Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Take My People to the Mountains


 Luke 21:20 And when you see Jerusalem being encircled by armies, then recognize that its destruction has come near. 21. Then let those in Judea flee into the mountains; and those in its midst, let them go out. And those in the open spaces, let them not go into her.

 Since the start of the Church, Christians have recognized that if the Word of God is taken literally and its warnings applied, that God’s provision and protection would be the result. Indeed, when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed as prophesied in Mark 13:1, 2 in 70 A.D. by Roman General Titus, it is recorded by the Jewish Historian Josephus that almost no Christians died because they had evacuated to the mountain fortress of Petra. Then again, when the Muslims invaded and conquered Spain in 715 A.D., the Christians escaped to the Cantabrian Mountains in northern Spain; taking heed to the ‘surrounding armies’ and fleeing to the mountains rather than the geographical location of Jerusalem, or Judea, they escaped the horrors Spain’s Jewish population suffered at the hands of the Muslim conquerors. Then there were the Waldensians, who survived numerous attempts throughout the Dark Ages to wipe them out by Catholic Inquisitor armies with the supernatural intervention of God protecting their hiding places in the Alps.

  Numerous Early Church Fathers had recognized hidden scriptural promises of protection and provision for Christians in the mountains once they saw the spirit and the armies of the Anti-Christ begin to attack the true Church and uncompromising Christians. However, these promises of protection and provision have been largely ignored by today’s Church due to the false sense of security and collective sleep that the ‘we’ll fly away before the tribulation of the Anti-Christ’ delusion of the pre-tribulational rapture teaching. This secret (Only Christians will see Jesus) part way return of Christ was so secret the Early Church Fathers never saw it in the scriptures; they warned that the Christians (who are not under strong delusion)  should flee to the mountains:

  Hippolytus (160-240): "...the one thousand two hundred and three score days (the half of the week) during which the tyrant is to reign and persecute the Church, which flees from city to city, and seeks concealment in the wilderness among the mountains" (Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, 61).
 Lactantius (240-330): "And power will be given him [Antichrist] to desolate the whole earth for forty-two  months....When these things shall so happen, then the righteous and the followers of truth shall separate themselves from the wicked, and flee into solitudes" – The Koine Greek  used here literally translates ‘high remote wilderness’ - (Divine Institutes,  VII, 17).

 Isaiah 13:2 Lift up a banner on a bare mountain; make the voice rise to them; wave the hand that they may enter the gates of nobles. 3. I have commanded My holy ones; I have also called My warriors for My anger, those exultant at My majesty. 4. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as of a great people! A noise of tumult of the kingdoms of nations gathered together; Jehovah of Hosts is calling up an army for the battle.

 Interestingly, the ‘enter’ or ‘go’ translated from the Hebrew bô' in Isaiah 13:2 and the grammar of the sentence carries the idea of being offered to obtain, or being granted, nobility to any Christian who joins God’s army in the mountains. Since the idea of the ‘go to the mountains’ verses in prophecy also carry the underlying promise of provision and protection, this then dovetails perfectly with Matthew 24: 45-47:

Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord has made ruler over His household, to give them food in due season?  Blessed is that servant whom his Lord shall find him doing so when He comes.  Truly I say to you that He shall make him ruler over all His goods.

This because the Koine Greek word trophē translated as ‘food’ in verse 45 is used in the aorist tense here, with a sentence structure that implies both the literal and figurative; i.e. nourishment or rations of both ‘food’ for the body and spirit. Thus, if we are in the mountains prepared to feed and spiritually prepare God’s army, we will be granted the nobility of rulers.

Be assured that this is an offer very few Christians will even recognize, let alone take, due to the prevalence of ‘itching ear’ teachings in the Church. Which means the vast majority of Christians who escape to the mountains when they finally recognize that they ARE “…passing through it, hard pressed and hungry…” will do so with only the clothes on their back (See Isaiah 8:20-22).

 Proverbs 22:3 A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.

Monday, November 18, 2013

America in Prophecy & the New World Order


For too long a true understanding of Biblical prophecy, especially as concerns the United States, has been largely impossible for the reasons that Hebrew syntax and Hebraisms, and Koine Greek verbs and prepositional phrases do not lend themselves well to a literal word for word translation into English. Indeed, one Koine Greek verb can take three sentences to correctly translate. Further complicating this has been denominational prophetic errors that were force fitted into reading the Bible, skewing a plain understanding of prophecy.

Denominations have also struggled to keep their teachings rather than allow the correction of numerous errors that advanced manuscript criticism has allowed to be corrected through a better understanding of Hebrew and Koine Greek grammar and usage; archeology has played no small role in proving the usage of many hotly disputed Greek verbs. Notwithstanding this denominations have fought long and hard to maintain their long held traditions, especially in prophecy.

As I have stated elsewhere: “…that we in the Body of Christ have lost sight of one of the main principles of Bible study and the Word’s correct application. It was the guiding principle of the Protestant Reformation, and we would do well to return to it. It is “sensus literalis”, or the principle of the literal interpretation of the scripture as first defined by Martin Luther…. ‘Therefore, any attempts at “harmonization” must be foremost in the resolution of any clear contradictions of a proposed supposition of a scriptures’ meaning by another scripture. Failing this, any understanding of the intent of scripture becomes one of a reliance on human supposition only. Thus, “Chances are if the plain sense makes sense, you have the right sense’”

The main glaring mistake in misunderstanding the prophecies in the Old Testament are in the misunderstanding of the Hebraisms of linguistic cues. The Lord often uses linguistic cues as a contextual safeguard in transition from the subject in one passage of scripture to the next, to guard against a misunderstanding of ‘who’ a passage is targeted to. Judah ben David (one of the first Hebrew grammarians to expound on the prophets’ use of a form of the past tense mixed with the present perfect tense in referencing future events), wrote extensively on the recognition of these linguistic cues with their combination of the past and present perfect tense.

It must also be remembered that most Biblical prophecy has a ‘near’ (soon after the prophecy was written) and a ‘far’ (into the distant future) interpretation. What this means is that both the ‘near’ and ‘far’ applications of the prophecy are intertwined with textual cue verses, or Hebraisms to delineate the targeted applications of the prophecy being dealt with.

The Old Testament Book of Obadiah is a perfect example of misunderstood prophecy. It was likely written between 848 and 840 B.C. However, the total destruction of Edom took place between 1060 and 1030 BC as recorded in 1 Kings 11:15-16, which means that the book of Obadiah was written to the nation of Edom 200 years after they had been destroyed. The question then becomes to whom the book could be talking to?

 It is recorded that Jacob, father of the nation of Israel and who was later renamed Israel, had a fraternal twin brother named Esau, who was the father of the nation of Edom. Taking into consideration the obvious Hebraism of addressing a nation long destroyed, it can be surmised that this book is addressing a nation as close as a brother to Israel; one who is known for great hunters/warriors as Esau and the nation of Edom were, and that was known as a great world center of advances in and manufacturing of the weapons of war, such as Edom’s city of Teman.

1Kings 11:15 “For it happened when David was in Edom, and Joab the commander of the army had gone up to bury the slain, after he had stricken every male in Edom--16 ‘for Joab remained there six months with all Israel, until he had cut off every male in Edom.”

Further, it is scripturally and historically recorded that one of the King of Edom’s relatives Hadad, escaped to Egypt and there married Pharaoh’s daughter and raised a family. These decedents of the Edomite King later returned to Edom, but after several years of harassing King Solomon ended up as vassal servants of Israel. When they revolted around 810 BC, they were crushed and wiped out; just as the ‘near’ part of the prophecy in Obadiah foretold. Even during the few years Hadad and his band of family and men did harass Israel, they did so largely as in guerrilla style warfare; thus, Edom never returned to a strong kingdom again after King David destroyed it.

It is necessary to point out here that only two nations in all of history were dedicated to God at their start, the United States with the Mayflower Compact and Israel with their desert commission. Thus, you find the United States as an older brother to Israel in their current reincarnation as a nation. This fact is necessary to remember when studying prophecy as it is written that “…He is able to guard [what has been] entrusted to Him until that Day.” This means that whatever is dedicated to God, He will watch over until the end.

Obadiah begins with a call for nations to rise against ‘Edom’, immediate cue that the actual Edom is not being dealt with, as it was Israel that first destroyed Edom; it then in the second verse uses a sarcastic Hebraism to project this prophetic application into the future; it can be seen as sarcastic when the next verses reveal that THIS Edom is a powerful nation, but small to God. The next two verses deal with the intended prophetic subject of a nation that considers itself in a highly defensible position, has a rather high opinion of itself and believes itself undefeatable. Soaring high ‘like’ the eagle, it has made its home between the stars (literal application of the Hebrew grammar here ‘between the earth and the stars’); God announces that from there He will bring it down.

While this, from the rendering, conveys the idea of a nuclear or other airborne attack, the next two verses show that this is an airborne invasion, which brings hordes of rampaging and looting soldiers. Indeed, verse seven shows that countries allied with this nation that soars like the eagle, while it is off fighting for the alliance, invade and overcome it; the wording here meaning that this nation’s own food will be used in subduing it. Read here: come turn your weapons in and United Nations will feed you; which fits exactly with General George Washington’s Vision for America.

While verse eight cues into further near upcoming dealings with the remnant of Edom that revolt against serving Israel, the following verses are intertwined with the reasons for God having dealt in judgment for both ‘Edoms’: Brothers standing back and doing nothing as Jerusalem is divided and the land of Israel is plundered and given away. Whether or not anyone else is, God is a Zionist who is going to give it to the nations that mess with Israel, soon.


However, the United States of America, our beloved Republic survives, as like General Washington’s vision relates, when we repent, kneel, and with one voice cry out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and our Lord Jesus. At that moment the heavens break and legions of angels with drawn swords join our mortal battle with the “army of the blue flag”, we take heart and begin to fight again and finally prevail! Then the Angel with “Union” on its crown announces to General Washington “Son of the Republic, look and learn! As long as the stars hang in the heavens and the dew falls from the sky, THIS UNION SHALL STAND!”

The prophetic scriptures bear this out as we find a terrible fair-skinned nation mentioned in Isaiah 18. It is directed to a land ‘beyond’ Ethiopia, but this is another Hebraism as the word translated “beyond” is two Hebrew words meaning ‘like but above, across a region or LARGE distance’. The “Woe” is a textual cue of a prophet projection into the future as an exclamation, more probably “Oh!” or “Ho!”, as can be seen by the “shadowing with wings” literally: ‘covered over head with flying’. Also of note is the word “rivers” in this verse is translated from a word meaning ‘large river or sea’. Thus verse one is best translated: “Ho! To the land covered over head with flying, like but better then Ethiopia and across the large sea from it.” (Ethiopia had for years before being subjugated by Egypt, been known for trying to keep peace among the central African nations with their ambassadors. They also had a large population of Jews that were a respected part of their population.)

Verse two of this chapter is even more revealing as to WHOM this prophecy is directed: “That sends ambassadors across the sea in weapons WITH words, across the waters, SEND swift messengers to a nation of tall, light skinned and independent people, dreadful from their beginning onward; a nation for measuring (other nations is the sense implied) that tramples down, whose land the rivers divide”; a pretty good description in ancient Hebrew of the United States.

Verse three is God gathering His Army in the mountains (SEE ‘Take My People to the Mountains’ post), RIGHT before His early harvest season return verse 4 and 5; then the verse 6 Battle of Armageddon.

In verse 7 we see these light skinned tall people from across the sea, whose nation the rivers divide, a nation of people for measuring others that are terrible from their birth on ward, powerful and trampling underfoot other nations, SHALL BRING PRESENTS TO THE LORD OF HOST IN ZION! This Union shall survive! This Republic SHALL STAND! We Will OVERCOME THE New World Order!