Behold a White Horse - Session 2 - Chuck Missler

Well welcome to the 2nd session of our exploration of behold a white horse it's interesting that this is probably one of most dangerous mistaken identities that there we'll ever encounter we talked a lot about the last time but let's just keep in front of us that this is a dangerous thing to be mistaken about the question is who is he and why is he so dangerous and the other question that will lurk is he alive today and just to give you that answer in advance I believe he is but that's got a footnote we'll get into it and how do we know and that's what we're gonna try deal with here session 1 of course introduced the whole issue of the white horse the masquerade that's involved and a summary of his career we touched on that last time in this session we're gonna focus on his identity he is called the seed of the serpent why and are there pre requisites to his appearance is another thing will deal with Now we can't possibly cover all that's been written about him because it turns out it's one of most prolific subjects in the entire scripture but we do have an addenda that we're gonna talk about which will enumerate the different expectations that different groups have we'll talk a little bit about that okay let's start by reminding ourselves that there are 4 disciples that came to Jesus for an insider's briefing on the end times 4 of them ask about his return Peter James and John and Peter's brother Andrew and they get a private briefing it happened to be at night on the Mount of Olives so we call it the Olivet Discourse it's recorded in Matthew 24 and 25 not Luke 21 by the way many people are confused by that it's also virtually a duplicate in Mark 13 so either one of those will work and the key thing that Jesus points them to in that briefing is a 4 verse prophecy that's probably the pivot of all eschatology called the 70 weeks that Gabriel gave Daniel and it's in 4 verses verse 24 is the scope then there are 69 of those weeks that are detailed out in what I believe is the most remarkable verse in the entire Bible Then there's an interval strangely and then there's a final week that last week of years is separate there's an internal between the 69th and the 70th we'll touch on that but the 70th week is the climax of the events that just proceeds that the Lord interrupts by his return So first let's take a quick look at the scope to get a grasp of what we're dealing with here Gabriel tell's Daniel 70 sevens are determined upon thy people upon thy holy city to finish the transgressions to make an end of sins to make reconciliation for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness seal up the vision of the prophecy and to annoit the most holy place now there's 70 sevens in the Hebrew calendar you can have 7 days 7 weeks 7 months or 7 years that's all commonly used here were talking about 7 years and are determined upon Israel this is not about the church In fact the church is in an interval as we'll notice the focus here is Israel and the city of Jerusalem and the scope of this you can talk about some of the details which clearly is not completed yet we've not made an end of sins and so forth so the visions have not been sealed so this is a broad scope of everything escalogically but then are singled out in Daniel 9:25 69 weeks and it's a mathematical prophecy Gabriel tells Daniel know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Mashiach Nagid the Messiah the King shall be threescore shall be 7 weeks plus threescore and 2 weeks and the streets shall be built again and the wall even in troubled times notice that this is not about the temple it's about the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit to make sure you don't miss that puts that little clause at the end but the main point is it's--there's a distance between two events one is the going forth of the commandment to rebuild Jerusalem bear in mind Daniel's a slave in Babylon at the time and the 70 the 70 years of captivity he knows are about up probably 67 have gone by he's getting ready for the climax but from that commandment unto the Mashiach Nagid will be a specific period of time from the commandment to restore Jerusalem unto the Messiah the king will be 7 weeks and one we're indebted to Sir Robert Anderson who really uncovered the fact that God uses 360 days both in Genesis and in Revelation and so 69 times 7 times 360 turns out to be 173,880 days Well we know when it started we can track that from history It was the decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus on March 14th of 445 that gave them the authority to rebuild the city of Jerusalem don't get that confused with the temple there are actually 4 different decree's that's the one on the city of Jerusalem The question is when did the Messiah allow himself to be presented as a King and when you study your gospels you realize he didn't allow it except on one day where he arranges it okay that turns out to be what we call the triumphal entry April 6th now what makes this provocative is and incidently notice that all of this was part of the Old Testament it was translated into Greek 3 centuries before Christ's ministry so get that into perspective this was part this is documented in the Septuagint translation in Greek that was done 285 BC Well turns out when you go through the arithmetic the 445-32 and you go through the difference in days and make the correction for the leap years the astonishing discovery is that it amounts to 173,880 days in other words what was Gabriel's margin for error zero he's telling Daniel the precise day 300 years in advance of when Jesus would present himself as a king Now the shocker is Jesus held him accountable for that let's take a look what happened in Luke 19 speaking of Jesus riding that donkey in he says "When He was near He beheld the city" and what does Jesus do He wept over it and Jesus says "If thou hadst know even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they're hid from thine eyes" it's at that point he declares blindness on the nation they blew it and because of that they'll be blinded in a sense and we'll see about that this thy day that's quoting Psalm 118 which we use generally "Rejoice in this the day the Lord hath made we'll rejoice and be glad in it" you can apply that anywhere but it actually is referring to this particular event but now they are hid from thine eyes Wow But not forever because Paul will tell us in Romans 11:25 that they're blinded in part until the church is complete the fullness of the Gentiles come in so anyway okay so Jesus goes on makes a prediction here He tells them why He's riding that donkey "For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies show cast a trench about thee encompass thee round keep thee on every side and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another" That's the triumphal entry and 38 years after he said that Titus Vespasian had the 5th 10th 12th and 14th Roman legions lay siege to the city in a 143 days 600,000 Jews would be killed more dying from the famine and all the rest of it too They think over 1.5 million men women and children died from the siege in the famine that followed Now the question is why was Jerusalem destroyed in 70 AD you can think of several reasons several ways to rationalize it but let's take a look what Jesus said we finish verse 44 he says "Because thou knewest not the time of your visitation" that verse is staggering in its implications Jesus held them accountable to know the 70 week prophecy thy knewest not thy time of thy visitation He held them accountable that's disturbing well that's the 69 weeks okay the 70th week will be verse 27 but I want you to notice there's a verse between 25 and 27 You and I would presume they're contiguous but they're not because of that verse okay what happens in verse 26 let's take a look at it He says after that there are 7 weeks and the 3 score and 2 weeks after the 3 score and 2 weeks shall the Messiah be Karat executed for a capital crime but not for Himself "And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctury and the end thereof shall be with a flood and unto the end of the war desolations are determined" cut off the word is karat in the Hebrew it's actually the Old Testament tells you Gabriel is telling Daniel the Messiah is going to be executed that's a surprise in many respects but not for himself but all of us included apparently in an interval after the 69 before the 70th week has started and the prince that shall come that's one of the titles were gonna explore of the Antichrist shall come to destroy the city and the sanctuary and indeed they did right so just to diagram this verse 25 has the 7 plus 62 weeks the 69 if you will verse 27 has the last week But between that it's an interval what happens in that interval the cross 4 days after Jesus said that He's on that cross the temple is destroyed those things took 38 years altogether we've discovered though that that interval has lasted a better part of 2000 years right so what we have in that interval is the church it's included within that what I'm calling an interval here when I say church I'm using the term in it's mystical sense that's an uncomfortable word because we tend to think of church as a piece of real estate we're talking about the mystical church the ecclesia if you will Okay now that interval is defined from Luke 9:42 to Romans 11:25 the fullness of the gentiles it's the period of the church it's an era that is kept secret in the Old Testament Matthew 13 deals with that Ephesians 3 Paul identifies it was his privilege to reveal that secret the church was born of Pentecost there's plenty of scripture on that you can look in your notes the pre requisites to the church was the atonement made no sense until there was the atonement completed and the resurrection had to be completed see these are all prerequisite conditions and the ascensions the church didn't start till He was out so the Holy Spirit could come that make sense are we together Let me tell you something kind of interesting we saw Daniel 9:26 is an interval in the 70 weeks right there's another one in Psalm 34 another one in Psalm 118 and we can go through others you'll discover that that interval is implied all through the Old Testament I won't take you--except it turns out that when you count them there's 24 of them Now from my point of view that architecture of the scripture itself tells you volumes that it's designed deliberately that the Holy Spirit superintended all of those books and preserve the fact that that interval shows up 24 times not 23 or 36 no 24 why 24 see to me that's staggering When you think it through it seems like nothing at first until you think it through breathtaking and we've looked at the first we'll look at the last before we're through 24 intervals in scripture and course they identified themselves last time remember you may recall them in Revelation 5 "And they sung a new song saying thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation and hast made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth" kings and priests the only groups only people who are kings and priests are Jesus himself Melchizedek and the 24 elders that's very key has redeemed us made us and we shall reign so the 24 elders are sitting here in this room they're in the composite Okay notice the sequence of this is a critical part because there's lots of controversy about what I'm about to tell you the 24 elders are in Heaven worshipping the Lamb before He receives the scroll with the 7 seals they're worshipping Him before He gets the book it's the Lamb it turns out that has the unique right to even look at the book and open the seals thereof and it's the opening of those seals that starts the great tribulation That's huge there are many many good scholars that fail to perceive the fact that the church is not going to endure the great trib Jesus tells him that in Revelation 3:20 but that's another story okay so we have the 7 sealed book the first one is the white horse second one is the red horse third one is the black horse the fourth one is the livid or green Cloros horse Okay We also notice as we start to study this that there's always 6 then a parenthesis before the 7 and while these 4 are in chapter 6 chapter 7 is a change of subject this is paused and we have the the ceiling of the 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel that heptadic structure 6 with a parenthesis before the 7th and we have the same--then the seventh turns out to be 7 trumpets we have 6 of those trumpets and then again a parenthesis chapters 10, 11, 12 and 14 there's a handful of chapters that are inserted before we get to dealing with the 7th trumpet that 7th trumpet then involves 8 bowls of wrath and even as it goes through the 8 bowls of wrath in chapter 15 there's a little verse tucked in that changes the subject for one verse before the that that structure is clearly preserved interestingly enough if nothing else it tells you that it's designed with all the precision of a symphony okay the four horsemen that's our focus that's our focus for this catch up Why a white horse is the question see this rider is not Jesus Christ it's astonishing to me how many commentators stumble on that They miss that this one this horseman is called forth by one of the cherubim That's not appropriate if it was Christ for the cherubim telling Christ what to do so to speak but a lot is said about this so much is said about this guy it's been hard for me to even just do a summary here in our 2 sessions But let's go back let's take a look at that 70th week of Daniel everybody calls it a 7 year tribulation that's a mistake What they mean to say is it's the 70th week because the tribulation is the last half of that week let's get in here speaking of the Antichrist "he shall confirm the covenant with the many for one week in the midst of that week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate" It's speaking of the Antichrist it's speaking of this white horseman he will confirm the covenant with the many he will enforce a covenant doesn't sign a treaty he might sign a treaty that's not what is says he's enforce--he's apparently powerful enough to enforce a covenant with Israel the many is an idiom for Israel here that's one of the reasons I believe that the Holy Spirit deliberately used a bow as an identity the bow was the identity of the first world dictator Nimrod and he uses it as an identity of the last one especially since the making of that covenant and it's violation is one of the most significant identities that we will see about him he'll confirm the covenant but in the midst of the week he's going to cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease now that also tells us that that covenant includes it may not be limited to but it includes a return to temple worship that's part of the implications of that covenant and it's in the middle of that week that he breaks his word he breaks that covenant he made a covenant for a week of years in the middle he violates it abrogates it now that's probably the most documented period of time in the entire Bible it's called in one place time times and half a time strange linguistics here times is a dual it's in Aramaic but that was later dropped from Aramaic but it was a dual in those days later lost so it's time-singular times-two 1 plus 2 and 1/2 sounds strange to our ears but a classic way of saying 3 1/2 time times and half a time so that we don't get confused the angel will explain to Daniel in chapter 12 it's 3 1/2 years that's pretty straightforward elsewhere it's twice it's called 42 months same period of time Then it's called 1260 days and by the way each one of these idioms is used on each of the halfs each half is called 42 months each half is called 1260 days if you track those all down and thats of course here it's in Daniel 9:27 it's called half a week fair enough the Holy Spirit did everything but put it in nanoseconds for you and he caused the sacrifice and the oblation to cease that tells you that the subject of it includes may not be limited to but includes the temple worship that's how we know the temple is going to be rebuilt near the end because Jesus Paul and John all make reference to it at the end times we'll notice that in a few verses that are coming for the overspreading of the abominations this is the very event the abomination of desolation that Jesus calls the disciples attention to that the word abomination is a term used throughout the Bible for idol worship abomination is worshipping anything other than God the abomination of desolation is the ultimate extreme of that which is not only worshipping an idol but worshipping it in the most holy spot on the planet earth in the temple in fact in the holy of holies how do we know that because it happened and Jesus makes reference to the historical happening we'll come to that let's get back to Revelation 6 "I saw and behold a white horse and he that had on him a bow" You may wonder why am I making so much of that bow I don't think it's incidental I think it's a deliberate pun by the Holy Spirit Not a sword the Hebrew is keh'-sheth the Greek is toxon it's not necessarily a tool of archery it's the first mention of the bow is as a token of a covenant God himself uses that phrase so there is a law of first mention we talked about the last time the word love first appears in Genesis 22 man is made in the creation of God the first place that word occurs in the Bible turns out by observation we notice it's very significant and the bow is the token of a covenant back in Genesis 9 and I believe it's the holy spirit's intention to use it here Amos 2:15 says "Neither shall he stand that handleth the bow and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself" Interesting allusion there of the bow the bow seems to symbolize both the first world leader Nimrod and the final world leader that I like to call Nimrod II Now you may recall in Matthew we were talking about Matthew 24 Revelation 6 has these 4 horsemen that we've been talking about Then we'll discover that the 5th seal will be the martyrs and the 6th seal will be worldwide chaos When we look at Matthew 24 we find the same pattern there's the false Christs in Matthew 24:4-5 that deals with wars and rumors of wars and then famines and then death these are all in the same order and what Matthew calls the beginning of sorrows or the beginning of birth pangs the beginning of birth pangs then the martyrs then worldwide-- it's the same pattern in both places is that a coincidence I don't think so In fact something else that may be a coincidence but I think is curious it's interesting that those same color of the horses white red black and green are on the flags of Muslim nations I don't think that's why they are there yet who knows I'll leave that to you but in Matthew 24 it says "Ye shall hear of wars" and rumors of wars and all that "and see that ye be not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet" to me I would call those none signs yes they're going to occur but they're not significant markers they're what I call non signs why because the end is not yet when they occur they don't tell you that the end is there in contrast to what Jesus is going to point out when he gets to verse 15 When he gets to verse 15 in Matthew 24 Jesus says "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place whoso readeth let him understand the interesting verse it's the key verse in the olivet discourse in my opinion it's not optional by the way did you notice that little phrase he puts at the end whoso readeth let him understand is that an annotation by Matthew I don't know but the Holy Spirit put it there how many of you read that with me you just picked up an assignment the 70 week prophecy is not an option you need to study until you have that your own but there's another technology statement in here I like to watch for these technology statements "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation" now the abomination of desolation we know from history is when Antiochus Epiphanes erected an idol to Zeus in the holy of holies cause Jesus is going to make that make reference to that a 160 years after it happened it's a historical at the time Jesus is talking it's a historical event but it's going to happen again so Jesus is using that as an exemplar for what's coming but what's coming is an idol erected in the holy of holies He says to those that are Judea in the mountains when you therefore shall see it Now wait a minute how can they see something that's going on in a chamber that only the high priest can enter and only once a year after great ceremonial preparation no one No Jew but the high priest has ever been in there yet he's expecting everybody to be able to watch what's going on How will they do that on BBC CNN it'll have TV coverage interestingly enough that's a technology statement we take it for granted but be careful cause then He says "then let them which be in Judea" they apparently can see this "flee into the mountains let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any out of his house neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes and woe to them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days and pray that your flight not be in winter neither on the Sabbath day" he's talking to a Jewish audience he's not talking to Gentiles you and I wouldn't be worried if it's Sabbath or not for then shall be great tribulation such is not was not since the beginning of the world to this time including the Nazi Holocaust nor ever shall be it's gonna be worse not on the Sabbath day great tribulation notice that Jesus labels the last half of that covenant week as the great tribulation that's his label it's 3 1/2 years not 7 He goes on to say "except those days should be shortened there should no flesh be saved but for the elects sake those day shall be shortened" There again it's a technology statement okay that's a technology statement that wouldn't make--that doesn't make sense with muskets and bayonets that implies a technology that would allow men to totally wipe out all mankind and that technology is readily available today that cloud hangs over every geopolitical decisions made on the planet earth today "If any man shall say unto you lo here is Christ or there believe it not for there shall rise false Christs and false prophets show great signs and wonders they shall show great signs" was the same terms that are used to describe Jesus' miracles "inso much that if it were possible that they should deceive the very elect" there shall rise false Christs even one riding a white horse but it's interesting that he's not a military leader "through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand and he shall magnify himself in his heart and by peace shall destroy many" that's an interesting phrase by peace he shall destroy many he's a peacemaker becomes very powerful and from that achieves military skill he shall stand up against the prince of princes but he shall be broken without hand so his career begins as a peacemaker and with the covenant of Israel okay Now in the Old Testament of course we have all kinds of labels for him I could actually bore you in the Old Testament in the old text in the Old Testament we have 33 of them the seed of the serpent we'll explore that one the idol shepherd we'll take a look at that one the little horn of Daniel 7 little horn of Daniel 8 we won't take time with those the prince that shall come we we've discussed that one already the willful king we're gonna take a look at him in a minute the New Testament has 13 of these the beast the first beast of Revelation 13 is well known the second beast we tend to call the false prophet the Antichrist happens not to be a thing used of him but it's misused by every one of us that write books on it the Antichrist Antichristo is a term that John uses in a different context but John in writing Revelation doesn't use that label but anyway he's called the lawless one in Paul's writings and the man of sin in Paul's writings and Jesus himself says he's the one that comes in his own name so fair enough the son of perdition is another thing that Paul there's three different titles that Paul used just in one letter we know he's an intellectual genius we know that he's a persuasive orator we know he'll be a very shrewd politician a financial genius a forceful military leader a powerful organizer all these you can find by just that's what makes it difficult to summarize there's so much visibility in the text about his career but his physical description is only in one place that I can find and that's in Zechariah 11:17 "woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock the sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eye his arm shall be cleaned right up and his right eye shall be utterly darkened" there's some of us that infer-- we don't know--infer that that might be a vestige of his head wound we know we see all through the scripture mention of his head wound Revelation 13:3 "I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to the death and his wound deadly wound was healed and all the world wondered after the beast" his deadly wound was healed Again in chapter 13 he exercised all the power speaking of the second guy "he exercised all the power of the first beast before him caused the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed" that's used as identity again of him "he doeth great wonders so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men" and goes on this miracle worker is a we call the false prophet he's causing the whole world to worship the first beast but the first guy's being identified by his head wound thing "He deceiveth them that dwell in the earth by the means of those miracles which he had the power to do in the sight of the beast" He's a miracle worker were not ready for that saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live there again the head wound is an identity item of that first leader the thing to recognize here is there's two: a political leader the first beast and the false prophet who forces the worship of the first beast okay all right Now is he a Jew or a Gentile there's all kinds of arguments about that some believe he'll be a Jew that's Ezekiel 21 and 28 because it alludes to as one of the circumcision and there's several other places in John--when Jesus himself in his remark it's in the Greek in your text and the Greek and another shall come in his own name the word another in the Greek is allos not heteros in Greek you've got two different also's if you will allos which means one of the exactly the same kind if you want one that's similar but not exactly the same you use heteros if I ask I want another pencil in Greek you could tell whether I wanted one exactly like the one I just had or I what a different different color something if I say allos I want one exactly the same if I want something I wanted a pencil but of a different kind one that doesn't have a point broken or whatever it is I will use heteros Well Jesus is using in John 5:43 he uses allos or the text does and so that implies that he would be Jewish okay and also he'll be received by Israel that's another argument advancing that he's probably Jewish there are others that argue that he'll be a gentile because he appears to be a Roman prince of some kind in Daniel 9:26,27 but see all those arguments sort of are empty for another reason there are two guys not one How does that fit together different scholars have different speculations but let's get down to the guts of it here we also yet another one of his titles is the seed of the serpent in Genesis 3:15 God declares war on Satan and he says I'll put enmity between (speaking to Satan) I'll put enmity between thee and the woman between thy seed and her seed and it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel is out of this verse we learn a great deal the word for seed by the way is Zera which is like sowing offspring semen virile it refers to implying descendants posterity children that's what we use that term to mean and from this verse then the seed of the woman becomes a title of the Messiah one of his titles is the seed of the woman and is so used in the Bible in several places and that's well understood I think most of you encountered that already in your studies but what is often overlooked is there's another seed mentioned the seed of the serpent Wow does that mean that this guy is just Satan's man or is there a genealogical link of some kind don't know but that's what it would be implied okay Now there's an interesting passage in Revelation 12 is one of these wonderful summary passages that takes a whole broad sweep of what's going on here in Revelation 12 it says "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven a woman clothed with the sun the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of 12 stars and she being with child cried travailing in birth and pained to be delivered" and she'll give forth to a manchild Now there are people that try to make the woman the church which is if she's if that's the woman she's in trouble because she's pregnant okay she's going to give birth the church didn't give birth to the man-child Israel did The woman is Israel in the sense that it began with Eve and so and we don't have to speculate about this women that is clothed with the sun the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of 12 stars there's all kinds of people like to speculate about that Matt Sir Rolfe what have you wait a minute wait a minute you don't need to it is explained to us by none other than Jacob himself in Genesis 37 he recognizes the idioms here as referring to himself and Israel he and his mother and her offspring He interprets that for you so there's no need to speculate the text deals with it itself So she travailing birth pain to be delivered and continues "And there appeared another wonder in heaven behold a great red dragon having 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 crowns upon his heads" you don't have to guess about this one cause in verse 9 it tells you it's speaking of Satan "and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth" and by the way that's also solved a mystery for me I've been really troubled because I find these verses that the all the stars in heaven fall to the earth if you know anything about stars that just doesn't work no the stars in heaven are idioms for angels It's an idiom for angels it's clear "...his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it was born" and you can make a study of your Bible to notice how Satan is able to focus his attack When he first starts from Genesis 3 on he picks on Abel and Cane and all that as God starts to make it clear he's going to work through Abraham Satan is able to aim his targets on Abraham as God makes it clear it's going to be through David he can focus his attack on David you can study your Bible in terms of how much information Satan has by then and how he uses it against the target the more God reveals the more focused Satan's attack becomes and we can carry that we can talk about that further as we go We get to verse 5 speaking of the woman she brought forth a man child who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron that tells you who we're talking about that's an identity used in none other than Jesus Christ All through the scripture that used again and again and again She brought forth a man child who was to rule all the nations with rod of iron that fog lifts we understand what he's saying and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne great most of us jump to the conclusion and it's not incorrect that that reverses the ascension Okay Israel gave birth to the Messiah and the day comes when He was caught up to God okay I believe it was G. H. Pember that first suggested the possibility it may mean more than that He caught up the word caught up there by the way in the Greek is harpazo what does that mean to seize to carry off by force to seize on claim for one's self eagerly that's what the word harpazo and of course we use that in a number of other passages I think it was G.H.Pember the first suggested the possibility that this man be the body of Christ that's caught up to God and his throne idiomatically that could be inclusive not just of Jesus in the sense of the ascension but that as a figure of speech can be included in the rapture and if so it fits perfectly the next verse which talks about the tribulation and all that which means by the way that between verse 5 and verse 6 is one of 24 intervals that we listed earlier In fact it's the 24th of the list that I gave you So you can play with it on your own but this shifts us now to another issue and that is this peculiar chapter called Daniel 11 It's a very interesting chapter it chronicles a 150 years of warfare between the Ptolomies and the Seleucids it is so accurate in it's portrayal of that 150 years of history that critics have had to insist that Daniel could not have written it then it had to be added later it's that accurate They got a problem with that view is because as part of the Septuagint translation which occurred in 285 BC but also out of all this we're going to encounter a character by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes Jesus will refer to him but most people don't realize it's possible--it's not certain but it's possible that Titus Vespasian was a descendant of Antiochus Epiphanes and there may be descendants of him around today genealogically we'll get into this a little bit the summary in Daniel 11 concatenates the series of kings that are startling is a startling study in and of itself Alexander the Great during his 13 year rule conquered most of the known world his empire reaches far north as the Danube river and included Asia Minor, Phoenicia Egypt, Syria the great empire of Persia and reached as far east as India incredible incredible achievement by this guy Daniel 7, 8 and 11 describe his career and his successors so vividly that it's one of the most remarkable prophecies in the Bible his four gen--when he dies-- his four generals Lysimachus, Cassander, Ptolemy and Seleucus divide up the empire Now Ptolemy takes the south which includes Egypt and Seleucus takes Syria and all of that so between those two Egypt is caught sandwiched between two warring generals that abuse it for a 150 years it's sandwiched between two subsquent tensions Ptolemy to the south and Seleucus to the North the precision of that description is astonishing it was frustrating to have to set it aside for this presentation because of it's colorful people wives murdering their husbands the detail in it is astonishing but let's go on here You see verse 1 and 2 were to summarize the Persian empire verses 3 and 4 the Greek empire that's straight forward from verses 5-35 that's this period of Seleucid Ptolemy rivalry okay Now from verses 5-20 are historical Those verses are so precise they're astonishing They're called--we always talk about the silent years between the two testaments a lot of people like to talk about there's a history there that is not the Bible that's because they haven't done their homework it's in the Bible in advance Those 400 years are detailed in Daniel in yeah Daniel 11:5 and onward Now from verse 36-45 in Daniel 11 it's clearly yet future what it's describing is clearly has yet to happen between verse 21 and 35 it's a little complicated because they seem to have elements of both So from 5-20 it's historical 36-45 is clearly future and you got a gray area here which is a it's a less sharp less clear then when you get to 36-39 it's the Willful King and 40-45 the Armageddon scenario all laid out in Daniel 11 and then climaxed in Daniel 12 pretty fabulous actually In these--in the first 35 verses of Daniel 11 135 specific prophetic statements have been identified So you can get into the commentary for that if you really want to get into it it's one of the most fascinating studies you'll get into Well let's pick up a little of the history the Roman fleet of Caius Popillius Laenas sailed from Cyprus to Egypt after a stunning Roman victory over Perseus in the Macedonian of Macedon near Pydna south of Thessalonica the intimidation of the Romans caused the guy the reigning Seleucid guy Antiochus IV to return in humiliation to Syria So he's looking for someone to pick on and he focuses on oppressing the Jews and boy does he When you look if you'll find that Antiochus III is called Antiochus the Great for reasons that aren't important to us clearly for our interest is very centered on this character Antiochus IV but he's on his way home and humiliation intended by Rome He's looking for someone to pick on he really decides to pick on the Jews and it's under his reign that the abomination of desolation takes place Jesus will refer to that historically that's why it's so important to us and you can find the documents for this in second Maccabees and also in Josephus two centuries later Jesus will predict that this will happen--what happened then will happen again and it'll require a temple and that's why it's so relevant to our interests Antiochus IV called Epiphanes that was a popular label in those days his detractors called him Epimanes which means 'the mad man' by changing a consonant it changes the meaning of it what did he do well he made the Torah reading punishable by death imagine a Jewish culture if you're caught with the Torah it's under the sentence of death he did he slaughtered a cow on the alter you can imagine how that went over to a Jew he went further He erected an idol to Zeus the Greek god in the holy of holies and that was so impacting--incensed them so much it precipitated a rebellion Judas Maccabeus and his 5 sons were the heroes of that and they succeeded amazingly to throw off the yoke of the Greek empire it took them three years but they actually succeeded in what's called the Maccabean revolt and they ended up re-dedicating the temple on the 25th of Kislev 165 BC which happened which happens to be the anniversary of his setting up the idol in the holy of holies which he did on his birthday I forgot to mention when he set up the idol that was the way he celebrated his birthday Now When you read your Bible you get to John 10 there's a little one liner in there that you tend to skip over cause it's talking "And it was at Jerusalem the feast of dedication and it was winter Now if you're a normal well-adjusted Bible reader you'd continue reading If you've been to one of my Bible studies you're no longer a normal well adjusted but I was incredulous cause you'll ask yourself why did the Holy Spirit want you to know that it was at Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication and it was winter so you decide to get your resources out and dig into it which dedication are we talking the Feast of Dedication means that they're dedicating the temple okay that's fair enough which feast are we talking about Solomon's temple no it turns out from 1 Kings 8 that was dedicated in the autumn not the winter Well you're splitting hairs here no I'm not well how about Zerubbabel's temple that was dedicated in the spring I got the verses there you can check me out when you have the occasion to do that What do you discover this was winter there's only once that they dedicated the temple in the winter and that was what they celebrated at Hanukkah Hanukkah is authorized in the Bible say well why what's that got to do with anything the Holy Spirit this was His way of pointing your attention to this whole business of the Maccabean reform succeed because of the dedication of this what they're talking about here in verse 22 is what is what the Jews enjoy to this day what they call Hanukkah it's celebrating the rededication of the temple as result of the success of the Maccabean revolt on the 25th of Kislev and so whether they realize it they're immortalizing Antiochus Epiphanes' birthday that's what he happened to do 3 years earlier it took him three years to get it and so forth Let's get back to the time of Christ Vespasian and his son Titus the two of them subjected the Galilee they're very successful they're getting ready to attack Jerusalem after the death of Nero Galba was recalled to become emperor but he got assassinated rather quickly after Galba Ortho was made emperor and he was--he committed suicide there's turbulence going on in Rome after revolution and political instability the general command of the Roman Israeli expedition was recalled to restore order so Titus Vespasian it's time to play his cards he went back to Rome and he took over So he becomes emperor General Vespasian he's the father of the captain in charge of the troops that are assembled of the four legions that are getting ready to attack Jerusalem and so he's the one that remains in charge and once Vespasian takes over and gets set up he tells Titus to finish the job and that's what leads to the 70 AD thing and so all this happens just a few days before and so he becomes when he's crowned emperor that makes Titus a prince by the way so he is the prince that shall come We could talk more about all of that that leads to the the abomination of desolation I think that goes pretty straightforward Let's talk a little bit about another thing that's what I call the advent of the hybrids this is gonna take you into Genesis 6 Numbers 13 and Revelation 9 if you're going to be thorough about this but let's back up a little bit and take a look at Genesis 6 where we're told "it came to pass that when men begin to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters are born unto them the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all which they chose" I want you to notice something that everybody misses the two verses are one sentence They happen to be broken in two verses in your King James Translation but it's one sentence When men begin to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters--daughters of all kinds are born unto them but the sons of God the Bene HaElohim that's the term for angels saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives strangely enough of all which they chose the sons of God Bene HaElohim and the daughters of men were Benoth Adam daughters of Adam not Seth Adam Okay that's a term for angels it's so used throughout the scriptures and we could spend a lot of time on that but it goes on in verse 4 to say there were Nephilim fallen ones nephal is a verb for fall in the earth in those days and also after that when the sons of God came into unto the daughters of men that they bear children to them the same became the mighty men HaGibborim that is which were of old men of renown Nephilim this gets into this whole issue of these hybrids the results of this mischief by the fallen angels and not only back there before Noah they're the cause for Noah's flood but it also has a little phrase in there also after that we discover there again around in Numbers 13 for a number of reasons and so the Nephilim means the fallen ones comes from the Hebrew word nephal to be to fall to be cast down to fall away or desert the leader the ones that are born are also called the mighty ones Hercules Atlas these were what what in the Greek world would be in the Hebrew word called the ha gibborim the mighty ones or the Nephilim and now when you translate that into greek the word is gigantis which happens to sound like giants but that's not what it really means it means earth born giga from the earth earth born so there's a whole background here that I'm going to just touch on quickly because we want to head to particular place in fact Noah these are the generations of Noah that is his family tree he was a just man and perfect in his generations the word perfect in the Hebrew is tamyim it deals with a physical defect like a blemish without spot unimpaired Noah had an unimpaired genealogy He may have been the only one but he and his were are not contaminated by these this mischief of the angels and we even have references to that to Oiketerion the dwelling place of the spirit only twice in the Bible it's what the angels had disrobed from in Jude 6 and this alludes to the heavenly body we aspire to in 2 Corinthians 5:2 In Jude we have this strange confirmation of Genesis our view of Genesis 6 it's confirmed 3 times in the New Testament this is one of them the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of that great day even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth as an example suffering the vengence of eternal fire that's an allusion to the punishment to the angels that were engaged in this mischief and the term Okieterion used again and the same term as Paul uses of what we aspire to "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens for this we groan earnestly desiring to be closed upon with our house which is from Heaven" same word is used oiketerion anyway So let's talk about the post flood nephilim we know that they were not only before the flood of Noah there are 4 tribes that Joshua was told to wipe out every man woman and child and Arba, Anak and his 7 sons Anakim encountered in Canaan Og the king of Bashan Goliath and his four brothers were Anakim but let's get down to it when you study Daniel 2 and 7 and all that we get to this business of the iron mixed with clay and as Daniel explains that vision he deals directly with this peculiar idiom of the the iron mixed with clay in verse 43 of Daniel 2 Daniel says "And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay" from the imagery of the vision he switches to a personal pronoun "They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men" Notice the shift in pronoun they will mingle themselves with the seed of men now thats both grammatically and biologically a problem because for 'they' have to be something other than the seed of men or they can't mingle with the seed of men--just grammatically that implies they're distinct "And they shall not cleave with one and other even as iron is not mixed with clay so the question is what on earth is in view here with the iron mixed with clay Dan's saying they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men so so whatever they are they're not seed of men Well in our world today that gives us quite a few interesting choices are they hybrids are they nephilim as per Noah's flood Jesus said as the days of Noah so shall the coming of the son of man be could he have been including that possibly are they nephilim or are they aliens of some other kind that the Vatican and it may shock you to discover that they have knowledgeable trained astronomical experts who are manning the most sophisticated facilities among the most sophisticated facilities in the field of astronomy in southeastern Arizona Mt. Graham and the Vatican is openly preparing to receive extraterrestrial aliens what why Well we'll let them tell you their story that's alright okay Now the question is getting back to our white horseman are there pre requisites to his appearing well we get some interesting clues in 2 Thessalonians 2 the 2 Thessalonian letter is probably one of most important epistles eschatological epitstles in the New Testament "Now we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him that ye be not so soon shaken in mind or be troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by a letter as from us as the day of Christ is at hand" One of the strange things about the 2nd letter of Thessalonians is it's Paul's reply to a forgery something was circulating that they thought was from him and he's putting in he's repairing the confusion caused by that that's one of the reasons he wrote the letter in first place and apparently a sensible forgery he says "Let no man deceive you by any means for that day the day of the Lord the day of Christ shall not come except there come a falling away first and that that man of sin be revealed the son of perdition who opposeth and exhalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God" Now verse 4 there is a staggering rag or claim or what have you of the white horseman who opposeth and exhalteth themself above all that is called God that includes everything that includes the law that includes fill in the blank with what ever you want he's above all of that everything that is above is called God or that is worshiped so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God that's as far as you can go staggering now that's quite a verse but he goes on to explain in here for the mystery of iniquity doth already work only he who now hinders will enter in your old King James you've got the term let is an Old English term for meaning restrain or hindering he who hinders will hinder until he be taken out of the way and then shall the wicked one be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming In other words ultimately of course the Lord of the Lord Jesus will win over him but he--when the hinderers are taken out of the way that's a prerequisite condition to the wicked one being revealed Now he'll ultimately be dealt with obviously "Even him whose after the working of Satan with all power signs" and on he goes now this what you have to do here your challenge do a very careful exegesis of 2 Thessalonians 2 and it cause there's a lot of confusion about this you want to really lean on people who really understand their Greek the day of the Lord when is it coming is a concern the day of the Lord or the day of Christ that day should not come except there come a falling away first so one of the preceding conditions is apostasy Now some experts will tell you that could refer to the rapture but understand we're not building our case on that we don't need to there's a more clearer--clearer answer will there be an apostasy absolutely that's what the letter to Laodicea deals with and the 7 letters to 7 church there's an apostasy comes first "and he who now restrains will restrain until he be taken out of the way" and from the grammar and from the details that's clearly the Holy Spirit in the sense that he resides in the church the restrainer--the restrainer will be removed and then shall that with that--that's a precondition to the man of sin be revealed critical critical subtly in the Greek that really helps us to unravel that that one of the preconditions is for the man for man of sin being revealed is for the restrainer to be removed then that gets into a whole study of Who is the restrainer is he restraining sin there's only one thing thats ever restrained sin and that's the Holy Spirit Not angels not Michael there's all kinds of conjectures not true not true so that's an area of that I commend your studying carefully okay now we've gone through kind of a lot of material here we've had to summarize Revelation 4 5 and 6 which we did we had a deal at least in part with some of the key parts of Matthew 24 the pivot of this of course is the 70 week prophecy of Daniel 9 We touched on Daniel 11 Now 2 Thessalonians 2 and we even touched on Genesis 6 clearly it wasn't possible in the time we had to try to do a full you could spend more than an hour on each one of those to extract what we've excerpted So I'm assuming that it either was review for you or with your notes you can double back and dig into it but that leaves one other thing that's we want to talk about a little bit what are you'll discover there are different people have different expectations of what the white horse is going to deal with Islam Islam it's possible Walid Shoebat points out that in the text of 666 it may be written in Arabic and be referring to Islam and is an interesting possibility there the whole Islamic eschatology is an area worthy of study the Vatican as I mentioned they're preparing to receive an alien their perceptions are flabbergasting when you get into that there is the trans humanists they have they have an agenda they believe that they can achieve immortality within a couple years not decades a few years their agendas and plans are actually flabbergasting and the Freemasons they have their scenario that's rather we discover all of Obama's appearances and schedule are being orchestrated by the Freemasons why what's going on there well fortunately we don't have time for all that but we did do we published a collection of 6 different studies of the different expectations of the Antichrist and so you can regard that as a sequel to this an addenda so I suggest your first step would be to double back on the references we made satisfy your understanding of that but one of the other things you may want to do is take a look at the expectations of these different groups because they're very different in some respects and they're astonishingly similar in another and I'll leave that to your own study Should we be concerned is he alive today Absolutely If you asked me that a hundred years ago is he alive today I'd say absolutely because I have this conviction doesn't mean I'm right I have this conviction that the whole scenario the whole eschatological scenario has one variable in it the timing of the Harpazo and I believe the strategy is to catch Satan by surprise and he doesn't know when the starting gun will be fired and he has a short window to pull off whatever he's going to do and I think that's part of the drama that's going on but the good news is that he the his man I should say can't make his appearance until the Harpazo and that's designed to catch Satan by surprise and so he's got a problem for 2000 years he's had to be prepared for the Harpazo and when it happens he's got a window of opportunity he believes I assume he's always had to have his guy in the wings and every time it he--there's a counter everytime someone trusts the Lord that that counter incorrects by one it finally gets to a number that's called the fullness of the Gentiles When it's complete the Father will say to the Son go get him even the Son doesn't all the time by the way in Mark 13:32 we all know the verse in Matthew "No man knows the day nor hour but the but the not the angels in heaven right but the father only" the Mark verse of the same verse it has one difference no man knows the day or hour not the angels in heaven not the Son but the Father only very strange verse There's a day coming when the Father will say to the Son go get him and that's what he's yearning for it puzzles me to think that the Lord Jesus has a yearning an unfulfilled longing yes he does he mentions it in John 17 his yearning is to have us with him and he's waiting for the Father to say go get him in which you have the Harpazo which is a precondition according to 2 Thessalonians that now opens the door for Satan to pull off whatever he's going to try to pull off and he has a strategy I believe that he thinks he can thwart the plan of God by going after the believing Jews not Jews in general the jews that are Messianic so they'll be targets but they'll be sealed and there's a whole whole set of studies behind that you can get into should we be concerned absolutely not cause the Harpazo hasn't until the Harpazo occurs this white horse rider is not gonna show up he doesn't show up until Jesus opens that first seal of the 7 sealed book he can't open the 7 sealed book until he receives the book and he receives the book after being worshipped by the 24 elders the identity of those 24 elders is critical to everyone of us we can take comfort in that the good news is that we have more time to repair our report cards we don't have to be concerned with the identity of the Antichrist others will but we don't cause we're gonna watch it from the mezzanine and with that let's bow our hearts for a word of prayer Father we thank you for who you are we're flabbergasted as we recognize the extremes you've gone to to illuminate to us what pleases you and what you would have us do we do ask you Father for with with the Holy Spirit and your word you would illuminate ever more clearly precisely what it is that you would have of us in the days ahead there we might grow in grace and the knowledge of our coming king that we might be ever more effective and pleasing in His sight as we commit ourselves into your hands in His most holy name Amen

Channel: Koinonia House

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Keywords: jesus, christ, chuck, missler, koinonia, house, khouse, institute

Id: B-V9wB92XuA

Length: 73min 42sec (4422 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 02 2019