Chapter 3

The Signposts

Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen:
let them show the former things, what they be,
that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them;
or declare us things for to come.
Show the things that are to come hereafter,
that we may know that ye are gods:
yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.
Isaiah 41:22-23

Our tour of the prophetic oracles of the Hebrews moves ahead now, if you didn't jump off the bus at our last stop when the flaming-hot fact sheets were handed out. Our itinerary will take us to several more of the major markers along the wandering route "back to the future," all pointing to the time of the end and the future Day of God Almighty.

Going back to view the age-old record of the apocalyptic signs posted so long ago should prove to be a veritable baptism of fire. Studying the writings in preparation for this book has, frankly, scalded my tail and left my eyebrows singed. Our fiery tour through the Scriptures is certain to be the scorching enemy of complacency, lethargy, and mediocrity, all of which should vanish in smoke by the end of the tour, as should any thought of banking on an extended future on this increasingly cursed planet.

Signposts which mark the end of the age, the end of Earth's domination by wicked men, truly abound throughout the prophetic scriptures of the Jews. And, although this essay may not seek to identify them all, I endeavor to highlight the most significant of them. Special attention will be focused on the signs posted by Jesus from key passages in the New Testament, especially the chapters in Matthew's, Mark's and Luke's gospels which deal particularly with end-of-the-age prophesies. Of course, as the Old and New Testaments together have consistently proven to make up an integrated whole, extensive reference will be made to the many other prophets (from both eras) who all together support a tightly unified "big picture" of the looming End (as well as of the Restoration).

But, before we proceed, please allow me a quick detour into a side street that I feel cannot be justifiably bypassed. To do so would be like visiting a foreign country without ever meeting any of its people. And this detour is, in fact, exactly for that purpose, to make sure the people of the Book which we shall be touring in our study don't get hastily passed over, and especially, not trampled over.

There is so much that qualifies as tragic in the subject matter I have undertaken — history, our modern world, its imminent end, and the Scriptures that define all that human experience — that I almost cringe at having to so repeatedly use the words tragedy, tragic and tragically. Yet, I persist; and I find no other. By now too, you have surely also noted my conspicuous lack of grace in my treatment of all that which I consider to be disgraceful and wrong. Well, notwithstanding my hesitation, my proposed detour at this time involves delving into more tragedy and disgrace.

The purpose of it all, as with practically the whole volume of this book, is to set things straight — as early on as possible, in this case — before losing our bearings even as we embark!

As we proceed, it is extremely important keep in mind that the teachings and writings of the prophets which shall be referenced throughout these pages are directed primarily to The People of the Book (as they are often called), being the bearers and also the subjects and objects of those prophesies. In cases when prophesies are directed at some other group or body of people, the identities are quite specifically named.

This is important to remember in sorting out the confusion about what applies to whom in the prophecies; particularly when considering the questionable interpretations of the self-denominated Christians who espouse tribulation escapism and other elitist doctrines which covet spiritual or religious privilege.

Detour to The Museum of Religious Imperialism

Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you: For many shall come in my name, saying, I am [the way, the truth, and the life]; and shall deceive many. —Christ, Mark 13:4-6

The tragedy is this: A sort of "Christian" imperialism (for lack of a better term) has ravaged the theological landscape of our world for nearly 1700 years; actually, "Gentile" imperialism perpetrated in the name of Christ more accurately describes it. The wake of this sweeping disgrace has left the world with nothing but mountainous heaps of devastated doctrinal rubble to sort through for mere clues about the Truth (which, in fact, consists of a whole set of unified truths as can be found in the holy scriptures of the Hebrews). These truths once stood tall upon solid foundations as sound social landmarks and benchmarks before they were shamefully toppled in the (ongoing) "take-over" — and subsequent make-over.

By imperialism I refer to what is so apparent today in the ongoing power struggle to maintain religious/theological hegemony by the so-called Christians — that is, the gentile Christians. (Here I go again!) Well, the very strength of the take-over is evident in the fact that Christianity has, for centuries now, come to be regarded as a gentile movement, a gentile faith, a gentile religion, when nothing could be further from the truth!

All taken into account, the long and the short of it is that they — nominal, usually self-proclaimed Christians — now presume to possess the torch of divinely inspired dogma. Thus they presumptuously think to tell the whole world how the Hebrew Scriptures are to be interpreted and understood.

By means of interpretational aggression upon a scriptural domain that was not theirs to begin with, they have severely overstepped in their self-serving assertion to have taken over the light of the world. (The aggression consists in their efforts to force uninspired interpretations on the Scriptures.) By sheer force of numbers, really, they have essentially commandeered the Scriptures of the Hebrews and continue to hold a centuries-old corner on how they are to be interpreted. And by sheer strength of long tradition, they maintain their warped-by-time doctrines to be "hi-fidelity" dogma, virtually "unerring" and absolutely "irrefutable." Thereby, they effectively establish their own preeminent "holiness" and autocratic authority.

Somewhat more mildly, Saul (Apostle Paul) characterizes it as "a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." (Romans 10:2-3)  This admonition, of course, is in reference to the Jews of Saul's day, but the principle remains the same, regardless of whose foot the shoe fits.

As we progress into our study, it will become very apparent just how self-serving this imperialistic aggression is. And though the "'fundamentalists" are among the most guilty, they are by no means the only religious imperialists to perpetrate the presumptuousness that Apostle Peter called "private interpretation." "Knowing this first," he said, "that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1:20-21) However, I suppose the imperialist religious mentality is that if you assemble enough of a "Christian" mob who wills to agree on an acceptable interpretation, then it's no longer "private."

And now, as a matter of course, you have many denominational cults evolving to vie for "the torch." Only, what mostly evolves, in fact, is not holier and holier denominations possessing more and more refined truth, but often just more varieties of greater or lesser heresies and apostasies (which is why Christians are always calling for revival and renewal).

Lurking in the shadows of all this "Christianity" is the Dark Force, the dynamic activity of an invisible agent who is unrelenting in his campaign to squelch the truth and divide and conquer the land for himself. He is intent, and thus far very successful, in defeating the will of YHWH from being "done in earth as it is in heaven." This Evil Dynamic must displace or be displaced. Therefore, the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth "cannot be permitted" because he will have no place there, especially not as Lord. Hence, we have an explanation for this continued and sustained imperialist aggression upon the true meaning of the Scriptures — with every denominational Tom, Dick and Harry Christ(ian) jumping in on the assault with their own private interpretations — and that, of course, is divide and conquer!

All the confusion that persists about scriptural, theological, and prophetic matters is related to the divisive element of PRIDE, the adoration and exaltation of self (frequently a group, national, or denominational phenomenon), the diametric opposite of selfless love. But let's not detour into that exposé quite yet, lest we veer too far off our main course. Let's get on with getting to know the People of the Book.

In terms of detours, the ones I would really hope to steer you away from are the common heretical departures from the intent of the Sacred Scriptures, including the tragic turning away from the sworn object of the Holy Book. The popular heresies to which I refer frequently pose that the People of the Book have been categorically cast off and substituted by new peoples. These newly favored souls now, by the sheer whim and pretentious fancy of some of them, claim to have replaced the originals as the new objects of the Immutable Promises (i.e., YHWH's irrevocable covenants — please see footnote).¹ Most blatantly, these fallacious doctrines prevail among non-Jewish Christians who blindly follow generally accepted teachings without responsibly challenging their veracity against the Book itself.

A great number of religious imperialists presume to have been dubbed the new-and-improved "spiritual Israel," a "new testament brand" of People of the Book, who profess themselves to be separately classed as distinct and above the original, supposedly "fallen" People.

But all the mumbo jumbo aside, very simply, the point is that there is only one ethnic group of people that can rightly be referred to as the People of the Book, whether New Testament era or "Old." And, for the most part, the Scriptures are addressed to and for them. Although, included among them are those (Gentiles) who align themselves with the People and become grafted into their root, or tree trunk as it may be — which is to say, they become one with them, not distinct or apart from them!

The great prophet Isaiah expressly proclaimed that Gentiles (non-Jews) are welcomed to join themselves to The Root and take equal hold of the covenant made to Abraham and his seed. He made it clear that they shall also participate on the same level with the chosen seed in the holy mountain of Messiah's kingdom upon earth (in the land of Canaan, now mistakenly called Palestine). However, we see that, without debate, the Scriptures he penned specify only one unified gathering of the "outcasts of Israel" which also includes "others . . . beside those" outcasts.

Note that the passage I reference from Isaiah begins with a ban against imposing any distinction or separation between Gentile and Jew both devoted to the same LORD:

Neither let the son of the stranger [Heb. nekár = foreigner, non-Hebrew alien], that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those [Israelites] that are gathered unto him. —Isaiah 56:3-8

No amount of craftiness or cunning revisionism can change what is written — nor to whom, nor for whom — although clever efforts have succeeded in "rewriting" the Book by means of creative interpretation. These imaginative interpretations are nothing short of flagrant departures from the stated truth of the Scriptures.

And just as signs of the time abound in our day, so do such heresies, which amount to nothing less than the foretold apostasies we were admonished to expect (another sign of the times, which we shall probe more deeply later). As we saw in the quotation from the apostle Mark heading up this section, Jesus headed up His own discourse on the signs of the endtimes with a forecast of exactly this most characteristic sign: many specious aggressors taking over the landscape in the name of the Anointed One (Christos in Greek), denominating themselves as the way, the truth, and the life — and deceiving huge masses!

As we explore the prophetic signs, it is important to be aware that many of them do apply to the world in general, speaking to its prevailing conditions and its common future. However, many of the predictions we shall study are specifically addressing the People of the Book, often in relation to the surrounding world. Remember, though, that one inherently straightforward characteristic of the Bible is that it requires precious little interpretation to gather who it is directed at. In nearly all cases, it tells you, if you follow the text carefully.

The essence of this cautionary note is this: Many creative interpretations of the Book endeavor to create a convenient system of re-classification whereby certain people must endure and overcome severe adversity (e.g., Great Tribulation), while others escape; certain souls are favored and privileged, while others are cursed and ill-favored. The resultant system is not just a bogus artificial contrivance, but it is very subtile, confusing, and makes the understanding of the scriptures a neurotic endeavor; thanks to those that simply cannot accept the truth for what it plainly is.

Very simply, the People of the Book are those belonging to the basic ethnic group of those who actually wrote the Book (as a divine oracle). With rare exceptions, they were all Hebrews, or Jews as they have more commonly come to be known. Their religion, or spiritual-theological philosophy, is commonly known as Judaism, after the generally faithful religious practice of the favored tribe of Judah (from which the term "Jew" is derived).

Christianity, in the purest sense of the word, began as nothing other than a sect, offshoot, or branch of Judaism. Such that, Christianity — in the strictest terms — is a Jewish religion, or belief system, begun by Jews, named after a Jew, originally dominated almost entirely by Jews, and spread by Jews. There is absolutely nothing un-Jewish or non-Jewish about it, except its alien proselytes. Please understand, the Jews (supplemented by their Gentile proselytes)² are the People of the Book.

Yet the foreign, Gentile converts (proselytes), which eventually grew to outnumber and dominate the population of the (very Judaistic) Christian faith, have, in the process, come to despise the Jewish roots and nature of Christianity. They have not been satisfied to have been included, or grafted into the tree of Judaism and Israel; but now exalt themselves in conceit against the natural, or original branches, as the "new-and-improved People of the Book."³ We have seen this haughty, presumptuous attitude reflected in the pages of history all too often even to find room to do justice on the subject here in this book.⁴ It persistently pervades even today's world of post-Dark Ages "enlightenment."

Very tragically, the anti-Semitic disease of envy has resulted in innumerable centuries of hateful persecution of this people. Untold horror and holocaust has been perpetrated upon them in this century alone, and more is yet to come in the near future. (No wonder the "Christians" persist in distancing themselves from these supposed "children of wrath!")⁵

This disgraceful phenomenon of self-righteous discrimination between The People and the supposed "People" — as well as against The People — is quite conspicuous in the "fundamentalist" interpretations of the (Jewish) Scriptures, which we shall be further exploring. Sad to say, Gentile theologians of today's overwhelmingly Gentile-populated Christianity, you will find, even proudly insist that the Christian Church is a Gentile entity. In their staggering confusion, they have twisted the truth to concoct a delusional, discriminatory theology which relegates a distinct high honor of church-hood upon themselves, while denying that the Jews are the actual selected, elected, and sanctified ekklesía of Yahweh (esp. those devout in the faith).

To clarify some terminology, the word "church," used in most English translations of the New Testament to refer to the corps of believers, is actually a very distant relative of the original term used by the writers of the New Testament to refer to the people of God, the chosen or called-out ones, the People of the Book.

The original Greek manuscripts employed the term "ekklesía" — a compound word denoting a calling out of, or calling forth from — to refer to those individuals or people separated out from generic humanity to observe specially the purposes of the Creator GOD in their lifestyles. Many of you may be familiar with the terms "ecclesiastic" or "ecclesiastical," which more apparently bear resemblance to the original word used in the ancient Greek copies of the Bible. Even these words, however, have suffered considerable erosion in meaning in that they are simply references to clergymen and church related affairs. Which, without careful attention to the root meaning, leave us still without much light on the subject.

To the vast majority of folks, the mention of church immediately evokes images of buildings with steeples, or spired cathedrals, temples and chapels, as well as perhaps the assemblies and congregations of church-goers who may frequent them;⁶ but seldom, if ever, synagogues. Sad to say, even "synagogue" in the original use of the word (Gk. sunagogé) did not refer to a building, but actually means a gathering, assembly, or congregation in the Greek. So that, in their true sense, neither churches nor synagogues refer whatsoever to buildings or places, but to people.

Still, there is a significant difference between sunagogé and ekklesía. And, it is absolutely not, except in the most corrupted sense, that one refers to Jewish assemblies, while the other to Christian assemblies or congregations. The word ekklesía (mistranslated "church"), meaning neither a building or congregation, literally denotes those people called out of the mundane vanity of the established world order to pursue the establishment of the Kingdom and righteous order of YHWH.⁷

Be not mistaken, at the outset of this primeval calling out, it was the Hebrews, or Jews, who comprised this "Church!" Since the time of Abraham,⁸ through the time of Moses,⁹ Joshua, the Judges, David and the other kings of Israel, and on through the time of Yeshua Ha'Mashiach and His Disciples, and then their disciples, both before the Common Era as well as at its outset, the Church was overwhelmingly made up of Hebrews, or Jews.¹⁰ The Gentile bias imposed upon things Christian is a latter-day perversion that is perpetuated by the same theological blindness which that unfounded bias fosters and promotes.

Our corrupted lingual customs — based on religious prejudice and arrogance, and pseudo-spiritual elitism — give us to understand that synagogues are anti-Christian institutions, and that churches are non-Jewish, Gentile institutions. These notions, which are perpetuated particularly by (ignorant) Christians, and acquiesced to by seriously wounded Jews, are thorough travesties of the truth!

It is out of this concern that I have taken the time, at this point in our tour, to make sure that you are on the right bus! This tour will not trek down the well-worn routes of centuries of misinterpretation, misconceptions, mischaracterization, or misapplication and misuse of sacred teachings. We can trust that (mis-)guided tour to the popular tour lines, whose buses provide prophetic panoramas skewed through rose colored windows (or assorted other shades and tints) and follow the worn, narrow ruts of the old traditional beaten paths — along which the Truth has been so severely trampled that its real blossom and fruit is never seen, but merely fantasized as part of a dogma (fable really) based on imagination.

At any rate, now that you know that you are not on a "church" bus, you may even be more anxious to get off, or perhaps more encouraged to go on. I hope heartily for the latter.

"Peace and Safety?" — or, Wars and Rumors of Wars?

One major signpost, at which we shall stop a while to survey the landscape, really seems more of a billboard these days! It has already been mentioned in passing in the foregoing chapters. Our modern world is one of widespread, chronic, and highly devastating conflicts (particularly with the advent of high-energy explosives used in conventional weapons, not to speak of the "unconventional" weapons of mass destruction). This condition of pervasive conflict that characterizes this century in particular is precisely what prompts the very broad and deep longing for peace and security felt the world over.

The elusive search for peace and the famine for safety and security is not at all a localized phenomenon. It's a global concern, and nothing less than the key word of the day — "peace with security" — especially in international affairs, and more especially in the Middle East and Israel.

Not a day goes by that we do not hear of wars and rumors of wars, peace negotiations, UN peace-keeping missions, cease-fires, disarmament, border clashes, some coup d'état or toppling of a regime by armed insurgency, ethnic tensions, international tensions, "intifadas" and jihads, race clashes, genocides, massacres, retaliations, hostages, kidnappings, urban bombings, terror attacks, militias, or some insurgent activity by some extremists guerrilla or liberation front throughout the world somewhere. Television brings it home to us everyday, unless we opt for The Simpsons.

Even in the "land of the free," the only way to be free of the disturbing of our peace by the continual onslaught of this daily news is to intoxicate ourselves with drugs (legal or illegal), or on television entertainment, or some other multimedia amusement (e.g., the computerized type), or on another great favorite addiction — shop-till-you-drop consumerism.

In all actuality though, peace and security, even in the mighty USA, is really nothing more than a rapidly fading illusion. To wit, consider the fear and insecurity evoked by the bombings of the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City federal building; or by frequent urban gang wars and ever-brewing racial tensions threatening a repeat of the 1992 Los Angeles Riot; how about satchel-sized portable nuclear weapons or the very real threat of anthrax or VX-type chemical weapons in the hands of any of the many rabid enemies of the USA?  

A recent edition of PBS's Frontline (October 13, 1998), entitled "Plague Wars," flooded our living rooms with even more fright and insecurity at the horror of what it documented as the alleged ongoing research at Russia's Sverdlovsk biological weapons research facility. Despite mutually signed treaty bans, plague horrors of absolutely apocalyptic dimensions (beyond the imagination!) lurk in the shadows of secrecy and cover-up, continuing to be developed for use as offensive weapons against "free world" enemies. Even our American Disneyland-ish daydreams are now haunted by the ominous, rapidly rising shadows of endtime nightmares.

This century alone has already seen the scale of two World Wars, much less a multitude of others — among them, the ones we are all most familiar with, such as Korea, Vietnam, Arab-Israel, Iran-Iraq, Britain-Argentina, Afghanistan-USSR, Chechnya-Russia, Persian Gulf, and Bosnia. Most folks already know that Christ predicted an era of pervasive conflict in the time of the end, before the day when He would come with great power and glory.

Shortly before His crucifixion, He left us with these telling words for the future: "Ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet." (Matthew 24:6) The parallel account by Luke in his Gospel reads, "But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by." (Luke 21:9) The amplified meaning of the word "commotions" (as translated from the Greek "akatastasía") is more at instability and disorder. This prophesy has aptly described the history of the world over the centuries, and today's increasingly troubled world manifests little positive change or hope for contradicting its veracity. In fact, both the former League of Nations and the UN, created to avert any subsequent world wars, have proven pathetically ineffectual at cultivating any real tranquillity in the world's soil of constant upheaval and turmoil; and worst of all, "the end" still "is not by and by."

Wars and rumors of war are to be the order of the day in the time of the end, according to the prophesies. But, in highlighting this disturbing signpost as a major milestone on the last leg of the road to the end of the age, it seems Christ is also advising a measure of serenity in the face of such terrifying and distressful calamity. He calls for composure against premature anxiety; for, as He goes on to state, this is not the definitive omen signaling the final hour of the end of the age; but indeed, more of the same, in addition to other forms of even more intense travail, is yet to come, He said.

Continuing on in this passage to expand on this particular sign, He elaborated on the ravaging conflicts of our day by predicting the exact nature of so many of our modern tensions — racial clashes. Examine and analyze the basis for the armed clashes and conflicts that have been pointed out in the preceding fact box. You will notice that from Mexico to Bosnia, and Israel to Rwanda, that the bloodshed and tension is tied to race and ethnicity — or, "éthnos epí éthnos", as Jesus put it.

Translated from the early Greek manuscripts of the New Testament into English, we read, "For nation [éthnos, or ethnic group] shall rise against [epí] nation [éthnos], and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." (Matthew 24:7-8) So, not only are countries or nation-states rising up against each other (kingdom vs. kingdom), but within sovereign states — as we've seen even in Canada, the USA, and Mexico — serious and often bloody tensions flare between ethnic groups. Far from the utopian dream of a united world free of class struggle and racial strife, we see our world plagued more and more with reinvigorated ethnocentrism mixed with renewed intolerance, envy, and struggles for dominance and power (the deadly formulas for racial and civil wars, all based on the ingredients of egotistical, vengeful, hateful pride).

Famines, Diseases, & Earthquakes Widespread

As for the famines, pestilences (diseases and plagues), and earthquakes foretold by The Prophet in the passage quoted above, they too are commonly becoming almost ordinary, everyday occurrences throughout our modern world. In fact, as the sensibilities of the average citizen grows ever more dull, they have become so ordinary that only those who suffer them really feel their impact.

Fact: Pestilences — The following is a press release from the World Health Organization taken from the Internet: INFECTIOUS DISEASES KILL OVER 17 MILLION PEOPLE A YEAR: W.H.O. WARNS OF GLOBAL CRISIS Nearly 50,000 men, women and children are dying every day from infectious diseases [18m per year]; many of these diseases could be prevented or cured for as little as a single dollar per head, the World Health Organization says in The World Health Report 1996, published [January 1997]. At least 30 new diseases have emerged in the last 20 years and now together threaten the health of hundreds of millions of people. For many of these diseases, there is no treatment, cure or vaccine. "We are standing on the brink of a global crisis in infectious diseases. No country is safe from them. No country can any longer afford to ignore their threat," the Director-General of WHO, Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, says in the report. The report warns that some major diseases, such as cholera, malaria and tuberculosis are making a deadly comeback in many parts of the world, despite being preventable or treatable. At the same time, many new and highly infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and the notorious Ebola haemorrhagic fever — both of which are incurable — are emerging to pose additional threats. Fears are growing over a possible food-chain link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow disease") and a variant of the incurable Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, due to an infectious agent that attacks the human brain. Meanwhile, antibiotics and other life-saving drugs used against many diseases are rapidly losing their effectiveness as bacteria and other microbes develop resistance to them. For example, doctors worldwide are losing some of the most useful and affordable antibiotics against the two principal bacteria which cause pneumonia, the major cause of death in children. The World Health Report 1996 — Fighting Disease, Fostering Development, published by WHO, states that infectious diseases are the world's leading cause of premature death. Of about 52 million deaths from all causes in 1995, more than 17 million were due to infectious diseases, including about 9 million deaths in young children. Up to half the world's population of 5.72 billion are at risk of many endemic diseases. In addition, millions of people are developing cancers as a direct result of preventable infections by bacteria and viruses, the report says.

And for those who may have missed the Frontline edition of "Plague Wars" by PBS, which I made reference to in the previous section, there are Pandora's Boxes (vials, actually, warheads and the like) already bursting at the seams with the most heinous and horrifying diseases imaginable. Many are bio-engineered for superior virility, contagiousness, and resiliency against modern medical defenses, making them impossible to contain by vaccination or with antibiotics. Released into the air or water in any or perhaps various key points of deployment, these weapons could — and most likely will — result in the terrifying "pestilences in divers places" which Jesus also earmarked as a major sign of the times.

Then there is the matter of the recent dramatic rise in seismic activity across the planet. Among the dreadful series of sure signs of the end of the age foretold by the crucified Christ are the frequent quakes that now rock our world on a repeated and ever more regular basis.

Fact: Earthquakes — In an article entitled, "Earth Online", by Alexandra Witze, in the April 1996 issue of Earth Magazine, discussing the "huge number of quakes" for which there is late breaking news available on the Internet through the Worldwide Web site of the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, the author points out that the huge list must be culled. Due the huge number of frequent earthquakes, quakes below 3.5 in the mainland U.S. are not even listed, and those below 5.5 are culled from the worldwide list. Earth Magazine reported on 55 quakes around the world of 6.4 magnitude or higher throughout 1995 alone. Any of these magnitudes are potential killer quakes, depending on where they are centered. The Kobe quake (mag. 6.8) in Japan killed at least 4,400 people, and the Sahkalin Island quake (mag. 7.0) in Russia killed 1,700 in 1995. The quake centered in Izmit, Turkey on August 17, 1999 that killed at least 14,000, left 600,000 without shelter, and caused an estimated $10 billion in damage was of magnitude 7.4. (A magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale is 10 times stronger than a 7.0 and 100 times stronger than a 6.0.) One of the largest quakes on record occurred in Alaska in 1964. At magnitude 9.2 it was 140 times stronger than the Kobe quake by Richter measurements.

Of even more recent origin (September, 1999), let me share follow-up information on the unprecedented frequency of earthquakes shaking our late 20th century planet, which comes to us from a separate source. (Incidentally, the latest breaking news, now only five weeks following the massive Izmit quake in Turkey, is that of three more major quakes; one rocking the ancient city of Athens where at least 101 just died in a crushing 5.9 temblor; another in Taiwan, 90 miles south of the capital, 7.6 by Richter measure, that has killed more than 2,100; now followed by another Mexican quake centered in Oaxaca measuring 7.5 killing at least 29 and causing terror in their capital 250 miles north where the 1985 rocker killed nearly 10,000. The count is 4 major quakes causing severe damage in only 6 weeks! This doesn't count the dozens of other major tremors in the last 3 months that haven't made the news because they didn't affect major population centers.)

Following the massive quake in Turkey earlier in the week, on the August 20, 1999 edition of CBS Telenoticias, correspondent Carlos Botifol provided a report on what he called the "wave of tremors worldwide." In that television news broadcast he interviewed seismic activity analyst Hugo Rico of the California Institute of Technology. Mr. Rico said that "a mapping of the numerous points throughout the globe where violent movements of the earth's crust have occurred since Tuesday's quake in Turkey would light up the globe like a Christmas tree." He stated that there had been 20 quakes greater than 4.0 on the Richter scale that week alone; 7 of them were felt on the same day as the Izmit quake in Peru, China, Cyprus, Vancouver, as well as elsewhere in Turkey; 4 occurred on Wednesday in California (south and central), New Zealand, Peru and Chile; on Thursday, the borders of Ecuador-Peru and Armenia-Azerbaijan-Iran, as well Tajikistan and Turkey again, experienced shaking; and on Friday, tremors rolled through Costa Rica and Idaho. Rico went so far as to dismiss that week's series of quakes as nothing unusual and predicted that the following week would more than likely produce about he same number of tremors.

Yet, though all these signs become so widespread and devastating, which they will continue to do as foretold, both in intensity and frequency — just as the labor pains of a woman in child-bearing — they are still only the beginning of sorrows, according to the prophecy. (The actual Greek word from which "sorrows" was translated is odín, meaning a pang or throe, esp. as in childbearing.)

This conspicuous global pregnancy has long since begun to show its swelling signs of the times. And, all the overspreading talk of peace can no longer conceal the swollen world conditions that promise major throes of imminent trouble and tribulation. In fact, the amplitude of all the flowing rhetoric of peace and the draping prattle of security, which we hear so much of on a daily basis, is now nearly the biggest sign itself; much as a maternity dress serves to announce the pregnancy, more than to conceal it.

New Age Birth Pangs and Woes of Mother Earth

What happens next? — Something that "Christians" dread the most. So dreaded is the thought of it that the great majority of fundamentalist Christians have concocted elaborate theories about "raptures" and "snatchings away" intended to assure themselves of escape before this next crucial period of time to follow. The "beginning of sorrows" will eventually give way to the dire and imminent full-scale sorrows of hard labor, a short time foretold by Christ during which Great Tribulation would prevail.

It is an intense, though brief, period of time when love wears so perilously thin at all levels that only a substitute facade of politically correct socialist concern and care will remain to take its place.

Even "natural affection" among families shall collapse to brutal levels of betrayal. Already we see the shadows of the looming unspeakable Evil darkening our horizons. The chill of it permeates the air even here in "the home of the brave" where divorce, abandonment, sexual abuse, and other forms of violent abuse and betrayal pervade our culture and all its institutions from the school house to the White House. If it's not child abuse, it's parent abuse, or elder abuse, or spousal abuse, or teacher abuse, or intern abuse. If it's not teen (& now even pre-teen) school-house shootings and juvenile murders and massacres, it's Presidential aides and Cabinet members committing "suicide" or getting "killed in plane crashes." Brotherly and neighborly love, and good will between people in general, has in our days hideously transformed from the average decency of Dr. Jekyll to the raging evil nature of Mr. Hyde.

Modern 20th century society has swiftly decayed into an environment where no one can be trusted, no one keeps their word, and deceit and lying are now the custom! Governments and presidents; merchants and advertisers; even the healthcare industry and families have not escaped; religionists too; employers and employees; you name it, they all do it, all the time!

The only "goodness" we have come to expect as customary is the exploitive serving of purely selfish concerns — which often masquerades as benevolence, concern, care, public service or social welfare. And, as if we just don't have enough of this masquerade of goodness, the New World Order advocates are promising us an even more righteous costume party which will feign a truly grandiose facade of godliness, completely humanistic and hollow, and denying the only true source and possibility of it.

The omens are everywhere. A failure to recognize them only testifies to the effectiveness of the subtle strategy of mankind's evil Adversary.

But, as the present sweeping trend already ominously portends, the liberating laws of God are soon to be summarily rejected and abandoned as politically incorrect. Gradually displacing them is the humanist secularism of the New World Order of the "Evolved-Illuminated Homo Sapiens" (ha!) where self-righteous Big-Brother ideology is embraced and YHWH God is disdained and His teachings ridiculed. This bogus "New World Order" on our thresholds, a version of which was touted by former President George Bush, is symbolized by John the Revelator in the Apocalypse (chapter 17) as a mysterious Whore-on-the-back-of-the-Dragon symbiote, which finally breaks down into conflict.

The Novus Ordo Seclorum, or "New Worldly Order" proclaimed on the US dollar bill is already aggressively posturing itself to fulfill the worst of Bible prophecy. During the coming global regime of the imminent new secular order of the ages, "enduring unto the end" as a devoted worshipper of God will be a feat of overcoming and victory in itself; and, according to the words of Christ, will also determine the salvation, preservation, and deliverance of one's soul. It will be a twisted era of consummate Big Brother perversity in which the genuinely good people of earth will be reckoned and declared enemies of The State.

The success of the neo-pagan, secular hedonists of the Western World, and especially of the USA, in repressing, denigrating and eradicating the values and principles of godliness as taught by the Bible, casts a telltale shadow of the looming figure that is yet to darken the entire world. An order has emerged over the last century that is rapidly fulfilling the vision of the Apostle Paul in his discourse on the "perilous times" of the last days:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent [no self-control], fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. — 2 Timothy 3:1-5

The word "fierce" in this passage should also have been highlighted in bold print, since the Greek "chalepoí" (translated "perilous") connotes fury and ferocity, attesting to the violent temperament and character of the generation of the last days.

More and more each year (weekly almost) in our increasingly degenerate world, the general decency and civility of by-gone years is being displaced by the growing violence, viciousness, terror and ruthlessness which is overrunning our weakened nations throughout the globe. In the battle for the soul of Earth, God-lessness has come to prevail — i.e., pervasive luciferian lawlessness and lovelessness — as the nations self-righteously abandon any affinity for Judeo-Christian morality. Repeated fits of intense international pain and anguish constantly become more frequent and sustained, subsiding only briefly before recurring again or shifting to new places in the bowels of our global society.

Paradoxically — in an attempt to gain acceptance — the coming new worldly order, yet to fully emerge, will advance its hollow "form of godliness" by mimicking godly principles, such as: justice, equity, inclusion and tolerance (for all but the resistance elements, of course); care for the poor and disadvantaged; redistribution of wealth and a better standard of living "for all"; crime-fighting and a return to law & order; civility and human rights advocacy; and especially unity, security and peace. Even pan-religious activity will be promoted for a brief period in the name of peace, brotherhood and unification.

It will be a fairly good show. But it will be very brief — about three-and-half years — until the Abomination of Desolation occurs. The world will then be cast into the last 42 months of unrelenting travail, as the authentic New World Order (of Messiah) painfully traverses the birth canal to its dramatic emergence on planet Earth in full glory. (Much more detail is offered in the following chapters on this "Abomination," spoken of by Daniel the prophet back in the 6th century B.C.E.)

What follows the arrival of the Abomination, and its relatively peaceful prelude, is described by the prophet Daniel as "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. . . . " (Dan.12:1) Jeremiah likewise spoke of this same time: "Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it." (Jer.30:6-7)

In the cosmic rivalry for domination of Planet Earth, "Jacob" is caught in the middle. Indeed, in several chapters, Daniel too implicates the "holy people" (as do also the other Prophets) as bearing the brunt of the travail. Yet, as a glimmering light at the end of the tunnel, Daniel extends the same assurance of hope which we see given by Jeremiah; in the continuation of the verse cited above from chapter 12, the prophecy promises: "And at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." The titanic wrestling for possession of God's earth involves, as a central game piece, the city of Jerusalem, the holy land and the chosen people ("Jacob") associated with it.¹¹

The ancient old testament signposts most indicative of the closure of the age of man are those signaling the ultimate battle for Jerusalem. Designated as "the city of the great king," it is destined as capital of the great Prince of the genuine New World Order of Peace who will rule from Zion at the finale, and it is there that the global controversy finally centers. The birth of this truly new world, however, will not occur until after 3½ years of intense travail, trouble and tribulation as "the Beast" attempts to preempt its coming with a specious new world order of his own. As we shall learn from the prophecies yet to be studied, he jealously covets Jerusalem as his capital where "he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace . . . in the glorious holy mountain. . . . "

"Yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him." (Dan.11:45)

Preview: The Birth of JOY

A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. — Christ Yeshua, John 16:21

Jumping way ahead in our prophecy tour, a sneak preview of "the end of it all" (as Peter put it in the fourth chapter of his first epistle) reveals that, though the birthing travail will be almost unimaginably intense, it will come to an abrupt conclusion in short order. Then, after the great shaking of heaven and earth which the prophet Haggai foretold, at last, "the desire of all nations shall come." (Hag.2:7)

As Daniel put it (above), not very long after the capture of "the glorious holy mountain" by the Beast, the Wicked Prince to come, "yet he shall come to his end" and there shall be no salvation to prevent his final doom. John the Revelator says that, even before the utter annihilation of his allied Armageddon legions, the Beast will be taken alive, along with his chief spokesman and technician of marvels, to be "cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." (Rev.19:19-21) His confused armies will then be squashed like grapes and "the kingdoms of this world . . . become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever." (Rev.11:15)

The first phase of that everlasting rule of joy is spoken of only briefly in chapter 20 of the Apocalypse as a period of 1000 years during which "the Dragon" is incarcerated in the "bottomless pit" — probably referring to some nether "wormhole" where he is kept captive, suspended in time and space, perhaps the same "stargate" by which he invaded Earth to begin with. In any event, this phase of the Kingdom of God constitutes the "Restoration," or "the times of restitution of all things, which," according to Peter in Acts chapter 3 (v.21), "God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." This will be a period on Earth when, for the first time since the Serpent appeared in Eden, the deceitful, egotistical influence of the Devil will be abolished and his agenda eradicated; this future day is called "the times of refreshing" by Peter, and commonly labeled "The Millennium" or the Millennial Reign of Messiah (Christ), when Peter prophesies that GOD will "send Jesus Christ." (Acts 3:19-20)

John actually elaborates much more (in Revelation 21 & 22) on the final phase of the Kingdom of God, New Jerusalem, the supreme "Mother Ship" which he foresees "descending out of Heaven from God" to the Earth. However, John at least outlines the first phase in a few verses of Revelation 20; briefly, he tells of a period of shared rule and dominion by the saints and martyrs who are resurrected to preside and officiate with Christ during The Millennium. Again, this first stage is what is called the Restoration to which Peter alluded as the theme of such broad popularity to "all the holy prophets."

Indeed, the restoration has been, and still is, of enormous interest to believing Jews and to many millions of Gentile converts around the world who also wait for the Kingdom of God with all-consuming expectation. And without a doubt, the Prophets had much to say about this Great Day of God Almighty when the poor, meek, persecuted and preyed upon will be raised from their graves to have things set straight on their behalf.

John says, "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." (Revelation 20:4-6)

Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3-10)

(And to address another popular "private interpretation," which devises separate destinies for Jews and Gentiles — one earthly and one "heavenly" — it helps to read on. For, despite the gainsaying of the rapturists and other elitists who say the earthly Restoration is strictly for the Jews, while they themselves will supposedly bask in the glories of a non-earthly, heavenly destiny, Jesus contradicts them! Note that in the same "Sermon on the Mount" which we have just excerpted, He doesn't teach His disciples to pray, "Father, take us to your heavenly kingdom," but instead, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." — Matt.6:10)

God's will shall be done on Earth when His heavenly world order, His Kingdom, is established on this planet by Messiah, the King of kings (who shall jointly rule and reign with the Prince of Peace in The Millennium).¹² To help establish what that Heavenly Will is and what that thousand years can be expected to bring, I have compiled the following rather lengthy list of verses from several of the Prophets. I trust you will be inspired by them, as I have been.

Remember, the Prophets and all the enlightened Hebrews understood that death was only a temporal condition, which they called "sleep." They knew, as Job affirmed, "Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." (Job 19:26) David likewise concurred, "Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in [the grave, Heb. she'ol]; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." (Ps.16:9-10) He added in the next Psalm, "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." (Ps.17:15) Isaiah testified, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." (Isa.26:19)

Thus, the following verses of promise were taken to mean life in the flesh would one day be restored — in the "regeneration" — as an everlasting condition where these beautiful promises would be fulfilled on earth to resurrected flesh-and-bone humans. The resurrected Yeshua, you remember, partook of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb to attest to His quite human restoration. (Luke 24:39) "A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have," was His response to the initial fright His disciples showed at His reappearance after crucifixion and burial. (Luke 24:42)

And so, I take these verses completely literally; for I'm not of the camp of Christians who, as one of my mentors used to say, are so heavenly minded they're no earthly good! In line with the great and godly founding fathers of America and their advocacy of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I entitle them "The Divine Design — A Blueprint for Utopia":

LIFE (true and everlasting) — Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (David, Psalm 16:11)

If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. (Job 36:11) They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. (David, Psalm 36:8) I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (Messiah, John 10:10) If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Yeshua, Luke 12:28-32)

LIBERTY — The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. (Messiah, Luke 4:18 & Isaiah 61:1) And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you. (Moses, Leviticus 25:10) Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6) Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (Paul, 2 Corinthians 3:17)

And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts. (David, Psalm 119:45) For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. (Paul, Galatians 5:13) And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. . . . If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (Jesus, John 8:32-36) Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Paul, Romans 8:21)

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS — Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (David, Psalm 16:11) Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD. (Psalm 144:15) And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness: (Psalm 105:43) For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. (Solomon, Ecclesiates 2:26) The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 29:19)

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12) Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. (Isaiah 51:11)

Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. (Isaiah 56:6-7) I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy. (Psalm 132:16) He that keepeth the law, happy is he. (Solomon, Proverbs 29:18)

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. (Luke 2:10) Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice. Before the LORD: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth. (Psalm 96:11-13) O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. (Psalm 67:4)

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. (Paul, Romans 15:13) I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. (Messiah, John 16:22) And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. (I John 1:4) If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. (Messiah, John 15:10-11) If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. (Messiah, John 13:17) Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. (Messiah, Matthew 25:21)

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. (Jude 1:24-25)

The great joy so eloquently set forth in these immortal promises have their root in the central one of them all — the promised restoration of Jerusalem, "the city of the great king," this time as the "joy of the whole earth." (Ps.48:2)

Over 2700 years ago, both Micah and his great contemporary, Isaiah, prophesied of the day when Jerusalem would serve as the capital of a worldwide reign of unending peace:

In the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it. — Micah 4:1-4

Isaiah, in almost identical wording in chapter 2 of his book, declared that "all nations" shall flow into this supreme "mountain."

Much later in chapter 65 of Isaiah, where the Divine Voice promises a total ban on any form of destruction or harmfulness all throughout His "holy mountain," He decrees that even the animals will enjoy a world of peace where the one-time predators will "feed together" on herbs along with their former prey. He also decrees renewed longevity for the human race, many of whom survive the wrathful day of God's vengeance to help repopulate the earth; at a hundred years old, a human will still be a child. (See Isaiah 65:18-25.)

True freedom based on absolute and inviolable property rights will be the law, where "they shall build houses, and inhabit them: and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them." Exploitation, oppression, opportunism, unjust taxation and all other forms of economic violence — and every form of violence altogether — will be banished forever.

Conditions of that sort would truly be a cause for joy worldwide. It's by reason of the above that this same prophecy of Isaiah bids us, "Be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying."

In the century after Isaiah, the prophet Jeremiah also confirmed that Jerusalem would be the capital of that worldwide joy when the perverse ideologies of evil men no longer prevail: "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. (Jer.3:17) As King David said in the Psalms, "the city of the great king" shall one day be no longer a burdensome bone of contention, as it is today, but "the joy of the whole earth." (Ps.48:2)

Isaiah said the "Great King" would resolve all the world's ills with wonderful wisdom and understanding, and bring righteousness, equity and peace — at last, and for ever!

And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea . . . and his rest shall be glorious. — Isaiah 11:1-10

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. — Isaiah 9:6-7

Quick — Take Your Pick

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. — Matthew 24:14

As I attempted to show earlier, you will find in reading them that the Scriptures of the Holy Bible are replete with the promise of paradise — one that is free of all curse, corruption, covetousness, violence, liars, fraud, stealth and cover-ups, imperialistic politics, profiteering extortioners, opportunists, oppressors, evil chemists, destructive sciences, and selfish lust. Peace, pleasure, and joy will be the order of the day in the coming utopian order of Messiah; and love will be the law of the land.¹³ "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." (I John 4:7-8)

The impending annihilation of the corrupt systems and evil established orders of men, foretold by the Prophets, will make way for the implementation of the Plan of God to restore the earth to the conditions which were originally intended. At last, the will of The Creator will be done on earth and have its fulfillment in the coming of the Theocratic Civilization of God on Earth, a kingdom unlike anything found on earth today.¹⁴

The Prophets make it so clear that the Kingdom of God will be incredibly splendid and magnificent. Referred to by them as a great mountain or high hill topping all others, this Civilization will dominate and bring all other surviving nations and cultures under tribute to its law of love, harmlessness, freedom, justice, peace and security. Such idealistic features of an earthly existence may strike you as appealing, I don't know; but they are at the heart of the "good message" denoted by the Old English word gospel. On the other hand, maybe you personally don't consider them such good news; or maybe "this gospel of the kingdom" sounds nice, but seems like just a lot of "pie in the sky" to you.

Well, I admit, the other option (the Luciferian scheme, to be substantially detailed and studied in the following chapters) is naturally much easier to subscribe to, since its (temporal) manifestation can be seen, tasted, touched, and consumed on a daily basis in our present physical state of being — which many feel is all we've got. The Prince of Peace, however, strongly proclaimed some uncommonly good news, the "gospel" of another kingdom, another order, a distinctly different arrangement than that which currently prevails on earth; and it verily does take a measure of faith to subscribe to it. His future worldwide civilization will be ordered according to the good will of The Father, which, as we saw evidenced, is for life, liberty, and happiness in the genuine and enduring sense — free of destructive egotistical lusts, which, contrary to popular belief, is not all we've got to choose from.

The empty, terminal consumer lust of the present earth order, now under the Evil Seducer who appeals to instant gratification and fear of death, is not the only option, although conventional worldly "wisdom" declares it so. The bogus notion that that is all there is has been convincingly negated by the Hebrews (& others) and even proven by them as hollow; only, modern skeptics refuse to believe their testimony. (I suppose they are afraid to "throw their lives away" by believing such "preposterous claims" as that one of their crucified prophets arose from the dead, and that others heard from GOD and had the future revealed to them in detail.) According to worldly tenets, "seizing the day" as an hedge against an "uncertain" and "unlikely" future (esp. a "forever" one) is of more "certain" value than capturing the moment as an investment in a "supposed" unending future life "which only fools waste their lives believing in."

And so, a "logical" skepticism about the existence of God — i.e., casting away faith — is touted by the seculars as the "sensible thing to do" in "making the most out of life" before dying. That popular "prudent" perspective and a subconscious, yet pervasive, fear of death drives people into the waiting arms of the Author of Perdition, the god of the dead. Selfishness and its byproducts of death and destruction are the trademark products of this god's egotistical mentality and motivations. His myopic "wisdom," wrote the apostle James, "descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish." (James 3:15) It destroys the nobility of man and renders him a dead animal with nothing but lust to redeem his vain existence from perdition.

Whereas, Messiah — who said He had "not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them" — affirmed that GOD "is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living." (Luke 9:56 & Mark 12:27) In like manner, Ezekiel was told to earnestly appeal to the wayward, death-bound house of Israel with this plea: "Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (Ezek.33:11)

Which, then, shall your choice be — the Righteous Civilization of YHWH (presided by The Prince of Peace and based on sacrificial love as the key to life), or the kingdoms of this world (master-minded by the god of the dead and based on covetous lust as the only logical complement to death)? Strange, isn't it, that the choice could be so hard to make. As usual in these matters, it's all a question of faith; and that is usually a matter of values, preferences and priorities.

Where does your faith lie? What do you choose to believe and value? Have you been blindly convinced by the blasphemers that there is no God and, therefore, nothing beyond this temporal "life" that is swiftly ticking away? Or, are your eyes open to the profound nature of LIFE, which testifies loudly and clearly to the existence and power of a benevolent Creator who longs to be recognized and appreciated? I speak of the same GOD recognized and worshipped by each of the prophets quoted in this book, The One who promised and intended (according to those prophets) that a paradise be established on Earth for the eternal enjoyment and pleasure of the children of The Creator. He is The One who, far in advance, posted the prophetic signs of the times we have been reviewing on this study tour in order that you might be persuaded (by their divine accuracy) to choose faith in life (everlasting).

Although the wine of the consumer establishment satisfies quickly and produces an almost immediate high, its instant intoxication is really a lethal lie which only mimics life in a cruel counterfeit of joy.¹⁵ I, along with the Prophets, plead with you to disavow the vast covetous majority obsessed with the materialist cares of this system and the deceitfulness of worldly prosperity, and who are in denial of the promises and power of the Almighty Creator. Commit to discovering and cherishing the truth about the design of Creation and the purpose of existence — found in the eminently good message of the New World Order of GOD!

The Prophets' divine testimony to the truth about the Kingdom of God is credible, hopeful, and our only salvation. Don't be discouraged, disillusioned or drawn away from faith in their prophetic witness by sensual Western Christians and their First World materialist mentality. The prideful, self-centered Babylonish churches of the West have become corrupted by mammon, arrogant in the abundance of their prosperity, divisive in their doctrinal competition to be "holier than thou," and insensitive to the sweeping hopelessness and suffering in the world. These conditions, among others, have effectively castrated the virility of their witness, virtually annulled their commissioned ambassadorship, and practically thwarted, or at least served to nullify the testimonies of Christ and the Prophets.

Rather than faithful and loyal embassies to attract, gather, shelter, and nourish hopeful immigrant citizenry into the of Kingdom of God, our churches have become squabbling heirs, pridefully striving for position and power, consumed with arrogant assertion of their cultist preeminence (each claiming some special corner on the truth), and divisively engaged in denominational self-aggrandizement;¹⁶ all of which has distorted the truth beyond recognition and left the world thoroughly disenchanted with the God of the Bible and the Kingdom for which He stands.

As we shall see in a later chapter, the essential measure of Western churches' emissarial efforts in relation to their actual ability — considering their enormous wealth of resources — reflects a dismally low ratio of accomplishment; so much so, that, relatively speaking, it ranks as a practical failure. The "gospel of the kingdom" is not being effectively "preached in all the world for a witness to all nations" as it should be, neither in terms of extent or with respect to a full and true representation. As Isaiah once alluded, the mission has essentially been aborted and resulted in nothing but "hot air."¹⁷

To compensate for and rectify that miserable shortcoming, the task of advancing and promoting the message of the Global Civilization of Christ throughout the world will evidently have to be completed by supernatural means, as prophesied in Revelation chapter 14. The LORD be thanked, too, that two highly prominent prophets are yet to appear on the world scene to help set the record straight as faithful witnesses also of this same "everlasting gospel" of God's New World Order — namely, "the hour of HIS judgment." These two potent witnesses will be world famous, as we shall see in a later chapter; and they'll be joined by countless multitudes of regular folks throughout the world, even in the extreme adversity of the Great Tribulation, to offer the same witness and proclaim the same hope, the same message embodied in the "everlasting good-spell" which at the last is proclaimed in every corner of the globe by the supernatural flying messenger spoken of in the Apocalypse.¹⁸

And so, to conclude this chapter, let us note that one of the definitive signs of the times marking the close of the confused age of secular humankind is that the proclamation of gospel of the New World Order of YHWH will be witnessed by all nations, "and then shall the end come."

Implicit in that far-reaching witness is choice; and all nations must needs have theirs; we all should, and we do immediately upon hearing of the heavenly option. It is then incumbent upon us all to make the wisest choice possible, before our personal end comes.

And as always, please be advised that there are many corrupt trees bearing corrupt fruit. Your heart, mind, and soul too will suffer corruption, if you carelessly partake of pseudo-sanctimonious doctrines of sanctioned assimilation into the Babylonish world order.¹⁹ Be it Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Europe or America, they are all the establishment glories of worldly men borne up by the mentorship, transcendent domination, and the underlying demagogic dynamic of the Great Red Dragon.²⁰ But, by this record, I hereby witness to the words of the Prophets who themselves gave testimony to another more Excellent Option which is not of this world and which renounces both the Dragon and the Order of the Whore. More on this to follow.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. . . . God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods. — Joshua 24:15-16

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Chapter 3 Endnotes — "The Signposts"

¹ irrevocable, immutable — the Word of YHWH God to the People of the Book

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations . . .
Genesis 17:7-8 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee [Abraham] and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan [millennia later called Palestine by the Romans], for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
Psalm 105:6-11 O ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his chosen. He is the LORD our God: his judgments are in all the earth. He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant: saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance:
Isaiah 61:6-9 But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion: therefore in their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them. For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the LORD hath blessed.
Jeremiah 32:37-41 Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely: And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul.
Ezekiel 37:25-28 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore. Back To Text

² you can't beat 'em — join 'em!

By adopting the Jew's worship of Jah (also known as Yahweh, Jehovah, El Shaddai, Adonai — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) you become a Jew, not a distinct or separate class of "church" people . . .
Esther 8:17 And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of the people of the land [Persian Gentiles] became Jews [during the days of the Persian Empire in the reign of Ahasuerus & Esther]; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them.
1Thessalonians 2:14 (Jewish Apostle Paul writes to the Greek Gentile believers of Thessalonica:) For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are [strictly "Ju-ish" believers] in Christ Jesus . . .
Ephesians 2:14 &18-22 (Paul to the Gentile Ephesians:) For [Christ] is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. . . . For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. Back To Text

³ the People of the Book

Romans 11:1-2 & 16-27 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. . . . If the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou [Gentile], being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. — Saul (Apostle Paul) Back To Text

⁴ Christian anti-Semitism

Various books and literary works can be obtained to document the presumptuous spiritual coup de'état perpetrated against the People of the Book in an effort to displace and supplant them from the immutable scheme of the Scriptures — in order, it appears, to usurp their position and promises, as provided in the Book. An excellent, comprehensive, and yet succinct treatise on the subject is available from EICB, P.O. Box 668, Dyer, Indiana 46311-0668, USA.

Please request a copy of Does Jacob's Trouble Wear A Cross? by Randall A. Weiss. Dyer, Indiana, Excellence in Christian Books, 1995. (My copy was delivered for a very worthwhile gift of $15 US.) Back To Text

⁵ deceitful, divisive, and distancing different-destiny doctrines

A later chapter, entitled "Gates of Hell" details more of this heretical and divisive "different destiny" doctrine, teaching that Jews will go through Great Tribulation, while Gentile "Christians" rate themselves exempt. Back To Text

⁶ church??

The etymology of this word is traced in Webster's dictionary back to the Greek kyriakos, meaning "of the Lord," from kyrios, "lord or master." Then, from Greek to Old English, the word evidently became cirice, and subsequently evolved through Middle English into chirche, to become what it is today, meaning simply "of the Lord." Indeed, to be called out is to be "of the Lord"; but a huge loss in meaning came about by the substitution of a different word, which was very likely already long since used to apply to congregations that met in buildings (by the time the English-speaking world ventured at a translation of the Bible into the language of their common people). It is also quite likely that the conceited anti-Jew bias had already set in, reckoning the Jews and their synagogues as "not of the Lord," while the now Gentile-dominated assemblies supplantingly considered themselves as kyriakos, or cirice, and later chirche (or the church). Back To Text

⁷ establishment vanity vs. the call of Israel

John 17:14-18 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
Matthew 6:31-33 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Back To Text

⁸ the original Hebrew calling out

Genesis 12:1-5 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. Back To Text

⁹ the Exodus Church with Moses in the wilderness — called out of Egypt

Acts 7:37-38 (Stephen the martyr, just before his stoning, testified of Moses' prophesy of a Hebrew Messiah to come, Who had actually already been in spiritual company with the children of Israel in their exodus wanderings — the church in the wilderness:) This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers . . .

(Obviously, this did not refer to a group of Gentiles; and it existed long prior to the heretical notion that the Church was born in 32 AD, as the fundamentalists teach.—Now watch 'em explain this away! with the on-this-rock-I-will-build-my-church doctrine, which they also misconstrue.) Back To Text

¹⁰ calling out of Jewish sheep by Jewish shepherd

Matthew 15:24 I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. — Jesus
John 15:18-19 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Back To Text

¹¹ the LORD's portion

Deuteronomy 32:9 For the LORD's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. Back To Text

¹² Daniel's vision of the New World Order of the Ancient of Days and his saints

Daniel 2:44 And in the days of these [last 10] kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
Daniel 7:18-22 But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. . . . I beheld, and the same horn [Antichrist] made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. Back To Text

¹³ back to Eden — the law of God

John 13:34-35 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
I John 2:7-10 Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
I John 3:23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. Back To Text

¹⁴ another order

John 18:36 Jesus: My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
Isaiah 9:6-7 Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. Back To Text

¹⁵ the wine of that Great City

Proverbs 23:31-33 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
Revelation 17:18 & 2 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. . . . With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Revelation 18:3-4 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Revelation 14:8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Back To Text

¹⁶ Christian power struggles

Mark 9:33-35 And (Jesus) came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked (his disciples), What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest. And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.
Mark 10:42-45 Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Back To Text

¹⁷ mission aborted

Isaiah 26:17-18 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen [their idolatrous vanity/covetousness has not been conquered for failure to bear out the saving power of truth and love]. Back To Text

¹⁸ back-up plan

Revelation 14:6-11 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone . . . And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Back To Text

¹⁹ tree known by its fruits

Luke 6:43-46 A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?Back To Text

²⁰ dynamic patriarch of the established orders of men

Revelation 12:9 & 13:3-4 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. . . . And all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?
Luke 4:5-8 And the devil, taking [Christ] up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Back To Text

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