Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
I want to express these thoughts to the end of bringing our camps closer together, for we do have some strong agreements, particularly as regards the very end of the age. We usually clash with reference to the identity of Israel, and of the Church, and also concerning the thousand years, whether it be literal and earthly, or symbolic and heavenly yet impacting earth. The timing of the rapture another area of dispute.
But to skip those points of difference for a moment, let me get to where we are pretty close in understanding. I bring this up because the premil folks (and particularly the Dispensational) are very sharp in picking up that America is latter-day Babylon (I would say its headquarters), and that events do indicate major conflicts and judgments are in the wings. They also have sharp discernment re deviation from Biblical spirituality in these days—I think of Lighthouse Trails, for example—when many others seem to be pretty much asleep. So I want to let these folks know how much I love and value them.
About these days we’re in . . . something is clearly afoot, both across the land, and “in the air”. Regarding this “air”, I’m not talking about rumors and ideas of conspiracy theorists, etc—though they should not be laughed at, but seriously considered—but rather what’s called the zeitgeist or “spirit of the age”. There’s something in this air—the collective consciousness of our American society—that is becoming increasingly demonic fast, and few know the main source of the influx of this spirit. And the only place I see it accurately spoken of is among you Dispensationalists! The Reformed are mostly (though not entirely) out-to-lunch on this!
Of course I am talking about the pharmakeia connection, of which the Revelation of John speaks four times (Galatians once, and numerous times in the Greek OT), the primary one at Rev 18:23: judgment is said to come on Babylon, “for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.” In that one phrase is a horrible, world-shattering development! I have around ten chapters on aspects of this in the section “Babylon” of A Great and Terrible Love: A Visionary Journey from Woodstock’s Sorceries to God’s Paradise.
It took fifty years for the seething cauldron of humankind’s collective consciousness to be well-leavened with the satanic inpouring that started back in the fifties and sixties, like thick black smoke bellowing out of the abyss into the air and blotting out the sun (Rev 9:1-6). Half a century! I’ve written a lot about this also. I don’t know how long till we see whore Babylon “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev 17:6), but when we do her transformation will have been completed, and her vast destruction near. For us, that will mean we go down with her, and rise in spirit to be with our Saviour.
About the thousand years, it’s a special number in Scripture, and it means completeness to the nth degree, as in Psalm 50:10, where all the beasts of the forest are His, and “the cattle upon a thousand hills”—not only a thousand, but all the hills in the world. The thousand years are all the years of the church age, from Christ’s first coming till right before His second.
A literal thousand years in earthly Jerusalem makes three ages, this present time, the Jerusalem reign age, and then the eternal age, whereas Jesus—who spoke of two ages only—when talking of the one who blasphemes against the Holy Ghost, said this sin “shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world (age), neither in the world to come” (Mt 12:32). He said it again in Lk 18:29, 30; Lk 20:34, 35; and Mt 13:39, 40, 49. He repeatedly says there are only two ages—not three! The 1,000 year “age” of an earthly Jerusalem reign of Christ contradicts Scripture.
The two witnesses of Rev 11 aren’t two individual prophets working wonders, but symbols of the legally established testimony of the church (in the mouths of two or three witnesses a thing is established as true), symbolic just as the temple and measuring rod in the first and second verses are symbolic. The 1,260 days / 42 months / 3½ years or times are the period of tribulation for the church—along with the power of God’s word manifested—throughout the age, three and a half years well known to Israel for such affliction, as in the days of Elijah (Ja 5:17), or the ravages of Antiochus Epiphanes, or the ministry of our Saviour. This entire evil age (Gal 1:4) is the period of the two witnesses’ testimony. And their prophecy will be realized in fiery destruction at the judgment for those who seek to hurt them, with plagues and droughts and famines now, for the prayers of the afflicted saints unto God result in these judgments upon the wicked of the world continually.
In Rev 12:5 we understand that the woman “clothed with the sun . . . and upon her head a crown with twelve stars” was Israel who gave birth to Christ, who was then triumphantly caught up to heaven and away from the smitten, mortally wounded dragon in his wild death-throes. She (now transformed into the NT people of God) then fled into the wilderness 1,260 days, to be fed and nourished 3½ years and protected from the face of the serpent. In verse 17 this persecution continues, until in Rev 13:7 it was given to the beast to overcome her seed, the saints. This 3½-year period continues throughout the age, and, while the dragon warred on the saints all through it, only at the end is it given him to completely prevail, as Rev 20:3, 7-9 shows. (But this prevailing is only in appearance, for in truth we rise again in triumph, and glory, as written in Romans 8:36, 37.) With you folks, I think we are very near the end now. I don’t think WWIII is about to commence (perhaps reflecting the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] trumpet, where one third of the world’s people are killed) quite yet, as some conspiracy buffs are now trumpeting. What happens after the fiasco election may give some indication of where things may head, God sovereign over which wicked ruler is over us as our doom nears.
I think it a poor move, the idea to take up arms against the massive firepower of the government, and one that will backfire on the larger peaceful Christian community. I have spoken of this in the chapter, “Provoking The Beast—By Armed Resistance”, in the Armageddon section. Christians have spiritual weapons to wage this warfare.
In Rev 11 again, we have in verse 7 that picture of the final rising of the beast to war against the saints and overcome them. The same event from other angles is in Rev 13:7; 16:12-14, 16; 19:11-21; and 20:3, 7-9. The visions are not progressing chronologically, but recapitulating, though in the trumpets and vials / bowls the end is much in view, and intensifies. The rapture itself is seen in Rev 11:11, 12, the murderers of the saints seeing them made alive again and standing on the earth before they are raised, which terrifies them as at that moment they realize their testimony was true. And then the Lord from heaven says, Come up here!, and they go up to Him, and the last trumpet sounds.
All this to say that the symbolic understanding (I was Dispensational many years) is not vague liberal “spiritualizing” away of Biblical truths, but a better way of seeing what is actually happening. In Rev 9 the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] trumpet’s symbolic vision of the massive opening of the interdimensional gateway between the demonic and human realms beginning at Woodstock is true to life, and a clear picture. The same with the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] trumpet, and the bowls / vials as well.
About Israel: the booklet, A Poet Arises In Israel, here in the larger book, addresses the identity of that nation. The chapters, “SPIRITUAL IDENTITY THEFT: Stealing God’s Gift” and “Israel Has Not Been Replaced By The Church” go into this. Peter, after Pentecost, in quoting from Deut. 18:18, 19 as he spoke to the people in Jerusalem, rendered it, “And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:22, 23), made a clear decree that cut off from the nation all who rejected Messiah. That decree stands to this day. Apostate Jewry is not God’s Israel. Only in Christ is a Jew re-grafted into the now international Israel of God.
What is the meaning then of the return in 1948? Perhaps it is to be a threshing floor of judgment at the end of days, the wheat from the chaff. At the end, when the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] trumpet sounds one third of the earth’s people shall be killed—could headquarter Babylon’s demise be part of that? And the State of Israel? Many yearn to utterly destroy both of these nations. This is when we see “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth…” (Luke 21:26). When men see Israel nuked (if this is what will happen), it shall be clear the end is nigh. What was thought certain is now gone! And when the U.S. is destroyed there will be no mistaking it!
The Israel of God can never be destroyed, for resurrection changes everything. We die only to rise again. Imposter Israel goes to Gehenna when destroyed. How important to herald the Good News to that people before the great wars of the end!
Please, let it not be said that the amils are off in some effete spiritual realm of delusion! At least let it not be said of me!
How long will it be for things to start happening? On the one hand, the Lord said for us not to try to know the day or the hour, which would include month and year also. On the other hand, we can see the devil’s forces moving into place. Things have moved so quickly these past five years, who knows what two years down the road will bring? Though it could be decades. I have no hope in any of the political folks, for it is written, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Rev 12:12). Whatever man or woman is not sealed with the Spirit of the living God will be subject to the strong delusion promoted by the wicked one, and filled with a foulness of spirit come from hell. Those unsealed will become enraged like their father the devil. All unregenerate will be unpredictable, and liable to extreme changes.
To the inhabitants of the earth the antichrist—the beast—will be a hero! He will be the leader of those who “take counsel together against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us” (Ps 2:2, 3). This foul one will tap into the zeitgeist, with all its hatred of the law of God and teachings of Christ, with its rage against the police and all authority, and will revile heaven and the Lord Jesus and the people of God as no one has ever done, with great bravery and boldness, appearing most winsome to the hell-bound perishing as satan fills the air and unprotected hearts with his madness. Many will love the beast for his ferocious stand against Christ and the saints, and his verbal reviling of them.
Then will the visions of the artists, such as made I Am Legend, and World War Z, come to be realized, not in these intuitive fantasies, but as the crazed hordes of Christ- and Christian-haters go “up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city” (Rev 20:9), killing and looting the world around, much as Haman thought to do to Mordecai’s people in ancient days. It is at this juncture that the Lord will appear in heaven with a shout to call His people up. Those remaining on the earth, already terrified, will yell “to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Rev 6:16, 17). And it will be over. We will go through it. Prepare your hearts. Cultivate your intimate walk with Christ, and help your families and friends do the same.
An eschatology that won’t sit down and keep quiet has made itself known, upending things thought sure. It won’t speak with words, but with happenings worldwide, confirming what God has spoken—we seeing it with our very eyes.
But to skip those points of difference for a moment, let me get to where we are pretty close in understanding. I bring this up because the premil folks (and particularly the Dispensational) are very sharp in picking up that America is latter-day Babylon (I would say its headquarters), and that events do indicate major conflicts and judgments are in the wings. They also have sharp discernment re deviation from Biblical spirituality in these days—I think of Lighthouse Trails, for example—when many others seem to be pretty much asleep. So I want to let these folks know how much I love and value them.
About these days we’re in . . . something is clearly afoot, both across the land, and “in the air”. Regarding this “air”, I’m not talking about rumors and ideas of conspiracy theorists, etc—though they should not be laughed at, but seriously considered—but rather what’s called the zeitgeist or “spirit of the age”. There’s something in this air—the collective consciousness of our American society—that is becoming increasingly demonic fast, and few know the main source of the influx of this spirit. And the only place I see it accurately spoken of is among you Dispensationalists! The Reformed are mostly (though not entirely) out-to-lunch on this!
Of course I am talking about the pharmakeia connection, of which the Revelation of John speaks four times (Galatians once, and numerous times in the Greek OT), the primary one at Rev 18:23: judgment is said to come on Babylon, “for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.” In that one phrase is a horrible, world-shattering development! I have around ten chapters on aspects of this in the section “Babylon” of A Great and Terrible Love: A Visionary Journey from Woodstock’s Sorceries to God’s Paradise.
It took fifty years for the seething cauldron of humankind’s collective consciousness to be well-leavened with the satanic inpouring that started back in the fifties and sixties, like thick black smoke bellowing out of the abyss into the air and blotting out the sun (Rev 9:1-6). Half a century! I’ve written a lot about this also. I don’t know how long till we see whore Babylon “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev 17:6), but when we do her transformation will have been completed, and her vast destruction near. For us, that will mean we go down with her, and rise in spirit to be with our Saviour.
About the thousand years, it’s a special number in Scripture, and it means completeness to the nth degree, as in Psalm 50:10, where all the beasts of the forest are His, and “the cattle upon a thousand hills”—not only a thousand, but all the hills in the world. The thousand years are all the years of the church age, from Christ’s first coming till right before His second.
A literal thousand years in earthly Jerusalem makes three ages, this present time, the Jerusalem reign age, and then the eternal age, whereas Jesus—who spoke of two ages only—when talking of the one who blasphemes against the Holy Ghost, said this sin “shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world (age), neither in the world to come” (Mt 12:32). He said it again in Lk 18:29, 30; Lk 20:34, 35; and Mt 13:39, 40, 49. He repeatedly says there are only two ages—not three! The 1,000 year “age” of an earthly Jerusalem reign of Christ contradicts Scripture.
The two witnesses of Rev 11 aren’t two individual prophets working wonders, but symbols of the legally established testimony of the church (in the mouths of two or three witnesses a thing is established as true), symbolic just as the temple and measuring rod in the first and second verses are symbolic. The 1,260 days / 42 months / 3½ years or times are the period of tribulation for the church—along with the power of God’s word manifested—throughout the age, three and a half years well known to Israel for such affliction, as in the days of Elijah (Ja 5:17), or the ravages of Antiochus Epiphanes, or the ministry of our Saviour. This entire evil age (Gal 1:4) is the period of the two witnesses’ testimony. And their prophecy will be realized in fiery destruction at the judgment for those who seek to hurt them, with plagues and droughts and famines now, for the prayers of the afflicted saints unto God result in these judgments upon the wicked of the world continually.
In Rev 12:5 we understand that the woman “clothed with the sun . . . and upon her head a crown with twelve stars” was Israel who gave birth to Christ, who was then triumphantly caught up to heaven and away from the smitten, mortally wounded dragon in his wild death-throes. She (now transformed into the NT people of God) then fled into the wilderness 1,260 days, to be fed and nourished 3½ years and protected from the face of the serpent. In verse 17 this persecution continues, until in Rev 13:7 it was given to the beast to overcome her seed, the saints. This 3½-year period continues throughout the age, and, while the dragon warred on the saints all through it, only at the end is it given him to completely prevail, as Rev 20:3, 7-9 shows. (But this prevailing is only in appearance, for in truth we rise again in triumph, and glory, as written in Romans 8:36, 37.) With you folks, I think we are very near the end now. I don’t think WWIII is about to commence (perhaps reflecting the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] trumpet, where one third of the world’s people are killed) quite yet, as some conspiracy buffs are now trumpeting. What happens after the fiasco election may give some indication of where things may head, God sovereign over which wicked ruler is over us as our doom nears.
I think it a poor move, the idea to take up arms against the massive firepower of the government, and one that will backfire on the larger peaceful Christian community. I have spoken of this in the chapter, “Provoking The Beast—By Armed Resistance”, in the Armageddon section. Christians have spiritual weapons to wage this warfare.
In Rev 11 again, we have in verse 7 that picture of the final rising of the beast to war against the saints and overcome them. The same event from other angles is in Rev 13:7; 16:12-14, 16; 19:11-21; and 20:3, 7-9. The visions are not progressing chronologically, but recapitulating, though in the trumpets and vials / bowls the end is much in view, and intensifies. The rapture itself is seen in Rev 11:11, 12, the murderers of the saints seeing them made alive again and standing on the earth before they are raised, which terrifies them as at that moment they realize their testimony was true. And then the Lord from heaven says, Come up here!, and they go up to Him, and the last trumpet sounds.
All this to say that the symbolic understanding (I was Dispensational many years) is not vague liberal “spiritualizing” away of Biblical truths, but a better way of seeing what is actually happening. In Rev 9 the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] trumpet’s symbolic vision of the massive opening of the interdimensional gateway between the demonic and human realms beginning at Woodstock is true to life, and a clear picture. The same with the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] trumpet, and the bowls / vials as well.
About Israel: the booklet, A Poet Arises In Israel, here in the larger book, addresses the identity of that nation. The chapters, “SPIRITUAL IDENTITY THEFT: Stealing God’s Gift” and “Israel Has Not Been Replaced By The Church” go into this. Peter, after Pentecost, in quoting from Deut. 18:18, 19 as he spoke to the people in Jerusalem, rendered it, “And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:22, 23), made a clear decree that cut off from the nation all who rejected Messiah. That decree stands to this day. Apostate Jewry is not God’s Israel. Only in Christ is a Jew re-grafted into the now international Israel of God.
What is the meaning then of the return in 1948? Perhaps it is to be a threshing floor of judgment at the end of days, the wheat from the chaff. At the end, when the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] trumpet sounds one third of the earth’s people shall be killed—could headquarter Babylon’s demise be part of that? And the State of Israel? Many yearn to utterly destroy both of these nations. This is when we see “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth…” (Luke 21:26). When men see Israel nuked (if this is what will happen), it shall be clear the end is nigh. What was thought certain is now gone! And when the U.S. is destroyed there will be no mistaking it!
The Israel of God can never be destroyed, for resurrection changes everything. We die only to rise again. Imposter Israel goes to Gehenna when destroyed. How important to herald the Good News to that people before the great wars of the end!
Please, let it not be said that the amils are off in some effete spiritual realm of delusion! At least let it not be said of me!
How long will it be for things to start happening? On the one hand, the Lord said for us not to try to know the day or the hour, which would include month and year also. On the other hand, we can see the devil’s forces moving into place. Things have moved so quickly these past five years, who knows what two years down the road will bring? Though it could be decades. I have no hope in any of the political folks, for it is written, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Rev 12:12). Whatever man or woman is not sealed with the Spirit of the living God will be subject to the strong delusion promoted by the wicked one, and filled with a foulness of spirit come from hell. Those unsealed will become enraged like their father the devil. All unregenerate will be unpredictable, and liable to extreme changes.
To the inhabitants of the earth the antichrist—the beast—will be a hero! He will be the leader of those who “take counsel together against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us” (Ps 2:2, 3). This foul one will tap into the zeitgeist, with all its hatred of the law of God and teachings of Christ, with its rage against the police and all authority, and will revile heaven and the Lord Jesus and the people of God as no one has ever done, with great bravery and boldness, appearing most winsome to the hell-bound perishing as satan fills the air and unprotected hearts with his madness. Many will love the beast for his ferocious stand against Christ and the saints, and his verbal reviling of them.
Then will the visions of the artists, such as made I Am Legend, and World War Z, come to be realized, not in these intuitive fantasies, but as the crazed hordes of Christ- and Christian-haters go “up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city” (Rev 20:9), killing and looting the world around, much as Haman thought to do to Mordecai’s people in ancient days. It is at this juncture that the Lord will appear in heaven with a shout to call His people up. Those remaining on the earth, already terrified, will yell “to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Rev 6:16, 17). And it will be over. We will go through it. Prepare your hearts. Cultivate your intimate walk with Christ, and help your families and friends do the same.
An eschatology that won’t sit down and keep quiet has made itself known, upending things thought sure. It won’t speak with words, but with happenings worldwide, confirming what God has spoken—we seeing it with our very eyes.
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