The Rapture scenario continues to elude me

Just a quick report. I'm struggling through Hal Lindsey's book of 1999, Vanished, which was recommended to me as a help to resolve my ongoing inability to settle the questions involving the idea of a premillennial Rapture. Well, it doesn't resolve it. Yet. But I am having a very hard time reading it. Something about the way it is organized makes it hard for me to follow, and he spends too much time, for my purposes anyway, answering other interpretive schemes that don't persuade me at all anyway -- Dominionism and Reconstructionism for instance. For some time I've found the premillennial interpretation to be the best of the field at elucidating the scripture, just not entirely convincing to me yet.

I'm MOSTLY convinced that scripture does describe the return of Jesus in two different sets of terms such that the idea of the Rapture of the Church's occurring separately from His return to earth as conquering king is a reasonable interpretation. That is not completely resolved for me either because I'm not entirely sure which references apply to which event, and there's one that's taken to apply to the Rapture that has the Lord appearing with a "shout" that hardly sounds like a quiet snatching-away of His people. BUT overall the two-stage return of Christ is plausible. And there is precedent for such a division into two in the fact that Jesus' first advent only fulfilled the Suffering Servant prophecies of the Old Testament, leaving the prophecies of his return as triumphant warrior king for the Second Coming, which wasn't clearly understood until after His resxurrection and ascension. So as we approach the last of the last days it seems perfectly reasonable that a more precise outline of His return should also begin to appear, and also to expect that it too won't be fully understood until it is upon us or even later.

Unfortunately it's hard to point to exactly what it is that gives me the most trouble with Lindsey's presentation. Cobra helicopters are the least of the problem though. There is one place Lindsey makes himself utterly untrustworthy it seems to me, when he brings up Jesus' likening the kingdom of heaven to leaven gradually worked throughout a lump. Lindsey simply insists that scripture ONLY uses "leaven" to refer to sin and evil, without explaining how on earth he can treat its use to represent "the kingdom of heaven" in the same way. The Dominionists no doubt misuse that passage to support their cause but that's no excuse to try to make it refer to something else it obviously doesn't refer to. That lost me completely and shakes my faith in Lindsey's thinking. But it's a minor point in the overall interpretive scheme.

One thing I've always had a problem with concerning Rapture scenarios that put a great emphasis on the completion of God's dealings with Israel, is how to view the covenant of the land God gave to Abraham. Certainly it was given without condition and forever, but there is also the passage in Hebrews where we are told that Abraham was not looking to an earthly land but to an eternal abode -- unless I've utterly misunderstood that passage.

Hebrews 11:8-16: By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as [in] a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker [is] God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, [so many] as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that [country] from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better [country], that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

I see present-day Israel on the earthly land and can't help but attribute that to God's own purposes -- what other option is there? But does that make that earthly land the fulfillment of the covenant promise? Aren't Christians also "heirs of Abraham" and as such also heirs of that unconditional covenant, and doesn't that put the covenant on a New Testament footing that changes how we are to understand it? We are to read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, that's our primary directive for Biblical exegesis.

Yet it's not impossible to my mind that some -- a few -- of the promises to the Jews may not be completely fulfilled in the New Covenant and remain to be fulfilled -- or that there is a double fulfillment in the Church and earthly Israel both. Of course I can't go with any interpretation that seems to imply that the Jews are not to be saved by the same means as all the rest of us, through the death of Christ. Lindsey doesn't seem to make that error but he's a tad ambiguous on that point, and others of his basic persuasion do make that error.

One thing I am very sure of is that there remains a "week" or seven years left over from Daniel's prophecy of the time required to completely fulfill God's plan for Israel, the "seventieth week of Daniel" left after the first 69 were fulfilled in the first coming of Christ. I'm just not completely sure how to understand its purpose. Apparently it includes, or is synonymous with, the Day of the Lord, the time of the Antichrist, a time of unprecedented evil on the earth, also known as the Great Tribulation, during which time the vast majority of believers will be martyred. This idea of the fulfillment of God's plan for israel is hardly a happy one.

This period is also foreshadowed in Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, the first verse of which Jesus read in the synagogue to announce His Messiahship, leaving out the second verse which refers to the Day of the Lord, now clearly to be connected with His second coming:

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to [them that are] bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

It appears that it isn't primarily the Rapture itself that's the problem for me, it's the whole scenario in which the Rapture occurs, and especially what supposedly happens AFTER the Rapture. Of course a different understanding of all that could change my acceptance of the timing of the Rapture itself too.

But overall I'm still where I was when I began this book by Lindsey. Well, I'll keep reading and perhaps reread the book, since I don't feel I'm getting anything very clear out of it yet.

The "Locusts" of Revelation 9, what are they?

As I came to the end of Tal Brooke's Riders of the Cosmic Circuit I turned to a book by Hal Lindsey, Vanished, that had been recommended to me as possibly able to resolve my ongoing vacillations about a Pretribulation Rapture. I wouldn't ordinarily have sought out a book by Lindsey because he's so often ridiculed for some extreme positions he's taken, but I figure it's worth a try since I appreciate the ministry that recommended it.

One of his far-out positions was his interpretation of the "locusts" of Revelation 9 as possibly Cobra helicopters. This seemed so nutty to me too that I pretty much gave up on Hal Lindsey as any kind of trustworthy exegete of the Bible.

Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

And the shapes of the locusts [were] like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads [were] as it were crowns like gold, and their faces [were] as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings [was] as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power [was] to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, [which is] the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue [is] Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath [his] name Apollyon.

Lindsey mentions this in Vanished:

The most common criticism leveled against me by my adversaries is that I see "Cobra helicopters" as possibly being described in Revelation 9:5-10. This was presented as an opinion in my book The Apocalypse Code, in which I gave a detailed explanation for it. Whatever this passage means, it is a composite desription from may different things that is obviously intended to be symbolic. There is no insect, beast, or man in nature that fits what is described. Ample evidence can be found within the Book of Revelation to establish that John wrote about things he saw and heart while projected into the future. I believe John actually saw and heart things by Direct Divine revdelation that wree centuries future to his own time and still future to us. He was commanded to write about what he had seen. He therefore had to describe very advanced scientific creations of a much lateral time ihn terms of his first-century knowledge and experience. This is my opinion, and I believe it makes good sense. If you don't buy that, it's okay with me; show me something better.

There seems to be a problem here with an assumption that what John saw was necessarily an "advanced scientific creation." That's not the first thing that comes to my mind when I read the passage. I think of some kind of demonic creature from the deep abyss with special characteristics and special powers. I haven't read Hal Lindsey's argument for helicopters, though, and perhaps he should be given the benefit of the doubt that he finds something in the scriptural passage that fits his interpretation of a machine of some sort.

But then I as I picked up his book today and reread this description it reminded me of something I'd just read in Tal Brooke's Riders of the Cosmic Circuit that might actually vindicate Lindsey's interpretation somewhat, not entirely but somewhat.

Eckart Flother is describing some strange supernatural occurrences he experienced in Poona, India, at Rajneesh's ashram.

"And I was getting paranoid after some time. I was not so much getting paranoid, I was asking the people around me, 'Do you see this?' ... And the peak event was when I was standing with several people and we were going to cross the street. And there was something, an 'Entity,' I don't know what it was..." He laughed in irony.

"Go on," I said.

"It looked like a mixture of a big truck but with a lot of lights approaching at high speed, two hundred kilometers per hour, or about one hundred and twenty miles per hour. It also looked a little bit like a dragon. And this entity or whatever came down the road like ... 'whhhhshhhh' ... and I was standing there ... "

I had to ask just to make sure, "Were you stoned at the time?"

"No, I was straight," Eckart replied in earnest. "I was stoned occasionally, but in all these major experiences I was straight".

"When you say Entity, it was alive?" John and I asked.

"It was very tangible and in the first place the image was like an old locomotive, chugging, but the interesting thing was a lot of light all over it."

"You never find anything on an Indian street going two hundred kilometers an hour. That's an impossibility." My years in India were surfacing.

"And you see the interesting thing was it was like ... normally Indian roads are full of people ... and this street was empty, a perfect set-up."

"What was the feeling you had when it went by."

"It was a mixture of entertainment and being a bit frightened... I couldn't see it properly. But nothing flies down a narrow INdian road at two hundred kilometers an hour. It is physically impossible. This was very tangible... So I had the feeling that something was going on, especially at the Poona ashram."

"It's an evil city," I said. "A lot of these gods in temples actually look like locomotives. I remember the huge Kali form in the temple in Calcutta ... looked just like a locomotive. And the Bible speaks of the forms that idols are based on as being elemental spirits that are demonic."

Certainly what Eckart had seen fit the pattern. I was convinced, with Eckart and John, that it was a rare demonic manifestation. It sounded like a massive collective entity.... [p. 180-1]

As, in a way, do the "locusts" of Revelation 9, or in their case separate collective entities, each made up of multiple parts.

And although I don't see much of a mechanical component in those locusts it's interesting that Eckart's entity had such a component, first seeming like a large truck, and also like a locomotive, but it was also like a dragon and had a quality that suggests the whole thing was alive in some sense.

It's also possibly relevant in this regard that Ezekiel describes in his first chapter a vision he had of four creatures that together could appear to embody something like a chariot with four wheels, and the wheels have a living spirit in them.

So if Lindsey is right to find anything resembling a Cobra helicopter in the locusts, it would most likely not be the actual machine itself but something along these lines, a living creature or composite living creature with attributes of a machine as part of the composite.

And of course all this also reminds me of speculations about the increase in UFO phenomena as a clue to a likely last days major UFO invasion of sorts in which they are to contribute to the mass delusion of the Antichrist, and probably make a handy excuse to explain away the Rapture of the Church if it does occur. While as far as I know nobody has yet suggested the UFO "vehicles" themselves could be alive in the sense the truck entity appeared to be or Ezekiel's wheels, the fact that they don't behave according to any known laws of physics, and that we (Christians) know the whole UFO phenomenon to be a demonic manifestation, makes something like that also a possibility -- a composite demonic creation of some sort, as Tal suggests.

Such possibilities make my old bones ache to get off this planet, but I can't be very happy thinking of all the people who may have to experience such demonic manifestations and worse if they live into the very last of the last days.

The Enlightenment Experience, Three Antichrist Gurus of recent times and the rescue of two from their clutches by Christ

Finally read Riders of the Cosmic Circuit which comprises Tal Brooke's studies of three of the most famous Hindu gurus of recent times, also known as "god-men" --Sai Baba (1926-2011) who was Tal's own guru for two years in India up to 1971, and for whom he was the premier Western spokesman during that time, Swami Muktananda (1908-1982) who was very big in California in the 70s, and Rajneesh (1931-1990), the notorious guru of sex, murder and mayhem who was finally kicked out of America after four years of terrorizing an Oregon town and went back to India where he died five years later.

The main subject of the book is the experience of "Enlightenment" which is what makes a guru a guru. Brooke claims that this experience is the same across all the different religions which promote such a state, in spite of different methods and different terminology. In fact the work of the student or initiate in these religions is all geared to coming ultimately to that final realization. It is generally described in terms of loss of ego, loss of self, the "no-self" experience, merging with the Self which is God, and the like. Its attainment is accompanied by supernatural power, and the approach to it can hold a variety of supernatural experiences both beautiful and terrifying.

The book is convincing at least for these three gurus that Enlightenment is probably a state of Perfect Possession, that is, a state in which the personality or soul of the original person has been completely abdicated while the body becomes inhabited by some sort of "entity" that takes its place. All three were described by others as dramatically changed after their respective enlightenment experiences, and all three were described by some family members as seeming "possessed." And the work of all three in their respective ashrams among their respective followers became marked by evil practices, both of sex and violence, Rajneesh apparently reaching some sort of pinnacle of perfection of evil.

It's interesting that the personality must be PERSUADED to abandon the body, and that's what much of the teaching of all these disciplines seems to promote. The wonderful understanding that will occur when you completely surrender your ego or self is the enticement, and there are plenty of bliss experiences on the way to keep the student motivated.

As Tal Brooke notes, such gurus are antichrists and this must be the formula for the final Antichrist to come, in which a personality is to be completely replaced by Satan himself. All such possessions that occur before the end period are more or less trial runs for the final one.

Tal himself stopped just short of the experience of Enlightenment, having repeatedly "smelled" evil in the endeavor, puzzled why this should be so. Aren't gurus supposed to be "holy men," the equivalent of Jesus Christ? During this period of his growing awareness of the evil behind his chosen teacher, he was driven to desperation in his inability to understand it.

I had discovered an absolutely Satanic thing operating behind Sai Baba's veneer. Now I was desperate. I crouched on a massive boulder on a hillside overlooking Baba's main ashram in Puttaparthi. My love affair with Vedanta was ending. I was dissolving inside, dying inside ...In my perplexity I was willing to look anywhere for an answer. There was one source of revelation I had avoided.

In my desperation, I laid a Bible on a hillside rock -- a book I had long ago 'transcended.' Now in an act of faith, I threw open the pages. You could call it a kind of miracle at the time. What I read answered a need so deep I cannot explain it. For by then I was in a blackened state of mind best described as occult desolation. In trying to figure out this creature in the red robe, claiming to be God out here on the Indian desert, I was totally lost for an answer, bewildered.

Imagine what I felt when the Bible fell open to Matthew 24:23-24 (NIV ). It was Christ himself talking about a future age in our world. And suddenly a new perspective took shape for me.

At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ,' or, 'There he is!" do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.

I looked down at Baba's green prayer hall below and thought,

"That's it, that's what Sai Baba is, a miracle-working antichrist." [p.161]

Soon afterward, partly through a missionary couple in India, he gave himself to Christ and has spent the rest of his life educating people about the false teachings of the various Hindu gurus and the growth of the occult as we approach the very last days.

In the book he also recounts the experience of Eckart Flother, a German disciple of Rajneesh who had a similar escape through a miracle or revelation of Christ some years later.

We were in a Los Angeles outdoor cafe, sitting at an open shaded table, away from onlookers. It was a warm January day in 1983. Eckart, who had been with Rajneesh for many months in Poona but who then suddenly fled, was now meeting Sai Baba's one-time top Western disciple, namely me, who had also fled his guru. And John Weldon, an author and friend, was with us at the table as a witness. I had heard about the incredible incident that happened to Eckart in Poona but now I wanted to hear it from him. One thing that had inspired him, after what he had just gone through, was reading about a sijmilar event in Lord of the Air, the abridged European version of my book Avatar of Night. Our meeting was intense, charged with energy and feeling. Eckart was recalling a powerful supernatural incident of the highest order of magnitude -- an incident that changed him forever...

It was one of those typically warm, humid Poona nights. I was alone in my hotel room. As you would say, sober as a judge, feeling alert. It was Auguswt 1979. It was one of those nights when everything is covered with mosquitoes and nobody can sleep. At any rate I was sitting in my hotel room reading and writing. Perfectly normal...

All of a sudden in the left-hand corner of my hotel room I saw a bigger than man-sized brilliant light. The sheer power, sheer presence was awesome. Rajneesh could not hold a candle to this. I felt instinctively that it was Jesus Christ ...

"Had anyone been seeing you who was a Christian?" I asked Eckart. "Or handing you material on the subject, or anything like that?"

Absolutely not. At any rate all of a sudden I heard a mighty voice saying to me 'I want you to become my disciple.' I was absolutely shaken to bits. I knew right away that this was Jesus calling me...[p. 173-4]

When he makes an appointment to tell Rajneesh about it he has an impression of evil emanating from his guru, and Rajneesh seems to shrink back in fear from the very mention of Christ. But he released Eckart with the words "Enjoy it" and that was the end of his following of Rajneesh.

There is more to this conversation in which Eckart details some of the cruel and criminal acts done under Rajneesh and he and Tal agree that their gurus are indeed Antichrists.

Eckart seems to have written a booklet about Rajneesh that is mentioned on a few websites but I can't find a description of it or a way to acquire it. Amazon doesn't have it. His name is variously written with an umlaut over the o, or as Floether. He is a business management consultant.

What Tal Brooke says on pp 160-61 pretty much sums up his observations throughout the book:

Curiously, when the heavy-hitting gurus, the Riders, emerged from the Explosion [another term he uses for Enlightenment], close assoicates and family usually used the term "possession" in describing the change that they saw. Rajneesh prepares his highest adepts by readying them emotionally to do the same thing -- sink into the infinite abyss, and drop away and keep dropping away. His words are a juggling act. Along with this comes the admonition, 'Don't worry about what fills you or enters you. Let it happen. Surrender. Lose your identity forever.'

The only scripture on earth that deals with this phenomenon is the Holy Bible. Period. It talks about massive evil intelligences operating behind the scenes of our world. It talks about possession. It has live historical instances of demonic possession and exorcism.

But there is also a super-class in this group whose possession is different -- it is a Perfect POssession and the consciousness within the possessed is many levels beyond the standard possessor demons. This was all a revelation to me in INdia ten years ago as I searched desperately for a category in which to put this phenomenon. Suddenly I noticed that this category of creatures repeatedly appears in the Bible's pages. The Bible even predicts, in its prophecy, that one day the world would be full of these creatures. What are they? Antichrists, claiming to be God. Their appearance and reign on the earth was prophesied to precede the Return of CHrist. Why had I not seen it before?

A Rough Ramble through a Pre-Trib Rapture Argument

This is the first part of a three-part presentation by Jack Kelley of his logic defending the End Times scenario that begins with the Rapture of the Church.

Seven Things You Have To Know
There are seven pieces of information that are essential to understanding End Times Prophecy. These seven things are the building blocks for the strong foundation we want.

They are,
1) The Sequence of Major End Time Events,
2) The Destiny of the Three Components of Humanity,
3) The Purpose and Length of the Great Tribulation,
4) The Purpose of the Rapture,
5) The Conditions Surrounding the 2nd Coming,
6) The Purpose and Length of the Millennium, and
7) Eternity.

Once you’ve learned them, these seven things will help you avoid the mistakes that have thrown others off the track. Call it perspective or overview or whatever you want, this combination of facts will give you the ability to put all the prophetic verses in the Bible into their proper context. Let’s get started.

1) The Sequence Of Major End Times Events
First is knowing what happens and when. The study of prophecy gets really confusing if you don’t know the sequence in which major End Times events will occur. Actually their order is very logical, and once you learn it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t see it before. The best way to figure it out is to perform what the business world sometimes calls a back scheduling exercise. It involves going to the very end of a process and identifying the final outcome. Then you list all the things that have to happen to produce that outcome. Then you put them in reverse order, backing into the present. It’s simpler than it sounds, and much simpler in prophecy than in business because there are many fewer events to organize. We’ll list the major events first, then we’ll organize them.

Almost everyone knows about the 2nd Coming and Eternity, and many also have heard of the Rapture of the Church and the Great Tribulation. But there’s also the Millennial Kingdom, Daniel’s 70th Week, and the Battles of Ezekiel 38-39, Psalm 83 and Isaiah 17; a total of nine major events yet to come. Now let’s organize them, beginning with the final outcome and working back toward the beginning. As it is with most lists, the order in which some events will occur is obvious while others are less so, and at first some don’t seem to fit any place at all. We’ll order the obvious ones first.

What Are We Waiting For?
We all think of Eternity as the final outcome, and so starting at the end means we begin there. But the last major event described in any detail in the Bible is the Kingdom Age or Millennium. It’s the Lord’s 1000 year reign on Earth, which is distinguished from and precedes Eternity. The very last chapter of Revelation describes trees on either side of the River of Life bearing a different fruit every month. That means time still exists, and Eternity by definition is the absence of time. We’ll talk more about that later. For now let’s just say that Eternity can’t happen till the Millennium is over.

The Millennium obviously can’t begin till after the Second Coming, because that’s when the Lord returns to establish it. And according to Matt. 24:29-30 the Second Coming won’t happen till the end of the Great Tribulation. And that can’t happen till the anti-Christ stands in the Temple in Israel declaring himself to be God. (2 Thes. 2:4) That’s the event Jesus warned Israel to look for as the Great Tribulation’s opening salvo. He called it “The Abomination of Desolation” in Matt. 24:15-21. Daniel 9:27 indicates it will happen in the middle of the last seven year period, which scholars call Daniel’s 70th Week.

But the Abomination can’t happen until there’s a Temple. There hasn’t been a Temple in Israel since 70AD and there won’t be one until the Jews officially decide they need one. They won’t need one until God reinstates their Old Covenant relationship because the Temple’s only purpose is to worship Him according to Old Covenant requirements.

This will signal the beginning of Daniel’s 70th week. The 70th Week can’t begin until the Battle of Ezekiel 38-39 is won because God will use that battle to awaken Israel and reinstate His covenant with them. In Romans 11:25 Paul said Israel has been hardened in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in, a reference to the rapture of the Church, after which Israel will be saved. That means the rapture has to happen before the Battle of Ezekiel 38.

You Got That?
So far when we put the Sequence of Major Events in its proper order, it looks like this:

The Rapture of the Church,

The Battle of Ezekiel 38,

Daniel’s 70th week begins,

The Great Tribulation,

The 2nd Coming,

The Millennium,

Eternity.

To those who read Scripture as it’s written, only two of the events in this sequence are subject to debate as to timing. These are the Rapture of the Church and the Battle of Ezekiel 38, the first two on our list. They’re the ones I said are less obvious.

The problem with all of this is that all he's done is organize HIS OWN INTERPRETATION of those scriptures, that is, he's ASSUMING his own interpretation as fact, he isn't even suggesting that he's going to try to prove any of it, or that any of it applies at all to the end times period. It may be useful for helping someone understand what the pre-trib rapture is based on, and it does help get an overview of the scriptures that are usually taken to apply to the end times, but in itself such an arrangement isn't evidence for his interpretation.

So lets find out why they have to be where I’ve placed them in the sequence. Maintaining our back schedule mentality, we’ll begin with Ezekiel’s battle and work back to the Rapture.

“And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, from that day forward.

Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.” (Ezek 39:21-22, 28-29)

The Lord has declared in no uncertain terms that He’s going to use Ezekiel’s battle to spiritually awaken His people and call them to Israel from all over the world. This will result in the reinstatement of their Old Covenant relationship, reviving Daniel’s long dormant “70-Weeks” prophecy for its final seven years and requiring that a Temple be constructed. Without one there’s no way for them to keep His covenant.This was proven once before in history during the Babylonian captivity. When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the 1st Temple, Israel ceased to exist. But as soon as Cyrus the Persian defeated Babylon and freed the Jews, they returned to Israel and began building a Temple before they did anything else. Without a Temple there’s no sacrifice for sin, and without that sacrifice, Jews cannot approach God.

However, to reinstate the Old Covenant system after Christ has come, who is the Perfect Once-for-all Sacrifice, is to commit blasphemy. It may be that the temple will be rebuilt - that's how the scripture reads to me too, and that sacrifices will be reinstated, but this casual way of talking about it as if it were just a different theology than Christianity, different but equal in some sense, is wrong. If these things happen they have to be regarded as Antichrist in themselves, in fact the perfect setting for the Antichrist to present himself in the temple.

Both the Old and New Testaments refer to a Temple in Israel at the End of the Age. The only reason for a Temple is to perform Old Covenant ordinances. But building one today would cause such an uproar that no one in his right mind would consider it.

Only a unified demand from the people of Israel accompanied by quiet acceptance from their Moslem neighbors would make the construction of a Temple even thinkable. Sound impossible? Ezekiel’s battle results in both a Jewish nation re-awakened to the presence of God in their national life and an utterly defeated Moslem attack force in no position to resist. The perfect conditions will finally exist to start building. For these reasons, Ezekiel’s battle has to take place on the threshold of Daniel’s 70th week. Now why does the Rapture of the Church have to precede Ezekiel’s battle?

Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:25)

Reborn first in unbelief (Ezek. 37:8) the Bible tells us Israel will remain partially estranged from God until the gentile Church reaches its full complement (predetermined number) and arrives at its destination. (The Greek word translated “fullness” in Romans 11:25 was a nautical term often used to describe the full complement of crew and cargo necessary to accomplish a ship’s mission. The ship couldn’t sail till those requirements were met. The one translated “come in” means to arrive at a designated place.)

Then the veil will be pulled back as God reveals Himself to them again. As we saw above, He will use Ezekiel’s battle to begin this by renewing the Old Covenant with them, later transitioning Israel from the Old Covenant to the New toward the end of the Great Tribulation (Zech 12:10). Remember, if they didn’t go back to the Old covenant first, they wouldn’t need a Temple. He’s picking them up where they left off.

This is somewhat plausible, the problem is in the attitude that gives any sort of theological standing to the Old Testament sacrificial system.

After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,

‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’ (Acts 15:13-18)

It was about 20 years after the cross. The controversy of the day was whether Gentiles had to become Jews before they could become Christians. And if not, what would become of Israel? In effect, the Lord’s brother James explained to the Apostles and others present at the Council of Jerusalem that Israel was being temporarily set aside while God focused on the Church. After He had taken this “people for His name” (Christians) from among the Gentiles he would return and rebuild His Temple. The Greek words translated taken means to carry something away or remove it from its place, so the passage implies that He would take the Church somewhere and then come back to rebuild the Temple, restore Israel, and give what’s left of mankind one final chance to seek Him.

These three Bible prophecies make it clear that as the End of the Age approaches, God will begin preparing Israel to be His once more. But He won’t be exclusively focused on them until He has finished building the Church and has taken us to our appointed place. And where is that? In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:2-3) (He didn’t promise to come back to be with us here where we are, but to take us there, where He is.) After that He would see to Israel’s reawakening and the construction of their Temple.

Throughout Scripture, the Lord seems to be involved with either Israel or the Church, but never both at the same time. James bears this out in his pronouncement regarding the Church in Acts 15. All the leaders of the early church now knew that once God had accomplished His goals with the church, He would turn again to Israel, and that would signal the end of the Church Age.

There are two critical points to remember here. The first is that the Church didn’t end the Age of Law, but only interrupted it 7 years short of its scheduled completion. Those seven years, called the 70th Week of Daniel, have to be fulfilled to complete the Old Covenant.

THIS makes no sense. Christ completed the Old Covenant. If there are seven years left for the whole story to be completed it isn't the Law that will be completed.

It keeps coming to me on the fringes of my mind that the whole point of the last seven years is the fullness of evil, or of the "mystery of iniquity." There is nothing left of the plan of salvation to be fulfilled except the crowning fulfillment of Christ's return. The 70th week of Daniel is a time of great evil, the time of the Antichrist, the time of his short triumph followed by the time of God's vengeance before the Lord Jesus returns. Many of the events having to do with Israel that Kelley is discussing here could be part of that, but only as expressions of the final playing out of evil, not God's covenant.

And the second is that the Old and New covenants, as practiced in Israel and the Church, are theologically incompatible, and therefore the two can only be on Earth at the same time while Israel is out of covenant.

"Theologically incompatible? Todays's Talmud-based JUDAISM is incompatible with Christianity, but it's also incompatible with Old Testament religion! Again, the Old Testament was FULFILLED in the New. The "theological incompatibility" is merely the difference between the Type and the Reality. The Type was the rituals and ceremonies of Old Testament religion, foreshadowing the Reality, who is Christ, who has come. The Reality fulfills the Type, there is nothing left over.

I do agree that the 70th week of Daniel remains unfulfilled, but this idea that its purpose has to do with the Old Covenant remaining to be "completed" makes no sense. It IS complete, it was completed in CHRIST, Who was the subject of all of it from beginning to end, which is said in many ways in the New Testament.

For Israel to return to the Lord, the Church has to be gone.

This makes no sense either. Israel's return to the Lord would be in becoming part of the Church.

For this reason, the rebirth of Israel in 1948 and the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 are seen as the most important signs of all that the End of the Age is upon us.

And I also see these events very important in relation to Biblical prophecy, perhaps even fulfillment of prophecies of restoration, but I can't see it as anything but a fulfillment of Jewish WRONG IDEAS about the whole meaning of their religion, like it's their fleshly misunderstandings that have yet to play out to their final completion. Their religion is in itself Antichrist. If many are to be saved in the last days they will be saved entirely OUT OF their false religion.

Also, there are two events we haven’t put into the sequence yet, and that’s because they aren’t easy to locate there. These are the battles of Psalm 83 and Isaiah 17. When Israel wins these two battles all their next door enemies will be defeated and they’ll enter into a brief period of peace that sets the stage for Ezekiel’s Battle (Ezekiel 38:11). They’re called battles instead of wars which means they’ll be of short duration and can happen within a fairly short span of time. They can come either before or after the Rapture but do have to happen before the Battle of Ezekiel 38 takes place.

The Sequence of Major Events is only the first of “Seven Things You Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy.” Next time we’ll cover The Destiny of the Three Components of Humanity, The Purpose and Length of the Great Tribulation, and The Purpose of the Rapture.

Well, I'm having my usual problems with the Rapture scenario here. It's certainly not that I think any other end times system is better than the Pretrib Rapture scenario, I don't, the Preterists and the Amillennialists are just too too wrong on awfully basic things. But the Pretrib Rapturists, while they may have some timing right, and some events in the right place, have something very very wrong in their Christian theology. Or something like that.

The Rapture and the State of Israel again Pt 1

The Rapture question has again caught my attention. Some time back I did some posts here on the subject and found myself moving closer to accepting the Rapture as a real possibility. For years I didn't have a solid position, though it had become more or less post-tribulation, that is, believing that the Rapture and the Second Coming are the same thing or at least occur at the same time. But I didn't hold that position with anything like a full commitment to it and other interpretations remained possible in my mind.

When I did the further investigations I've reported here it's not that I arrived at a solid Rapture position either, but I did move closer to it, simply by finding some of the arguments for it to be more scriptural than the opposition's arguments. But there have always remained questions in my mind no matter what position I'm entertaining at the moment.

Now I'm back to thinking about it again, not with any great enthusiasm because I still anticipate not being able to resolve it with any certainty. But I do have the thought that since I believe it COULD be a reality, whether I can commit to it completely isn't the important thing, what's important is what I leave behind for the people in my life if it does happen and some day I'm just suddenly gone. I think I owe it to them to give as much of an understanding of what happened as I'm able.

First Events Following the Rapture
Two things I'm very sure of are, one, that if there IS a rapture of the church terrible things are going to be happening on earth after that point, either right away or starting 3-1/2 years afterward, and, two, there is going to be a massive attempt at disinformation by evil powers to explain away what happened to the Church.

The most likely explanation of our disappearance anticipated by many these days is that we will have been whisked away by a gigantic UFO or many UFOs, to another location more suitable for our peculiarly "unevolved" mentality (and the expectation is that UFO's are going to become a common sight during those days). This, according to the inventers of the explanation, is simply for the practical reason that we just don't fit in the New Age utopia the UFO aliens are planning to construct on this planet. [Just to be clear, the aliens are not extra-terrestrials but evil spirits playing out this concocted scenario to deceive those who are deceivable.]

Those who are not deceived will come to recognize the truth about the Rapture as shown through the Bible and become followers of Christ, and will then go through a terrible tribulation at the hands of the Antichrist and his followers including the "aliens."

That much seems predictable if there is a Rapture, at least in general, since of course the specifics may turn out to be somewhat different. But for sure they'll need a phony explanation for the disappearance of the Christians, and any who recognize the truth will be persecuted.

The Real Reason for the Rapture if it does happen as described:
Why would the church be taken away just before all these things happen? The explanation that makes the most sense has to do with the Seventieth Week of Daniel and a resumption of God's dealings with Israel during that last seven years, picking up where He left off with the coming of Jesus. The Church is used to thinking that He didn't leave off at all, that Christ fulfilled the Old Testament and there is nothing left that needs doing. I have a lot of conflict about this myself. Christ certainly DID fulfill the Old Testament, all the prophecies, the whole point of the Old Testament. Why should there be any more then? Why should there be anything like a "resumption" of God's dealings with Israel? He's DEALT with Israel, the Church has inherited all the promises to Israel, it's a done deal.

Why should there be ANY ambivalence about any of this?

1) Well, for starters, the Biblical "Seventieth Week of Daniel" gives me pause. I'm completely convinced that there is yet this "week of years" left unfulfilled out of the "seventy weeks" given in Daniel 9:24-27, where the prophecy of the coming of Christ (completely fulfilled in the first 69 weeks) is mysteriously and ambiguously replaced by a prophecy of the Antichrist who is the subject of a covenant "confirmed" for "one week."

24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. 25 Know therefore and understand, [that] from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince [shall be] seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. 26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof [shall be] with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. 27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make [it] desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Many try to force this last week into the last events of Christ's life, who made a New Covenant with believers, but the timing is all wrong, way out of line with those events. We need an explanation why the Holy Spirit would split the prophecy of seventy weeks into a block of 69 weeks and another separate week, a reasonable explanation that accounts for both in terms we can recognize. But the 69 weeks were perfectly exactly fulfilled by a simple counting of the years from "the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem" to the coming of Christ, while the last week fits no count in the events of His life at all and just remains hanging there without an explanation. The ONLY reasonable interpretation of this fact is that it MUST be yet future.

2) Then there is also the historical fact that there is a State of Israel now present on the physical land given to ancient Israel by God, as of May 14, 1948. This is really a staggering fact. In the context of the history of the Church for the last two millennia while the land of Palestine languished as barely inhabited wilderness, this physical resumption of the State of Israel is an extremely bizarre reality that can't be ignored. To dismiss it as a mere coincidence that has nothing to do with the prophecies about the physical land is absurd. Many prophecies have more than one fulfillment (for instance, prophecies of the Antichrist have already had two fulfillments at least -- one in Antioches Epiphanes of the time of the Maccabees, and another in Nero -- yet are also to have a future fulfillment). It is a very real possibility that some of the prophecies God gave to ancient Israel about its future restoration could have a fulfillment BOTH in the Church AND in a physical Israel.

Of course the State of Israel is not a theocracy, it was not restored out of obedience to God but out of the Jewish need for a refuge in a hostile world, which became urgent with the rise of Nazism.

==========================
More to come.

Tal Brooke's "Riders of the Cosmic Circuit:" the experience of "enlightenment"

The book, Riders of the Cosmic Circuit by Tal Brooke, was my subject two blog posts ago, but now I want to link to this review of it by Elliott Miller that interested me. It's particularly interesting to me because during the 70s I was surrounded by people who followed one or another of the gurus whose lives the book chronicles -- Sai Baba, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Swami Muktananda -- among others he doesn't cover in the book, including Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who through the Beatles brought us "Transcendental Meditation." The country is now well-sprinkled with the teachings of these and other Eastern religious and occultic influences.

The practitioners of Eastern religions often speak of "enlightenment," which in differing forms is the goal of the practice of all of them, as a necessary insight into the meaning of life that can be gained through the specific disciplines of the religion. A release from the sufferings of this life is the goal of some of them but I may not understand this well enough myself to be characterizing it accurately.

Tal Brooke practiced in India with the Hindu guru Sai Baba and claims to know what the enlightenment experience entails and in this book apparently attempts to make it understandable to others, both Christians and unbelievers. Whether he accurately characterizes it or not is a question the reviewer raises, but it sounds like his analysis is worth pondering.

I'll just quote some of this review and then later probably some from the book:

... At the heart of the New Age movement is the phenomenon of mystical/occult experience, and, resulting from that, the quest for a permanent and com­plete state of mystical “Enlightenment.” Brooke presents case studies of three Indian “super gurus” who have probably been more widely regarded by New Agers as being enlightened than any other spiri­tual leaders of our time: the legendary Sai Baha [typo: should be "Baba"], the notorious Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and the recently deceased “power yogi,” Swami Muktananda.

Brooke provides interesting background concerning each of these “riders” spiritual odysseys. Culminating in what he terms the “Explosion” point, in which Enlightenment is achieved. He demonstrates that in each case the attainment of such a state required a deliberate annihilation of conscience and morality. Thus, by highlighting the evil that predictably concentrates in the most advanced cases of “Enlightenment,” Brooke brings into focus what New Age spirituality ultimately holds for the individ­ual as well as society.

Second, Brooke writes with the authority and insight of one who has been there, both externally and internally. Externally, in India during 1969-71 he served in the inner circle of Sai Baba — his most privi­leged Western disciple. Internally, he him­self had journeyed far on the mystical path, reaching the very threshold of Enlightenment (where he was continually kept back by encountering something “unbelievably sinister to my deepest feel­ing”).

A third quality which distinguishes Riders is that it is written for the unbeliever, in secular style, as few Christian books have been. Thus, its chief value lies in its utility as a book to give non-Christians who are on the mystical path. While most Christian books would alienate them, this one will most likely intrigue them.

The book also offers insight to Christian readers. A particularly provocative feature is its profound analysis of the Enlight­enment experience. The author probes deeply into its spiritual nature and poten­tial eschatological significance.

Are there other malevolent spirit beings besides demons/devils?

This post doesn't relate specifically to the end times, but demons and devils seem to get discussed here more than on my other blogs so that's why it's here.

I've always thought of "demons" as the generic term for fallen angels or malevolent spiritual beings. Or "devils" as the King James has it. These are merely the terms already established in a particular language before the Bible was written in that language -- "devils" being the term in English and "demons" or "daemons" in Greek. Apparently the revisers of 1881 didn't much like the English language (see my blog The Great Bible Hoax) and foisted as many Hebrew and Greek terms on English-speaking people through their revision as they could get away with, at the great cost of unnecessary mystification for the average English-speaking Bible reader, on the supposition that the English terms were somehow inadequate. So they preferred the Greek "Hades" and the Hebrew "Sheol" to the English "Hell," as being somehow closer to the reality of the abode of punishment-- based on what inside knowledge is anyone's guess, but Westcott and Hort's whole theory of textual history was spun from mental cobwebs as it was, so there's not a whole lot to trust in anything they did.

The Bible isn't very explicit in defining either Hell OR the nature of devils, but there's no reason to think that the Hebrew or the Greek concepts have anything on the English concept. ALL the cultural concepts would no doubt have to be modified to fit the actual reality which can be known only through the Holy Spirit, all the cultural sources being ultimately untrustworthy even if they contain some truth. And Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascension have changed all that anyway, in ways that are also not spelled out. The cultural terms describe a pre-Christian holding place insofar as they are accurate at all, holding until the completion of the work of the Messiah Jesus, so the specific differences from culture to culture which of course preexist His coming do not matter.

But I digress (have to complain about Westcott and Hort at every opportunity you know). To reiterate more briefly, the point I wanted to make was that all cultures have terms for devils and for Hell that preceded the Biblical revelation, and reasonable translators have always used the term of the culture to convey the Biblical meaning for that culture. Since the Bible doesn't give much of a picture of the nature of devils or of Hell the cultural recognition of such things is all we need anyway until the fulfillment of all things.

Sometimes a culture recognizes many different spiritual entities, and many different hells as well. Buddhism has at least six hells as I recall (from my pre-Christian days of spiritual seeking) each one designed to punish a particular sin, and as many paradises too I think, to reward degrees or kinds of righteousness. It's all temporary, however, a waystation preceding the return to another life on earth.

Until I became aware of all these things I had never given Hell much thought, but the discovery that such a place is acknowledged by most (all?) cultures was revelatory in itself. I suppose I'd had some vague idea that it was a peculiarly Christian concept. Demons or devils too. Seeing its universality gave it even more of a claim to authentic reality than I was already prepared to give it having apprehended that the Bible was truly God's word.

The main topic I had in mind for this post is whether demons or devils are the only evil spiritual beings. Occasionally one hears a Christian contend that there are others. It's true that the Bible pictures quite a variety of spiritual creatures, in the context of the throne of heaven particularly, but not malevolent or evil ones.

Different cultures may recognize a variety of spiritual beings, only some of which they regard as malevolent and call devils. These are the "gods" they worship. It's only through the Biblical revelation that we know that ALL of them are malevolent, under the leadership of Satan, intent on deceiving people just as Satan did back in Eden and attracting worship to themselves. Some 300 such "gods" are recognized in India for instance. Only the clearly hostile ones are called devils.

Again, from the Biblical perspective they are ALL devils, all fallen angels who oppose God and seek to draw humanity away from God.

They may appear in various forms, some partly animal for instance, some as "fairies" or "gnomes" and the like, everything from petty mischief-makers to ferocious monsters, such as those images often found in Asia and India with bloody skulls draped around them. Some appear as beautiful shining angels, and some even as half devil and half angel.

I've usually thought of all these spiritual entities as Satan's horde of angels that fell with him as described in Ezekiel and Isaiah, before the world was created, but the Bible also suggests -- in Genesis 6 -- that some angels fell by being attracted to women after the Creation, and "married" them and had offspring by them. I don't know whether this is to be regarded as a separate instance of angels falling, but they WERE angels (that's what "sons of God" means) so they weren't some other kind of spiritual being. Their offspring were giants, or Nephilim, part human, part angel, not described in any detail in the Bible but quite a bit in the Book of Enoch, an "apocryphal" book that (most of) the early Church fathers regarded as inspired, though it lost that status later.

The Nephilim seem to have a lot in common with the Greek and Roman gods who had both gods and humans for parents, the "mighty men of old" as the Bible puts it, such as Hercules. There are part human and part animal creatures too in some religions. Some suggest that these were the result of experiments by fallen angels in an attempt to destroy the human seed that God intends to save, and that this sort of tampering is still going on through the agency of "extraterrestrials" (demons in disguise of course) who abduct people to their "UFOs" where supposedly they perform many experiments with the human reproductive system. I've never investigated any of this myself but the existence of strange creatures in the lore of many cultures along with the hints in the Bible make it seem plausible enough to me.

And perhaps in some cultures these creatures are thought of as spiritual entities, and perhaps they are partly so, but all the Bible says is that angels fell, no other kind of creature.

Therefore it seems possible that "angels" come in many different forms so that there are many different kinds of demons or devils as well, they being merely fallen angels.

The point is that the Bible speaks ONLY of fallen "angels," not any other kind of malevolent spiritual being, and hints at no "fall" of spiritual beings other than angels, but any other kinds of malevolent spiritual beings that may exist would have to have fallen as all were originally created to obey God. They'd all have to have been "angels" originally, and now "fallen angels" or "demons" or "devils" even if they exist in a great variety of forms.

It must be obvious from this musing that I haven't spent much time reading up on demonology as all this is off the top of my head.

Ex-Disciple of Sai Baba: The Deception of "Higher Consciousness"

I can't afford books these days, but sometimes the ads for them carry enough information to be useful.

Tal Brooke who is President of Spiritual Counterfeits Project in Berkeley, California, spent a few years in India in the late sixties or early seventies as a disciple of the guru Sai Baba who recently died. While in India he was converted to Christ and then came back to the US where he joined the SCP and wrote a book about his experiences in Sai Baba's ashram (Avatar of Night), as well as other books about the spread of a dark deceptive spirituality that has been growing through the influence of eastern religions and New Age teachings.

Here is the blurb for a recent book from the SCP website:

RIDERS OF THE COSMIC CIRCUIT
by Tal Brooke

A Rider of the Cosmic Circuit is one who emerges from that rare explosion into superconsciousness called enlightenment, an exalted state attained by a mere fraction down the ages. Family and friends do not recognize him, for the Rider has changed on a fundamental level. Claiming Godhood, the Rider operates behind an unreadable face, manipulating the buttons of human reaction within those who believe his claim to deity. But his outer form masks an unknowable intelligence. Who is he really?

To the ordinary mind, enlightenment is like a black hole in deep space whose event horizon descends into unknowable blackness. What measuring stick can the normal mind use to judge those who claim to be enlightened and One with God. How can you judge one who claims to be as beyond ordinary human consciousness as it surpasses that of the ant?

The author, Tal Brooke spent years in India and came right up to the mouth of the flame. He himself was being [pr]epared for a leap into superconsciousness by India's premier godman, Sai Baba. Then he spotted a crack in the cosmic puzzle (the full story is in his intimate account, Avatar of Night.).

RIDERS OFTHE COSMIC CIRCUIT explores this deepest of conundrums and asks: Is there a dark side to superconsciousness? Does it have motives beyond the reach of most people? Is it capable of deception and evil? And is there any kind of pattern or map we can use to interpret this alien terrain of the metapsychology of cosmic consciousness? Indeed, is so-called superconsciousness in reality a state of perfect possession? And what is it that possesses the human host who has willfully abandoned the controls of his soul and mind in this all-or-none quest for Godhood?

I have to admit that sometimes Tal Brooke's writing (I assume this is his) is as mystifying as the descriptions of such things by the practitioners themselves. "Changed on a fundamental level" means what in simple descriptive terms? And I do have to ask: What exactly is this superconsciousness conscious OF? Puhleeze, this whole black hole darkness metaphor conveys exactly nothing. Is it really impossible for someone who has this experience to say something coherent about it?

But in response to his last paragraph I just wanted to say that a believer in the Bible should have no doubt: any supposed superconsciousness is imparted by demon spirits that possess the mind of the practitioner. Demon spirits or fallen angels no doubt do possess a higher, or at least different, mind than we do, and they are capable of much illusion and deception. There is simply no other explanation if you believe the Bible.

People who have become involved in these practices need to be set free, and only Jesus Christ is capable of setting them free.

"All who call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved."

Spirit Channelers: Doctrines of Devils

Recently I've been catching up on some of the New Age deceptions, specifically the channelers -- the current word for "medium" -- who are direct conduits for the devil's propaganda against God.

Why should this sort of thing bother me any more than any of the millions of other ways God is blasphemed and people are being led down the primrose path to their doom? I'm not really sure it does bother me more, exactly, but it has definitely been getting to me. Maybe there's something about the directness of the lies in this case, and seeing how some people eat them up. Partly it is seeing how pervasive such lies are becoming -- much of it is basic Postmodernism, which has already been undermining the fabric of society for decades. The channelers and their followers think undermining society is a very good thing of course -- "society" is specifically targeted by them as what is wrong with all of us, having "conditioned" us away from our true selves or something like that, into lies and "limitations." It's a major theme among them. Another VERY depressing thing is their aiming the lies at children in particular (oh that does make me cry) as the channelers think it's such a good thing if children aren't being "suppressed" -- which is their jaundiced view of social training.

It makes me feel my weakness as a Christian -- again (so what else is new?) Why can't the church get its act together to seek the Lord with such zeal He might bring us revival in His power -- which is the only thing that could affect all this? Blogging isn't going to do it, the usual intellectualized sermons in the churches are certainly not going to do it, all the fair speeches in the world aren't going to do it, only the power of God can do it, and what a bunch of flabby sickly self-preoccupied Christians who have the "name but not the power" we are!! Not to mention that huge segments of what is popularly considered to be "the Church" aren't really the Church at all anyway, but are frankly apostate or so contaminated with this same postmodern influence they are useless.

1 Timothy 4: 1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

Continuing from where I left off in my last post: I've been listening to the video Tuning In: Spirit Channelers in America, and as usual finding a certain predictable collection of ideas that the spirits seem intent on propagating among people. It doesn't matter much what the particular demon source is, what spokesman promotes it, or what UFO it first came in on, they all have pretty much the same message they want to get across.

As I've been letting this stuff roll on it began to dawn on me that the focus of all of it is relentlessly on YOU YOU YOU, or ME ME ME. ALL the teaching is about how YOU YOU YOU can learn to make the most of your nature, in a sense, by tuning into what they call your "higher self." I tell you, it is absolutely relentless. I've listened to an awful lot of this by now and I haven't heard the mention of one single MORAL concern. The idea of a "higher self" kind of suggests maybe that higher self would be preoccupied with, oh, I don't know, doing good in the world perhaps. And I'm sure this is not neglected among those who follow such teachings, although I also am sure that the actualization of the higher self itself is supposed to do good in the world. But the fact is that in these teachings I've been hearing there hasn't been a single reference in that direction, just exhortations to follow your own desires, feelings, enthusiasms, excitements or similar terms as all this supposedly comes from your higher self and will eventually establish you IN that higher self. And this explicitly means ignoring and suppressing all concerns about repercussions -- indeed any MORAL concerns -- you might have about following your own inclinations.

The entire substance of all of it is how to be a better you, and this means getting rid of everything you've ever learned, all that stuff "society" has supposedly crammed down your throat -- it's all bad, don't you know, it's all, well -- LIMITING -- you must rid yourself of "limitations" if you want to learn to live from your higher self or something like that. Society has merely "conditioned" you in "limitations," restrictions and lies.

I shudder at the implications of this, the destructiveness that MUST be the result of this, in individual lives, in society as a whole. This is nothing but fallen human nature being given the green light to the max. Never in history that I know of has such a thing ever been promoted, and that means in ANY society, in ANY religion. Yes, a lot of this is taken from the Eastern religions, specifically Hinduism (and the miserable condition of that society ought to be a clue to its fruit) but this goes further even than those religions do.

Jer 17:9 ¶ The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?

And religion, oh, well, "religion" is the worst of all, just a pack of lies you were indoctrinated into.

Seems to me that so few people have been raised in Christianity in the West for so many decades this focus on debunking religion is pretty much irrelevant. Even I didn't get indoctrinated although I was sent to church as a child -- What little I'd learned I lost in my teens for a thirty-year stint as an atheist before God finally got hold of me. I didn't have a clue about the gospel until my mid-forties. But it does serve to point up how energetically the demons want to be sure no shred of the truth of God remains in anyone's head.

Oh, some of them want you to know that the old religions (they sometimes carefully include other religions but we know they really mean Christianity because none of the other religions is a threat to them, being part of the delusion they are promoting) --some, I say, want you to know that the old "religions" had SOME truth in them, but whatever bits of truth they contained are now being more fully revealed by these channeled beings, and so on and so forth.

For instance, God isn't a being, he's really your higher self, the higher self of all human beings, even in some versions all living things. So if you cultivate your higher self you will be in touch with God.

Pretty diabolical.

Propagandizing the human race is apparently their primary Mission, at least at this stage -- it's of course to be expected that they have an agenda for the future that requires many such propagandized people to make it possible. At one point in the video Tuning In, in which five or six channelers speak the demonic lies they are receiving, one of them raises the question how many "aware" ones are needed in order to have a general impact on the world consciousness with these teachings. I'd say we're already awash in this polluted "awareness" myself and it's only getting worse as the propagandized promote what is ultimately going to turn out to be a hideous anti-human agenda, an agenda the channelers and their followers couldn't possibly anticipate but will work blindly and enthusiastically to usher in once they are thoroughly indoctrinated in the sweetness-and-light propaganda.

As I said in the previous post, this video shows channelers treating their "work" as quite commonplace, with none of the old hocus pocus about it. They get these messages from demonic spirits and accept them utterly uncritically, apparently just because they come from spirits, blind to any danger to themselves or any possibility that they are being deceived. The fact that the messages from each all build on one another in general agreement must of course add to the illusion of truth they've all bought into. (Never seems to occur to people who are into this stuff that demons do their job on orders from the top and make an effort to be all on the same page in their separate missions with individual people. They most likely don't even have to be too careful since they have such a gullible uncritical audience).

For this to have become so commonplace is no doubt due to the groundwork laid over the centuries with individual after individual channeler, medium, seer, "prophet," avatar, guru, theosophist, witch or warlock, and of course the general breakdown of a stable society, as it does appear that they DO have to get permission, as they themselves admit, and the more people they succeed in deluding the more they get that permission -- granted by God, of course, whom they deny -- and the more permission they get the more of them can come in and the more people they can possess and the more the culture becomes polluted with their doctrines.

Are you an Extra-Terrestrial waking up to your Mission?

How is it possible for people to come to believe that human beings were originally extra-terrestrials? I've just found another version of this rather popular New Age idea. There seem to be many versions but they share many similarities. One version has "ancient astronauts" having come to this planet in ancient times to "seed" it with life including human beings, coming back in recent times to see how we're doing and offer us their superior wisdom for dealing with our problems.

This one I just became aware of addresses people as if they believe that they were originally extra-terrestrials themselves. Now the planet is "evolving" away from its problems and the awakening or awakened ones are being addressed by "Mission Control" concerning their mission, which supposedly they signed up for back when, although they've forgotten that as well as everything else about their origins. The mission involves "birthing" the planet "into the light," and "becoming your own Messiah."

The mission isn't all that clear to me, kind of rambles around a number of vaguely related concepts, nor am I able to digest the implication that ALL human beings are unawakened extra-terrestrials although only some are "evolving" or awakening to their mission. Not that it matters really. The whole thing is a fiction designed to lure vulnerable souls into some sort of demonic trap. There are always those who are flattered as the ones "in the know" in such a scenario as opposed to those outside, poor stupid unevolved unenlightened unawakened things, like Muggles. Obviously anyone who is attracted to this kind of story is someone they want to reach for purposes of deepening the indoctrination, the rest aren't accessible to them anyway.

Here is a video that apparently presents the gist of a book titled ET 101 that purports to be an instruction manual for people who have discovered they are really extra-terrestrials on a mission. It's written by Diana Luppi with an "entity" called Zoev Jho, who on one website I found she says is really just herself under another name, and "Mission Control." The book is described as having a lot of humor, which is unusual for this kind of thing. There is a bit of this in the video, but there are of course people who will find the whole thing laughable anyway.

Toward the end of the video there is a picture, with no explanation given, of a typical New-Age sort of mandala thing with a spiral in the middle, reminiscent both of the yin-yang symbol and two sixes intertwined (instead of the usual three), which reminds me of the Seoul Korea figure among other things. At the end of the video the reader is whimsically told to prepare for the Second Coming, because "you're it," and "you are the Second Coming." News to me of course and any of the rest of us who are waiting for Christ's soon return (or the Rapture, followed by the short-lived reign of the Antichrist whom the deluded will accept as the Christ).

Then goes on to say:

Mission Control does not wish to stay on this topic very long because we are aware of the charge that surrounds it due to 2,000 years of organized denial.

Hm. "Organized denial." Righto, poison the well any way you can. Wouldn't want to stay on this topic TOO long because the truth might penetrate the misty clouds in the head of some wannabe ET that Jesus Christ is coming back and blow the delusion to bits. The only "organized denial" here is this statement that implies our expectation of 2,000 years is false. Denial, anyway, whether "organized" or not.

For this reason we will give you only one more helpful hint: Become your own Messiah -- why wait?

Yeah, that's going to do you a LOT of good, to usurp the position of the true Messiah who alone has the power to save you from this very sort of lying demonic seduction with its sweet-sounding music and its pretty images.

Here's the website for ET 101. And here's its self-identifying statement:

“The Old World's systems are in collapse. Those who wish to continue in those systems will be graciously asked to leave, because their motivator, fear, is being relocated to another planet where its subdivisions are still welcome.

In fulfillment of Native American prophecies, intergalactic and interdimensional forces have gathered on this planet at this time to liberate her in the name of Spirit.

The Earth has elected to evolve beyond limitation; however, anyone who opts to explore that process further is free to do so — just not on this planet. Such people will be allowed to continue their experiments with limitation on some other piece of planetary property that is at a less advanced stage in its evolution.

This is the most critical moment of change in this planet's history, and your assistance in that change is vital.”

Get right to the point, don't they? If we don't agree with them, off with us! Who's in charge here? THEM! Whoever they are. THEY want to "liberate" "this planet" from US, it looks like to me. "The Earth has elected..." to evolve beyond "limitation." The Earth itself can "elect" something? Of course those of us who are addicted to "limitation," whatever that is -- us poor unevolved Muggle sorts you know -- and those of us who experience fear (of what? Them perhaps?) are no longer welcome here. But we are merely being "graciously asked" to leave, not forced -- so I recommend a rebellion. Prayer for starters.

Of course Christians in particular are targeted by such a devil-inspired message -- clearly there is no God in this scenario, just wise ones from outer space -- but there are countless others who aren't interested in their program either. Christians MIGHT be taken away in the Rapture -- I'm still not convinced one way or the other about this -- and that would require all these demonic entities and their human followers to have an explanation. So they could explain our disappearance as a necessary -- graciously requested -- relocation due to the fact that we are so much less "evolved" than this planet deserves.

There seem to be quite a few of these demon-inspired notions of taking some people off the planet going around these days, mostly in connection with this sort of New Age or UFO-inspired drama. Suggests that perhaps THEY believe in the Rapture, or are at least hedging their bets just in case. But what about the nonChristians who don't accept this demonic nonsense but won't be raptured? If anything like this scenario does start unfolding THEY are going to have plenty of fear, but they'll still be here although fear is supposed to be a disqualifier. (How clever of them to smear their opponents with the accusation of "fear.")

They have a handy Census Form so you can identify yourself according to your extraterrestrial level or something like that:

ET CENSUS FORM - English
1a. I AM:

An Extraterrestrial Master
A member of the Angelic Hosts
A Council, Federation, Alliance and/or Command member
An Interdimensional Adept, Master or Lord
A member of the Special Forces
A Group Soul posing as many human beings
All of the above
All of the above except
Other (please specify below)

Do note: They invite the person to identify as "I AM" in all caps, the name of God Himself. This is also a popular blasphemy these days. There is no God, it's just us -- and Them, whoever they are, but we know they are on our side, they are really the source of all the God ideas, but stupid people misidentified them, you know, us Muggle types, unevolved types, unawakened, unenlightened, whatever.

If you read on you will find a section of humorous comments on the claims of this website, apparently submitted by various readers, that they allow you to check -- in case you are of that turn of mind, meaning you aren't one of Them, who are the only ones they want to reach anyway:

Feel free to beam me up. There really isn’t any intelligent life down here.

This planet is in no shape for an evolutionary leap. It couldn’t even withstand an evolutionary hop, and I advise immediate reconsideration of the entire plan.

I don’t remember signing up for this mission. If I did, is there any such thing as a discharge? Dishonorable is fine with me.

I believe I have struck upon a better planetary transition plan which does not require my direct participation. Can we talk?

I live in Wilton, Connecticut and have mistaken my portfolio for my identity. Is there any possibility of me and my portfolio being restationed at this point?

It's very tempting to dismiss this sort of thing with humorous remarks (and they are cute, aren't they?), as just another crackpot delusion, but I have to say that there's enough of this out there now, and enough people who take it seriously, as well as Christian exposes on versions of it, that it's foolish just to dismiss it as a delusion. It IS a delusion but it's a demon-orchestrated delusion and demons are very real.

So all this must be part of the End Times drama the devil is setting up behind the scenes these days, trying out this and that perhaps, seeing what will float. The purpose has to be among other things to bring his demonic hordes onto the planet in huge numbers.

People ARE asleep about these things, including Christians who ought to know better.

The video says that "they" aren't permitted to invade, they must earn their right to alter this planet. Apparently they are succeeding. Simply gaining the consent of people they've deceived acts as an invitation and the conferring of the right they seek.

I have to assume that people can still be saved out of this kind of demonic delusion. Sometimes I just pray that people learn that "Whosoever calls on the Name of the LORD shall be saved." Of course they have to believe in that Name.

======================
Mon 4/18: Another New Age concept related to the above is the "walk-in." This is a term I encountered as far back as the 80s or maybe even 70s as people advertised themselves by it in New Age tabloids. After I became a Christian in the mid-eighties I recognized that there was only one way to understand it: demon-possessed people -- IF of course they weren't just pretending to be something they weren't.

I looked it up this morning and found a Wikipedia article on it that traces it to the Seth books that became cult favorites in the 70s, books that were "channeled" by spirits through Jane Roberts, and goes on to discuss many popular versions of the idea.

The whole thing is about demon possession, the channeling of the concept, the concept itself.

How did America get demon-possessed? There were always such phenomena in the West, though in isolated pockets for the most part, and the Wikipedia article mentions earlier versions of it. There was a rather large movement in the 19th century in the theosophists and other spiritualists which seem to have come out of the degeneration of Christianity in formerly Puritan New England, with their seances and sometimes a sort of Christianized spirit talk. Henry James' novel, The Bostonians, has such phenomena as the background for the feminist movement -- in the character of a girl whose "faith healer" father induces a trance in her and invites the "spirit" to come to her in order for her to speak her feminist message. James also wrote The Turn of the Screw which is frankly about demonic manifestations (only people who refuse to believe in such things could interpret it any other way) and was generally fascinated with this sort of theme.

I had an aunt who dabbled in versions of spiritualism, for a while very involved in the teachings of Edgar Cayce who was known as a healer -- no doubt in my mind that he heard from spirits; she was also interested in the earlier gurus who came to America, Swami Vivekananda for instance, Paramahansa Yogananda for instance, later got very involved in a spiritualist movement called Subud. She also loved the Antichrist poet, Khalil Gibran. She eventually became a born-again Christian. So I had some awareness of this sort of thing from her before I encountered it in other forms later.

It all seems to have multiplied enormously in the 70s. There was a massive influx of Eastern religions during that time, and religions with a shamanistic background which invites demon possession. Various channeled teachings became popular. Carlos Castaneda's Teachings of Don Juan became big then. The earlier Beatniks had embraced Buddhism and that was continuing to grow in popularity -- a friend of mine began to practice Zen during the 70s and went on to become a priestess. The Beatles had brought in Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his pseudo-scientific Transcendental Meditation, and two couples of my acquaintance went on to become TM adepts and leaders. Various other Hindu gurus had their followings.

This no doubt deserves a post of its own when I can get around to it.

Later: Adding This link for further pondering.

And one on earlier Hindu influences in America.

And here's Christian researcher Caryl Matrisciana on Eastern religions and the New Age. And here's another part of the same interview..

Ai yi yi yi yi: I wonder how many are involved in this sort of thing already? Here's a video of what seems to be a little club of channelers of messages from the spirit world, treating it as quite commonplace, none of the old spooky stuff or hocus pocus about it. They get these messages from demonic spirits and accept them utterly uncritically, apparently just because they come from spirits, blind to any danger to themselves or any possibility that they are being deceived. The Delusion just keeps growing and spreading.

Open Letter to Evangelicals again: The State of Israel in the end times

An Open Letter to Evangelicals and Other Interested Parties:
The People of God, the Land of Israel, and the Impartiality of the Gospel.

This came up in conversation again recently, so although I already did a two-part blog on it last year I would like to try to say it again more briefly. This Open Letter aims to answer a statement from some evangelical leaders urging American support of Israel on the basis of scripture. According to the Open Letter, apparently some are teaching that

God's alleged favor toward Israel today is based upon ethnic descent rather than upon the grace of Christ alone, as proclaimed in the Gospel.

and others are teaching

that the Bible's promises concerning the land are fulfilled in a special political region or "Holy Land," perpetually set apart by God for one ethnic group alone.

And this is what the Open Letter seeks to answer.

The Open Letter goes on to present the Gospel of salvation as universal in answer to claims for any ethnic group. There is only one way of salvation for all.

4. Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, came into the world to save sinners. In his death upon the cross, Jesus was the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, of Jew and of Gentile alike. The death of Jesus forever fulfilled and eternally ended the sacrifices of the Jewish temple. All who would worship God, whether Jew or Gentile, must now come to him in spirit and truth through Jesus Christ alone. The worship of God is no longer identified with any specific earthly sanctuary. He receives worship only through Jesus Christ, the eternal and heavenly Temple ...

7. Jesus taught that his resurrection was the raising of the True Temple of Israel. He has replaced the priesthood, sacrifices, and sanctuary of Israel by fulfilling them in his own glorious priestly ministry and by offering, once and for all, his sacrifice for the world, that is, for both Jew and Gentile. Believers from all nations are now being built up through him into this Third Temple, the church that Jesus promised to build. ...

9. The entitlement of any one ethnic or religious group to territory in the Middle East called the "Holy Land" cannot be supported by Scripture. In fact, the land promises specific to Israel in the Old Testament were fulfilled under Joshua. The New Testament speaks clearly and prophetically about the destruction of the second temple in A.D. 70. No New Testament writer foresees a regathering of ethnic Israel in the land, as did the prophets of the Old Testament after the destruction of the first temple in 586 B.C. Moreover, the land promises of the Old Covenant are consistently and deliberately expanded in the New Testament to show the universal dominion of Jesus, who reigns from heaven upon the throne of David, inviting all the nations through the Gospel of Grace to partake of his universal and everlasting dominion.

The promised Messianic kingdom of Jesus Christ has been inaugurated. Its advent marks the focal point of human history. This kingdom of the Messiah is continuing to realize its fullness as believing Jews and Gentiles are added to the community of the redeemed in every generation. The same kingdom will be manifested in its final and eternal form with the return of Christ the King in all his glory. ...

The present secular state of Israel, however, is not an authentic or prophetic realization of the Messianic kingdom of Jesus Christ.

I agree, and to the extent that some see the gospel as coming to fruition through the state of Israel I disagree with them. On the other hand, while Israel is not a fulfillment of Messianic prophecy it does look like a fulfillment of some literal prophecies about the flowering of that land again, the return of the Jews to that land at the end and so on.

While the state of Israel does not fulfill MESSIANIC prophecy (except as the final stage before Jesus' second advent) I can see it as a fulfillment of prophecy of the playing out of the claims of fallen human nature under the Antichrist just before the return of Jesus. Religious Jews are still expecting their Messiah, blinded to the fact that they rejected the true Messiah 2000 years ago, and who would that be but the Antichrist?

I do see God behind all this, however. I've found some speculation on the web that Satan is behind it. That can't be so -- his part seems to be mostly against Israel. There have been miraculous events protecting Israel from its Arab enemies and that has to be God. Those who deny that Israel has a right to be on the land also see the Palestinians as the victims of Israel, but I see it the other way around. Whatever Israel's rights to the land from a biblical perspective, they acquired it fairly and the land was pretty much barren when they started the process -- see Mark Twain's description of the area as a wilderness when he was there in the 19th century. The Palestinian people did not exist at that time, there was no people with that name at all and the current "Palestinians" are not of one tribe but from many different Arab backgrounds. They were Arabs from the surrounding nations who came to work for the Israelis in building up the land, who left Israel in a mass exodus before one of the Arab attacks on Israel, having been warned of the attack BY the Arabs. They became a refugee camp that then took on the false identity of a Palestinian nation. Meanwhile Israel absorbed many Jewish refugees from those same Arab lands. The Arab nations should have absorbed back the Arab refugees but they found it more useful to leave them there with the implication that their sufferings were all the fault of Israel.

The prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27 found a literal fulfillment in a historically documented period of 69 times 7 years from a specific point in history to the revelation of Jesus Christ as King as He rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. The prophecy was literal and was exactly and literally fulfilled in the first advent of the Messiah. There is a "seventieth week" left in that prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled and must also be fulfilled in the same literal historical way the first 69 "weeks" were fulfilled. This is a last "week of years" or seven years that it seems to me can't just be palmed off with an allegorical interpretation but must be a literal time yet to come. There are many indications that this is to be a time in which not Christ but the usurper, Christ's imitator the Antichrist, possessed by the devil, will take the reins of world government in Christ's name, at the end of which time the true King will return. Some Jews will receive this fake as their Messiah. For this purpose a reinstated temple in Jerusalem would make perfect sense.

The complaints of the Open Letter that those who are looking to a literal physical Israel are misrepresenting the gospel of Christ may be true of many, and of course if so they are wrong -- literal physical Israel isn't really about the gospel, it's about the playing out of the end times drama of pure evil as all the powers of the devil and fallen human nature come together to rule the world, bringing the whole fallen creation to its fullest possible expression and final defeat. Not all prophecies are Messianic prophecies. The four empires prophesied by Daniel embody the doings of fallen humanity, and the Messiah comes into it only as He is prophesied to overthrow the fourth and last empire and usher in the Kingdom that will last forever. We are now living in the dispensation in which Christ has come and yet the fallen world continues alongside. It makes sense to me to think that the fallen world has yet to come to its own "perfection" as it were -- a "perfection" of error and evil -- before the Lord returns for good.

Israel is STILL the geographic location where God chose to place His name. It's still a type, it's not the gospel, but this earth hasn't yet fled away and while it's here that piece of geography is still where God put His name. For it to function as a magnet for all the forces of evil to come together at the very end to try to defeat God makes perfect sense. Yes, the gospel is fulfilled in the HEAVENLY Jerusalem not the earthly Jerusalem but we are still living on this planet and this planet is where the Antichrist is going to appear and rule, and the Mount of Olives is literally where the Lord Jesus is going to appear Himself as well, at the very end when he returns to take possession of His people and His entire creation.

So I'm claiming that there is still a history to be played out in the original land given to the Jews by God, although all that is now fulfilled in Christ. Scripture apparently prophesies that the Israelis will suffer terribly in that land before the final day, but that God will be their ultimate protector and defender, even fighting for them against their enemies, and that a great number of them will finally be saved.

The purpose of this is not so much about the gospel as it is about God's ownership of Planet Earth. God has always had the purpose to save through the gospel a people for Himself, but He has also always had this other purpose as well -- to demonstrate His glory and His reign over the earth to ALL people, in fact to the entire Creation in heaven and in earth. EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW to the King of Kings when He comes to claim His possession, EVERY KNEE, not just the knees of believers. The unsaved, the unregenerate, the damned and the doomed and every other living thing will bow to the true King of Creation in the end, and ALL will see Him with their physical eyes when He returns.

Evil must have its day and then the wicked will be shown their error as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords returns to claim His inheritance, His believing people but also the physical world He created.

Furthermore, a day should not be anticipated in which Christ's kingdom will manifest Jewish distinctives, whether by its location in "the land," by its constituency, or by its ceremonial institutions and practices.

However, there do seem to be prophecies about these very distinctives, but the mistake, it seems to me, is to think of any of this as manifesting CHRIST'S KINGDOM. Rather it will be the manifestation of ANTICHRIST's kingdom. The Book of Revelation calls Jerusalem Sodom after all.

Instead, this present age will come to a climactic conclusion with the arrival of the final, eternal phase of the kingdom of the Messiah. At that time, all eyes, even of those who pierced him, will see the King in his glory. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.

Quite. But HOW things are going to arrive at this point looks to me like it's going to include physical Israel -- apostate Israel, yes, but an Israel in which multitudes of Jews will come to see the truth and be saved even out of the most horrifying tribulation. And THEN will come the "climactic conclusion with the arrival of the final, eternal phase of the kingdom of the Messiah."

I could be wrong about this -- and probably am wrong about SOME of it in any case -- but I'm more and more committed to something along these lines. I think BOTH sides of this argument are partly right and partly wrong. There is a both/and here. To the extent that the pro-Israel evangelicals confuse God's purposes in Israel with His purposes in the gospel they are wrong or at least have the cart before the horse, but they have something right in their reading of prophecy nevertheless, which the Reformed camp behind the Open Letter is overlooking.