September 23, 2003 ©Homer Kizer

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1.

The visions of the prophet Daniel were sealed and secret until the time of the end (Dan 12:4, 9; 8:17, 26 et al), a statement that precludes and excludes these visions from being understood earlier than that specific moment in time. Thus, either the angels did not mean what they told Daniel, or Ellen G. White and Herbert W. Armstrong and a host of other 19^th and 20^th Century prophesy pundits could not understand—because God prevented understanding—these visions. No other possibilities are permitted; no compromise position is possible; no private understanding will unseal these visions.

The visions of Daniel could not be understood in the 1^st-Century BCE or in the 1^st-Century CE. They were not understood by Peter or Paul even though Paul argues that he would be among those upon whom the end of the age came (cf. 1 Thess 4:15; 1 Cor 10:11). He believed, however, that he would be among the physically living; he apparently believed that he would live to see the return of Christ Jesus, but that obviously has not been the case. The time of the end was not upon Paul although one long spiritual night did begin when the Passover Lamb of God was sacrificed on the 14^th of Abib in the year today known as 31 CE[1], with this night being foreshadowed by the long night of waiting and watching natural Israel spent in Egypt (Exod 12). This long night began the fourth day of the seventieth week (Dan 9:24-27), the final week of a prophecy that extends from when the order goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to when the end of desolations is decreed. And beginning with Calvary, this last week of the seventy weeks moves from the physical realm to spiritual realm as Jesus’ ministry moved from this world to the timeless heavenly realm where the daylight [or hot] portion of days begin with God coming as light into this physical world, and with night [the twisting or turning away] resulting from the darkness when God returns to the heavenly realm[2]. Therefore, the long spiritual night that began at Calvary will see the liberation of disciples from indwelling sin at its midnight hour, with dawn coming when Jesus stands on the split Mount of Olives (Zech 14:3-4). The last half week of this seventieth week occurs when Jesus’ personal ministry resumes with the 144,000 following the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev 14:1-5).

But the beginning of the long spiritual night of watching for the return of Christ did not begin that specific period known as the time of the end. After nearly two millennia the death angels have not yet passed over spiritual Israel in spiritual Babylon, slaying firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God as firstborns were slain in Egypt (Isa 43:3-4). The time of the end is not two millennia long or two centuries long or more than two decades long. Once the time of the end begins, concluding events will occur in rapid succession, with one event being quickly followed by another.

Jesus’ disciples on the Mount of Olives asked Him about the period Daniel knew as the time of the end, and Jesus warned His disciples not to deceive for many would come in His name saying that Jesus is the Christ and will lead many astray (Matt 24:4-5). These many false teachers and prophets of Israel will maintain the position that wars and rumors of war, nations rising against nations, famines and earthquakes in various places (vv. 6-7) are ongoing world conditions between Jesus’ Olivet Discourse and His return. But world history prior to Jesus birth was of wars, famines, and earthquakes—all routinely occurring since Adam was driven from the Garden of God. The condition of humankind was so bad at the time of Noah that God regretted making humankind (Gen 6:5-7). So for wars to be a sign of the end of the age and the return of Jesus, these wars and rumors of war must significantly differ from previous wars. And with the development of the atomic bomb, perhaps they are significantly different.

Jesus said that wars, famines, and earthquakes were but the beginning of the birth pains (Matt 24:8) of Zion bringing forth her children (Isa 66:7-8). Today, at the beginning of the 21^st-Century CE, famine as experienced in earlier historic periods doesn’t exist, which isn’t to say that all persons are well fed. Pockets of famine such as in sub-Saharan Africa, while fatal to those individuals affected, hardly constitutes a global condition such as nuclear war and the threat of nuclear war. So in the run-up to the end of the age, humankind should anticipate worldwide harvest failures that will leave large portions of the global population hungry. Additionally, humankind can expect to experience more earthquakes of greater magnitude, and wider ranging wars that are each a potential nuclear holocaust. Humankind will be then living in the time of the end, with the end still a frightful reality through which those who endure will be saved (vv. 13-14).

The time of the end is the period that immediately precedes and includes the end of the age. It is real period in human history that differs from other epochs and eras that have been delineated by cultural dominancy of a national kingdom. It is a period defined by ideas … today the world is mostly dominated by the American experience, an experiment in social equality that has encountered stiff ideological resistance from European National Socialism, Soviet Communism, and now fundamental Islam in its global conquest over competing social philosophies. Whereas ancient Rome ruled with soldiers and fortified frontiers, the American experience rules through the equality latent in the Parable of the Democracy of Goods, a reality that offers to virtually everyone the same soap, the same breakfast cereal, the same toilet paper, the same political opportunities that the privileged of the world enjoy, thereby breaking down the most visible barriers of social stratification without incorporating a schema for the redistribution of land and wealth. This Parable of Democracy also promises to all people entrance into heaven through uttering The Sinners’ Prayer, the magical chant that solves the foundational flaw in Islam: how does one know if one is good enough to enter heaven? Through the white witchcraft of uttering the Sinners’ Prayer, heaven is guaranteed without dying in jihad.

Nazi Germany had to be defeated militarily before Western Europe could be invested in the Parable of Democracy, whereas the former Soviet Union was defeated the day the first advertisement for Coca Cola appeared in Moscow. No shots had to be fired here on earth, for the defeat occurred in the realm where the mental topography of humanity is governed by the spiritual princes of Greece and Persia. All that remained to be done here on earth was the mopping up action of blue jeans and rock ‘n roll music alienating the youth of the nation from state-planned economies, leaving China as the last stronghold of Communism. But Chinese Communism has become Chinese Capitalism as the nation strives for an equality of Goods, with Wal-Mart and K-Mart and the other mass merchandisers administering the coup de grace to state planning and centralized economies. So now Islam is in the crosshairs of the Parable of Democracy as the global conquest of the American experience continues through ideas reinforced by arms, thereby setting the stage for the time of the end to begin. When the American experience has no philosophical domain left to conquer with iPods and the Internet, individual rights and invasive military intervention, the seven endtime years of tribulation will begin. These seven years will conclude with the Second Advent of Christ Jesus, and these endtime years will be unlike any period in the previous history of humanity.

The informing social constructs of ancient Greece remain the informing constructs of the American experience. The he-goat that flies out of the West to trample the ram (Dan 8) is the spiritual king of Greece (Dan 10:20), the power behind the American experience with its Parable of the Democracy of Goods. And though things appeared grim at times for Alexander in his war against Darius [this decade long war serves as the earthly shadow of the endtime war between spiritual kings in the heavenly realm], the Greeks ultimately prevailed and so will the American experience despite which political party [Republican or Democrat] is in power or how undeclared wars are managed. Before the end comes, fundamental Islam will not only succumb to Democracy, but also to Greek Christianity. Islam can not mount a more effective defense against Greek Christianity than Communism did against Greek Capitalism because the visible struggle here on earth between ideologies reflects the spiritual struggle that has already been decided in the supra-dimensional heavenly realm. The fix is already in: everyone who bets against the he-goat temporarily prevailing bets against divine revelation.

The time of the end includes the seven endtime years of tribulation and the immediate run-up to these endtime years, not all of human history. And the visions of Daniel were not understandable by anyone earlier than the immediate run-up to the Tribulation. The position of this paper is that they are now understandable through typological exegesis, which is a reading strategy [the means of taking meaning from Scripture], not a private interpretation as was White’s or Armstrong’s explication of Daniel’s visions.

 

 

1.

The purported unsealed vision of John [the book of Revelation] takes place when the events within the vision are soon to occur (Rev 1:1 & 22:6–7), or are near in time (Rev 22:10). John’s vision is not understandable beforehand; before the time setting of when described events will soon occur, for within the vision occurs its unsealing (Rev 5:7; 6:1 et al). Yes, what is unsealed in the vision that occurs on the Lord’s day are the events recorded in the vision.

Two time settings are evident: the first setting is of John recording the vision given to him by Christ Jesus near the end of the 1^st-Century CE. Disciples receive the book of Revelation from John having recorded the vision. But the time setting of the vision itself is the Lord’s day, a specific period in time when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and His Christ—John was in the spirit on the Lord’s day (Rev 1:10). Mentally, the vision transports John forward in time to the end of the age when the Lamb of God removes the seals from the Scroll, written within and without, that reveals what will happen. Thus, a discrepancy of approximately two millennia exists between the time setting of when John receives the vision, and when the vision actually transpires. So the vision which is not sealed internally is sealed externally by not occurring until the day of the Lord, for no one can remove the seals earlier than when the Lamb of God removes the seals of the Scroll as seen in the vision.

Thus, the events recorded in John’s vision aren’t about 1^st-Century happenings here on earth, but about end of the era events in heaven and here on earth during the seven endtime years of tribulation and beyond to the coming of the new heaven and new earth. The unsealing of the scroll by the Lamb does not happen at the end of the 1^st-Century CE, but on the Lord’s day, which isn’t a day of the week but the period that begins when Christ Jesus no longer bears the sins of human beings. The Lord’s day begins when Grace ends through disciples being filled with the Holy Spirit, thereby liberating them from indwelling sin and death, making each disciple into an acceptable sacrifice for sin.

Therefore, the vision of John has been sealed through the use of two literary devices: one trope is that the appearance of entities reveals how these entities function in the plan of God, not how they actually appear; the other is the internal evidence of when the seals of the Scroll are removed. From the fourth chapter on, appearances equate to functionality, thus requiring typological exegesis. The letters to the seven churches [chapters two and three] were sealed in the same manner as how the visions of Daniel were sealed: the seven named churches existed in the 1^st-Century, with all of these churches having then turned away from the Apostle Paul (2 Tom 1:15) and his teachings. None of these churches were theologically where they belonged in the latter part of the 1^st-Century; none were building on the foundation Paul laid. But because these seven existed with the described attributes, the letters were assumed to have been delivered, thereby reinforcing the unsealed nature of the vision while assuring the genuineness of the churches. However, the letters were to be delivered on the Lord’s day, not in the 1^st-Century, so they remain as letters to be delivered—and what appears unsealed but symbolic and confusing is in actuality still sealed and secret until the Lamb of God removes the last seal of the Scroll, with the first of the seals being removed when the seven endtime years begin.

The visions of the prophet Daniel were sealed through physical shadows fulfilling prophecies about endtime events that occur in the heavenly realm. Daniel’s visions were, literally, sealed with their shadows, which, again, is how chapters two and three of Revelation are sealed.

The following cannot be stressed enough: A sealed vision cannot be understood until the time of its unsealing, and the unsealing of visions requires the production of another text, which, in the case of Scripture, would not be considered genuine if the new text were another physical manuscript such as the Book of Mormon. Nor should another physical manuscript be considered genuine. One isn’t needed. For through typology and typological exegesis, and employing the literary concepts of intertexuality and hypertextuality, the necessary revealing text is simultaneously the same text and a new text that is the same text applied to another dimension or level, thereby making the original text the presentation of the hypertext’s shadow.

The hypertext is the Book of Life that is kept in the heavenly realm, and can only be read in that realm by disciples who are spiritually minded … Judaism was and is spiritually blind (2 Cor 3:12-15). Kabbalists wrestle with their blindness in the concept of Tzimtzum, which has the physical creation concealing the spiritual things of God. But in Christ, the blindness is removed (v. 16) for through typology the physical creation [that which is visible] reveals the invisible things of God (Rom 1:20). Thus, it can be confidently said that the creation conceals God from the natural Israelite, but reveals God to the spiritual Israelite. Using the same text, the natural Israelite seeks righteousness by the works of his or her hands, whereas the spiritual Israelite seeks righteousness by faith, with both the natural and the spiritual Israelite keeping the precepts of the law, the first by compulsion, the latter by faith. And it is by faith that the spiritual Israelite sees the hidden things of God through the shadows they cast among the visible things that have been created. Without faith, the spiritual Israelite sees less than the natural Israelite with a veil separating him or her from Moses.

The shadow of living entities are lifeless and in one less dimension than the entities. The same pertains to the original text [Holy Writ] in relationship to the revealing hypertext text; thus, in the revealing text, epistles are disciples, written not with ink but with Spirit (2 Cor 3:2-3). This mental step up from Paul’s epistles being Scripture to the lives of endtime disciples being epistles in the revealing hypertext text is anticipated by Paul’s epistles themselves being a step up from the Thus says YHWH prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel—in his epistles, Paul expresses his understanding of Scripture, coming by revelation, as well as his opinions. Therefore, Paul’s epistles serve as the bridging concept between the Law and the Prophets and the Book of Life; his epistles foreshadow and are shadows of the lives of endtime disciples. They bridge the gap between the speech acts of God being divine utterance and being divine performance, in that the lives of disciples are letters from Christ delivered by the apostle. A life lived of pursuing righteousness by faith is a divine performance of Christ Jesus working through the disciple.

The above concept contains within it several subtle subsets: an endtime disciple doing work for God becomes an epistle in the Book of Life, thus, his or her life can be visibly read as a divine performance of Christ Jesus. Any form of lawlessness within the disciples, now, becomes an incomplete performance; however, Grace can complete the performance if the disciple has presented his or her members to God as instruments for righteousness. But the disciple who is willfully lawless through something as seemingly small as transgressing the Sabbath commandment becomes a performance that cannot be completed by Grace; for this disciple willingly made him or herself an obedient servant of sin.

But the subset of perhaps most interest is that endtime disciples prophesy (cf. Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29; Rev 10:11) by how they live their lives, so that which went before is the antetype and type of endtime lives that are lived pursuing righteousness by faith, meaning that my life can be visibly read as a speech-act performance of Christ Jesus and that my life reveals previously disclosed revelations of God. Thus, my act of extracting meaning from Scripture by employing typology as a periscope to peer into the heavenly realm stands as an epistle in the Book of Life. My pitting typological exegesis against disciples using grammatico-historical exegesis, the reading strategy of the many prophecy pundits linked to the internet’s Prophecy Central, and against disciples using precept-upon-precept exegesis, the reading strategy employed by the splinters of the former Radio Church of God, stands as divine performance by Christ Jesus, hardly a claim to be made lightly.

Christ Jesus is the paschal Lamb of God, a lamb appropriate to the size of the household of God. He entered Jerusalem as both high priest [of a new Israel, the meaning of Him riding the colt] and Passover Lamb on the 10^th of Abib, the first month (cf. John 12:1, 12; 19:31). He was crucified on the 14^th, the Preparation Day for the high Sabbath, the 15^th, the first official day of Unleavened Bread. Again, He was sacrificed between the evenings (Matt 27:45–50), an expression then being used for halfway between noon and six p.m. rather than for when the sun dips to the horizon and full dark. He was the spiritual reality of the annual paschal lambs sacrificed since physically circumcised Israel was liberated from bondage to Pharaoh. And His life stands as the first and foremost epistle in the Book of Life.

Consider Jesus’ life: the four Gospels are the Scriptural accounts of His life, which has some slight historical references, but certainly not enough to justify His historical influence. The Gospels form the core of New Testament Scripture as they reveal how all righteousness shall be fulfilled (Matt 3:15)—and even today, New Testament Scripture is not accepted as “authentic” by Judaism. Likewise, Sabbatarian disciples are not today accepted as authentic speech-acts of Christ Jesus—utterances that form living epistles in the revealing hypertext—by the visible Christian Church, which is to these epistles as Sadducees and Pharisees were to Christ Jesus. And as not all of the writings by the first apostles were accepted for canonization, not all Sabbatarian disciples will be accepted as epistles in the Book of Life, the dark side of typology.

With Jesus’ burial, a long spiritual night began (John 12:35–36) that will not end until the sun rises on the Lord’s day, that day when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Father and His Son halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation. Thus, Moses’ account of the first Passover (Exod 12) mimetically describes the spiritually lifeless, physical shadow of the spiritual reality that is Jesus at Calvary, with verses 29 through 42 of Exodus 12 still to spiritually occur during this long night of watching that follows the sacrifice of the paschal lamb. And the empowerment of the 120 physically circumcised disciples by the Holy Spirit, physically seen as tongues of fire, recorded in Acts chapter 2 is, now, the shadow of the invisible empowerment of spiritually circumcised disciples by the Holy Spirit when these disciples are liberated from bondage to lawlessness at the beginning of the seven endtime years. Therefore, contrary to what is usually taught to disciples who observe the high Sabbaths of God, the Church is not today located in the prophetic narrative between Pentecost and Trumpets, but between the sacrifice of the paschal Lamb of God on the 14^th and the passing of the death angels throughout all of spiritual Babylon, slaying all firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb, on the 15^th of the first month. Only in the physical shadow are disciples nearing the end of the long summer months of heat that ripens the larger wheat harvest of the hill country of Judea. In the spiritual reality, the spring barley harvest hasn’t yet had the sickle put to it. It still has seven endtime years of tribulation standing between it and being gathered into the barns of God. Only Christ Jesus, a man who came from heaven as the First of the firstfruits—as the reality of the Wave Sheaf Offering—has so far been received by God.

Jesus came as a prophet (Luke 4:24). Endtime disciples, male and female, young and old, slave and free, who are empowered by the Holy Spirit shall be prophets. Whomever receives one of these because he or she is a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward (Matt 10:41). And the implied argument of this paper is that whoever begins to take meaning from Scripture through typological exegesis receives a prophet’s reward through becoming an epistle in the revealing hypertext, the Book of Life.

The shadow or physical example of the plan of God is conveyed in the seven high Sabbaths (Lev 23), but the spiritual reality of the plan foreshadowed by all seven high days is revealed through the spring high days reflecting the plan for the early barley harvest, the harvest of the firstfruits, and [this is significant] through the fall high days reflecting the plan for the greater wheat harvest that occurs during the great White Throne Judgment. Two harvests, two realities, but one shadow—the fall holy day season is the reflection of the spring holy day season. And it is the one shadow twice seen that was given to physically circumcised Israel that has concealed the spiritual plan of God from the holy nations of God, natural and spiritually circumcised. Therefore, in the spring reality (the harvest of firstfruits, or the early barley harvest), the seven days of Unleavened Bread begin the roasting and eating of the paschal Lamb of God, sacrificed at Calvary, with the long night of watching commencing with the burial of the crucified Jesus. This long spiritual night of watching continues forward two millennia to the midnight hour when the seven, endtime years of tribulation begin—when born of Spirit disciples are liberated from indwelling sin and death through empowerment by the divine Breath of God [Pneuma ’Agion]. During these seven endtime years, spiritually circumcised disciples will live without sin because of their liberation through empowerment.

The above can pass by too quickly to even go back and reread; thus, again, the seven endtime years of tribulation begin with every born of Spirit disciple’s liberation from indwelling sin or lawlessness, with this liberation occurring on the first day of the seven years that have been represented by the seven days of Unleavened Bread. This single long spiritual night of watching started at Calvary and continues through to its midnight hour when the lives of firstborns are again given as ransom for the liberation of Israel (Isa 43:3-4). Following liberation, the seven endtime years begin, with the dawning of the Lord’s day occurring midweek: the first three and a half years of the seven endtime years are, thus, part of this long midweek night [of the seventieth week], for Jesus will not again appear on earth until His feet stand on the split Mount of Olives when He fights on a day of battle (Zech 14:3-4). The light won’t return until Jesus comes to fight, toppling Babylon and delivering a mortal wound to the fourth beast (cf. Dan 7:11-12; Rev 13:3-4).

The Second Advent of Christ Jesus is not when He comes to fight on a [note the indefinite article used by Zechariah] day of battle, but when He returns during the day portion of the last high Sabbath of Unleavened Bread, the conclusion of the seven endtime years of tribulation as well as the conclusion of the seventieth week. For too long, disciples not called by God to teach spiritually circumcised Israel have muddied the waters of prophecy, stirring up sediment and sentiment against the Roman Church, itself a major source of dirt, deception, and confusion. Problems with understanding prophecy developed when disciples mistook the shadow for its reality. In the physical shadow cast by the high Sabbaths given to the circumcised nation, the Messiah comes on Trumpets, comes in the fall of the year, comes after a long hot summer. But in the spiritual reality of the early barley harvest, Christ Jesus returns on the last day of Unleavened Bread. In the spiritual reality of the later wheat harvest, Christ Jesus returns on the first high day of Tabernacles. Thus, the spring high Sabbath calendar is reflected in the fall high Sabbath calendar, with Tabernacles being a continuation of Unleavened Bread, when all of humanity has been empowered and liberated from indwelling sin and death by the Holy Spirit. Both calendars have one shadow, thereby establishing the juxtaposition generally unknown by, or denied by the greater Christian Church.

Herein lies the ugliest of all lies told by false teachers, false prophets, false disciples: that portion of humanity not born of Spirit in this so-called church age (or age of firstfruits) has not been forever lost, roasting in hell with no chance of escape, but has presently entered timelessness as if asleep. This portion of humanity will be born again or born of Spirit when resurrected to judgment after the thousand years of the Millennium. A short period—the sixth day of the spiritual creation week—is known as the great White Throne Judgment. All of humanity not called as part of the harvest of firstfruits will be resurrected in physical bodies to receive the reward or punishment for what was done by the flesh.

All of humanity will be judged once, not many times. Nor will any escape judgment. But judgment today is only upon the household of God (1 Pet 4:17). It is not upon the world, which must wait to be born again until the grave gives up its dead in the great White Throne Judgment. Then, the person who has done what the law requires will show that the works of the law were written on the person’s heart, and the person’s conflicting thoughts will accuse or even excuse the person (Rom 2:14-16). The person who has indulged lawlessness and embraced deceitful things will perish in the second death, the lake of fire. This person will have been judged unworthy of entering into God’s rest. But neither person is today roasting in hell, for neither has or had any life but that which came by physical breath.

In the spring spiritual reality, the seven weeks of counting from the Sabbath in Unleavened Bread to Pentecost now represent the seven days of Tabernacles, which in the fall high Sabbath reality represents Christ’s millennial reign. Therefore, the reality of Pentecost occurs when all of humanity that has never before received the Holy Spirit and life from above will be resurrected in the great white Throne Judgment. This reality is foreshadowed in the second chapter of Acts, and in the empowerment and liberation of disciples at the beginning of the seven endtime years—and in the liberation of the third part of humanity (Zech 13:9) from indwelling sin halfway through these seven years. This latter foreshadowing is when the world is baptized with the Holy Spirit; i.e., when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh at the beginning of the Lord’s day.

Two loaves of bread, baked with leavening, are offered to God on the Feast of Weeks. One loaf represented the harvest of firstfruits, the Judean barley harvest. The other loaf represented the main crop wheat harvest that grows only until the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh in the fall of the mid-year of the seven endtime years. Once the world is baptized by Spirit, every person will be born of Spirit, with judgment being upon all who are baptized with water. Every person alive halfway through the Tribulation will be born of Spirit; thus, all who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 24:13), the good news that must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations (v. 14). And this condition of being born empowered by the Holy Spirit will continue throughout the Millennium and until Satan is loosed for a short while after the thousand years. Thus, human infants born in the Millennium will have a different human nature than people today possess, for they will be born having the mind of Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, the false teachers of Israel who would have disciples believe that the Messiah comes on Trumpets are physically minded and can only see the shadow of the spiritual reality that will have the Messiah return at the end of seven years of tribulation, again, these years representing the days of Unleavened Bread. These physically minded teachers of spiritually circumcised Israel were foreshadowed by Nicodemus about whom Jesus said, ‘"Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?…If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?"’ (John 3:10, 12). Nicodemus knew Jesus was a teacher come from God (v. 2), and he helped remove Jesus’ body from the cross (John 19:39), but even as a Believer, he could not understand the things of God. Likewise, the physically minded teachers of spiritual Israel, who know that Jesus is the Messiah and that He rose from the grave, are unable to understand heavenly things. They are utterly unable to grasp the reality that will be the Second Passover—and when the slaughter of firstborns again occurs, they will label the obviously divinely caused deaths as the sixth trumpet plague, thereby deceiving disciples into believing that the Arian man of perdition is the true Antichrist and that Satan, when cast from heaven, comes as the Messiah.

Units measuring the passage of time such as hour, day, or year are reflective of the earth’s rotational motion. In the creation account of Genesis one [the so-called “P” account], the separation of darkness from light was not through the rising and setting of the sun for days one, two, and three; couldn’t have been. Rather, the light was of God [Jesus — 2 Cor 4:6), was God’s presence, was God working; and during these days, the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the earth (Gen 1:2) as a hen might set a clutch—and on this first day, there was no separation of the waters. This image needs remembered. Division occurs on the second day when the resurrected Jesus breathed on ten of His disciples, thereby giving to these disciples life in the heavenly realm. Thus, during the long spiritual night through which disciples presently watch for Christ’s return, the Holy Spirit remains hovering as the Comforter sent by Jesus while the waters stand divided, separated by an expanse called heaven, with the upper division receiving life and knowledge from the hovering Breath of God; while this divine Breath [Pneuma ’Agion], again, like a setting hen on a clutch of eggs, covers without giving life to the lower waters of humanity.

The waters of day one [“P” account] and the lower division of waters on day two represents humanity as the main crop wheat harvest that will be born of Spirit in the great White Throne Judgment. This harvest of humanity will be entirely composed of human beings who have not had, nor do today have any life in the heavenly realm, and this harvest [these waters] represents the vast majority of humankind. The firstfruits are few in number, and their harvest small in comparison to the latter wheat harvest; thus, most human beings who have drawn the breath of life rest today in the dust of the earth, having no consciousness, no promise of everlasting life, no hope if God were to forget them. But their breaths have returned to God, who will again cause them to live through a second birth akin to the birth of Adam (Ezek 37).

No significant crop will be added to the wheat harvest once the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh; for everyone in the latter half of the Tribulation and in the Millennium will be born empowered by the Holy Spirit, thereby being without sin at the time of spiritual birth. Neither sin nor death will dwell in their flesh. So unless the person takes sin back into the person, there will be no need for the flesh to die—and there will be no old creature dwelling in the flesh so judgment will be upon every person. Thus, the person who takes sin back into him or herself will die the second death as will everyone resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment who takes sin back into the self.

Baptism will no longer have the purpose it has today, for everyone will be of the household of God. No longer will “the old man” be crucified with Christ. Human nature is a received nature; it is not solely the product of biology, but is received in the same way that animal natures are received. The prince of this world rules through controlling this mental topography or landscape that, today, reflects the mind and thoughts of the Adversary. Thus, when Satan is cast into time and the world is baptized in Spirit, human beings will receive the mind and thoughts of Christ Jesus as the base territory from which individual thoughts will sprout and take root. Everything changes in a way that humankind cannot now envision, but in a way revealed by the prophet Isaiah:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. (Isa 11:6-8)

The new creature that dwells in a tent of flesh as a spiritually filled and empowered human being will not harm itself. Baptism is today unto the outward symbolic death of the inner creature that must die because of its unbelief; therefore, the sacraments of the Church will change in meaning and in application, the justification for the return of animal sacrifices (Ezek 45:13-25), thereby making Isaiah’s following verse cautionary in application: “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isa 11:9). At the end of the thousand years, Satan will be loosed from the bottomless pit; God will put hooks in the jaws of a people to draw this people and their army from the North Country; and Satan will again bring destruction upon the earth with this army. Hence, the holy mountain of God will not be all of the earth, but where Israel dwells at peace in unwalled cities. And the hooks are necessary for this rebelling people and their army has knowledge of God.

Elohim [singular in usage] separated the waters on day two of the spiritual creation week—and as the waters cover the sea [Isaiah’s expression] with these waters being knowledge of God, the waters divided on day two references the mental topography of humankind. God created an expanse or a gap as wide as all heaven between the waters above and the waters below: human beings are physically born being physically minded, but when born of Spirit, they are spiritually minded with water baptism being unto the death of their former physical mindset. And the distance between these two mental landscapes is as far as the heavens are across. Unfortunately, most disciples were comfortable being physically minded prior to being born of Spirit; hence, refusing to venture across the unknown, preferring to remain where they were, these disciples being the many who are called exclude themselves from being the few who are chosen (Matt 22:14). They chose death when the promise of entering into God rest stood open before them.

At the time of Noah’s flood, an upper atmosphere firmament of water broke to baptize the world into death—and it is the collapse of this physical firmament in Noah’s day that foreshadows the hovering firmament of Spirit (Gen 1:2) that is the Comforter descending like rushing wind when Christ Jesus baptizes the earth with Spirit (Matt 3:11). He will, literally, cause this hovering of Spirit to drop down as if it were wind halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation. What occurred to the 120 on Pentecost will occur worldwide to all human beings, will occur to all life, and will change the predatory natures of lions and wolves and men when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Father and of the Son (cf. Rev 11:15; Dan 7:9–14).

The Genesis creation week of seven days casts many shadings and shadows of its one reality that is the entire plan of God, with the Lord’s day beginning mid-week when the two great lights are created. Thus, a physical creation week becomes a shadow of the seven endtime years of tribulation. Christ Jesus was sacrificed from the foundation of the world. Hence, He was sacrificed "in the beginning" (Gen 1:1). Therefore, the darkness over the face of the deep is a physical type or shadow of the darkness of the long night of watching, which has the Spirit of God hovering as the Comforter. The light, now, is the light of the Son of Man, Head and Body, in the world. And Elohim saw that this light was good (v. 3).

With the seven days of the physical creation as shadows of the seven endtime years of tribulation, the separation of the waters that occurs on the second day becomes the separation of humanity through obedience to God, through liberation from sin and death from empowerment by the Holy Spirit. Again, some of the waters are above an expanse called Sky [or Heaven] and some are below, with waters representing the sea of humanity. These waters above the Sky are not, though, in the third heaven, but remain under the hovering Spirit of God that is the Comforter. These above waters represent the oil and the wine that the third horseman of the Apocalypse [Sin] cannot harm; these waters are beyond the reach of Sin; these waters represent a spiritually righteous Abel who will be slain by the firstborn son of the last Eve; these waters form the Body of the Lamb of God that will be physically sacrificed as the Lamb was. Only a remnant (like today’s clouds, all that remains of the watery firmament of Noah’s day) will physically live to cross into the second half of the Tribulation (Rev 12:17).

The waters above the expanse represent liberated disciples that live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The tents of flesh in which they dwell or dwelt remain here on earth, either physically alive or sacrificed as Jesus was. But they are not their bodies, what that part of humankind below the expanse cannot grasp. The flesh can be slain, but for those liberated disciples that do not take sin back inside themselves, death will no longer dwell within them; they will not die from so-called natural causes. In order for them to die, they must be sacrificed or martyred—and the disciple who loves his or her physical life more than he or she loves obedience to God is not worthy of glorification. By taking sin back inside this unworthy disciple, he or she will temporarily live physically while dying spiritually. Thus, the waters above the expanse will either remain aloof, untainted by sin, or fall as rain back into the sea to perish forever … in the Apostle Paul’s masterful allegory of Sarah and Hagar (Gal 4:21-31), disciples are Isaac, the son of promise born to the patriarch Abraham—and here wisdom is required: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is only the God of the patriarch Abraham [Sarah is one with Abraham], and of Abraham’s son of promise Issac, and of Isaac’s son Jacob, renamed Israel when he overcame with God. Disciples in the church era are Isaac, in whose womb [Rebekah’s womb is Isaac’s womb] are two sons, Esau and Jacob, one hated and one loved; one without regard for his birthright and inheritance, the other deceitful but valuing the inheritance obtained by Abraham. Disciples are today in the womb of Zion, Isaac’s womb, and disciples are either of Esau or of Jacob. Zion or the last Eve will give birth in a day (Isa 66:7-8), bringing forth two sons, both liberated from indwelling sin and death. But the firstborn son will not value his birthright, will not live as Abraham’s seed, and will take sin back inside himself in the great falling away (2 Thess 2:3). This firstborn of Zion is today under grace so that no sin is imputed to him, but he is hated because of his lawlessness, most easily seen by the day on which this son attempts to enter God’s rest. And once out of the womb, this son will be spiritually slain by God through a great delusion coming over this son, even today destined to destruction as many vessels of wrath that have been endured for a season.

Again, the Almighty is the God of Abraham, who inherited everlasting life without actually receiving the promise. The Almighty is the God of Isaac, whom the Apostle Paul compares to disciples who have received the promise of everlasting life but remained in tents of flesh in which also dwelt deceit and death. The Almighty is the God of Jacob, born to Isaac of a second promise—Jesus said that as the Father raises the dead and gives them life [creates Isaac through the promise of spiritual birth], so also the Son gives life to whom He will (John 5:21). Spiritual Jacob is born when Zion brings forth two nations in a day, the first day of the seven endtime years of tribulation. Jacob must now wrestle with God before he overcomes sin, but he is a strong man and he will prevail, receiving life from Christ Jesus when his judgment is revealed.

The Father gives life to Isaac, the son of promise, the disciples of Christ Jesus who are born of Spirit. The Son gives life to Jacob, the liberated and empowered Body of the Son of Man that prevails with God during the seven endtime years, this life being glorification of the flesh. Thus, it is only those human beings that are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that will enter into heaven, with the first receiving an inheritance that is trustworthy, and the two sons of promise being firstfruits that reign as the Son of Man, Head and Body.

Ishmael is the rejected natural son of Abraham, and according to Paul, the rejected natural nation of Israel that did not keep the commandments of God. Esau is the firstborn son of Isaac, the rejected spiritual son of the Father that did not value his birthright enough to even attempt to live by every word of God. And the sons of Keturah are the rejected sons of Abraham that will, at the end of the thousand years, enter into the glorious land from the North Country to claim an inheritance that was never theirs.

Therefore, understanding the things of God requires comprehending the divisions of waters, schisms that are necessary because the simplicity of Christ was rejected from the beginning: perceiving the mental topography of human beings as divided waters works to visualize what occurs when a person is born of Spirit. As water raised upward through evaporation—the Father raising the dead and giving life through Him drawing a person from the world (John 6:44)—disciples are born of Spirit; and when born anew, disciples have placed before them the choice of life or death. Yes, this is correct. The disciple who has been made spiritually alive by the Father now has placed before this son of God [which had not existed until born of Spirit] the choice of doing good and life coming through glorification, or doing evil and death in the lake of fire. Judgment is on no one until the person has been born of Spirit. So the prerequisite condition for judgment is being raised from the dead, either while still physically alive [the firstfruits] or after physical death. The person who does not have life in the heavenly realm is as a beast here on earth, what Solomon revealed in his wisdom (Eccl 3:18-20). Human beings are not born with immortal souls, but receive life in the heavenly realm when born of Spirit. Thus, the first division of spiritually lifeless sons of Adam occurs when the Father raises those who are to be firstfruits from the waters of humankind, waters without spiritual life, and makes them alive through receiving the Holy Spirit. The persons who are called and drawn as firstfruits die in baptism but live as waters above the sky. However, as evaporation raises water vapor, condensation causes this same water vapor to fall as rain, thereby giving life to seed bearing plants.

The waters that remained below the expanse are, on the third day, gathered together in one place and dry land appeared (Gen 1:9). Again, wisdom is required: the waters below the expanse are spiritually lifeless human beings in a taxonomical hierarchy that will see glorified sons of God described as adam (lower case “a”), male and female. And these lifeless human beings are gathered in one place, allowing dry land to appear—when the seven endtime years of tribulation begin, the lawless one will appear and will attempt to changes times and the law (Dan 7:25). This man of perdition will attempt to compel Sunday, the 8^th-day, observance, but no one can enter into God’s rest on the following day (cf. Num 14; Ps 95:10-11; Heb 3:16-4:11). So those spiritually lifeless individuals who refuse to comply with any attempt to change times and the law will bear fruit for God even though they dwell in the darkness of the single long night that began at Calvary. Their mental topography is the dry land that brings forth seed bearing vegetation. This is when the natural nation of Israel, the broken off olive branches, will be grafted onto the root of righteousness that is Christ Jesus through the second covenant as initially mediated by Moses. This is when many Observant Jews die for their beliefs, when the Sabbath commandment becomes the determining issue of faith, the issue with which no compromise is possible.

When the seven endtime years begin, Sin as the third horseman will truly make merchandise of all who are not the pressed and refined products of spiritual Judea [i.e., the oil and the wine]. Everyone else—both the barley firstfruits as well as the main crop wheat harvest—will be bought and sold by Sin or lawlessness (1 John 3:4). Many disciples who have been born of Spirit and are of the waters above will fall as rain, as living sacrifices, giving their lives for those who are not yet born of Spirit. They will water the dry land that brings forth vegetation, seed yielding plants and fruit bearing trees, especially in the third year of the Tribulation. Disciples will be weighed in the balance through being merchandised by Sin, and natural Israel will bear much fruit. But when the hovering Holy Spirit collapses as a canopy of water might, the waters will be joined: all of humanity will then be born of Spirit. The remnant of the upper canopy will lead (as Joshua and Caleb did natural Israel) the third part of humankind (Zech 13:9) into the kingdom of God—and the rebels will vaporize in the lake of fire when judgments are revealed, thereby creating a greater and a lesser light to rule the day and the night halfway through the Tribulation.

A spiritual night is a relative term that reflects a period when the Spirit of God hovers over the earth. A spiritual day is, thus, a period when God works to create new life, with the work of the physical creation finished at Calvary (John 19:30). The resurrected Jesus sat down at the right hand of his Father (Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 3:1 et al). And as night follows day, spiritual darkness was upon the face of the earth, with His disciples who walked in light being all of the spiritual light that remained in the world. These lights cannot be hidden, for any light can be seen in darkness. Thus, the day of the Lord, or Lord’s day, begins when Jesus baptizes the world with Spirit (Matt 3:11); when the overhead hovering Holy Spirit collapses as if it were suspended water or wind. And those disciples who lead the third part of humanity into the kingdom will truly be epistles in the Book of Life, whether they live or die physically (Rev 14:12-13).

 

2.

The Logos, born as the man Jesus of Nazareth, did the actual creating of the physical universe (John 1:1–3, 14). This Logos is Theos, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt 22:31-32 — read these verses in their original Greek language). It was Theos who appeared to Abraham and spoke to Moses. No one knew of the Father until Jesus revealed Him to His disciples. Yet throughout the Logos' work of physical creation, the Father was always present as revealed by the Tetragrammaton YHWH, in which the two /YH/ or Yah, and /WH/ functioned as one entity as if married. And the physical creation forms the lifeless shadow (in one dimension less than the reality) of a spiritual creation that begins with the Father granting to Jesus life within Himself (John 5:26), an expression that implies the ability to convey spiritual life (1 Cor 15:45) as the first Adam conveyed physical life to his progeny through physical procreation. Therefore, the last act of the physical creation (for the last Eve was not yet created) for which the Logos was responsible is the creation of a pathway by which mortals could put on immortality.

A mystery of God that escaped explication in the Christological debates of the 4^th and 5^th Centuries CE is that the Logos as Theos came as His son, His only (John 3:16). Thus, Theos did not come as Himself, upon whom no man could look and live (Exod 33:20-23). Rather, He came as His only Son, leaving Theon alone in the heavenly realm. He did not come as the Son of Theon, but as His own Son.

YHWH, Israel’s Elohim (Exod 20:2), brought his firstborn natural son (Exod 4:22) out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery with a mighty hand and ten plagues. Israel was to have no other gods besides YHWH, Israel’s Elohim. And herein lies the schism between Judaism and the disciples of Christ Jesus, for Elohim is the regular plural of Eloah. Rabbinical Judaism claims Elohim is plural for emphasis as in the English use of the royal we, but rabbinical Judaism is without life in the heavenly realm. It is today part of the yet ungathered waters below; thus, it lacks spiritual understanding. For Judaism, the physical creation conceals spiritual things from humankind, things that remain to be discovered by faith. And one of these things is that Eloah deconstructs to /El/ + /ah/, or God [as in El Shaddai, or God Almighty] + aspired or voiced Breath. Therefore, Elohim deconstructs to [God + Breath] + [God + Breath], with the number determined to be two by Elohim creating humankind in His image, male and female He created them (Gen 1:27). It takes both male and female together as in two becoming one in marriage to form the image of Elohim.

The Tetragrammaton YHWH deconstructs to the radicals /YH/ or Yah, + /WH/, with /H/ representing aspirated or voiced Breath. Thus, the Tetragrammaton can be read as [Theos + Pneuma] + [Theon + Pneuma], with both Christ and the One who raised Christ from the dead having each His own Breath or Spirit (Rom 8:9, 11). King David knew Yah as a separate entity within YHWH, as seen in Psalms 146:1, 148:1, and 149:1, in which Yah appears in the physical or natural presentation of the thought couplet and YHWH appears in the following spiritual presentation of the couplet. And this is how God should be perceived: Yah or Theos was the only deity that natural Israel knew. He was whom Abraham saw and whose feet Abraham washed (Gen 18); He was whom Moses and the seventy saw on Mount Sinai (Exod 24:9-11): He was with whom Jacob wrestled (Gen 32:24-30); and He ceased to be when He entered His creation as His Son, His only. Yes, Yah or Theos ceased to have life in the heavenly realm when He entered as His Son, the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was fully flesh and blood but not fully God.

It is a major theological error to say or teach that the man Jesus was fully human and fully God. He was fully human and only human until He was born of Spirit when the divine Breath of the Father [Pneuma ’Agion] descended as a dove, lit and remained on Him (Matt 3:16-17). He then, through spiritual birth or a second birth, became the Son of the Father [Theon]. To say that Jesus was fully God makes the person an antichrist; for if Theos came as a human being who was fully God, then Theos would remain as the helpmate of Theon and as such He would not be free to marry again in the heavenly realm. And if Theos as His only Son, the man Jesus, had not died at Calvary, thereby ending a marriage covenant made at Sinai, Gentiles could not come to God without first becoming physical Israelites. The argument of the Circumcision Faction would have prevailed. But because Theos or Yah first died in the heavenly realm by entering His creation as His Son, the man Jesus, and because the man Jesus died at Calvary, the glorified Jesus is free to marry in both the physical realm and in the heavenly realm. In the physical realm, He marries the Church, the last Eve, the woman Zion who brings forth nations in a day, but this woman is also the Body of Jesus—and Jesus will not marry Himself [i.e., His Body] but His Bride upon His return. Hence, the Body of Christ must undergo a spiritual transformation before becoming the Bride of Christ, and this transformation begins with spiritual empowerment. So in the heavenly realm, Jesus marries glorified disciples, the Bride, when He no longer bears the sins of Israel.

Therefore, the pathway by which human beings, clay vessels containing the Breath of God, can cross dimensions was completed at Calvary, but this pathway has long suffered from neglect. The Father gave all judgment to Christ Jesus as well as giving to Him the ability to possess life within Himself and to convey this spiritual life through procreation with a last Eve, thereby causing Zion to deliver children before her labor pains came upon her. But it is the Father’s Breath that raises the dead to create the last Eve. Again, the glorified Jesus will give life to those who have already been made alive by the Father; Jesus gives life to the clay vessel itself. And the pathway leading to this life was detoured through spiritual Babylon when Greek philosophers paved it with lawlessness.

At the sixth (midnight) hour of this long night that has the Spirit of God hovering over the earth but not yet poured out, God will again give the lives of men as ransom for the liberation of His firstborn son, an unacknowledged reality upon which no Christian wants to expound, for this giving of lives will have God slaying or causing to be slain a third of humankind twice over, once at the beginning of the seven endtime years, and the second time near the middle of these seven years. Christians are queasy about worshipping a God who would slay apparently innocent men, women, and children by the billions. But those who are queasy fail to grasp that with God, death is not final. Rather, He visibly and forcibly takes those who are His to protect them from what will occur during the seven endtime years. They cannot lose the salvation that has not yet been offered to them—they will be resurrected during the great White Throne Judgment to receive reward or punishment for those things done while they were alive in the flesh.

The above statement about God again taking the lives of firstborns cannot stand quietly by itself … there will be a Second Passover slaughter of firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God. This slaughter will occur in the heavenly realm as well as here on earth, and this slaughter won’t look like death from a natural plague. It will look like the work of God. And it will be the single factor that causes all of humanity to look to Christianity, for every firstborn who has covered him or herself with the blood of the Lamb through taking the sacraments will live. Thus, the seven endtime years will begin with cataclysmic loss of life; with death on a scale that is not today imaginable. A billion, two billion, two point three billion—the numbers will be staggering as will be the impact upon everyone, every nation.

What does it mean that the firstborns of spiritual Babylon not covered by the blood of the Lamb of God will be slain for the liberation from lawlessness of the spiritually circumcised descendants of the patriarch Abraham? What kind of a God would do this? Surely not the God that most Christians serve—and this is true: few disciples serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Most serve demons and the works of their hands, and will continue to do so throughout the first half of the Tribulation (Rev 9:20-21). Most Christians look like the world and have never left the world. Although they will have been born of Spirit, they are as well schooled dogs that avoid legalism as if keeping the commandments equates to an indoor bowel movement. They are so well schooled that they will spiritually die before they keep the commandments, especially the least of the commandments, the Sabbath commandment. Thus, few realize that those firstborns sealed in death will be resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment. They will be protected from the deception of the man of perdition. They are part of the main crop wheat harvest, and they cannot be deceived or devoured when Satan is cast from heaven. Plus, God will have only taken what was His from the beginning (Exod 13:1-2).

Christ Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world, and after six long hours that equate to six millennia, liberation of the firstfruits, the Body of Christ, will occur. Thus, the spiritual measurement of time becomes a function of applicability. The heavenly realm is timeless. Time or better, space-time is part of the physical creation, as is every measurement of time’s passing. Therefore, the overlying typology of the physical creation being the shadow of the spiritual creation has the period between the world being baptized by water into death and the world being baptized by Spirit into life being the reality of the 430 years that the seventy (the patriarch Jacob and his family) and their descendants spent in Egypt—between the Flood and the middle of the Tribulation are approximately 4300 years. In addition, the period between Calvary and the liberation of disciples serves as a type of the six millennia between when Adam was driven out of the garden and when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the world, thereby liberating all flesh from bondage to sin and death.

The physically circumcised firstborn son of God (Exod 4:22) left Egypt after being afflicted four hundred years (Gen 15:13; Acts 7:6); their uncircumcised children entered God’s rest after wandering in the Wilderness of Sin/Zin for forty years. The spiritually circumcised firstborn son of God (cf. 1 Pet 2:9; Rom 2:26-29) will escape bondage to indwelling lawlessness after two millennia; this nation’s spiritually circumcised children will enter God’s rest after a time, times and half a time, a unit generally recognized as three and a half years long. The forty years of the shadow become a time, times and half a time in the spiritual reality. Both units [forty years & time, times, and half a time] are used to indicate a sense of finality, or completeness.

During the forty years that Israel wandered in the wilderness, the generation counted in the census taken when Israel left Egypt died (with the exception of Joshua and Caleb) because of unbelief. Likewise, during the first three and a half years of the Tribulation, the Christian Church (except for a remnant akin to the animals that entered the Ark) will die either physically or spiritually because of unbelief. Those disciples whose unbelief causes them to return to lawlessness (specifically, attempting to enter God’s rest on the 8^th day) will immediately die spiritually but will continue to life physically until the last year of the Tribulation. Those disciples whose unbelief causes them to reject revelation by God but whose love for God is greater than their love for their physical lives will, indeed, die physically, but they will live spiritually, thus being counted worthy to enter into God’s rest when judgments are revealed. Only those disciples who believe God (only those disciples who keep the commandments and have the spirit of prophecy) will enter alive, physically and spiritually, into the second half of the Tribulation. They will be the leaders of the third part of humanity that is born of Spirit when the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh.

From a practical perspective, God does not want His great harvest of firstfruits to be led by the doctrinally inept disciples (even if they are Sabbath keepers) that practice precept-upon-precept exegesis after the manner of the drunken priests of Ephraim. These disciples are false prophets and false teachers whose only redeeming quality is their love for God and His law. Thus, in mercy, God will deliver them over to the man of perdition for the destruction of the flesh; He will do this; He will turn His hand against them; He will make sure that they do not influence the third part of humankind with their repeatedly proved false explications of biblical prophecies. Yes, God will purge unbelief from the Church in the same way that He purged unbelief from natural Israel: He will deliver all of the Church into death, with only a remnant able to escape through keeping the commandments and holding tightly to the testimony of Jesus (Rev 12:17), which is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10). And He will do this to end the false teachings that have entered the Church through men [and a few women] attempting to explicate then still sealed prophecies.

A little air should here enter into this article: there are millions of Sabbatarian Christians today who believe that the prophetic explications of either Ellen G. White or Herbert W. Armstrong were divinely inspired. They are, frankly, wrong! And God cannot allow them to teach their errant understandings to the millions of babes in Christ born of Spirit when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh. Thus, God really has no choice but to have the man of perdition physically slay them. As martyrs, their faith will cause even them to forget about their errant understandings. Their love for God and for His law will be handsomely rewarded. But truly, they cannot be allowed to teach what they now hold as prophetic truth. They have to be physically prevented from spoiling spiritual babes that were a short while before Buddhists or Muslims or skeptics. They have to be killed … for most Sabbatarian disciples, the place of safety is the grave.

The uncircumcised children of Adam will enter into God’s rest after six millennia, a length of time analogous to the six hours between when the paschal lamb is sacrificed and the death angel passed over the land. Thus, when disciples encounter a spiritual reference to a measurement of time that is of a fixed duration in the physical creation, the disciples cannot transpose the spiritual reference to actual minutes. Events in Revelation are dated with the phrases "1260 days," "forty-two months," and "time, times, and half a time." All three phrases refer to the same length of time (three and a half years), but from differing perspectives, not from differing starting points. When the phrase 1260 days is used, the perspective is of human beings. Forty-two months relates to the perspective of angelic beings, and time, times, and half a time refers to God’s perspective. So the same quantity of time will be addressed by differing phrases depending upon the narrative perspective. And again, the use of differing phrases for the same quantity of time doesn’t necessarily mean the periods have differing starting and stopping dates. As it is, the seven endtime years of tribulation are of 2520 days duration, with the first 1260 days forming the mirror image of the second 1260 days. The human man of perdition in the first half is the mirror image of the spiritual Antichrist of the second half. Sabbath observance will mark those who are of God in the first half whereas the tattoo of the Cross will mark those who are of the Antichrist in the second half. Spiritual Babylon falls in the first half; the revealed Son of Man rises in the second half.

The 2520 day count for the seven endtime years begins on or about the Second Passover, the 15^th day of the second month. The prophetic year is 360 days long; thus, it is five days shorter than the calendar year. Over seven years, this is 35 days. Jesus as spiritual Israel’s high priest and as the Passover Lamb of God entered Jerusalem on the 10^th of the first month; Jesus will enter spiritual Jerusalem as the Messiah on the 10^th of the first month of the year when He will again eat the Passover with His disciples. The Second Advent occurs when the lamb is selected, this selecting foreshadowing the revealing of judgments upon Jesus’ return. The 35 days are accounted for.

With pedagogical repetition, the seven endtime years of tribulation will begin at a Second Passover, the middle of the second month, and will continue until the Second Advent on the 10^th day of the first month seven years later. Not accounting for calendar irregularities, this period is 2520 days in duration [the irregularities will apparently cancel themselves out]. The only problem is no one knows for certain which calendar year begins the seven endtime years.

An example of time being reckoned from the human perspective is: ‘"And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth"’ (Rev 11:3). Christ speaks, but the prophesying will be done by the two witnesses. Their work will be for 1260 days. They will be clothed in sackcloth 1260 days, and they will mark time on a daily basis for they will be killed when their work is completed … they will be clothed in mourning attire because they know what will take to disciples, both lawless and righteous. They know that a spiritual Cain [the hated son] will slay righteous Abel, thereby taking upon himself the mark of death.

When the first three beasts of Daniel chapter seven (i.e., three horns on the head of the spiritual king of Greece) have their dominion taken from them but their lives extended for a season and a time, they appear as a single amalgamated beast, the spiritual king of Greece. "And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months" (Rev 13:5). A season and a time (Dan 7:11-12) from God’s perspective becomes forty-two months from the perspective of these beasts or fallen angels. Thus, the referring expression forty-two months comes from the perspective that this amalgamated beast receives power from the old dragon who has just been cast into time. Their narrative perspective is demonic. And a season becomes an expression relating to a fruiting season that has the new growth of one season setting buds in August [northern hemisphere] that bloom the following spring and produce fruit in the second fall.

The conclusion of the two witnesses’ 1260 day ministry also concludes the second woe (Rev 11:14), the sixth trumpet plague (the two witnesses’ ministry spans both the first and the second woe). The forty-two months that the fallen king of Greece is allowed to exercise authority is in the third woe, which includes the harvest of the earth and seven plagues. In seven endtime years of tribulation, day 1260 stands at both the end and the beginning of the second and third woes, respectively. On this doubled day, the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ (Rev 11:15). Plus, on this doubled day, Satan is cast from heaven (12:9–10), for "when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time" (vv. 13-14). God nourishes the woman; God gives her the two wings of the great eagle. The narrative perspective is God’s. And there is no reason to nourish the woman past Christ’s return. It won’t take days for Satan to see that he has been cast down from heaven. So Satan being cast from heaven can be dated to day 1260, to when a time, times and half a time remains before Christ’s return.

On one doubled day, a day like that on which Joshua defeated the kings of Canaan (Josh 10:13-14), Christ Jesus fighting here on earth will topple spiritual Babylon and deal a death wound to Death itself, while in heaven, Michael and his angels fight against Satan and his angels, prevailing against them and casting the old dragon and his angels into time. On this one doubled day, the Lord and His angels will fight in heaven and on earth for Israel … there will never again be a day like this doubled day.

The evidence for endtime disciples being epistles in the revealing hypertext is wholly contained visibly within the typology of their lives, especially in what they teach about the things of God, for inevitably they will be considered prophets by some and heretics by others thereby causing every disciple who encounters them to decide by faith which they are.

 

3.

Many teachers of the spiritually circumcised descendants of the patriarch Abraham insist that the book of Revelation isn’t sealed. Their argument is that the book’s symbolism is merely difficult to understand. But again, the words of the book have been effectively sealed by Christ’s use of a literary trope: the Lamb of God doesn’t remove the seals from the Scroll until John sees Him do it on the Lord’s day. No one else is worthy to remove these seals. Not Ellen G. White, not Herbert W. Armstrong, not any human being. The Scroll remains sealed until the Lord’s day when the revealed events are soon to occur, or are near in time. If humanity has not yet reached the Lord’s day, the Scroll is still sealed, meaning that it cannot yet be read. No man or angel is able to unseal the Scroll until Christ as the Lamb of God does so on the Lord’s day. All of humanity can read the words that John wrote, but those words are about the Scroll that remains sealed. Thus, the words are themselves sealed until the Lord’s day. Readers assign meaning to words; words don’t come with little backpacks containing their meaning. Therefore, the inspired or divine assignment of meaning isn’t revealed until the Lord’s day when John sees the Lamb of God remove the seals from the Scroll. Until then, disciples can only make some sense of Revelation because the visions of Daniel have, at last, been unsealed.

Saying that Revelation is presently sealed does not contradict what the angel told John, for when humanity reaches the Lord’s day and the events described by John are soon to occur and near in time, the words of John’s vision will be readily understood. On the Lord’s day, the words John writes will not be sealed, for their primary sealing by narrative perspective (the literary trope of John writing on the Lord’s day when Christ removes the seals) will have been removed through the passage of time. Thus, the Scroll remains sealed until the Lord’s day, and no one other than Christ can open the scroll.

Again, John doesn’t write from the perspective of being in time [space-time] in the 1^st-Century CE. All of Revelation is narratively located in the timeless heavenly realm, where the glorified Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending of the words of God. All of Revelation is narratively located when the disclosed events are soon to occur or near in time. So until these events are at hand, the vision is sealed through not yet occurring even though John’s words can be read.

Although some theologians will argue that the Lord’s day has arrived, the expression "Lord’s day" equates to the expression "the day of the Lord." From the many passages in Old Testament prophecies where this expression or its abbreviated referent "that day" are used, the Lord’s day didn’t begin with Christ coming as the man Jesus of Nazareth. It begins with Him coming as the King of kings. And any argument that the "church-age" represents Christ’s rule as King of kings is intellectually vacant, regardless of whether 4^th-Century allegorists of the Alexandrean school or the present Pontiff attempt to make the argument. If Christ were reigning today as King of kings, He would disqualify Himself to rule. Satan remains the present ruler of this world even though he has been disqualified (John 14:30; 12:31; 16:11; Eph 2:2). He won’t be removed, though, until the Lord’s day when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Messiah. This is when he is cast from heaven; this is when he is removed as king of spiritual Babylon (Isa 14:4-21). Thus, all forms of the argument that humanity is presently governed by Christ Jesus, that the kingdom of heaven is now here on earth require that the new heavens and the new earth came at the end of the first millennium CE, came a thousand years ago. That is obviously not the case. Therefore, the vision of John that Christ gives him has been as sealed as the visions of Daniel. Yet the seven churches to which letters are addressed were real churches, with the strengths and weaknesses described by Christ.

In all things the physical precedes the spiritual. The seven churches were physical fellowships in the 1^st-Century CE, and as such, these seven churches were copies and shadows of seven endtime spiritual fellowships. Within each of the 1^st-Century named churches were born of Spirit disciples that had left the Apostle Paul; thus, the question emerges of whether these disciples remained spiritually alive, of whether these disciples were stillborn sons of God, vessels of wrath created for dishonorable use. The internal evidence of the letter suggests that within the shadow, some genuine disciples still lived … again, shadows always exist in one less dimension as that which casts the shadow; therefore, since some genuine disciples were in the named physical fellowships that had the Spirit of God, the reality of the spiritual fellowships that cast these shadows will have disciples in them being fully empowered by the Holy Spirit and epistles in the revealing hypertext. So fellowships of born again individuals become associations of empowered fellowships, or spiritual mindsets forming like-minded churches. On the Lord’s day, the seven spiritual churches are seven Sabbath-observing fellowships that exist simultaneously. In typology, these seven associations or mindsets are the spiritual reality of the seven pairs of clean animals that boarded the Ark, for the dawning of the Lord' day equates with day four of the Genesis creation account and with chapter seven of Genesis and with chapters three and four of Joshua.

Pedagogical articles strive to teach, not to establish themselves as literary models of composition. Thus, as the Apostle Paul did in his epistle to the Galatians, when the argument does not seem to suffice, the figurative kitchen sink is thrown at the problem—and the problem here is that far, far too many disciples look for a physical nation of Israel to again be liberated from physical dispersion and captivity, not realizing that the only Israel that now exists is the one circumcised of heart and mind (Rom 2:26-29). The Christian Church is endtime Israel, and is the holy nation that will be recovered from Death [the North Country] upon Christ Jesus’ return. The wages of sin is death. Sin is the transgression of the law [lawlessness]. Therefore, the Christian Church must be liberated from the lawlessness it embraced while Paul yet lived. Disciples cannot make themselves willing servants of lawlessness and still live; they cannot stand erect spires as phallic symbols atop the halls in which they assemble and expect to live. Said in the vernacular, a disciple cannot flip God the bird and expect God not to forcibly respond. Yet that is exactly what disciples do when they attempt to enter God’s rest on the following day, the 8^th day, through offering praises to him in steepled church buildings. Truly, God’s patience is great. But His patience is not without limits. So no disciple should be surprised when God delivers them into the hand of the man of perdition to die either physically or spiritually. For too long, disciples have mocked Father and Son with their lawlessness and their Greek ways, and God will not be long mocked.

The words of the book of truth given Daniel were sealed until the time of the end, but three centuries after Daniel received them, every teacher of Israel believed that he understood them. The four kings of Persia were Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspes, and Xerxes (Ahasuerus). The mighty king of Greece was Alexander. And the final king of the north was Antiochus Epiphanes. So how could these words inscribed in the book of truth (Dan 10:21), be sealed and secret until the time of the end (Dan 12:4, 9)?

The answer is exceedingly simple: They were sealed by their shadow. God sealed them by making Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspes, and Xerxes (Ahasuerus) the four kings of Persia. Teachers of Israel didn’t look for any deeper meaning. These teachers believed it was truly miraculous that God could, a couple of hundred years earlier, reveal in great detail the course of human affairs. Thus, teachers of Israel believed they understood words that were to have been (and were) sealed until the time of the end. They felt no reason to return to chapter ten, or to consider that the angel had been withstood by the sar [prince or king] of Persia for twenty-one days, that no human king would withstand any angel, that the king of Greece could only be a demonic coalition. They ignored the angel telling Daniel that he would again have to fight with the sar of Persia, then after that, the angel would have to fight with the sar of Greece. They did not realize that the kings of Persia were spirit beings, or that the king of Greece was a federation of spirit beings.

The words inscribed in the book of truth were sealed by God revealing the physical shadow of events that were to occur in the spiritual realm. The physical great king or first king of Greece, Alexander, is the shadow of the great horn of the spiritual he-goat of Daniel chapter 8. And Christ uses in John’s vision the same strategy to keep John’s vision from being understood prior to the time of the end. The seven churches are not eras of a single church as some teachers of spiritual Israel assert; rather, they are the seven lampstands (Rev 1:20) of which Christ stands in the midst (v. 13). They all existed at one time on a physical mail route; they were contemporaneous fellowships. Likewise, these seven churches exist on the Lord’s day, with Christ standing in the midst of these churches or mindsets. And this is the key that unlocks all of biblical prophecy.

Prophecy isn’t unlocked by identifying the United States and Great Britain as the descendants of the ancient house of Israel (i.e., the northern kingdom of Samaria). The covenant that made the circumcised descendants of the patriarch Jacob the holy nation of God (Exod 19:5-6) has been abolished in its entirety (Eph 2:15). All who teach otherwise are physically minded. The spiritually circumcised nation of Israel superseded the physically circumcised nation as the holy nation of God (1 Pet 2:9). This can be seen in Revelation chapter 12 where the woman that gave birth to the man child "who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron" (v. 5) "has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1260 days" (v. 6). This is the same woman that the dragon pursued (v. 13), the woman who will fly into the wilderness "to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time’ (v. 14). Same woman, same period of time being nourished in the wilderness—this is the woman with whom the dragon is furious and goes "off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus" (v. 17). The woman goes from being physical Israel ("on her head a crown of twelve stars" v. 1) to whom the man Jesus of Nazareth is born (the male child who will rule all nations v. 5) to being spiritual Israel, the offspring of which "hold to the testimony of Jesus" (v. 17). From God’s perspective, the transition from physical Israel being the holy nation of God to the Church being the holy nation of God is seamless, without burp, glitch, or disruption.

Actually, the moon reflects the sun’s glory. The woman, clothed with the sun, is reflected in the light of the moon—the moon represents the physically circumcised nation while the woman clothed by the righteousness of the Son represents the spiritually circumcised nation that includes the righteous men and women of old (Heb 11). Prophecy is unlocked by understanding the relationship between the reflected glory of the ministration of death (2 Cor 3:7) versus the ministration of Spirit (v. 8). This same relationship exists between the historical narrative with its fulfilled prophecies and the unseen history of the spiritually circumcised nation in the heavenly realm. Again, the Bible, itself, is the visible shadow of the spiritual Book of Life in which the lives of disciples are epistles from Christ, written with Spirit on cleansed hearts (v. 3).

Physically circumcised Israelites are no longer in a covenant relationship with God, for they killed the Covenantor on Calvary. They released themselves from the covenant that none of them were keeping in the 1^st-Century (John 7:19) by killing their God [Yah or Theos], born as the man Jesus of Nazareth. A teacher of Israel who insists that endtime prophecies concerning Israel pertain to the scattered descendants of the physically circumcised nation or to the lost descendants of this nation lacks spiritual understanding. This teacher might well have the Spirit of God, but this teacher remains carnally minded and in need of spiritual milk.

The above concept is not understood by Messianic Christian fellowships: again, YHWH Israel’s Elohim ceased to exist when the physically circumcised nation killed on Calvary the deity with which it had made the covenant by which it became holy (Exod 19:5–6). The side-by-side relationship between Theos and Theon that existed in the form of the Tetragrammaton YHWH ended when Theos entered His creation as His [Theos’] Son, and became the Son of the Father [Theon’s Son] through baptism and spiritual birth, thereby fulfilling all righteousness. What was side-by-side became vertical, thereby leaving room for the glorified Jesus to enter into a side-by-side relationship with glorified disciples. And when the man Jesus was sacrificed on Calvary and resurrected to glory after three days and three nights dead in the heart of the earth, the last vestige of YHWH relationship ceased to be.

Because so much misunderstanding exists, with pedagogical redundancy the following is once more repeated:  Elohim is the regular plural of Eloah, which is the unified expression of deity [El] plus Breath [ah]. The multiple for the plural cannot be determined from the plural itself, but becomes known from the Tetragrammaton YHWH, and from John 1:1 and Romans 8:9–11. The tetragrammaton deconstructs to the radicals /YH/ and /WH/, which equates to Theos and His Pneuma ("Anyone who does not have the Spirit [Pneuma] of Christ does not belong to him" — Rom 8:9), and to Theon and His Pneuma ("If the Spirit [Pneuma] of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you" — Rom 8:11). The Tetragrammaton deconstructs through human birth, death, and resurrection to the Son and His Breath or Spirit, and to the Father and His Breath or Spirit. Disciples ask of the Father in the Son’s name. The God and Father (John 20:17) of Christ Jesus and of every disciple is the Ancient of days, is Theon, is the Father. Therefore, Messianic disciples who use the linguistic icon Elohim or who attempt to pronounce the Tetragrammaton YHWH when addressing God the Father err and actually commit blasphemy against the Father and the Son. But blasphemy against the Father and Son will be forgiven them; it is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that will not be forgiven. Nevertheless, these disciples, for their spiritual wellbeing, need to cease their practice of hypercorrection that causes them to use plural signifiers for now singular deities. (Elohim is a plural that is singular in usage except where one deity speaks to the other, and the unpronounced Tetragrammaton is plural in construction, but also singular in usage, for the two deities function as one deity as if married, the mystery that seems unreasonably hard to understand. However, since the birth of the man Jesus of Nazareth, these joined plurals have appeared and have functioned as two standalones that are one through unity, and will be one through unity with glorified disciples.)

Because humanity has not yet arrived at the Lord’s day, two reference texts must be brought to bear on the vision of John: Jesus’ Olivet discourse, and the visions of Daniel. These two texts share a common time referent from which events in the spiritual realm can be dated with reasonable certainty. The referent is ‘"the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place"’ (Matt 24:15 referencing Dan 11:31). Jesus, in the comment, ‘"(let the reader understand)’" (same verse) actually reveals the needed key for understanding prophecy: the sealed words of Daniel, according to Jesus, do not refer to Antiochus Epiphanes, but to an endtime abomination of desolation. This endtime abomination comes "by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders and with all wicked deception" (2 Thess 2:9-10). The endtime abomination comes out of the king of the North, one of the four horns that came up when the great horn of the he-goat is broken (Dan 8:8, 22 & 11:4). "And from the time that [the daily] is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1290 days" (Dan 12:11). Thus, disciples have a hard date. Matthew 24:15 and Daniel 11:31 are dated to 1290 days before Christ comes as the King of kings, and when the holy ones awake to everlasting life or everlasting contempt (Dan 12:2).

Israel is nourished by God in the wilderness for 1260 days (Rev 12:6), or for a time, times, and half a time (v. 14). The abomination that desolates is set up 30 days earlier (day 1290). So disciples have two prophetic hard dates from which to work, even though the sealed Scroll John witnessed the Lamb opening on the Lord’s day has not been unrolled. The Scroll, though, is written upon within and without (Rev 5:1). What disciples are able to read is what has been written on its back, the events that lead to the Lord’s day.

Before bringing the full weight of Jesus’ Olivet discourse to bear upon the book of Revelation, one passage in the Olivet discourse needs mentioned: ‘"But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man’" (Matt 24:36-37). And how the coming of the Son of Man can not be known when the events described in Revelation have to occur has been one of the mysteries of God. That mystery is now less mysterious, for the revealing of the Son of Man (Luke 17:26–30) comes at the beginning of seven endtime years of tribulation, not at the end. The events recorded in Revelation begin with the revealing of the Son of Man. They do not begin earlier, so the element of surprise comes from the suddenness of the revealing, the suddenness of the spiritually circumcised nation’s liberation from bondage to indwelling sin and death. The run-up to this liberation consists of wars, famines, and earthquakes—all happenings that have occurred in a less intense form since the beginning of recorded history.

The collection of endtime pundits linked to Prophecy Central would have prophecies about endtime Israel being liberated from captivity upon Christ’s return requiring that the modern nation of Israel be taken captive. A variant of their teaching is held by the slivered followers of Herbert Armstrong, who had the United States and Britain being taken captive. None of these pundits have been able to read even the back of the Scroll to see that Israel goes from being a physical nation to being a spiritual nation. And this spiritually holy nation was completely taken captive by the king of Babylon (Isa 14:4–21) by the 4^th-Century CE, with official capitulation occurring at the Council of Nicea (ca 325 CE). A remnant of Israel left Babylon to rebuild the spiritual house of God beyond the river twelve centuries later (ca 1525 CE), but this remnant took generations to even reach the spiritual River Jordan. The holy nation of God has been in bondage to the king of Babylon ever since it misapplied its liberty, choosing to live as spiritual Gentiles rather than as Judeans. It ignored the laws of God that were written on hearts and minds as it succumbed to the mesmerizing teachings of the "workers of lawlessness" (Matt 7:23) whom Christ will deny knowing in their judgment.

Actually, more can now be said about what happened in Greece and Hellenistic Asia Minor: the informing social constructs of Greek society come from the spiritual king of Greece, the demonic king with which the angel bringing Daniel his long vision would have to fight. This king, however, isn’t a single entity, but the demonic coalition that reigns over the appetites of the belly and groin. And there is division within this coalition that is presently held in check by the great or first king; so the informing constructs are contradictory. In the American experience, the contradictions appear as equality for all and as unchecked capitalism in which there is competition in consumption and possession; as moral prudishness and religion as amoral spectacle; as the simultaneous enforcement and rejection of sexual taboos; as racism being abhorred while being legally codified in Civil Rights legislation. Both ancient Greek psyche and modern Western psyche accepts and even embraces simultaneously held diametrically opposing positions because of the less-than-fully-unified coalition that is the spiritual king of Greece, a coalition that comes apart when the first or great horn is supernaturally broken at the beginning of the seven endtime years [broken because he is first, the firstborn of Satan]. Therefore, when Christianity entered the Hellenistic world, disciples could hold onto the concept of Grace while continuing to hold onto the neo-Platonic concepts of an immortal soul in heaven or hell. For these Hellenists, the wages of sin wasn’t death but everlasting life in hell, something they could readily accept—and something that has been continually accepted by Western psyches controlled by the spiritual king of Greece. So Christianity never overcame the paganism of Hellenistic Greeks, but was overcome by this same paganism. The formlessness of the Holy Spirit was contained in personhood. The invisible God became visible through statuary. And Christianity became religious spectacle that invited the Observant Jew Jesus of Nazareth to come live in the lawless heart of a Greek pagan.

But because Greek Christianity preserved the sacred texts, the gates of hell could not prevail over the Gospel; for Christianity is ultimately a text-based belief paradigm that can return to the text to reorient itself whenever it goes astray. It returns to the shadow cast by the revealing hypertext as an ox does to its stall. But returning carries with it a price, especially returning after centuries of being gone. That price is the many disciples who have been called but who chose death on their day of salvation. Many are called but few will be chosen (Matt 22:14), for few chose life when the promise of entering into God’s rest still stood.

The holy nation of spiritually circumcised Israel split just as the physical nation did following Solomon’s death, with both houses taken captive by sin [Judah] and death [Samaria]. The northern house claimed that Jesus was created by the Father in the womb of Mary; the southern house claimed that the Father and the Son were one substance. And as the physical house of Israel fought against the house of Judah, so has Arian Christianity warred against Trinitarian Christianity—the spiritual house of Israel, reduced to a mental landscape no larger than Jerusalem itself, eventually assigned divinity [ca 381 CE] then personhood [ca 451 CE] to the Breath or Pneuma of God, thereby making three from two, after it was taken captive by the king of spiritual Babylon.

Arians and Trinitarians are still at war. Modern sects of Arian Christianity are denounced by both Evangelical and Catholic Christianity. The rhetoric reveals just how little love one has for the other … Trinitarians actively wage war against Arians, with actual bullets fired a century and a half ago when Joseph Smith was lynched, and they will again wage war when the man of perdition is revealed for he will be an Arian.

Because the captivity of Israel is mental, not physical, disciples should expect both houses of the hated son to philosophically oppose their liberation—did that slip in unannounced? Christians are either Unitarians, Binitarians, or Trinitarians. They are either of spiritual Assyria (Unitarians or Arians), spiritual Judea (Binitarians), or of spiritual Egypt (Trinitarians). Although a highway will link Assyria with Egypt after Jesus returns (Isa 19:24-25), no such highway exists today. No bridge connects Arians and Trinitarians. No common ground exists that allows either pole to admit that the other might be of God. And both wrongly divide the word of God, for the Tree of Life grows nowhere other than in the garden of God in spiritual Jerusalem, the heart of spiritual Judea.

The hated son consists of both Arians and Trinitarians as both attempt to enter into God’s rest on the following day, the 8^th day.

Binitarians are not dualists, the position held by those who see Christ and Satan contesting as two schoolboys over the souls of human beings, with Satan winning more rounds than he loses. The premise behind Ellen G. White’s Great Controversy is theologically flawed. Satan reigns as the prince of the power of the air over the kingdom of the world at the will and discretion of the Father and the Son. He has been defeated, and though he will not go quietly when he is cast from heaven, he will go. He has no choice. He can do nothing but that which he is allowed by the Most High. So when he has served his purpose as the foil against which every disciple must strive, he will be flung into time as a cat flung into a pond. And he will be about as happy as that wet cat will be.

Binitarians are those disciples who believe that YHWH was Israel’s Elohim; that YHWH consists of Theos and Theon and their respective Breaths, a metaphor for their uncontainable creative power that conveys spiritual life as physical breath conveys life to breathing creatures; that Theos came as His son, the man Jesus of Nazareth, now glorified with the glory He previously had; that the singular noun God consists of the Father and the Son in a vertical relationship that will allow the adoption of glorified disciples as Helpmates for the Son. Thus, Binitarians will be identified as heretics by both Arians and Trinitarians, making identification of genuine disciples easy for both angels and human beings for Binitarians will also inevitably be Sabbatarians. However, most Sabbatarians are not also Binitarians.

The Apostle Paul was a Binitarian.

Because Zion has delivered children before going into labor (Isa 66:7–8), these children shall cry out in anguish when the Son of Man is revealed with the first hard labor contraction, which will be death angels passing throughout spiritual Babylon at the midnight hour of this long night of watching. Too many of these children refuse to cover their sins with the blood of the Lamb of God. They neglect taking the sacraments even wrongly. So rather then being mentally liberated at the midnight hour of this long spiritual night, they will die out of covenant with God.

Those disciples who wrongly take the sacraments are not the oil and the wine that Sin cannot harm (Rev 6:6), but the barley that will be sold into sin when they resume their lawless ways. They will return to Egypt or to Assyria. They will rebel against God (2 Thess 2:3) when the man of perdition is revealed. And they will constitute the firstborn son of the last Eve that will slay his righteous brother as Cain slew Abel.

Unlike other high days, the Passover has a second occurrence, for there will be a Second Passover liberation from bondage. The first was from physical bondage in Egypt, an event that won’t be remembered after the second liberation occurs (Jer 16:14-15; 23:7-8). The second will be the spiritual liberation of the holy nation from bondage to disobedience, from bondage to Satan, the spiritual king of Babylon. At this liberation, spiritual and physical firstborns not covered by the Blood of the Lamb of God will be slain, just as the firstborn of man and beast were slain in Egypt. A third of humanity will be firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb; they will be slain. The great nation of China isn’t mentioned in endtime prophecies for the nation will be devastated on this Second Passover. This great nation will cease being a factor in world affairs because of its rejection of Christianity.

Again, all life that opens the womb belongs to God (Exod 13:2 et al).

In His Olivet discourse, after his disciples showed Him the buildings of the temple, Jesus said that there would not be left one stone upon another (Matt 24:1-2). His disciples then came to Him privately and asked when will be this throwing down of stones and ‘"what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?’" (v. 3). Jesus began by telling His disciples not to mislead (in every English translation, verse 4 is poorly rendered), because many would come in His name and would lead many astray (v. 5). He then said that there would be wars, famines, and earthquakes (vv. 6-7), but all of these things were only ‘"the beginning of the birth pains’" (v. 8). Jesus’ Olivet discourse is to His disciples, who would, when He breathed on them following His Ascension, become the holy nation of Israel. They became the last Eve who will nurture many heirs of God before giving birth to two sons, one hated, one loved. So the idea that wars, famines and earthquakes are the beginning of Israel’s labor pains makes sense within the context of end of the age prophecies. And if there are beginning labor pains, hard labor pains are certain to follow.

After saying that wars, famines and earthquakes were the beginning of Zion bringing forth children, Jesus said, "‘Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold’" (Matt 24:9-12). There is no good news here.

Delivering Israel into tribulation and killing disciples who are hated because of Christ’s name will surely seem like continuing hard labor pains … after the Second Passover occurs, Christians will, indeed, be hated for Christ’s name sake. How, the world will ask, could God do such a thing? No God that the world worships would kill innocent firstborns. A person can imagine what will be said by those who lost a firstborn. In Egypt, every household was affected. That will be the case on the Second Passover for households not covered by the blood of the Lamb.

Jesus’ Olivet discourse is chronologically presented. After the beginning of birth pains comes the real pains, but the pains come before the good news that all who endure to the end will be saved is delivered as a witness to all nations. This good news though weakly going out right now must get to every person before the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh. Human beings receive one chance for salvation. There are no second chances. The harvest of humanity as firstfruits occurs during the second half of the seven endtime years of tribulation. Every person born of Spirit has or will have received the person’s only chance for salvation. Thus, all (for everyone will be born-from-above when the Holy Spirit is poured out) who endure to the end will be saved. Everyone alive halfway through the seven endtime years will receive his or her one chance for salvation. They will not be resurrected in the great White Throne Judgment. Therefore, anyone who accepts the mark of the beast will not have endured in faith and will be killed by God. Taking the Antichrist’s tattoo is spiritually fatal.

Although Death will be publicly defeated when the two witnesses are resurrected after 1260 days, the fallen dragon will make an image of Death and will require all who would buy and sell to bear the tattoo of this image. So during the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years, some disciples will die: "If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints" (Rev 13:10). But led by the remnant that keeps the commandments of God and holds the testimony of Jesus, the holy nation will live by faith, and will fight to capture the Promised Land of God’s rest. But the fight won’t be with guns or swords. Rather, the saints will mentally fight the Adversary intent upon devouring the nation. Saints aren’t to take up arms against the Antichrist, but are to endure whatever fate is allotted each. Again, the saint who endures to the end shall be saved.

Satan as the Antichrist cannot take away any person’s salvation. The person must voluntarily relinquish his or her salvation just as Esau voluntarily sold his birthright for a bowl of lentils. If the person who has been mentally liberated from bondage to sin is still so carnal as to trade temporary deliverance for eternal deliverance, the person will be resurrected to contempt (Dan 12:2), or condemnation (John 5:29), which is the second death. Thus, every person must be warned ahead of time of the stakes, for there will be a famine of the word during the reign of the Antichrist. Every nation must be warned before the end can come, and every nation will be warned before day 1290 when the abomination that desolates is set up.

The abomination of desolation that declares himself God on day 1290 is the time-linked shadow of Satan coming as the spiritual Antichrist on day 1260. This man of perdition is of the demonic king of the North, and is the old dragon possessing a man who, because the man is an Arian Christian, actually believes that he has become God. He will be recognizable as an antichrist by Trinitarian Christianity. And great will be the persecution of Christians who will not rally around this man of perdition, for this lawless one will control the armies surrounding Jerusalem when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Father and of the son.

Daniel’s long vision (chapter 11) was sealed and secret until the time of the end. His vision of the he-goat trampling the ram (Dan 8:3-8) is for the time of the end (v. 17). Even the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision wasn’t understandable until the time of the end. And Daniel says of his explanation of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision that the "dream is certain, and its interpretation sure" (Dan 2:45). Daniel says of this vision, ‘"[T]here is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days’" (v. 28 – emphasis added). So the purpose of this vision is to reveal what will be in the latter days to this physical king of Babylon. The vision is for the time of the end, just as Jesus’ Olivet discourse answered His disciples’ question of when the end of the age would come.

Nebuchadnezzar’s vision was of a human image, its head of gold (Dan 2:32), chest and arms of silver (same verse), and middle and thighs of bronze (same verse). And here is where the many teachers of Israel linked to Prophecy Central determine that Daniel interpretation is not certain; for the division of the image occurs in the third kingdom, not the fourth. The fourth kingdom is never united. One half parallels or mirrors the other half, but neither half rules the world. Rulership remains with the third kingdom (v. 39) even after that fourth kingdom comes to power with the strength of iron; for the fourth kingdom doesn’t come to power until after the spiritually circumcised nation is liberated from bondage to disobedience. The fourth kingdom is a derivative of the third kingdom, but a derivative that no longer rules over the liberated Church. Today, sin and death still dwell in the fleshly members of born-from-above disciples (Rom 7:25), but disciples will be liberated from sin when God again gives the lives of men as ransom for the holy nation.

Notice, though, the holy nation will be given into the hand of the little horn that would attempt to change times and the law (Dan 7:25) for a time, times and half a time. The saints will be given to the lawless one who comes by the workings of Satan, will be given to Death to be killed spiritually or physically (or both) for 1260 days. The firstborn son of the last Eve will be spiritually killed by the Law when this son rebels by trying to enter God’s rest on the following day. And this firstborn son will murder his righteous brother as Cain killed Abel. So the holy nation will not be liberated from Death until after the two witnesses are publicly resurrected. The saints will remain subject to Death until this cross-shaped beast is taken and its body destroyed and given over to be burned (Dan 7:11–12), will remain subject to Death until the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, will remain subject to Death until they are glorified.

Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that he is the head of gold, into whose hand the God of heaven ‘"has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making [Nebuchadnezzar] rule over them all"’ (Dan 2:38). Nebuchadnezzar, though, never ruled over the children of men in Chili or China. He never ruled over the birds of the heaven, or over the beasts of the field. So again, what Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar either is overstatement, or is not for the human king. And to repeat, the key to understanding prophecy is that in all things the physical precedes the spiritual. Nebuchadnezzar is the physical king of Babylon. The course of physical kingdoms that stretches from him to the abomination that makes desolate that Jesus identifies as coming at the end of the age includes Babylon, the Medes and Persians, and the Greeks through Antiochus Epiphanes. The course of kingdoms does not include Rome or the Roman Empire. Thus, when the spiritual fulfillment of this vision occurs, Satan is the king of Babylon (Isa 14:4-21). The angel who brings the words inscribed in the book of truth to Daniel has to fight against the sar of Persia, and will have to fight against the sar of Greece, both powerful demons, or coalitions of demons. And from the king of Greece comes the kings of the North and of the South, again demons. And now Daniel’s words to Nebuchadnezzar make sense, for his visions are about spirit entities in the heavenly realm.

A point that needs remembered: Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was a theocracy, as evidenced by the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego narrative. The tendency in Western nations that have separated church from state is to forget that Nebuchadnezzar as king was the head of Babylon’s religious establishment. Same for the Persian kings. And Alexander was thought to be the son of god. So Babylon, Persia and Greece were theocracies.

A second point needs mentioned: disciples can identify a false prophet by whether the individual inserts Rome, the Roman Empire, or the Roman See into the visions of Daniel. If the person does, the person has not been sent by God. The person is a fake, a fraud. The person is not spiritually minded, regardless of how much the person has studied, or how many books the person has written. This person has no qualifications to teach Israel, and is actually doing real harm to spiritual Israelites. This person by teaching when he or she has not been sent has cut his or her name off from the Book of Life.

Rome’s absence from the visions of Daniel is easily seen. The kingdoms of the image of Nebuchadnezzar are the head of gold, chest and arms of silver, middle and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, feet partly if iron and partly of clay (Dan 2:32-33). The iron, clay, bronze, silver and gold "all together were broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind [ruwach] carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found" (v. 35). All of the kingdoms are present and together when they are destroyed by a stone cut not by human hands (v. 34). Plus, what has been translated in the above passage as wind is translated as breath and Spirit in Psalm 104:29-30. The word ruwach (Chald) is the equivalent of the Greek icon pneuma. So in the context of God destroying these kingdoms of Babylon (the image’s identity is taken from its head), ruwach becomes the destroying power foreshadowed by that shout of the Israelites surrounding Jericho, the city an antetype of spiritual Babylon [the “type” is Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon]. While the stone cut without human hands crushes the feet of mixed iron and clay of the image, the kingdom set up by the God of heaven breaks ‘"in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold’" (v. 45). These kingdoms are not replacing one after the other, but incorporating one in the other. They are permanently destroyed by the Breath of God after He has crushed them. And Nebuchadnezzar’s vision extends past the image to two events: (1) the cut stone crushes the iron, clay, bronze, silver and gold; and (2) the wind or breath blows the crushed iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold away.

The wind that blows away the chaff is the Holy Spirit being poured out upon all flesh, is the collapsing of the spiritual firmament Jesus sent when He sent the Comforter. The blowing away of the chaff occurs on the doubled day 1260.

The book of Daniel identifies the iron, bronze, clay, silver and gold without any prophecy pundit having to insert Rome into the inspired text. Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that he is the head of gold (Dan 2:38). Daniel then reveals who succeeded Babylon’s reign: "That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom" (Dan 5:30-31). So we know that Darius the Mede is part of the silver that incorporated the gold. Now, the angel Gabriel tells Daniel who will succeed the Medes: ‘"As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. And the goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power’" (Dan 8:20-22).

The silver chest and arms represent the Medes and the Persians. The bronze belly and thighs represent the Greeks, and the two legs of iron represent the four kingdoms that shall arise when the great horn is broken—these four kingdoms quickly become two. And from the book of truth, disciples see who these four kingdoms are: ‘"Then a mighty king shall arise, who shall rule with great dominion and do as he wills. And as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the four winds [ruwach — "breaths" or "spirits" are equally valid translations] of heaven, but not to his posterity, nor according to the authority with which he ruled, for his kingdom shall be plucked up and go to others besides these’" (Dan 11:3-4 emphasis added). So the Greek kingdom is plucked up and goes to others who are not Alexander’s posterity. Disciples see the division of the Greek kingdom in Alexander’s four generals divvying up the Greek kingdom. Thus, the division isn’t the western and eastern Roman Empires. By this time, Rome exists far to the West, but the kingdom of consequence is not Rome, but the kingdoms that control the Promised Land, that control Jerusalem.

Again, the world beyond the pre-Flood geographical boundaries of Eden does not spiritually matter, for the pre-Flood boundaries of Eden represent the entirety of humanity’s mental topography over which the prince of disobedience reigns.

Protestantism’s disdain of the Roman Church is manifest in a culture that supports prophecy pundits assigning to Rome every imaginable evil. Evangelical Christianity professes great love for those spiritually dead disciples in the Roman and the Orthodox Churches while teaching their own disciples to be lawless. What value has iniquity to a spiritually dead disciple? And the idea that disciples in the Roman and Orthodox Churches are any more spiritually dead than are disciples in the Evangelical Church needs to be challenged. All are in spiritual bondage to sin. All will be judge by whether they practiced doing what each knew was right. Hypocrites in each church will go into the lake of fire, and those disciples who live by faith will go into the resurrection to life (John 5:29). So no disciple has an advantage over another. Each disciple will be judged by action versus knowledge. If the Roman and the Orthodox Churches teach less Scripture to their disciples, their disciples will not be held responsible for what the disciples did not know. That, though, won’t be the case for their teachers. In every case, the laws of God were written on the hearts and minds of disciples when the disciples were drawn by the Father. These written laws of God tell disciples what is right.

Matthew writes, citing Jesus, that wisdom is required to understand the abomination of desolation. The angel that brings Daniel knowledge of the abomination of desolation said the words were sealed and secret until the time of the end. The angel Gabriel tells Daniel that Daniel’s vision of the he-goat trampling the ram is for the time of the end (Dan 8:17). The sealed words inscribed in the book of truth concern, the angel tells Daniel, ‘"what is to happen to your people in the latter days’" (Dan 10:14). Daniel’s people were Israelites. And Jesus’ Olivet discourse is to His disciples: His disciples are the referent for the pronoun "you" in verses 9 and 15. Jesus’ disciples will be delivered up to tribulation and will be put to death. His disciples will see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet. Daniel doesn’t speak of two abominations of desolation. He speaks of one that will occur in the latter days, the one Jesus mentions when the end of the age comes.

In Revelation, Jesus tells John, ‘"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches’" (22:16). So the "revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place" (1:1) is for the churches; i.e., the spiritually circumcised nation of Israel. Jesus’ Olivet discourse was for His disciples, who would become all of spiritual Israel when Jesus breathed on them and said, ‘"Receive the Holy Spirit’" (John 20:22). Daniel's vision is for Israel in the latter days. The only Israel that exists in the latter days, in the Lord’s day, is the greater Church. And in every prophecy where Israel is mentioned at the time of the Lord’s day, the reference is to the greater Church … again, Israel is the woman of Revelation 12 that the dragon pursues. She brings forth the male child, Christ Jesus (v. 5), and she brings forth offspring "who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus" (v. 17).

There is only one Israel that is the holy nation of God.

Endtime prophecies are, again, about spiritually circumcised Israel, not the modern nation of Israel or the descendants of the lost tribes. The Church is God’s holy nation (1 Pet 2:9). The circumcised descendants of the patriarch Jacob ended their covenant relationship with God at Calvary. The law that had made them God’s holy nation (Exod 19:5-6) has been abolished (Eph 2:15). Now, unless these circumcised descendants are grafted onto the true vine that is Christ just as biological Gentiles are grafted onto the vine by the Father drawing them (John 6:44, 65), these circumcised descendants have no relationship with God, regardless of how pious they might seem. Therefore, endtime Jerusalem isn’t the physical city of Jerusalem, but the spiritual city walled by living stones in which are the doctrines of Christ. Spiritual Jerusalem doesn’t have geographical coordinates, but theological.

All Israelites are made righteous when drawn by God. And the angel with John tells him, ‘"Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy’" (Rev 22:11). So the righteous continue to do what is right thereby continuing to be holy. But if someone who was made righteous does that which is evil, the person becomes an evildoer and becomes filthy or unclean. This person is no longer holy; this person no longer has a place in the resurrection to life. Therefore, the standard by which all born again disciples are judged is whether the disciple continues to do what the disciple knows is right. If he or she does, the disciple remains holy. If the disciple has walked away from doing what is right, the disciple needs to return to the covenant prior to his or her physical death. There is no other sacrifice for the disciple than the one given by Jesus, which is extended by covenant to those disciples who are in covenant with the Father. Outside of the covenant, disciples will pay with both their physical and their spiritual lives for their sins.

Because Christ Jesus shares with His friends what will happen to the holy nation, endtime prophecies are for preparing the holy nation of Israel for forthcoming tribulations and persecutions. Prophecy pundits that assign revealed events to physical nations do actual harm to the greater Church. Islam is not mentioned in prophecy because all Muslims will be mentally liberated from bondage to Satan when that dragon is cast to earth and Babylon falls. They will then receive the Holy Spirit, and will become Israelites halfway through seven years of tribulation. Likewise, there will be no more Jews, no more Buddhists, no more atheists. Satan as the Antichrist will require everyone to accept the mark of the beast (chi xi stigma, or the tattoo of Xx) and worship the beast if they want to buy and sell. That mark is the tattoo of the Cross. Its worship is a false Christianity. And Satan will claim to be the Messiah. As a spirit being with the mind of a man, he will have the power of a spirit being. Therefore, Israel is warned, "If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes…Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints" (Rev 13:10). Newly born-from-above saints must endure in faith for three and a half years, and their enemy will be as a roaring lion, spewing forth the Christianity of the Cross. For the last 1260 days prior to Christ’s return, there will only be genuine Christians and false Christians. Genuine disciples will live as Judeans, for the walk of every disciple is from Egypt [sin] to Jerusalem, where the disciple is to eat of the tree of life.

 

Conclusion

The speech-acts of the Father were manifest in both the words that the man Jesus spoke and in the healings that came through Him. The Father confirms the Sabbath by Jesus delivering the Father’s speech-acts as sermons that healed on the Sabbath.

The Father’s speech-acts were performances. Lifeless words uttered by human beings are shadows of the life-giving speech-acts of the Father and the Son. And as an epistle of lifeless words is canonized in the biblical text, the life-giving speech-acts of the Father and the Son produce a glorified son, a living epistle in the Book of Life. But comprehending that healing illnesses and casting out demons is speech seems beyond too many disciples. Thus, these many disciples will never perceive a life lived as canonical prophecy, or the person as a prophet.

But for a moment overlay your life onto the pattern of Israel leaving Egypt. You are that new creature born into the tent of flesh of the old man that left Egypt. You are the one who crossed the Jordan and was spiritually circumcised by your journey from the land of your nativity to Judea, where you dwell in the weekly Sabbath. You are the one who brings your harvest to Jerusalem on the high Sabbaths of God. Your life is living Scripture … if it isn’t, then you will die in your unbelief.

If you are living Scripture, then you confirm typology as the reading strategy by which meaning should be taken from Scripture. If you don’t today practice typological exegesis, you should immediately begin doing so.

My life is a story of early maturity, of skipping grades and degrees and graduating without completing all of the intervening steps. As such, my physical life foreshadows spiritual growth: I write without having completed all of the theological steps between spiritual birth and now, when I use typology as a prophetic tool to reveal the hidden things of God. I write because I have been given a job to do. I don’t write because I decided that this was what I wanted to do. Rather, I write as an act of discovery, a speech act that reveals what wasn’t previously known, an on-going vertical journey that transforms flawed flesh into a living epistle that highlights the Second Passover. I write to warn and to remind. Disciples are to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, including instructions for how and when to take the Passover sacraments of bread and wine. Those who dispute over when to take the sacraments or whether the sacraments pertain to the Passover can continue to do so. Christ will deal with them when their judgments are revealed. It is enough for me to record the course that I trekked from a far land to Jerusalem, where I now stand on the foundation the Apostle Paul laid so long ago … it took a while to clean off the charred debris of false teachings and errant ideologies before I could stand where I now am.

The written words within this article are mere shadows of the healings and miracles that empowered disciples will do once the seven endtime years begin, for as the Father spoke through the man Jesus, the glorified Jesus will speak through empowered disciples throughout the first half of the Tribulation. And because of these miracles, the revealed Body of the Son of Man will be persecuted and sacrificed as the Head was at Calvary. The disciple is not greater than his or her Teacher, and the servant is not greater than his or her Master. So no disciple should expect to escape persecution, and most should expect to be slain. It will be for cause that the two witnesses wear sackcloth throughout this period.

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