By Jan Lilleby

I would like to begin this article by referring to another one, called “Israel With Jerusalem Is Babylon the Great Harlot in Rev. 17” – in which I prove by many Bible references and expository, refuting the false ideas found inside Christianity that Babylon is the Vatican, or USA, or a restored Babylon in Iraq, – that those are not the Babylon harlot in Rev. 17-18 at all.

It is Israel with its capital Jerusalem.

In this article we shall have a closer look at the translations of certain key-words/expressions – that lead preachers into false ideas in this regard.

One of the most noteworthy Youtube videos on USA figuring as the fulfilment of the prophesy of Babylon harlot in Rev. 17-18, is one made by pastor Steven Anderson in a Baptist Church in Phoenix, AZ. I have included the video in this article, at the end of it. You judge for yourself if my assertions are right or not.

You will see and hear pastor Anderson teaching that he sincerely believes that USA shall be nuked in near future, because of the judgment God shall cast upon the Babylon harlot – which in his opinion is USA. IMAGE: Chicago nuked.
Let me quickly remark that I also have another video with Anderson, in this website, wherein he is chastising and rebuking the Pope for his false teachings. I simply agree with Anderson that in this matter, he is right about the falsehood of the Pope. So, Anderson can produce some very good stuff in one instance, as well as not so well put together stuff in another; such as the Babylon-video.

But in the video included here in this article, my pointing to errors in translations, it is to me pretty obvious that Anderson does not twist-and-turn and in any way abuses the Bible for his own agenda. No, he comes to his conclusions much based upon what the KJV-Bible has in it of translation errors. Most Bibles have the very same errors, and KJV is but one among several. Thus Anderson seems to be in what we call ‘good faith’ when presenting his topic.

In my opinion Steven Anderson is a real and sincere Christian believer, trying to do his best, for the benefit of other Christians.

I will concentrate in pointing to errors in a few key-words/expressions which do repeat themselves in most Bible translations, causing the Bible reader to make wrong assumptions and conclusions of a topic.

These are: (Amplified Bible)

Rev. 17:18 – ‘..the rulers and the leaders of the earth.’
Rev. 18:9 – ‘..the rulers and the leaders of the earth.’
Rev. 13:3 – ‘..and the whole earth went after the beast..’
Rev. 13:8 – ‘And all the inhabitants of the earth will fall down..’

There is no doubt that the Book of Revelation deals mainly with the time which Jesus Himself characterized, – quote:

‘For then there will be great tribulation such as has not been from the..” Matt.24:21.

Jer. 30:7 calls that time for ‘It will be the time of Jacob’s trouble’.

Is. 61:2 calls the same event for ‘The day of vengeance of our God’.

1 Thes. 1:10 calls the same event for ‘The coming wrath of God’.

Rev. 6:16, 17 calls this event for ‘The wrath of the Lamb’, and ‘Great day of His wrath’.

It is ONLY ISRAEL which is subject to these horrors and tribulation, the vengeance coming upon the nation from God – it is NOT concerning any gentile nations at all. Same manner as when God had Egypt destroyed by signs and plagues under Moses, but no nation elsewhere suffered any such hardships.

But wrongly translation of the Greek word cosmos – which can mean many things, land, nation, area, world or the entire earth and so forth. Often it is translated as the latter, earth or the entire world. This is where most translators make their errors. They write ‘Earth’ where it should have said ‘Land’ or ‘Nation’.

All four quotes from Rev. above, should have said ‘Nation’ or ‘Land’.

The mark of the beast (Anti-Christ) in Rev. 13 as well as the use of it as people followed this beast, should have read ‘And all the inhabitants of the nation will fall down…’ Rev. 13:8.

And the judgment upon Babylon harlot in Rev. 17 and 18 – the same principle, that the ‘Rulers and the leaders of the nation’ would have given us the right translation, pointing to the leaders of Israel, the Babylon harlot.

Also, the expression used in Rev. 6:15 – ‘Then the kings of the earth and their noblemen…’ – should have read ‘Kings of the nation’ – because these kings are the ones mentioned in Rev. 17:12 in connection to the Antichrist as ruling together with them. They are tribal leaders of a false tribal system in the end times, opposing the genuine tribal Jews seen in Rev. 7 and 14. Antichrist is a false messiah, the Second beast called the false prophet, is a false Elijah, and the ten kings in Rev. 17 are false tribal leaders as they will take power over Israel after dividing it into tribal districts.

They beg the mountains, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb’.

In this issue we are so lucky as to have the Lord Jesus’ own words clarifying this to us. He spoke to the people along the Via Dolorosa as He walked up to Calvary for the crucifixion. But most translators have just passed this unnoticed, believe it or not.

Luke 23:27-31 points us in the right direction, namely that it is the descendants of the Jews from the time of Jesus on earth, who shall be calling for the mountains to fall upon them and hide them, as follows:

“And there accompanied Jesus a great multitude of the people, women who bewailed and lamented Him. 28: But Jesus, turning toward them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29: For behold, THE DAYS ARE COMING DURING WHICH THEY WILL SAY, BLESSED ARE THE BARREN, AND THE WOMBS THAT HAVE NOT BORNE, AND THE BREASTS THAT HAVE NEVER NURSED. 30: THEN THEY WILL BEGIN TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, FALL ON US! AND TO THE HILLS, COVER (HIDE) US! 31: For if they do these things when the timber is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

In my Norwegian Bible of 1988, verse 31 says, ‘For if they do this with the green tree (Jesus), what will happen to the dry one (unbelieving Israel)?

If thereby Rev. 6:15, 16 of those who beg the mountains and hills to hide them from the Wrath of the Lamb, just like what Jesus told them when going up to Calvary, – they will receive punishment for the second time since 70 AD for their killings and not the least for their long persistent denial and blasphemy of Jesus (Ez. 36:23), – then Rev. 6 is not only geographically pointing to Israel, but the entire Revelation book in which the tribulation is prophesied of. These things will take place inside Israel! The mountains and hills are not Rocky Mountains in USA or the Alps in Austria/Switzerland, or the Himalaya massive in Nepal!

The diverse Bible Translation Committees around the civilized world will probably never really get themselves to correct all their faulty work! I am sure.

That is why it is good that we as free Christians can undertake such a task and do important corrections for the benefit of all readers of the Bible.

I can’t help suspecting that pastor Steven Anderson, as already mentioned, and many more of course, have been victimized by lacking translations like the examples I have used above. Believing that certain prophesies speak of USA or the global world when in reality it speak of Israel only. My sympathies are on their side, since it is the Bible translation which brings in the faulty understanding in many topics.

Steven Anderson, however innocent of having ‘twisted’ the Word of God in this matter, he could perhaps still have made self-corrections in the idea that USA will be nuked since he thinks the nation is the Babylon harlot of Rev. 17-18. How? By simply using his brains a little more by dwelling on what it actually means that USA will be nuked. Ask any of the nuke-officials in Pentagon what will happen if nukes are sent against USA, the mightiest nation on earth, ever!

If God has decided to have USA nuked – it means that some other nation must do that job, right? Well, mister smart-guy Bible-slinger, that means the whole world will be nuked, thus going into total destruction. If Russia or China or whichever nation opens fire first, USA will have their Mega-Ton nukes on their way to their enemies before any nuke hits American soil! This I can guarantee!

If God meant to just punish and destroy USA/Babylon harlot, the end result will never the less be the scenario I just mentioned: The whole earth laid waste, turned into a burnt desolate dung of radioactive gravel and dust and whatnot. Is this how God deals with sinners? I don’t think so. He saved Lot and his family out of Sodom before fire fell from heaven. God made distinction between unrighteous and righteous, and He will always do that, always.

God has no intention in sending Jesus back to earth to rule as king upon a burnt dung and heaps of radioactive gravel and ruins from an atomic war.

Jerusalem has been destroyed before in history, but rebuilt thereafter. That will happen also when the Great Tribulation has been stopped by the Lord’s coming from above. See Rev. 19-21. And then the Babylon-harlot religious system will be gone forever.

The Bible is very clear on Israel/Jerusalem being the Babylon harlot in Rev. 17-18.

The smoke coming from Babylon-harlot in Rev. 17-18 is not necessarily the effect of a detonated nuke.

There are other methods to burn Jerusalem. It’s a fact.

Final comment: Steven Anderson’s exhortation and spiritual chastisement on his nation USA, I recommend you all listen to! USA has a lot to answer to before the Lord, and Anderson’s lecture here is good stuff in that regard. God strongly bless him and his Assembly, preaching the Gospel of God’s unmerited Grace.

BELOW IS THE STEVEN ANDERSON VIDEO – make your own opinion of this. Compare it with what I have told you in this article, – and reason over this!

 

By Jan Lilleby

INTRODUCTION

How many Christians has solid knowledge in the Bible, in the sense that they understand those things God let come upon Israel because of their disobedience against Him?

I think I can answer that right away: Very few among Christianity, shamefully so, has real knowledge in God’s Word regarding Israel and their so-called ‘Holy Land’.

Neither the land nor its inhabitants (except the very few Messianic Jesus believers) , since the time when the Romans cast them out in 70 AD according to the Lord’s decision, can be held as holy ones.

This is why one of the reasons we learn in Rev. 17, and on behalf of the Lord, that Israel with Jerusalem in the end time is called ‘Babylon the Great Harlot’. She who once was the wife of the Lord fell in spiritual whoredom.

Jer. 31:32:

“..My covenant which they broke, although I was their Husband, says the Lord.”

THE LAND WAS DEFILED FOR THEIR DISOBEDIENCE
AGAINST JESUS AND HIS APOSTLES

The Word of God says that the land would vomit out its population for their idolatry and disobedience.
Is. 24:5:

“The land and the earth also are defiled by their inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, disregarded the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant (the Sinai covenant under Moses)”.

The whole chapter 24 relates to what is written in Rev. 6 – the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls – the Great Tribulation which shall come upon Israel. The land ceased being holy the same instance God judged her. And yet, in Christendom they still hold Israel as the ‘Holy Land’. How ignorant.

Lev. 18:25-28 says clearly what should happen if Israel went disobedient:

“And the land is defiled; therefore I visit the iniquity of it upon it, and the land itself vomits out her inhabitants. 26: So you shall keep My statutes and My ordinances and shall not commit any of these abominations, neither the native-born nor any stranger who sojourns among you. 27: For all these abominations have the men of the land done who were before you, and the land is defiled – 28: Lest the land spew you out when you defile it as it spewed out the nation that was before you.”

These strict words from the Law of Moses to Jewry and their proselytes was later transferred in a Messiah prophesy found in Deut. 18:15-19 – and which Peter in his second speech after Pentecost, taught Israel, Acts 3:22, 23:

“Thus Moses said to the forefathers, The Lord God will raise up for you a Prophet from among your brethren as me; Him you shall listen to and understand by hearing and heed in all things whatever He tells you. 23: And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to and understand by hearing and heed that Prophet shall be utterly exterminated from among the people”.

The Jews got the same judgment and penalty by not accepting Jesus as the Messiah, as those whom in olden times committed idolatry and unspeakable sins like those in Lev. 18.

Paul quoted a similar judgment against the disbelieving Israel when he in 60 AD confronted the Jews in Rome, Acts 29:25-28. He quoted Is. 6 – Israel as being spiritually blind, deaf and ignorant as well as unrepentant. Is. 6 ends with Israel destroyed and the land made desolate! Entirely in line with Deut. 18.

The Jews defiled the land because of their unbelief when the apostles preached to them for 30 years after Pentecost in Acts 2. They would not believe and repent, so the Lord could restore and heal the land. The end station was Rome and the servant God used to bring them the judgment was Paul.

The land was down and out in several periods of deportation, and the longest interval of dispersion has been the one which came in 70 AD as the Romans destroyed them and scattered the Jews in the civilized world – thus that land is no longer the ‘Holy Land’.

THE NICKNAME ‘BABYLON’ IS DUE TO THE JEWS’
LONG STAY IN BABYLON

As a consequence of their long stay in Babylon (only 10% of them returned to their land) since Nebuchadnezzar deported them in 586 BC, the Jews were influenced by all the idolatry and astrology and sorcery practiced there. Two evil doctrinal systems came out of this: The Babylonian Talmud (written 500 AD), and the Zohar (Kabbalah). Thus the religious party of the Pharisees emerged, the heretics which Jesus confronted in His ministry. They had illegally overtaken the Levitical priesthood and temple service, and had the Jews in an iron claw.

The doctrines of the Pharisees in the time of the gospels were only by oral tradition, but this was published in writing 500 AD; the Talmud of our time is same doctrine as then. Talmud is the national religion in Israel.

THE DISASTER IN 70 AD WAS THE LORD’S
REVENGE AGAINST THE BABYLON PHARISEISM’S MURDERS

In the prophetic parable spoken by Jesus of the fruitless Figtree in Luke 13, we find that He added one extra ‘Acceptable Year of the Lord’ (equal length of time to the 30 some years that Jesus was on earth) – for the vinedresser (the apostles’ ministry) to dig in the soil and put manure on to see if the tree would bring back fruit; an image of faith in Christ. But after over 30 years with the apostles trying to have Israel repent and believe on Jesus, it all ended by Israel saying their final ultimate ‘No Thanks!’ as Paul confronted them in Rome, Acts 28. And Israel fell from God. The Roman battle axe chopped down the fruitless Figtree.

Likewise, the parable of the King’s Servants in Matt. 22:7, also brings us a prophesy regarding the destruction of Israel with their persecuting religious leaders. The king in this parable sends his soldiers to kill those who persecuted and murdered his servants, and burned down their city (Jerusalem). Jesus (the King) revenged their deaths by using the Roman army, as we learn from history.

For the third time in history, the land vomited out their disobedient rebellious inhabitants. Paul quoted them the final judgment by Is. 6 in Rome 60 AD, as I mentioned above, and Luke did not write down the other verses speaking of Israel’s destruction – but I am sure that every Jew in Rome who met with Paul, knew very well of the judgement mentioned in Is. 6:11, 12, as is written:

“Then said I, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until cities lie waste without inhabitant and houses without man, and the land is utterly desolate. 12: And the Lord removes His people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.”

The land vomited out their inhabitants by the stern actions taken by the Roman army. Jesus called that army for His army in the parable mentioned.

But very soon, an even worse judgment and destruction shall come upon them, namely the Great Tribulation, Matt. 24:21. Also called by Jeremiah for ‘The time of Jacob’s trouble’, Jer. 30:7.

The sin they will be punished for can be looked upon as collateral damage to what happened in 70 AD. I shall explain this below. But don’t forget now that this final action from God in the end time, He shall through this purging and cleansing bring forth an Israel which will be one hundred percent Jesus-believers – following Him in the millennial kingdom prophesied. God smites them, but after that He also heals them!

Notice that this action against the end time Israel is not taken against an ordinary nation, but against a Babylonian fallen nation, a nation in perdition – originally chosen by God and sat above all other nations (ref. Ex. 19:5, 6) – and they refused to repent when God gave them their last final call when the apostle Paul declared His judgment in Acts 28.

THE GREAT TRIBULATION, THE WORST
JUDGMENT EVER TO HIT ISRAEL

Ezek. 36 shows us the day of vengeance of God which shall come upon Israel, after they became a nation again.

It is the Babylon Harlot who shall get her judgment seen in Rev. 18:6, poured her in the cup of God’s wrath in double portions:

“Repay to her what she herself has paid to others and double her doom in accordance with what she has done. Mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed for others.”

God had them vomited out of the land in 70 AD because of their refusing to repent as the apostles during the 30 years of Acts preached the gospel to them. As I mentioned with the parable in Matt. 22 of the king’s servants.

One should think that such a penalty (the religious leaders of Jewry are still wondering how this misfortune could occur) would have Jewry ransack their minds for error, confessing their sin and turn to Jesus in sincere regrets. But what we see in world history after 70 AD, is the very opposite – a fierce anger and hatred against Christ. Even their Talmud has several blasphemies against Jesus, and Maria is called a whore who slept with a Roman centurion.

As it clearly says in Ezek. 36, they have been spending their time in the dispersion trampling underfoot the Holy Name of Jesus Christ, and thus having that grave sin piling up for a soon coming doom and destruction. It is simply mindboggling to know that there are Christian-Zionists supporting this blasphemous Zionist-Israel – right now – and up until the doom falls upon her.

Ezek. 36 speaks straight forward of this judgment to come.

First, verses 19-20 give us what happened with the destruction in 70 AD, and their immediate rotten blasphemous behaviors, saying:

“And I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries; according to their conduct and their deeds I judged and punished them. 20: And when they came to the nations to which they went, THEY PROFANED MY HOLY NAME in that men said of them, These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go forth OUT OF HIS LAND.”

The ‘Wandering Jew’ has become a byword of their misfortune, a people who left God for they would not believe His prophets and apostles. Many of the leaders of the nations noticed the Jews like this, for many centuries.

Ezek. 36:23 tells how Christ shall deal with the Jews under the Great Tribulation to come:

“And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name and separate it for its holy purpose from all that defiles it –My name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you (Israel) have profaned among them – and THE NATIONS WILL KNOW, UNDERSTAND AND REALIZE THAT I AM THE LORD, when I shall be set apart by you and My holiness vindicated in you before their eyes and yours.”

The nations in the world shall be terrified witnesses to what the Lord will do to Israel to restore and vindicate His holy name. They will KNOW that it is the Lord Who is behind the Great Tribulation that will plague and punish the ungodly Jewry, the Zionist-Israel.

Israel can shoot and bomb Gaza and the Palestinians and other neighbors in the Middle-East, but the long revenging arm of the Lord will reach them, and there will be no place to hide. The Lord’s penalty against them will be so tough that only a small remnant of one third of the people will be left, as told in Zac. 13:8, or as Moses prophesied, Deut. 28:62:

“And you shall be left few in number, whereas you had been as the stars of the heavens for multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.”

Moses called the horrors that should come upon them for ‘All the diseases of Egypt, which you fear’.

Those plagues and horrors are described in Rev. 6 and on, by the seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls plus the three wows. And as only Egypt was punished by the plagues under Moses, and not the nations around, so shall these horrors hit Israel only, and not the nations around. As already pointed out in Biblical manners from Ezek. 36:23, we learned that the nations shall not become victims, but witnesses only. Yes, they will probably be shaking in their knees for fear of what is happening to Israel, but they will know that it is the Lord Who is punishing and chastising His nation to establish it back to Himself.

This serious action against Israel will be administered by the two witnesses in Rev. 11, who are Moses and Elijah. They had a mandate of power and signs with punishments so that they…quote: (Rev. 11:5, 6)

“….if anyone attempts to injure them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their enemies; if anyone should attempt (and they will…)to harm them, thus he is doomed to be slain. These two witnesses have power to shut up the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesy (3 ½ years); they also have power to turn the waters into blood AND TO SMITE AND SCOURGE THE LAND WITH ALL MANNER OF PLAGUES AS OFTEN AS THEY CHOOSE.”

No matter how many plagues and scary signs that come against the ungodly nation, it will end with them reduced into just one third remnants. And of this little remnant, as the Great Tribulation is stopped by the coming of Christ from heaven – Ezek. 36:25 says of this:

“Then will I sprinkle clean water (God’s Word), and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness; and from all your idols will I cleanse you.”

This tells us that Israel, up to that point in future, has been unclean, or rather – UNHOLY, unsaved, unbelieving, unrepentant.

There is no doubt that this is their real true spiritual status today, as you read this article. And Christianity should have no sharing with them, for what have darkness in common with light? Paul describes the church as such who are light in the world. We may tell them the gospel of Christ, hoping they will repent and be saved. But we are not supposed to just go in and participate in their evil deeds. Or blindly send Israel money or other aids.

This was a long introduction, but now we come to Israel, and her history testifies to us of her spiritual whoredom.

ISRAEL’S HISTORY TELLS OF THE LIFE OF A HARLOT

The Old Testament is full of testimony from the prophets, that Israel has been a notorious spiritual whore, or harlot as it is written. The nation is infamous for its constant disobedience and rebellion against the Lord their God. We are therefore going to have a closer look at a selection of words and key phrases in that regard.

It seems to me that Ezekiel, the priest who was called into a prophet’s ministry to chastise and reprove the Israelites in the captivity in Babylon, was a chief prophet is such a mission. Israel’s idolatry was the main cause for Ezekiel’s ministry. IMAGE: Ezekiel looking over the valley of the bones as they came to life, Ez. 37.

Ez. 16 has much to say of Israel’s spiritual adultery.

Many in Christendom hold the view that Babylon in Rev. 17-18 is Rome and the Papal Church. But it is not Rome which is the Babylon harlot. Not a chance.

The Papal Church may rather be looked upon in same manner as a child who behaved disobedient to its parents, but never as a wife who fell in adultery. Israel in Scripture is pictured clearly as the Lord’s married wife. Yes, the Roman Catholic Church has committed severe sin and abominable deeds throughout history, not the least in medieval times with the persecutions and terror using torture to bring about confessions. But it still does not make her the Babylon Harlot. Only Israel has had ‘marital’ and other covenants with God.

Jer. 31:32 says a lot of this concept:

“…not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was their Husband, says the Lord.”

Ez. 16:8 goes to show that the Lord had ‘fallen in love’ with her, and married:

“Now I passed by you again and looked upon you; behold, you were maturing and at the time for love, and I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I plighted My troth to you and entered into a covenant, says the Lord, and you became Mine.”

Then follows verses in which God describes His love and passionate feelings for His newly wed wife, verse 14 set the atmosphere:

“And your renown went forth among the nations for your beauty, for it was perfect through My majesty and splendor which I had put upon you, says the Lord God.”

But then Israel’s beauty started to fade, as she began casting her eyes upon other ‘lovers’ due to her renown status, her religious arrogance.

Ez. 16:15, 16 is brutal truth:

“But you trusted in and relied on your own beauty and were unfaithful to God and played the harlot because of your renown, and you poured out your fornications upon anyone who passed by and your beauty was his. 16: And you took some of your garments and made for yourself gaily decorated high places or shrines and played the harlot on them – things which should not come and that which should not take place.”

This brings our thoughts on the case with Ahab and Jezebel to whom Elijah was sent to have them turn away from their Baal worship, told in 1 Kings 17-18 – thus a prophetic warning of the end time when anti-Christ and the Great Tribulation in Israel occurs. Jezebel, as an image of the climax in ungodliness, Babylon Harlot when God is going to destroy her as in Rev. 17-18.

Christ, when He came, was the One to have Israel as His wife – but the harlot Israel, ruled by the Babylonian Pharisees and their religious false doctrines, killed the Bridegroom.

Ez. 16:17-20 shows us a grave accusation against the occult Baal worship:

“You also did take your fair jewels and beautiful vessels of My gold and My silver which I had given you and made for yourself images of men, and you played harlot with them. 18: And you took your embroidered garments and covered them and set My oil and My incense before them. 19: My bread also which I gave you – fine flour and oil and honey with which I fed you – you have even set it before the idols for a sweet odor. Thus it was, says the Lord God. 20: Moreover, you have taken your sons and your daughters whom you have born to Me, and you have sacrificed them to be destroyed. Where your harlotries to little….”.

None of this can be said of the Papal Church – other than the outwardly phenomenon that the Catholic Church copied all the worship formalities, priestly garments and accessories, the use of incense, an altar etcetera, not the least an impressive decoration of the buildings inside/outside, using expensive metals and colored glass works. The influence from Hellenistic Roman temples and their practices are so obvious. It was introduced and ‘Christened’ by the Roman emperors, starting with Constantine the Great (312 AD). And still, none of this can compete with the religious whoredom like we now have learned from Israel’s ancient history – as they chose to switch from worshipping God to worshipping false idols!

It is Israel which is the original Biblical historical harlot, and none of the church systems that emerged as Christendom was spread into the heathen nations.

Ezekiel specifically pointed by naming – the Babylonian connection of old – in Ez. 16:29:

“Moreover, you multiplied your harlotry with the land of trade, with Chaldea, and yet even with this you were not satisfied.”

Chaldea was the old name of what later became Babylon! Abraham came from Ur in Chaldea, as we know (Gen. 11:31).

Ez. 16:30 has the rising anger of the Lord in it, against the harlot:

“How weak and spent with longing and lust is your heart and mind, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the work of a bold, dominant harlot.”

Later on Ezekiel had to pay with his life, for having spoken publicly against Israel. This we can comprehend when reading the stern harsh chastisement in Ez. 16:36-41 – but I will not quote all those verses now. Enough is said already, which proves that Israel in the end time is the Babylon Harlot of Rev. 17-18, just as much as she has been that harlot in history past.

But in Rev. 17-18 we learn that God will bring an end to her entirely. The final judgment shall fall – and there shall no more be any ungodly Christ-rejecting profaning Pharisaic religious Babylon-inspired system. It will cease to exist.

Ez. 16:41 is concluding such an ending indeed:

“And they shall burn your houses with fire and execute judgments upon you before the eyes of many women spectators (the nations, see Ez. 36:23). And I will cause you to cease playing the harlot…”

OTHER FACTS PROVING ISRAEL/JERUSALEM
AS THE BABYLON HARLOT

Rev. 17:9 is picturing the harlot in the form of a woman sitting on SEVEN HILLS. Some say that Rome has seven hills, using it as an argument – but Rome has MORE than seven hills! Only Jerusalem, of the cities listed in Revelation has EXACTLY SEVEN HILLS.

Other fractions in Christianity say that Babylon in Rev. 17-18 is a prophesy of the ancient Babylon in Iraq, re-built and restored in the end time. This is easily refuted: The ships in Rev. 18: with its owners and crews observing the smoke pillar of Babylon at fire, as they stood far away from it in fear. If it was a restored ancient Babylon in Iraq, ship-owners in harbors of Haifa or Tel Aviv (the ocean in Revelation is the Mediterranean!) could not possibly see that smoke, for it is 850 kilometers away. But Jerusalem is only 150 kilometers to the south-east of Haifa, the largest container harbor in the area, and knowing Jerusalem is at an altitude of 800 meters, it will be fully possible to see the smoke from a fire there.

I will also use a few words on the idea that USA could eventually be the Babylon harlot. Several Christian pastors and preachers in America thinks so, and you can watch their intense videos on Youtube if you so wish.

The fact that it is indisputably the Mediterranean which is the ocean found in Revelation…of which it says that one third of the ships were sunk (Rev. 8:9), is enough to expose the idea of USA as Babylon as entirely false. And where in USA is there a city with seven hills, which the Babylon harlot sits upon? See what I mean? Where in USA could one find a city on seven hills combined with the historical indisputable fact that in that city the prophets of God had been slain? USA did not even exist when these prophets were slain.

But also another fact worth noticing is the typical Jewish tradition displayed by the frightened ship crews seen in Rev. 18:19 casting dust (sand or ashes) on their heads knowing God just had their enterprises judged and destroyed. They are seen as deeply religious, and we know that the third temple shall be built soon including all the religious practices and rites that follows.

The casting of dust upon their head is logically connected with ships moored in harbors, and not at open sea. These frightened men have all seen recent disasters from God coming against them, as quoted from Rev. 8:9 when a big asteroid hits the Mediterranean and tsunamis sank one third of all vessels at sea! Therefore, now – in Rev. 18 – they have their vessels safely at the piers in Haifa to see if it may be safe to operate at sea again soon. And thus, they had access to religious rites of casting dust/sand on their head.

It seem to me that God in His wrath against the Babylon harlot/Zionist-Israel in the tribulation hits them ‘In both ends’: First He destroys their ships with as much as one third (33,3% wreckage factor!!) within the same hour or two after an asteroid hit, followed up – in the economical end – the destruction of their riches ashore, their assets and organizations. The whole enterprise goes straight down the drain under God’s judgments.

I have a few quotations of this ancient practice of showing sorrow and repentance in Jewish tradition, as follows.

Joshua 7:1, 6:

“But the Israelites committed a trespass in regard to the devoted things; for Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the things devoted for destruction. And the anger of the Lord burned against Israel.”

Because of this sin of greed committed by Achan, the Lord let the army of Ai attack them, and the Israelites lost the battle, east of Bethel. Then Joshua was taken with grief and anger, understanding that something was wrong, and he uttered his grief, as we read verse 6:

“Then Joshua rent his clothes and lay on the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.”

Same thing is practiced by the three friends of Job as they find him in his misery, Job 2:12 says:

“…they lifted up their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe, and they cast dust over their heads towards the heavens (dust falling down on their heads).”

A final example is when we find all the elders in Jerusalem in grief and repentance, Lam. 2:10:

“The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground keeping silent; they have cast dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.”

So it is safe to say that Babylon harlot of Rev. 17-18 must be Israel in the end time, with its freshly renewed religious traditions due to the new temple, the third one in history. That even sailors and rough crews, as well as greedy ship-owners, seem to have taken up this ancient religious tradition, tells us that there must be an organized temple based religious practice which the whole population are partakers of, observing these ordinances. This cannot be in any other place or under another religion than the Jewish one, whether Talmudic or otherwise.

ADDED TO THE ARTICLE  September 13,  2017:

The Call of warning sounding in Rev. 18:4 is concerning the Jews present in Jerusalem and Judea as described in Matt. 24:15-21….the people are alarmed by a voice from heaven to get out of the place in which God is about to send destruction and death!

Rev. 18:4 says,   “I then heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out from her, my people, so that you may not share in her sins, neither participate in her plagues.” 

The Expression  ‘My people’ gives us the clear addressee: The believing Messianic Jews who listened to the two witnesses during the tribulation.  This has nothing to do with us Christians, since we will have been taken into heaven in good time before this destruction comes in Israel/Jerusalem.  It is therefore impossible that USA could ever be the Babylon-harlot.

Matt. 24:15-21 goes in details of the very same scenario:

“So when you see the appalling sacrilege (abomination of desolation), spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the Holy Place (in the temple) – let the reader take notice.  16: Then let those who are in Judea flee to the Mountains, 17:  Let him who is on the housetop not come down and go into the house to take anything,  18: And let him who is in the field not turn back to get his overcoat.  19: And alas for the women who are pregnant and for those who have nursing babies in those days!  20: Pray that your flight may not be in Winter or on a Sabbath. 21: For then there will be great tribulation….”.

Added to this article September 20, 2017:

We need to reflect some more on the passage in Rev. 18:4 – the voice from heaven calling the People  in Israel, those who had faith in Christ, to FLEE out of Jerusalem. Flee towards where? As already quoted above, it must have been the wilderness in Judeah (verse 16) – and that raises another question: Fleeing towards what? Starvation? Icy cold nights in the open or inside caves? Eating what…dust and stone? You see, that this flight/escape from the enemies of God and thus from the disaster to hit Jerusalem, is not as uncomplicated as you you first may have thought!  But Rev. 12:6 points to the solution,

“And the woman (the believing Messianic Jews in the tribulation) fled into the dessert, where she has a retreat prepared by God, in which she is to be fed and kept safe for three and one half years.”

I have always wondered WHY did Paul speak of a so-called ‘Rapture’ of the Messianic Saints (1 Thes 4) at the second coming of Christ?  And here is the answer: The Lord will gather all the suffering refugees hiding in the said wilderness, in Judeah and swiftly and safely bring them together with Himself. In other words, they need effective and safe transportation. Think of Philip in Acts 8:39, 40 The Holy Ghost lifted him up and brought the evangelist through the air over a distance of 40 kilometers. It happened right after he had baptized the minister from Ethiopia, and Philip ‘landed’ in a place called Azotus.

The judgment upon the religious Jewish Babylon harlot system is the very climax of the Great Tribulation in Israel. It is NOT a world-wide tribulation, but a local domestic one. It is the time of Jacob’s trouble, Jer. 30:7. Italy, Greece and other nations in the east Mediterranean area may be somewhat inflicted by the falling of asteroids as seen in Rev. 8 – having tall tsunamis roll against many shores. I am not sure, but it is certainly a possibility. But still, it does not mean that there will be the Great Tribulation in Italy, in Greece, or other places. Only Israel shall be experiencing such tribulation.

It does not mean that, for example, USA may go scot-free of war or attacks of diverse kinds. In such perilous times many things can happen around this planet. But this doesn’t make USA the Babylon harlot, or Rome or any other nation or city. Bad things happen, even if such things may not have been specifically prophesied in the Bible.

By Jan Lilleby

Most Christian denominations hold this to be right, based upon Paul’s words in 1 Thes. 4:16, 17. The event is mostly just called for ‘The Rapture’. It reads:

(Amplified Bible) – “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud cry of summons, with the shout of an archangel, and with the blast of the trumpet of God. And those who have departed this life in Christ will rise first. 17: Then we, the living ones who remain (on the earth), shall simultaneously be caught up along with the resurrected dead in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so always (through the eternity of the eternities) we shall be with the Lord!”

I shall explain this issue more detailed through this article, but allow me to already ‘drop-the egg-in-the-basket’:

Paul’s expression in verse 17, “..we, the living ones who remain…”, is NOT in the meaning of US, we who makes out the Church, the body of Christ. The Bible is here talking of the Jewish nation’s – Israel’s – Messianic believers and their proselytes (the Greek as mentioned in Acts) who are the ‘WE’ in the quoted passages in 1 Thes. 4. It has nothing to do with us, the Church, which Paul also called the ‘One New Man’ in Eph. 2:15. And if we do not keep these issues apart we easily fall into confusion regarding the contents of the Gospel. We need to learn what exactly was promised to us, the body of Christ, and keep that apart from what God promised His nation, Israel.

The dispensation of the Church, the ‘One New Man’, the body of Christ was not even started or revealed to anyone at the time Paul wrote the two epistles to the Thessalonians (54-56 AD). Acts span over 30 years of history from 31-32 AD until 62 AD. In the Acts-period we find that all the apostles, including Paul, taught and preached only one message: The New Covenant for Israel. And the Law of Moses was still going hand-in-hand with the covenant message, ref. Ro. 3:31. Paul called that kind of Gospel-message to the Jews and proselytes for:

Acts 13:32 – “So now we are bringing you the good news (Gospel) that what God promised to our forefathers”.

Nobody knew anything about a Gospel of free grace by faith, no covenant, and gentiles freely included directly as believers – an unmerited gift of God in Christ; and the hope of salvation being heaven above the heavens. No, at that time in Bible history the promised hope of their salvation was only the earthly millennial kingdom in Israel at the return of Jesus Christ from heaven, if first all of Israel would repent and be baptized, Acts 2:38. Any promise of heaven up above the heavens (Greek, epiouranos) cannot be found in the Bible at this time in history. It did not occur before the Acts was closed in 62 AD, and we find the promise of heaven only in Ephesians and Colossians, which are the first writings after Acts time-line.

We shall take a step-by-step journey in Scripture in what concerns that God one day shall conclude the Church-era by transferring us into heaven up above. Because this is what He will do in due time. But this great saving move of God is not what is described in 1 Thes. 4 or in 1 Chor. 15. We have to go to Eph. 4:30 and Col. 3:1-4.

THE RAPTURE IN 1 THES. 4 WAS NEVER
GIVEN TO US, THE CHURCH, AS ANY
PART OF OUR SALVATION.

If we do not make proper division in the Bible regarding faith and salvation doctrine, we will stand confused over what exactly the gospel contains.

We must make clear what is promised to us, the Church, the Body of Christ –also called by Paul for ‘The One New Man’ in Eph. 2:15. In Col. 1:18 it says that Jesus is the Head of His Body, which is the Church.

In the N.T. scriptures (except Ephesians and Colossians) all doctrine of faith and doctrine of salvation are based upon the apostles’ preaching of the New Covenant to Israel, established in the blood sacrifice of Jesus (Luke 22:20). That preaching was held forth as they pointed to Jesus and His imminent second coming. He had promised to return as soon as Israel had repented and been baptized. This is very obvious when we study the two sermons held by Peter in Acts 2 and 3.

Acts 2:38 leaves no doubt: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness and release from your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Peter’s speech on Pentecost culminated with those words, after first having exhorted them with what the prophets had prophesied on Messiah, as well as the evil deeds of the Jews having just crucified Him, and that Jesus after this had risen from the grave. Acts 2:1-37.

In verse 39 Peter said the very same as later on was said also by Paul, to the Jews, as he pointed to the promise given the Jewish forefathers(Abraham, Isaac and Jacob –of a future kingdom in the land with Messiah:

“For the promise is to and for you and your children, and to and for all that are fare away – to and for as many as the Lord our God invites and bids to come to himself.”

Paul on the very same issue, from Acts 13:32, 33; 38, 39:

“So now we are bringing you the Gospel that what God promised to our forefathers. 33: This He has completely fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus (from the dead)….”

38: “So let it be clearly known and understood by you, brethren, through this Man forgiveness and removal of sins is now proclaimed to you. 39: And that through Him everyone who believes is absolved from every charge from which he could not be justified and freed by the Law of Moses and given right standing with God.”

To these passages I will add Heb. 9:15 – simply because it says that in order to lawfully be offered the New Covenant, you had FIRST to be found submitted to the previous covenant, the Law of Moses. Meaning: Only Jews and their proselytes were offered the New Covenant, it never had anything to do with us, the Church in the free grace-gospel era:

“Christ is therefore the Negotiator and Mediator of an entirely NEW AGREEMENT (covenant), so that those who are called (Israel) and offered it may receive the fulfillment of the promised everlasting inheritance – since a death has taken place (Jesus on the cross) which rescues and and delivers and redeems them from the transgressions committed under the (old) first agreement.”

This fact illustrates to us that all of the Acts period (32 AD to 62 AD) is a story where we find God dealing exclusively with His own elect people of old, Israel, plus their proselytes as they were let into the Messianic assemblies.

Thus we easily understand that when Paul said in Acts 13:38 ‘…so let it be clearly known and understood by you, brethren…’ and every word which goes YOU, WE, US, THE FATHERS, CHILDREN and so on, has nothing to do with us, gentiles, whether believers or not, but these expressions/words are only talking of the JEWS EXCLUSIVELY just as it was in the time of the apostles, in the times before we got the fall of Israel. God had NO PEOPLE among Gentiles in the world. The only Gentiles became proselytes, and as such they did not represent the free, raw Gentile anywhere in the world.

We in our time, cannot just read ourselves into the Scriptures as we may please, as if we were the recipients of the Messianic promises originally given to Israel!

Paul’s teachings in all his epistles, except Ephesians and Colossians, has to do with the salvation of the Jews/Israel as a nation for God in the future promised Millennial kingdom on earth; a kingdom which should have been established as soon as God saw the whole nation repented and baptized – just as charged them by Peter in Acts 2:38. As well as Paul also charged them in his ministry in the Synagogues outside of Israel. But they never repented nationally. Only some groups of believers here and there, but never the entire nation. Their fall from God as a nation is illustrated by Paul’s words in Acts 28:25-28 and I shall come back to that later on.

Through the entire time-line of the Acts, thirty years or so, the servants of Christ held forth the offer to Israel to have the New Covenant salvation, as they always persisted in their repentance, and taking the water rite, and pointing to the imminent return of Jesus in their lifetime.

In the early time of the apostles it was Peter who took the lead, and he went to Israel within her borders. After a few years, God sent out Paul to go to Israel in the Empire outside of Israel, to preach to the Jews and Greek assembled in their synagogues each Sabbath. This became Paul’s special ‘Brand Mark’ if you will. We have a clear reference to this fact in Gal. 2:7, 8:

“..when they saw that I (Paul) had been entrusted the Gospel to the uncircumcised (Gentiles, proselytes) as Peter had been entrusted the Gospel to the circumcised (Jews), 8: For He Who motivated and fitted Peter and worked effectively through him for the mission to the circumcised motivated and fitted me and worked through me also for the Gentiles.”

NOTICE: Proselytes with the Jews and in the Messianic assembly in the time of the apostles, must never be confused with us, regular Gentiles, believers or not. The fact that God allowed for Gentiles to become proselytes, never meant that what He had given to the Messianic assembly, also was given freely out into all the world! No, God’s special election and keeping of Israel as His nation, was always apart from the world. They had a ‘Wall of Partition’ between themselves as God’s nation, and the Gentile world, the nations. This wall stood high and mighty throughout the entire time of Acts period, but was taken down the same instance that Israel fell away from their God, as Paul confronted them in Rome.

In Acts period there existed no free grace-gospel as revealed by Paul in Ephesians and Colossians. The grace-gospel came after Israel first had fallen away from God. Paul’s ultimate words to Israel were the last ones ever spoken to the disobedient nation, quoting Is. 6, in Acts 28:27 he said:

“For the heart of this people has grown dull, and their ears are heavy and hard of hearing and they have shut tight their eyes, so that they may not perceive and have knowledge and become acquainted with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their souls and turn to Me and be converted, that I may heal them (their land/nation).”

Verse 28 is pretty blunt as Paul concludes their fall:

“So let it be understood by you (Israel) then that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”

Verses 29- 31 goes to show us that Paul tried to make the most of it, in spite of the final warnings he had given them, and he kept on trying to convince them of the kingdom-message and Jesus as the Messiah, and leaves us Paul pounding on the heavy Jewish door – but to no avail. Between this point in the time-line 62 AD and until the epistle to the Ephesians was written the same year, Paul had been given a NEW REVELATION by the Lord: The free grace of God for all people, by faith in Christ, for the Jews and their nation was now considered as fallen away from God. Thus Eph. 2:14-15 gives us the full abolishment of a: The Wall of Partition, b: The Law of Moses with its commandments and ordinances. The Jews sat one step down to equal level with us Gentiles!

As I wrote early in this article, the words of a resurrection up from graves plus a rapture up to heaven in clouds at the Lords return, IS NOT ADDRESSED TO US. It was addressed to the Israel found in Acts period before they fell from their elevated standing with God as His nation on earth!

In Ephesians and Colossians, we find an entirely new hope of salvation, not ever presented in the Gospels or in Acts: The hope of heaven above the heavens. Paul used the Greek word epiuoranos in describing our hope of salvation. It is used to describe the heaven up above, where Christ now sits at His Father’s right hand, in might and glory and in power. These two epistles are the only ones in N.T. which have faith/salvation doctrine directly to the Church dispensation. All others are based on New Covenant doctrine and salvation is on earth in the future millennial Israeli kingdom.

CHRISTIANITY’S GENERAL UNDERSTANDING
OF THE RAPTURE AS IT READS IN 1 THES. 4
IS IN GREAT ERROR.

Please let me explain to the reader that the whole concept of this rapture or being caught up into heaven are very distorted what regards how one read the passage in question. It is mostly understood like the following:

The rapture of the saints in 1Thes. 4, is taken as a pure heaven-trip. Jesus is supposedly descending to the sky right above earth and shall rapture up to Himself all the Christian believers on earth after first (in almost the same instance) having the dead believers raised from their graves. And these two groups of saints are then taken up into heaven by Christ and His angels. And so they shall forever be in heaven with God and Christ. All unbelievers are then left behind to endure the Great Tribulation on earth.

But such is not the case if we study the Bible in the right light of proper division and Bible systematics. The real rapture – as described in 1 Thes. 4 will eventually go like this:

Jesus is coming down to earth – in Israel that is – to take over all rule establishing the promised millennial kingdom in Israel. His coming is described by the use of the Greek word Parusia. It means coming to be present with His believers on earth. If Jesus only came down to the sky – not down to earth – that Greek word would not be used. It can only be used if the Lord is coming to be present and seen by His believers. So, Jesus rapture the believing Christians up in the air to meet Him, and in same instance raise the dead believers and rapture also them up. Then He takes His believers with Him DOWN TO ISRAEL, and land them safely there. The Great Tribulation has ended, and they shall now go into His millennial kingdom and will rule together with Christ for a thousand years, ref. Rev. 20:4. It is safe to think that these saints are from among the 144 000 tribal Jews in Rev. 7 I believe. In the passage in Rev. 20:4 it is not mentioned anything about a rapture having taken place, only resurrection of dead martyrs from the Great Tribulation, those who had not taken the anti-Christ logo on them, the mark of the beast in Rev. 13. This could possibly mean that there might NOT be any rapture at all, because it is possible that what Paul wrote in 1 Thes. 4 of the rapture only would take place if Jesus had come in the time of the apostles. I keep the door open to such an interpretation.

The rapture and the resurrection in the same instance, NEVER WAS INTENDED as a happening that should take the saints up into heaven where God is. This is a fact we must learn!

When we also learn from Scripture that the rapture was ONLY PROMISED THE JEWS AND PROSELYTES in the Acts period, and not the Church, the One New Man, the body of Christ, then all others are excluded from this.

Only the Messianic believers in Acts period (Jews and their proselytes) had such promises, and their hope of salvation WAS NOT HEAVEN, but the millennial kingdom on earth. Why would Jesus take believers up into heaven who only were promised to go into the earthly millennial Kingdom in Israel?

Dan. 2:44 is very clear on which group of believers that is promised to enter that kingdom on earth, namely Israel:

“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people (than Israel); but it shall break and crush and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever.”

We, the Church under the grace-dispensation established by Paul after Israel’s fall in 62 AD, has never been given any land-promises nor shall we ever be given such promises. We have a totally different hope of salvation: The heaven up above the heavens, with God and Christ. Only Paul was given that revelation for us to believe – Paul, the apostle to the gentiles.

We also have to understand the fact that the Great Tribulation (see Matt. 24:21, 22) – the time when Israel shall be going through a harsh purging and chastisement – resulting in that a remnant of Israel will be saved. Zech. 13:8 prophesied that one third of Israel will be spared, but two thirds will perish, is NOT GOING TO COME OVER THE ENTIRE WORLD. It is Israel which is being punished, purged and chastised so that God can have the nation established back to Himself as believers in Christ, all of them. One of the reasons for doing this will be that all the time since their scattering in 70 AD by the Romans, they have blasphemed the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Both by their ugly mouths, as well as in writings found in Talmud.

Ezek. 36:23 says of this:

“And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name and separate it for its holy purpose from all that defiles it – My name, which HAS BEEN PROFANED AMONG THE NATIONS – which you have profaned among them – and the nations will know (notice: The gentile nations shall be witnesses, and not victims) understand and realize that I (Jesus) am the Lord, when I shall be set apart by you and My holiness vindicated in you before their eyes and yours.”

I recommend everyone to read Ezek. 36 in full – and you will learn how these things will be.

WHAT KIND OF HEAVENLY TRIP IS
PROMISED TO US, THE CHURCH UNDER
THE DISPENSATION OF THE GRACE GOSPEL?

Before we enter details in this issue, let it be totally clear to all: It is only the epistle to the Ephesians and Colossians which contains doctrine of faith and salvation especially written/revealed to us, the body of Christ. All the other epistles in N.T. regardless of writers, were for Israel only and their proselytes, and the doctrine was New Covenant, and not the free grace by faith! This is thoroughly reported in Acts describing a time-period of 30 years.

That is why we don’t find anything regarding teaching on resurrection, rapture, millennial kingdom, the imminent coming of Jesus, the Great Tribulation, etc. in the two exclusive Church epistles.

Mention of apostles and prophets in Eph. 4:11 is only in definitive past tense; it exists no longer, it is long gone.

And the reason is simple: Israel had fallen from God when Paul wrote Ephesians in 62 AD, and the New Covenant to Israel as well as miracle gifts and signs were all suspended, since it was only Israel and proselytes which were the recipients of these blessings and promises. But from then on it was the NEW GRACE GOSPEL of Paul, based on God revealing His hidden Mystery to him, of a group of believers – Gentile people and Israel now sat on equal level – and we both belongs to the body of Christ by faith in Him. Salvation is a free gift of God by faith Eph. 2:8.

No longer is there any need to make Gentile believers proselytes, since we now belong in the body of Christ. The total believing Church in Christ, and no one is above any other, we are all equal Col. 3:11, Eph. 2:14, 15.

We find at least two passages that indicates our transfer into heaven supernaturally, and it may not be any rapture as in 1 Thes. 4. Paul does not tell us in same terms as he wrote to the Messianic ‘Kingdom Assemblies’ in the ministry of New Covenant to them.

First we have Paul’s words in Eph. 4:30:

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by Whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

In other words, it shall come a specific day in which we shall be redeemed from this present world and transferred into heaven! This is our final ultimate salvation, and we will FINALLY, AT LONG LAST- see and experience heaven in all its glory and greatness in the presence of Christ our redeemer.

And secondly we find the known exhortation from Paul in Col. 3:1-4 pointing to heaven up above, and not to those things which are on earth:

“If then you have been raised with Christ, aim at and seek those things which are in heaven above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2: And set your minds and keep them set on what is above, not on the things that are on the earth. 3: For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4: When Christ, Who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

From what we just read, I believe there is a supernatural transferring of God’s saints right into the heaven above the heavens (Greek, epiouranos) – by His power and might.

Don’t think vertical or horizontal as in ordinary earthly patterns of movement, for this is a move of God taking us right into another dimension. Not through space and galaxies – physically, but supernaturally such as God only can do for us. There are no mention of angels coming to take us to heaven, like it is in 1 Thes. 4 and 1 Chor. 15, no sound of a loud voice or of trumpets.

The expression ‘appear with Him in glory’ is pointing to heaven and not the earth. The appearing will be in heaven. So also with the dead in Christ: They will be raised in heaven above, and be given new heavenly eternal bodies.

It would have been very illogical to first pointing us to keep our minds and thoughts on heaven like we just read, for then – as it comes to our final salvation, letting us appear with Christ on earth, don’t you think? I am sure Paul is saying here, that this appearing is one taking place up in epiouranos – heaven.

In this aspect of salvation in heaven for us in the Grace-dispensation according to Paul’s Gospel, there is a ‘Bonus’ present, which not many of us think of. What I think of is this:

When a Christian (and everybody else) dies, he is really completely dead and gone and has no life or have no impressions of being alive in another dimension or any such thing. The Bible says ‘The dead knows nothing’. It will be as if we never were born. We do not wake up dead! The Bible call death for sleep, often.

But here is the bonus: This period –when a Christian is in the sleep of death – will be experienced as IF NO TIME HAS PASSED since the time of death and until he is raised by God in heaven.

Think of it. There is nothing after death to remember, no calendar to read from, no news or experiencing days going by, years going by and so on. You are gone and dead. It is not even dark or bright – all is gone.

This will be as if we go straight into heaven in the same instance as we die! The time passed since death took place is never experienced. Only by being told by a person in heaven how long it is since you died, can one find out the time aspect.

So, we are spared of the trouble that it would have been to be in a condition where we experienced life-after-death before we entered heaven. Knowing you are dead, but yet you sit waiting for days and years to be given entrance into heaven and meet Christ. That seems to me to be a real troublesome thing. So praise God, it isn’t like that at all.

He who dies in faith in Christ will not notice any passing of time. Think of those who died in the time of the apostles – almost 2000 years ago – and those who died only 2 years ago, the two groups will have the same lack of time-aspects and will experience it as if they got straight into heaven right away!

FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE READER
ON WHAT VAST PARTS OF CHRISTIANITY ARE
TEACHING, PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO OF
A JOHN ANKERBERG SHOW.

My comments to what these three Bible professors/theologians teach on the rapture issue, are limited to only a few of the main statements in the interviews, since I already have gone through that above. These three preachers are not ‘targeted’ by me in any way. I want to use this TV-show just to give you an idea of how the rapture in 1 Thes. 4 is misunderstood.

You will meet three of the sharpest Bible Scholars in this topic, according to the interviewer John Ankerberg. And I respect them all. They speak to rather large assemblies in the USA, and are seen and heard via many TV-stations there. None of them are involved in any extreme cults or shady enterprises as far as I am able to understand. They are respected scholars working in respected Christian Churches. But even so, I think that regarding the issue of resurrection and rapture there are several errors that I believe it is important to help correcting.

You will see Dr. Ed Hindson, professor at Liberty University, Dr. Mark Hitchcock, at Dallas Theological Seminary and Dr. Ron Rhodes, teacher at the same.

                       NOTICE:  If video refuse to play – please go directly to Youtube to

watch it there. sometimes there are time limits when

we clip in videos not our own!

MY REMARKS TO SOME OF THEIR STATEMENTS:

Dr. Hitchcock believes that John 14:1-3 speaks of heaven up above, as Jesus say that in His Father’s house there are many rooms.

His conclusion on that passage is not correct. Jesus was speaking of His return to earth, or more specific, Jerusalem where we find the future millennial temple, prophesied in Ezek. 40-48. His nearest disciples should become the Lord’s governmental rulers/priesthood in the millennial kingdom in Israel. The temple He was referring to shall have ‘many rooms’ – it will actually be the most fabulous temple ever, far greater than any of the previous temples built.

There is not place here to treat that subject extensively, but just to give you a hint: In Ezek. 41:6 we find enlisted a number of facilities included in the big new temple, and I quote:

“These side chambers were three stories high, one over another and thirty in each story (90 rooms!) and they entered into the wall which belonged to the house for the side chambers round about, that they might have hold of the wall, but they did not have hold of the wall of the temple.”

Chapter 41 is a very interesting writing if you are an Architect, and it will take you on a ‘Guided Tour’ of the temple, even the ornamentations in the rooms and halls. On a wall there will be carved images of Cherubs with two faces, one of a man and the other of a Lion, and between them there would be an image of a Palm tree it says verse 18 and 19, and it is inside the Holy of Holies.

There will indeed be plenty of rooms of all kinds, including dining hall, living room, baths and all the normal facilities you can expect for a governing priesthood and for the King Himself, Jesus Christ. Please read these chapters on your own. You will be amazed by the fabulous details and the sheer craftiness and ingeniously laid out facilities which will be in place in this future great temple of the Lord.

Such as the Lord spoke to His disciples in John 14, of ‘going away to make ready a place for them’, and then return to take them into those facilities is easily explained:

He knew He was going to die on the cross, rise from the dead, ascend up to heaven not long after His resurrection – and then have to postpone His second coming until a far future – around 2000 years – and then come in glory and might as described in Rev. 19-20.

His saying of ‘preparing a place’ for the disciples were not in heaven, but it was the atonement for their sins. He had to die on the cross, and that would clear the way for them to later on be with Him and become His government staff and ministers in the millennial kingdom. Jesus used imagery in His words to let them know that they would become rulers and governing ministers living in the temple complex as soon as His second coming would take place.

But since Jesus DID NOT COME BACK IN THE LIFETIME OF THE APOSTLES, these words and promises in John 14 will not become realities to them that followed Jesus at that time, 32 AD. Instead they were taken in spiritually, with the new revelation given Paul for all mankind, of a HEAVENLY salvation, not an earthly millennial salvation. Paul and all the believers from back then shall, together with all Christians since then, be resurrected by God in the heaven up above heaven, Greek: epiouranos.

So those believers who will experience to get to live in those rooms mentioned in John 14, the rooms in the new temple of God, are those mentioned in Rev. 20:4 as already quoted by me earlier. As it is written, ‘And they lived again and ruled with Christ a thousand years’.

Dr. Ron Rhodes mention 1 Thes. 1:9, 10 – and I quote the verses since I have not mentioned this above:

“For they themselves volunteer testimony concerning us, telling what an entrance we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a God Who is alive and true and genuine. 10: And look forward to and await the coming of His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead – Jesus, Who personally rescues and delivers us out of and from the wrath which is coming and draws us to Himself.”

In error Rhodes say that the rapture in 1 Thes. 4 is a separate event in which Jesus is not coming down to earth, but only to the skies and raptures the believers up, to take them with Him into heaven.

But Paul’s use of the Greek word parousia which means coming to and being present among His believers, excludes the possibility that he could have meant that Jesus just comes down in the skies, returning to heaven from there.

As mentioned earlier, Jesus is actually coming all the way down to earth (Parousia) – but He makes a short stop in the sky as He raptures the saints up to meet Him, – and then continues all the way down to Israel/Jerusalem landing them there. This is not a worldwide operation, since the kingdom in Israel is not for others than them, and besides: The Great Tribulation is NOT a worldwide affair but only in Israel. It is the ‘time of Jacob’s trouble’ says Jer. 30:7. And as I told you from Ezek. 36:23 – the world outside Israel are only witnesses to the Lord’s actions, and are in no manner being victimized.

In the old times when Moses and the Hebrews left Egypt under the plagues and signs destroying Egypt, none of those horrors hit any of the nations outside.

All three professors in the TV show suffers from the big error of not having seen that Paul’s words in the quoted passages of 1 Thes. 4 etcetera, never were written to us, the body of Christ, but exclusively to the Messianic believers with their eventual proselytes (by Paul called for Greek, mostly). And if they have gotten that all wrong, then everything goes wrong with trying to interpret passages like this.

We cannot find the Church dispensation in the Bible, before Paul wrote Ephesians and Colossians. All other epistles are only written to the Jewish kingdom-saints and proselytes, hoping for the imminent return of Christ to set up the kingdom in their life-time.

Dr. Ed Hindson is in the interview making a point of that we are not waiting for anti-Christ but for Jesus. He says that there are no particular signs prior to the rapture of the saints mentioned in 1 Thes. 4. But both his statements are wrong.

In 2 Thes. 1:10 Paul spoke of the day when Jesus is coming (Parousia) to be glorified in His saints. In same epistle chapter 2, verse 3 Paul makes clear that there ARE SIGNS that must be seen before the coming of the Lord, namely Israel’s falling away from God, in addition to the sudden appearance of the anti-Christ, the man of sin, the son of doom:

“Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the apostasy comes first and the man of sin (lawlessness) is revealed, who is the son of doom.”

And is it not very peculiar that Paul, saying this to the Thessalonians, not long after he supposedly told them of a rapture which supposedly should take the saints up into heaven before the tribulation occurred, speak exhortations to them as if they would be present on earth when anti-Christ appears (which is in the middle of the 7 year tribulation, as he kills the two witnesses in Rev. 11)?

Rapture-believers like Hindson and many others are not consistent in their beliefs and pays no attention to such an important thing as the Biblical context!

Both the Thessalonian epistles speaks of the very same event: The physical return of Christ from heaven, down to earth to establish the millennial kingdom, it is that simple – and yet so difficult for some people.

The coming of Jesus in the Acts period as something which was imminent – it could happen at any moment – was simply because His coming (the time for it) depended upon when God considered His people, Israel, to have been converted to Jesus. And as we find Paul in Rome in the years 60 – 62 AD confronting the Jewish leaders there, by God considered to have been the last frontier, the last and final effort to have Israel converted and baptized, we find that they declined and fell away from God as a nation, – they would not repent so the Lord could heal the nation. A few years later the disaster hit Israel.

All three professors in the TV show believes that the rapture is actually an evacuation of the saints from earth, so they will not be harmed or killed by the Great Tribulation coming (the wrath of God).

They think of a scenario in which the entire world is experiencing a huge catastrophic disaster, war and plagues because of sin and unbelief among the nations. This is entirely wrong, as I have already pointed out: God is not punishing and chastising the nations, but only one nation, which is the Jesus-denying and blaspheming ungodly Israel.

God shall through that Great Tribulation, or as Paul called it, the wrath of God, chastise and purge Israel so that in the end one third will be saved and become Christ-believers and go with the Lord into the millennial kingdom at His coming. Zec. 13:8 is clear on that. Jesus cleanses the nation of ungodly elements, and so the remnant of one third Jews will be the priesthood to rule with Christ – Rev. 20:4.

The scenario made by the oversized imaginations of many known American TV preachers and evangelists, of a worldwide nuclear Armageddon disaster to hit right after God has taken His saints up into heaven, is simply false. It is dead wrong.

It is only Israel which shall be purged, punished and chastised, so God can have them back as a holy nation to Himself, and with Christ as their king.

THE CHURCH, THE BODY OF CHRIST SHALL BE TAKEN
INTO HEAVEN ONE DAY SOON, SIMPLY
BECAUSE GOD WILL END THE GRACE ERA
AND RE-START HIS PROPHETIC PROGRAM
FOR HIS NATION ISRAEL.

When God finds Israel’s sin piling up, reaching the level of intolerable measures, Bang! Then all of a sudden Elijah and Moses appear in Jerusalem going to the Knesset to tell what shall happen to the nation if they do not repent and start believing on Jesus! Shortly before that, maybe the very same day, God will have transferred all believers in the Church supernaturally into heaven. From that point in near future the only people God will have on earth will be the new Israel of God, namely the Israel that will believe on Jesus as their Messiah king.

It will be the two witnesses in Rev. 11 – Elijah and Moses who triggers off the tribulation as they start prophesying one punishment after another, shutting the sky for rain and turning the waters into blood.

I already above established the fact from Ezek. 36 that the Gentile nations during the Great Tribulation, will be as witnesses to God’s awesome punishments and purging of Israel. They will KNOW, says Ezek. 36:23 that it is the actions of the Lord doing those things to Israel, because they blasphemed His holy name in the centuries past as they lived among us in the dispersion.

They had a covenant with God once, and it befalls them much greater responsibility than us Gentiles which did not have any agreement with Him. This will be only too apparent as soon as the tribulation is upon them.

The world will watch totally shocked and awestruck…praying that none of those horrors will hit their own nations! People all over the world will fall on their knees in total fear of the judgements of God Almighty.

Atheists will swear they never really were atheists. Unbelievers will say, oh, I have always believed on Jesus….and the TV medias and other media will be overtaken entirely with that which befalls Israel.

It is false doctrine to tell people now that there comes a worldwide disaster, maybe even nukes will be used.

The ‘Left Behind’ syndrome that has taken most all of Christianity in its claws via the Hollywood film by the same title, is entirely built upon false and erring Bible interpretation. Only Israel will have it coming!

 

By Jan Lilleby

Just to give you an idea of what it is all about – we need only to read Deut 28!

There the greatest prophet of God in the Old Testament, Moses, told Israel to choose.

Would they choose the blessing or the curse?

These were the two real alternative choices which God through the ministry of Moses laid before the people of Israel in the wilderness. They would have all ‘sunshine and wealth’ if they obeyed God’s commandments and listened to the voice of their Lord, but if they chose the curse it would be utter darkness and destruction and disasters. In this mentioned Bible chapter about 80% of the verses warn of the latter, while just 20% speaks of blessings – however so marvelous. Moses obviously knew, through the prophetic power he had from God that the people would go astray and come under the terrifying curse, turning against God and Christ.

Yeah, but whoa!… can anybody be so foolish as to choose the worst over the best? Many among you might ask. And Moses really spelled it out for them, right?

Yes, unfortunately, history goes to show just that: Israel ultimately chose to reject Jesus Christ (the blessing) in the times of the apostles, and the Acts history testifies to us that Israel thus fell away from God as His nation, and the curse and destruction were cast upon them. The whole world knows this now, and what took place in 70 A.D. when the Romans crushed and obliterated Israel.

But it is well known that Israel had behaved just like this always – during the previous times under their kings, judges and prophets. Stephen got it right on, when he said (Acts 7:51), You stubborn and stiff-necked people, still heathen and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are always actively resisting the Holy Spirit. As your forefathers, so you!”

The ultimate Biblical conclusion on what happened to Israel is best found in Acts 28:27 – uttered by Isaiah 6 originally but repeated by Paul as the final words spoken to Israel in the Bible:

“…they would not repent, so that I the Lord could heal them (the land)”.

In the Bible we cannot find any apostle or prophet who spoke to Israel since Paul uttered these judgmental final ‘goodbye’ words against Israel and the nation’s devastating unbelief as they rejected Messiah Jesus.

Heaven has been, and still is, entirely mute and shut away from earth. Israel is still out there in the dispersion; only 35% of the world’s Jews are in the land. This says a lot.

One of the curses listed in Deut 28 is, ‘The heavens above your head shall be brass, and the earth under you as iron!’ ( v. 23)

They are now suffering from what fell over them when the curse-concept in Deut 28 was effectuated. It will actually last up until Jesus come down from heaven to rule Israel as their Messiah King.

THE BLESSING:

Deut 28: 1-14 – God’s conditions for pouring blessings over Israel were that they in all things took heed to and listened to the voice of their God, the Lord. Obedient to His law and ordinances. Verses 1 and 2.

3 Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field.

4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock.

5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough.

6 Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7 The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

8 The Lord shall command the blessing upon you in your storehouse and in all that you undertake. And He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

9 The Lord will establish you as a people holy to Himself, as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways.

10 And all people of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you.

11 And the Lord shall make you have a surplus of prosperity, through the fruit of your body, of your livestock, and of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

12 The Lord shall open to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

13 And the Lord shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day and are watchful to do them.

14 And you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

THE CURSE:

Deut 28:15-68 is a very harsh and sinister upsetting reading – to anyone. Not the least because of the detailed descriptions of the punishments, horrors and disasters contained under this curse against the disobedient Israel. As mentioned above, the curse is found in 80% of the verses in Deut 28!

15 But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day, then ALL THESE CURSES (my emphasizing) shall come upon you and overtake you:

My remarks: In the continuing verses with its descriptions of a long series of curses/accidents/disasters and plagues, we find that much of those had its fulfillment up through the Bible History. We can read about this in almost all of the Old Testament prophet’s books. However, a great number of curses/disasters will not come to pass until it is the Great Tribulation in Israel in near future. It is an arch sin with the Christian-Zionists in our time that they almost exclusively keep pointing to what God has promised of blessings for the nation. They try to hide the fact that a great misfortune and disaster should overtake them if they rejected Messiah Jesus, like we read in the Acts. Christian-Zionism is therefore proven to have built their ‘theology’ upon false interpretation of Old and New Testament scriptures whenever Israel is mentioned. They falsely say that for Israel there will now be ‘only sunshine and wealth!’

16 Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the field.

17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading trough.

18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, of your land, of the increase of your cattle and the young of your sheep.

19 Cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out.

20 The Lord shall send you curses, confusion, and rebuke in every enterprise to which you set your hand, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly because of the evil of your doings by which you have forsaken me.

21 The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land into which you go to possess.

22 The Lord will smite you with consumption, with fever and inflammation, fiery heat, sword and drought, blasting and mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.

23 The heavens over your head shall be brass and the earth under you shall be iron.

24 The Lord shall make the rain of your land powdered soil and dust; from the heavens it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.

25 The Lord shall cause you to be struck down before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them, and you shall be tossed to and fro and be a terror among all the kingdoms of the earth.

26 And your dead body shall food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away.

27 The Lord will smite you with the boils of Egypt and the tumors, the scurvy and the itch, from which you cannot be healed.

28 The Lord will smite you withy madness and blindness and dismay of heart.

29 And you shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness. And you shall not prosper in your ways; and you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to save you.

30 You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but not gather its grapes.

31 Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away before your face and not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to help you.

32 Your sons and daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all the day, and there shall be no power in your hands to prevent it. (Think of the great abduction to Babylon in the time of Jeremiah! My remark)

33 A nation which you have not known shall eat up the fruit of your land and of all your labors, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually.

34 So that you shall be driven mad by the sights which your eyes shall see.

35 The Lord will smite you on the knees and on the legs with a sore boil that cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.

36 The Lord shall bring you and your king whom you have set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone. (This happened repeatedly in the times of Hoshea and the Assyrian king – which we find in II Kings 17:4, 6; and when Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, took Israel in the time of Jeremiah – 24:12, 14; – 25:7, 11.)

37 And you shall become an amazement, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples to which the Lord will lead you.

38 You shall carry much seed out into the field and shall gather little in, for the locust shall consume it.

39 You shall plant vineyards and dress them but shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.

40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory but you shall not anoint yourselves with the oil, for your olive trees shall drop their fruit.

41 You shall beget sons and daughters but shall not enjoy them, for they shall go into captivity. (See my remarks above on the Babylonian king’s abduction of the Israelites). Daniel was one of those sons who was taken captive, as we know from Book of Daniel, and also his friends mentioned.

42 All your trees and the fruit of your ground shall the locust possess.

43 The stranger among you shall mount up higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.

44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

45 All these curses shall come upon you and shall pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.

46 They shall be upon you for a sign and for a wonder, and upon your descendants forever.

(My remarks: The remaining verses below are mainly dealing with that which took place under the times right after the apostles (we do not have any date of death in regard to Peter, Paul and others), as the Roman armies responded to the Jewish uproar in 66 to 70 AD, ending with disaster for Israel. Notice verse 48, below – mentioning the iron yoke – knowing from Daniel’s book 2:36 and on, that iron in the king’s dream of the statue or image foretold of a kingdom taking over from the Greek – Rome symbolized as the iron legs)

47 Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness of heart for the abundance of all with which He had blessed you.

48 Therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord shall send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and in want of all things; and He will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until He has destroyed you.

49 The Lord will bring a nation against you (this can also happen in the future Great Tribulation in Israel! My remarks) – from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you shall not understand.

50 A nation of unyielding countenance who will not regard the person of the old or show favor to the young.

51 And shall eat the fruit of your cattle and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed, who also shall not leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your cattle or the young of your sheep until they have caused you to perish.

52 (My remark: Here is a typical description of what actually took place as the Roman armies of Vespasian and Titus, his son, besieged Jerusalem and other important places 66 to 70 AD, and this includes also verse 53) – They shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you.

53 And you shall eat the fruit of your own body (your infants) – the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and in the misery with which your enemies shall distress you. (This was happening in II Kings 6:24-29 in the time of Elisha, but in a limited scale though. The real fulfillment was under the Roman siege in 66-70 AD)

Verses 54 to 57 deal also with this dreadful cannibalism…and I pass these verses to spare you of this.

58 If you will not be watchful to all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name – the Lord your God,

59 – then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary strokes and blows, great plagues of long continuance, and grievous sicknesses of long duration.

60 Moreover, He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you.

61 Also every sickness and every affliction which is not written in this Book of the Law the Lord will bring upon you until you are destroyed. (Verses 58 to 61 are in the Great Tribulation, which is an act of penalty and vindication mainly because of Israel’s bad continuous blasphemy of His name, Jesus Christ in all the time of the dispersion among the gentile nations. Check out Ezek 36, which I will deal with below).

62 (My remark: When the tribulation is over, there will be just a few Jews left as survivors) – And you shall be left few in number, whereas you had been as the stars of the heavens for multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

63 And as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice to bring ruin upon you and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked from the land into which you go to possess.

64 And the Lord shall scatter you among all peoples (happened in 70 AD) from one end of the earth to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

65 And among these nations you shall find no ease and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, fainting of mind, and languishing of spirit.

66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; day and night you shall be worried, and have no assurance of your life.

67 In the morning you shall say, Would that it were evening! And at evening you shall say, Would that it were morning! – because of the anxiety and dread of your hearts and the sights which you shall see with your own eyes.

68 (My remark: This was fulfilled when the Romans shipped all men from the age of 17 and also spouses, to the slave markets in Alexandria, Egypt. Josephus tells of this in his work ‘The Jewish War’) – And the Lord shall bring you into Egypt again with ships by the way about which I said to you, You shall never see it again. And there you shall be sold to your enemies as bondmen and bondwomen, but no man shall buy you. (See also Hos. 8:13 which says same thing).

Sorry folks! But that overloaded sugar sweet sticky nonsense served by the Christian-Zionists, that ‘God has given Israel their land back’ – don’t measure up to what the Bible has to say about it, and how things will start to happen in the Middle-East in near future.

Israel has no hope of being reckoned as God’s own nation, sat above all gentile nations like they were in the old days, before Jesus returns from heaven and establishes the millennial promised kingdom on earth. And right before that event, God shall put Israel through the cleansing and testing of the Great Tribulation as told in Matt 24 and Revelation.

THE BLESSING WAS THE SAME AS
RECEIVING JESUS MESSIAH FOR ISRAEL

Peter’s second speech since the day of Pentecost, in Acts 3:22-24, goes to show that to choose the ‘Blessing’ was the same as receiving Jesus, as He had come to them. He would come back from heaven shortly if Israel repented. Peter pointed to what Moses had prophesied in Deut 18:15-20 – and warns, like Moses, that Israel would be destroyed if they did not take heed to what Jesus had said. Rejecting Him was just the same as choosing the curse over the blessing. And we can now learn from History books that they were destroyed in 70 AD and scattered all over the civilized world.

Peter’s exhortation of Israel was,

“Thus Moses said to the forefathers, The Lord God will raise up for you a Prophet from among your brethren as me; Him you shall listen to and understand by hearing and heed in all things whatever He tells you. 23: And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to and understand by hearing and heed that prophet shall be utterly exterminated from among the people. 24: Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel and those who came afterwards, as many as have spoken, also promised and foretold and proclaimed these days.”

Zech 13:8 makes more specific mention of Deut 28:62, saying,

“And in all the land, says the Lord, two-thirds shall be cut off and perish, but one-third shall be left alive.”

THE REASON FOR ISRAEL BEING DESTROYED
A SECOND TIME SINCE 70 AD – IS THEIR
VILE BLASPHEMY OF JESUS’ NAME IN ALL
THE TIME SINCE

There is a serious reason for God to punish and destroy Israel one more time since the total destruction in 70 AD. The reason for such harsh action against them is given clearly in Ezek 36.

When they got destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, it was because of their rejection of the apostles and their preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom. They were persecuted and many were killed, as reported in the Acts history.

Jesus warned the Jews by two prophetic parables, one of the ‘kings messengers’ in Matt 22 and the other of the ‘fruitless fig tree Israel’ in Luke 13.

He warned and prophesied of Israel’s coming destruction because of their evil doings.

In Matt 22:7 Jesus said that the ‘Kings army would come and kill those who murdered the king’s messengers and burn down their city (Jerusalem)’ – and in Luke 13 the tree was cut down, after first having given it one more year to improve and carry forth fruit. The preaching of the apostles as told in Acts was the manure which was meant for the dry fig tree to bring fruit again. But it did not help. The Roman battle ax chopped the tree down in 70 AD.

Acts 28:27 points right to the conclusion of what really happened,

“…so that they would not turn to Me (the Lord) and be converted, that I may heal them.”

Paul quoting Isaiah 6, in a final judgment of Israel in their unbelief. And so, they fell away from God as a nation, and destruction overtook them shortly thereafter.

But in Ezek 36:23 we have a central verse pointing to the reason for which God shall send His stern tribulation against Israel, vindicating His holy name,

“And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name (Jesus Christ) and separate it for its holy purpose from all that defiles it – My name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you (Jews) have profaned among them (my emphasizing) – and the nations will know, understand and realize that I am the Lord, when I shall be set apart by you and My holiness vindicated in you before their eyes and yours.”

It speaks of God’s punishing actions as He sends the Great Tribulation against Israel, in such a manner that the nations in the world will clearly understand that it is God behind it – and they will observe in awe as God punishes Israel to have them stop all the blasphemy of Jesus. That is one of the main reasons we find the two witnesses/prophets in Rev 11 – and I am certain those are Elijah and Moses together in ministry.

But from Ezek 36:24 and on, we find that after the punishments are ended it will come a restoration for Israel. An entirely new Jesus-believing Israel…and the words of Acts 1:6 will come true,

“….Lord, is this the time when You will reestablish the kingdom and restore it to Israel?”

Remember, the disciples had just heard Jesus speak of the Holy Spirit and power, just as we find in Ezek 36:24-28. They suspected it all to happen shortly, and had no idea of the coming fall and destruction of Israel due to their persistent rejection of Jesus.

Rev 20:4 shows us when Jesus and His government based on the little remnant of Jews after the Great Tribulation, are established and given governing power,

“Then I saw thrones, and sitting on them were those to whom authority to act as judges and to pass sentence was entrusted. Also I saw the souls of those who had been slain with axes for witnessing to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had refused to pay homage to the beast or his statue and had not accepted his mark or permitted it to be stamped on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived again and ruled with Christ a thousand years.”

But since we now clearly learn from Ezek 36, that Israel and Jewry as such – in their fall from God in disobedience, are still under the curse – in other words, they cannot be accepted as already reestablished by God. To be treated by God like that, would mean that they had come back under the blessing. They are found in Ezek 36:23 as a people in the dispersion who – as you are reading these lines – still commit the sin of profaning and blaspheming Jesus Christ. Their official national religion is the Babylonian Talmud, and it has a lot of blasphemy against both Jesus and Maria. Therefore it is impossible that this ungodly nation has been taken back under God’s blessings. Nor has He given them back the land for lawfully inhabiting it.

The existence of Israel as a nation according to the UN-mandate from 1948, is an enterprise not accepted by or arranged by God. It is entirely illegal, and a result of a rather shady series of political trickery. The Christian-Zionism movement are in serious error, totally misunderstanding  the Bible in these matters.

Check out my article in my site –“Jesus Foretold of the  Zionist Movement, and He used Demon Possession as Basis For the Prophesy”.

Jesus spoke of this in Matt 12 – and it is shocking to learn that He really spoke of the future (at that time) Zionist Movement. The article is clarifying, and shows us that Jesus ‘demonized’ the Zionist Movement!