Halt! Who Goes There? Friend or Foe?

God’s love: infinite, abundant,unreserved,unconditional.

God so loves the world, that there is not one person, living or dead, that Jesus did not die for. The apostle Paul says that if God was so willing to give His Son, He along with His Son willingly offers everything else also (Romans 8:32). This without any doubt includes all the advice, counsel, and directions in order that we may find our way to Him (Jeremiah 6:16; Matt.7:14; Hebrews 1:1-3;12:1,2; 1 Peter 2:2:21-25) along with all the warnings of the pitfalls, dangers, and wrong paths that may lead us astray.God has clearly described the full gospel, demonstrated His love, proclaimed His grace and mercy, and He has defined sin, exposed heresy, exposed our enemies, and repeatedly warned us of Satan’s many varied and subtle deceptions that would lead us into a false hope (John 10:10; Isaiah 45:19; Amos 3:7; Isaiah 8:19,20). When time comes that we must face our Maker, we will have no excuse.

The Way

The Way

The following lesson is intended as a means by which the reader may gain a perspective of God’s plan of salvation that gives him an understanding of the ‘bigger picture’.  The intent is to form a picture of history, of God’s purpose for mankind, and relate it all to the gospel using the Old Testament sanctuary as the model. The following is not an’ optional extra’ to the Christian faith, it is an essential understanding by which all may know that they are on the right path, for God Himself drew the plans.  In order to gain this better appreciation of our way to life, we must start at the beginning. At the very beginning of the conflict between good and evil, to the place where sin and rebellion had its woeful genesis.

Counterfeit Christianity?

Is this possible? Could it be that there may be, in these last days, a  “Christian” religion that will take the world by storm attracting many millions into her fold while all the while being an apostate or false religion? Will the majority of people on this planet be sucked into her lies and deceptive teachings and at the same time persecute the minority of true believers? Two opposing churches both claiming to speak the truth, both claiming Christ as her head and Saviour, yet both having contrary destinies? The Book of Revelation reveals some startling insights into the characters of the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Dragon.
Look carefully.

The counterfeit I speak of is far more than just a poor copy of God’s church. It is a counterfeit God. The Antichrist is a substitute god for the real God. The Antichrist shows himself that he is God, (2 Thess.2:4) thus the worship that goes to him is also counterfeit.

Carefully study the following. They are comparisons revealing the true from the counterfeit.

Dragon/Satan.
His place in heaven (Rev 12:3, 7, 8.)
He has a throne. (Rev 13:2; 2:13)
Gives throne, power, and authority to sea-beast. (13:2,4.)
He is worshipped. (13:4a)
Destroyed forever. (20:9,10)

Now compare:
God the Father
Dwelling in heaven (Rev 4, 5)
He has a throne. (4:5; 7:9-15; 19:4)
Gives throne, power and authority to Jesus. (Math 28:18 Rev 2:27; 3:21; chapters 4,5.)
Is worshipped. (Rev 4:10; 15:4)
Lives and reign forever. (4:9; 5:13; 11:15)

The Land-beast or false prophet.
Called the false prophet because he deceives people with regards to religious matters. (16:13; 19:20; 20:10)
Lamb-like. (13:11)
Exercises all authority of sea-beast. (13:12a)
Directs worship to sea-beast. (13:12b,15)
Performs signs. (13:13; 19:20)
Brings fire down from heaven (13:13)
Gives breath/life to beasts image (13:15)
Applies mark of beast. (13:16)

Now compare:
The Holy Spirit
Called the Spirit of truth guiding people. (Jn 16:13 Rev 22:17)
Christ-like, in fact is the very Spirit of Christ. (Jn 14:26; 16:14; Romans 8:9,10)
Exercises authority of Christ (Jn 16:13, 14)
Directs our attention to Christ (Acts 5:29-32)
Fire from heaven at Pentecost (Acts 2)
Instills life to us, the image of Christ, His character. (Romans8:11,29; 2 Peter 1:3,4.)
Applies seal of God. (2 Cor 1:22 Eph 1:13 4:30 Rev 7:3, 4.)

The sea-beast or antichrist.
Comes from water to begin activity. (13:1)
Resembles dragon. (12:13 13:1)
Ten diadems. (13:1)
Ten horns (13:1)
Receives power throne and authority from dragon/Satan. (13:2,4)
42 months of activity in first phase. (13:5)
Was slain (13:3)
Resurrected (13:3)
Receives worship after healing (13:3,4,8)

Now compare:
Jesus Christ
Comes from water to begin ministry (Luke 3:21-23)
Resembles Father (Jn 14:19)
Many diadems (Rev 19:12)
Lamb has 7 horns (5:6)
Receives power throne and authority from His Father (Math 28:18 Rev 2:27 Chapters 4,5)
42 months of ministry in initial phase. (Gospel of John)
Was slain (Rev 5:6)
Was resurrected (Rev1:18)
Received worship after resurrection (Math 28:17)

For those who would indulge in thinking that perhaps Islam or some other religion or religious leader is the Antichrist, I would remind them that counterfeits are copies of the truth. You do not get counterfeit $99 notes. The counterfeit religion, the counterfeit god, the counterfeit worship of the last days, Babylon the Great, is a quasi Christian form of worship, a Christian God, a Christian form of church. That my friends is what makes it so dangerous, so deceptive.

It is imperative  that we must understand the original before we can identify the false. That is what counterfeit experts do. They are so familiar with the real, that the false becomes obvious. We also must become absolutely familiar with the real Christ, we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth, then, and only then, can we hope to recognise the dangers that the Antichrist possesses. It is from this viewpoint that this study has evolved. It was through the reformer’s close relationship with the true Lord that their conclusions were drawn. I believe I pointed this out in a previous post.
But it must be remembered and recognised that the apostolic church was an organised church. It was not an ad hoc ensemble of individual congregations all doing their own thing. Even the apostle Paul went to Jerusalem to confer with the church leaders, the apostles, to confirm whether he was in fact preaching the true gospel. And as the church grew, particularly in later centuries in Britain and the far East, church leaders were appointed to encourage, teach, lead and guide the church in missions and church life. These churches flourished and grew from strength to strength, and made massive miraculous and life changing inroads into the incumbent ruling paganism of those days, in countries from as far afield as Ireland to Arabia, and from Ethiopia to Scandinavia, from India to China. And all within 2 to 3 hundred years from the time of Christ. These churches must never be confused with the church / state union that emanated from Rome in the 6th century and became the bitterest enemy of Christ’s church for over a 1000 years.

Related articles

• The *beast from the earth – Revelation 13:11-18 (brakeman1.com)

The Beasts of Daniel…an overview.

The chapter in which these creatures appear is Daniel 7. But to understand the context, one must go back to Daniel 2 where a vision is given and an explanation of the meaning of a statue. It had a head of gold, chest of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. Then a rock from heaven comes down and destroys the whole thing.
This statue represented 4 empires to come, beginning from Daniel’s time, each one superceding the one before, and the final to continue right down to the second coming of Christ, which the rock represents.
The first kingdom was Babylon. The second, Meda – persia, the third Greece, and the fourth, Rome. Rome would continue till our day except in a different form. The iron on it’s own was pagan Rome, the mixture of iron and clay is papal Rome. So Rome continues to exist, but as a church/state union.

What happens in chapter 7 is the same pattern of empires but with much greater detail. A lion representing Babylon, a bear representing Meda-Persia, a Leopard representing Greece, and a horrible indescribable beast representing Rome. Out of this last beast grows 10 horns, plus another which grew up among them, and displaces 3 of them.

Characteristic seven, part C

But now we must take a look at another movement in Great Britain which was destined to derail the Protestant prophetic hermeneutic.
In 1825 a small group of men, dissatisfied with the spiritual condition of the Protestant Church in Ireland, met in Dublin to spiritually strengthen one another. Soon other groups were formed in Ireland and in England. The most famous of these was the one in
Plymouth.
This group came to be known as the Plymouth Brethren. Among the notables in these fellowships were Edward Irving, Dr. S. P. Tregelles and John Nelson Darby (who joined in 1827). At some point during this time, Edward Irving heard some mysterious utterances in an unknown tongue telling him that there was going to be a secret rapture of the church before the visible coming of Jesus.
This was a new concept in the incredible journey of futurism. Futurists
themselves will admit that this idea was alien to the Christian church until the 19th century. Dr. S. P. Tregelles, who, as we have noted, for some time belonged to the Plymouth Brethren movement but later abandoned it describes Irving’s experience:
“I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there would be a secret rapture of the Church at a secret coming, until this was given forth as an utterance in Mr. Irving’s church, from what was there received as being the Voice of the Spirit. But whether anyone ever asserted such a thing or not, it was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology arose. It came not from Holy Scripture, but from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God.” (S. P. Tregelles, The Hope of Christ’s Second Coming, first published in 1864, and now available at Ambassadors for Christ, Los Angeles, California).

Characteristic seven, part B

But we must now turn to the other Jesuit scholar: Francisco Ribera (1537-1591), from Salamanca, Spain. Ribera was a brilliant student who specialized in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He received a doctorate in theology from the University of Salamanca and joined the Jesuit Order in 1570 when he was just 33 years old.
Before we analyze Ribera’s methods of prophetic interpretation we must underline that the Early Church fathers (not the New Testament writers!!) had certain futuristic elements in their eschatology. They almost unanimously believed that the “restrainer” of II Thessalonians 2 was the Roman Empire. They also believed that as soon as the Empire fell apart, a literal evil individual would arise to rule the world for three and a half literal years. (See, George Eldon Ladd, The Blessed Hope, pp. 28-31 where he presents, for example, the views of Lactantius and Hippolytus).
In all fairness to these Church Fathers, we must remember two things:

1) They did not expect the history of the world to last another 2000 years. They believed that the coming of Christ was in the foreseeable future.

2) Prophecy is usually not understood in its fulness until the times of fulfillment.
Jesus Himself explained to the disciples: “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.” (John 14:29).
The Gospels reveal that the disciples of Jesus totally misunderstood and misapplied Bible prophecy before the resurrection. It was not until after the fulfillment of these prophecies that their hearts burned within them as Jesus opened unto them the Scriptures (Luke 24:32). History proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the meaning of the prophecies becomes clearer and clearer as the time of fulfillment draws near (see, II Peter 1:19).
The Early Church Fathers lived in the time of the fourth beast (Rome). The Empire had not yet crumbled into ten kingdoms. The little horn had not yet risen. The best they could do was guess about the identity of the Antichrist.
But the Protestant Reformers did not need to guess. They had the benefit of looking back at over one thousand years of church history and saw, with their own eyes, what the Early Church fathers could not have foreseen.

Characteristic Seven

“Think to change times and laws”. (Daniel 7:25)

What, then, is the meaning of the word “times”? An examination of the context will make it crystal clear. Let us go back in our minds to Daniel 2. We all remember the story. God gave the king a dream and when he woke up he couldn’t remember it. So the wise men of Babylon were called in, but they were unable to tell the king the dream or its meaning. Finally, through Daniel, God reminded the king of his dream and provided the interpretation. Even before Daniel described the dream and its meaning, the king was informed: “Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all.”(Daniel 2:37-38)
God then proceeded to tell Nebuchadnezzar how history would unfold. Babylon would be succeeded by Medo-Persia, Medo- Persia would be followed by Greece, Greece would be supplanted by Rome, Rome would be divided into ten kingdoms and then God would set up His everlasting and indestructible kingdom. In short, God was telling Nebuchadnezzar: “Human history is under my control. I enthrone rulers and I depose them. I am able to predict precisely how historical events will unfold, and history will develop precisely as I have preestablished.” This is what Daniel meant when he said that God “changes the times and the seasons, removes kings and sets up kings”. It is God who reveals and determines the calendar of prophetic events!! Daniel 3 informs us that Nebuchadnezzar was unhappy with God’s prophetic scenario, so he built an image like the one he had seen in his dream but this one was made of gold from head to foot.
Most Bible scholars have totally missed the main point of Nebuchadnezzar’s rebellious act. The central issue is not worship or even obedience. The critical issue is, who controls human history.

Daniel; Part One.

The following article dwell principally upon the seventh and eighth chapters of the book of Daniel, with a particular focus on identifying the commonly termed “little horn”. The identity of this entity has been the subject of debate and argument for centuries, however, in our day we have been given great light, and we are now able to view history from a perspective unrealised by former Bible students, having the advantage of a more complete panorama  of the history of the empires and kingdoms involved. Also, God Himself has promised in the book of Daniel that readers in the latter days would understand the visions.These visions also hold the key to understanding the book of Revelation, for much information and symbolism is repeated in John’s book, along with an enlarged vision which provides the Bible student with a great deal more insight.

A principle of understanding prophecy, particularly those of Daniels is that later prophecies are repeats of earlier ones, but magnified and inclusive of much  more detail. With that in mind, we shall begin in chapter 2 with the vision King Nebuchadnezzar had of the great statue, and Daniel’s inspired interpretation of it.