In REREADING PROPHECY, Homer Kizer demystifies the beasts the Prophet Daniel and the Apostle John saw in visions. Relying upon his training as a literary critic and his experience as a novelist, he superimposes one little horn on the other and concludes that Protestantism's Roman bias cannot be supported from the Biblical text, that the focus of end time prophecies is Greece and the political and philosophical paradigms derived from Greek thought. As such, he argues persuasively against the traditional interpretations of symbols students of Biblical prophecy have advocated since the Reformation. REREADING PROPHECY's "Introduction" includes a linguistic primer that will aid readers' understanding of how symbols and figurative language can be read wherever encountered. http://homerkizer.org/rrp.html I reread biblical prophecy from compunction, not by choice. Yes, in 2002 I had the same choice as I had in 1972, when I didn't want to be religious, or have anything to do with a supernatural deity. But where do you run from your mind? Into an alcoholic stupor? I don't drink, never have. Into a drug-induced mental haze? I have never been involved with mind-altering drugs. The activities I did-hunting and fishing-require mental solitude. When writing, the thoughts of the mind pass through the fingers. Same for sculpting. So where within my mind could I escape? I was predisposed to doing the task for which I was called. Considering the Lord told the prophet Jeremiah that when He set His hand to recover Israel from the north country He would send for many fishers and for many hunters (Jer 16:16), I was spiritually prepared for the task of overturning how biblical prophecies have been read since the Reformation. http://homerkizer.org/rrp-preface.pdf A question asked by a country music song is what part of "no" don't you understand. The same can be said for the prophecies of Daniel, of Jesus, of most of the prophets: what part of "the time of the end" do you not understand? The prophecies of Daniel are secret and sealed until the time of the end (Dan 12:4, 9; Dan 8:17, 26; Dan 10:14). They were not given, if their mimetic language is comprehensible, as a historical roadmap of even major events between Daniel's stay in Babylon and the coming of the Messiah in all of His glory. They are not understandable until "the time of the end." And if today is not a part of that period, they are still not understandable. http://homerkizer.org/rrp-intro.pdf Lawlessness is sin (1 John 3:4), and sin kills (Rom 6:23). Therefore, the abomination that desolates functions to pollute disciples, the spiritual temples of God, in the same way that pork sacrificed on the alter and a statue of Zeus placed in the Holy of Holies polluted the temple in Jerusalem. These temples will now have to be purified with blood. Christ Jesus will not be sacrificed again-and the blood of goats and calves will not wash away sin-so the blood of disciples will be shed for their lawlessness. http://homerkizer.org/rrp-one.pdf The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10), which sees in typology metaphors having metaphors having metaphors. Jesus spoke to His disciples in figures of speech; He still speaks to His disciples in these same figures of speech. Thus, through this spirit of prophecy, disciples are now assured that the Son of Man will shortly be revealed. When this kingdom is revealed, the expectation of all saints is that they walk blameless before God, that they love righteousness enough to live as Judeans even when threatened with death. They will likely be sealed in death, a state of timelessness that will seem to pass directly into the resurrection and glorification. The sting of death was lost when Jesus was glorified. http://homerkizer.org/rrp-two.pdf Too much of Christianity believes that accepting Jesus as one's personal savior, this experience identified as being born again, is all that is required for salvation-and so it is if, necessarily, this spiritual infant will live by the laws of God written on his or her heart and mind. Under the second covenant, God sets before spiritually circumcised disciples life and death, with instructions to choose life. If a disciple will hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who sent Him, the disciple will have everlasting life (John 5:24). This believing the One who sent Jesus manifests itself by putting into practice the words of Jesus that the person heard. And Jesus said not to think that He came to abolish the Law or the Prophets (Matt 5:17), that whoever relaxes the least of the commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven (v. 19). So it is not enough to be sired by God, then to continue living as a spiritual Gentile. A person's righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees (v. 20), who were hypocrites (Matt chptr 23), who knew to keep the law but none kept it (John 7:19). http://homerkizer.org/rrp-three.pdf The nations or kingdoms represented by the four metals of the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision are located within Eden's boundaries, geographical and spiritual. The identities of these kingdoms are found in Scripture, and Rome is not mentioned. The kingdoms are Babylon, Media Persia, Greece, and the kings of the North and of the South. All of these kingdoms reigned over the geographical regions enclosed by pre-Flood Eden's boundaries; they reigned from Nebuchadnezzar until the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes placed a statue of Zeus in the temple at Jerusalem. These kings' reign over the temple was then broken by the physically circumcised sons of light. So when Eden went from being a physical region to being the mental topography encompassing the mindsets of all spiritually circumcised descendants of Abraham, the kings and kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar's image went from being the shadow of spiritual Babylon to being the spiritual kingdom itself. Eden goes from being a land of human kingdoms to being the topography of heavenly kingdoms that reign over the subconscious minds of humanity. Biblical prophecy is, ultimately, about what occurs to the spiritually circumcised descendants of Abraham, each created in the image of, and after the likeness of God. Prophecies about Damascus (Isa chptr 17) or Cush (chptr 18) or Egypt (chptr 19) are, therefore, ultimately about mindsets within the mental topography through which born-again disciples journey. http://homerkizer.org/rrp-four.pdf Daniel's vision of the he-goat trampling the two-horned ram was for the end of the age (Dan 8:17). It was not for his days, and it was sealed so that it couldn't be understood (v. 26). Rather, it was for many days in the future, when a king of bold face shall be broken by no human hand (v. 25). And in this vision, the single horn of the king of Greece, an angelic being, is broken, and four horns arise from the stump of the single horn, and from one of these horns arises the king of bold face that will be broken when the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw is broken. Both are broken by no human hand. Both are broken when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ. Both are broken when Death, the 4th horseman of the Apocalypse (Rev 6:8), is defeated through the public resurrection of the two witnesses (Rev 11:11-12). http://homerkizer.org/rrp-five.pdf