teaching that the Rapture is "a fantasy and a myth" - is being used by Satan to pre-pare the church for deception. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

Our faith should be based on the resurrection and the idea that we shall meet them, that they should not be made perfect apart from us, nor we from them.

Those who are saying, "You don't have to suffer; you're a King's kid; God wants you rich; Jesus suffered and if you're suffering then you have no faith, etc." are talking about a very different faith to that of Hebrews 11.

What they are teaching is faith in faith, not faith in Jesus.

They are not practicing Christianity, they are practicing mammon worship. When Job was going through tribulation he said, As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand upon the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God (Job 19:25).

His resurrection is our resurrection. Even with my own eyes I shall see God. I do not care if I die. Maybe I care for now, but ultimately it does not matter. The most the devil could do is kill me, but he cannot even do that.

Go ahead! Pull the trigger! Even with my own eyes I shall see God and I shall watch you burn. You watch my death now and I will watch your death for eternity.

The resurrection our hope

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7).

In a spiritual sense it is already reality. We are already seated with Christ. Your eternal destiny is assured. You have your ticket. You know where you are going.

The hope is in the resurrection. If that is your hope, the rest is negotiable. If that is not your hope, you do not have ears to hear. That is what Jesus is saying.

Seated in heavenly places

John was on the isle of Patmos during the persecution of the Roman emporer Domitian.

He saw heaven. He saw the twenty-four elders - the twelve patriarchs of Israel, plus the twelve apostles.

In other words, John saw himself on the throne. He was already seated with Christ. The past, present and future are all the same to God in eternity. The Book of Rev-elation speaks of future events in the past tense.

And I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in midheaven, saying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe, to those who dwell on the earth." (Revelation 8:13).

"Rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time" (Revelation 12:12).

You have to understand what that means midrashically. You are either a heaven dweller or an earth dweller. You are either one of those who are seated with Christ in heavenly places or one of those who dwell on the earth.

'Kingdom Now', 'God wants you rich', 'Name it and Claim it' - those people are earth dwellers. The people who will take the Mark of the Beast have taken it already in the attitude of their heart. It does not matter when they put credit cards or the microchip on your wrist; those people have already accepted the Mark of the Beast, because they are hoping in this world.

Whenever the New Testament talks about the Antichrist, it always begins, "Love not the world."

It is only a procedural matter for those people who love this world to accept the Mark of the Beast.

Some Restorationists and Kingdom Now preachers are already openly teaching that it is all right for people to accept the Mark of the Beast.

Andrew Shearman in Nottingham said, "I repented of having sung, 'This world is not my home.' This world is our home, this world is our home!"

Woe to those who dwell on the earth. The dragon and the serpent are cast down to you.

The dragon is Satan the persecutor. The serpent is Satan the seducer. These people are going to face internal seduction and external persecution simultaneously. Those that dwell on the earth will not stand a chance. It will only be those who dwell in heaven who are going to get out of this.

Earthen vessels

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you (2 Corinthians 4:7-14).

Again, the principle is one of hoping in the resurrection. Jesus died to give others life, so He calls on us to die with Him Paul says we have the treasure in earthen vessels. You have to understand what He is talking about.

The earth in the Middle East is a reddish clay. If you look carefully in the ruins of a place like Caesarea or Har Meggido in the Jezreel valley, you will find pieces of pottery that are reddish.

In Hebrew, a human being is called a ben adam, literally a "son of Adam," be-cause Adam was made from the earth, adamah. Adamah comes from the Hebrew word for "red," edom.

The red, earthenware vessels are equated with man, who was made from the earth. The destruction of our natural bodies allows the true light inside, the real treasure, to come out and bring light into the darkness, giving life to others. You might not be martyred, but you have to be willing to be martyred. That is what He is saying. We are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake (2 Corinthians 4:11). It is not just being killed - a one-time execution, it is a continual death to self. The fruit of persecution is death to self, in order to bring life to others.

The first Christian martyr

Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many(Isaiah 53:12).

Jesus was the first Christian martyr. He was numbered with the transgressors, and executed outside of the camp.

Some of the animals in the Hebrew Levitical sacrificial system had to be taken outside the camp and their carcasses burnt.

For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned out-side the camp.

Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the camp.

Hence, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come (Hebrews 13:11- 14).

The sacrifice of praise?

Many Christians have the wrong idea. They think that singing is a "sacrifice of praise."

No! It is laying your life down. It is going outside the camp, being a reproach, being counted as a criminal by secular society, even by your so-called brethren - bearing the reproach of Christ.

They hung Him with criminals. Christianity will become a crime. We are already reaching the point where Biblical Christianity is becoming a crime.

I have no doubt that the prophecies of Daniel regarding the fourth beast are being fulfilled in the re-confederation of those countries that were in the Roman Empire. What began as an economic union is becoming a political federation.

By the year 2010, 80% of Britain's laws will no longer be made by Britain's parliament. They will be made behind closed doors by bureaucrats who the British did not vote for and cannot remove.

Homosexual marriages are legally recognized in Hawaii and in Denmark. Homo-sexuals have the right to adopt children, and have artificial insemination in lesbian marriages.

This is not true in England yet, but it is coming. And who will stand against it? Only a true church. What will happen to that true church? They will be labeled as bigots, and regarded as criminals. "Sex discrimination is just as bad as racism."

Christianity will become a crime. You will be outside the camp, numbered with the transgressors. You are going to be regarded as a criminal for your beliefs, the same as Jesus was put outside the camp and labeled a criminal.

He is saying, "Come bear my reproach." Are you willing to become a reproach? Are you willing to become a criminal in the eyes of your unsaved neighbors, even your unsaved family? If you are willing to become a reproach, if you are willing to be labeled a criminal, you have ears to hear.

Summary

Jesus warns the faithful and the unfaithful, but only the faithful hear.
Persecution is of the devil, but God uses it to correct and purify the church Our means of coping with persecution is our belief in the certainty of the resurrection. Those who are poor are actually rich, because they are the heirs to the martyr's crown, the crown of glory.

Persecution begins, not outside the church, but within. It begins with false brethren.

Persecution tends to be sporadic and local. Not everyone gets it. Ultimately persecution will be universal, but do not think of it as total and absolute eradication.

Fear not, do not phobeo. Those who phobeo will run away from the faith in order to save their neck.

Look at the end result. Look at what will happen when it is over. Look at the man-child. Look at the Rapture.

Think of it in terms of a pregnancy. You really love that kid and you want that baby. How long does labor last? One day at the most? Probably less. [Easy for me to say, I am a male!] Nonetheless, after our daughter Batmiel was born, my wife did not say, "Never again."

She said, "I am going to have another baby; it was worth it."

We will be tested. That testing will show who is who. God already knows; He wants us to know.

When we stand before Him on that day, there will be no excuses, neither will there be any apologies. It will be too late for apologies, too late for excuses. You might not be martyred, but you have to be willing to be martyred.

If you die for Jesus, you die once and that is it. Bang! See you in heaven. If you live for Jesus, you have to die every day. Remember my motto: Not too many of the great men of the Bible died happy, but they were all happy to die!

When persecution comes, some people will stand that you would not expect. Other people will fall away, whom you think would stand.

It is amazing to read the history of the English martyrs in "Foxe's Book of Martyrs," and see those people you thought would have stood, but who ran away; and other people who you thought would have run away, but they stood.

God judges the heart. He knows what is really in us. If there is one thing that is going to bring out what is really in us, it is persecution.

When persecution comes, we are really going to find out who is who. Fire brings out what is inside someone.

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this: "I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and youwill have tribulation ten days.

Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death" (Revelation 2:8-11).

Pedion Ha Ben

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:27:19 GMT

The Donkey, the Lamb & the Human

“You shall redeem with a lamb the first offspring from a donkey; and if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. None shall appear before Me empty-handed. (Exodus 34:20)

This is something in Judaism called the “pedion ha ben”—the consecration, or the redemption, of the firstborn. We know from the messianic typology it is a figure of Christ the firstborn, the only begotten of the Father. (Jn. 1:14) The firstborn was redeemed for silver, (Num. 18:16) a price of redemption which is a picture of Jesus. Here we have the donkey, we have the lamb and we have the firstborn of the sons, all in the same verse.

“But every first offspring of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck; and every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. (Exodus 13:13)

Once more we have the lamb, we have the donkey and we have the human, all three. It is strange because it puts something that is ritual and juridical right in the middle of a narrative, the story of Pharaoh. But why does it put a donkey in the same passage in which it talks about a human? If a donkey is not redeemed by a lamb, its neck must be broken.

We know what the firstborn son is—it is a type of Christ, we know what a human is—that is us, and we know what the lamb is a picture of—a figure of the Lord Jesus. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn. 1:29) And we know that Exodus 13 is paschal because it is talking about Passover, so obviously it is talking about Him as the lamb. There is no problem identifying the human, no problem identifying the lamb, that leaves the donkey. Why must a donkey be redeemed by a lamb?

The Nature of a Donkey

A donkey is not too clever. Unlike its equestrian cousin the horse, it is not a brave animal; a donkey is fearful. So it is not too smart and it is not too brave. Among other things, zoologically, it is promiscuous. It will breed across the genus barrier and mate with something other than another one of its own. Sexually it will mate with anything. Hence in the Hebrew Prophets, in castigating Israel for its sin of carrying its idolatry to harlotry, compare Israel to a wild donkey. (Jer. 2:24; Hos. 8:9)

A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness,That sniffs the wind in her passion.In the time of her heat who can turn her away?All who seek her will not become weary;In her month they will find her. (Jeremiah 2:24)

So a donkey is led by its passion, it is not too smart and it is not too brave. It also has other characteristics. I am told by others who are knowledgeable about such things that a donkey is, above all, a very stubborn animal. (I have to be careful because “donkey” is sometimes a derogatory label. I live in England where “donkey” is a derogatory term for an Irish laborer by English people.)

But we are also told other things about the nature of a donkey: it is stiff-necked. The Hebrew idiom for being stubborn is “stiff-necked”. (Acts 7:51) In the Old Testament when we see the term “stubborn”, the Hebrew is “stiff-necked”.

A man who hardens his neck after much reproofWill suddenly be broken beyond remedy. (Proverbs 29:1)

They stiffen their neck and their neck is broken—they are killed and therefore “beyond remedy”. Donkeys are figures of fallen man. God applies them to backslidden Israel.

(Again, I do not use the term in an anti-Semitic way or an anti-Irish way. My own family, in fact, is a combination of Jewish and Irish, so I am not against my own kind. I am using the term in the sense the Prophets did.)

Israel is compared to a wild donkey. What are people like? Remember that Israel is a microcosm of the human condition. According to 1 Corinthians 10, God uses them to teach what people are like. Other nations will do the same things like Israel. If God had chosen someone else other than Israel, I guarantee you the Filipinos or Norwegians would have done the same things as Israel. Just look at the Church; the Church has gone the same way as Israel.It will stiffen its neck, it will stiffen its neck, it will stiffen its neck, but then its neck will be broken beyond remedy. It is stupid, cowardly, governed by its passions and stubborn. In fact, it is self-destructively stubborn. That is the nature of a donkey.

Nonetheless, it has at least one other characteristic anatomically. I do not know why, but I have seen donkeys, and it has been pointed out to me in California by people who are ranchers who have donkeys, and it is a characteristic that of all the quadrupeds, donkeys are the ones who have a cross on their back. Why did God put a cross on the back of such an ignoble animal? It is not a noble animal, but a stupid one. It is a stubborn one, a rebellious one.

Broken Beyond Remedy

A donkey cannot help being a donkey. It is born stupid, it is born lazy, it is born driven by passion (governed by hormonal metabolism), it is born with a stiff neck. It is naturally stubborn. There is nothing we can do with a donkey—it must be redeemed by the lamb. There is no other hope for the donkey. If the donkey is not redeemed by the lamb, its neck must be broken, and it will be broken suddenly.

We cannot help what we are. We may be born Jew, we may be born Gentile; we may be born Black, we may be born Asian or Hispanic or Caucasian; we may be born male or female. We are born and that is what we are. We cannot control it. None of us had any control over the circumstances of our birth. There was one person who could have controlled the circumstances of His birth, but He chose to be born a member of a despised race in a stable in an occupied country and of a non-affluent family in order to identify with and redeem us. He was the only one who could have chosen it, but the rest of us had no choice.

We cannot help the fact that we are stupid, but that is what we are. We are certainly spiritually stupid. We cannot help the fact that we are spiritually lazy. We cannot help the fact that we are driven by passion. We cannot help the fact that we are what we are: stubborn. That is the human condition. There is no hope for such creatures other than redemption by the Lamb. If they are not redeemed by the Lamb, their stubbornness will kill them. He who stiffens his neck will suddenly have it broken beyond remedy.

There are people who hear the Gospel, we witness to them, we tell them the Gospel over and over and over and they will not listen. I am even talking about members of our own family. They will not listen, and suddenly their neck will be broken beyond remedy. When the donkey’s neck is broken, it is dead; it is beyond remedy—there is no hope. It is a one-way ticket to hell with no way out. Their own stubbornness will be the cause of their own destruction. Their own unbelief, their own rejection of the cross, their own refusal to repent and accept the Gospel will cause them to be destroyed beyond remedy. It does not matter what they say now. I guarantee you the second they give up the ghost they will no longer be Darwinists; the second they give up the ghost they will no longer be atheists; the second they give up the ghost they will no longer be homosexuals; the second they give up the ghost they will no longer be anything.One of the things which makes people really stubborn is religion.

They cling to the faith of the fathers, simply thinking that because that was what their fathers believed it makes it right.

Abraham’s Descendants

What are we told will come about concerning the Arab nations? We are told they will be “a wild donkey of a man”.

“He will be a wild donkey of a man,His hand will be against everyone,And everyone’s hand will be against him;And he will live to the east of all his brothers.” (Genesis 16:12)

I have witnessed to many people, but I have lived for many years in the Middle East. I always say that the two most difficult people to see get saved are Orthodox Jews and Arab Muslims. Asian Muslims are generally easier than Arab ones. The anthropological descendants of Abraham are the most difficult. Salvation would come through the seed of Abraham, so we would think that descendants of Abraham anthropologically—Jews and Arabs, would be the first to get saved by the promise to Abraham of the Messiah. No, they are the two hardest. “He will be a wild donkey of a man” speaks to the stubbornness of Islam. But it goes beyond this; look at what Moses said about Israel.

“Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people. (Deuteronomy 9:6)

In Hebrew, Moses tells the Jews they are a “stiff-necked” people.

“So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer. (Deuteronomy 10:16)

Circumcision is an Old Testament shadow of salvation, of course, as we are told in Romans and Jeremiah. “Stop stiffening your neck! Believe! Get saved! Get converted!” But it does not work.

The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. (Exodus 32:9)

In Hebrew, “obstinate” literally means “stiff-necked”. (If someone calls Jews “stiff-necked” it is a generally anti-Semitic term. We should not say it to Jewish people today because it will hurt our witness to them; I am using the term in the biblical sense.)What happens to Israel if they continue to stiffen their neck?

“Now do not stiffen your neck like your fathers, but yield to the LORD and enter His sanctuary which He has consecrated forever, and serve the LORD your God, that His burning anger may turn away from you. (2 Chronicles 30:8)

God is angry and He is angry at sin; He is angry at the human condition. He is angry at Israel and He is angry with Abraham’s other descendants, the Arab nations. God is angry at the Arab world and God is angry with the backslidden Church. He is angry and His anger will be vented; His wrath will be poured out. Every micro speck of God’s wrath and anger is going to be poured out. The only question is upon whom. Those who stiffen their neck and refuse to believe, the wrath of God will come upon them. For those who do repent and believe, the wrath of God was poured out on the Lamb.

The Worst Jackass

Let me tell you about the worst jackass I ever met in my life. I mean, this guy was a real jackass. I still run into him from time to time, especially when I am shaving or brushing my teeth. When he was sixteen years old he was fooling around with heroin and cocaine. He thought a biochemistry exam was no problem if he took enough speed to win the fifth at New Market. That is how I got through college. I was immoral, a communist, self-destructive. What a jackass! What a moron! What a loser! What a reprobate! That is all I was. I was nothing but a jackass.

Why should God become a man to die in place of a cocaine addict? I do not know, but I know He did. I cannot understand the depths of His wrath, but neither can I understand the depths of His love.

I had been saved for some time before I understood what “personal Savior” really meant. I thought it was just the colloquialism that meant I had accepted Him personally—that is only half of what it means. What it means in its totality is that if I were the only one who ever sinned, if we were the only one who ever sinned, He would have come to the cross just for us. He is not just the Savior of all of us, He is the Savior of each of us. He would have went to that cross just for me and just for you.

Everything I did, every drug I sold, every woman I slept with (other than my wife), every joint I ever rolled, every line of coke—everything was poured out on Him. The jackass was redeemed by the Lamb. I am not proud of who I was or what I did; it cost Christ His life. But I cannot deny what I did and He did for me. It does not matter how successful or educated or attractive somebody is, a jackass is still a jackass. It must be redeemed by the Lamb.

No, it is not just the Jews, it is not just the Arabs, it is all of us. But what happened to God’s own people when they stiffened their neck?

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and all its towns the entire calamity that I have declared against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’” (Jeremiah 19:15)

Their neck is broken beyond remedy. It does not only happen to individuals, it happens to societies and nations. It does not just happen to jackasses, it happens to herds of jackasses. And this is what this country has become, a herd of jackasses driven by passion who are stubborn, self-destructively stupid and too cowardly to face the reality.

That is what happens when a donkey is not redeemed; its neck will be broken beyond remedy. The second they die they will know what they rejected and, in some cases, what they mocked and belittled. It was the only thing that ever could have saved them. So many of these guys are arrogant like Bill Maher on television. Who do they think they are mocking? God will not be mocked. (Gal. 6:7) They have no wisdom because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Prov. 9:10) The second they die they are broken beyond remedy.

The Way of Balaam

Let us look at the other side of the coin. Let us see what happens when a donkey does get redeemed by the Lamb, this cowardly animal, this stubborn animal, this lazy animal, this passion-driven animal, and above all this stubborn, stiff-necked animal.

forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet. (2 Peter 2:15-16)

A redeemed donkey is always better than a mad prophet. A follower of Brigham Young, Charles Taze Russell, or Rev. Moon—even a jackass is not that stupid providing it has been redeemed.In my youth there was a comedy television program which aired on Sunday nights, “Mr. Ed the Talking Horse”. (His voice sounded like Nixon.) It was modeled after a series of comedy films in the late 30s and 40s with the actor Donald O’Connor called “Frances the Talking Mule”. The character Donald O’Connor played was not very clever but the mule was.

The donkey provided a warning. And here is mentioned “the way of Balaam”, who for profit loved the wages of unrighteousness but was rebuked by a donkey.

‘But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. (Revelation 2:14)

Of course, Balaam did it for money. Serving as a metaphor for the devil, Balak offered Balaam money. Jesus uses this to explain spiritual seduction and false religion—eating food sacrificed to idols.As believers we understand this to be transubstantiation and the Eucharist. They say that it is Christ incarnate, that it is not a memorial, that it is protoplasmically Jesus Christ, that He dies again sacramentally and then He is eaten cannibalistically. I do not think Catholics are cannibals, but they think they are cannibals. That is what it is says in their Catechism—they actually think it is a cannibalistic ritual. Balaam did it for money. Someone has to be a jackass to believe that stuff.

There is always a financial angle. It does not matter what religion it is, it is always a racket. No matter what false cult it is, which televangelist, or which false religion, there is always a racket.But a redeemed donkey was able to see through Balaam.

“Now, therefore, please come, curse this people for me since they are too mighty for me; perhaps I may be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.” (Numbers 22:6)

Notice that the devil says the opposite of the Lord. God says, “I will bless those who bless Israel and I will curse those who curse Israel” (Gen. 12:3); Satan, however, will curse those who bless Israel and bless those who curse Israel.

But God Was Angry

Remember, the Lord is angry. His anger is going to be poured out. It is either going to be poured out on the Lamb or it is going to be poured out on the donkey, but one way or the other, somebody is going to pay. Every wrong thing I ever did, every wrong thing you ever did, somebody is going to pay.

But God was angry because he was going, and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand, the donkey turned off from the way and went into the field; but Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back into the way. Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path of the vineyards, with a wall on this side and a wall on that side. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she pressed herself to the wall and pressed Balaam’s foot against the wall, so he struck her again. The angel of the LORD went further, and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn to the right hand or the left.

(Unsaved people will always find themselves in a situation they ultimately cannot get out of. Unsaved people, be it on their deathbed or sooner, will be confronted with their reality; they will always find themselves in a situation they cannot get out of, and an angry God is going to be standing in front of them.)

When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam; so Balaam was angry and struck the donkey with his stick. And the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” Then Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a mockery of me! If there had been a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now.”

(Notice how he talks to the donkey as if it is a normal conversation. When we go to the post office and talk to an unsaved postal clerk, we forget that we are talking to an unredeemed donkey. The waitress in a restaurant is an unredeemed donkey. The mechanic working on our car is an unredeemed donkey. The dentist polishing our teeth is an unredeemed donkey. We talk to donkeys as if it is normal because we forget that is what they are. I try to carry Gospel tracts wherever I go and to have my pocket Bible. It becomes normal for us to interact with unsaved people. We talk to them as if it is a normal thing.)

The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you?” And he said, “No.” Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed all the way to the ground

(In Hebrew this would be an act of worship.)

The angel of the LORD said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way was contrary to me. “But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now, and let her live.” Balaam said to the angel of the LORD, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the way against me. Now then, if it is displeasing to you, I will turn back.” But the angel of the LORD said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but you shall speak only the word which I tell you.” So Balaam went along with the leaders of Balak. (Numbers 22:22-35)

First of all, we have not “an” angel of the Lord, but “the” angel of the Lord. This is the one known in Judaism as the “Metatrone”; it is a Christophany, an Old Testament enfleshment of Christ. It is the angel who wrestled with Jacob at Penuel at the Brook of Jabbok. It is the angel of the Lord who went before Israel. It is an Old Testament manifestation of the Lord Jesus. And again we see He is angry.

The Redeemed Donkey

Once a donkey has been redeemed, and this donkey had to have been redeemed, otherwise his neck would have been broken, it is able to see the Lord when others cannot. Unsaved people cannot see Jesus. We do not see Him physically, although sometimes Christians may in some kind of vision like Paul did or something like that, but we will one day see Him physically. Nonetheless, we are aware of His presence. Unsaved people do not see the Lord, but a redeemed donkey does.

Secondly, although donkeys are fearful animals, something happens. I once took my son down the Grand Canyon. They went down there on these donkeys. (I did not try it myself because I would have had to carry the donkey back up myself after crushing it under my weight.) The ledges of the Grand Canyon are about a mile deep and very narrow. It is amazing how sure-footed those creatures truly are. They can actually do things which horses cannot. What used to be cowardice now becomes sure-footedness. The donkey knows where to go and where not to go.

A redeemed donkey who had a drinking problem will stay away from a saloon. If they used to be a gambler they will stay away from a race track. A donkey knows where to go, and where not to, once it has been redeemed.

But something else happens, in that this fearful animal now becomes a brave one. Balaam keeps beating him. It was only that persecuted donkey that stopped the wrath of God from falling on him.

Because of these churches in countries where they are persecuted, it is only the sacrifices of the faithful saints which stops the judgment of God from coming against those nations and those societies. A redeemed donkey that is willing to be persecuted can delay the wrath of God.

I honestly believe we are at the precipice—the threshold—of persecution of the Church in the Protestant democracies, and the only thing that is going to stop the wrath of God and His judgment from falling on America more than it already is, is a faithful Church that is willing to be persecuted. Most of the Church will not be willing to be persecuted because most of the Church is no longer faithful to Jesus. I speak in countries where the Church is persecuted. I speak in Muslim countries and I go to places where I see what it is really like.

A Redeemed Donkey Speaks & Sees

He hits the donkey again and then the donkey speaks.

I do not know too much about veterinary anatomy, but I suppose it is the same as for a human, that the jawbone facilitates speech. A donkey cannot say anything before it gets redeemed. All a donkey can do is to bray like the vain philosophies of this world, bray like secular existentialism, bray like Darwinism, bray like Marxist dialectics, bray like situational eliptics—that is all a jackass can say until it gets redeemed and God gets hold of its jaw. How many Philistines were slain with a jawbone of an ass? (Jdg. 15:15-17) That is what happens when a donkey has been redeemed; now he speaks the Word of God.

The donkey causes a situation to come about where Balaam now sees the Lord. “You are My witnesses”, says the Lord. (Lk. 24:48; Acts 1:8) Balaam sees the anger of an angry God hovering over Him. “It is only that donkey whom you have been beating that stopped My wrath from coming upon you”. He uses us to cause others to see His anger.

And what is the first thing God says to Balaam? The first words out of God’s mouth are “Why are you beating that donkey?” When Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus, who we now know as Paul the Apostle, was knocked off that horse, the first thing the Lord said to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” (Acts 9:2) It was another way of asking, “You are beating that donkey? Persecuting the Church?”

When the donkey has been redeemed, everything changes. A stupid animal becomes intelligent, a lazy one becomes industrious, a stubborn one gives himself over willingly to the purpose of God, a cowardly one becomes brave, something given over to passion now become motivated by something that transcends the highest human ideal. This is what happens when the donkey has been redeemed by the Lamb.

The Messianic Fulfillment

In Zechariah we have a prophecy which even the rabbis acknowledge is a prophecy about the Messiah.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!Behold, your king is coming to you;He is just and endowed with salvation,Humble, and mounted on a donkey,Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)

That is the prophecy, let us see the fulfillment.

When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her…

(Notice there is always two to represent both Israel and the Church.)

… untie them and bring them to Me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

“SAY TO THE DAUGHTER OF ZION,‘BEHOLD YOUR KING IS COMING TO YOU,GENTLE, AND MOUNTED ON A DONKEY,EVEN ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF A BEAST OF BURDEN.’”

(Remember, these donkeys would have had to have been redeemed by a lamb or they would have had to be killed.)

The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David;BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD;Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:1-9)

Once the donkey has been redeemed, he becomes a carrier of Christ and His salvation to Whom others call out, “Save us! Save us, O Son of David!”

Conclusion

This is what happens when the donkey is redeemed by the Lamb. The coward becomes brave, the stupid become clever, the passion-driven becomes God-driven. They have a passion for the right things now. What used to be fear is now sure-footedness—it knows to “go here” and “do not go there”. He sees the Lord. Where he could only bray, he now speaks His word—God’s own words come out of his mouth. He becomes a carrier of Christ, one who is even willing to be persecuted, one who can withhold the judgment of an angry God. He becomes one who is the bearer of His salvation. I am convinced that this is why, of all the quadrupeds, God put the cross on the back of the donkey. That is what happens when the donkey is redeemed by the Lamb.

If you are reading this, and you do not know Jesus, I am not going to tell you, “Do not be a jackass”. You cannot help being a jackass. We are all jackasses because that is the human condition, that is fallen man, and God is angry. He is going to cause something to happen. You are going to cause something to happen because God is going to break your neck. Your own stubbornness will destroy you; there is no hope for you just as there is no hope for me. What can be done with a donkey? Nothing, because it is a donkey. There is no hope for the donkey so break his neck. He is too stupid, too stubborn and too passion-driven. There is no hope for that donkey, no hope except one: you must be redeemed by the Lamb.God bless.

One Messiah, Two Comings

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:25:52 GMT

One Messiah: Two Comings

And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "You heard of from me; for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"

He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth'" (Acts 1:4-8).

Restorationism

"Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom?" We hear much talk today about a movement called the Restorationist Movement.

The term "restoring the kingdom" is only used in one place in the New Testament, not in connection with the Church Triumphant, but with Israel.

The Restoration Movement is committed to restoring three things which never existed to begin with.

The first thing they are trying to restore is a version of eschatology, which is over realized It is called Dominionism or Triumphalism: the erroneous view that the church will conquer the world for Jesus, before He returns to set up His Kingdom.

The church will ultimately be victorious, but that victory depends on the return of Christ.

And the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet (Roman 16:20).

Daniel speaks specifically and plainly of the persecution that is to occur in the Last Days.

I kept looking, and that horn [ speaking of the Antichrist ] was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom (Daniel 7:21).

Kingdom Now theology falsely states that the saints will take possession of the kingdom before the return of Christ, but the Bible clearly teaches that they will take possession of the kingdom after the return of Christ.

These kinds of erroneous beliefs have emerged at various times in church history, usually at turning points in world history.

During the decline of the Roman Empire it was called Montanism. It exhibited much the same kind of chaos we see today with the modern Restoration Movement, including the emphasis on "signs and wonders" that drew people into it without any understanding of the biblical theology.

Predictions, and prophecies that failed to happen, followed.

During the Renaissance it was the Munster Anabaptists, who followed people called the Prophets of Zwickow - a group who did the same kind of things as the Kansas City Prophets do today, make wild and irresponsible predictions that fail to happen.

Prophetic authority

The second thing this movement is trying to restore is a view of prophetic authority which is not biblical. In the biblical version of prophetic authority, a prophet is responsible for what he says.

I actually had somebody from the Vineyard tell me that the New Testament says that we "prophesy in part," so, therefore, John Wimber's followers, and Paul Cain, can be partly right and partly wrong, and still be biblical prophets. That idea is utterly false and terribly dangerous! People like that are deceived.

Apostolic authority

Thirdly, they are trying to restore a version of apostolic authority, which is not Biblical. Apostolic authority in the New Testament was chiefly doctrinal.

Does apostolic authority, in the sense of the twelve apostles, still exist in the church today? Yes it does. It exists in the writing of the apostles and of Paul.

Apostolic authority was chiefly doctrinal and it exists today in the church, preserved by the Holy Spirit, in the writings of the apostles.

Now there are other kinds of apostles, church-planting missionaries being among them, but as we look into the New Testament, apostolic authority was plural.

The Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them" (Acts 13:2).

Jesus sent the apostles out in pairs. Biblical authority was always plural.

The model of apostolic authority in the House Church movement and in Restorationism is a pyramid scheme, where the apostle is the head honcho. What they are calling "apostolic authority" amounts to a form of heavy shepherding.

Additionally, apostolic authority in the Bible is always accountable.

Paul and Barnabas were always accountable back to Antioch, which sent them out.

Beyond that, apostolic authority in the Bible involved mutual submission to each other, as in Acts chapter 15. It was never a one-man show.

What they are calling "apostolic authority" today in the Restoration Movement is often only heavy shepherding, based on Gnosticism. These people claim to have a gnosis, or a subjective revelation and, if you do not see it, they claim that you are under deception.

True restoration

Nonetheless, there is a true restoration and that has to do with the restoration of Israel.

Replacementism - the idea that the church has replaced Israel, to the negation of any prophetic or end times purpose for Israel and the Jews - is a totally unbiblical doctrine.

Romans 11 speaks directly of Israel as "the root". The root supports you; you do not support the root. The root is under the ground. Just because you cannot see it, that does not mean that it is not there. If the tree had no root, the tree would die.

If Israel was finished forever, the church would be finished with it. If God has rejected Israel because of their sin and unfaithfulness, He has just as much reason to reject the church, possibly more.

The sins of Israel are easily replayed throughout the history of the church, including the sacrifice of their children to demons, which we see today in the massive number of non-therapeutic abortions carried out even in Western, Christianized democracy.

What Romans 11 teaches is that Gentile Christians who repent and accept Jesus, replace Jews who do not. They are grafted in as branches in place of Jews who reject their own Messiah, but the root remains Israel.

Everything under the ground is Old Testament Israel, but everything above the ground is the New Testament Church. The Church is the spiritual continuity of Old Testament Israel, not its replacement.

Restoration of Israel

The root is still Jewish. The original branches were Jewish. The first Christians were Jews. The writers of the New Testament were Jews, and the final Christians will be Jews.

Jesus spoke of the national dimensions of the restoration of Israel in the Olivet Discourse - Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luke 21:24).

Jesus used the same words that Paul used in Romans 11:25, except that Jesus was speaking of Israel as a nation.

The time of the Gentiles is dealt with soteriologically in Romans 11, but it is dealt with eschatologically in the Olivet Discourse in Luke 21.

The ultimate meaning of the time of the Gentiles coming to an end is bound up with the prophecies of Daniel. God's final plan for world redemption depends on the salvation of Israel and the fulfillment of His plan, prophetically, for the restoration of Israel.

There is a national aspect of this but, more importantly, a soteriological, as seen in Romans 11:15. For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

God's plan

The New Testament speaks of restoration, not in terms of this silly Triumphalist movement we have today, but in terms of God's plan for the restoration of Israel, through whom He will bless the nations.

The Hebrew word for Gentile and the Hebrew word for nation is the same word, joy. God is going to bless the church through Jewish people in the last days.

The Lord has given us these events in the Middle East as proof of the return of Christ. They are one of the signs Jesus has given.

Today we have many false teachers within the body of Christ who are misleading others, telling Christians that the very signs Jesus gave so the elect would not be unprepared or deceived, are not signs at all.

Why Jews reject Jesus

There are two main reasons why the Jewish people will reject Jesus as the Messiah. One is the unfortunate history of Christian anti-Semitism, usually carried out by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, but with the unfortunate exception of Martin Luther, whose works inspired Adolf Hitler in writing Mein Kampf.

Luther taught that every Jew should be herded into a corral, forced to confess Christ at the point of knife. He said that "we, the German people, are to blame if we do not murder the Jews to prove we are Christians."

The second reason most Jews will reject Jesus as the Messiah is because Jesus did not bring in worldwide peace. He did not subdue the enemies of Israel, or establish the Messianic kingdom in Jerusalem, or bring justice to the nations, or prosperity and tranquillity to the world.

If He is the Messiah, where is the Messianic reign in the character of David?

To the end there will be war

The answer is found in Daniel 9. The Messiah would have to come and die before the Second Temple would be destroyed.

It was not the purpose of the Messiah to bring worldwide peace at His first coming. It was His purpose to deal with the source problem - sin. It will be at His Second Coming that He will bring in worldwide peace.

And its end will come with flood and even to the end there will be war and desolation's are determined (Daniel 9:26).

According to Judaism (the midrash Bereshith on page 243 of the Warsaw edition), the Messiah was to exit in 33AD. We read confirmation in the Talmudic literature also, confirming that the Messiah should have come and died before the Second Temple was destroyed.

We read that the Sanhedrin wept and said, "Woe to us! Where is the Messiah? He had to have come by now."

Rabbi Leopold Cohen

Rabbi Leopold Cohen, a very senior, ultra-orthodox rabbi, sought to understand the meaning of Daniel chapter 9.

He found two things in the Rabbinic literature of the ancient sages. One is that the Messiah was supposed to have come already. The other is that there is a curse on anybody who reads Daniel chapter 9.

So Rabbi Leopold Cohen did the only honorable thing he could. He became a Baptist minister.

Christian anti-Semitism

It's relatively easy to deal with the subject of Christian anti-Semitism.

"How can you expect me to believe that Jesus is the Messiah when Christians murdered my grandparents?"

The way you deal with the problem of Christian anti-Semitism is to tell Jewish people about the real Jesus - Jesus the Jew, Rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef of Nazareth, and remind them that the Jewish people murdered their own prophets in the name of Moses.

It was in the name of Moses that they put Jeremiah in prison, sawed Isaiah in half and killed Zechariah.

Should you reject Moses because of what Jews did in his name?

Should you reject Moses because of the orthodox Jew who recently went into a mosque in Hebron with an automatic weapon and murdered fifty Moslems? Do I blame Moses for that, because people murdered in his name?

Well, then we cannot blame Jesus for what people have done over the centuries in His name.

I have to accept Moses and the Torah on the basis of what Moses said. And I have to accept or reject Jesus and the New Testament on the basis of what He said and did.

Fulfilling all the prophecies

The other subject though - Why the Messiah did not bring in worldwide peace - is another issue. For Jesus to be the Messiah, He has to fulfill all the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.

There are two kinds of Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament - the "Suffering Servant" prophecies (seen in the Servant Songs of Isaiah and elsewhere, and in some of the psalms of David), and also the "Davidic Messiah" of the conquering triumphal King who will subdue the enemies of God, establish the Kingdom and bring in worldwide peace, reigning from Jerusalem.

If Jesus is not the Messiah of the Jews, neither is He the Christ of the church. They mean the same thing: "Christ" and "Messiah," the "Anointed One."

Jesus has not fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophecies as yet. He has only fulfilled the "Son of David" prophecies in a spiritual sense, not yet in an historical sense. For Jesus to be the Messiah, He must fulfill all the prophecies.

The 'Suffering Servant' Messiah is called HaMashiach Ben Yosef, the Messiah, the Son of Joseph. The 'Conquering King' Messiah is HaMashiach Ben David, the Messiah, the Son of David.

Palm Sunday

We see this in the Jewish background of Palm Sunday. Passover was one of three pilgrim feasts where the Jews sing something called the "Hallel Rabah" (from Psalms 113 to 118).

The highlight of the Hallel Rabah is: Hosanna, hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His loving kindness endures forever. Hosanna, hosanna.

The Jews were meant to sing that on Passover, with their hands waving. They were also meant to sing it at the Feast of Tabernacles, while waving palm branches in their hands.

On Palm Sunday, the Jews began to celebrate Passover (which teaches about the Messiah who was the Lamb who would be slain), as if it were the Feast of Tabernacles, which corresponds, in the typology of the Jewish calendar, to the Millennium.

The Feast of Tabernacles (seen in John 7:2), drawing on the background of Ezekiel 47, is associated in Jewish thought with the Davidic Kingdom.

That is why, when Jesus was transfigured with Moses and Elijah, Peter wanted to build three booths, three tabernacles. Peter was saying, "Here is the Messiah. Now let's set up the Kingdom!"

When Jesus came on Palm Sunday, they wanted somebody who was going to get rid of the Romans, in the same way as the way the Maccabees had gotten rid of the Greeks, and set up the Messianic Kingdom. So they began to celebrate Passover, as if it were the feast of Tabernacles.

In His first coming, Jesus fulfilled the first three (Spring) holidays in the Jewish calendar: Passover, First Fruits (which was the Resurrection), and the Feast of Weeks (which was Pentecost).

In His Second Coming, Jesus will fulfill the last three (Autumn) holidays: the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and finally and ultimately, the Feast of Tabernacles.

Fulfilling all the prophecies

The Jews of His day did not want to know about a Suffering Servant Messiah, who was going to come as the Passover Lamb to be slain. They wanted a conquering King, who was going to set up the Millennium.

The suffering servant Messiah is called "the Son of Joseph," HaMashiach Ben Yosef. The conquering king Messiah is called "the Son of David," HaMashiach Ben David.

For Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah, He has to fulfill ALL the prophecies.

But Jesus has plainly and clearly not fulfilled all the prophecies. He has only fulfilled the Suffering Servant ones, the Son of Joseph ones.

In other words, it is one Messiah, two comings. In His first coming Jesus came as the Son of Joseph, the suffering servant. In His Second Coming He will return as the Son of David, the conquering King who will set up His Kingdom.

False doctrine: Amillennialism and Postmillennialism

The doctrines of Amillennialism and Postmillennialism were the invention of the Roman Catholic Church, following the errors of Constantine and Augustine, at the time when Christendom was made the religion of the state. Amillennialism and Post Millennialism are totally unbiblical.

From the original Jewish perspective of the New Testament, only a Premillennial position is tenable.

If there is no Millennium, Jesus is not the Messiah. And, if He is not the Messiah for the Jews, neither is He the Christ for the church. He must fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies and, so far, He has only fulfilled the Son of Joseph prophecies.

Restoring the kingdom

What the apostles were really asking with the question, "Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the Kingdom?" was: "We know that you are the son of Joseph, but when are you going to be the son of David? When are you going to restore the kingdom the way David did?"

Even John the Baptist could not understand this.

And summoning two of his disciples, John sent them to the Lord, saying, "Are You the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?" (Luke 7:19).

Even the apostles, after the resurrection, on the Mount of Olives at the Ascension, were unable to understand that it is one Messiah, but two comings.

In His first coming, the Lord Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of Joseph. In His second coming, He will be the Messiah, the Son of David, the conquering king who will fully establish the kingdom.

Let us look at Jesus, the son of Joseph.

Beloved of his father

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all of his sons (Genesis 37:3).

Joseph was the beloved son of his father.

And behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).

The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was the beloved son of His Father.

Fellowship and service

Then he [Jacob] said to him [Joseph], "Go now and see about the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock; and bring word back to me." So he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem (Genesis 37:14).

Joseph lived in Hebron which, in Hebrew, means "the place of fellowship." Joseph dwelt with His father at the place of fellowship and was sent by his father to seek the welfare of his brothers.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:5-7).

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Jesus dwelt with His Father in the place of fellowship and was sent by His Father to seek the welfare of His brothers.

His brothers' sin

And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to his father (Genesis 37:2).

Joseph testified to his father about the sins of his brothers, and his brothers hated him.

"If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).

Jesus testified about the sins of His brothers and so they hated Him.

They hated him still more

Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more (Genesis 37:5).

Joseph revealed to his brothers the exalted position he was to receive.

They already hated him for testifying against their sins, but now they absolutely despised him.

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds in the sky with power and great glory (Matthew 24:30).

And the scribes and chief priests tried to lay hands on him that very hour, and they feared the people; for they understood that he spoke this parable against them (Luke 20:19).

Jesus revealed to His brothers the position of glory that He would receive and so His brothers hated Him.

Foretold that he would rule

Joseph told his brothers that "we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf" (Genesis 37:7).

"You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power" (Matthew 26:64).

Joseph foretold that one day he would rule. Jesus foretold that one day He would rule.

Rejected and condemned

When they saw him from a distance and before he came close to them, they plotted against him to put him to death (Genesis 37:18).

"We do not want this man to reign over us" (Luke 19:14).

But they kept on crying out, saying, "Crucify, crucify Him!" (Luke 23:21).

Both were rejected and condemned to die.

Out of His mind

And they said to one another, "Here comes this dreamer!" (Gen. 37:19).

And when His own people heard of this, they went to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses" (Mark 3:21).

Joseph was accused by his brothers of being a dreamer. They said of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of Joseph, that He had lost His senses.

Sold for silver

And Judah said to his brothers, "What profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; for he is our brother, our own flesh."

And his brothers listened to him. Then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver (Genesis 37:26-28).

Judah betrayed Joseph and sold him for twenty pieces of silver.

Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests, and said, "What are you willing to give me to deliver Him to you?"

And they weighed out for him thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:151).

Judah betrayed Joseph for twenty pieces of silver.

Judas (same name as "Judah" in Hebrew) betrayed the son of Joseph, after inflation, for thirty pieces of silver.

Servant's heart

So Joseph found favor in his sight, and he became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he owned he put in his charge (Genesis 39:4).

Everything Joseph did, he did as a servant.

Luke 22:25-27 and Philippians 2:7 tell us that everything Jesus did, He did as a servant.

Everything to prosper

And it came about that from the time he made him overseer in his house,and over all that he owned, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house on account of Joseph (Genesis 39:5).

The Lord caused all that Joseph did to prosper.

And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand (Isaiah 53:10).

God shall cause all that the son of Joseph does to prosper.

Tempted

And it came about after these events that his master's wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, "Lie with me." But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?" (Gen. 39:7-9).

Joseph was tempted to the utmost, but he endured and would not sin.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God,and serve Him only.' " Then the devil left Him. (Matthew 4:1-11).

Joseph was tempted to the utmost and endured. The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was tempted to the utmost, but He endured.

Falsely accused

When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and had fled outside, she called to the men of her household, and said to them, "See, he has brought in a Hebrew to make sport of us; he came in to me to lie with me, and I screamed.

And it came about when he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, that he left his garment beside me and fled, and went outside" (Genesis 39:13-15).

Joseph was falsely accused.

Now, the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, in order that they might put Him to death; and they did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward.

But later on two came forward and said, "This man stated, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days.' "

And the high priest stood up and said to Him, "Do You make no answer? What is this that these men are testifying against You?"

But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, "I adjure you by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Messiah, the Son of God." Jesus said, "You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Then the high priest tore his robes, saying, "He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy." (Matthew 26:59-65).

Joseph was accused falsely and lied about. The Messiah, the son of Joseph, was accused falsely and lied about.

Predicted life and death

Then the cupbearer and the baker for the king of Egypt, who were confined in jail, both had a dream the same night, each man with his own dream and each dream with its own interpretation . . Then Joseph said to [the cupbearer], "This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh's cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer . .

Then Joseph answered and said [to the baker], "This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh off you" (Genesis 40:5-19).

Joseph predicted that one of these criminals would live and that the other one would die.

And one of the criminals who were hanging there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!"

But the other answered, and rebuking him said, Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong."

And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in your kingdom!" And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:39-43).

Jesus was condemned with two criminals and, as He predicted, one lived and one died.

Promised deliverance

Then Joseph said to him, "This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh's cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer (Genesis 40:12-13).

Joseph promised deliverance to a condemned man.

And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!"

And Jesus said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:42-43).

Yeshua, the son of Joseph promised deliverance to a condemned man. And that same son of Joseph is promising deliverance to condemned men today if they will repent and ask Him to forgive them, and follow Him.

A way of salvation Joseph was betrayed by his Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles, but God took this betrayal and turned it around and made it a way for all of Israel, and all of the world, to be saved.

So too, the Messiah, the son of Joseph, was betrayed by His Jewish brothers into the hands of Gentiles. God took this betrayal and turned it around, making it a way for all Israel, and all the world, to be saved.

Forgotten by those he helped

Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him (Genesis 40:23).

And Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine - where are they? Was no one found who turned back to give glory to God, except this foreigner?" (Luke 17:17,18).

Joseph was forgotten by those he helped, and the son of Joseph was forgotten by those He helped.

Raised to glory

Then Pharaoh sent and called for Joseph, and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon; and when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came to Pharaoh

So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are.

You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you" (Genesis 41:14,39-40).

Joseph was taken from a dungeon, a place of death, and he was raised by the king to the place of glory in one day.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power towards us who believe.

These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come (Ephesians 1:19-20).

Joseph was raised from a place of condemnation to a place of glory in one day, and the son of Joseph, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, was raised from a place of condemnation to a place of glory in a single day.

Wonderful counselor

So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are" (Genesis 41:39).

Joseph proved to be a great counselor. In Isaiah 9:6 we read that "And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor."

Highly exalted

And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "See I have set you over all the land of Egypt" (Genesis 41:41).

Joseph was promoted to glory and honor and given a new name.

Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name (Phil. 2:9).

Jesus was promoted to glory and honor and given a new name.

Took a Gentile bride

Then Pharaoh named Joseph Zaphenath-Paneah; and he gave him Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, as his wife. And Joseph went forth over the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:45).

After being exalted, Joseph took a Gentile bride.

For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the Body (Ephesians 5:23-32).

Jesus, after exaltation, took a Gentile bride - in figure, the Gentile church.

That is why the book of Ruth - the story of a Jewish man taking a Gentile bride - is read in the synagogues at Pentecost, which we call "the birthday of the church."

And, in both cases, the brides were given to share the glory.

About thirty years of age

Now Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharoah, king of Egypt (Genesis 41:46).

Joseph was 30 years old when he began his work.

And when He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age. (Luke 3:23).

The son of Joseph was 30 years old when He began His work.

"Do whatever He says"

So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharoah for bread; and Pharoah said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do" (Genesis 41:55).

His (Jesus') mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5).

Of Joseph it was said "Do whatever he tells you." Of the son of Joseph it was said, "Do whatever He tells you."

Every knee shall bow

Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and put it on Joseph's hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen, and put the gold necklace around his neck.

And he had him ride in his second chariot; and they proclaimed before him, "Bow the knee!" And he set him over all the land of Egypt.

Moreover, Pharoah said to Joseph, "Though I am Pharoah, yet without your permission no one shall raise his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt" (Genesis 41:42-44).

When he was exalted, every knee bowed to Joseph and he was given all power and glory.

Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18).

Every knee shall bow to the Son of Joseph, and He has been given all power and glory.

The Bread of Life

So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharoah for bread; and Pharoah said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do."

When the famine was spread over all the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt, And the people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in the earth (Genesis 41:55-57).

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst" (John 6:35).

And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

The whole world had to get their bread from Joseph - there was no other way the people could be saved. And there is no way for us to be saved except through the son of Joseph.

Not entrusting Himself to men

Now they were seated before him, the firstborn according to his birthright and the youngest according to his youth, and the men looked at one another in astonishment (Gen. 43:33).

Why? Because Joseph knew the past sinful history of his brothers.

But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man (John 2:24,25).

Jesus the Messiah is like Joseph, knowing the past history and sins of his brothers.

Not recognized first time

However, as we read in Genesis, Joseph's brothers do not recognize him at the first coming. They recognized him at the second.

Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried, "Have everyone go out from me." So there was no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.

And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharoah heard of it.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come closer to me." So they came closer. And he said, "I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt" (Genesis 45:1-4).

Joseph's brothers did not recognize him at the first coming, but at the second.

And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so they will look upon Me who they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first born (Zechariah 12:10).

The brothers of the Messiah, the son of Joseph, did not recognize him at his first coming, but they will at the second, realizing the one they betrayed is now the exalted one who was going to save them.

The one who was crucified is the one who is the Redeemer, the King. The son of Joseph is also the son of David.

The Suffering Servant is also the Conquering King

When his brothers repented, he forgave them. And when Jesus' brothers, the Jewish people repent, He forgives them.

In the beginning Joseph used the Egyptian people, the Gentiles, to give bread to his brothers, but a time came when the Gentiles were sent away and he revealed himself to his brothers.

Right now the son of Joseph is using Gentiles, Christians, to send the food, the Bread of Life, to His brothers, but a time will come in the Great Tribulation when the son of Joseph will personally reveal Himself to His brothers.

All power to the King

Joseph, after his exaltation, turned around and delivered all into the hands of Pharaoh (Genesis 47:20).

Then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and authority and power (1 Corinthians 15:24).

Joseph gave all rule and authority and power into the hands of the king.

The Messiah, the son of Joseph, will give all power and rule into the hands of the King.

Savior

So they said, "You have saved our lives! Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharoah's slaves" (Genesis 47:25).

Joseph was acknowledged to be the people's savior.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior., Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds (Titus 2:11-14).

The Messiah, the son of Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ, is acknowledged to be the Savior. of all mankind.

Not recognized

When Joseph was adorned (Genesis 41:42) with the garments of Egyptian royalty, he became totally unrecognizable to his Hebrew brothers (Genesis 42:8).

After the first century, Jesus was taken and made king of the Gentiles. It was forgotten that He came as King of the Jews and He became totally unrecognizable to His Hebrew brothers.

One Messiah : Two Comings

Joseph was given a new name upon his exaltation (Genesis 41:45). The Gentiles call Rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef by a new name - Jesus - a Greek name, not His original one.

One Messiah, two comings.

The Jews did not recognize Joseph at the first coming but at the second. And they will recognize the son of Joseph at the second coming, seeing the one who was betrayed and crucified as the one who has indeed come to bring salvation.

One Messiah, two comings.

Jesus is coming back as the son of David. Every eye will see Him. The Jews will look upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn as one mourns for an only son.

Those who look upon Jesus, whom we have all pierced, and mourn now as one mourns for an only son, will have the same blessing and promise that He gives to His own people.

The Messiah, the son of Joseph, will return as the Messiah, the son of David. And He will restore the kingdom to Israel.

Once Saved, Always Saved?

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:24:48 GMT

Types of Calvinism

Then we have a more moderate form of Calvinism to the left of Wesleyan Arminianism known as “Four-Point Calvinism”, and then beyond that is a “Five-Point Calvinism” which, similar to Finneyism on the opposite extreme borders on the heretical. Let me explain what I mean about “Four-Point” and “Five-Point”.

There is debate among church historians: “Was Calvin a ‘Calvinist’?” “Calvinism” as we know it was not formulated by Calvin or from Calvin’s Institutes, but by something known as The Remonstrance of Dort. It was Calvin’s followers who later began to define Calvinism in the sense we know it. In the same way we must make something of a distinction between Wesley’s own personal beliefs and Wesleyan Arminianism, we have to make something of a distinction between Calvin’s own beliefs and what has come to be known as “Calvinism”. Classical Calvinism, which came out of The Remonstrance of Dort is called “TULIP”, an acronym or an acrostic.

“T” = “Total Depravity”. Calvinism and Arminianism both believe we are totally depraved. What does that mean? It does not mean we are as bad as we are capable of being; biblically we cannot get any worse. It just means we are totally fallen in body, mind, and spirit. Man is so fallen spiritually even his bodily members are taken with sin. He is totally depraved. It is like a six egg omelet where five of the eggs are good but one of the eggs is bad; the whole omelet is contaminated. Calvinists and Arminianists both believe in “Total Depravity”, that we cannot save ourselves and we are fallen. The problem is that Calvinists deny that once quickened by the Spirit and drawn to Christ by the Father that a measure of free will is given by divine grace making it possible to accept Christ. To them because man is dead due to sin it is not only salvation by grace, but we have no option whether or not to respond to that grace.

“U” = " Unconditional Election". The complication is that Wesleyan-Arminians and Calvinists alike view grace as “Undeserved Grace”. I totally agree, Wesley would have totally agreed – we all agree that God’s grace is undeserved. Christ died for the ungodly; while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. ( Rom. 5:8 ) We cannot do anything to earn salvation and it is a sin to even think that we can. (This is the rudiment of Calvinistic thought which I will explain shortly.) It was the reaction to the heresy and corruption of medieval Roman Catholicism. However, Calvinists since Dort at least redefine “Unconditional Grace” as "Unconditional Election" – that is, a doctrine of predestination where God intentionally creates some to go heaven and others so they can be eternally tortured in hell. There are multiple problems with this false doctrine. To begin with it directly contradicts too many scriptures that explain the divine nature relative to salvation which prove God does not create people for eternal torture (e.g., 1 Tim. 2:4 , Eze. 33:11 ).

The second problem is that this notion of God intentionally making people for eternal torment for which they have no choice and others to salvation for which they have no choice logically contradicts the need for evangelism and carrying out the Great Commission since the predestined will, of necessity, be saved anyway and those created by a God of love to be eternally tormented have no choice. While alien to scriptural thought both theologically and philosophically, this is purely a westernized variant of the Islamic doctrine of “Insha’Allah”; philosophically Calvinism is Islamic, not Judeo-Christian.

It is easy to see why fundamentalist Islamic mullahs esteem the Puritans as they are two of a kind. As the Taliban, Iranian Shia and Saudi Wahabbis have their mutaween (religious police), so did Calvin's Geneva, Puritan England and Massachusetts. There was a “kulturkampf” or war on culture where the theater, the humanities and sports were replaced by public burning, hanging and flogging in lieu of entertainment. This carried over into Calvinistic support for slavery in the Southern USA by the Southern Baptists and Methodists, apartheid in South Africa by the Dutch Reformed Church, and plantation displacement of Irish peasants by the Anglo-Puritans in Ireland. Muslims call it “demitide”, Calvinists called it “election”. While John Wesley opposed the institution of slavery, even an otherwise outstanding figure like George Whitefield, because of the cursed Calvinism to which he foolishly subscribed owned Black slaves resulting in a shameful indictment on the memory of such a great man of God.

As Muslims read the Judeo-Christian Scriptures through the prism of the Quran which combine elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism with a recycled Arabian paganism and then re-interpret the Quran in light of the Hadith in a religion based on The Five Pillars. Calvinists read it through the prism of Calvin's Institutes which are a recycled Patristic theology of Augustine (the chief doctrinal founder of Roman Catholicism), and then reinterpret that along the lines of the five acronym terms of their "TULIP". All of this tragedy, treachery, madness and hypocrisy stems from the mal-definition of “Undeserved Grace” as “Unconditional Election”. In the philosophical and moral sense, Calvinism is nothing more than Islam pretending to be Christianity.
The final problem is that the primary New Testament definition of “election” has to do with a corporate identity such as Israel being an elect nation or the collective Body of true believers. Calvinism distorts Romans 9-11 out of context to misapply election to individuals.

"The Christ of Arminianism"

I have something here and I almost could not believe it was sent by one of these people who otherwise like me: “The Christ of Arminianism”. “Arminianism” means that you do not believe in an unconditional “once saved, always saved”, that you do not believe that Jesus died for only certain people, that He is willing to receive all. This is Arminianism in a nutshell. I will read from what they sent me.

“The Christ of Arminianism loves every individual person in the world and desires their salvation.”

That is true. I believe that Christ loves every single person in the world and sincerely desires their salvation. The Christ of the Bible did not desire the salvation of only those whom God has unconditionally chosen. Citing the verses that would back that, but ignoring the verses that would balance it, they continue…

“The Christ of Arminianism would offer salvation to every sinner and does all in His power to bring them to salvation.”

I believe that.

“His offer and works are often frustrated because many refuse to come.”

That sounds scriptural to me.

“But the Christ of the Bible essentially calls for Himself only the Elect and sovereignly brings them to salvation. None of them will be lost.”

And, again, he points to the verses which support his point of view, but not the ones that balance it.

“The Christ of Arminianism cannot regenerate and save a sinner who does not first choose Christ with his own free will by which they can accept or reject Christ that free will may not be violated by Christ.”

True Arminianists do not actually believe that; we believe we can accept Christ, He has to give us the power to do it, but so this person thinks.

“The Christ of the Bible, however, sovereignly regenerates the Elect apart from their choice”.

According to this we have no choice.

“The Christ of Arminianism died on the cross for every individual person and therefore made it possible for everyone to be saved. The Christ of the Bible died only for God’s Elect people.”

In other words, the others were created to go to hell forever by some overstated kind of predestination. The Bible does say God created all things for a purpose, even the wicked for the day of judgment, but He would rather they be saved.

“The Christ of Arminianism loses many who He has saved.”

Jesus said many would fall away. ( Mt. 24:10 ) Even if He does give eternal security as some say, it is not necessarily based on His will or His work but the choice of the sinner.

“The Christ of the Bible preserves His chosen people.”

And he concludes by saying that people, like most Pentecostals – people like John Wesley – do not have the same Jesus, the same Jesus as the Calvinists. George Whitfield was a Calvinist, John Wesley was not, but they never had this kind of recrimination where they said each other had a separate Jesus – two different Jesus Christs. Some people go so far as to say that if someone believes that Jesus died for everybody and that the Lord can receive everybody, that they have a different Jesus.

This is known as “extreme Calvinism” – “hyper-Calvinism”. Such people can go so far with this that if someone does not go along with it, there can be no fellowship. Very often they are the same kind of people given to such things that if someone reads another version of the Bible other than the “Authorized Version” there can be no fellowship. These groups push further into error and get into something the Bible calls “party spirit”: “We have it right and others have it wrong”. ( Gal. 5:19 ) I get accused of that, but in fact it is not true. I always stand by the basic things of the Bible. If someone departs from the basic truths, if they go into things the Word of God says are wrong, then I will take a stand. But to divide over these other issues I think is wrong. Nonetheless, let us understand the nature of the division – not personal division, but theological division.

Starting at One End of the Spectrum

On one extreme we have something known as “Pelagianism”. Pelagianists were a kind of monk who actually lived in Britain in the early centuries of the Church and Pelagius was opposed by Augustine of Hippo. What did Pelagius believe? Pelagius denied original sin; he denied the fact that man was fallen. Pelagius said we can choose God ourselves because we do not have a fallen nature. The Bible says that is not true.

The Bible says that because of the Fall of man in the sin of Adam and Eve, we have a fallen nature. We are born with sin, therefore we must be born again. Pelagianism is a total heresy. We will find extreme Calvinists, many in Scotland and Northern Ireland, saying that Arminianism is simply another form of Pelagianism or a diluted from of Pelagianism.

Just to the left of Pelagianism is called “Finneyism”, named after the North American Evangelist Charles Finney.

I do not deny that many people were saved through Charles Finney’s preaching. Things that seemed to be supernatural manifestations of God’s power are associated with his ministry. However, we need to be very careful about making those things a barometer of consensus. Charles Finney also denied that man had a fallen nature. The Bible says because we are born with a fallen nature we must be born again. He denied it, however he admitted we all have sin anyway.

In the Middle

In the middle there is something known as “Wesleyan Arminianism”. Arminius was reacting to extreme Calvinism. His ideas were taken up in this and other countries under the influences of the Great Revivalists, particularly John Wesley, and it is often called “Wesleyan Arminianism” in countries like Great Britain, America, Canada and the like. This view believed that man is fallen, that we are all fallen, and that all men fall short of the glory of God. ( Rom. 3:23 ) This view also believes we cannot save ourselves. As a matter of fact, this view also believes we cannot even chooseJesus of ourselves.

We cannot save ourselves and we cannot choose Christ. He said, “I chose you”. ( Jn. 15:16 ) However, this particular view is what I believe and which classical Pentecostalism believes: we are dead because of sin. We cannot choose the Lord Jesus, we cannot choose to be born again because our spirit cannot communicate with God’s Spirit because we are dead in our sins; God’s Spirit puts just enough light back in us to communicate with Him. And He gives us just enough of the original state before the fall to make the choice Adam had.

The Restoration of Choice

Adam had a choice between two things: the Tree of Life (the Lord Jesus and eternal life) and the tree of the world (the knowledge of good and evil). He made the wrong choice. Jesus came as the “Second Adam”. ( 1 Co. 15:45 ) Only two men had a choice: Jesus and Adam. Adam had a choice and Jesus had a choice.

In the Temptation narrative ( Mt. 4:1-11 ; Mk. 1:12-13 ) Jesus was with the wild animals the same as Adam in the Garden. Christ was the Second Adam. The same things Satan tried on Adam he tried on Jesus. Before Jesus could have went to the cross and died, He had to be tested the way Adam was. In a sense, He had to earn the right to go to the cross tested as Adam. He identified with us.

Adam had a choice, Jesus had a choice, but we do not. What God does when He convicts somebody of sin is to make it possible for them to make a choice they would not make otherwise. We cannot choose Him – He chooses us, but He makes it possible for us to respond through His grace. Calvinists deny this. Calvinism (in its classical form) says we will never choose Him in any degree.

An unsaved person has no choice in sinning; they must sin because they are under the law of sin and death, much like the law of gravity. The most an unsaved person can choose about sin is when, where, and how, but this they cannot choose. As believers, because God’s Spirit is in us, have a choice – we do not have to sin. God gives us back our free will; we can choose to walk according to the Spirit or the flesh. Calvinism, in effect, denies the restoring work of Jesus Christ when He died and rose from the dead and gave us a new nature. God gives us back free will when we are born again. We have no free will before we are reborn and we cannot choose to be born again until God quickens it. That is what it means to be “Arminianist”.

Types of Calvinism

The Puritan-Presbyterian wars saw Calvinists slaughtering each other as well as non-Calvinists in Britain under Cromwell and Owen as a holy war just as in Islamic jihads Muslims slaughter each other as well as “infidels”. The status of women under Calvinistic Puritanism and in Islam is likewise identical; philosophically the two are the same. Jesus said we know them by their fruits and from Calvin's Geneva, to the Salem witch hunts, to slavery and apartheid we have seen the fruits of what Calvinists call “predestination” and what Moslems call “Insha’Allah” (all that transpires is the perfect divine will). As Muslims read the Judeo-Christian Scriptures through the prism of the Quran which combine elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism with a recycled Arabian paganism and then re-interpret the Quran in light of the Hadith in a religion based on The Five Pillars. Calvinists read it through the prism of Calvin's Institutes which are a recycled Patristic theology of Augustine (the chief doctrinal founder of Roman Catholicism), and then reinterpret that along the lines of the five acronym terms of their "TULIP". All of this tragedy, treachery, madness and hypocrisy stems from the mal-definition of “Undeserved Grace” as “Unconditional Election”. In the philosophical and moral sense, Calvinism is nothing more than Islam pretending to be Christianity.

The final problem is that the primary New Testament definition of “election” has to do with a corporate identity such as Israel being an elect nation or the collective Body of true believers. Calvinism distorts Romans 9-11 out of context to misapply election to individuals.

A Reaction to Catholicism

John Calvin was a Humanist scholar. None of his ideas were really original. He was a dynamic personality and a capable writer, but his ideas all came from Erasmus of Rotterdam, Martin Luther, and others from the first generation of Reformers and the Humanists before them. He was a Christian Humanist, but he was still a Humanist.

During the Middle Ages during the Renaissance a heresy was represented by people we know as “Thomists”, people influence by Thomas Aquinas, which was known as “Medieval Scholasticism”. Frances Schaffer explained it very well. What it virtually came to mean in the Renaissance was that although man was fallen, his intellect was not. (Do you see how nonsensical it gets?) And so all this religious argument begins revolving around man’s intellect as not having fallen but only his spirit. Even the Reformers never totally rejected Philanthropism, but the Humanist scholars who influence Calvin and Calvin himself who was a Humanist scholar set out to correct this error in medieval scholarship and delved into Gnostic hermeneutics and a lot of other things. So Calvin was reacting to Roman Catholicism in the Renaissance in the Middle Ages which said man was not totally depraved.

Secondly was the issue of “Undeserved Grace”. The Roman Catholic church’s teaching is sacramentalism and selling indulgences. (That is how the Vatican was built and what triggered the Reformation.) Luther reacted against Tetzel the Dominican. “When a coin in the coffer rings a soul from purgatory springs”. It expresses the belief that somehow one can earn salvation by buying it or by good works, and this is still found today in places such as Italy. It is terrible to see old ladies, elderly women, trying to go up the stairs – the Scala Sancta – on their knees with rosary beads trying to get their mothers out of Purgatory. Calvin was very likely acting against the depravity of Roman Catholicism.

The “T” and the “U” we both agree on, but then Calvin gets into the “L”.

The Beginning of Digression

“L” = “Limited Atonement” or particular redemption. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. ( Jn. 1:29 ) Jesus said, “If I am lifted up…I will draw all men unto Myself”. ( Jn. 12:32 ) Calvinism asserts that maybe He draws, but He is not intending to save everyone He is drawing, only the Elect, only the predestined, only those He foreknew.

God is omnipotent – He is all-knowing. He is omniscient. It is impossible to describe God with human intellect. Of course He knows the future. Of course He knows who will be saved. Of course He knows the one who will react to His grace. He chooses the ones He knew would respond – that is Arminianism. Calvinists say no, that it is only the ones whose names were written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world and that is all there is to it. Nobody else is going to be saved as their name is not in the Book, and there is nothing anyone can do to get their name taken off the “hell book” and into the Book of Life because that is the way they were born.

This is quite sad, is it not? One of the two versions of Christianity which cause the most mental illness perhaps, although the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a higher rate of mental illness than the general society, is Roman Catholicism. Take a country like Ireland with its very high instances of alcohol abuse, its high instances of child abuse and homosexual pedophilia – all of that stuff is built up in a psyche, a social psychology, that is influenced by the Roman church. The oedipusy because of Mary, the sexual repression because of the influences of Augustine’s Manicheanism, and other such things begin to manifest themselves in different ways. Roman Catholic countries have a lot of mental illness and a lot of alcoholism. But look at the other extreme.

I was in Bible college with people who grew up in strict Presbyterian backgrounds in Northern Ireland and Scotland. They went from one extreme to another. Roman Catholicism teaches one gets saved by works and by the sacraments, so they are always working to get saved, driving themselves neurotic and giving themselves a guilt trip. Because faith without works is dead and the evidence of our faith, (Ja. 2:17) extreme forms of Calvinism say one has to do these works to prove they are saved. “I must be saved because look what I am doing.” Neither one of them seems to give a real assurance of salvation. Neither of the extremes gives the people psychologically an assurance of salvation and a real peace.
The modern forms of Calvinism do not drive people crazy. Having a mother who was Irish-Catholic I can tell you that Irish-Catholicism is a form of mental illness. And so is Hassidic Judaism. I have seen both close up. My family is a combination of both Jewish and Catholic and I have seen both sides of it.
“Limited Atonement” asserts that Jesus only died for certain people, full stop. So say the Calvinists, not so say the Arminians.

“I” = “Irresistible Grace”. This says no one has a choice. If God put a name in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world, they have to be saved, they must be saved, and they will be saved – they have no capacity to choose Jesus, that is it. God chose us, we have not chosen Him, therefore we cannot even respond to Him except that He has ordained our response to it.

“P” = “Perseverance”, which is “once saved (unconditionally), always saved”. Notice I said “unconditionally”. I believe “once saved, always saved”, but it is conditional; it is not unconditional.

The Other End of the Spectrum

The moderate Calvinists will hold to “Total Depravity”, “Undeserved Grace”, “Irresistible Grace”, and “Perseverance”. Even moderate Calvinists will not hold to “Limited Atonement”, that Jesus only died for certain people and the others are created to go to hell. Five-Point Calvinists would hold to it all.

Even going further, there is a form of Calvinism that is as heretical on one extreme as it is on the other: it is “hyper-Calvinism” in the sense of not just being “Five-Point” but by saying that because God has already foreordained the Elect, the Church does not have to witness or evangelize.

We laugh at it now, but that was the predominant thinking of Baptists in Great Britain until William Carey stood up and challenged them at the Baptist Convention. He wanted to send missionaries to the East to convert the heathens and pagans and was told, “Brother Carey, sit down and be quiet. If God wants the heathen He will do it without your help or mine.”

Another form of heretical Calvinism is licentiousness. Because somebody went out and made a confession of faith at some point, (they went up at a Billy Graham Crusade or put their hand up in a meeting or said a prayer at the back of the class) they are unconditionally “once saved, always saved” and can now go out and keep sinning. Most Calvinists would say that if they do that it proves they were never saved to begin with, but there are others who would say that even if they backslide, if they really made the confession, that it does not matter, they are still going to be saved; it is just their works which will be burned up. ( 1 Co. 3:12-15 ) This is heretical. This is not what “man’s work is burned up” means at all. It refers to the things we do in the flesh not ordained by God, the things we do to “get” saved instead of what we do because we have been saved. When a Christian is saved we do not work to “get” saved, we work because we have been saved. Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. do it to get saved, Evangelicals do it because they have been saved. But a lot of the works we do are, of course, in the flesh and a lot of us do a lot more worldly and temporal things than we do the things of the Lord, and those things will be “burned up”.

The Extreme Results of "Election"

These extreme forms of Calvinism cam be quite brutal. This idea of “election” has been taken to such extremes that it has resulted in social injustice. Any time we have had a hyper-Calvinistic society of that extreme we have found its hallmark was not only terrible social injustice, but social injustice perpetrated in the name of Christ and the Church. Let us look at the three big examples of an hyper-Calvinistic church which most of us ought to be familiar with.

One is the American South, the extreme Southern Baptists who believed in slavery. The Baptist Church split between the American and Southern Baptists over the issue of slavery. “God elected us; we’re foreordained.” They said Black people were inferior, that God “elected” them to be that way. They took one verse in Genesis out of context about the son of Ham and so on to justify what happened to the Black people.

Look at Northern Ireland. No one hates the Roman Catholic Church and its heresy more than I do; it is from hell. I despise Roman Catholicism, but I love Roman Catholic people. If I did not love Roman Catholic people so much I would not hate the church that is leading them to hell as much as I do. However, hatred of Catholicism is one thing, oppression of Catholics is another. Look at what the strict Presbyterians did to the Roman Catholics in Ireland for centuries; it is unspeakable. Obviously I have no love for the IRA or anything like it – I think they are a pack of thugs. However, there is still a whole history in back of what is going on there that most people in Great Britain do not even know about, and would not want anything to do with, perpetrated in the name of an extreme form of Calvinism. In the aftermath of the Plantation Period all kinds of things were justified by Calvinism in what amounted to social injustice against Catholic people.

The third is the Apartheid in South Africa. The Dutch Reformed Church were hyper-Calvinists.

Whenever we find an extreme form of Calvinism we find oppressors. Calvin had a virtual police state which he theologically designed in Geneva. People were burned alive for heresy. There is a Reformed church in Zurich founded by Zwingli who drowned Baptists. If someone believed in being baptized as a Believer, they cut a hole in the ice and drowned them. In Great Britain there was a terrible war with Presbyterians, Calvinists killing other Calvinists. In Massachusetts they burned witches. Whenever we find extreme Calvinism we find injustice and oppression. I know of no exception.

The more moderate forms of Calvinism, even the Five-Point ones such as the Puritans did other things which were good such as the establishment of Parliamentary democracy and so on based on biblical principles; I am only speaking against the extremes. I will speak against the extremes of Calvinism on the one side of the equation, but I will also co-equally speak against the extremes of Arminianism and beyond with the ideas of Finney and Pelagius on the other. The truth is in the Middle and that is the basic situation.

Arguments from God's Word

I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh…

(This introduces the sections of Romans 9-11 dealing with the soteriological, the salvific and prophetic purposes of God for Israel and the Jews, God’s continuing love for Israel despite their popular rejection of its Messiah by what became of the majority of them.)

…who are Israelites, to whom belongs…

(“Belongs” is in the present continuous active tense – God is not finished with the Jews. In the Greek it is present continuous active.)

…the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises…

(Indicating it was written before 70 AD, of course.)

…whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed.

(Meaning the Torah.)

For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;

(In other words, being a physical Jew is useless unless one accepts the Messiah.)

…nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “through Isaac your descendants will be named.”

(Now he begins doing a midrashic exposition of the Book of Genesis.)

That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, ( Rom 9:1–23 )

Based on this Calvinists will say, “God is the Potter, we are the clay, who are we to argue with God? He chooses who goes to heaven, He chooses the Elect, the others are going to go to hell.” And of course they even take “Jacob I loved I loved, but Esau I hated” in some cases and say, “White people I loved, Black people I hated” or “Protestant people I loved, Catholic people I hated”, etc.

Remember that John Wesley’s revivals were an Arminian reaction to the social injustices bred by a dead church that was permeated with Calvinistic thought. That is when the people began coming out of the coal mines and the sweat shops and began giving their lives to the Lord in the tens of thousands.

The Text in Context

So Calvinists say, “How can we argue with God? He can do what He wants, He is sovereign, He makes one son this way and one son that way.” The first mistake these people are making is a text out of its context becomes a pretext. The context of Romans 9-11 is predominantly dealing with nations, not individuals. It is dealing with the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul quotes about the two twins. Let us read what he is commenting on in Genesis.

The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.” ( Gen. 25:23 )
What these people do is take something that is talking about nations and apply it to people. There is a principle in midrash called “kal v’homer” – “light to heavy”. It says that what applies in a specific situation should also apply in a heavy one. But before we use that principle, we must first look at the context. It is not talking about God creating some people for this purpose and that purpose, it is talking about His election of nations.

The Text in Context

Moreover, we have something called “corporate solidarity” in Scripture. Corporate solidarity is where a person represents a nation or a larger group of people. Esau and Jacob respectively represent what becomes the Israelite and Arab nations. As time goes on, Esau is reconciled to Jacob. In Genesis God has prophetic purposes for the Arab people the same as He does the Jews. His election here has to do with His calling for service; it has nothing to do with salvation in the primary sense that these people are trying to make it.

This is the same in the Book of Obadiah. The name of the patriarch becomes a metaphor, or a general term, for the nations descended from him. So before going any further we have to realize that these people are taking something talking about nations and applying it to individuals when that is mainly not even what the text is talking about. It can apply to individuals in some degree, as the text goes on to describe about Pharaoh, but when the New Testament interprets the Old Testament, we have to go back to read the Old Testament’s context.

The Example of a Hardening Heart

Pharaoh hardened his own heart. He repeatedly hardened his own heart. Only after he repeatedly hardened his own heart did God harden his heart. God raised him up and used him. He let the guy get away with murder. He let the guy get away with this, that, and the other thing while thinking he was the big cheese. He was deified by Egyptians, of course, and worshiped as god, and God used him for His purpose, only to bring him down. But it does not say God hardened his heart until he repeatedly hardened his own.

But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, “He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.” ( Jn. 12:37–40 )

Could not, would not, should not. God’s hardening of a heart is always in response to its own hardening. It was not a case where God just hardened their hearts. Even Calvin admitted that it worked that particular way and according to that kind of dynamic.

This does not quote from the Hebrew text, it quotes from the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament where the mood is subjunctive. The subjunctive mood in Greek allows for the possibility – “ Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and turn to Me and be converted”. The possibility of their repentance still exists in the Greek subjunctive.

More than that along this vein is the idea of “be converted”. The Septuagint takes Hebrew and translates it into Greek. “Converted” in Hebrew is “teshuva”. The Hebrew word for “repent” and “convert” is the same thing – it means to turn away from sin toward God. This idea that He arbitrarily, or by His own sovereign will, just decides who will do this or that is the result of only giving one side of the story. But the Bible speaks of something very different. When He hardens hearts it is because they have repeatedly hardened their own. How many times did He send Moses back to Pharaoh? But let us look even further.

The Potter in Jeremiah

“God is the Potter, we are the clay”. This comes from the Book of Jeremiah 18-19. Let us read the Old Testament text in its context to see what Paul is talking about.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying,

When we see the “word” of the Lord, it is “d’var” in Hebrew and the Greek would be “logos”. It is Jesus. This is Jesus Himself coming to Jeremiah in some kind of revelation. It is not like a messagecame, it is like a person came. It had to do with a personal encounter with what the rabbis call the “d’var” or the “mamre” (Aramaic), or what the New Testament calls the “Logos”, a personal encounter with Christ. When we read the Bible in the Spirit, it is not simply an encounter with the text, it is an encounter with the Person. What we get from the text derives from the encounter with the Person. If you are just getting information today you are not hearing from Jesus, you are just hearing from me. The question today is are you encountering Jesus? Are you encounter theWord or just words? If you have the Word the Word will be crystal clear.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.”
He had to go somewhere. God was going to show him from the illustration of a potter how to understand something. God did not say, “I am going to show you something now”, but “I am going to show you something that will explain it as an object lesson”.

Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying…
(We can almost say, “Jesus said to him”)

“Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. ( Jer. 18:1-6 )

“Can I not…deal with you as the potter does?” Once again, who is He saying this speaking to: a person or a nation? They are taking something that predominantly applies to a corporate group of people – a nation, and over-applying it to individuals. Their second mistake is that they do not look at how the potter works.

How a Potter Works

When we take our study tours to Israel, we frequently show people in a Talmudic village in Galilee how the potter made earthenware vessels from clay. If it does not turn out right, the potter smashes it into mortar, lubricates it, and begins over. If he is not happy with that one he re-smashes it, but it is the same material. A potter in biblical times would normally not give up until he remade the thing at least a dozen times.

Jesus does not save people to lose them. When we drop our cross we pick it up. Although we goof our lives up, He does not give up. He may have to break us and remake us time and time again, but it takes a long time for the Potter to give up on the material. So it is with us.

People are always worrying about their salvation, thinking they may be lost, but the teaching of the potter is not like that; that is not how the potter works. However, there is a time, of course, when the potter does give up.

Not Individuals But Nations

“At one moment I might speak concerning…

…an individual? No…

…a nation …

The text of Romans 9-11 is nations, not primarily people.

…or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.

(Like the story of Jonah and Nineveh.)

“Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it. So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.”’ But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ ( Jer. 18:7-12 )

God will raise up another nation, but if they repent He will take them back. That is what Scripture here says, and that is exactly what Paul is talking about in Romans 9-11.

Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell…

(That is, to the mainly Gentile Church.

…severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. ( Rom. 11:22 )

What does Jeremiah say? If this other pot that the Potter makes does not work out well, He will get rid of that one! But what does Paul then say?

And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. ( Rom. 11:23 )

What does Jeremiah 18 say? The same thing. “If it repents then I will think better of the good”.

This is not the meaning of the “potter/clay” teaching in the way they are saying. I wish they would read the text in its context, but they do not.

It is Not What They Cite, But What They Do Not Cite

You will notice that extreme Calvinists will always only use the verses which support their point of view. (I suppose Jehovah’s Witnesses do the same thing, and if we are not careful we can do the same thing, so we have to be careful.)
“The Christ of Arminianism loves every person in the world and sincerely desires their salvation”.
And he goes on to say that the Christ of the Bible is not like this; it is only the Elect He has unconditionally chosen. Let us look at some of the verses he does not cite.

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. ( 2 Pe. 3:9 )

I have had Calvinists try to suggest to me, “That only means Christians”. First of all, even they are right, even if it means “only Christians”, how can Christians “perish” under “once saved, always saved”? (I have not received an answer to that yet.) But then it says…

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. ( 2 Pe. 3:10 )

The context is talking about the end of the world for everybody. He is “not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance”. Jesus does not want to lose anybody.

Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. ( 1 Tim. 6:12 )

It is something that must be apprehended. It is not just something that is “there”, it is something that must be apprehended.

And he says something even further in Timothy: the Lord says He does not want anyone to go to hell. He takes no joy in people going to hell, He takes joy in people being saved. But when Paul writes about this he is proceeding from a number of Old Testament contexts, one of which is in the Book of Ezekiel.

He Does Not Want to Lose Any

Ezekiel is prophesying at a very bad time, when judgment is well under way, and God tells Ezekiel…

“When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself. Again, when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand.” ( Eze. 3:18-20 )

God is telling Ezekiel here and in Ezekiel 33 directly ( Eze. 33:11 ) that He takes no pleasure when the wicked perish; He would rather they repent. “Warn them so they will not perish”. He wants everyone to repent!

Our Calvinistic friends will say that only means “the Old Covenant”, but now we are under a new Law of grace. That is some idea of grace they have.
This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. ( 1 Tim. 2:3–4 )
God “desires all men to be saved”! He knows not all men are going to be saved, He knows the ones who will reject His offer of salvation through His Son Jesus, and He knows the one who will accept; He foreordained it – He knows how it is going to turn out, but He wants everyone to be saved. Ideally, He wants them all to be saved.

We have to look at everything the Bible says on a subject for the full weight of Scripture. There is a balance. A major part of the problem comes from the fact that we are looking back to the 16th Century and the Reformers instead of to the 1st Century and the early Christians. We have to put ourselves in a situation that the 1st Century Christians were in to understand what the Apostles are writing and how it applies to us. But that principle is no less true when we look at Reformed (or Calvinistic) Theology. What was Calvin up against? Why is he writing the way he does? Obviously he was trying to free people from bondage, not put them in it.

The Roman Catholic Church was keeping people ridden with grief, guilt, and fear. And he was trying to tell them that “once saved, always saved” to keep them free from this oppression. On the other hand, there was another oppression that came as a result, this idea of only the Elect. It is a truth, but a misunderstood truth. He does not want to lose any.

There are so many verses.

“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” ( Jn. 12:32 )

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. ( 2 Pe. 3:9 )

This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. ( 1 Tim. 2:3–4 )
And in Ezekiel 3, “Warn them so they will not perish”.

Such it is, but let us go further and understand why.

The Roots of Calvinism

Calvin came out of Humanism. It was something that later emerged into what we know as “The Enlightenment” and was worse than Rationalism. Whenever there is a change in scientific thought, that changes technology. And when technology changes, it changes the economy, and when the economy changes, it changes the culture and the political situation and people’s worldview begins to change.

Out of the Renaissance, Greek and Roman learning was rediscovered and ideas came from the East. Under medieval Roman Catholicism, Western Europe went into the Dark Ages. If you want to know what a Roman Catholic world would look like, look at what a Roman Catholic world was like – look at the Dark Ages. If you want to know what the popes would do if they had their way in the world, look at what they did do; they had their way for twelve centuries. Look at the inquisitions. That is Roman Catholicism.

At one time, for instance, physics was based on Isaac Newton. It was a Newtonian worldview. But since the advent of Einstein and Relativity, we do not see physics that way. In the old physics matter was matter and energy was energy – the two were mutually exclusive. But there was a born-again Christian called Rutherford who moved to England who began to do experiments with photons (light particles) and found out they have mass – “matter”. A light particle is a “wave”; it is energy. But it also has mass? In the old physics matter and energy were mutually exclusive; in the new physics things we used to think were mutually exclusive are held in some kind of a tension. The worldview of Calvin could not grasp things not being mutually exclusive, that they could be held in a tension with each other.

In the new physics particle physicists today talk about a universe which is neither finite nor infinite but is “critical”. What is emerging in the world of physics is in many way closer to the worldview of the Bible than that which was the worldview of Calvin. Calvin was black-and-white: “once saved, always saved”.
For those not conforming to this the explanation was that they were not saved to begin with. The view was that either someone as part of the Elect or they were not part of the Elect. He could not keep things in tension.

Holding Things in Tension

This does not begin with Calvin. Calvin simply amplified it for his time and we have been stuck with it ever since. It does not just go back to Augustine and Pelagius, it goes back to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were “determinists” – they were “fatalists”; the Pharisees were not. Jesus usually agreed with the Pharisees. Only on the issue of divorce did He seem to digress from their point of view. He had a more conservative view than they did, but the Pharisees were much closer to the truth than the Sadducees.

Jesus said, “The Son of Man must be betrayed for it is written, but woe to him by whom He must be betrayed”. ( Mt. 26:24 ) The Pharisees said that all is foreseen, all is ordained, but choice is given. They agreed with Jesus. (Or Jesus agreed with them.) It was the Sadducees who were determinists. Calvinism is closer to the Sadducees than the Pharisees with whom Jesus agreed. Jesus held the two in tension. The way a physicist today can allow that light particles have mass, a physicist from a hundred years ago could not. Calvin could not accept it because of his worldview, but wehave to accept it because it is the worldview of the Bible and it is the worldview today.

Think about human emotion. Because of the fall of man there is a curse on human relationships, including the relationships between men and women. A marriage is a love-hate relationship, isn’t it? “I can’t live with him, I can’t live without him”. The human brain is the only computer in the world which can hold two mutually exclusive points of view at the same time so they can be valid.

I am from New York City. New York is like London. If you talk to people who are big city people they will tell you, “I love it and I hate it at the same time”. Talk to a Londoner. “Oh, yeah, the West End with the theaters and museums with the cosmopolitan atmosphere and the energy – I love it. But the congestion on the Tube and the crime – I hate it.” There is a tension because we are emotional beings. We are made in God’s image and likeness – “Imagio Dei” – and there is a tension in God. We can accommodate things psychologically and emotionally which are mutually exclusive that a computer cannot. We are not computers because we are made in God’s image and likeness. We have to begin to think more like humans made in God’s image and likeness than like computers. Things are held in tension.

If God gives us a backslidden son or daughter, do we love them any less? There will be times, maybe, where they drive us up the wall, when we want to get rid of them, but we cannot. That is the way it is. An unsaved wife, an unsaved husband – it is a tension to deal with. God holds things in tension as well. The difference, of course, is because He is God He knows what will happen. Calvin could not accept that with his worldview; with our worldview it is more easy.

Scripture They Omit

For every verse someone can show election in the sense that Calvinists interpret it, I can produce another verse showing He wants us all to be saved. Let us take this a bit further.

In the Book of Acts it says they “might” be saved. ( Acts 4:12 ) So the possibility of being saved is there and the possibility of not being saved is there. But where do we go from here? What is the next basis of argumentation? On the Calvinists’ list it is not “Limited Atonement”, it becomes “Perseverance”, that once someone is saved they are always saved, full stop.

It is wrong to say that Wesleyan Arminianism cannot give people the assurance of salvation; it can. We can be sure of our salvation right this minute. I can show extreme Calvinists who cannot. We can be sure of our salvation and we can be sure of it tomorrow if we continue in His way. There is an example that I always use.

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; ( Phil. 2:12 )

He begins by talking about obedience in connection with salvation. Why?

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” ( Jn. 3:36 )
If there is real belief there will be an action upon it; we act according to it. “Work out your salvation” – it does not say work for. (It is “katergazomai” in Greek.)

Working It Out

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Donnie Berkowitz and he wanted a model airplane. This was a big model airplane that little Donnie barely could dream of getting the money for. It cost seventy-five quid and he was only 10 years old. Where was he going to get seventy-five quid? There was no way possible little Donnie could buy this model airplane. He wanted to get the instructions and build this model airplane and put it on the mantelpiece in his house so his parents would show people when they came to visit. But the price was just way beyond anything he could think of.

So his father decided for his birthday as a surprise he would buy little Donnie this airplane. Donnie opens the gift wrapping and inside of it is a box with a model airplane in the box. Little Donnie was given something he could have never possibly achieved by his own means. There was no way he could have gotten that airplane; it was well beyond the bounds of his capabilities. So he had a choice: he could open the box, build the airplane, and put it on the mantelpiece, or he could put the box on the mantelpiece and everybody could come and look at the picture on the outside of the box.

“Katergazomai” does not mean “work for”, it means “work out”.

His father gave him something he could not have got on his own, but he still had to act on what was given him. He had to open the box, assemble it, and put it on the mantelpiece. This idea that we profess faith in Christ but take it and just place it on the mantelpiece is crazy. Jesus said to His disciples…
“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” ( Jn. 15:6 )

This is not to do with “works” being burned up, it is talking about people who make some profession of faith at some point in their life but never bear the fruit of the Spirit. It is not about what we did but how much we became like Jesus.

Now “fruit” is the fruit of the Spirit. The wise man delivers souls ( Pr. 11:30 ), but we are all witnesses. If we see a Christian who is not actively witnessing as a part of their Christian life, that is abnormal and as much a mark of unfaithfulness as not reading the Bible, not praying, or not meeting with other Christians. We should all be witnessing, bearing much fruit.

Hence little Donnie takes the box and his father says, “Donnie, I gave you that but now you have to put it into operation.”

Swimming the Channel

Another way to look at this is someone trying to swim from Calais in the north of France to the White Cliffs of Dover. A gale force wind comes and they begin to drown. He is going under and cannot swim his way out of it. He yells, “Save me! Save me! I’m drowning!” He is half way across the channel. He cannot go back to the north of France to Calais, but neither can he continue on to England. He is drowning and it begins to rain, the storm is tumultuous, and the waves begin to overtake him.

All of the sudden, a helicopter appears in the sky with “Jesus” on printed on the side of it. The hatch on the helicopter opens and this Jewish guy with a beard says, “You want Me to save you?”

“Oh, yes, Jesus! Please save me! I will never make it on my own!”

Jesus says, “You really understand? You will really trust Me?”

The man replies, “Yes, Jesus, I trust You! I know I will never make it without You! I cannot save myself! Please save me! What do You want me to do?”
So Jesus takes a lifejacket, drops it out and says, “Put this on!”

The guy puts the lifejacket on and says, “OK, Jesus! I got it on! What do you want me to do now?”

“Keep swimming! The White Cliffs are that way!”

The Lord made possible for him to do something that he could never do on his own. Jesus saved him. Jesus did something for him he could not do for himself. Jesus did something for him that was unmerited, undeserved, but he had to put on the lifejacket and swim.

Now if somebody gets tired and stops along the way, they can always resume. But if they take the jacket off and try to go back to France or swim the wrong way, what is going to happen? They are going to drown. Whose fault is that?

The Restoration of Choice

What Jesus does in salvation is to make it possible for us to make a choice we could never make otherwise. He makes it possible for us to make a choice. He restores enough of our free will to chose Him. Nobody can resist God’s will ultimately, and His will is indeed for all men to be saved. But His will is also for us to be His children and to choose Him of our own volition. We cannot choose him of our own volition because of the Fall so He “quickens” us – He gives us enough light. There is a balance: what Adam lost we get back in Christ. Calvinism denies this; we do not get back that free choice. Well, Jesus gave me a free choice.

To say I do not have a choice about being saved is no different than saying I do not have a choice about sinning. Of course I have a choice about sin – I do not have to sin. I might do it but I do not have to. Salvation is the same. God gave me the grace, the power, and the means to choose Christ, which I could never have done on my own. I still had to act on it. Once I accepted the Lord Jesus, although I get tired and drop my cross or get tired swimming the Channel, I am not going to take the lifejacket off. I am going to keep going. As long as I keep that lifejacket on I am secure. “Nobody can snatch them out of My hand” ( Jn. 10.28 ) – that is true! Nobody is taking that jacket off of me, but I can take it off. I am not going to. I would rather drown at sea with the jacket. At least I will float to the surface one day, but I can take it off. As long as I leave the jacket on I am eternally secure. It is what Isaiah calls “the garments of salvation”. ( Is. 61:10 ) We are going to be eternally secure.

The Example of Hebrews

Let us look at Hebrews, which was written to Believers – specifically Jewish Believers, where there is some suggestion of a falling away from belief in Jesus as the Messiah and trying to go back under the Law. This kind of thing was more the feature of epistles such as Galatians than it was Hebrews. In Galatians they were practicing a form of Nomianism. They were not really legalists saying we are saved by the Law but they were saying we are saved by keeping the Law in addition to Jesus. We are only saved by Him. We can never be saved by works. Christians do works because they have been saved, not to get saved. However, Hebrews was written to Jewish believers and there was some danger in going back to Judaism in some way, but not in the same way as Galatians. I am going do this by examining the text in the original Greek and providing the English translation.

Dio aphentes ton tes arches tom Christos logon epi ten telioteta pherometha en palon themelion kataballomenoi metanoias apo nekron epyon kai pisteos epi theo. Baptismon dedache epithesos to keiron anastasis te nekris kai krimatos aionion.

“Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and a faith toward God, with instructions about absolution, laying on hands, of the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.” ( Heb. 6:1-2 )

So the writer of Hebrews begins. He talks about people who have been saved and how they need to lay this particular foundation. But immediately after that he introduces what must be built upon it. He begins with the Greek word “dio”, which means “for”. It is a way of explaining that because these other things have happened, let us press on. And he begins talking along the following lines, saying …

“This we will do, if God permits, for it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit. They have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come. If they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold Him up to contempt.” ( Heb. 6:3-6 )

The word “gan” (in verse 4) means “for”. The Greek mood is not a subjunctive or conditional subjunctive, but it does imply the possibility that something can go wrong. It is not a subjunctive thing that it is doubtful it will happen, it is conditional. But then it goes beyond this. “It is impossible to renew them” – “adenaton” (in verse 6). This is the same word as we have in Hebrews 6:18 saying, “God cannot default” using “adenaton” – it is “impossible”. It becomes so impossible for these people to be renewed, that it means God would be false if they could because it is the same term. God cannot be false, but neither can these kind of people be renewed. What is this talking about?

Those Who Cannot Be Renewed

We only have one kind of sin where people cannot be renewed: blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. In its context, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit had to do with the Pharisees or the religious leaders of Jesus’ day attributing to Satan that which they knew was of God. They knew it was of God – they did not think it was of God – they knew it was of God. In the Parable of the Vineyard it says clearly in Matthew, “for they knew that He spoke the parable of them”. ( Mt. 21:45 ) So they knew it was of God, but then knowing it was of God they said it was of Satan in such a way as to mislead others away from the way of salvation. That is very depraved. Someone knows something is of God but for their own interests they say it is not in such a manner so as to lead others away from the truth to bring them destruction. In its context, that was the description of the unpardonable sin.

We do not know at what point the Holy Spirit leaves someone. A backslider does not know at what point that happens. When King Saul went the way he did, he did not know the Spirit had left him, did he? Moreover, he continued to prophesy. Remember, the gifts and calling of God go forth without repentance. ( Rom. 11:29 ) The Spirit may have been on him in terms of the pouring out of the Spirit, but not inside him anymore. “Lord, did we not do this and that in Your name? I never knew you!” ( Mt. 7:21-23 ) We do not know at what point that happens, but there is the possibility for someone to backslide so irrepentantly and so far, refusing to come back to Jesus, that they have come to a place where they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit convicts a backslider continually – continually and continually. When someone falls away from the Lord they have no peace in the Lord, they have no peace in their prayer life, they have no peace in anything. They keep resisting and resisting and resisting. People like that ultimately will not be saved. They will go so far there is no coming back. That can happen. They can actually reach that point.

It is not easy, but there are people who have become so backslidden that they know the truth but they will not allow their wives to bring their children up in the Church. There are people who have husbands or wives who are so backslidden that they actually lead their own children away from the truth even though they themselves know the truth. This is a terrible kind of sin. There is some basis for associating this with blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

They Saw the Light

“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened” – “phoristhentas” is the Greek word. The idea is that they have “seen the light” or “come to the light”. It is not some abstract thing – they knowexactly what it is.
“Adonaton gan tous hapax phoristhentas genomentous te tes doreas tes epouranion kai metoxis genethentas pneumatos hagion.” ( Heb. 6:4 )
“Once being enlightened and tasting the gift (“doreas”) and the heavenlies…”
Not really a heavenly experience but “the heavenlies”…
“…and sharers – partakers, more sharers they are becoming.”
It is not that they “became”, but something ongoing (continuous present active). To become like that it was as a result of “the Spirit”.

There is no way that these people, who had actually been experiencing the Holy Spirit and in contact with their heavenly destination, were not Believers. It is about Believers, about people who have actually been saved. They came to the light – “phoristhentas”. “I saw the light”. ( Ac. 22:9 ) “The true Light that was coming into the world that enlightens every man”. ( Jn. 1:9 ) They came to Jesus.

They Tasted

As a result of coming to Jesus something else happened: they “tasted” of it. The Greek is “gensomenous theon” – “they tasted the goodness”. What this text is doing is basically drawing on Psalm 34:8 .

O taste and see that the Lord is good;
How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! ( Ps. 34:8 )

These are people who have actually tasted it.

As we continue reading this text in Hebrews 6, for the one who tastes the Lord we have the Greek term “theon rema” – they tasted the “word”. But it is not the “logos”, it is the “rema”.

There are two basic terms for the “word” of God in the New Testament in Greek: “rema” and “logos”. They are virtually synonymous. We cannot make the kind of distinction which some people do to the degree they do. Some say the “logos” is the printed word and “rema” is some kind of personal revelation from the Spirit. That is not true. What we can say is that the “logos” is objective. The Bible is the Word of God, and Jesus is Jesus, and it is Him in print. But the “rema” is what it becomes in experiential reality when it becomes truth in our life. Jesus is Jesus – He is the “Logos”; only when the Logos comes to us in a personal way does the Bible really come alive, and that is the term that is used here. “Logos tos Theo” is the term used in Hebrews 4:12 that the author of Hebrews is building up to in Hebrews 6. “For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword”. ( Heb. 4:12 ) The Lord here is not “logos”, it is this personal encounter.

In other words, there can be an academic theologian, a scholar who knows Greek and Hebrew perfectly but he is not born-again. He will have the “logos” in some way, but the “logos” will not have become a personal experience in his life; there will be no “rema”, no real revelation – it will be purely intellectual. The Bible in the hand of a man like that is useless. It is always somebody with God’s Spirit inside them who is “partaken” of the Holy Spirit. That is what the author of Hebrews is saying here. If someone is partaken of the Holy Spirit, the subjective truth – the “logos”, now becomes the “rema”.

They Were Partakers

These are people who have really come to some kind of personal experience and faith in Jesus: “partakers” – “metochous genethentas”. In Luke 5:7 this word is usually translated in English Bibles as “comrades”. In other words, they are people who became our comrades; they were one of us. They were not people who were never one of us, they were one of us. They were saved and they partake of “the heavenly gift” – “tes doreas tes epouranion”.

This occurs in only one place in the Bible in this particular phrase, not using the word “charism” – “grace”, but “doreas”. We can say that God’s grace is in some way for everybody; He is gracious to everyone, even unsaved people. But this is not the word “charism”; it is not that kind of “grace”. It is “doreas”, the gift of salvation. It is His great, untold saving gift of the knowledge of the truth. It is more than the general type of grace that God gives to all people.

The reason I point this out is that Calvinists, arguing from Calvin’s Institutes, will try to say that this means they did not come all of the way but only part of the way, but the text simply does not support that. Calvinists do what a lot of people do: they begin with a presupposition and then they have to begin doing monkey tricks with the text to fit that presupposition. But that is not what this text in its context in any way supports. These were people who knew the Lord.

They Fall Away

Then it says that they commit apostasy, that they go away in verse 6. That word for “apostasy”, or if they had been falling away, is not “apostasia”. “Apostasia” is something different. This is another word, a Greek conditional expressed in the participle, “parapesontas”. It goes against the following argument.

There is an argument that these people were Jews who believed and the writer of Hebrews was saying to them there was no way they could go back to Judaism, that it was impossible since there is no longer a sacrifice outside of where they were (as explained in Hebrews 10), and it means that they needed to stay where they were. When we read it in that context it has nothing whatsoever to do with saying that someone cannot fall away, but that is an argument some people try to impose.

If the word was “apostasia”, that would be one thing, but the word is not “apostasia”, it is “parapesontas”. “Parapesontas” goes directly against this; it means something very different. It means “falling away from a standard. “Apostasia” comes from an entirely different Greek word altogether. The Greek root of “apostasia” means “to depart”. Someone is here and now they have left. This word for “falling away” describes someone who has not stopped believing it, but have stopped living it.

Their argument is that this was written to Jewish Believers and he was telling Jewish Believers in the 1st Century that they cannot fall away because it is hopeless to go back to Judaism (the Temple is about to be destroyed, etc.) and for them to stay where they are. They argue that this was written before the Temple was destroyed so therefore it just applies to these believing Jews and that the destruction of the Temple, etc. prevents them from going back and that this is not talking about Believers losing their salvation. If that was the case, the word would be “apostasia” – “depart”, but it is not that word. This means “not living up to the same standard”. It describes someone who used to live a Christian life but has now departed from their belief; they are just not living it anymore. That fits the context exactly. Hebrews 6 opens with, “Therefore leaving the elementary principles”.

When we find people who after 10 years, 20 years, or 50 years who still eat “baby food”, that is not normal or healthy. When we see people who become stagnant in their Christian life and never grow in grace, never grow in their knowledge and understanding of the Word, never grow by having their character changed by the image of God into the image and likeness of Jesus – they are always the same, people like that are really backsliders. When I was a kid there was a Bob Dylan song and one of the lines was, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying”. It is something like that. If we are not going ahead we are going backward.

The word here for “falling away” is not “apostasia”, it is not people who have departed from their beliefs. It is not talking about people who say, “I don’t believe in the Bible anymore. I don’t believe in Jesus anymore”. “Apostasia” can mean that but this is not “apostasia”. This word means, “I haven’t departed from the faith – I still believe it”, but they are not living it anymore.

And so by not living it any more they go into a form of sin that is worse than before they were saved. We cannot meet the Lord Jesus and be the same person; we are either going to be better or we are going to be worse. If someone comes to Jesus they are either going to become better than they used to be or they are going to become worse, but they cannot get saved and remain the same. They cannot come to taste of the Lord, to be partakers of the Holy Spirit, to experience a foretaste of the heavenly, and be the same person. Either they go one way or they begin going another way much worse.

The writer of Hebrews uses a word here, “anastaurountas” – meaning “to crucify again”, expressing contempt for what Christ did. When we find people who adhered to one standard, and have now left that standard while still claiming to believe, they are worse than before they believed. This is talking about backsliders.

Inadvertent vs. Willful Sin

Having broken down the Greek meaning, I am just going to read it again in English…
“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the power of the age to come…”
(Sounds like Christians, does it not?)
“…and then have fallen away not from believing but in living what they believe, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance.”
If any believe and fall away, they cannot repent and come back. The Greek does not have a present tense in the sense we do in English. It is present continuous active. In 1 John 3:9 where it says that he who is born of God does not sin, it does not mean that Christians do not fall into sin, the meaning is that they do not practice it.

Because he is writing here to Jews he is drawing on the Levitical mentality of Torah. The Torah had a provision for inadvertent sin, but it did not have provision for continually practiced, willful sin. The Torah in Leviticus had provision for inadvertent sin.

There are two Hebrew words for “sin” and two Greek words for “sin”. The two basic Hebrew words for sin are “chet” and “tesha”. One means “missing the mark” like shooting an arrow at a target, literally “not going far enough”; the other is “going too far”. We can sin either by not living up to God’s standards or going beyond it. The Greek equivalents are “hamartano” and “harmatia”.

Leviticus provides for inadvertent sin to right a sin of ignorance. We call this “barut” in Hebrew. The High Priest on Yom Kippur made atonement for the sins of ignorance. But there is no provision for people who practice willful sin even under the Torah.
“In the case of those who had once been enlightened, they came to the light…”
(They saw Jesus.)
“…they tasted of the heavenly gift and they have been made partakers of the Spirit and they have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come…”
(They tasted it.)
“…and then have fallen away”
Someone cannot fall away from where they have never been.

The other argument here comes from John Calvin in his Institutes, book 3, chapter 2, paragraph 11. He puts it this way, that they only saw a glimmering of light, that they heard the Gospel preached, understood it, and knew it was the truth, but only tasted it in on a surface level and did not go all the way with a full commitment.

First of all, the text does not justify that; it is not a “glimmering” light. That is not what the word means. When we look at the text in its context, these were people who knew the truth. We cannot get “doreas”(verse 4) – the “gift” of God of eternal life from Jesus Christ our Lord – unless we are saved. No one gets that gift unless they are saved. Mr. Calvin was dead wrong.

And, as I have said, we will find extreme forms of Calvinism who will go into licentiousness who think that because a real commitment was made at one time that they can still go on and practice sin. This is not common, but there are those who believe it. I have known people who teach this.

Backsliding in the Last Days

Hebrews 10 places this in an eschatological context and connects it with Ecclesiology – with church.

not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. ( Heb 10:25 )

This is using “val k’homer”, the first of the Midoth of Rabbi Hillel in Midrash. What is true in a light situation becomes particularly true in a heavy situation. In other words, fellowship is alwaysimportant, but in the Last Days it becomes especially important. If we cannot stand together, we will never stand alone. By putting it that way we begin to understand there is a particulardanger in backsliding in the Last Days. Jesus said many will fall away and betray one another. ( Mt. 26:31 ) Backsliding is always possible but in the Last Days it become more and more troubling.

One of the things essential in God’s economy in respect to backsliding is fellowship – Christians supporting each other, standing cemented together. When we find people out of fellowship with other Christians, it is a direct reflection that they are out of fellowship with the Lord. There is something wrong. It does not matter if it is 5 or 6 people meeting in a house or if its 500 or 600 meeting in a church, the question is where does God want you to be? If it is something beyond our control and no fault of our own (we are the only Christian in a village out in Saudi Arabia), that is something different. God will see those Believers through. But for us, when we find people out of fellowship, they are heading for trouble.

"Gnosis" vs. "Epignosis"

It is not a coincidence that this introduces what comes next in Hebrews 10:26 .

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ( Heb. 10:26 )

“Hekousios” – “willfully”. He is drawing back to the Levitical concept that there is only provision for inadvertent sin.
But then he says something else: “hemon” – “if we”. He puts himself in the situation. The writer of Hebrews was not preaching to other people; he was also reminding himself. But then it goes on to say something more.

…the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.”

“Tes alatheias” means “the body of truth”, and the word for “knowledge” is not the normal word “gnosis” but “epignosis” which does not mean that we know “a” truth about something, but that we know the whole body of truth about something. These were not people who understood only one aspect of the Christian life or salvation; these were people who understood the whole panorama.

Somebody can be told, “Jesus died for our sins and to give us eternal life”. Someone can “know” that; this is “gnosis”. But when they say, “Jesus called us to co-die with Him and we become new creations the same as He was when He rose from the dead”, and when they say, “His Spirit will inhabit us and give us the power to overcome the desires of the flesh”, and when they say, “The Bible is the infallible Word of God and the Holy Spirit interprets it for us and gives us the power to live it and we must follow its standards” – when they begin to say salvation means all these other things, that is not “gnosis”, that is “epignosis”.

These were not people who just knew or heard something about the Gospel, these were people who understood – they really knew. And they knew the full body of truth – “tes alatheias”.

A Point of No Return

but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? ( Heb. 10:27–29 )

Take note of the phrase, “has insulted the Spirit of grace”. It can lead to the point where they blaspheme the Holy Spirit. An unrepentant backslider can reach a point where they blaspheme the Holy Ghost. That is exactly what it is saying. We would have to do some monkey tricks to say this is talking about unsaved people. “Katapateo” – “trampled underfoot”. “Koinos hegeomenos” – literally meaning to be treating as common the blood of Jesus, and the word here is “enubrizo” – “insolence”, being insolent to God’s Spirit.

Yes, there is an unpardonable sin. Hebrews 6 and 10 directly connect to an unrepentant backslider who gets to the point that they begin to blaspheme the Holy Ghost. Hebrews 6 raises the possibility of an unrepentant backslider blaspheming the Holy Ghost, Hebrews 10 reiterates the same point and says that is what is going to happen.

There is a point of no return. Go back to the illustration of the potter – he broke it, remade it, broke it, remade it, but eventually even the potter gave up. This is not in Scripture to get anyone discouraged, but it is there to make sure we understand what we have gotten ourselves into and that we do not take lightly what God has called us to. It is not “departing” from the Lord – this is not “apostasia”; this is departing from His standard. The whole theme of Jude’s Epistle is about backsliders in the Church. There are as many backsliders in here as there are out there. Scripture says that a backslider in heart is filled with his own ways. ( Pr. 14:14 )

Hebrews 28:10 states that it takes “two or three witnesses” in the Law of Moses to enact capital punishment. It will be worse for those who are Christians because they did not have what we have. “Athetesas” means “violated”. “Dokeite” – “do you think” in the Greek is rhetorical. To ask a rhetorical question means to already know the answer. If this is what happened in the Law of Moses when they did not even have Jesus nor the blood sacrifice that we have – if that is what happened when people did this under the Torah – what do we think is going to happen to us if we go this way? He is giving a warning, but he does not leave it there; he begins talking the need for endurance.

Assurance in Concert with Endurance

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. ( Heb. 10:36 )

How do we endure? Keep the lifejacket on and keep swimming.

“Oh, we’re saved by faith through grace!” That is true, but what is faith? It continues in Hebrews 11:1 , “faith “ is the “hupostasis” – “the assurance of things hoped for”.

In the Bible, “hope” equals “future fact”. I guarantee you that if we keep following Jesus that we will go to Heaven. I guarantee that if we do not take the lifejacket off we will not drown. It is not that I “hope” we will not drown, I guarantee we will not drown if we keep the lifejacket on. I guarantee we will go to Heaven if we keep following Jesus. This is the way by which you can be eternally sure of your salvation. But if it is not this way we are playing with fire, and there are certainly people today who are playing with fire.

There is no way we can say as John Calvin does that this applies to people who heard the Gospel and came to a certain point and then withdrew. It is simply not so. They have a “dorea”. There is no way we can say it only meant that Jewish Believers could not possibly go back under the Law. It is talking about people who can fall away, who can depart from God’s standard. They have to play games with the text instead of letting it say what it means and mean what it says.

Imputed Righteousness

Calvinists will tell you that righteousness is imputed. So we have to understand what “imputation” means; it is an interesting term.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ( Rom. 6:1–2 )

Paul understands that imputed righteousness can be misunderstood. There were actually people in the Greek churches who believed that only the new creation mattered, that it did not matter what the old creation did so they could go out and keep on sinning in the old creation. Paul understood that imputed righteousness could be misunderstood, that people could think it is OK to continue to sin and still be saved. Look at what he is saying: he is writing to Believers. So therefore those who believe in an unconditional “once saved, always saved” will say, “If they go back and practice sin it means they were never saved to begin with; they were never truly born-again to begin with. They made an empty or false confession or they had some kind of experience, but they were never really saved.” That certainly does not mean Hebrews 6 and it certainly does not mean Hebrews 10.

Look at the Prodigal Son. ( Lk. 15:11-32 ) The Prodigal Son has multiple interpretations. (The rabbis said a parable had up to seventy different interpretations, certainly meaning “multiple” anyway.) One of the interpretations of the Prodigal Son is that of a backslider. A backslider will wind up the way the Prodigal Son did, upon faith in humiliation, coming back to his father. When a backslider comes back, the Father will forgive him and take him back, but he has to come back. And what does the father say? “This brother of yours was dead”. ( Lk. 15:32 ) He was dead!

How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; ( Rom. 4:10 )

Getting back to this idea of imputation, in Romans 4 Paul uses the word “elogisthe”. We get the word “impute” from the Latin in the Vulgate, “imputate”. The Hebrew is “chashab”, meaning “think”. “Impute” means “to reckon”. It is not that it is really “given” to us, but it is “reckoned”; God takes it into account.

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, God took our sin and put ii on Him and took His righteousness and put it on us. Even though He was righteous, unrighteousness was imputed to Him on the cross. Even though we are unrighteous, His righteousness is imputed to us when we come to the cross. Yes, righteousness is imputed. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him a righteousness. ( Gal. 3:6 ; James 2:23 ) But then what happens? Yes, the righteousness is imputed, but not the fruits. The fruit of the Spirit cannot be imputed nor can the fruit of the Spirit be ascribed. We are called to prove we are His disciples.

Overcomers

‘He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” ( Rev. 3:21–22 )

To go to Heaven one must be an “overcomer”. We cannot overcome on our own strength and we cannot overcome in our own righteousness; it has to be in the righteousness and strength of Jesus. He does it for us. We can never swim the Channel in a storm in our own strength; somebody has to give us a lifejacket. But once somebody gives us the strength we must put it into operation, just like the example of little Donnie’s airplane. Heaven is for overcomers. God will give us the grace, the will, and the means to do it, but He also gives us the free will to make a choice. When we get saved, our free will is given back to us.

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying. ( Rev. 22:14–15 )
“Blessed are those who wash their robes”. Some people wash their robes, but the Bible talks about those who make them dirty again. We can always go back to the blood of the Lamb and wash our robes, but taking the robe off, in figure, is like the young man who ran away naked when Jesus was arrested. ( Mk. 14:51-52 ) When persecution came he ran away and lost the garments of salvation.

Back to the seven churches in Revelation 2, Jesus says, “He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death”. ( Rev. 2:11 ) He was writing here to born-again Christians. He was telling Christiansthat if they overcame they would not be hurt by the second death. Obviously there is a theoretical possibility, at the very least, that these people could fall away.

‘He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. ( Rev. 3:5 )

Jesus actually says He will blot out names from the Book of Life. I would like for anybody to explain to me logically how one’s name can be erased from the Book of Life if it was never in there to begin with. They have to come with their presuppositions and do monkey tricks.

The Call to Work It Out

“Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ( Mt 25:30 )

We are all given a certain amount of talents, and our talents are always in proportion to our abilities. ( Mt. 25:15 ) When Jesus comes back He will not settle for people who bury their talents. The people with the highest rewards will be investors, but He will not settle for anything less than an interest bearer. Those who bury their talents are people who are really backslidden; they have religion rather than authentic Christianity. If you or I have a living relationship with Jesus, He is going to employ our talents.

For many years I led a congregation in Israel and was very active in evangelism. But I also had a day job. Israel has a six-day week. It was not easy having a day job and a family and being in ministry. I know how difficult it is, but I did it because God gave me the grace and will to do it, and I made the choice to cooperate with that grace.

A lot of ministers will stand up at a pulpit and tell us what we should be doing as if we are supposed to ignore the fact that they get paid for doing it. They do not know what it is like to go to the office or get up to in the middle of the night or to go to the factory. I thank God that for years and years and years when I was a tent maker. If I did not have to travel so much I would still be a tent maker. I prefer to have a secular job. What it all comes down to is bearing fruit. Even when Paul was in prison, he was bearing fruit.

For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; ( 1 Co. 10:1–2 )

Learn the Lesson

What Paul does here is to use the Exodus experience as a type to explain our salvation. Coming out of Egypt is coming out of the world, going through the water is baptism, etc. The Exodus is a picture of our salvation.

…and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.” Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day… Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. ( 1 Co. 10:3–8 , 11 )

These things happened to the ancient Hebrews and written down in the Bible so we would not make the same mistakes. What did they do? They drank from the rock which was Christ, yet they were idolaters and they were immoral. Why are we warned not to be like them? Again, what does it say in Revelation 22:14-15 ? It says that outside are those who are immoral and those who are idolatrous. They go to hell. That is exactly what the New Testament says.

From One Oppressor to Another

How they get this unconditional “once saved, always saved” from the Bible I do not know. I know how they seem to see a need to repudiate the lies of Roman Catholicism, which says someone can work for their salvation and keep people in bondage always thinking they can lose it. I can understand why they were trying to free people from that kind of oppression. But when they go to the opposite extreme and say that there is no choice as to whether we can be saved or not, that is just putting people under more oppression.

When people are told they have no free will, that Jesus did not give them back their free will when they were born-again, that this cannot be accepted when He empowers them to make a choice – if you are not one of the Elect you are not going to choose Him – the result is putting people under more oppression. More than that, they are leading people under the oppression of sin by denying that we have a free will as regenerate Believers to resist sin that unsaved people do not have.

Jesus does not save us in our sins, He saves us from our sins. He never came to save us in our sins; He came to save us from our sins.

When we see people persisting in sin who admit they do it and that it is wrong, things like “I’m going to keep living with this unsaved woman”, “I’m going to continue with this alcohol abuse”, “I’m going to keep living this way but I’ll keep going to church on Sunday” – those people are not saved from their sins, they have been deluded into thinking they have been saved in them. Without holiness, no man shall see God. ( Eph. 1:4 , 5:27 ; 1 Pe. 1:15 )
But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? ( James 2:20 )

In Conclusion

Little Donnie’s model airplane remains useless unless he works it out. The life preserver is useless if you do not put it on and swim. Yes, it is a gift. Yes, it is free. Yes, you cannot earn it. Yes, the Lord does something for us we could never do for ourselves. Yes, He chose us. Yes, He showed us His undeserved grace. But He also gave us back the potential to make a choice that we did not have. We were dead, unable to communicate with God, and He quickened us. He put enough light in us, enough of what we lost in the Fall to see Him as the Truth and the Salvation. It is up to us to respond to it. That is the balance.

The idea that we are not born with sin as Pelagius said, that is heresy. Charles Finney even bordered on it, although he admitted we have sin. No, we all have sin and we cannot even choose God because of our sin, but He intervenes in the Person of Jesus and gives us the possibility of making a choice that we never could have made. We have to choose. Once we make the choice He also then gives us the ability to live it out, but we have to make that choice.

We lost our free will because of the Fall of man. Everybody since Adam has lost their free will. Jesus comes to give it back. Calvinism denies this.

With all due respect to my Calvinistic brethren, with all due respect to the Reformed churches and the many wonderful things that Reformed Christians have done and still do, with all due respect to the Pilgrim fathers and the Puritan fathers whom I love, when it comes to eternal security I agree that we are eternally secure in Christ. Just make sure you stay in it.
God bless.

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