March 30, 2003 ©Homer Kizer
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Commentary — From the Margins
False Prophets
The war in Iraq has produced a defining moment in the understanding of biblical prophecy: All prophecy experts who find Rome, the Roman Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire in the visions of Daniel have used historical textbooks and human reasoning to arrive at their understandings. They have not been sent by Christ, or by the Father, who sealed Daniel’s visions until the time of the end. Strident words? Certainly. But is declaring these experts false a supportable claim? Yes, indeed. The four empires of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision are the theocracies of Babylon (Dan 2:37–38), Media Persia (Dan 5:31 & 8:20), Greece (Dan 8:21 & 11:2), and the conjoined reign of the kings of the North and of the South (Dan 11:4–5), which is why Greece shall rule the whole world even though all peoples were given into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. Without leaving inspired Scripture, the uninterrupted reigns of these four kingdoms extend from when Daniel interpreted the king’s vision until when the kingdom [plural in the KJV] of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ (Rev 11:15 & Dan 7:9–14); for these kingdoms are ruled by spiritual powers (Dan 10:20). Satan, himself, is identified as the king of Babylon (Isa 14:3–21); the taunt against him takes place when God has returned Israel to its own land, at or after Christ’s return. The king’s “sons” will be slaughtered for “the guilt of their father” (verse 21 NRSV used throughout). These are not human sons, but rebelling angels. They are the fallen angels that have ruled with Satan over spiritual Babylon since YHWH sent spiritual Israel to Babylon because of disobedience.
A leap in logic? The ancient house of Judah, sent into Babylonian slavery, becoming spiritual Israel? I have written extensively about the historical record of ancient Israel being the shadow of the history of spiritual Israel—just as the warring of Alexander the Great is the shadow of the spiritual war presently being fought between the spiritual king of Greece and the sar of the kingdom of Persia, the exodus of ancient Israel from Egypt is the shadow of the future exodus of spiritual Israel from spiritual Egypt/Babylon. On the holy day calendar, only one convocation is repeated: the Passover service.
There are seven high Sabbaths: the first day of Unleavened Bread and the last day, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, the first day of Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day. Each of these high Sabbaths is a memorial to when God intervened, or will intervene mightily in the affairs of Israel. The first high Sabbath of Unleavened Bread commemorates leaving Egypt, or sin. The second high Sabbath of Unleavened Bread commemorates entering the place of protection [safety] after living sin free. Pentecost commemorates the birth of Israel as the holy people (for why it is more encompassing than receiving the law/Holy Spirit, see Prophecy and the Passover). Trumpets commemorates when the Messiah comes in power. Yom Kippurim or Atonement commemorates when Christ returns the sins He presently bears to their rightful owner, Satan. The first high Sabbath of Tabernacles commemorates when Christ’s millennial reign begins. The Last Great Day commemorates the great White Throne Judgment when all of humanity who never knew God receives their first chance for salvation (there are no second chances after death for anyone). Now, returning to the first high Sabbath of Unleavened Bread: the Israelites leaving Egypt never lived sin free. No one can unless in covenant with Christ. The Apostle Paul writes to the saints at Corinth that because Christ, “our paschal [Passover] lamb…has been sacrificed” (5:7), they should celebrate the feast “not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (verse 8). So until disciples celebrate the feast of Unleavened Bread with sincerity and truth, they are still leavened. The reality of the shadow hasn’t happened.
A second day of Passover was added [at even the 14th of the second month] as the acknowledgement of the second liberation of Israel. On the first Passover, all firstborns of Israel and Egypt, men and beasts, not covered by the blood of the lamb were slain, but the spiritual reality of this physical shadow moves those who will be slain up to the firstborns of spiritual Israel and of the world, spirit and flesh. Angels don’t conceive children, but the sons of the king of Babylon will be killed. Thus, the firstborn of the spiritual king of Greece would be the first king, or the great horn of the spiritual entity portrayed by the he-goat in Daniel’s vision. Angels don’t conceive children, so firstborns, like sons, are linguistic icons used figuratively when referencing angelic beings.
Christ as the Lamb of God was “penned” in Jerusalem on the 10th day and sacrificed on the 14th, but there was no liberation of Israel that night. Spiritual Israel didn’t yet exist. The second Eve (or spiritual Eve) wasn’t created until Christ returned from heaven the day of His ascension and breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22–23). After the days of spiritual purification, the second Eve is “filled” with the Holy Spirit just as a husband fills his wife; so on that day of Pentecost, the second Eve brings forth 3000 new disciples. Spiritual Israel now exists.
The relationship between the physical shadow, ancient Israel, and the spiritual reality, the Body of Christ, is the same as between the Sinai covenant and the new covenant. By the terms of the Sinai covenant, physical Israel was made a holy nation (Exod 19:5-6); by the terms of the new covenant, spiritual Israel is made a holy nation (1 Pet 2:9). Moses is the mediator of the Sinai covenant; Christ is the mediator of the new covenant. When Israel and Pharaoh asked who God was, YHWH told Moses to identify Him by the singular “I AM”; for spiritual Israel, the Father is God. Everything gets moved up a notch. There was a first Adam, made of flesh; there is a second Adam, made of spirit. The first Adam names the animals, from which no helpmate can be found. The second Adam names the animals (Hypocrites, Vipers, etc.), from which no helpmate could be found. The first Adam undergoes a deep sleep, and from a wound in his side, Eve is made. The second Adam is in the grave three days, and from a wound in His side, the second Eve is made (John 20:22-23) and presented to the second Adam at about the same time as the first Eve was presented to the first Adam. All of the prophecies have a type/physical fulfillment; all also have a spiritual fulfillment. And prophecy experts have never previously comprehended this physical-spiritual analogy. Some realize that there was an earlier fulfillment to be followed by a later fulfillment, and as such come close to understanding the mysteries of God, but they never took that last step. They don’t see that Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia and of the world was the physical shadow of the spiritual conquest occurring right now of the conjoined physical and mental landscapes of the world. Daniel 8 is for right now. The King of Greece is a demon. His horns are not the spiritual king, even though the great horn is labeled as the king of Greece’s first king, which makes the king of Greece a coalition power; he is the first beast of Revelation 13. So all of the prophecy experts who only look for physical fulfillment of endtime prophecies will be taken by surprise by what will happen, which is how the time of the end can be like the days of Noah. To understand endtime prophecies, we need to elevate our thoughts in exactly the same relationship as exists between Moses and Christ as mediators of the covenants by which Israel is made holy.
When the word of YHWH came to Ezekiel commanding him to prophesy against the false prophets of Israel, YHWH has Ezekiel say to these prophets, “Because you have uttered falsehood and envisioned lies, I am against you…. My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divination; they shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord God. Because, in truth, they have mislead my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace” (Ezek 13:8–10).
The subject of the false prophets’ utterances was the fate of Jerusalem: they proclaimed peace for the city when there would be no peace because of Israel’s sins. YHWH decreed that the inhabitants of Judah and of the city would be sent into Babylonian slavery. They were not sent into slavery because YHWH couldn’t protect them, but because they refused to obey Him. Israel returned to slavery, and Babylon becomes synonymous with Egypt. Only a remnant of Israel ever returns to Jerusalem.
Today, the false prophets of spiritual Israel proclaim “peace” when there will be no peace for either the spiritual house of Israel, or for the spiritual house of Judah. All of spiritual Israel will experience the Tribulation. No one will be raptured to heaven to sit out the catastrophic events that will occur here on earth. Rather, spiritual Israel will be liberated on the second Passover and will begin to live by faith until Christ returns as the all powerful Messiah. After its liberation, spiritual Israel will experience events so terrible that if those days were not shortened, no flesh would be saved alive—and we are not yet to the mid-point in the Tribulation. The shadow has physical Israel saying on the 15th day of the second month, the morning after the second Passover would have occurred if it had then been instituted, “’If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you [Moses and Aaron] have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger’” (Exod 16:3). Spiritual Israelites will wish that they had died. There will be no peace for them. Their minds will be freed from Satan’s deception (Rev 12:9), but realizing that heaven doesn’t await them will leave them wishing they were dead; for the world will actually expel them from spiritual Babylon.
Physical Israelites ate manna in the wilderness. Jesus said, “’I am the bread of life’” (John 6:35); so spiritual Israelites will have eaten of Christ’s body, or they will die of unbelief. Just as YHWH provided meat and bread for the Israelites that left Egypt, the Father will provide spiritual meat and bread to the spiritual Israelites who are now in a wilderness. By supernatural signs, these spiritual Israelites will be reintroduced to the Sabbath, which they have been ignoring until this time…the second covenant of Moses (Deu chptrs 29–31) was made with uncircumcised Israelites (Jos 5:2–5); their hearts and minds, rather than their foreskins, were to be circumcised (Deu 30:6). And this second covenant of Moses is the Apostle Paul’s law of faith (Rom 3:27), which becomes his “the righteousness that comes from faith” (Rom 10:6–8).
Returning now to the false prophets of Israel: God and Christ’s hand will be against these false prophets. He will cut their names off from the roll of Israel. They will not enter the promised land; they will not be glorified. They are those to whom Jesus says, Get away from me, you evildoers. And this should frighten all who come with a word from God, but who haven’t been sent by God.
If you, as a teacher of spiritual Israel, find Rome in the visions of Daniel; if you, as a prophet of spiritual Israel, teach that the saints will be raptured to heaven, then you are false. You have not been sent by God. You haven’t received a word from God. You are a liar. And may you repent before it is too late for you.
Christ was penned in Jerusalem on the 10th day of the first month exactly as the Passover lamb was to be penned. He was sacrificed on the 14th, close to when the Passover lamb would have been sacrificed. But the remainder of what should have spiritually occurred when the Passover Lamb was sacrificed remains to happen. There will be another slaying of firstborns not covered by the blood of the Lamb. It should occur the night of the second Passover for that year, and on that night spiritual Israel will be liberated from bondage to sin. But in the shadow of the fulfillment, Pharaoh tell Moses that there are more Israelites than Egyptians, suggesting that more than half of the world’s population will identify itself as Christian. Christ will turn His hand against two-thirds of the holy ones, which could represent the slaying of a third of humanity (two-thirds of one-half of the world’s population), leaving a billion newly liberated disciples to face the man of perdition. Yes, there will be martyrdom as no one has ever imagined, and now Rev 6:11 & 7:9 makes sense, as do the messages to the seven churches. The Philadelphia Church engages the synagogue of Satan directly to try and recover as many genuine disciples as possible. By restoring those who are genuine but who are trapped within the synagogue of Satan the saints in this church cover a multitude of their own sins, the reason why nothing more will be added onto them. By faith, they do a work unlike anything the world has ever seen. And this is the work for which I have been drafted. Yes, laborers are needed. I don’t know who they are, but the deciding qualification is that they have enough love for all Christians to engage those whom they have never regarded as genuine, and who are not in covenant with God, but upon whom judgment has come because these disciples asked for it. If a person is baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the person has asked for judgment to be upon the person. If this person is now out of covenant, the situation exists of being called least in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus doesn’t say this person is headed into the lake of fire as an evildoer, but that this person will be called least.
The two witnesses of Revelation are the spiritual types of Moses and Aaron, and the battle is for control of the minds of humanity. All who call on the name of Jesus, who do not accept the mark of the beast, and who will live by faith through truly harrowing times will be part of the first resurrection. The false prophets say, Peace, peace, when there will be no peace. They teach a message of escapism, when the only thing that will escape is their salvation…if you, for all of your good works, prophesy without having been sent, quit! Quit today.
How can you tell if you have been sent? One test exists: are you spiritually minded—“the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom 8:7). The previous verse says, “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace”; so the juxtaposition of the carnal mind versus the spiritual mind is firmly established. The test then is to determine whether a person’s mind is subject to the law of God. The singular icon represents a single body of commandments, ordinances, statutes, and decrees as Jesus summarized the expression the law and the prophets. In Jesus’ use of language, the law of God can be summarized by the two commandments He cited (Matt 22:37–38). Therefore, there should be no debate over the law to which the spiritual mind is subject. Abraham kept YHWH’s ordinances, commandments, statutes and laws (Gen 26:5) long before ancient Israel agreed to do so and thereby become a holy nation. Under the new covenant, as a condition of being drawn, God the Father writes His laws on the hearts and minds of disciples. Accordingly, Jesus’ command to keep and to teach keeping the commandments of God is as binding on disciples today as when He addressed His original disciples (Matt 5:17–19). Theologians who teach otherwise are carnally minded, regardless of whether they believe Christ died for them and rose again after three days.
The prophet Ezekiel was sent to the house of Israel, which wasn’t the northern kingdom of Samaria, but all of the Israelites who remained in the promised land. He wasn’t sent to foreign nations; i.e., to Gentiles. And he was given a hard forehead, for the people would not listen to him because they refused to listen to YHWH. They preferred to hear the words of peace shouted from hilltops, rather than mumbled warnings about them needing to keep the law of God. But YHWH has Ezekiel say, “Clap your hands and stamp your feet, and say, Alas for all the vile abominations of the house of Israel! For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence” (6:11).
Spiritual Israel today wants to hear, Rapture, rapture, when there will be no rapture prior to Christ’s return as the all powerful Messiah. Spiritual Israel has not kept God’s Sabbaths, and does not keep His laws and decrees, written on the hearts and minds of disciples as a condition of the new covenant. This nation believes it has been called to be spiritual Gentiles rather than spiritual Judeans. And with few exceptions, its prophets have badly misled the people. Thus, God will turn His hand against the holy ones to test who is genuine. A third of spiritual Israel will prove to be. That is the good news. Hopefully, this third includes you. If it doesn’t, why? What excuse can you possibly give to Christ, who bears your sins, for ignoring what has been written on your heart and mind?
Someone in San Antonio, or in Thief River Falls will label me a false prophet; yet, my words come directly from inspired Scripture. Someone in Bend, or in Lynchburg will say that I preach another gospel. They will be correct, I do. Truly, I do. I teach the same gospel the early disciples did, not the gospel received from historical exegesis. Every teacher in the Body of Christ knows that Christ kept the high Sabbaths, and the weekly Sabbath—and if Christ lives in you, why aren’t you keeping the Sabbaths that He did? Any excuse you give will convict you of sin/lawlessness. So how will you answer?
If Jesus tells you to keep the commandments of God, and to teach keeping them, why won’t you? Because you’re under a dispensation of grace? Paul writes, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” (Rom 6:1–2). Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4). How can spiritual Israelites, dead to lawlessness, go on living in it? You know the answer. You cannot. And you won’t once you have been liberated from mental serfdom to spiritual Babylon. So why not leave now? Become part of this work of the Church in Philadelphia. Shuck your label of false prophet. You can if you are not now hostile to the law of God.
If you are absolutely hostile to the law of God, you are carnally minded. But there will be a day when you are mentally liberated. Understand, though, that if you’re a firstborn, you’re gambling with your life—and with the life of your firstborn son or daughter. And you still want to teach, Rapture, rapture, when there will be no escaping the Tribulation? You are also betting your salvation on your reading of Scripture.
I don’t like your odds.
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