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October 12, 2018

There are three woes in the book of Revelation. The first begins with the sounding of the fifth trumpet, the second with the sounding of the sixth trumpet, and the last on the sounding of the seventh trumpet.

Revelation 11:10-12
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. [11] And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. [12] And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

The great gathering of joy suddenly ends in fear as many observe the two witnesses being resurrected from the dead. I suspect the whole world will see their bodies on the Temple Mount lying stone cold dead for more than three and one half days.

They will have every reason to be frozen in fear for the resurrection precedes a great earthquake in the city of Jerusalem, which occurs in the SAME hour the two witnesses are resurrected and then ascend into heaven.

The great earthquake concludes the second woe of God, which began with the destruction of one-third of all mankind, finally ending with a tenth part of the city of Jerusalem falling down to the east of the line extending from Geba to Rimmon. The part of the city of Jerusalem to the west of the line will be listed up during the earthquake, and inhabited during Messiah’s reign.

Revelation 9:12-15
One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter. [13] And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, [14] Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. [15] And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.

Zechariah 14:10
All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin’s gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king’s winepresses.

Revelation 11:13,14
And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven. [14] The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.

The surviving remnant that gives glory to the God of heaven represents the 144,000 sealed Jews of Revelation 7:4.

Revelation 7:4
And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

They are the remnant of the Seed of Genesis 3:15, who is also the Seed of the Woman in Revelation 12:17 in the Negev Wilderness.

Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Revelation 12:5
And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

October 9, 2018

Revelation 11:8
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

The Jerusalem Temple was destroyed 25 to 30 years before Revelation was written. The estimates as to when John wrote the Book of Revelation range from 95 to 100 AD. The temple was destroyed in 70 AD just as Jesus had prophesied some 40 years earlier. The physical sacrifices continued to be offered until approximately 70 AD, but they were no longer spiritually accepted by God after the veil of the temple was ripped from top to bottom while Christ was one the Cross. He declared it would be rendered spiritually desolate when Israel made its final rejection of him, thereafter to remain in that condition until they saw him at his Second Advent. No sacrifices from Israel have been spiritually acceptable to God since the Temple, the house of God, was made spiritual desolate by His Son.

Matthew 23:37,39
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! [38] Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. [39] For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Matthew 27:50,51
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. [51] And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

Jesus will return at His Second Advent, the Temple of Ezekiel will be built, and He will rule from Jerusalem over all the earth.

Matthew 24:30
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Ezekiel 43:1-5
Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east: [2] And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory. [3] And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city: and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face. [4] And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. [5] So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house.

Zechariah 14:8,9
And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. [9] And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.

After the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the disciples compared it to being judged like Sodom and Gomorra for its sin of rejecting its Messiah, hence John’s reference to Jerusalem as being as Sodom and Gomorrah.

Revelation 11:9
And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.

It would seem that in the case of Lazarus, Jesus let him remain in the grave for four days before He resurrected him, because He wanted no doubt in the minds of those mourning that Lazarus was stone cold dead. I admit that is speculation on my part, as is my opinion that God left the two witnesses on view for three and one half days so ALL could see them and no doubt would later say they were not really dead.

Revelation 11:10
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

October 1, 2018

In Part 10 an attempt was made to prove the beast of Revelation 11:3 comes up the shafts of the abyss (pit) in the interior of the earth, and that he is the antichrist as opposed to the false prophet. In the book of Revelation, at times, the beast is the final evil empire itself. However, at times it refers to its final king, a person, who is antichrist. In Revelation 11:7 it refers to the antichrist as a person.

Revelation 11:7
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

I am convinced that the antichrist himself represents the king of the seventh head on John’s first beast. And that he will suffer a killing wound by a weapon of war and die physically, after which he will apparently be resurrected from the dead. Whether the resurrection will be phony or genuine, I cannot say, but the world will believe it.

Revelation 13:3,4
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. [4] And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

A “deadly” wound is one that leads to a man’s death. He will apparently die stone cold dead, and then return to life. This is what the world has always wanted to see as a mass congregation, a man who actually comes back from the dead. They will worship this man as being from the true God, but in reality they will be worshipping the one who indwells him, the Dragon Satan. They will worship Satan through his son antichrist by the leadership of the spirit of the false prophet, an ungodly false trinity that counterfeits the true trinity. And it is easy to understand why they wonder after him, saying, “who is able to make war with him.” How do you defeat a man who can keep coming back to life?

The premise of him being a resurrected man appears several times in Revelation.

Revelation 13:12,14
And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
[14] And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

By Chapter 17 the seventh head, on the beast in Chapter 13, which was bleeding, has stopped bleeding, and the 10 horns have surrendered their crowns to it. The color of the beast has changed to scarlet, the color of blood, and this may signify the antichrist as informing the world his blood from the deadly wound was shed for their freedom. And it has long been taught that when Satan counterfeits the works of God, he tries to paint as authentic a duplicate as possible.

Revelation 13:1
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

Revelation 17:3
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

Revelation 17:8
The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

The antichrist was (was alive), and is not (he died from a deadly wound), and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit (be resurrected by coming up the shaft from the abyss), and shall go into perdition (the lake of fire burning with brimstone). The antichrist that was (was alive), and is not (he died), and yet is (he came back to life). When does he go into perdition (final destruction by God)?

Revelation 19:20
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

The bleeding head on the beast of Chapter 13, and the healed head on the beast in Chapter 17, are the seventh and eighth kings, who are one and the same, and both are the antichrist. The first five horns represent the kings of the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Grecian Empires that came before John, and the sixth horn represents the kings of the Roman Empire, which existed in John’s day. All of these empires had an effect on Israel in varying degrees of persecution. The seventh empire that is now afflicting Israel is an Islamic Empire, and soon it will also have a king. He will be the seventh king, but will die from a deadly wound, which will end his reign as the seventh king. But he will return from the dead to also be the eighth and last of the kings that afflict Israel.

September 24, 2018

We have come a long way in this series. Now we come to an area of great controversy in interpretation. The great controversy revolves around the answer to the question: Who or what is the beast that ascends out of what is said to be a “bottomless pit.”

Revelation 11:7
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

The “bottomless pit” is in the heart of the planet earth. Most geometric objects have a bottom. Among objects having a bottom would be the square, the rectangle, the triangle, the prism, the cube, the cylinder, the hexagon, and many others. But the earth is shaped like none of these, it is an oblate spheroid, and has no bottom. If one started digging a bottom would never be found. And, if it were possible dig through it, a person would surface on the opposite side, never having found a bottom. The earth has a center, but is bottomless. The Koine Greek word translated as “bottomless pit” is “abussou,” from which our English word “abyss” is derived. The reason they translated it as “bottomless pit” in the KJV was in harmony with its use in other places in Revelation as a companion to the Koine Greek word “phreatos,” which in the English means “shaft.” One such usage occurs in Revelation 9:1, where the phrase “the bottomless pit” is translated from “phreatos tes abussou.” Phreatos means “shaft,” tes is “of the,” and abussou means “abyss” or “pit.” Sinply stated: “The shaft of the abyss.”

Revelation 9:1
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

Please note that the word “earth” appears in this verse. It is translated from “gen,” which means “earth.” I am telling you this because some believe that “the beast” of Revelation 11:7 is the false prophet, the second beast of Revelation 13:11, who comes up out of the “earth.” They say “the earth” in 13:11 is the same as “the abyss” found in 11:7. It does not seem reasonable that John would use “bottomless pit” (abyss), really meaning “the earth, since he had used the words separately when referring to the false prophet of 13:11 and the Antichrist of 11:7.

Revelation 13:11
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

The bottomless pit is filled with demonic spirits, fallen angels, with a king over them named “Destroyer” in both Hebrew and Greek. He is over the weapons of Satan’s destruction of the earth and mankind, those weapons being the demonic spirits of the tormenting locusts in Revelation 9:3-11, and the killing spirits of the army of demons in Revelation 9:13-19. He is the Destroyer king of Satan that unleashes the three woes of his destruction upon the earth in the fifth, sixth, and seventh trumpets, which contain the three woes.

Revelation 9:11,12
And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. [12] One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

After the blowing of the seventh trumpet, the saved of all the ages are found being judged in heaven, while on the earth God’s wrath is about to come upon the demonic hoards that that have been engaged in destroying the earth under the demon king “Destroyer.”

Revelation 11:15
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Revelation 11:18
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

Please note: “AND SHOULDEST DESTROY THEM WHICH DESTROY THE EARTH.”

It is the wrath of God (“thy wrath”) that destroys the Destroyer’s armies with seven vials of wrath.

September 17, 2018

The abilities of the two witnesses, to carry out the work they have been given the authority to accomplish by the testimony of God, is outlined in Revelation 11:5,6. Please bear in mind that these abilities, according to the Greek text, does not necessarily infer that they will use them. It simply states they have the abilities and authority to use them, if they so desire. The President of the U.S. has the authority and ability to unleash atomic weapons, but he may never choose to do so. It is the fact that he has both the authority, and the ability, to do so, which has kept our enemies from launching them against us.

Revelation 11:5
And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

Kenneth Wuest’s translation of this verse gives the best understanding of it I have yet encountered.

Revelation 11:5
And if, as is the case, anyone desires to injure them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and indeed consumes their enemies. And if, as is the case, anyone shall desire to injure them, it is a necessity that in this manner, in the nature of the case, for him to be killed.

The “fire” coming out of their mouth, used as a figure in the Old Testament as “fire” coming out from the lips of a prophet, does not mean literal fire will flow from their lips like a circus flamethrower. I believe this “fire” used in Revelation 12:5 is of the same character as the “fire” from the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet.

It refers to the word of God from their mouths foretelling what terrible fire is to come down upon the enemies of Israel.

Jeremiah 5:14
Wherefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

Jeremiah 23:28,29
The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord. [29] Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

I rather suspect the two witnesses, as prophets located in the Negev with Israel, will be warning their enemies that if they launch weapons of fiery mass destruction again Israel, they will do the same to them. The brimstone and fire that comes down so often from heaven, following the sixth seal, is an unleashing of natural phenomena by God from His creation, and this is the 1260 day period of the testimony of the two witnesses before Armageddon. The two witnesses will, at times, ask God to produce volcanic eruptions in specific areas in response to the actions of Israel’s enemies.

Revelation 11:6
These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

James 5:17-18
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. [18] And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.