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ETERNALLIFE MINISTRIES
THE MYSTERIES OF PROPHECY REVEALED
BY: HARRY
A. PEYTON
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
(8)
INTERPRETING
THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE (8)
The Literal Method vs the Allegorical Method
of Interpreting Prophecy
The Historical, Grammatical, and Lexical vs
Spiritualization
Understanding the
Premillennialist’s Belief System
Premillennial Dispensationalism
Early
Premillennialists Wrote Against the Amillennialists and
Preterists, Who Spiritualize Away the Clear Teaching of Prophecy
Understanding
the Amillennialist’s and Preterist’s Belief System
Ancient
History Emphatically Declares the Apostle John Wrote the Book of Revelation in
96 AD
A Rebuttal of the False Allegorical Method of Interpreting
Prophecy
Amillennialist and Preterist Spiritualization Method of
Interpreting Mathew 24
Dr. Luke’s Interpretation of the Order of Events of Matthew
24
CHAPTER
1: THE TIME SCRIPTURES OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION (31)
CHAPTER
2: REVELATION CHAPTERS ONE THROUGH TWENTY-TWO (36)
THE
SEQUENTIAL ORDER OF EVENTS FROM 96 AD TO THE PRETRIBULATION RAPTURE AND
RESURRECTION
REVELATION
CHAPTERS ONE THROUGH THREE (37)
THE
FIRST TIME SCRIPTURE: The Things that Must Shortly Take Place Starting from 96
AD (Rev 1:1 & 22:6)
THE
SECOND TIME SCRIPTURE: The Things that You Have Seen (Rev
1:10-19)
THE THIRD TIME SCRIPTURE: The Things that Are Now Taking Place in Seven
Churches of
and the Things that
The
The
The
The
The
The
The
REVELATION
CHAPTERS FOUR- FIVE (63)
THE
FOURTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Things that Will Take Place in the
Midst of the Laodicean Church
Period Rev 1:19, 4:1 - 5:14)
The Pretribulation Rapture of the Philadelphian Christians,
and the Resurrection of All Overcoming Christians
of the
THE
FIFTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Seven Seal Scroll Is Closed (Rev 5:1-2)
The Events Immediately Following the Pretribulation Rapture
and Resurrection: Lucifer Strikes the World with the Ultimate Economic
Depression
The Luciferian Conspiracy for
World Government through World Depression
The International Bankers’ Luciferian Conspiracy for World
Government
The
Antichrist: His Nation, Genealogy, and Character
The
Antichrist Begins the Conquest of
THE
SEQUENTIAL ORDER OF EVENTS FOR THE FIRST THREE AND HALF YEARS OF THE SEVEN YEAR
TRIBULATION PERIOD (109)
REVELATION
CHAPTER SIX (97)
THE
SIXTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Seven Seal Scroll Is Opened and
the Events in Each Seal Takes Place
in the Sequential Numbering Order of the
Seal (Rev 6:1-12)
Overview
of the Seals
THE
FIRST SEAL: The Antichrist Becomes King of the Nation of
The Antichrist Makes a Seven-Year Military Peace Covenant
with
Biblical
Proof of a 2,000 + Year Gap between the 69th and 70th
Week of Daniel
The Biblical Prophetic Calendar Compared with the Jewish
and Christian Calendars
THE SECOND SEAL: Lucifer Gives the Antichrist Power to Bring
In World Anarchy and Conquer All Oil Producing Nations
around the Mediterranean
Sea
Biblical Evidence for World Anarchy
The
Luciferian Conspiracy for World Government through World Anarchy
The Formation of the Seventh Empire to Rule over the Nation
of
The
Nations the Antichrist Conquers the First Six Months of the First Three and
Half Years of the Tribulation Period (Dan 8:8-10)
Antichrist’s War on the Nations South of Iraq
Antichrist’s War on the Nations East of Iraq
Antichrist’s War on the Nations West of Iraq
Antichrist’s War on the Nations of North Africa (Time
Scripture: Six Months)
The Antichrist Incites the Non-Orthodox Jews in
The
Seventh Head of the Beast Represents the Empire of the Antichrist or the
Seventh Empire to Rule over the Nation of
What Do the Seven Heads of the Beast Represent?
Who Are the Seven Kings and the Empires They Established
The Formation of the
The Ten Horns or Kings of Revelation and the Ten Horns or
Kings Daniel
The Names of the Ten Kingdoms of Europe of the Revised
Vatican
THE THIRD SEAL: The Antichrist Controls All Trade in the
Southern, Central, and Southeast Asia, Middle East,
and
THE
FOURTH SEAL: The Antichrist and the Ten Kings of the
THE FIFTH SEAL: The Cry of the Laodicean Christian Martyrs
for Retribution
The First
The Time of Gog’s Russian Invasion and the Nations Involved
in It
The Reasons Why the
The Armies of the Antichrist Are Stopped from Attacking
Positioned around
the Eastern Shore of the
The Antichrist Flees from Gog’s Russian and Arab Army and
Goes to
The Antichrist Sits in God’s
The Antichrist Is Killed by Gog before the Day of God’s
Wrath’s Begins
The Decent of the Antichrist’s Soul into Lower Sheol/Hades
The Assumption that the Antichrist Was Dead for Three Days
before He Was Resurrected on the First Day of God’s Wrath
THE
SEQUENTIAL ORDER OF EVENTS FOR THE LAST THREE AND HALF YEARS OF THE SEVEN YEAR
TRIBULATION PERIOD (183)
THE
SIXTH SEAL: The Sixth Seal: the Events that Occur at the Beginning
of this Seal
The Return of the Two Jewish Prophets
THE
END OF THE SIXTH SEAL: The First Day of God’s Wrath Begins
Large
Meteorites Smashing into the Earth Causes It to Move Out of Its Orbit a Little
Closer to the Sun (Rev 6:12-17)
REVELATION
CHAPTER SEVEN (151)
The Sealing of the 144,000 Jews with the Name of God
and Holy Spirit as the First Day of God’s Wrath Begins
The Midtribulation Resurrection of All Overcoming
Laodicean Christian Martyrs
The Russian Navy Is Destroyed by Enormous Tsunami Waves
in the
The Earth Moving out of Its Orbit Causes Gog’s Army and the
Antichrist’s Army to Become Terrified and Return to Their Own Country and Homes
REVELATION
CHAPTER EIGHT (158)
THE
SEVENTH SEAL AND THE SEVENTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Seventh Seal Contains the
Seven Trumpets of God’s Wrath
The
FIRST THROUGH THE FOURTH TRUMPETS: The First Day of God’s Wrath Continues
THE
FOURTH TRUMPET AND THE EIGHTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Three Woes of the Fourth Trumpet Are
the 5th, 6th, and
7th
Trumpets
REVELATION
CHAPTER NINE (163)
THE FIFTH TRUMPET AND THE NINTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Events
of the First Five Months of the Last Three
and Half Years of the
Tribulation Period
Lucifer and His Angels Are Booted Out of the Atmospheric
Heaven
Lucifer Descends into the Bottomless Pit and Set Free the
Locusts
Lucifer Resurrects the Soul of the Antichrist from Lower
Sheol/Hades, and His Body from an Open Pit on the Surface of the Earth, and
Indwells Him
REVELATION CHAPTER TEN (168)
God
Promises that His Wrath, which Was Being Poured Out on the Earth and Seas, Will
End Soon with the Seventh Trumpet
REVELATION
CHAPTER ELEVEN (169)
THE TENTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Beginning of Beast Worship:
the Three and Half Years of the Antichrist’s Rule
over the Nation of Israel
and the Ministry of God’s Two Prophets
REVELATION
CHAPTER TWELVE (170)
The Antichrist Begins His Persecution the Nation of Israel
THE
ELEVENTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Three and Half Years a Remnant of the Nation of
REVELATION
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (173)
THE TWELFTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Antichrist’s New Empire of
Luciferian Beast Worship Will Last for Three and Half Years
The Seven-Headed and Ten-Horned Beast
Represents: The Eighth Empire to Rule over the Nation of
The Formation of the Eighth Empire to Rule over the Nation
of
The Antichrist Conquers Three of the Ten Horns or Kings of
The Seven Remaining Horns or Kings of
THE
END OF THE FIFTH TRUMPET AND THIRTEENTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Five Months of
Torment of the First Woe is Now Completed (Rev 9:12)
THE
FOURTEENTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The One Year, Eleven Months, and Twenty-Nine Days
of Second
The
Total Time Contained in the First through the Fifth Trumpets and the Second
is Two Years Four Months and Twenty-Nine Days
God Gives Us the Names of Some of the Nations that Will Be Involve in the Second
Gog’s North African Army Begins the Second
Battle of Gog and Magog by Attacking the Antichrist from the South,
the Antichrist then
Attacks Them with His Arab and European Army and with the Ships of
After
the Antichrist Drives Gog’s North African Army Back into Africa, Gog’s Russian
and Arab Army Attacks Israel
from the North and
Meteorites
Annihilate Gog’s Russian and Arab Army
The Nations Who Go to Sheol/Hades with Gog
REVELATION
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (184)
God Gives John the Order of the Events that Take Place in
the Last Three and Half Years of the Great Tribulation Period
God
Saves a 144,000 Jews Who Become the First-fruit of All Christians Saved in the
Tribulation Period
The
City of
God’s
Angel Warns the Inhabitants of the Earth Not to Worship the Beast or Take His
Mark
The Posttribulation Resurrection
and the End of the
REVELATION
CHAPTERS FIFTEEN AND SIXTEEN (185)
THE
FIRST THROUGH THE FIFTH PLAGUES AND THE FIFTEENTH
TIME SCRIPTURE: The Completion of God’s Wrath
on the Sun, Earth, and Waters of the Earth
Important Time Period: When Do the
THE
END OF REVELATION CHAPTERS NINE AND SIXTEEN (187)
THE SIXTH TRUMPET AND PLAGUE AND SIXTEENTH TIME SCRIPTURE:
The One Year, One Month, and One Day of the
The
Oriental Armies of the
The
Oriental Armies Are Destroyed by Meteorites
THE
SEVENTEENTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Jews Recapture
on the 1150 Day after the Antichrist Took Away their Daily
Sacrifices (Dan 8:10-14)
THE
END OF THE SIXTH TRUMPET OR SECOND WOE AND THE EIGHTEENTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The
End of the
and the Death of God’s Two Prophets (Rev 11:14)
REVELATION
CHAPTERS SEVENTEEN AND EIGHTEEN (192)
What and Who Is the Whore
of
Mystery
The City of
Beast Worship: The Antichrist and the Ten Kings of Europe
Choose to Make Zoroastrianism Their Religion and Lucifer Their god
REVELATION
CHAPTER NINETEEN (201)
The Posttribulation Resurrection of All the Overcoming Old
Testament Jewish Saints and the Great Tribulation
Laodicean Christian Martyrs (Dan 12:2; Rev 14:12-16)
THE
SEVENTH PLAGUE THE END OF THE WORLD: The Destruction of the City of
THE
SEVENTH TRUMPET OR THIRD WOE AND THE NINETEENTH TIME SCRIPTURE: The Return of
Christ to the Earth
The
Antichrist’s Army Is Destroyed
The
Antichrist and the False Prophet Are Cast into the
The Nation of
The Thirty-Seven Days that Are Added to the End of the
Seven Years of God’s Prophetic Calendar to Complete a Seven Year Solar Cycle
(Dan 12:11)
God Reconstructs a New Heaven and Earth during the
First-Seven Days of the Thirty-Seven Day Period (Rev 21:1-5; Isa 65:17-25;
66:20-24)
The Cleansing of the
in the Remaining Thirty
Days of the Thirty-Seven Day Period (Dan 12:2; Lk 13:23-29)
REVELATION CHAPTER TWENTY (211)
THE
TWENTIETH TIME SCRIPTURE: Lucifer Is Chained in the Bottomless Pit for a
Thousand Years
The Millennium and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb Begins Immediately
after the Completion of the Thirty-Seven Day Period
or Seven Solar Years (Rev
20:1-3, 6)
THE END OF REVELATION CHAPTER TWENTY AND THE TWENTY-FIRST
TIME SCRIPTURE:
The End of the Millennial Reign of Christ (Rev 20:3, 7)
Lucifer Is Loosen from the Bottomless Pit and Gathers an
Army to Dethrone Christ
Lucifer Is Hurled into the
The White Throne Judgment Begins with the Resurrection of
the Unsaved of All Ages (Rev 20:5, 11-15)
REVELATION
CHAPTERS TWENTY-ONE THROUGH TWENTY-TWO (216)
John’s
Description of the New Heaven and Earth and the New Jerusalem
CHAPTER
3: BEAST WORSHIP (217)
Will
the Antichrist’s Luciferian Empire of Beast Worship Be Worldwide
The
Mark of the Beast Revealed
The
Image of the Beast Revealed
The
Differences between the Antichrist’s Babylonian Religion of the Seventh Empire
to Rule over the Nation of Israel
and His Luciferian Zoroastrian Religion of the Eighth
Empire
The
History and Prophecies Concerning the City of
CHAPTER
4: AN EXPOSITION OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL (236)
Daniel
Chapter Two: King Nebuchadnezzar’s
Dream of a Deified Man, which Represented the Different Empires of the Past
Ages
and the
Kings Who Established the Empire
Daniel
Chapter Seven: Four Beast Kingdoms Rises Out of the Sea
Daniel
Chapter Eight: The Beast Empires of the Past
Daniel
Chapter Nine: The Seventy Weeks of Years of Daniel
Daniel
Chapter Eleven: The Wars Fought Over
and the Kings of the South –
CHAPTER
5: THE THREE PARTS OF THE FIRST RESURRECTION (253)
The
Key in Understanding Pre, Mid, and Posttribulation Resurrections in the
The
New Covenant, with Its New Birth, Will Continue until Christ Returns at which
Time the Jewish Nation Will Enter into It
The
Pretribulation Rapture of the Philadelphian Christians and the Resurrection of
All the Overcoming Christians of the
The
Midtribulation Resurrection of the Laodicean Christian Martyrs, Who Were
Martyred during the First-Three and Half Years
of the Tribulation Period, Will Take Place before the Wrath
of God Begins in the Great Tribulation Period
The
Posttribulation Resurrection of the Overcoming Old Testament Jewish Saints, and
the Great Tribulation Laodicean Christian Martyrs,
A
Study on the Parousia or Coming of the Lord
A
Study on the Trumpet of God
CHAPTER
6: BIBLICAL SIGNS OF THE LAST GENERATION (285)
Biblical
Signs that Have Been and Are Being Fulfilled in Our Generation
Was
the Antichrist Born February 4, 1962?
The Mayan Calendar: Will the New Age of Aquarius
Begin in 2012 or 2020?
George Washington’s Vision
of the Last War to Be Fought on the American Continent
CHAPTER
7: THE LUCIFERIAN CONSPIRACY FOR WORLD GOVERNMENT (299)
A
Brief History of the Treason of the International Bankers against the
The Treasonous Luciferian Private
Owned US Government Central Banking System
Presidents John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson Fight against the First Bank of the
President John Quincy Adams Fight
Against the Second Bank of the United States, America’s Second Private Owned
Central Bank
President Andrew Jackson Fight
against the Renewal of the Charter of the Second Bank of the
The Federal Reserve Banks,
Who Owns the National Debt of the
A
Brief Dated Outline of the Luciferian World Government Movements in History
The
Treasonous 1929 World Economic Depression Conspiracy
The
Treasonous World Wars I and II Conspiracies
The
Treasonous United Nations Conspiracy
APPENDIX (344)
Ante
Nicene and Post Nicene Premillennialist and Amillennialist Confirmation of
John’s Authorship of Revelation
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(349)
ENDNOTES
(350)
Copyright May 30, 1996 by
Harry A. Peyton under the title of “The
Doctrines of Christ.”
BIBLICAL
HERMENEUTICS: The author emphatically believes that the Word of God
is INFALLIBLE only in the ORIGINAL LANGUAGE it was written in, and all
translations of the Bible regardless of how good they may be are NOT
infallible. Since this is true, the author has performed Greek and Hebrew
Lexical and Grammar studies in all of his books, as well as compare scriptures
in R. Young’s Literal Translation, S. Morris’ Literal Translation, J. P.
Green’s Interlinear Bible, NAS, NIV, 1917 JPS Holy Scriptures (Jewish
Publication Society), 1985 JPS Tanakh, WTT Hebrew Masoretic OT Text, LXX (Greek
OT Septuagint), STE (Stephanus’ NT Textus Receptus), and the NT Byzantine
Textus Receptus by M. Robinson and W. Pierpont with the New King James Version
of the Holy Bible. The author whole heartedly believes he has formed his
beliefs firmly on the truths of the Bible, and not on denominational teachings.
In other words, a real student of the Word of God must study the Bible with an
open and unbiased mind, comparing Scripture with Scripture and then allow
Scripture to interpret Scripture. This author uses the ancient ANTIOCHIAN
LITERAL-HISTORICAL METHOD of INTERPRETING the Bible. Therefore, the author will
interpret all scriptures in a literal exegetical fashion, unless the language
and the context demand a spiritual interpretation. I definitely believe that
the Alexandrian Allegorical Method of interpretation by means of spiritualizing
most scriptures is an abomination to our Lord (2Pe 3:15-16). This heretical
method was made popular by the ancient Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus (13 BC-50 AD), which was later adopted by most of the
Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene Nicolatian-Balaamite Catholic Clergy.
THE
REASON WHY THE AUTHOR’S BOOKS ARE FREE: Since Almighty God, the
Lord Jesus Christ, gives His Salvation and His Word to all freely (Rev 22:17,
Mt 10:7-8, 1Co 9:16-19), all of the author’s books are given without charge.
Therefore, fell free to download them in digital form or copy them in written
form and share them with others. Since these books are copyrighted, the author
forbids any alteration of its contents, and the reproduction of them in any
form for Marketing Purposes. These books may be placed on anyone’s web page as long as the author’s Website Address is attached to it and an email is
sent to him stating the website. These books are not to be used to sell a
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THE
AUTHOR’S WRITING PREFERENCES: All capitalization in quotes from the Bible, History,
or Commentators will come from the author. All quotes from the Bible will be
from the NKJ Version of the Holy Bible, unless another version is stated. The
author in most places will quote verses from the Bible instead of commenting on
a verse and giving a reference, for he believes that the written Word of God has greater power to inspire and enlighten a heart to understand and act upon truth than the
elegant oratory, comments, or writings of any man. If any of author’s books
have been a blessing to his beloved readers, and they would like to send a love
offering to him, feel free to do so. If anyone wishes to send any biblical,
historical, or scientific materials relating to the Bible, send it to: Harry A.
Peyton; 148 Little Creek Hills RD, Alto, NM 88312; Email
address: DoctrineOfChrist@Hotmail.com. Many of the books written by the author are
filled with Historical studies from the Ante Nicene Fathers (100-325 AD),
Jewish Rabbis (The Talmud), Jewish Historian Josephus (95 AD), as well as other
ancient historians.
PREFACE
This book is written for
the multitudes of Lukewarm Christians who will not be translated in the
Pretribulation Rapture, and for all of lost humanity who do not know the saving
grace of our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. God has inspired me to
write this book to help these people understand, what will happen to them after
the Rapture of God’s Holy Overcoming Saints. This book is written to let them
know that all hope is not lost, for God will still be offering salvation to
both Jews and Gentiles during the entire Seven Year Tribulation Period;
for the precious blood of Jesus, which is offered to all believers in the New
Covenant by the New Birth, will not cease with the Rapture! In spite of what
some preachers have taught, both Jews and Gentiles can receive God’s New Birth
experience throughout this period. The infallible Word of God indisputably
declares: “Then I saw the souls of those who
had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the Word of
God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and
had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands.
And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Rev 20:4).
The salvation of the Laodicean Christian Martyrs in the Tribulation Period can
only be possible through the New Covenant of Jesus’ Precious Sinless
Blood (Mt 26:28; Heb 9:22; 1Pe 1:18-20); therefore, God will have a Church on earth until the very last day of the Tribulation Period. In fact,
the entire Nation of Israel will enter into the New Covenant,
through the New Birth, when the Savior returns to the earth with His angels and
saints (Eze 36:22-36; Jer 31:31-34; Joel 2:28-32). This doctrine will be thoroughly
examined later!
This book is designed to
help both Children of God and the lost to prepare themselves for the Wrath of
God that will soon be poured out on the entire earth. If mankind thinks they
can escape the Wrath of God, when they can condone and even promote the murder
of their own children on the altars of Molech (Deu 12:31 also Moloch) in
their abortion clinics, and worship the Greek Culture with its nudity,
immorality, and ungodly value system, they will soon have a rude awaking from
their sleep of death. Jesus spoke of the Wrath of God in the Great Tribulation
Period this way: “For then there will be Great
Tribulation, such as HAS NOT BEEN since the beginning
of the world until this time, no,
nor ever shall be…. Immediately after
the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not
give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven,
and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of
Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Mt
24:21, 29-30). When Jesus came to earth the first time, He came as the “Lamb of
God”, but when He comes again, He will come as the “Conquering King” (Rev
19:11-16). In His Wrath, He will destroy all of His enemies and the Greek
Culture at this time, and every sinful device and practice. God always warns
His Children just before He pours out His Wrath, just as He did before the fall
of
There was a STAR
resembling a SWORD, which stood over the city, and a COMET, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded
the war… chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about
among the clouds, and surrounding of cities…. But, what is still more terrible,
there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, FOUR
YEARS before the WAR BEGAN, and at a
time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast
whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud,
‘A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a
voice against Jerusalem and the Holy House, a voice against the bridegrooms and
the brides, and a voice against this whole people!’ This was his cry, as he
went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain
of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry
of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet
did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those
that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before.
Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort
of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was
whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for
himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone
possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, ‘Woe, woe to Jerusalem…!’
Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good
words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and
indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come. This cry of his
was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued
this ditty for SEVEN YEARS and FIVE MONTHS, without growing hoarse, or being
tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled
in our siege. [1]
Jesus
and the apostle Paul gave us many signs of the Last Generation, which are being
fulfilled in our day, but like the people in Josephus’ day, they are being ignored
by most. I firmly believe the
multitudes on earth today will be alive to experience the horrific events of
the Seven Year Tribulation Period! Time is quickly running out! Therefore, I
pray this book will help all those who want to receive the Grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ during this terrifying period. My sincere prayer for them is they
will not be deceived by False Prophets during this time, but they will
experience God’s New Birth, and if need be die as a martyr for Jesus! Dying a
martyr’s death cannot save anyone now or during this time, but the New Birth
that places a believer into the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ can!
INTRODUCTION
Why did God number the events mentioned in the Seals, Trumpets, and Vials, which was a method that was definitely NEW in Bible
prophecy? In fact, the only prophetic events God has ever given in His Word
that follows a sequential order were: “the Wars Fought Over
Palestine from 323-175 BC between the Kings of the North – Babylonia (
This author is well aware
from the many books he has read on prophecy, that most prophetic interpreters disregard
God’s NUMERICAL SYSTEM in this great Book, as though it had no real value in
understanding Bible Prophecy. Not only this, but they do the very same thing
with the WORDS and CONTEXT God uses to reveal these prophetic events. This
author avowals that he is committed to a literal interpretation of God’s
SEQUENTIAL NUMERIC SYSTEM, as well as allowing the Word of God to interpret
its own symbolism. This author strongly believes that the EVENTS in chapters
1-10 are all in a SEQUENTIAL CONSECUTIVE ORDER, which covers a period of Seven
Years; chapters 11-18 are “Inserted Events that Transpire in the Last Three and
Half Years of the Great Tribulation Period.”
Some of the questions this
book will answer are: Will the New Covenant of Jesus’ Precious Sinless Blood
end with the Pretribulation Rapture and Resurrection, if it does as some claim,
can anyone be saved without God’s grace, that is, our Savior’s Sinless Blood?
What did Jesus teach in His parables concerning the length of time His Mystery Kingdom, i.e. the Church Age, will last? Is the Antichrist a man or a spirit? Will
the Antichrist come from the nation of
Will the ten European
Kings and kingdoms be Catholic? Will the Seventh Empire of the Antichrist be
composed of European nations or will it be composed of the nations of the
Middle East, Western Asia, Southern Asia, and
BACK
TO TABLE OF CONTENTS BACK TO HOME
PAGE
INTERPRETING
THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE
The Book of Revelation is
probably the most read book of the Bible; it is also the most difficult book to
understand because of some of the symbolism used in it. It is a shame that many
biblical interpreters do not allow God to interpret His own symbols, or in
other words, scripture to interpret scripture; because of this, man has
interpreted this great book in different ways. There are two ways this book is
interpreted today, that is: the Futurist Literal Premillennialist Method and
the Allegorical Amillennialist Method, which also includes Preterism a form of
Amillennialism. The most important decision any Doctrinal Student
and Prophetic Student of the Bible will ever make is: Will they use the
Literal (Historical-Grammatical-Lexical) Method or the Allegorical
(Spiritualization) Method of interpreting God’s Infallible Word? This is a
major decision that will determine whether God’s Children become True Prophets
and True Prophetesses of God, or they
become False Prophets and Prophetesses! It will determine whether they
become SAVED or LOST in God’s sight. Therefore, my beloved readers can see how
important it is to find and use God’s Method of Interpreting His Holy Word on
ALL SUBJECTS of the Bible, especially the NEW BIRTH! This is why this section
of this book, or any other book, is the most important to understand and
believe, for it will have a direct
influence on your salvation.
The
Literal Method vs the Allegorical Method of Interpreting Prophecy
(The
Historical, Grammatical, and Lexical vs Spiritualization)
The Literal Method is the
method in which EVERY WORD in the original language has the same exact meaning
and grammatical structure as its English equivalent or counterpart. In other
words, every Greek and Hebrew Word should be understood in the same way as any
normal, ordinary usage of any English word in speech or writings of today. The
Grammatical structure and Lexical meaning of each of Gods’ Words in the
Greek or Hebrew Languages should be translated and interpreted or understood
with the very same grammatical process and exercise of common sense and reason,
which is apply to any English word in any book of today. The Literal
Historical-Grammatical-Lexical Interpretation is the only method of
interpretation that will accept the authority and declarations of the Word of
God without prejudice, and will not try to change it by omitting some of
God’s Words to fit one’s own belief system. It will investigate the language
and importance of EACH WORD in Scripture with fearless independence of one’s
own belief system. Therefore, all Believers should NOT neglect the grammar and
meaning of God’s Words by placing a mystical, spiritual, or allegorical
interpretation on them, unless one or more words used DO NOT MAKE
LITERAL SENSE or describes a BEING or an ANIMAL that you know does
NOT exist. When this happens that word or phrase, which is in symbolic
form, should be understood or interpreted ONLY by other Scriptures. The VAST
MAJORITY of ALL Scripture should be understood in a LITERAL SENSE even
those used in prophecies! Dr. F. W. Farrar in his book the History of
Interpretation speaking of the history of the Literal Method of
Interpreting Scriptures wrote:
The
The apostle Peter speaking of the
Prophecies of the Bible and how the Prophets gave them proclaimed: “Above all, you must
understand that NO PROPHECY of Scripture came about by the prophet’s OWN [idios] interpretation
[epilusis]. For PROPHECY never had its
origin in the will [i.e. the finite mind] of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried
along by the Holy Spirit” (2Pe 1:20-21, NIV). German Professor Walter Bauer, in his Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian
Literature, defined the Greek
adjective “idios (id’-ee-os)” and the noun “epilusis (ep-il'-oo-sis)” as:
pertains to, belonging or
being related to ONESELF… belonging to/peculiar to an individual… 2 Pt 1:20 one’s OWN private interpretation (#3654, revised and edited by Dr. Frederick William Danker); [and epilusis
as:] the act or process of explaining, explanation,
interpretation…. Stasagoras complains about the unfavorable
interpretation of an omen by a prophet in these words… ‘You gave the omen your
OWN interpretation’ (#2985).
The apostle Paul confirmed Peter’s
understanding of how God spoke the prophecies of the Bible into existence
through the prophets. This great apostle expressed the Infallibility of the
Word of God in the strongest language that can be found anywhere in the Greek
Language. He told Timothy, his son in the Lord: “All
Scripture is GOD-BREATHED [theopneustos] and
is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so
that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2Ti
3:16-17, NIV). Drs. Timothy and Barbara Friberg in their Analytical
Lexicon to the Greek New Testament defined the Greek adjective “theopneustos (theh-op’-nyoo-stos)” as:
of the Scriptures as
communication that has been ordained
by God’s authority and PRODUCE by
the enabling of His SPIRIT; strictly GOD-BREATHED… 2T 3.16 (#13550).
The message
God was giving through His apostles was basically this: “The Old Testament Prophets and New Testament
Apostles spoke as God’s Holy Spirit was BREATHING OUT of them, that is, giving
them the WORDS to SPEAK!” In other words, God’s Holy Spirit was NOT moving on,
that is, from the outside of them, but was BREATHING OUT of them from the
INSIDE! Therefore, the Holy Spirit was speaking through their mouth, using
their tongue and voice, and the words they were speaking were completely or
totally coming from God, as the Holy Spirit expressed God’s truths in their
matter of speaking and writing or language style!! This is why the Holy
Bible is not the product of man’s limited finite mind, but truly is the
Infallible Word of God given by God to YOU and ME!!!
The WORDS that came out of the
Old Testament Prophets and New Testament Apostles’ mouth were NOT their own
private interpretation of what God was saying to them as the Holy Spirit moved
on them, but it was the WORDS God’s Holy Spirit in them was speaking out of
them! This is why God’s Spirit speaking through the mouth of the prophets
Solomon and David could say: “EVERY WORD of God is PURE, a shield
to those who take refuge in Him. Do NOT ADD to His WORDS, lest He indict you
and you be proved a liar;” also “The WORD of the LORD are
PURE [Heb tahowr (taw-hore') or tahor] WORDS, silver purged in an earthen crucible,
refined sevenfold. You, O LORD, will KEEP THEM, guarding EACH from this age
EVERMORE” (Pro 30:5-6; Psa 12:6-7, the 1985 Jewish JPS
TANAKH translation of the Holy Scriptures, this is a
translation into contemporary English of the traditional Hebrew Masoretic text;
it is published by the Jewish Publication Society). The Theological Wordbook of the Old
Testament by Drs. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and
Bruce K. Waltke defined the Hebrew
adjective “tahor” as:
be PURE, clean…. It is used
almost exclusively of ritual or moral PURITY…. The LXX generally translates tahor
and its derivatives by katharizœ, katharos, katharismos, etc. ‘to PURIFY,’
‘PURE,’ ‘PURITY….’ In a material sense the adjective tahor is used to describe the PURE gold of the appurtenances of
the tabernacle in numerous passages in Ex…. The
WORDS of the Lord are PURE WORDS, (JB) ‘without alloy,’ as silver (Psa
12:6 [H 7]) (#792).
Our God and Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ stated this truth this way: “It is
written, ‘Man shall not live by
bread alone, but by EVERY [pas] WORD that
proceeds from the MOUTH of God” (Mt 4:4). Our Lord was quoting the Words
He spoke through the mouth of Moses. The Septuagint stated this truth this way,
God: “might TEACH thee that man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY
[pas] WORD that proceeds out of the MOUTH of
God” (Deu 8:3, Moses is the one speaking see 5:1-3; The English Translation of the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament
by Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton).
Therefore, EVERY WORD that came out of the apostles
and prophets mouth were from God and God used their mouth and tongue to
speak these WORDS. Therefore, in the Bible their mouth at that time was called
and considered to be the MOUTH of God! Since EVERY WORD was GOD-BREATHED, God
places a curse on everyone who adds to His Words or took from His
Words. Jesus speaking about His Prophetic Word in the Book of Revelation stated
this truth this way: “If anyone TAKES anything AWAY from the WORDS in the book of this
PROPHECY, God will take away his
share in the TREE of LIFE and the holy city, as described in this book”
(Rev 22:19, the Complete Jewish Bible published by Messianic Jews; also
see Deu 13:1).
Christ, as YHWH, speaking through the mouth of the
prophet Moses stated the same truth this way: “You shall
NOT ADD to the WORD which I command you, NOR TAKE FROM, that you may KEEP the
commandments of the LORD your God which I command you;” and “So you shall not turn aside from any of the WORDS
which I command you this day…. But it shall come to pass, if you do not OBEY
the VOICE of the LORD your God, to observe carefully ALL His commandments
and His statutes which I command you today, that all these CURSES will
come upon you” (Deu 4:2; 28:14-15). After reading these clear undeniable
passages of Scripture, can any honest hearted Believer deny that the Bible not
only contains the Words of God but EVERY WORD in it is the WORDS of God?
Permit
me to give you two biblical examples of how important word meaning and grammar
is in understand the teachings of the Bible: 1) Jesus rebuked the Sadducees who
did not believe the soul and spirit of man lived on after death of the body.
Jesus told them: “But
concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what
was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I AM [eimi] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob? God is NOT the God of the dead, but of the LIVING.’ And
when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. But
when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they
gathered together” (Mt 22:30-34). The Greek verb “eimi” is in
PRESENT TENSE, 1st person, and
singular number.
Since Jesus was quoting what
God spoke to Moses at the Burning Bush, let us examine that passage also.
Exodus 3:6: “I AM [Sept. eimi],’ He said, ‘the God of your father, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid
to look at God” (The 1985 Jewish JPS Tanaka Translation of the
Holy Scriptures). The Septuagint verb “eimi” is also in the PRESENT
TENSE, 1st person, and
singular number.
Let Us Now Examine the Meaning of
Jesus Teaching on the Verb Tense Used in these Passages of Scripture: God did NOT
say, “I WAS the God” or “I USE to be the God” of these Patriarchs, but sadly to
say they are now going and do not exist any longer. This is definitely NOT what
God said! The infallible Word of God definitely stated: “I AM” PRESENT TENSE “right now” their God, even though their bodies are
dead, their spirit and soul lives on. Therefore, Jesus based His doctrine of
the resurrection on a VERB TENSE against the False Prophets of His day. Now
tell me, how important do you think Hebrew or Septuagint Greek Grammar was to
Jesus’ in His understanding of the doctrines of the Bible, and also to those
who believed in Him?
2) The great apostle Paul based his revelation of
Jesus being the ONE who fulfilled the prophecy God made to Abraham ON the
GRAMMAR used in the Hebrew or Septuagint Greek Bible; that is, he based it on a
NOUN that was in the SINGULAR NUMBER. Paul said it this way: “Now to Abraham and his SEED [sperma] were the promises made. He does NOT say, ‘And to seeds,’
as of many, but as of ONE, ‘And to your SEED [sperma],’ who is Christ” (Ga 3:16). The Greek noun
“sperma” is in the dative case or an indirect object and SINGULAR NUMBER. Since
the apostle is quoting God’s Prophecy to Abraham, let us examine this passage
also. Genesis 22:18: “In your SEED [Heb.
zera` or Sept. sperma] all the nations
of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
The Hebrew noun “zera`” is in the masculine person and SINGULAR NUMBER. The
Septuagint noun “sperma” is in the dative case and SINGULAR NUMBER.
What Does All this Grammar
Mean? It means the apostle Paul when studying the Hebrew and Greek Biblical Manuscripts
of his day, paid close attention to EVERY WORD God spoke, not only the Lexical
meaning of EACH WORD God used in expressing His truths, but also the GRAMMAR He
used! This is something Amillennialist and Preterist do not do, for they
evidently do not think these things are important. Allegorical Amillennialist
Oswald T. Allis in his book Prophecy and the Church reveals the basic
difference between his Allegorical Method and the Literal Method of
interpreting prophecy when he wrote:
One of the marked features
of Premillennialism in all its forms is the emphasis which it
places on the Literal Interpretation of Scripture. It is the insistent
claim of its advocates that only when interpreted literally is the Bible
interpreted truly; and they denounce as ‘spiritualizers’ or ‘allegorizers’
those who do not interpret the Bible with the same degree of literalness as
they do…. The question of literal versus figurative interpretation
is therefore, one which has to be faced at the very outset. [3]
The Allegorical Method of
interpreting Scripture, especially Prophecy, is when the literal sense is used
as the vehicle for a secondary spiritual sense, in which the emphasis is placed
entirely on a secondary sense, and the original
words or events that are used in the literal sense have little or no
significance. In other words, they believe even though God speaks something
in clear, precise, and understandable language, He does not mean what He says
but means something entirely different! These super spiritualists totally
neglect the Words and Grammar God uses to express a TRUTH and simply use their
vain imaginations to interpret what God is saying. Premillennialist Milton S.
Terry, who believes in and uses the Literal Method, in his book Biblical
Hermeneutics speaking of the allegorical method of interpreting Scripture
through one own imagination declared:
It will be noticed at once
that its habit is to disregard the common signification of words and give wing
to all manner of fanciful speculation, … [that is,] whatever the whim or fancy
of an interpreter may desire. As a system, therefore, it puts itself beyond all
well-defined principles and laws. [4]
Dr. Farrar stated the
above truth this way:
Christianity takes the teachings of
the Old Dispensation Literally, but sees in them, as Paul, the shadow
and germ of future developments. Allegory, though ONCE used by
Let us examine the passage in
Galatians where the apostle Paul uses an allegory to illustrate a truth he was
teaching. Paul wrote: “For it is written that
Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman.
His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the
free woman was born as the result of a promise. These things MAY BE taken
FIGURATIVELY, for the women represent two covenants” (Ga 4:22-24, NIV);
and “These two women serve as an ILLUSTRATION
of God’s two covenants” (NLT). Dr. Stanley
L. Morris in his Literal Translation of
the Bible translated this verse this way: “Which
things IS BEING [esti] allegorized [allegoreo].” Dr. Jay P. Green Sr. in his Interlinear Greek-English New Testament translated it as: “Which things are being allegorized.”
Since the Greek verb “esti” is
in the PRESENT tense, active voice, indicative mood, and SINGULAR number, and
the verbal PARTICIPLE “allegoreo” is also in the PRESENT tense, this
means Paul is the one who is doing the
allegorizing not Moses! The apostle did
not say or teach that these verses were referring to a PAST allegory, which
was taught by the prophet Moses. Paul COMPARED the birth of Isaac by Sara,
which was the fulfillment of God’s promise, with the birth of Ishmael by Hagar,
which was contrary to Word of God, so he
could teach Jewish Christians that the Mosaic Covenant was nothing but a “schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ,
that we might be justified by faith….
No man is justified by the Law
in the sight of God” (Ga 3:24, 11, KJV). Dr. A. T. Robertson in his Word Pictures
in the Greek New Testament commenting on verse 24 stated:
Paul does NOT DENY the ACTUAL
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, but he simply USES IT in an allegorical sense to
ILLUSTRATE HIS POINT for the benefit of his readers who are tempted to go under
the burden of the Law…. Rabbi Akiba
for instance, who found a mystical sense in every hook and crook of the Hebrew
letters and… Christian preachers in
Jerome and many of the
Post Nicene Roman Catholic Clergy were allegorists, but the Jews in
Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher; although considered the greatest Jewish
philosopher of his age, he appropriated so completely the
doctrines of Greek philosophy that he must be considered also a
Greek philosopher who combined the elements borrowed from various sources into
an original unity…. He had an intimate knowledge of the works of Homer and of
the Greek tragedians, but his chief studies were in Greek philosophy,
especially the teachings of the Pythagoreans, Plato, and the Stoics. To Philo
the divinity of the Jewish law was the basis and test of all true philosophy.
He maintained that the greater part of the Pentateuch, in both
its historical and legal portions, could be explained allegorically, and
that its deepest and truest significance is to be found through such
interpretation…. Many of the numerous extant works of Philo are concerned
with the exposition and allegorical interpretation of Genesis and with
the exposition of the Law of Moses for Gentiles
(article: Philo Judaeus).
The
allegorical method did not come into existence through an honest study of
Scriptures, but rather out of a love for Greek philosophy and to unite the Word
of God with it! Catholic, Protestant, and Secular Historians clearly reveal
that Philo’s allegorical method of interpreting Scriptures had a great
influence over many Ante Nicene and Post Nicene Roman Catholic Clergy. Dr.
Farrar wrote:
It
was in the… catechetical
Understanding
the Premillennialist’s Belief System
Premillennialism: So my beloved readers can better understand
the subject matter, let us define and give a brief history of the terms
Premillennialism and Dispensationalism. Wikipedia, the free internet
encyclopedia, gave the following impartial history of Premillennialism. It
stated:
It is the belief that Christ will literally and
physically be on the earth for his millennial reign, at his second coming…. The
doctrine is called premillennialism because it holds that Christ’s physical return to earth will occur PRIOR to the inauguration
of the millennium. It is distinct from the other forms of Christian
eschatology such as postmillennialism or amillennialism, which view the
millennial rule as occurring either before the second coming, or as being
figurative and non-temporal. Premillennialism is largely based upon a literal
interpretation of Revelation 20:1-6 in the New Testament which describes
Christ’s coming to the earth and subsequent reign at the end of an apocalyptic
period of tribulation. It views this FUTURE AGE as a time of
fulfillment for the prophetic hope of God’s people as given in the Old
Testament….
Origin of the Term: Historically Christian premillennialism has also been
referred as ‘chiliasm’ or ‘millenarianism….’ History of
Premillennialism: Jewish antecedents to Christian premillennialism: The
concept of a temporary earthly messianic kingdom at the Messiah's coming was
not an invention of Christianity. Instead it was a theological interpretation
developed within the apocalyptic literature of early Judaism. In
intertestamental Judaism there was a basic distinction between the current age
and the ‘age to come.’ The ‘age to come’ was commonly viewed as a nationalistic
golden age in which the hopes of the prophets would become a reality for the
nation of Israel
Early
Christian Premillennialist… in the Patristic Age: For the larger part, Christian
eschatology through the second and third centuries was chiliastic. Many early
Christian interpreters applied the earlier Jewish apocalyptic idea of a
temporary Messianic kingdom to their interpretation of chapter 20 of John's
apocalypse. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian all made explicit
references to the concept of a thousand year earthly kingdom at Christ’s
coming. ‘The
most striking point in the eschatology of the ante-Nicene age is the prominent
chiliasm, or millenarianism, that is the belief of a VISIBLE REIGN of Christ
in glory on EARTH with the risen saints for a THOUSAND YEARS,
before the general resurrection and judgment.
It was indeed not the doctrine of the Church embodied in any
creed or form of devotion, but a widely current opinion of distinguished
teachers, such as Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian,
Methodius, and Lactantius, while Caius, Origen, Dionysius the Great, Eusebius
(as afterwards Jerome and Augustin) opposed it’ (Philip Schaff, History
of the Christian Church)…. Other
Early Premillennialists included… Commodianus Theophilus, Melito, Hippolytus of
Rome
Pre-Nicean Opposition to Premillennialism: The first clear opponent of
premillennialism associated with Christianity was Marcion, who is considered to
have been a heretic by most scholars…. Origen was the first to openly challenge
the doctrine. Through allegorical interpretation, he had been a proponent of
amillennialism. Although Origen was not always wholly ‘orthodox’ in his
theology, he had at one point completely SPIRITUALIZED Christ’s second
coming prophesied in the New Testament…. Even Origen’s
milder forms of this teaching left no room for a literal millennium
and it was so extreme that FEW actually followed it. But his influence did gain
wider acceptance especially in the period following Constantine
It should also be noted that Dionysius
of Alexandria stood against
premillennialism when the chiliastic work, The Refutation of the
ALLEGORIZERS written by Nepos, a bishop in Egypt
had become popular in Alexandria
Early in his career Augustine
converted from premillennialism to amillennialism…. Augustine was influenced by
the popular ALLEGORICAL interpretation of Scripture, particularly of The
Book of Revelation…. Augustine’s amillennial view laid the
eschatological foundation for the Middle Ages, which practically abandoned
premillennialism…. During the Reformation period, amillennialism continued to
be the popular view of the Reformers.
The Lutherans formally rejected chiliasm in The Augsburg Confession. ‘Art. XVII., condemns the [the greatly
persecuted and martyred] Anabaptists and others ’who now scatter Jewish
opinions that, before the resurrection of the dead, the godly shall occupy the
kingdom of the world, the wicked being everywhere suppressed….’
Historic Premillennialism: Historic, or Classic
Premillennialism is distinctively non-dispensational. This means that it
sees no radical theological distinction between
Premillennial Dispensationalism
Dispensationalism: This is a
form of the Premillennial belief system. The same above encyclopedia declared
it:
objects to Roman
Catholicism and Covenant Theology because dispensationalists do not view the
church as the promised covenanted kingdom in Old Testament prophecy. They
believe such a kingdom is still promised to the Jews during the New Testament
era (for instance, in Acts 3:19-21). Dispensationalists further believe that
the promises regarding the throne of David will be fulfilled on the earth as
Jesus reigns over the earth from Israel at his second coming….
Dispensationalists are Premillennialists who affirm a future, literal
1,000 year reign of Jesus Christ which merges with and continues on to the
eternal state in the ‘new heavens and the new earth’ (Rev. 21), and they hold
that the millennial kingdom will be theocratic in nature….
Dispensationalism
is known for its views respecting the nation of
Before Darby: …Joachim of
Fiore (1135-1202) and Thomas Brightman (1557-1607) developed a different
teaching. They related the Seven Churches in the Book of Revelation to seven ages
in the history of the church. They also divided the history in three frames:
time of the father (Old Testament), time of the son (New Testament), and
finally the time of renewing. Robert Pont (1524-1606), a Scottish theologian,
connected prophecies of the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation
and also got seven ages of mankind…. In the 1820s systematized
Dispensationalism began with the Plymouth Brethren movement, especially the
teachings of John Nelson Darby (1800–1882)….
Dispensationalism was first introduced
to
These men
were activist evangelists who promoted a host of Bible conferences and other
missionary and evangelistic efforts. They also gave the dispensationalist
movement institutional permanence by assuming leadership of the new independent
Bible institutes such as the Moody Bible Institute (1886), the Bible Institute
of Los Angeles—now Biola University (1908), and the Philadelphia College of the
Bible—now Philadelphia Biblical University (1913). The network of related
institutes that soon sprang up became the nucleus for the spread of American
Dispensationalism…. Evangelist and Bible teacher Lewis Sperry Chafer
(1871–1952), who was strongly influenced by C.I. Scofield, founded Dallas
Theological Seminary in 1924, which has become the flagship of
Dispensationalism in
Dispensationalists
teach that a REMNANT within the Nation of Israel will be BORN AGAIN, called of
God, and by grace brought to realize they crucified their Messiah.
Dispensationalism is unique in teaching that the Church is a provisional parenthesis,
a ‘MYSTERY’ PERIOD, meaning that it was not revealed in the Old Testament,
directly, which period will End with the Rapture of the Church and the Jewish
Remnant entering the Great Tribulation.
I am a
Dispensational Premillennialist and believe most of its teachings, for example:
1) The Prophetic Word of God definitely teaches a distinction between the
prophecies concerning the Nation of Israel and God’s Church. God has made with
Abraham a “Palestinian Land Covenant” that only the Nation Israel can fulfill
according to Scripture (Gen 15:18-21; cp with Exo 6:3-8). Spiritual
I definitely believe
that God has given PROGRESSIVE REVELATION of His PLAN of SALVATION to the
Patriarchs and Prophets in different Dispensations of time. The Bible reveals
that God has had ONLY ONE PLAN of SALVATION for the human race in ALL
DISPENSATION of time, that is, “the Lamb slain FROM the
foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8), or as the apostle Peter says it: Mankind can
only be redeemed by “the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish
and without spot. He indeed was foreordained BEFORE the foundation of the world” (1Pe 1:19-20).
God’s gave Adam and
mankind the promise of a Savior, for “the LORD God said to the serpent… ‘I
will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her
Seed [i.e. Christ]; He shall bruise [i.e. crush] your head, And you shall
bruise His heel’” (Gen 3:14-15). God
at that time also gave mankind the REVELATION and promise of forgiveness of
sin through the BLOOD of animal sacrifices, which can be seen in God
clothing the sin of Adam and Eve in animal skins, Abel’s animal blood
sacrifices, and the blood animal sacrifices offered up by all of God’s
Children. In the Patriarch Dispensation, this truth can especially be
seen by the Patriarch Job, who offered up blood animal sacrifices for a sin
offering for his children. The Word of God stated it this way: Job “would rise early in the
morning and offer BURNT OFFERINGS according to the number of them all.
For Job said, ‘It may be that my sons have SINNED and cursed God in
their hearts.’ Thus Job did regularly” (Job 1:5; cp with Lev 17:11). Job
lived in a time before Abraham.
God REVELATION of
His blood animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins continued through time
into the Law Dispensation. Under this dispensation we can see God’s
Passover Lamb in
God’s REVELATION of
the Seed of the Woman being Christ progressed in time: God REVEALED the lineage
of Her Seed would come through Abraham (Gal 3:16; Gen 22:18; 26:4); then He
later revealed this Promise Seed would come from the family of King David (Psa
89:3-4, 28-29; Lk 1:30-33; Acts 13:23; Jn 7:42). God also REVEALED at the
beginning of time that His Promised Seed would be bruised by Satan’s seed in
His Heel at Calvary (Psa 22:1-16; Isa 53:5-10; Mt 1:20-21; Rom 1:2-3), but
Jesus would crush Satan and his seed under His feet (Eze 28:12-19; Psa
68:21-23; Rom 16:20). Who can examine all the above scriptures and deny that
God has given His plan of Salvation through PROGRESSIVE REVEALATION in
different Dispensations of time.
I
DIFFER from Dispensational Premillennialist in their view of the Tribulation
Period and the First Resurrection; for example: 1) Pretribulationists believe
that the Church will not be on earth after the rapture, which
is before the 7-year Tribulation Period begins. 2) Midtribulationists believe
the Church will go through the first 3 1/2 years of the Tribulation Period and
then will be Raptured, after that the Church will not be on earth
any longer. 3) Posttribualtionists believe the Church will go through
all 7-years of the Tribulation Period and then is Raptured at the end.
I
BELIEVE the Pretribulation, Midtribulation, and Posttribulation Resurrection
views of Premillennialists are ALL CORRECT as far as the timing of these
events. I believe the New Covenant, with its New Birth, continues all through
the 7-year Tribulation Period, and God’s Church or Mystery Kingdom is on the
earth until the End of the Tribulation Period. Therefore, I believe the First
Resurrection is composed of ALL of the above Resurrection Events. In other
words, the Philadelphian
victorious Christians in this present Laodicean Church Period will be Raptured,
and the victorious dead saints of all other Church Periods will be Resurrected
at this time, that is, before the Tribulation Period begins. The
Lukewarm Laodicean Christians
in this Church Period will go into the Tribulation Period, in which some or
many of those who were Born-Again Christians, but Lukewarm, will pray back
through to the Holy Ghost. The denominational Christians who were deceived
concerning the New Birth, that is, those who were NEVER BORN-AGAIN Christians,
will become saved in the first 3 1/2 years of the Tribulation Period and
will be resurrected at the Midtribulation Resurrection.
The
144,000 Literal Jews, who become the First-fruits of the save among the Jews
and Gentiles, will become BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIANS in the last 3 1/2 years
of the Great Tribulation Period. They will be resurrected at the
Posttribulation Resurrection along with all the victorious Jewish Saints of the
Old Testament. This resurrection will take place at the END of the Laodicean
Church Period. I definitely agree with Dispensational Premillennialist in their
belief in Literal Historical- Grammatical-Lexical method of Interpreting
the Bible.
Early Premillennialists Wrote Against the Amillennialists and Preterists,
Who Spiritualize Away the Clear Teaching of the Word of God
180 AD, Premillennialist
Irenaeus’ Teaching on False Prophetic Teachers Ignorance of God’s
Dispensations and
The opinions of certain [teachers] are derived from heretical discourses, they are both ignorant
of God’s DISPENSATIONS, and of the mystery of the resurrection
of the just, and of the [earthly] Kingdom, which is the
commencement of incorruption…. God made promise of the earth to Abraham
and his seed; yet neither Abraham nor his seed, that is, those who are
justified by faith, do now receive any inheritance in it; but they
SHALL receive it at the Resurrection of the Just. [7]
190 AD, Premillennialist
Tertullian’s Teaching on the Literal Resurrection of the Physical Body,
and Against the Allegorical Spiritual Resurrection:
To a preceding [heretical] objection, that the Scriptures are allegorical,
I have still one answer to make — that it is open to us also to defend
the BODILY character of the Resurrection by means of the
LANGUAGE of the prophets…. We read, ‘Go, my
people, enter into your closets for a little season, until my anger pass away,
we have in the closets graves, in which they will have to rest for a
little while, who shall have at the END of the world departed this life
in the last furious onset of the power of Antichrist. Why else did He
use the expression closets, in preference to some other receptacle, if
it were not that the FLESH is kept in these closets…? What refuge of
little closets could possibly shelter us from the wrath of God?), it appears
that by the very PHRASE which he uses, ‘Until
His anger pass away,’ which SHALL extinguish Antichrist, he in
fact shows that after that indignation the flesh will come forth from the
sepulcher, in which it had been deposited previous to the bursting out of
the anger. Now out of the closets nothing else is brought than that which had
been put into them. [8]
Understanding
the Amillennialist and Preterist’s Belief System
Amillennialism: So my beloved readers can better understand the subject
matter, lets define and give a brief history of the teachings of Amillennialism
and Preterism. Wikipedia, an unbiased
encyclopedia, under the heading of Amillennialism gives the history of
Amillennialism as:
(Latin: a- ‘against’ + millennialism) is a view in Christian end-times
theology named for its rejection of the theory that Jesus Christ will have a
thousand-year long, physical reign on the earth. This is in opposition to
Premillennial and some Postmillennial views of chapter 20 of the Book of
Revelation. In contrast, the amillennial view holds that the thousand years
mentioned in Revelation 20 is a SYMBOLIC number, not a literal
description; that the MILLENNIUM HAS ALREADY BEGUN and is IDENTICAL with the
CURRENT CHURCH AGE, (or more rarely, that it ended with the
destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 — see Preterism).
Amillennialism holds that while Christ’s
reign during the millennium is SPIRITUAL in nature, at the
END of the Church Age, Christ will return in final judgment and
establish permanent physical reign…. Amillennialism also teaches that
the binding of Satan described in Revelation has already occurred; he has been
prevented from ‘deceiving the nations’ by preventing the spread of the gospel.
This is the only binding he will suffer in history: the forces of Satan will
not be gradually pushed back by the Kingdom of God as history progresses but
will remain just as active as always up until the second coming of Christ, and
therefore good and evil will remain mixed in strength throughout history and
even in the church….
Early Church: NONE of the available Church Fathers advocate amillennialism in
the FIRST CENTURY, Justin Martyr (died 165), who had chiliastic
tendencies in his theology, mentions differing views in his Dialogue with
Trypho the Jew, chapter 80: ‘I and MANY OTHERS are of this opinion [i.e.
premillennialism], and [believe] that such will take place, as you [Trypho]
assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that… [some]
Christians, think otherwise…. In the second century, the Alogi (those
who REJECT ALL of John's writings) were Amillennial, as was
Caius in the first quarter of the third century. With the INFLUENCE of
NEO-PLATIONISM and DUALISM, Clement of Alexandria [215 AD] and Origen [215 AD] denied
Premillennialism. Likewise, Dionysius of
Modern
times: Amillennialism
has been widely held in the Eastern and Oriental [Greek]
Alogi and Dionysius
who denounced the apostle John writings were both heretics:
The Alogi (also called ‘Alogians’) were a group of
Christian HERETICS in
Dionysius of Alexandria, who was the so-called:
Pope of Alexandria from 248 until his death on
November 17, 265…. After his conversion, Dionysius joined the [Allegorical]
Catechetical School of Alexandria and was a student of Origen…. Dionysius also
denied that the Book of Revelation was written by John the Apostle, as well as
denounced the Millenarians, who believed that Jesus Christ would return and
establish a kingdom on Earth for 1,000 years. However, Dionysius contributed to
heretical debates when he used language that made Jesus NOT as DIVINE as the
Father. Dionysius had said that Jesus had flown from God, like a river flowing
from a spring or a plant growing from a seed, which implied that Jesus had not
always lived with God and was begotten from Him (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysius_of_Alexandria).
Preterism: Wikipedia, the unprejudiced
encyclopedia, under the heading of Preterism gave the following history:
Preterism is
a variant of Christian eschatology which holds that SOME or ALL of the
biblical prophecies concerning the Last Days or End Times refer to events which
ALREADY HAPPENED in the FIRST CENTURY after Christ’s birth. Because
of its claims that
History of Preterism: Proponents of Preterism sometimes argue that this position was the original eschatological understanding of the Early Christian Church, a claim contested by Historicists. Other Preterists HOLD that the VIEW was DEVELOPED in the 17th CENTURY, a VIEW also held by MANY NON-PRETERIST. There has historically been GENERAL AGREEMENT that the first systematic Preterist exposition of prophecy was written by the [Catholic] JESUIT Luis De Alcasar during the Counter Reformation….. Preterism has been described in modern eschatological commentary as a CATHOLIC DEFENSE against the Protestant Historicist view which identified the Roman Catholic Church as a persecuting apostasy….
Preterist
Divisions: The two principal schools of
Preterist thought are commonly called PARTIAL Preterism and FULL Preterism….
One form of Partial Preterism which places fulfillment of some
eschatological passages in the first three centuries of the current era, culminating
in the fall of
Another sub-variant of traditional Preterism
is ‘Full or Consistent Preterism’. This theology follows the
hermeneutics of Partial Preterism a step further, claiming that ALL Biblical
prophecy was FULFILLED in A.D. 70. Partial Preterists assert
that this was not the original form of Preterism, but that it was a
later corruption of Preteristic theology. On the other hand, Full Preterists
claim that they are merely embracing the proper conclusions of the very
hermeneutics endorsed by Partial Preterists. Also, Full Preterists do
not agree with the Partial Preterist claims that their theology goes
beyond the original ‘intent’ of Preterism…. Some feel that Partial
Preterists, in refusing to deal directly with the exegetical arguments
proposed by Full Preterists, have lost credibility to any fair hearing….
Partial
Preterism: Partial Preterism holds that
prophecies such as the destruction of Jerusalem, the Antichrist,
the Great Tribulation, and the advent of the Day of the Lord as a
‘judgment-coming’ of Christ were FULFILLED AD 70 when the Roman general
(and future Emperor) Titus sacked Jerusalem and DESTROYED the Jewish Temple,
putting a permanent stop to the daily animal sacrifices. It identifies ‘
MOST (but not all) Partial Preterists also
believe that the term Last Days refers NOT to the last days of planet
Earth, or the last days of humankind, but rather to the last
days of the Mosaic Covenant, which God held exclusively with the
nation of
They contend that the phrase Second
Coming means the second of a like kind in a series, for the Scriptures
record other ‘comings’ of God even before Jesus' judgment in AD 70. This would
eliminate the AD 70 event as the ‘second’ of any series, let alone the second
of a series in which the earthly, physical ministry of Christ is the first. Partial
Preterists believe that the new creation comes in redemptive progression as
Christ reigns from His heavenly throne, subjugating His enemies, and will
eventually culminate in the destruction of the ‘last enemy’, i.e., physical
death (1 Cor 15:20-24). In the Partial Preterist paradigm, since enemies of
Christ still exist, the resurrection event cannot have already occurred. NEARLY
ALL Partial Preterists hold to Amillennialism or POSTMILLENNIALISM [belief]….
Full Preterism: Full Preterism differs from Partial Preterism in that Full Preterists
believe that ALL PROPHECY was FULFILLED with the destruction of Jerusalem Lake of Fire
Other Full
Preterists believe that because the Book of Revelation was signified (or
‘symbolized,’ according to its first verse, Revelation 1:1), the Lake of
Fire was ONLY AD 70’s Gehenna (Jerusalem’s garbage dump, not Hell)
as it burned. And this burning was just aionios (pertaining to an age),
not eternal. The hermeneutic of audience relevance confines this judgment
and punishment to the FIRST CENTURY. The New Heaven and the New Earth
are also equated with the New Covenant and the Fulfillment of the Law in AD 70
and are to be viewed in the same manner by which a Christian is considered a
‘new creation’ upon his or her conversion.
Preterism
versus Futurism: Like
most theological disputes, the divide between Preterism and its opposite,
Futurism, is over how certain passages of Scripture should be
INTERPRETED. Futurists believe that PRETERISTS, in DEPARTING from a
‘GRAMMATICAL, CONTEXTUAL, HISTORICAL’ method of interpretation, have
ERRED greatly in matters of doctrine…. Futurists claim, moreover, that
the uniform belief of the early church regarding the futuricity of
Christ's second coming militates against the Preterist view. Preterists
maintain that Futurists misunderstand the various metaphors, idioms and
prophetic language that the New Testament employs….
Preterism versus Historicism: Expositors of the traditional
Protestant interpretation of Revelation known as Historicism have often
maintained that Revelation was written in AD 96 and NOT AD 70. E.B.
Elliott, in the classic Horae Apocalypticae (1862), argues that John wrote the
book in exile on
Ancient
History Emphatically Declares the Apostle John
Wrote the
Book of Revelation in 96 AD
Since
Amillennialist and Preterist Interpreters teach that most
or all of the prophecies of this book
was fulfilled before or at the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, it
becomes absolutely essential to know WHEN John wrote the Book of
Revelation. Many of them teach that Revelation was written between
55-65 AD; some teach an earlier dated, but none of them have any ancient
history to support their dates. If John wrote Revelations before 70 AD, then
these misguided preachers and teachers would have some evidence to support
their belief system, but if Revelation was written after 70 AD, then their
belief system must be viewed as FALSE! If Revelations was written after 70 AD,
the only argument they could give to defend their erroneous belief system is
that of Dionysius of Alexandria in 247
AD; that is, the apostle John did not write the Book of Revelation and this
book of prophecy is not from Amighty God, but from the Devil.
Since
Amillennialist and Preterist Interpreters realize the above truth, they
totally neglect the FIRST and LAST TIME SCRIPTURE mention in the Book of Revelation. God stated this great
truth this way when He spoke to John and told him that the visions that He
would give him: “must SHORTLY take place” (Rev 1:1). After God
gave John all of his visions, He again confirmed to John that these visions
were of future events when He said: “The Lord
God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show unto His servants the things
which must SHORTLY be done” (Rev 22:6). Therefore, the
Word of God declares that none of the visions God gave to John could have take
place before the time he wrote Revelation.
It is a well-known fact
among Church historians that in the writings of the Premillennialist and
Amillennialist, who lived before 400 AD, all declared that John wrote
Revelation at the END of the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian.
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
declared: “Titus Flavius Domitianus, Roman Emperor (AD 81-96), noted for
severity especially in reign of terror (93-96)”. In other words, John wrote
Revelation sometime between 93-96 AD. Now this is a great truth that needs to
be understood and proved, if one wishes to interpret the
prophecies of Revelation correctly.
In the Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Drs. A.
Roberts and J. Donaldson, we can read the writings of ancient Biblical
commentators who lived in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
centuries. As my readers reads these ancient writings, let them keep in mind
that these preachers lived in different nations, and there was no such thing as
Pony Express, Postal Services, telegraphs, or telephones, and books were very
rare and expensive. Therefore, all information was circulated by verbal
communication or books one could obtained and afford. Some Amillennialist and
Preterist ignorantly theorize that all Ante Nicene, Nicene, and Post
Nicene preachers received their information on when John wrote Revelation from
Irenaeus, whom they declare was mistaken or lied, with no ancient evidence
to prove their supposition. They do this in their hopeless and frantic
effort to justify their belief that Revelation was written before 70 AD. Now
these blind interpreters of the Bible have absolutely no ancient
history to justify their theory. All they have is the writings of modern-day
Amillennialist and Preterist to substantiate their erroneous belief system!
The Ante Nicene, Nicene,
and Post Nicene Premillennialist and Amillennialist Preachers and Historians,
all declare that John wrote the Book of Revelation at the very end of Roman Emperor
Domitian’s Reign! Sorry guys, either put forth your Ancient Evidence for
your belief system, as I am doing now, or stop preaching your lies! The
following ancient historical evidence not only proves John wrote Revelation
between 93-96 AD, but none of the following ancient preachers receive their
information from Irenaeus or from each other; for they all add some new
information in their commentaries about the writing of Revelation that is not
found in the writings of their contemporaries!
107 AD: Premillennialist Ignatius
a Bishop of
Peter was crucified; Paul and James were
slain with the sword; John was banished to
180 AD: Premillennialist Irenaeus, a Bishop in
This number [i.e. 666] being found in all
the most approved and ancient copies [of the Apocalypse], and those men
who saw John face to face bearing their testimony [to it]; while reason
also leads us to conclude that the number of the name of the beast, [if
reckoned] according to the Greek mode of calculation by the (value of) the
letters contained in it, will amount to six hundred and sixty and six…. We will not, however,
incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the name of Antichrist; for IF
it WERE NECESSARY that his name should be distinctly revealed in this present
time, it would have been announced by him [John] who beheld the APOCALYPTIC
VISION. For that was seen NOT very long time since, but almost in our
day, towards the END of DOMITIAN’S REIGN. [10]
190 AD: Premillennialist
Tertullian, a Teacher in
How happy is its Church, on which apostles
poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a
passion like his Lord’s…! Where the Apostle John was first plunged,
unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted [i.e. sent] to his
ISLAND-EXILE! See what she has learned, what taught, what fellowship has had
with even (our) Churches in
195 AD:
Premillennialist Victorinus or Victor, a Bishop or Pope of Rome from 189-198
AD:
Victorinus declared that John was condemned to labor in the mines of Patmos,
which Ignatius, Irenaeus, and Tertullian did not mention or did not know, nor did
Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus mention. Therefore, Victor evidently did
not receive his information from any of these preachers. Victor in His
extensive commentary on the Book of Revelation wrote:
He [God] says unto me
[John], ‘Thou must again prophesy to the peoples,
and to the tongues, and to the nations, and to many kings.’ He says
this, because when John said these things he was in the
Tertullian
speaking of Bishop or Pope Victor stated:
Praxeas introduced a
[so-called] heresy, which VICTORINUS was careful to corroborate. He
asserts that Jesus Christ is God the Father Almighty. Him he
contends to have been crucified, suffered, and died. [14]
German
Professor A. Harnack wrote concerning Victorinus and the above historical
passage:
If
this Bishop was Eleutherus, and that is probable from Eusebius H.E. V.
4, then we have four Roman Bishops in succession who declared
themselves in favor of the Modalistic Christology, viz.,
Eleutherus, VICTOR, Zephyrinus, and Callistus. [15]
200 AD:
Amillennialist Clement of
The Apostle John… on the tyrant’s
death [i.e. Emperor DOMITIAN], he returned to Ephesus from the isle
of Patmos, he went away, being invited, to the contiguous territories of
the nations, here to appoint bishops, there to set in order whole
Churches, there to ordain such as were marked out by the Spirit. [16]
Clement
definitely believe that the apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation, for he
declared:
A
presbyter of the Church, and a true minister (deacon) of the will of God, if he
do and teach what is the Lord’s; not as being ordained by men, nor regarded
righteous because a presbyter, but enrolled in the presbyterate because
righteous. And although here upon earth he be not honored with the chief seat,
he will sit down on the four-and-twenty thrones, judging the
people, as John says in the Apocalypse. [17]
225 AD: Premillennialist Hippolytus, a Bishop in a Suburb
of Rome:
Hippolytus seem to also know more about John than Ignatius and Irenaeus, for he
spoke of John’s life after he departed from the Island of Patmos, which they
never mentioned. It must also be mentioned that none of the Ante Nicene
Preacher before him ever mentioned anything about the body of John being buried
and his remains sought for! Therefore, he evidently did not get his information
from them. In his extensive commentary on the Book of Revelation he wrote:
John, again, in Asia, was
banished by DOMITIAN the king to the Isle of Patmos, in which also he
wrote his Gospel and saw the Apocalyptic Vision; and in
Trojan’s time he fell asleep at Ephesus, where his remains were sought for, but
could not be found. [18]
John… sees, when in the
350 AD,
Amillennialist Eusebius in his Church
History:
It is said that in this
persecution the apostle and evangelist John, who was still alive,
was condemned to dwell on the
[The Relatives of our
Savior:] Of the family of the Lord there were still living the grandchildren
of Jude, who is said to have been the Lord’s brother according to the flesh. Information
was given that they belonged to the family of David, and they were brought to
the Emperor DOMITIAN by the Evocatus. For DOMITIAN feared the coming of
Christ as Herod also had feared it…. These things are related by Hegesippus
[ch. 20, p. 259]…. But after DOMITIAN had reigned FIFTEENTH YEAR, and Nerva had
succeeded to the empire, the Roman Senate, according to the writers that
record the history of those days, voted that DOMITIAN’S honors should be
canceled, and that those who had been unjustly banished should return to their
homes and have their property restored to them.
It was at this time that the APOSTLE John
returned from his banishment in the Island and took up his abode at
390 AD: Amillennialist Jerome Who Published a Latin Version of the Bible
Known as the Vulgate: No other writers before Jerome ever mention when
John died and where he was buried.
This same John the evangelist…
in the fourteenth year then after Nero, DOMITIAN having raised a second
persecution he was banished to the Island of Patmos, and wrote the Apocalypse,
on which Justin Martyr and Irenaeus afterwards wrote
commentaries. But DOMITIAN having been put to death and his acts, on account
of his excessive cruelty, having been annulled by the senate, he returned to
Ephesus under Pertinax and continuing there until the tithe of the emperor
Trajan, founded and built Churches throughout all Asia, and, worn out by old
age, died in the sixty-eighth year after our Lord’s Passion
and was buried near the same city [32 AD + 68 years = 100 AD as the year John died]. [21]
401 AD: Premillennialist
Sulpicius Severus A Presbyter of the Church:
This Church Historian’s name was known from
After an interval, DOMITIAN,
the son of Vespasian, persecuted the Christians. At this date, he banished John
the Apostle and Evangelist to the
Fourth Century: the
Apocrypha of the New Testament: In this Apocrypha writing, which
is considered by many respected Premillennial, Amillennial, and Preterist
theologians as SPURIOUS WRITINGS we read:
And the fame of the teaching of John was
spread abroad in Rome; and it came to the ears of DOMITIAN
that there was a certain Hebrew in Ephesus, John by name, who spread a report
about the seat of empire of the Romans, saying that it would quickly be rooted
out, and that the kingdom of the Romans would be given over to another. And DOMITIAN
troubled by what was said, sent a centurion with soldiers to seize John…. And
the king said to him: Art thou John, who said that my kingdom would speedily be
uprooted, and that another king, Jesus, was going to reign instead of me…?
DOMITIAN said to him… I banish thee to an
CONCLUSION: Since all of the above
Premillennial and Amillennial ancient preachers unanimously proclaimed that
John was sent to the Island of Patmos (Rev 1:9) at the END or the FIFTEENTH
YEAR of Emperor Domitian’s reign, which was 96 AD, no honest,
rational, logical, pragmatic student of the Bible and
ancient history would deny that John must have written the Book of Revelation
at that time! This naturally excludes all the super spiritualists and
allegorists, that is, the Amillennialists and Preterists who do not need any
realistic, logical, or historical reason for believing whatever fantasies their
imagination can dream-up!
Therefore, since the Infallible Word of God clearly and without dispute
declares that Jesus gave John these visions: “to show His servants the things which MUST SHORTLY TAKE PLACE” (Rev 1:1; 22:6), it is only logical to conclude that ALL
EVENTS of history that took place PRIOR to the time John wrote this
great book in 96 AD are NOT events that were going to occur in any of John’s
visions! Therefore, since Amillennialist and Preterist interpreters of the Book
of Revelation definitely believe that MOST of this great book of prophecy was
fulfilled sometime before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, this is
absolute proof that their belief system is absolutely, unequivocally,
unambiguously, and indisputably FALSE!
A
Rebuttal of the Allegorical Method of Interpreting Prophecy
(Amillennialist
and Preterist Spiritualization Method of Interpreting Matthew 24)
Because Amillennialist and Preterist Interpreters of prophecy use and believe in the allegorical method of interpreting prophecy, they will point you to some of the ancient heroes of their faith who used this abominable method. They will tell you, have you not read the writings of the Roman Catholic Amillennialists Jerome (390 AD) and Gennadius (390 AD) who declared:
The APOCALYPSE of JOHN has as many
mysteries as WORDS… [in which] MANIFOLD Meanings lie HID in
its Every Word. [24]
Tichonius, an African by nationality… composed also eight Rules for
investigating and ascertaining the meaning of the Scriptures,
compressing them into one volume. He also expounded the APOCALYPSE of JOHN
entire, regarding NOTHING in it in a carnal [i.e. literal] sense, but
all in a SPIRITUAL [i.e. an allegorical] SENSE. [25]
I readily admit that there
are some symbolic terms used in the Book of Revelation and in Daniel
prophecies, such as: “a Lamb as though it had been
slain, having seven horns and seven eyes” (Rev 5:6); and “I saw a beast rising up out of the
sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten
crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name” (Rev 13:1), etc; but good old fashion
common sense tells us that there is no animal on earth today, or in times past,
that fit these descriptions! When God uses symbolic expressions, God will
interpret these symbols somewhere in His Word; He will never leave it to your
or my imagination to interpret His Word!! I will give a Biblical interpretation
to these and other symbols God use in His Prophetic Word later!
Some or many Amillennialists
and Preterist declare that the verb “signified
[semaino]”
used by the King James Translators in Revelation 1:1 means “symbols.”
Nothing could be future from the truth. The New American Standard
version of the Bible translated this verse as:
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which
God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and
COMMUNICATED [semaino]
it by His angel to His bond-servant John”. The
Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament edited by Drs. F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick William
Danker defined the Greek verb semaino
as:
1. make known,
report, communicate Ac 25:27; Rv 1:1. 2. indicate (beforehand), foretell J 12:33; 18:32; 21:19; Ac 11:28. [semantic]
[pg 180, #5760, 2nd ed.]
Permit me to give you one example of the heretical
allegorical method that Amillennialist and Preterist use to interpret prophecy.
In Matthew 24:1-34, they declare that the Great
Tribulation Period that our Lord spoke of in these verses was fulfilled by
the fall of
Dr. Luke
Interpreted the Order of Events of Matthew 24
Let us examine the ORDER
of EVENTS in the 24th chapter of Matthew! Let my readers take note
to the THREE QUESTIONS that the apostles asked our Lord: “Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples
came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them,
‘Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not ONE STONE shall
be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.’ Now as He sat on the
Mount of Olives, the disciples [i.e. Peter, James, John, and Andrew -
Mk 13:3] came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us,
when will these things be [i.e. the Destruction of the
Even
thou Luke and Mark only mentioned two questions (Lk 21:5-7; Mk 13:3-4),
Matthew’s gospel indisputable reveals that the apostles asked three
questions! All three gospels
give the exact same order of all events. The key to understanding
the order of events in Matthew 24 is given by Dr. Luke, for according to him,
our Lord answered the second question of Matthew 24 first, THEN
the first question, and after that the third question.
With this great truth in mind, let us examine our Lord’s prophecy.
The Apostles’ Second Question: “And what will be the sign of Your coming?” Our Lord’s Answer: “Take heed
that no one DECEIVES YOU. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He [i.e. CHRIST],’ and will DECEIVE MANY. But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do
not be troubled; for such things must
happen, but the end is not yet. For
nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be
earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the BEGINNINGS of SORROWS”
(Mk 13:5-8; Mt 24:4-8).
Dr. Luke’s recording of our Lord’s prophecy gives us the
KEY to the ORDER of EVENTS: “And He
said: ‘Take heed that YOU NOT BE DECEIVED. For many will come in My name,
saying, ‘I am He,’ and, the time has drawn near. Therefore DO NOT GO
AFTER THEM. But when you hear of wars
and commotions, do not be terrified; for these things must come to pass first,
but the END [i.e. End of the Church Age] will not come immediately. Then He
said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and
pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from
heaven” (Lk 21: 8-11).
If
the YOU in the above verses refers to Jesus’ apostles as Amillennialist and Preterist declare, and
not to Christians in the latter part of the Church Age, then why would Jesus tell His apostles not to be deceive
by those who claim to be the Christ or the Messiah? Would this not be a
foolish warning to give them when they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt He was
the Christ? How could a False Messiah deceive them when all the apostles knew
what He looked like and what He taught? There is no way Jesus’ apostles could
be deceive by a False Christ!! Were in ancient history can any Amillennialist or Preterist find any
of the above signs ever fulfilled in the days of the apostles? They cannot!
The Apostles’ First Question: Dr. Luke’s KEY to the ORDER of EVENTS!
After Jesus told Christians in the latter part of the Church Age: “do not go after them,” He then proceeded to
Answered the First Question, that is: “Tell us, when
will these things be [i.e. the destruction of the temple]?” Our Lord’s
Answer: “But BEFORE [pro] all THESE THINGS [i.e. before the above events take place],
they will lay their hands on YOU [i.e. Jesus’ apostles and disciples] and persecute you, delivering you up to the
SYNAGOGUES and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My
name’s sake…. You will be betrayed
even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put SOME of you to death. And you will be hated by
all for My name’s sake. But not a hair of your
head shall be lost. By your patience possess your souls. But when you
see
prep.
w. gen. BEFORE… of TIME Mt 6:8; 24:38; Lk 11:38; J 11:55; Ac 23:15; Ro 16:7; 1
Cor 4:5; Gal 1:17; Eph 1:4;
Therefore,
the persecution of the apostles and disciples mention in Luke 21:12-24 must
take place BEFORE the events of the signs of our Lord’s coming in verses 8-11
can take place; or the persecution of the apostles and disciples in Mark
13:9-13 must take place BEFORE the events of verses 5-8, that is, the wars of
nations against other nations, empires against empires, great earthquakes,
famines, and diseases! I know the Amillennialist and Preterists
hate that I am raining on their parade, but the Lord’s disciple Dr. Luke is the
one who used the preposition “PRO” or “BEFORE” to describe
the ORDER of EVENTS in our Lord’s prophetic discourse and not me.
I
also know that these False Prophets will just disregard the preposition “PRO” or throw it out the of God’s holy Infallible
Words, just because it does not agree with their perverted theology. In fact,
they may even remove the preposition “PRO” in
their discourses and replace it with Greek prepositions “kathexes” or “meta”, which can
be translated as “after”. What can real Christians do when you have men who
have no fear of God, when it comes to ADDING TO or TAKING AWAY from the Words
Almighty God spoke and wrote through His Holy Prophets and Apostles. Beloved, God hates it when
men take His holy and Infallible Word and: “Twist [it]
to their own destruction, as they do also the
rest of the Scriptures” (2Pe 3:16). God said what He meant and meant EVERY WORD what He said:
“The WORDS of the LORD are PURE WORDS, Like silver tried
in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times. You shall KEEP them, O LORD, You
shall PRESERVE them from this generation forever” (Psa 12:6-7). So please
do not tell me that God’s Holy Infallible Words are nothing but poetic symbolic
expressions that cannot be taken literally.
No Amillennialist or Preterist Interpreter of prophecy can deny that
Thus was
Vespasian was the Roman emperor from 69-79 AD, and he
was the founder of the Flavian dynasty. His Latin name was Titus Flavius
Vespasianus. He was acclaimed emperor by the legions in
The Apostles’ Third Question: “What will be the sign… of the END of the Age?”
I believe the Age here means the end of the Laodicean Period of the
Church Age, which is the Last Church Period. Our
Lord’s Answer: “And there will be SIGNS in
the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of
nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts
failing them from fear and the expectation of those things
which are coming on the earth, for the powers of HEAVEN will be SHAKEN” (Lk 21:25-26).
The
apostle Matthew spoke of these events this way: “And
because LAWLESSNESS will abound [i.e.
in the 1st 3 ½ years of the 7 year Tribulation Period], the love of many will grow cold [psucho – verb
FUTURE not past TENSE]. But he who endures to the
END SHALL BE saved. And this gospel
of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a
witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Therefore when YOU SEE the ‘ABOMINATION of DESOLATION,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the Holy Place’ (whoever reads, let him
understand), ‘then let those who are in
It is
very evident that Jesus is speaking of future events, not past events. He is
telling the Jewish Christians, who would be alive in
I know some Amillennialist and Preterist Interpreters of prophecy will tell you when you confront them, that the
Words: “such as has NOT occurred SINCE the BEGINNING of the
WORLD until now, NOR EVER SHALL” BE are nothing but a poetic
symbolic expression that God uses to express the magnitude of the horror the
Jews experienced at the destruction of Jerusalem. In other words, what they are
telling you is: God’s Words are nothing but symbolic adjectives that are
meaningless or convey no real meaning, that is, one must forget about lexical
meaning of words and grammatical parts of speech. They will tell you that
prophecy must be interpreted in a mystical spiritual sense, and unless you are one
of their spiritual elite interpreters, you cannot understand the prophecies or
the doctrines of the Bible. Well, all I can say is hogwash, and this kind of garbage
is only fit for pigs! Let my beloved reader excuse my choice of language, but I
am a preacher who says what he means and means what he says, and when this kind
of trash spews out of someone’s mouth, my righteous indignation begins to pour
forth. Not only this, but this language is comparatively mild to our Lord’s and
John the Baptist’s rebuke of the False Prophets of their day; for Jesus told
them: You “Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil,
speak good things” (Mt 12:34; also 3:7), and “Serpents,
brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation [i.e. the
judgment] of HELL” (Mt 23:33)?
Since
this Great Tribulation Event is mention in connection with the “ABOMINATION of DESOLATION”, there is no way Jesus
can be speaking of the Abomination of Desolation as a past event that took
place under Antiochus Epiphanes around 160 AD, or the Destruction of the Temple
in 70 AD. There were many events and wars in history that were of much Greater
Tribulation than the destruction of the Temple and the City of Jerusalem in 70
AD, such as: the Flood in Noah’s day, all the Wars fought to establish Empires,
not to mention all the Wars of Revolution of the 17th – 19th
centuries, World Wars 1 and 2 of the 20th century, the Atomic Bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Korean War, Vietnam War, etc. The future “Abomination of Desolation”, mentioned in Mt 24:15; Mk
13:14; Rev 11:1-14; Dan 8:9-14; 11:21-31; 12:6-13, is the Antichrist standing
or sitting in the future Temple in Jerusalem claiming to be god (2Th 2:3-4; Eke
28:2, 9). This will be thoroughly examined later in this book.
Jesus
continued His Last Days discourse by saying: “Then
THEY [not you Apostles] will SEE the SON of
MAN COMING in a CLOUD with power and great glory. Now when THESE THINGS [signs] begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because
your redemption draws near. Then He spoke to them a parable: ‘Look at the fig
tree, and all the trees. When they are already budding, you see and know for
yourselves that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these
things happening, know that the
The
apostle Matthew recorded these EVENTS this way: “For
as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the
COMING of the Son of Man be…. Immediately AFTER the TRIBULATION of those days the SUN will be DARKNED, and the MOON will
NOT give its LIGHT; the STARS will FALL from heaven, and the powers
of the heavens will be SHAKEN. Then
the sign of the Son of Man will appear in
heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and THEY will see
the Son of Man COMING on the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they
will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
the other” (Mt 24: 23-31, NAS; Mk 13:24-26).
Beloved, did you and I
somehow miss the Second Coming of Christ, for I do not remember reading
anything in history that declared that any generation of the past saw the
events Jesus mentioned in Matthew’s Gospel concerning His Coming? The apostle
John definitely interpreted this event to be a future event when God prophesied
through him saying: “Behold, He
IS COMING [not has already come] with clouds, and EVERY EYE WILL SEE HIM, even they
[i.e. the Jews] who pierced Him. And all the
tribes [i.e. nations of people] of the earth
will mourn because of Him” (Rev 1:7). Only in our generation could this prophecy be
literally fulfilled; for with Satellite Broadcasting, everyone in every nation
would be able to see this event as it is displayed on his or her TV!
As my beloved readers will
recall, the Book of Revelations was written 26 years AFTER the
destruction of
And if you think, the
Church is going to covert this generation into a godly generation and brings
them into a
CONCLUSION: Since the “Great Tribulation”
is “such as has not been SINCE the beginning of the CREATION
which God created UNTIL THIS TIME, NOR EVER SHALL BE” (Mk
13:19; Mt 24:21), the Lord’s answer to the 2nd and 3rd
questions, dealing with signs of His coming and the End of the Age could not
have been fulfilled in 70 AD as these misguided Amillennialist and Preterist preachers
have taught. The only possible futuristic event that I know of in the Bible,
which could possibly fit our Savior’s description of the Great Tribulation
Period, is when the Day of the
Lord or the time of God’s Wrath begins. It is at this time,
when meteorites or falling stars strike the earth and move it out of
its orbit a little closer to the sun (Isa 13:4-13 cp with Rev 6:12-17). Since the Amillennialist
and Preterist erroneously declare that John wrote the Book of Revelation before 70 AD and much of it was
fulfilled at that time, all of the above truths or evidences mention in this
section of this book proves them to be False Prophets! Who are we going to
believe, those who twist the Word of God with their allegorical interpretations
or those who believe God said what He meant and meant every Word He said!
BACK
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PAGE
CHAPTER 1
THE TIME
SCRIPTURES OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION
The Book of Revelation is
the key to understanding most the prophetic Scriptures mention in the Bible as
to the time and order of certain events of prophecy. Therefore, I will number
each time scripture so that my readers can follow and comprehend the order of
events with less difficulty. I will give an exegesis of the EVENTS that take
place in each time scripture in chapter 2. Therefore, in the following Time
Scriptures I am only concerned with the order each event takes place and not
the Event!
1) The
First Time Scripture - Revelation 1:1, All Events Must Shortly Take Place Starting from 96 AD: As state above, the very
first time scripture given in Book of Revelations is God telling John of the
events that: “must shortly take place”
(Rev 1:1). He confirmed this in the last chapter of this book when He declared:
“The Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to
show unto His servants the things which must shortly be done” (Rev
22:6). Therefore, none of the visions God gave to John could possible take
place before AD 96; I have already provided ample evidence for this truth in
the above section entitled: Interpreting the Prophecies of the Bible.
2) The
Second Time Scripture - Revelation 1:19, the Things You Have Seen: The Things John HAS Seen:
This can be found in verses 10-17, which is John First Vision; this was the
“Lord standing in the midst of the Seven Churches represented by Seven
Lampstands.”
3) The
Third Time Scripture - Revelation 1:19, the Things that Are Now Taking Place in
Seven Churches of Asia Minor in 96 AD, and the Things that Will Take Place in
the Seven Church Periods in the Church Age: “Write… the things which ARE” (NAS). John interpreted the meaning of this verse by
stating: “The mystery of the Seven Stars
which you saw in My right hand, and the Seven Golden Lampstands:
The Seven Stars ARE the Angels [i.e. Messengers] of the Seven Churches, and the Seven Lampstands
which you saw ARE the Seven Churches” (Rev 1:20).
There were MORE than
4) The
Fourth Time Scripture - Revelation 1:19, the Things
that
The question we should ask
is: among or in the MIDST of what things? One thing is for sure, when John
entered into heaven he saw the Victorious RESURRECTED SAINTS of the FIRST-SIX
CHURCH PERIODS there, which was symbolically represented as the Twenty-four
Elders. This redeemed group was clothed in the White Robes, which according
to Scripture represents the Righteousness of Saints (Rev 6:8-11). The 24 Elders
had Gold Crowns (Stephanos) on their heads, which are only given to Saints, who
have been victorious over the devil, the world and the flesh (Rev 4:4,
6, & 10; compare these Stephanos Crowns with 2Ti 4:8; Rev 3:8-11).
John gave additional
evidence that the 24 Elders represented the Redeemed Children of God who lived
in one of the PAST 6 Church Periods when the Elders: “SANG a new song, saying: ‘You… were slain,
and have REDEEMED US to God by Your BLOOD Out of every tribe and tongue
and people and nation, and have made US Kings and Priests
to our God; And WE shall reign on the earth” (Rev 5:8-10). The pronouns in this Time Scriptures
will be thoroughly examined later, when I do an exegesis of this verse and
compare it to Greek Manuscripts, ancient writings and Bible translations. John
used this same pronoun when he referred to God’s Redeemed Priesthood of all
Believers in Revelation 1:5-6.
5) The
Fifth Time Scripture - Revelation 4-5, the Seven Seal Scroll Is Closed: “And I saw in the right hand of
Him who sat on the throne a SCROLL written inside and on the back, SEALED with SEVEN
SEALS. Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy
to OPEN the SCROLL and to loose its SEALS…?’ One of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep.
Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to
OPEN the SCROLL and to loose its SEVEN SEALS” (Rev 5:1-5).
Now any interpreter of
Prophecy, with an once of common sense, must realize the events of chapters 1-5
of Revelation must have taken place BEFORE the SEVEN SEALS of chapter
6 are OPENED; in other words the OPENING of the SEVEN SEALS that takes place in
the 6th chapter of Revelation must have taken place AFTER the
events of the 5th chapter because in this chapter the SEVEN
SEALS of the SCROLL were CLOSED! Therefore, the Pretribulation Resurrection
must have taken place BEFORE the FIRST SEAL was ever OPENED.
6) The
Sixth Time Scripture - Revelation 6, the Seven Seal Scroll Is Opened: “I watched as the Lamb opened the FIRST
of the Seven Seals…. When the Lamb opened the SECOND Seal….
When He broke the THIRD Seal…. When the Lamb opened the FOURTH
Seal…. When the Lamb broke the FIFTH Seal…. I watched as He opened
the SIXTH Seal”
(Rev 6:1-17, NIV). Now every honest prophetic Bible interpreter must confess
that the Book of Revelation is the ONLY book, in all the Prophetic passages of
Scripture in the Bible, where God uses a NUMBERING SYSTEM in describing the
ORDER of Future Events. Since God did NOT do this in any other Prophetic
passages of Scripture in the Old and New Testament, common sense dictates we
must ask WHY?
I believe God used a
Sequential Numbering System in the Seals, Trumpets, and Plagues, so misguided
prophetic interpreters, who do not believe EVERY WORD He uses in His Prophecies
are essential, could not spiritualize away or allegorize the simple truths He
was communicating to His Children. I know this line of reasoning is to simply
for the allegorist, but any elementary school child knows 1 comes before
2 and 4 comes after 3, and so on! In other words, the events of the
First Seal must take place before the events of the Second Seal; and the
events of the Second Seal must take place before the events of the Third
Seal, etc. Now is this so hard to understand, or do the Amillennialist and
Preterist Interpreters of Prophecy want to teach God how to count by their
allegoric method!! It does not take a genius to understand this simple Biblical
Truth. The Seals are the events that take place in the
First Three and Half Years of the Seven Year Tribulation Period.
7) The
Seventh Time Scripture – Revelation 8, the Seventh Seal Contains the Seven
Trumpets of God’s Wrath: “When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half
an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were
given Seven Trumpets…. So the seven angels who had the Seven Trumpets prepared
themselves to sound” (Rev 8:1-6). The very fact that the TRUMPETS are NUMBERED in
SEQUENTIAL ORDER, and are contained IN the Seventh Seal, makes them time
scriptures, just like the Seals!
If the Seventh Seal is not
the Seven Trumpets, then please show me in Scripture what this Seal is? All we
do know from Scripture is that AFTER a half hour of silence, each event in the
trumpets begin to take place, and like the Seals, they take place in
succession, that is, in the order it is listed. To simply God’s truth in His
Numbering System, each Event in the first six Seals must be fulfilled BFORE the
very First Trumpet Event in the Seventh Seal can take place. Therefore, all the
Events of the Trumpets in the Seventh Seal are DIFFERENT EVENTS than those in
the first six Seals! When one interprets the Events of Prophecy using God’s
Numbering System, these Events are much easier to understand, and God’s
prophecies can be interpreted in a Literal Fashion without allegorizing or
spiritualizing away the simple clear statements of the Infallible Word of God!
In addition to the above, the Seven Trumpets are a continuation
of God’s Wrath that
began with the Sixth Seal, that is, when Meteorites smashed into the earth and
moved its orbit a little closer to the sun; as a result, men hid themselves in
caves and all acknowledge that the Wrath of the Lamb has now come (Rev 6:12-17)?
8) The
Eighth Time Scripture - Revelation 8, the Three Woes of the Fourth Trumpet Are the 5th, 6th, and 7th Trumpets: “I
looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a
loud voice, ‘WOE, WOE, WOE to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the
remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound”
(Rev 8:13). These Woes are very important Time Scriptures in placing the Events
of other chapters of Revelation in proper order; for example the End of the 2nd
Woe or the 6th Trumpet is found in Revelation 11:14, which is the
end of the Battle of Armageddon and the conclusion of the 3 1/2 Year ministry
of God’s Two Prophets.
9) The
Ninth Time Scripture - Revelation 9, the Fifth Trumpet Is the First Woe and It
Contains the Events of the First Five Months of the Last Three and Half Years
of the Tribulation Period: “The fifth
angel sounded his trumpet and I saw a STAR [i.e. Lucifer] that had
FALLEN from the sky [i.e. atmospheric heaven]
to the earth. The STAR was given the Key to the shaft of the Abyss…
and Locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of
scorpions of the earth. They were told… to harm… only those people who did NOT have the
SEAL of God on their foreheads [i.e. the 144,000 Jews]. They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture
them for FIVE MONTHS…. They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their
tails they had power to torment people for FIVE MONTHS. They had as king
over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in
Greek, Apollyon [i.e. Lucifer]. The FIRST WOE
is past; TWO other WOES are yet to come”
(Rev 9:1-12). The other two woes are the 6th and 7th
Trumpets.
The First-Five Trumpets
all take place in consecutive order and take place on the First Day of God’s
Wrath, which started at the END of the Sixth Seal. The Fifth Trumpet begins
with Lucifer, the Fallen Star, and his angels being Thrust Out of the
atmospheric heaven, which is part of the First WOE: “WOE to the inhabitants of the earth and the
sea! For the devil has come down [katabaino –
cast down] to you, having great wrath, because he
knows that he has a short time” (Rev 12:12). The short time is 3 1/2 years
of the Great Tribulation Period. Since the First WOE of the 5th
Trumpet speaks of a Star Falling from heaven and the WOE in the 12th
chapter of Revelations speaks of Lucifer being thrust out of heaven, can you
believe these WOES are actually the very same WOE or Event? I certainly
do, for the Bible reveals that God’s saved and lost Children (angels, men, and
Lucifer) are called stars (Job 38:7; Isa 14:12-13; Dan 8:10; Jude 1:13).
10) The Tenth Time Scripture - Revelation 11, the Beginning of
Beast Worship: the Three and Half Years of the Antichrist’s Rule over the
Nation of Israel and the Ministry of God’s Two Prophets in the Great
Tribulation Period: “Then I was given a reed like a
measuring rod. And the angel stood, saying, ‘Rise and measure the temple of
God, the altar, and those who worship there. But leave out the Court,
which is outside the
11) The
Eleventh Time Scripture - Revelation 12, the Three and Half Years A Remnant of
the Nation of Israel Is Preserved at
12) The
Twelfth Time Scripture - Revelation 13, the Three and Half Years of the Eighth
Empire to Rule over the Nation of Israel in the Great Tribulation Period: “Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I
saw a BEAST [i.e. the Antichrist and his Empire] rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten
horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name… and he
[the Beast] was given authority to CONTINUE
for FORTY-TWO MONTHS [i.e. 3 1/2 Prophetic Years]…. Then I saw Another Beast [i.e. the False Prophet] coming up out of the earth, and he had Two Horns like a Lamb and spoke like a Dragon” (Rev 13:1, 5, 11).
So when does this 3 1/2
year time period begin? According to the Infallible Word of God it must take
place in the LAST HALF of the Tribulation Period (Rev 19:11, 19-20). Since
the Beast or
the Antichrist and the Other Beast or False Prophet are thrown into the Lake of
Fire when Jesus returns to the earth to set up His Millennial Kingdom, this 3
1/2 YEARS of Beast Worship must have began BEFORE our Lord Returned to earth.
Therefore, it must have begun during the time of the Fifth Trumpet or the First
Day that God began to pour out His Wrath on the earth.
13) The
End of the Fifth Trumpet and Thirteenth Time Scripture: The Five Months of
Torment of the First Woe is Now Completed.
14) The
Fourteenth Time Scripture - Ezekiel 38-39,
the One Year, Eleven Months, and Twenty-Nine Days of Second Battle of Gog and
Magog: “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Are you he of whom I
have spoken in former days by My servants the prophets of Israel, who
prophesied for YEARS in those days that I would bring you against them? And it
will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the
Could the above verse be
teaching that the Second Battle of Gog and Magog will last “two years”. Oddly enough, as one adds the 5
months of the Fifth Trumpet and the 1 year, 1 month, 1 day of the Battle of
Armageddon in the Sixth Trumpet (Rev 9:13-15) and subtract it from the 3 years
and 6 months of the Tribulation Period, it reveals that the Second Battle
Gog will last 1 year, 11 months, and 29 days (5 months + 1 yr, 1 mo,
& 1 day = 1 yr, 6 months, & 1 day – 3 yrs & 6 months = 1 yr, 5
months, & 29 days). This calculation is based on God’s Prophetic Calendar
in which 1,260 days equals 42 months, or 3 1/2 Years. God’s Prophetic Calendar
will be explained later.
15) The Fifteenth Time
Scripture – Revelation 15-16, the Completion of God’s Wrath on the Sun, Earth,
and Waters of the Earth: The First through
the Fifth Plagues of Revelation 15 and 16, which is the completion of God’s
Wrath on the Sun, Earth, and Waters of the Earth, must take place BEFORE the
Sixth Trumpet and Plague or the Battle of Armageddon BEGINS. John speaking of
these Plagues of God’s Wrath declared: “Then I saw
another sign in heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels having the seven last
plagues, for in them the WRATH of God is COMPLETE…. Then I heard a loud voice from
the temple saying to the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out the bowls of the WRATH
of God on the earth” (Rev
15:1; 16:1).
The Seven Plagues are the
COMPLETION of God’s Wrath, which begins sometime after the Fifth Trumpet. Since
these Plagues, like the Seals and Trumpets, are numbered in sequential order,
this can only mean that the events in them must take place in consecutive
order. The First-Five Plagues reveal what the earth will look like at that
time. Therefore, the First-Five Trumpets must sound first before the
First-Five Plagues can take place.
16) The
Sixteenth Time Scripture - Revelation 9 and 16, the One Year, One Month, and
One Day of the Battle of Armageddon Starts at the Beginning of the Sixth
Trumpet or Second Woe: “The Sixth angel sounded his
Trumpet, and… release the four angels who are bound at the great river
17) The
Seventeenth Time Scripture, Daniel 8, the Jews Recapture Jerusalem and Cleans
or Remove the Abomination of Desolation from the Temple on the 1150 Day after
the Antichrist Took Away their Daily Sacrifices and Place His Abominable Idol
in the Holy of Holies: “And on account of transgression the
host will be given over to the HORN [i.e. ANTICHRIST] along with the regular sacrifice; and it will fling truth
to the ground and perform its will and
prosper. Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to that
particular one who was speaking, ‘How long will the vision about the REGULAR SACRIFICE apply, while the
transgression causes horror, so as to allow both the holy place and the host to
be trampled?’ And he said to me, ‘For 2,300 evenings and mornings [i.e. 1,150 DAYS];
then the holy place will be properly restored’ ” (Dan 8:12-14, NAS).
Since the Jewish Priests offered up 2 sacrifices each day, 2,300
sacrifices would equal to 1,150 days of sacrifices (2,300 sacrifices divided by
2 sacrifices each day = 1,150 days). According to God’s Prophetic Calendar, 7
years equals to 2,520 days for 3 ½ years equals to 42 months of 30 days each or
1,260 days (Rev 11-13; Dan 7). Therefore, if we subtract 1,260 days from 1,150
days, we have a remainder of 110 days to the end of the Great Tribulation
Period or the Last 3 ½ years of Daniel’s Seventieth Week of Years. This will be
explain in more detail when we reach the Seventeenth Time Scripture in this
Book!
18) The
Eighteenth Time Scripture – Revelation 11 and 14, the End of Sixth Trumpet or
the Second Woe, that is, the Battle of Armageddon and the Death of God’s Two
Prophets: “Now when they [i.e. God’s 2 Prophets]
have finished their testimony, the Beast that comes up from the Abyss
will attack them, and overpower and kill them…. The SECOND WOE has
PASSED; the THIRD WOE is coming soon” (Rev 11:7, 14, NIV).
“And the angel swung his
sickle to the earth, and gathered the
clusters from the vine of
the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the Wrath of God. And
the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the
wine press, up to the Horses’ Bridles, for a distance of TWO
HUNDRED MILES” (Rev 14:19-20).
Since the Battle of
Armageddon is the Second Woe (Rev 8:12-13), and the 3 1/2 YEAR Time Period of
the rule of the Antichrist over Jerusalem and the ministry of God’s two
prophets ended with the Closing of the Second Woe, this can only mean the Time
Period of 3 1/2 YEARS must have started with the First Day of God’s Wrath,
which began at the end of the Sixth Seal! Let not forget that the First Woe
began with the First Day of God’s wrath and continued for 5 months, and the
Second Battle of Gog and Magog will last 1 year, 11 months, and 29 days, and
the Battle of Armageddon will last 1 year, 1 month, and 1 day (5 mo + 1 yr 11
months 29 days + 1 yr 1 mo 1 day = 3 years and 6 months).
19) The
Nineteenth Time Scripture - Revelation 11 and 19, the Beginning and End of the
Seventh Trumpet or Third Woe, that is, Christ’s Return to the Earth: “The Seventh angel sounded his Trumpet,
and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: ‘The kingdom of the world
HAS BECOME the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and He will
reign for ever and ever’” (Rev 11:15, NIV). Since
common logic of numerical order dictates that the 7th Trumpet comes
AFTER the 6th Trumpet and the Third Woe comes AFTER the Second Woe,
this can only mean that the end of the AGE must come AFTER the Battle of
Armageddon is finished!
“Now I saw
heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called
Faithful and True…. His name is called The Word of God [i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ].
And the ARMIES in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean,
followed Him on white horses…. And I saw the Beast, the kings of the
earth, and their armies, gathered together to make WAR against Him who
sat on the horse and against His army. Then the Beast was captured, and
with him the False Prophet… these two were cast alive into the lake of fire
burning with brimstone” (Rev 19:11, 13, ).
20) The
Twentieth Time Scripture - Revelation 20, the Thousand Year Reign of Christ
Begins with Lucifer Being Chained Up in the Bottomless Pit: “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven,
having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid
hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and
Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and he cast him into the
bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should
deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished” (Rev 20:1-2).
21) The
Twenty-First Time Scripture - Revelation 20, the End of the Millennial Reign of
Christ, Lucifer Is Loosen from the Bottomless Pit: “But after these things [1000 years] he [Lucifer] must be released for a little while…. The DEVIL, who
deceived them, was CAST into the
BACK
TO TABLE OF CONTENTS BACK TO HOME
PAGE
CHAPTER 2
REVELATION
CHAPTERS ONE THROUGH TWENTY-TWO
As we examine the Book of Revelation, the first thing we should take
note of is the name of this book. What does the word “Revelation” mean. The
word Revelation is the Greek noun “Apokalupsis (ap-ok-al'-oop-sis).” In,
fact many of the first through the fourth century Bible commentators use the
term “The Apocalypse” to refer to this book. Drs. J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida in
their Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament defined
“apokalupsis” as:
‘to uncover… to cause something to be fully known’ – ‘to
reveal, to disclose, to make fully known, revelation….’ The thoughts of many
will be fully known’ Lk 2.35…. ‘The
disclosure of the secret truth which was hidden for long ages in the past’ Ro
16.25 (#28.38).
Therefore, God is telling us by the name of this book
that He is going to remove the veil that has hidden His Prophetic
Secrets in past ages. This is why God told the prophet Daniel: “Go your way,
Daniel, for these WORDS are CONCEALED and SEALED UP until the end
time. Many will be purged, purified and refined; but the wicked will act
wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight
will understand” (Dan 12:9-10). The Book of Revelation is the UNSEALING
of God’s prophetic mysteries, and God is now revealing them to His Church.
This is why the Book of Revelation is the key in understanding all end-time
prophetic passages of scripture in the other books of the Bible.
With this truth in mind, let us proceed in our study of
this great book. Over the centuries, many books have been written on prophecy, but very
few have really give the time scriptures that are mention in Revelation and
Daniel close attention. Of all the books of the Bible, which contain prophecy,
the Book of Revelation is by far the greatest. In fact it is the key to
understanding the prophetic passages in all the other books, because the first
ten chapters are in SEQUENTIAL ORDER.
Chapters 1-5 are the
events that take place from 96 AD to the Pretribulation Rapture and
Resurrection. Chapter 6 covers the events that take place during the FIRST
Three and Half Years of the Seven Year Tribulation Period. Chapters 7-10 are
events that take place during the LAST Three and Half Years of the Great
Tribulation Period. Chapters 11-18 are informational chapters giving details of
specific Events that took placed in the LAST Three and Half Years of the Great
Tribulation Period!
The Book of Revelation is
filled with TIME SCRIPTURES. In this book, I will point out each time scripture
as we come to it. Because the main thrust of my book in chapter two is to
examine the events that happen after the Pretribulation Rapture and
Resurrection, that is, the Seven Seals, Trumpets, and Plagues, I have decided
to place my exegesis of the Pretribulation, Midtribulation, and Posttribulation
Resurrections, which are all part of the FIRST RESURRECTION, in Chapter
Five. Therefore all references to these resurrections in Chapter Two are given
to reveal the time period in which each occurs.
THE
SEQUENTIAL ORDER OF EVENTS FROM 96 AD
TO THE
PRETRIBULATION RAPTURE AND RESURRECTION
REVELATION
CHAPTERS ONE THROUGH THREE
The First
Time Scripture - All Events Must Shortly
As state above, the very
first time scripture given in Book of Revelations is God telling John of the
events that: “must shortly take place”
(Rev 1:1). He confirmed this in the last chapter of this book when He declared:
“The Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to
show unto His servants the things which must shortly be done”
(Rev 22:6). As my beloved readers know by now, none of the visions God gave to
John could have possibly taken place before AD 96. I believe I have already
provided ample evidence for this truth in the above section entitled: A
Rebuttal of the False Allegorical Method of Interpreting Prophecy.
Second
Time Scripture – the Things John Has Seen
God told John to: “Write the things which you HAVE SEEN” (Rev 1:19). John’s first vision or
the things he “HAS SEEN” was the Lord standing in the midst of the Seven
Churches: “Then I
turned to see the VOICE that spoke with me. And having turned I saw Seven Golden Lampstands, and in the midst of the Seven Lampstands One like the Son
of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with
a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes
like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His VOICE as the sound
of many waters. He had in
His right hand Seven Stars, out of
His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I
saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.
But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was DEAD, and behold, I am
ALIVE forevermore. Amen. And I have
the keys of Hades and of Death’ ” (Rev 1:12-18).
The apostle John described
Jesus the very same way as the prophet Daniel described Him just before the angel Gabriel came to him: “I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in
linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist. His body was like
chrysolite [i.e. a brownish gemstone], his face like lightning, His eyes like flaming torches, His arms and legs like
the gleam of burnished bronze, and His VOICE like the sound of a multitude. I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision;
the men with me did not see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that
they fled and hid themselves. So I was left alone, gazing at this great vision;
I had no strength left, my
face turned deathly pale and I was helpless” (Dan 10:5-8,
NIV). Let my beloved readers take note that John and Daniel, who were holy men
of God, both were so terrified at this vision of Christ, that both of them fell
to the ground as dead men.
Daniel had another vision of Christ as the Judge,
that is, the Ancient
of Day who sat on His Throne and JUDGED lost humanity. Daniel described this
fearful event this way: “I
was seeing till that thrones have been thrown down, and the Ancient of Days is seated, His garment as snow is white, and
the hair of His head is as
pure wool, His throne flames of fire,
its wheels burning fire. A flood of fire is proceeding and coming forth from
before Him, a thousand thousands do serve Him, and a myriad of myriads before
Him do rise up, the JUDGE is seated, and the books have been opened” (Dan 7:9-10).
After comparing the above
three passages of Scriptures, can anyone deny that the Ancient of Days and the
Lord Jesus Christ are the same person, and all three reveal Him as the Judge of
the Universe. What else can the symbolic terms: “eyes like a flame of fire, His feet like fine brass…
His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword” be symbols of, if is not
a terrifying picture of Jesus being the Judge of all lost souls (Rev
19:11-12; 2:18)? The Two-edged sword is the Word of God by which He will Judge
all of mankind (Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12; Rev 2:12; 19:15-21).
The prophet Isaiah stated
this truth this way: “For behold,
the LORD will come with FIRE And with His chariots, like a whirlwind, To render
His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire. For by
fire and by His sword the LORD will JUDGE all flesh; And the slain of
the LORD shall be many” (Isa 66:15-16; cp with Ti 4:1, 8; 2Th 1:7-9). The Scripture declares: “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” definitely becomes vivid
in our mind with the above description of Jesus as the Judge (Heb 10:30, NAS;
cp with Jn 5:22-27; Acts 10:38-42; 17:31; Ro 2:16; 1Pe 4:5).
Third
Time Scripture – the Things that Are Now Taking Place
in Seven
Churches of
and the
Things that
God spoke of Seven
Churches that represented the “things which ARE”
(Rev 1:19). John interpreted the meaning of this verse by stating: “The mystery of the Seven Stars which you saw in My right
hand, and the Seven Golden Lampstands: The Seven Stars ARE the angels
[messengers] of the Seven Churches, and the Seven
Lampstands which you saw ARE the Seven Churches” (Rev 1:20).
The Seven Stars represented God’s Priesthood or Messengers of ALL Born-Again
Believers in every Church Period (Dan 12:3; Jude 1:13; 1Pe 2:1-5; Mal 2:7).
According to the Bible, God holds His children in His hand (Psa 18:35; 63:8; Jn
10:28-30).
There can be no doubt that
each of the Seven Churches mentioned in the Book of Revelation actually existed
in Western Asia Minor or Western Turkey in 96 AD, that is, at the time the
apostle John wrote of them. A student of the Bible cannot help but ask himself
or herself why did God mention these Churches in His Book of Prophecy? In other
words, what Prophetic connection did these Churches have with Future
Events that are so predominate in the Book of Revelations? Since these
Seven Churches must have some Prophetic significance, what can it be?
Why did God not choose the Church in Jerusalem, or in Antioch, or in
Rome, or even one of the other churches in Western Asia Minor, such as the
Church in Colosse (Col 1:2), or in Hierapolis (Col 4:13), or in Troas (Acts
20:4-7; 2Co 2:12)?
In other words, why did
God chose these Churches to proclaim His Prophetic Messages? What is the
Prophetic Message God is communicating to His Children about these Seven
Churches? Could it be that these Seven Churches in
These Seven Churches then
must be representative or ‘typical’ churches, chosen for certain characteristics
typical of the character of the Church of Christ from the end of the
First Century down to the time of Christ’s return for His Church, and
descriptive of Seven Church Periods clearly defined in Church History…. While
the character of these Seven Churches is descriptive of the condition of those
churches, as described, were their exact condition in John’s day. So we see
that at the close of the First Century the leaven of ‘False Doctrine’
was at work in the Churches. The churches are given in the order named, because
the peculiar characteristics of that Church applied to the period of Church
History to which it is assigned.... The Message to the Seven Churches compared
with Church History. [29]
I definite agree with Rev. Larkin that these Seven Churches
represented: “
The Seven Churches of Revelation in Asia Minor or
The Distance of Each Church from the Aegean Sea: Ephesus (3
miles E), Smyrna (0 miles), Pergamos (15 miles E), Thyatira (40
miles E), Sardis
(45 miles E), Philadelphia (75 miles E), and Laodicea (83 miles E).
The following examination of
the Seven Churches mention in chapters two and three of the Book of Revelation
is an EXCERPT from my book “A Prophetic History of God’s Apostolic
Pentecostal Church” (The Seven Prophetic Periods of the Church Age). We are
now living in the
The Ephesian
Church
The
Salutation: “To the angel of
the Church of Ephesus write, ' These things says He who holds the seven
stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden
lampstands.” The Commendation: “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear
those who are evil.” The Problem: “And you have TESTED those who say they are APOSTLES and are NOT,
and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience,
and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary.”
The
Reproof: “Nevertheless I
have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember
therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I
will come to you quickly and remove your
lampstand from its place -- unless
you repent. But this you have, that you HATE the DEEDS of the Nicolaitans,
which I also HATE.” The Promise: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the
Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God”
(Rev 2:1-7).
History of City: