Month: April 2017

I was thinking recently about a discussion many years ago with a dear Christian minister and Berean Bible teacher. The subject was the identity of the rider on the white horse of the first seal in the Book of Revelation. This wonderful preacher of God’s word was born at the turn of the Twentieth Century and was unbiased by the Rapture theology that became popular in the seventies. He thought that the rider of the first seal (Revelation 6:1-2) should be identified with the conquering Jesus at the battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19:11-16). Without question there is similarity between the two passages. My opinion was based on what seemed to be more logical, that the rider of the first seal was the antichrist and the breaking of the first seal begins the Tribulation. Christ return at the battle of Armageddon is the end. Today I believe both of us were mistaken about the identity of the rider. The significance of the discussion is that neither of us sought to harmonize all the scripture on the end-times and the second advent of Jesus Christ.

If the rider isn’t Jesus or the antichrist, who else could it be? That is an intriguing thought since most commentaries on the Tribulation denote three characters; Jesus Christ, Satan/antichrist, and the false prophet. Of the three the antichrist is the most logical choice. But there is an Old Testament book that tells of other characters who have a role in the Tribulation. In addition to the Messiah and the antichrist there are the kings of the North and South, four Persian kings, and a great warrior king. The great warrior king precedes the antichrist and it is from the chaos that results from the warrior king’s conquering that allows the antichrist to rise.

The book of Daniel contains five eschatological prophecies. Each ends with the destruction of Satan/antichrist and establishment of God’s kingdom on earth. Daniel’s first details concerning the great warrior king comes in chapter eight as the goat that conquers Persia. His kingdom is shattered allowing the antichrist to rise. The same events begin the last vision of Daniel where the great warrior king comes against the fourth king of Persia (Daniel 11:1-4). The majority of the last vision focuses on the chaos between the kings of the North and South and the eventual rise of the antichrist.

The last three visions of Daniel, chapter eight Ram and Goat, chapter nine 70 weeks, and chapters ten through twelve kings of the North and South, all give the same timeframe. Chapter eight give 2300 days that the vision will last (Daniel 8:13-14). The vision begins with the rise of Persia and its being conquered by a king from the west and finishes when the antichrist meets his end. There will be seven years from the conflict between a great warrior king from the west conquering Persia to the return of Jesus Christ to reign on the earth.

The Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians that the antichrist was being restrained and could not rise until the restrainer was removed (2Thessalonians 2:5-12). The breaking of the seals in Revelation chapter 6 fulfills removal of the restrainer with the first seal releasing a great warrior king. The next three seals tell of great chaos that lead to the martyred saints of the fifth seal and the judgment of the earth for rejecting God in the sixth seal.

Identifying the rider on the white horse in Revelation 6:1-2 with the great warrior king of Daniel eight and eleven is not only logical, it also brings the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation into harmony. Christendom may well be caught unaware that events in the Middle East between Iran and Turkey signal the breaking of the first seal of Revelation. (See blog post “Where In The World – The Ram and Goat? April 17, 2017” for details on Iran and Turkey) It seems Christianity is expecting some great event like the Rapture to herald in the Tribulation.
With the world being desensitized to war in the Middle East, Christians will consider clashes between Iran and Turkey as normal world affairs rather than the possibility it is the beginning of the end-times.

Who is the rider on the white horse? Only God knows for sure, but I don’t want us to be caught unaware that the Tribulation may be closer than most of Christendom thinks.

May God bless you in your study of His word.

An interesting article was on the BBC website discussing factors that lead to a break down in liberal caring societies such as those in modern day western civilization. The studies and conclusions fall into two categories; “ecological strain and economic stratification”. Western societies being in jeopardy from one or the other is not new but their influence on how a society’s interactions with both allies and adversaries is increasing at a faster pace than expected. The article proclaims there is still hope to avoid the decline of western societies if the West can find the global will to lessen the divide of “economic stratification” and mitigate “ecological strain”.

Another article, also on the BBC website, along the same line of hope reports that computer models of an asteroid hitting somewhere in the earth’s oceans show it would not produce a Hollywood-like disaster. Instead of colossal tsunamis wiping away coastal cities, most of the water would be thrown into the atmosphere. There was no prediction of how that might effect “ecological strain” and the consequences to “economic stratification”.

It seems the world is trying to cover over Dante’s sign at the gates of hell, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!”. I’ve read the definitive book on the collapse of civilization and it contains all the scenarios above. It tells of a push for greater “economic stratification” as “ecological strain” on limited natural resources increases and the crumbling of civilization as the result of a large asteroid hitting the ocean. The timing of these events may be speculative but that they will happen is certain.

The book is the Revelation of Jesus Christ written by John two thousand years ago. John wrote about seven seals being opened. The third seal suggests sever “economic stratification” and the fourth tells of terrible “ecological strain”. Fast forward to the seven trumpets of chapter eight where the second trumpet heralds a great asteroid falling into the ocean. The result is not as benign as the BBC article suggests. The problem is not believing these things will happen, the problem is believing they will happen in our lifetime.

The purpose of Revelation is not to scare Christians into becoming preppers. There is no preparation possible to avoid the consequences of the seals and trumpets that follow. The central theme of the messages to the churches in Revelation chapters two and three is to get our hearts prepared; shed our attachments to earthly things and learn to rely on the Father in order to persevere until the return of Christ (Matthew 6:25-34). That doesn’t mean we should sell all we have and live in poverty but rather that we should not compromise our faith to acquire earthly possessions or have regret when they are lost. Our standard of living may be less than those around us because of it but our standard of faith and reward will be with those who persevere as in the message to the churches.

Think about the parable of the sower in the Gospels (Mathew 13:1-23; Luke 8:4-15). It is too superficial to think of the Church as being comprised of just good ground. Indeed, the seed of the Gospel message is received among the rocks and thorns with joy but there was no commitment to follow Christ regardless of the consequences. The rocks and thorns were sincere but it takes commitment to be good ground and the difference between sincerity and commitment is sacrifice. A good way to start towards gaining the attitude of a sojourner is by sacrificing some time for reading the scriptures and prayer (1Peter 2:11-17).

If there is one theme that runs through the Gospels and Epistles right to the message to the church in Ephesus in the second chapter of Revelation, it is love for one another; a love that requires sacrifice. As the world becomes more selfish and self-centered due to “ecological strain” and the resulting “economic stratification” of nationalism, the saints will be God’s city on a hill (Matthew 5:14) that contrasts humanism. If compelled to walk a mile, walk two. Give your coat also when required to give your shirt. If struck on the cheek turn and expose the other (Matthew 5:38-14). Be the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). As the Apostle Paul wrote, love endures all things (1Corinthians 13). Jesus said if we give only to those who love us how does that make us different from sinners (Matthew 5:43-48).

Some reading this may think doesn’t this poor fellow know that the Church will be raptured away and miss all the disasters of Revelation? My appeal to those who think the Church is not subject to tribulation prior to the coming of Christ is to understand that there is to be a great falling away from His commands (2Thesslonians 2:3); the separating of the sincere from the committed. It is Christ’s command to be merciful, through sharing, to even those who show no appreciation for the gifts that relieve their misery (Luke 6:35-36). The more we keep for ourselves the more we lose (Luke 12:16-21). To paraphrase Jesus and His brother James, it takes more than faith alone to build our house on solid ground, it requires living your faith (Matthew 7:24-27; James 2:26) . If the writer of Hebrews was here he would say, what are you waiting for; start today (Hebrews 13:12-15).

It is likely, in the near future, that nationalism will be the focus of civilizations brought about by ever increasing “ecological strain and economic stratification”. Remember, the messages in Revelation chapters two and three point the only way to persevere through the trials. That is where our focus must be.

May God bless you in your study of His word.

A dear friend remarked that they were concerned that Israel’s intransigents over the solution to peace with the Palestinians would spark another world war. My friend and I don’t share the same eschatological perspective which required a response in secular terms. I suggested they look to Turkey and Iran as the spark for the next world conflict. Not what they wanted to hear since they hope there will be no world conflict at all. But the vision of the ram and the goat in Daniel chapter eight and the great warrior king of Daniel chapter eleven tells a different story, one of a serious world conflict.

The question is, should we apply the vision of the ram and the goat to our present day? That is the pitfall that lies within any prophetical interpretation, that we apply the scripture to a time for which it is not intended. So let me preface the rest of this article with the supposition that if we are on the cusp of the breaking of the seals in the Book of Revelation then what follows is relevant to current events. If we are not, then what follows will not bear out in world events. The good part about that is, time and world events will let you be the judge.

On the surface it appears there is no question concerning the identities of the ram and the goat of Daniel eight. The identities are given in Daniel 8:20-21; the ram is the kings of Media and Persia and the goat is the king of Greece. Based on these identities, the king of Greece is commonly applied to Alexander the Great who defeated the Medio Persian empire. To further support Alexander the Great as the goat, history tells us that his empire split into four kingdoms following his unexpected death at a young age. So where is the problem with understanding that the prophecy of Daniel eight was fulfilled by Greece and Alexander before the birth of Christ?

The problem with applying the vision to the Greece of Alexander is that Daniel 8:17-19 make it clear that the vision applies to the end times which has not occurred. Indeed if we look at the breakup of the Greek empire following Alexander’s death we find that it split into five kingdoms, then four, and eventually three. While there are similarities between Alexander and Greece with Daniel eight, it is necessary to ignore the end times constraint and also ignore the full history of the breakup of his kingdom to support an interpretation that the prophecy has already been historically fulfilled. Still it does say Greece right there in verse twenty one, or does it?

The Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the version translated into Greek from the Hebrew and the version used for Protestant Bible Old Testament, interprets the Hebrew word Javan as Greece. The kings of Daniel eight in the Hebrew are named Persia, Maday and Javan. The question is did Daniel see Greece as the land of Javan as did the Septuagint translators? Probably not. The Jews did not associate Javan with Greece until after the restoration of the second Temple and the rise of Greece as a world power. Daniel’s understanding of Javan in his prophecies written between 605 and 530 BC differs from that of the Septuagint translation written around 130 BC. Where then is the land of Daniel’s Javan in modern times?

The land of Javan today is centered in modern Turkey while Iran is associated with the land of Persia. If you follow current events in the Middle East you know that Turkey is supporting anti-Assad Syrian rebels and using its own military in Syria against the pro-Iranian Assad government. Turkey does not want Iran to establish a long term presence in Syria and it does not want the Kurds to establish an autonomous state there either. Israel too, has been petitioning the Russians to prevent the Iranians from filling the void left by the defeat of ISIS in Syria. What the news labels as a Syrian civil war in reality is a war between two entranced religious ideologies fought by Turkish and Iranian surrogates. A major consequence of the establishment of a caliphate by ISIS and the response to destroy it, is that tolerance between Sunni and Shia has also been destroyed. Previously diverse Sunni and Shia neighborhoods in Iraq and Syria are a fraction of what they once were and that lack of tolerance is extending to Yemen.

Let me restate the premise I started with, if we are on the cusp of the end times then we can look for current states to fulfill the rolls of the ram and the goat. If that premise is true then, according to Daniel eight, Shia hegemony will rise in the Middle East, led by Iran, until Sunni tolerance is exhausted and establishes a Sunni hegemony led by a great warrior king coming from Turkey. Is that too far-fetched? Consider that Turkey has the largest army in the Middle East and in fact has the largest military forces committed to NATO. Turkey, embolden by its defense treaty with NATO, was not deterred in shooting down a Russian fighter jet after Russia continually ignored Turkey’s warnings not to violate Turkish airspace. When the conflagration between the ram and the goat occurs the boundaries that define nation states in the Middle East will dissolve or existed only on paper as it does with Syria today.

Is such a conflict imminent? Not as the world exists at the moment but the Turkish government is evolving to assume such a role with the April 16, 2017 referendum. With new constitutional powers behind the Turkish president the world will witness a more aggressive Turkey. The president of Turkey will hold complete control with no governmental checks and balances subject to presidential dictates. The United States, Europe, and NATO will align with Turkey while Russia stays aligned with Syria, Iran, and Iran’s satellite states.

As Turkey is being prepared for its role, Iran must also go through an evolution that brings about the impasse that results in the great conflict of Daniel chapter eleven and eventually leads to the rise of the antichrist. The prophecies of Daniel speak of four successive Persian kings in the ramp up to the great conflagration. Daniel 7:6 shows the leopard beast having four heads and Daniel 11:2-3 explicitly states there will be four kings. The great warrior king comes from the land of Javan when the fourth king of Persia brings the conflict to a boil.

Iran is under the rule of its second supreme leader whose edicts cannot be overridden. Assuming that the four kings of Persia are being fulfilled by the supreme leaders of Iran, when the fourth supreme leader rises to power expect a great conflagration between Sunni and Shia that will eventually result in the rise of the antichrist; the message of Daniel eleven and twelve. There will always be issues between Israel and the Palestinians but they pale in comparison to what is coming.

Many in Christendom may think, so what? The Church will be Raptured away before all this happens. Not likely. These chapters speak about the ramp up to the Tribulation prior to the rising of the antichrist. Perhaps the messages to the churches in Revelation chapters two and three are intended to encourage the saints to focus on Christ’s return as these prophecies of Daniel unfold. After all, the seven churches of Revelation were located in modern day Turkey.

May God bless you in your study of His word.

I recently read an article in the European news touting “a new world has emerged… Vladimir Putin’s world.”    Russia’s military interventions in the Ukraine and Syria succeeded with a tepid world response.  And Russia is not alone as a rising power on the world stage.  China is boldly extending its hegemony over the South China sea, again with a tepid response, while gaining influence in the United Nations by pledging a billion dollars in funding.  And there is no question of the rise of Iran’s influence.  All world powers, super or not, realize the Iranians hold the keys to achieving peace in the Middle East.   What does all this have to do with the end times?  Over the last four years these nations have risen dramatically on the world stage.  If they are the nations in the vision of Daniel chapter seven then the fourth beast may be on the verge of rising.

Few Christians realize that the visions in the book of Daniel reveal as much about the state of the world leading up to rise of the antichrist as they do about the antichrist’s rule.  In the vision of Daniel chapter seven, four kingdoms rise in the end-times prior to the rule of the antichrist.  In the vision, three states rise in world prominence prior to his rule (Daniel 7:3-7) and the fourth rising to prominence to eventually be associated with the antichrist (Daniel 7:23-27).  The rise of the three nation states is a harbinger of the rise of the final state and the beginning of the Tribulation.

It is always a question of timing when interpreting eschatological prophecy like the beasts of Daniel.  Is this God’s timing for the rise of the beasts or is the rise of China, Russia, and Iran just coincidental?  They appear to fit the characteristics given in the vision as well as the choice of beasts used as metaphors.  The lion is the only one of the four that rules a prided.  It exerts its will over the members of the pride.  The bear and the leopard are solitary animals, one known for its brute strength and the other for its cunning.  The last beast is vicious and terrifying.

President Xi Jinping of China says his country is not seeking a world leadership role but China is ready to assume such a role.  China believes the Western democratic model has reached its zenith and is creating chaos as it disintegrates.  Xi Jinping promises the world stability with China’s “democratic” model.  China fits the imagery of the lion as being made to stand and take leadership.

Vladimir Putin has succeeded in having the world recognize Russia as a world power once again with Russian military successes in Crimea and Syria.  Russia’s indifference to the shooting down of a commercial passenger plane, the indiscriminate bombing of non-combatants, and the Assad regime’s mass murder by poison gas shows it has no hesitation when it comes to brute ferocity.  Russia fits the image of the bear devouring much flesh.

The cunning of Iran cannot be overstated as evidenced by their manipulation of the United States and United Nations resulting in the Iran Nuclear Deal of 2015.  Iran has subjugated Lebanon’s political rule through Hezbollah and since the Nuclear Deal they have extended their influence in Iraqi politics.  Iraq, Syria, and Yemen are on the same path to subjugation as Lebanon.  Even Russia understands that their continued influence in the Middle East is dependent on Iranian cooperation.  There is much more that can be said about Iran but for now Iran certainly fits the leopard.

When ISIS was on the rise in Syria and Iraq it was tempting to label their Islamic caliphate as the fourth beast but, as recent events show, that association would prove faulty.    The fault lies in that the politico economic conditions for the rising of the fourth beast haven’t happened as described in Daniel’s follow-on visions.  A caliphate with shared allegiance does fit the imagery of the ten horns but the identity of the fourth beast depends on other details given in chapters eight and eleven.  What these chapters tell is that Persia will rise in hegemony until a great warrior king, who is not the antichrist, comes from the west and reshapes the map of the Middle East, Daniel chapter eight.  The warrior king’s rule is short lived, his empire splits and the antichrist rises to rule from the chaos, Daniel chapter eleven.  The rising of the last beast comes not with the antichrist but with a great warrior king.  There is no candidate for the great warrior king as yet but where he comes from does appear to be taking shape.  I’ll save that for the subject of another post.

The world is being desensitized to the approach of the fourth beast by the continuous conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa.  When the warrior king comes it will appear to be more of the same but on a much grander scale and perhaps even welcomed in the hope that peace will finally be the end result.  Christians may be caught unaware that when this great conflagration occurs in the Middle East it is the fulfillment of Daniel’s vision of the last beast rising.  At that time the world will change dramatically.  A sobering thought to think such a time may be near.  Time will tell.

A quick note on why the lion, bear, and leopard have not been fulfilled historically with the rise and fall of Medio Persian, Greek, and Roman empires.  Daniel chapter seven verse twelve is clear that all the beasts exist at the same time and that after the fourth beast is destroyed the other beasts go into what can be understood as the millennial reign of Christ.  Nothing in the Bible or in current affairs suggests these historical empires will rise again to fulfill the role of the three beasts.

May God bless you in your study of His word.