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Middle East Update – February, 2012

 

There  is a reason why we choose not to do weekly updates on the situation in the Middle East.  The primary reason is that things tend not to change very much in a brief period of time.  Indeed, things tend to move very slowly in that broad arena.  For example, the situation on the ground in those nations where uprisings have succeeded in toppling despotic dictators, change has been both bloody and agonizingly slow. 

The military government in Egypt, after more than a year, has not yet turned the reins of governance over to a civilian government.  There are protests in the streets every day, and citizens are still being shot and killed by the military regime as the populace calls for the military to step aside and become an arm of the civilian government, as it must be in a democratic government.

        Unfortunately, however, Egypt is not alone in having had a successful revolution that has failed to germinate and produce the sweet fragrance of Democracy that the people sought when they fought and bled in the streets.  Yemen is moving slowly toward that end, as is Tunisia, but neither have settled into lives of freedom and equality and prosperity.  Freedom is burning in the breasts of millions of people, and it is coming, and sooner rather than later.  Tyranny must go the way of slavery!

 

The most explosive unrest recently has been in Syria, where both China and Russia have been aiding Syria’s existing dictator, Bashar Al Assad, whose family has ruled like the Oriental despots of ancient times.  There is an “off-with-their-heads” mentality, as there has been in each of the nations who have participated in the Arab Spring revolutions; until the blood flowed so freely that the human race finally determined to put an end to it. 

NATO took the leading role in Libya, deposing Muammar Gadaffi, but did not stay to help the transition from military to civilian rule.  NATO presumed that the new Libyan military would move immediately to democratic elections, and they did not.  Libya has now devolved into sectarian warfare, and is no closer to democratic reform or stability than it was before the revolution began.  The people of Syria acted on the basis of NATO’s helping hand in Libya.  At the end of the day, it is proving to be a sort of “Bay of Pig’s” moment.  We indicate by our actions that we will help, but people imprisoned by tyranny are too quick to presume that NATO will always oblige.  The plan didn’t even work in Iraq, and we were there for most of a decade. Iraq has a range of problems that mostly run along sectarian lines.

        Wherever the United Nations has acted, it has acted through the participation of a coalition of its member states.  That is, most member nations of the U.N. provide, in some measure great or small, some form of support for the actions of the U.N.  Unanimity is rare, but most of the world seems to be united against the dictators, and all the more during this period that has come to be known as the Arab Spring.  Pity it were not the Persian Spring as well.  Ah, but there is a springtime coming!

Russia did not back Gadaffi, nor did China. When the U.N. agreed, NATO protected the civilian population from the government’s military tanks and air force,  This has not been the case in Syria.  Because Iran, Syria and to some extent Lebanon have strong trade and military alliances with the Russians and the Chinese,  Geography is also a factor in the U.N.’s inaction.

 

Russia and China have blocked any action by the United Nations to intervene in Syria.  This, because Russia and China are witnessing upheavals in their own nations, and they do not want revolutionaries among their allies to be seen as heroes. 

While Russia and China joined the world against Gadaffi and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, where their influence was inconsequential anyway, if the Russians and the Chinese allowed the nations of the world to put down the existing regimes in Iran and Syria, they fear that it will only embolden the revolutionaries in their own nations; that it will be a mere matter of time before they face huge and violently opposed constituencies.  The handwriting on the wall reads, “Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin.”  Belshazzar, by the writing on the wall, knew that his days were numbered and the time had come for him to die.  He had been weighed on the scales of Justice and been found wanting.  China and Russia would avoid that judgment if they could.  They surely will try, and with great violence themselves, against their own people.

        We seem to be at a standstill in the blood-letting in Syria.  The United States and others have called for Bashar al Assad to step down, but as long as he has the backing of his supporters in the far north, Assad can hold onto power, using heavy artillery against his own people.  The same is true in Iran, where the populace is ruled not only by a political oligarchy, but by a religious monarchy of a sort as well. 

 

People have a natural yearning to be free.  They do not mind government, but they mind very much when either government or religion intrudes upon their freedom to be who they are.  So, we see unrest continuing in most of the region and its peoples.  And then there is Iran, and the bomb.

        Again, Russia is against the use of force to stop, or even to hinder, Iran in its progress toward its unstated goal of producing an atomic weapon.  Iran denies that its nuclear ambition is for any other purpose than the generation of electricity, but its political arm has stated unequivocally and repeatedly that its purpose and intent is the annihilation of the state of Israel.  Since Iran can by no means defeat Israel in a conventional war, there can be but little doubt that their real intent is to produce and use a weapon that most of the world does not trust them to have.  Many of the nations of the world have imposed strangling sanctions upon Iran, but her two primary allies have thus far refused to cooperate in those sanctions, continuing to sell arms to both Iran and Syria.  Both nations put those arms into the hands of the men of Hamas and Hezbollah.

        There is no secret that Iran is sponsoring two anti-Israel factions in the Middle East, Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which share Iran’s stated goal of eliminating the Jewish people from their homeland.  The ancient antipathy –  that began when Abraham cast out Ishmael in favor of Isaac, borne by his wife, rather than his first son, Ishmael, borne by her maidservant – is rapidly approaching another effusion of blood between those two half brothers.

 

The United States seems hamstrung by the stalemate in the Middle East.  Ah, do not blink.  It appears increasingly likely that President Obama will win reelection.  If he does, he will be a different president than he was in his first term.  In his first term, he tried to be accommodating toward the Republicans, who sought to obstruct everything that he tried to do, often enough to their own embarrassment.  The rancor between the left and the right in our nation has finally spilled over into our own streets. 

The group that calls itself “the 99%” is enraged over the outcome of the Reagan Revolution, which has seen the middle class driven into poverty.  It was a real revolution, but the bullets were dollars, and those with the most bullets won, just as they do when the bullets are lead or steel. 

We will refrain from discussing this phenomenon beyond what we have just said, except to suggest that what the “Occupy Movement” in the U.S. wants is the same thing that the revolutionaries in the Middle East want: a real opportunity to earn a living wage in a system where the one percent no longer controls the vast bulk of the nation’s resources. 

On the right in the U.S., the “Occupy” movement is being called “class warfare.”  And so it is.  But the warfare did not begin with the “Occupiers.”  It began when President Reagan turned the nation to supply-side economics, promising that its riches would trickle down to the masses if we only stopped taxing the hyper-rich and Corporate America. Especially the bankers.  There was no trickle.  Rather, the income gap between the top one percent and the rest of the nation grew alarmingly wider over a thirty year period, culminating in the same unrest in the cities of America that we are also seeing in the Middle East.

 

In the midst of it all, President Obama has done what he could when he could.  Unlike in the Arab states and Persia, in the U.S. the protests are not against our president, but against the Congress, the sector of our government that controls the purse strings and writes the tax laws.  Obama was seen as weak because he sought compromise.  He was broadly accused of caving to the right on almost every issue, and it appeared that he was heading toward a one-term presidency.

        In the last several months, however, his stance has shifted somewhat dramatically.  He has taken unilateral steps to right the ship.  He has stopped seeking compromise and begun to take actions that he can take to sidestep an increasingly obstreperous Congress.  The economy is growing again, and the jobless rate is dropping, in spite of the political right’s attempts to thwart any sign of recovery.  The U.S. was the first of the industrial nations to emerge from the financial crisis of 2008-2009, and it is again seen as among the most stable nations on the earth.

Due to obstruction by Congress, the nation’s credit rating was lowered for the first time in our history.  Everywhere the right has turned, they have shot themselves in the foot, as the current primary process has demonstrated.  We stated long before the approaching end of Obama’s first term that he would be reelected handily, if not overwhelmingly.  Today, polls show that he would win easily over any of the major candidates who are vying to run against him in November of this year.

 

But what has this to do with an update in the Middle East?  Ah, much in every way.  For the sake of this update, let us assume that Obama will be reelected to a second term.  How might that second term differ from his first term? 

 

Any president who is facing reelection must take his constituents into his every decision.  He cannot afford to alienate those who are most likely to vote for him.  An extreme example of this would be Mitt Romney going into the state of Michigan, professing that he would not have bailed out the automotive industry.  Since Detroit and Dearborn are both car-producing cities, jobless rates would have skyrocketed had GM and Chrysler not been given a boost by the Obama administration, it is political suicide to try to sell a doctrine that leaves countless families homeless and hungry.  The right wing wants poor people.  The larger the pool of the poor, the lower their wages sink. 

Romney, saying that he would have let those two companies die, must necessarily alienate those workers who would have lost their jobs under his administration, and they would not vote for him.  Those primaries have not yet been contested, so it remains to be seen whether this premise actually holds true.  Michigan is Romney’s home state, where his father was governor for two terms.  If he loses, it will most likely be on account of his slap in the face of the Michigan auto workers.

        In that same manner, President Obama could not afford to lose the Jewish vote this November.  When, then, the Palestinians requested U.N. recognition of their statehood, Obama could not support them.  He was forced into a veto position, much as Russia is forced into such a position over Syria and Iran.  President Obama has made a double handful of strong assertions of U.S. fidelity toward Israel.  Every president must do so in order to keep the Jewish vote.

        However, not seeking reelection in November of 2016, and assuming that he wins in 2012, Obama does not find it necessary to placate the Jews any longer, or even to curry favor with them, once he is reelected.  He will then be able to reveal his real attitude toward Israel.  And Israel knows it.

        The Jews are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  They cannot afford to alienate President Obama right now, knowing that he is likely to win reelection with or without them, and realizing that working against him in the Jewish-American constituency will surely backfire if he wins, they must be supportive of him in this election cycle.  But there have been a couple of instances in recent weeks in which one Israeli politician or another has made it clear that Israel knows that if Obama wins, things are going to be tough for Israel as Obama seeks the approval of the world over Israel.

 

Let’s stop talking politics for a moment and reflect on a single word in a key verse in Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks of years.  For those unversed in the convolutions of Christian and Jewish prophecy, let us take just a moment to explain that prophecy.

 

Daniel had spent much time in prayer on behalf of his people, and on behalf of the city called by God’s name, Jerusalem.  An angel was summoned to Daniel by God to give him understanding of how things would progress over the coming millennia of God’s dealings with the Jews as a nation. 

At the time, God had the Jews captive under Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; for, among other reasons, they had violated the land sabbath.  That is, the Jews were required by law to let their arable land lie fallow every seventh year, to allow it to rest.  Being Jews, and with money to be made from the sale of their crops, they failed to observe this sabbath.  In fact, they failed to observe it for seventy consecutive sabbaths.  Since the sabbath only came around every seven years, and since they had failed to observe it seventy times, it was over a period of four hundred ninety years (7 x 70 = 490) that they dismissed God’s law and reaped their profits.

        Daniel had come to understand that God was reclaiming all seventy of those sabbaths during the captivity in Babylon.  The Jews would be there for a period of seventy consecutive years while the land lay fallow.  So, he was bowing before God and making confession and presenting his petition for the people of Israel.

        While he was praying, an angel came to him and told him that he had come to give Daniel understanding.  While the Jews had spent four hundred ninety years not observing the land sabbath, God declared to Daniel that there would be another period of four hundred ninety years in which He would deal with Israel nationally.  God specifically told Daniel that this prophecy concerned his people, the Jews, and his holy city, Jerusalem. 

        So far, it is pretty simple.  God even told Daniel in very specific terms when those four hundred ninety years would begin.  In chapter nine, verse twenty-five, God explained to Daniel that the four hundred ninety years would commence when the command went forth to return and rebuild the city and its wall, both of which were destroyed completely when Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the city, and eventually tore it completely down, scattering the stones of the city over a wide area. 

        In 445-444 B.C., King Artaxerxes of Persia (the Persians and the Medes had conquered Babylon) told the Jewish prophet Nehemiah to return to the land of Israel and begin to rebuild the city and its wall.  It is the only such decree in recorded history, so that we know for certain when this second period of four hundred ninety years begsn. 

The first seven of those weeks of years were times of great trouble, as the people who had moved into the area during Israel’s captivity did not want to surrender it to the Jews.  Seven weeks of years is forty-nine years (7 x 70 = 49).  There was a period of four hundred thirty-four years during which Israel dwelt in the land, but always under the heel of one Gentile people or another.  They were forced to pay tribute, or taxes, to the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, in that order.  Those four hundred thirty-four years constitute sixty-two weeks of years (7 x 62 = 434). 

        Now, add the first forty-nine years to the four hundred thirty-four years, and we see that sixty-nine weeks of years, or four hundred eighty-three years have elapsed by the time that the Jewish Messiah came. 

Daniel is always very careful in his wording.  Daniel laid out several momentous events that must take place between the 483^rd and 484^th years.  That is, a gap in time must occur between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth weeks of years.  Messiah had to be “cut off, but not for Himself” (He was cut off for my sins and yours, paying the just penalty on our behalf that the Law demanded for sin, not grudgingly, but lovingly toward everyone who believes), and the people of a prince who was yet to come had to destroy the rebuilt city and disperse the Jews among the nations of the world, where they would stay for many years.  Then would come the restarting of the clock on Daniel’s seventieth week of years.

The Jews were not told how long this gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks would be, but the Jews understood that there would be a gap in time of at least forty years, because Jerusalem was not destroyed until A.D. 70, when Titus came and destroyed the city and scattered the Jews.  They dare not recognize today that through two millennia they have both seen and crucified their Messiah.  Yet, they will recognize both it and Him near the end of that seventieth week.

The Jews were not told how long the gap would be, but they were told what would start the clock running again, to fulfill the last seven years of Daniel’s prophecy of that second four hundred ninety year period.  After detailing in verses 25-26 the things that must occur between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks of years, Daniel prophesied in the next verse that the prince would come, whose people had destroyed Jerusalem, and would “confirm” a covenant, or treaty, between Israel and “many.”

 

From A.D. 70 until A.D. 1948 it was impossible for anyone to enter into a treaty with the nation of Israel, because Israel did not exist on the earth.  The Jews existed, and they maintained their national identity, but it was an identity that was not recognized by the Gentile world until after the second world war, when Israel was granted statehood by the Gentile world, under the auspices of the United Nations.

        From 1948 until today, it has been possible for the Jewish people to enter into such a covenant as Daniel described, but they have not done so.  Yes, they made peace with Egypt, and with Jordan, but those two nations did not constitute the “many” of Daniel 9:27.  Neither will the treaty that they will make with the Palestinians constitute that treaty unless many other peoples are involved in it.  When Israel enters into the treaty that Daniel wrote about, it will involve the entire Gentile world, as embodied in the United Nations.

 

That brings us back to the present.  For more than thirty years, the United States has served as the primary broker in the Middle East peace process.  We remain in that role even today.  Several presidents have worked assiduously toward the conclusion of the treaty that Daniel wrote about, but none has yet accomplished it.  It has proved elusive.

        The prince who is to come (of Dan 9:26) is the person who will broker that treaty.  To date, it appears that it will be an American president, as no one else has stepped onto the world stage to unseat the U.S. as the nation that serves as the primary broker of Mideast peace.  Furthermore, Revelation 13:4 tells us that the world will view the nation of this leader as completely insuperable in war.  No nation or group of nations would dare to attempt to make war with that nation.

 

We have used the word “broker” a number of times in this essay.  We used the word “confirm” once, because the NKJV (which is the primary text used in this discussion) uses the word “confirm.”  However, it is an unfortunate translation of the Greek word “øá—b" (gaw-bar').  This Greek word is a primitive root word, with a much stronger  emphasis than the English word “confirm” would imply.  Strong’s defines it thus:

 

“A primitive root; to be strong; by implication to prevail, act insolently:—exceed, confirm, be great, be mighty, prevail, put to more [strength], strengthen, be stronger, be valiant.”

 

Rather than to confirm this treaty, it might well be imposed upon Israel.  Seeing that President Obama made a strong speech last spring (2011) in which he laid out his proposal for Middle East peace, and seeing that the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab league and many other entities endorsed his plan, it is not inconceivable that his plan will be imposed upon the people of Israel by the nations of the world.  High Israeli officials have said as much themselves. 

 

But what does all this mean to us?  What difference can it possibly make what happens half way around the world between the Arabs and the Jews?  Understand this:  The “confirmation” of that treaty marks the beginning of Daniel’s seventieth week of years.  Before that can happen, the Church Age must end.  The rapture of the Church must occur before the confirmation of that treaty.  It is possible that the Church will be on the earth until the very moment of the confirmation of that treaty, but it is equally possible that the Church may be raptured at some point prior to the actual signing of the treaty.  We need not be on the earth during the last few days or weeks or months before God begins dealing with Israel nationally again.  There is no relationship between those two events excepting only that the rapture precedes Daniel’s seventieth week..

 

So many preachers and theologians grab at any little thing to make a sensational headline, while ignoring altogether these monumental happenings.  Their eyes are blinded by the supposition that the U.S. must decline or otherwise suffer some cataclysmic collapse so that whatever preconceived nation or group of nations can arise to become the nation of the beast.  It is indeed possible that they are right and we are wrong, but the glaring fact remains that what we have laid out is what is already happening, whereas the conventional view was formulated four hundred years ago, before there was even a thought of a United Sates of America.  It is past time for our Church leaders to take a fresh look at their interpretations of these tings and look at what is actually happening, both to Israel and among the Gentile nations today.  The redemption of our bodies has never been so near.

A Word About Governance

Over what sort of government will the Lord reign?  What kind of economic structure will He build?  It will not be a Democratic system, for there will be kings and nobles in every nation.  It will not be left to sinful man to elect those who they believe will benefit them the most.  That will not even be a part of our supernatural makeup.  Church Age saints will serve in positions of royalty and nobility.  Our positions are being “earned” in this life, in the fulfillment of our individual ministries. 

         But over what kind of peoples shall we reign?  Some saved, some unsaved.  Some to live forever in glory, some to be raised to face the great white throne judgment.  Vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor.  It matters not the land or the people, but the law of love is the righteousness of God and love will be the order of the day.  That will be the law that we will enforce when our Lord reigns with an iron rod.

We are not told the form of government we will have, other than that every nation will be a monarchy, with its kings and princes and governors and the “desire to acquire” will no longer plague us at all.  The only law we will be under is the same law that true saints are under today.  Of that law, the law of Christ, Scofield writes:

 

The new law of Christ is the divine love, as produced in the renewed heart by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5; Heb. 10:16), which flows out in the energy of the Spirit, unforced and spontaneous, toward the objects of the divine love (2 Cor. 5:14-20; 1 Thess. 2:7-8).  It is, therefore, “the law of liberty” (James 1:25. 2:12) in contrast with the external law of Moses.  Moses’ law demands love (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 6:5; Luke 10:27); Christ’s law is love (Rom. 5:5; 1 John 4:7,19-20), and so takes the place of the external law by fulfilling it (Rom. 13:10;Gal. 5:14).  It is “the law written in the heart” under the New Covenant (see Heb 8:8, note)”  (The Scofield Study Bible III, Oxford University Press, 2002, New York, NKJV – Pg. 1,711, note 2:5)

 

That is the only “law” that Christians are under today, and it is the law that we will enforce in the Kingdom Age and throughout eternity.

 

Do you suppose that Christ’s Kingdom will be a Capitalist society?  It will not be!.  Love will be the order the day, every day, throughout the entirety of the Kingdom Age.  Capitalism is inherently based on gain, not contentment.  It produces in the human heart the desire to acquire things for which we have no need and will not even use in most cases.  We simply want to “have.”  We build or rent storehouses to serve as repositories for our “stuff,” while leaving our spiritual ministries unfulfilled. 

In the Kingdom Age, material things will likely be minimal in our thinking.  We do not own the things that we possess today, but they own us, and they demand our time, resources and attention.  That is why so many rich folks are inwardly miserable – too much stuff to tend to and no time to relax and enjoy it.  We’ll all have our fig tree and our grapevine, and everyone will live contented lives, at least outwardly.  As there will be unsaved people in the Kingdom Age, they will desire to acquire, but the saints will be content in the presence of and service to the Lord.

Town hall meetings will not be the venue for complaints about governance or planning, but they will be worship-fests.  There may or may not be sporting events, but winning and losing will truly not matter.  Love will permeate everything, including the air we breathe.  Isaiah tells us that righteousness will spring up from the ground like grass and fall down like showers of rain during the Kingdom Age.

 

In truth, we don’t know much about our Lord’s government, but what we do know is enough to make any rational human being look to that Day with great hopefulness.  However, unsaved people push God and thoughts of Him as far from their minds as possible; and so very many Christians know so very little about prophecy that they never dwell on these things, except in fear of them.  Our hope is a blessed hope, the only real hope.  Every temporal hope has the same end: a hole in the ground, so that there is no real hope in anything temporal.  We may not know much about the machinations of God’s form of government, but we will be utterly familiar with all of it the moment we meet the Lord in the air.

Mankind has never devised an equitable form of governance or a truly fair economic system.  We do not have it in our hearts to do so.  Never has the whole world been so involved in social protests.  Every region is in turmoil, except a few places in the Southern Hemisphere, and even there we find gross poverty and oppression of the poor.  Make no mistake about it; if citizens of the U.S. did what the citizens in Syria are doing, the reaction of our government would be little different from the Syrian reaction.  We have proven that in times past, and we will surely prove it in the future, if only during the tribulation.. 

The fact that the “Occupy” movement has spread from coast to coast should tell our leaders that America must cease the class warfare that began under Ronald Reagan and continues to grow more brazen with every passing year.  “Occupy” is no passing notion.  This revolt is as clear a statement as any in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Russia, England and elsewhere, and our leaders must heed the voice of the people here as much as the leaders of the other nations must do and are being forced to do.

 

Consider this:  During President Obama’s campaign in 2008, he described a form of Democracy that resonated in the hearts of people around the world.  Even as he began to attempt to “change the way America and the world does business,” nations around the globe whose people were suffering under the heels of brutal despots began to experience protests. 

President Obama is the first president to be elected primarily through the use of the social media.  He surely did not sit down at his computer and do all of the networking himself, but he had many agents working on his behalf, putting forth his message.  It seems far more than probable that he had agents in the Middle East promoting the same sort of democracies there, using the same media there that was successful at home.  That is to say, President Obama made his campaign in ’08, not to the United States alone, but to the world.  He was careful to add that fact every time he said that he wanted to change America.  He always added, “and the world.”

 

Now, his plan for peace in the Middle East has been endorsed by the United Nations, Russia, the European Union, the Arab League, and by virtually every governing body on the planet except for the few radical nations like Iran and Syria and several other renegade states.  While things appear very volatile in the Mideast, the world cannot afford to let full-scale war break out, lest all the major powers become involved involuntarily.

         A brief study of Daniel 9:27 showed that the word that is translated as “confirm” can mean that, but it more likely has a much stronger inference, such as “impose.”

         What we do know is that the tribulation period begins with the ratification of a comprehensive Middle East peace treaty, whether it is negotiated or imposed.  And we know that the rapture will occur prior to that treaty’s imposition or ratification.

         While we are in a national presidential campaign in the States, President Obama can ill afford to offend the American Jewish population. Thus, he promised to veto a Palestinian request of the United Nations for recognition as an independent state.  If he wins reelection, it is very likely that he will take a much harsher line with Israel than he has heretofore. 

The world already sees Israel as the thorn in the side of peace negotiations, not recognizing that the land belongs to God, and it is not to be divided by the Gentiles.  Israel is holding on as tightly as she can to east Jerusalem, but it is almost certain that she will be made to surrender at least a portion of it to the Arabs.

 

No, we do not know what the details of Christ’s Kingdom will be like, but what we do know is good indeed.  And we can see by the things taking place on the earth that the rapture must be very near indeed, as the words of the prophets, written 2,600 years ago and longer, are already beginning to unfold.  The nation that brokers the treaty in the Middle East will be the nation from which the antichrist will arise.  For the past thirty-five years, the United States has been the primary broker, and we remain in that position today; not reluctantly, but proudly.

         The nation of the beast will be mightier than any other nation, and more than all the others combined; richer, stronger, seeking to appear more beneficent and reasonable, and will have a leading role in the world prior to the tribulations of the final seven years of Gentile world dominion.  We fit that bill to a tee, and the world loves our president, whether or not he is in favor at home.  We should all be more than a little hopeful that the rapture will happen in our day.

 

 

A Word About Governance

Over what sort of government will the Lord reign?  What kind of economic structure will He construct?  It will not be a Democratic system, for there will be kings and nobles in every nation.  It will not be left to sinful man to elect those who benefit them the most.  That will not even be a part of our supernatural makeup.  Church Age saints will serve in positions of royalty and nobility.  Our positions are being “earned” in this life, in the fulfillment of our individual ministries. 

        But over what kind of peoples shall we reign?  Some saved, some unsaved.  Some to live forever in glory, some to be raised to face the great white throne judgment.  Vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor.  It matters not the land or the people, but the law of love is the righteousness of God and love will be the order of the day.  That will be the law that we will enforce when our Lord reigns with an iron rod.

We are not told the form of government we will have, other than that every nation will be a monarchy, with its kings and princes and governors and the “desire to acquire” will no longer plague us at all.  The only law we will be under is the same law that true saints are under today.  Of that law, the law of Christ, Scofield writes:

 

The new law of Christ is the divine love, as produced in the renewed heart by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5; Heb. 10:16), which flows out in the energy of the Spirit, unforced and spontaneous, toward the objects of the divine love (2 Cor. 5:14-20; 1 Thess. 2:7-8).  It is, therefore, “the law of liberty” (James 1:25. 2:12) in contrast with the external law of Moses.  Moses’ law demands love (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 6:5; Luke 10:27); Christ’s law is love (Rom. 5:5; 1 John 4:7,19-20), and so takes the place of the external law by fulfilling it (Rom. 13:10;Gal. 5:14).  It is “the law written in the heart” under the New Covenant (see Heb 8:8, note).  (The Scofield Study Bible III, Oxford University Press, 2002, New York, NKJV Pg. 1,711, note 2:5)

 

That is the only “law” that Christians are under today, and it is the law that we will enforce in the Kingdom Age and throughout eternity.

 

Do you suppose that Christ’s Kingdom will be a Capitalist society?  It will not be!.  Love will be the order the day, every day, throughout the entirety of the Kingdom Age.  Capitalism is inherently based on gain, not contentment.  It produces in the human heart the desire to acquire things for which we have no need and will not even use in most cases.  We simply want to “have.”  We build or rent storehouses to serve as repositories for our “stuff,” while leaving our spiritual ministries unfulfilled. 

In the Kingdom Age, material things will likely be minimal in our thinking.  We do not own the things that we possess today, but they own us, and they demand our time, resources and attention.  That is why so many rich folks are inwardly miserable – too much stuff to tend to and no time to relax and enjoy it.  We’ll all have our fig tree and our grapevine, and everyone will live contented lives, at least outwardly.  As there will be unsaved people in the Kingdom Age, they will desire to acquire, but the saints will be content in the presence of and service to the Lord.

Town hall meetings will not be the venue for complaints about governance or planning, but they will be worship-fests.  There may or may not be sporting events, but winning and losing will truly not matter.  Love wil permeate everything, including the air we breathe.

In truth, we don’t know much about our Lord’s government, but what we do know is enough to make any rational human being look to that Day with great hopefulness.  However, unsaved people push God and thoughts of Him as far from their minds as possible; and so very many Christians know so very little about prophecy that they never dwell on these things, except in fear of them.  Our hope is a blessed hope, the only real hope.  Every temporal hope has the same end: a hole in the ground.  We may not know much about the machinations of God’s form of government, but we will be utterly familiar with all of it the moment we meet the Lord in the air.

Mankind has never devised an equitable form of governance or a truly fair economic system.  We do not have it in our hearts to do so.  Never has the whole world been so involved in social protests.  Every region is in turmoil, except a few places in the Southern Hemisphere, and even there we find gross poverty and oppression of the poor.  Make no mistake about it; if citizens of the U.S. did what citizens in Syria are doing, the reaction of our government would be little different from the Syrian reaction.  We have proven that in times past, and we will surely prove it in the future, if only during the tribulation.. 

The fact that the “Occupy” movement has spread from coast to coast should tell our leaders that America must cease the class warfare that began under Ronald Reagan and continues to grow more brazen with every passing year.  “Occupy” is no passing notion.  This revolt is as clear a statement as any in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Russia, England and elsewhere, and our leaders must heed the voice of the people here as much as the leaders of the other nations must do and are being forced to do.

 

Consider this:  During President Obama’s campaign in 2008, he described a form of Democracy that resonated in the hearts of people around the world.  Even as he began to attempt to “change the way America and the world does business,” nations around the globe whose people were suffering under the heels of brutal despots began to experience protests. 

President Obama is the first president to be elected primarily through the use of the social media.  He surely did not sit down at his computer and do all of the networking, but he had many agents working on his behalf, putting forth his message.  It seems far more than probable that he had agents in the Middle East promoting the same sort of democracies there, using the same media there that was successful at home.  That is to say, President Obama made his campaign in ’08, not to the United States alone, but to the world.  He was careful to add that fact every time he said that he wanted to change America.  He always added, “and the world.”  It might fairly be said that President Obama is the spark that lit the fires of protest around the world.

 

Now, his plan for peace in the Middle East has been endorsed by the United Nations, Russia, the European Union, the Arab League, and by virtually every governing body on the planet except for the few radical nations like Iran and Syria and several other renegade states.  While things appear very volatile in the Mideast, the world cannot afford to let full-scale war to break out, lest all the major powers become involved involuntarily.

        A brief study of Daniel 9:27 showed that the word that is translated as “confirm” can mean that, but it more likely has a much stronger inference, such as “impose.”

        What we do know is that the tribulation period begins with the ratification of a comprehensive Middle East peace treaty, whether it is negotiated or imposed.  And we know that the rapture will occur prior to that treaty’s imposition or ratification.

        While we are in a national presidential campaign in the States, President Obama can ill afford to offend the American Jewish population. Thus, he promised to veto a Palestinian request of the United Nations for recognition as an independent state.  If he wins reelection, it is very likely that he will take a much harsher line with Israel than he has heretofore.  The world already sees Israel as the thorn in the side of peace negotiations, not recognizing that the land belongs to God, and it is not to be divided by the Gentiles.  Israel is holding on as tightly as they can to east Jerusalem, but it is almost certain that they will be made to surrender at least a portion of it to the Arabs.

 

No, we do not know what the details of Christ’s Kingdom will be like, but what we do know is good indeed.  And we can see by the things taking place on the earth that the rapture must be very near indeed, as the words of the prophets, written 2,600 years ago and longer, are already beginning to unfold.  The nation that brokers the treaty in the Middle East will be the nation from which the antichrist will arise.  For the past thirty-five years, the United States has been the primary broker, and we remain in that position today.

        The nation of the beast will be mightier than any other nation, and more than all the others combined; richer, stronger, seeking to appear more beneficent and reasonable, and will have a leading role in the world prior to the tribulations of the final seven years of Gentile world dominion.  We fit that bill to a tee, and the world loves our president, whether or not he is in favor at home.  We should all be more than a little hopeful that the rapture will happen in our day.

A Word About Light

What is light made of?  It is a question that has stymied physicists since any study of light began. 

Light has properties of two different things, two different views  of what its composition altogether, such that one way of understanding light excludes the other.  It is as though two opposing systems cannot both exist, yet both do have their supporters among those who study these things.

Light is most commonly believed to be an electronic wavelength, traveling into the visible range.  They hold that it contains no substance whatever, but is a light wave, a frequency that allows the eye to perceive it.

On the other hand, just as light does indeed fit the wavelength system  perfectly, there are those who believe that light is composed of incomprehensibly small particles, densely packed. 

Light has been shown to have weight, so that this particle position is also viable.  Science cannot say definitively whether light is merely a wavelength of energy, or that it does or does not have some physical substance,

In other words, science cannot discern the essence that is light.  And that is as it should be, because Jesus Christ proclaimed Himself to be the light of this world (Mt. 4:16, Jn. 1:4-19,  9:5, 12:46).

 

There is a third quality, or type of light.  There is light that is visible in the natural realm;  we can see it with our eyes, whether it is a mere energy wave or has substance.  And there is a light that is visible in the spiritual realm.  Often we are instructed to walk in the light.  Jesus was not talking about the physical realm, but He was speaking of yet another aspect of light, one seen only by those “who have eyes to see.”

        Now, every Christian has eyes to see, but far too many of us do not look through those eyes that perceive spiritual truth.  Many do not study the Bible, but they study books about the Bible.  This is one of those books.  We all have eyes to see, but not all of us are looking.   We have eyes to see, but they are closed in slumber.  Our spiritual batteries need a healthy charging occasionally.

 

Our poor minds cannot conceive of the things that compose our inheritance from God.  Neither can our understanding encompass that heavenly treasure when we meet our Groom.  We can read John’s description of the Lord’s appearance in the book of Revelation (Jn1:12-16).  His face shines more brightly than the sun.  Yet out of that blinding brilliance shine two other lights, emanating from the very eyes of the Lord.  Of what intensity must they be in order to be seen in such facial brightness!  Our Lord’s skin has the appearance of burnished bronze. 

No, Jesus Christ is not returning as the slain Lamb of God, but as the roaring Lion of the tribe of Judah.  Nevertheless, in chapter five, John portrayed Him as the slain Lamb of God in verses six through ten.  It is the Lamb of God who opens the seals of judgment against both those who crucified Him, and against those who have persecuted them, His own people. 

The scene where the seals are opened is in heaven, and the One who was slain will execute His judgment upon His killers, both Jew and Gentile.  For the Jews determined Him guilty unto death, but the Romans carried out the sentence.  The Jews will be brought nearly to extinction by the Gentile powers on earth, while the Gentiles will be brought to near-destruction by the coming Lord, at the end of the tribulation, that “time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:7). 

Jesus does not come to the earth before the end of the tribulation, when He establishes Himself as King of kings and Lord of lords.  He opens the seals, and the angels carry out the specific judgments prophesied, but He remains in heaven until we return to the earth with Him as Armageddon reaches its climax.

 

But let us speak more of this invisible light, this light of which science knows nothing; for its speed cannot be measured and it is not bound by natural laws.  Some human beings can perceive it and some cannot. 

Whether one can discern this light depends upon his acceptance of the Gospel.  Those who believe that the Lamb’s blood at Calvary was a sufficient price to pay for the sins of which they know they are guilty, these are “born again;” this time, not of the seed of the flesh, but of the seed of God (1 Jn 3:9). 

Outwardly, saints (those who are separated by God from the world and to Himself) appear no different from anyone on the street, but they can understand spiritual truth; whereas, no matter the religion, those who have not heard or accepted the Gospel can discern no spiritual truth.  Only a vague fear of judgment.  What those poor folks need is a dose of the Gospel, the Good News that God loves us, and has executed the penalty for our sins upon Himself, thereby maintaining His justice while saving those who simply believe.  If you would have this spiritual light, that is the only thing it takes in order to receive it.  Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone.

 

The spiritual light is the light by which we discern and understand spiritual truth.  It shines deeply into the bottomless Word of God, illuminating it clearly, and allowing us to put diverse threads of thought into a single cohesive whole.  It speaks like a voice in the heart, where no ear can hear except among those who have such ears.  Those ears are not attached to the sides of our heads, but they are those inner ears that hear the Word of God.  If one has an inner eye through which to see God’s truth, then he also has an ear, by which he can separate the wheat from the chaff in doctrinal matters.

 

Jesus said that there is a kind of light that is darkness.  In some, that darkness shines far more deeply than in others.  By our very nature as human beings, we have much of this darkness inside us, for all have sinned and have fallen short of God’s glory.  Light that is darkness.  Dark light. 

        There is one coming – the prince who is to come, of Daniel 9:26 – who will seem very bright, but his light will be darkness.  It will be a darkness so deep that many will be deceived by him.  He will promise peace, but he will lead the world into its greatest crisis until that time.  It might fairly be said that Armageddon begins with a peace treaty (Dan 9:27).  This man will be acclaimed all over the world.  He will gain their confidence with his reason and apparent wisdom.  Alas, his wisdom is the wisdom of the world, and not the wisdom of God. 

This prince who is to come will be that Dark Star.  He will seem so fair and balanced and reasonable, a man who understands how to make peace among men.  He will appear humble and kind, with  quiet self-assurance; but he will be a man on a mission, and will consider himself smarter than all who were before him.  For, indeed, he will be of an extremely high intellect.  This prince that Daniel speaks of the devil incarnate.  Just as Satan entered into Judas, so will he enter into this world leader, and his wisdom will surpass that of his contemporaries.  It is possible that this has already taken place.

 

A very dark star is rising, but he is not rising in the east, but in the west, for he is contrary to God, and stands opposed to His order in every way.  God has granted Satan power over nature, and Satan will grant his power and authority to this prince who is to come, the antichrist.  The way that this man is first identified as the antichrist is by his imposing a treaty upon Israel, making peace between her and those many who are her sworn enemies.  That is to say, the antichrist will burst onto the world stage by ordaining or confirming a comprehensive Middle East peace treaty. 

        Long before Satan enters into this man, he has already filled the senses of mankind with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – all that is in the world (1 Jn. 2::16).  We are teaching our children the grossest forms of violence in the games that we let them play, where life is so devalued that death means nothing to them.  Killing becomes a game.  The person with the most points wins.

        Satan has been this extremely bright darkness since he fell in the rebellion (Isa. 14:12-15).  His angels present themselves as ministers of light, but if their message is not of the cross, it is darker by far than the darkest regions of space. 

 

To those who have eyes that see, Jesus said, “Let your light so shine…”  He claimed to be the light of the world, and He instructs us to put on the armor of light.  Does light have substance?  It is armor.     

 

We think of stars as points of light in the night sky, and so they are.  They shine from vast, incomprehensible distances.  Approach one too closely, and it would vaporize us.  Stars are not tiny; they are merely distant.  They are not what they seem to the naked eye. 

Then, there are movie stars, football and baseball and basketball and hockey stars; there are stars in the financial sector, stars in the military. There are stars in science and medicine. 

There are also stars in the angelic realm – the archangels Michael and Gabriel, the seraphim and ranks of which we know little or nothing.  There are evil stars: Lucifer and his legions of demons.  There are bright men and women upon the earth, both good and bad, both humbly reverent and arrogantly evil.  The first thing said of the devil is that he is more subtle, or crafty, or cunning, than any beast of the field the Lord God had made (Gen 3:1).

        President Bush spoke of a thousand points of light.  Jesus said that we are lights in the world.  There are far more than a thousand of us, but not all of us shine as brightly as we ought.  Some are but a dim glow.  Jesus was not talking about any popular heroes, but our Lord was referring to those who carry forth the word of life, which is to be found only in the Word of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, the Word made flesh (Jn. 1:14).  The light that emanates from the saints cannot be seen by unregenerate eyes, those not born of the Spirit and the seed of God Himself ( cp. 1 Jn 3:9 and context). 

There is light that can be seen, and light that cannot be seen.  There is light that is bright, and there is light that is darkness and evil, filled with all manner of deception.  Even among the saved, that dark light resides in our flesh, but our spirits are permeated by the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  It is of Him that we testify, and not of ourselves.  There is “natural” light and there is spiritual light.  Consider the word of the Lord:

 

The lamp of the body is the eye.

If therefore your eye is good,

your whole body will be full of light,

But if your eye is bad,

your whole body will be full of darkness.

If therefore the light that is in you is darkness,

how great is that darkness!

(Mt. 6:22)

 

 

Natural light cannot penetrate far into the body.  A flashlight will reveal the bony structure of a thin hand, but deep inside, in the heart, there is natural darkness.  We cannot see x-rays, though they pass all the way through the body.  We cannot see them, but we can see their effects if we have the means to look at them.  We can create images of bones and other structures of the body, but we cannot bring light very far into the body without opening the body..Doctors today can send lighted probes into the body and examine certain structures, but those lights cannot dispel the darkness that resides in the soul of every living man or woman.

 

“If your eye is good…”  A good eye looks to its Father, rejoicing in the presence of the Lord and the Holy Spirit in us.  A good eye studies the Word of God, even as he watches for opportunities to serve Him.  The infinite depths of spiritual light and true wisdom reside in God, who is the Spirit of truth, the Fount of all wisdom.

The light of God’s grace permeates a saved person, so that his entire body is filled with a right spiritual light.  That Light enters via the inner eye, which only those who have such eyes to see can perceive.  And it emanates outward from the eye, and through the voice, carrying the light of the knowledge of God’s grace and mercy, and His deep love for sinners such as ourselves, shining it into the sin-darkened souls of the lost and unbelieving. 

We do not cease to be sinners when we are born of the Spirit of God, but God uses sinners to carry forth His Word.  That is a remarkable thing. We carry this light into the fearful hearts of the lost, illuminating their spirits with the word of reconciliation, of God’s desire for them.  And we preach and teach it to others, who are then able to teach still others.

When we understand and accept the truth of the Gospel, knowing that Jesus Christ died in order to bear our own punishment in Himself, that we might be saved by His grace, through faith only, we are immediately illuminated to the truths of the Gospel.  These we are then enabled to learn through diligent study. 

The ability to read and understand God’s Word is proof of the Holy Spirit within us.  No unsaved person can read the Bible and gain any light from it, because faith comes by hearing, not by reading.  Nevertheless, unless the one who is witnessing quotes the Scriptures or reads them to a lost person, that person will not be saved it that moment.  It is the Word of God, not the voice of man, that gives light to the spiritually blind.  Nevertheless, God is able, through the foolishness of our preaching, to enlighten those who believe.

When the light that God puts in us emanates from us, we serve as ambassadors in a foreign land.  Paul tells us clearly that we are citizens of heaven itself, members of the household of God, sent to the earth as ambassadors of God (2 Cor. 5:18-21).  Any ambassador goes to his assigned country, assimilates into the culture and customs of the land where he is sent; all the while serving his homeland’s interests faithfully. 

Every Christian is an ambassador from heaven, and is responsible to serve his homeland’s interests as faithfully as any political ambassador.  Perhaps one in ten actually serves God beyond going to church, and maybe tithing.  They consider their duties to God complete.  It is one of Satan’s greatest works, to keep God’s children from serving Him in the world.  We are in the world, but we are not of the world.  Are there aliens on earth?  By means of God’s grace, there are.  They are us..

There are saved souls in every walk of life, from the highest boardroom to the gutters of the underworld.  The homeless person you see begging on the street corner might be ministering to others in the lowliest echelons of our populace; ministering the sustenance of both temporal and eternal life; life with a hope that so far exceeds the loftiest temporal heights as to render them insignificant altogether. .

One cannot tell a Christian by his deeds, but by his fruit.  Sprinkled among the very dregs of our society are saved men and women, ministering the Gospel to those in direst need.  Indeed, there is more genuine faith found among the poorest of the poor than there is in the gaudiest cathedral among the richest of the rich.  For the poor have no resources, no wealth in which to trust.  Day by day, they look to God for their providence and their sustenance.  They know that they are worthless, and they abide in their everlasting hope.

And there are devout men of God in the highest places in our society, and everywhere in between; men who seek out those who are troubled; men and women to whom the troubled are drawn.  This should be the rule of life for every Christian, though we all are sinners. 

Money buys misery.  We do not own the things that we posses; they own us, and they demand and receive our time, attention and resources.  There are saints from the wharves and the whore houses to the golf courses, and among those racing horses, the erudite, the cosmopolitan, the moneyed elite.  There are saints at every level of our society and economy, each providing his bit of what makes up the fabric of our nation.   Each also providing the labor that causes growth in the kingdom of heaven.  Remove the saints, and woe betide those who are left.  That is what this book is really about, the removal of the saints of God and the taking away of the Holy Spirit in His role as Restrainer of evil.  A man will slit his neighbor’s neck for a can of beans.

Everyone who has received the grace of God has a responsibility to lay up his treasure in heaven.  Just before He spoke of light-filled bodies, Jesus spoke about earthly treasures versus heavenly treasure.  He said:

 

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and rust destroy

and where thieves break in and steal;

 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

where neither moth nor rust destroys

 and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is,

there your heart will be also.

(Mt. 6:19-21)

 

Our homeland is heaven, and when we serve God as ambassadors, we minister the word of reconciliation, of salvation (2 Cor. 5:18-21).  Those whose bodies are filled with light will bear much fruit; those with little light will bear little fruit.  We should endeavor to enjoy the fullness of the light that is good.  This, because we know that there is a light that is darkness, great darkness. 

There is a dark star rising n the west, and his deceptive and dark light is spreading rapidly on the earth today.  He is Christ’s counterfeit, the antichrist.  He preaches a subtle gospel, leaving out the blood of the cross.  He stands in many pulpits today, telling the lost everything except what they most need to hear.  He is a master of human wisdom and rhetoric.  A day of great darkness is dawning (Joel 2:2; 3:20).  The closer the world comes to a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement, the closer the Church is to meeting her Groom in the air.

 

There have been many stars of the Christian faith during this long Church Age.  There are many today, devout men whose lives are spent in study and communion with and service to God.  The Word is a lamp unto our feet.  There have been those who have shone more brightly than the rest, and thank God for them!  It is through the labors of many generations of saints that we have compiled the tenets of our faith.  To fill the body with food, one must eat.  To fill the body with light, one must eat the Bread of Life, the Word of God.

But what of that light that is in the unsaved that is great darkness?  How is that perceived?  Ah, it isn’t perceived.  It simply works in the darkness of the deceitful human heart, the pump of emotion; a foreigner from the clear light of God’s greatness, goodness and justice.  That light that is great darkness works in sinister, self-advancing deception.  Of the heart, Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jer 17:9).

The world is crawling with that sort, those whose light is darkness.  They follow human judgments and human reason over the Word of God.  Arrogance!  Even among the most pagan nations of the world, saints are there, laboring in the Word and in service to God wherever He has seen fit to put us.  God’s Word is a light for our feet.  We walk confidently, not needing to know where our temporal lives will lead, trusting God to make us both fruitful and content, using us according to His purposes in every situation. 

Those poor souls who have not heard or have not accepted the grace of God; these are those who rule the world.  Jesus told us that Satan is the prince of the power of the air, and the ruler of this world.  There is not a government on earth that serves God, nor has there ever been one, except during brief periods in Jewish history.  Supreme power corrupts supremacy.  Vanity and greed are in our hearts.  The things of this world: the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – these are  the things after which unregenerate men and women seek.  Everything is temporal, and there is nothing of the eternal among them.  The sheerest darkness is in the air that we breathe.  Despair is the nut that is germinating in every unsaved breast.  All their hopes are temporal; alas, they must end at a hole in the ground. 

What good is a fancy casket to a dead man?  He is dead.  He has stepped from time into eternity, and cares not for the trappings of our civilization.  His limousine carries someone else.  His bank assets are distributed, and he becomes no more than a picture of his former self, a photograph or a painting of him hanging on a wall.

It is the same for the beggar, though he receives no fancy trappings..The poor are buried in a 3/8 inch plywood box with a screen door hook for closure.  But he cares no more than the rich man.  Worm food.

 

But that is only the body.  The rich man and the poor man alike must stand before God and be judged.  Neither riches nor poverty will matter in that day, but whether or not one accepted the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross.  He died for our sins, but not out of anger or disgust, but out of love. 

True Christianity is the only religion that glorifies God and not man, whose focus is not on the Christian, but upon Christ.  Every other religion that man has ever devised requires some moral or other action in order to reach whatever its eternal estate may be.  Man has to do something in order to get there.  Those who would be saved can do nothing, but simply believe.  True Christianity is the only religion that deals effectively with the sin issue.  Bad karma?  Silliness!  Since there has never been but one Man who could earn His way into heaven.  Seeing that He was innocent of any sins of His own, He was able to suffer the punishment for our sins, so that we may be saved. 

        God is a just God.  Thus, it is not possible for Him to avoid judging every single sin individually that is ever committed.  Judgment must be passed, and the sentence for every sin is death.. What no other religion ever thought of is to have its god pay for the sins of its people.  Man would never have arrived at that sort of religion, because he wants to glorify himself.  God judged even the sins that would not be committed until centuries later – millennia later – when Christ took upon Himself the entire body of sin.

        People do not go to hell today because they are sinners; they go to hell because they have not accepted Christ’s sacrifice as sufficient to pay for their own sins.  The payment has been made, but if it is rejected, then the books of that person’s deeds are opened and he is judged accordingly. 

How many sins did Adam have to commit in order to become lost?  One.  Only a single sin separated him from God.  Paul said that there are none good, no not one; there are none who are righteous.  Those who appear to be righteous are simply fooling themselves about themselves, and probably fooling others as well; but not God

Even the saints continue throughout this life to be under the sway of the flesh and not the spirit.  Even the great Apostle Paul admitted that he was a wretched sinner, calling himself the chief of sinners.  Oh, it was in his soul not to sin, but the things that he most desired not to do were the very things that he found himself doing.  And the things that he wanted to do, those he did not do.  He concluded that our very flesh is sinful.  Paul cried, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death!”  But in the very next verse, he said, “ I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord; so that with the flesh I serve the law of sin, but with the mind, the law of God” (see Rom 7:15-25).

 

*

 

So, what does all this have to do with the subject at hand?  What has it to do with the beginning of the Tribulation or the national identity of the antichrist?  For that you must read Midnight Rising, available at amazon.com, christianbook.com, or your local bookstore.  If you wish, you can purchase a signed copy at www.midnightrisingbook.net.  The dark star may be just below the horizon even now.