Weekly Readings For the Sabbath of March 27, 2010

Transcription

1 The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath s selection is Daniel s visions continued. Weekly Readings For the Sabbath of March 27, 2010 The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus name, and inviting the Lord to be with them. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first. And I saw in the vision; and when I saw, I was in Susa the capital, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. As I was considering, behold, a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him. And there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power. Then the goat became exceedingly great, but when he was strong, the great horn was broken, and instead of it there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. (Dan 8:1 8)

2 In Daniel s vision of the third year of Belshazzar, the angel Gabriel identifies the he-goat as king of Greece, with the great horn between his eyes being the first king (Dan 8:21). The ram was the kings [plural] of Media and Persia (v. 20). And the angel who brings Daniel knowledge of what is written in the Book of Truth was prevented from coming to Daniel for twenty-one days by the prince of Persia when the angel was left with the kings of Persia (Dan 10:13). Michael had to come to the aid of this angel before he could get to Daniel. And when the angel left Daniel, he would return to fight against the prince of Persia, but when he left, the prince [sar] of Greece will come where? To where will the prince of Greece come? To where Daniel is? That seems the most logical referent. Most biblical scholars, teachers, and prophecy pundits will identify the great horn that stands between the eyes of the he-goat as the man Alexander the Great. But history has an annoying habit of getting in the way of what these scholars and prophecy pundits teach. Between 359 and 337 BCE, the year when Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander, created the League of Corinth and effectively took control of Greek poleis, except for Sparta, Philip was elected as hegemon [leader] of the army of invasion against the Persian Empire, the position Alexander would assume after Philip s assassination. Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was the most acclaimed member of the Argead Dynasty that allegedly began with Temenus, the greatgreat-grandson of Heracles, but Alexander inherited a mostly united Greece and a seasoned army when he succeeded his father as general of the army and leader the Greek expeditionary forces that would invaded Persian controlled Asia Minor. It simply isn t true that Alexander was the first king of Greece although that is how he is usually perceived by biblical scholars who want him to be the great horn standing between the eyes of the he-goat that flew (without touching the ground) out of the west to trample the prince of Persia using a he-goat as a metaphor for the king of Greek suggests that there is an element of the vision represented by a male goat as opposed to some other ruminant, with male goats notorious for putting their heads between their legs and pissing all over themselves, thereby giving them the rank smell of billy goats. This aspect of male goat behavior is implied in the location of the first horn It is usually taught that the bronze belly and loins of the humanoid image King Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision represents the Greek empire that shall rule over all the earth (Dan 2:39). Daniel records, This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all you are the head of gold. Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. (Dan 2:36 40 emphasis added) The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 2

3 If the he-goat represents the belly and loins of the image Nebuchadnezzar saw, then the single horn standing between the eyes [hip sockets look a little like eye sockets] would appear as an erect penis. Among biblical scholarship, there is a shortage of close readers with a farm or rural background. There are not many who have dipped the hooves of goats and sheep in cupric-sulfate to kill ground borne fungi, or who have hand-milked nannies, or who have castrated a billy so the billy can be killed and eaten two or three months later without being castrated and time given for male hormones to work their way out of the (now) wether s system, the meat of a mature male goat tastes a lot like how a billy smells when the billy urinates on his head, then curls his lips as he savors how he smells. The he-goat that flies out of the west and tramples the king of Persia uses sex and the appetites of the flesh to rule over all of the earth. This first horn functions as an erect penis, and he is as rank as a billy, using sex to sell hamburgers and contact lens. And if anyone doubts that this first king of the king of Greece rules in America, watch primetime television for even an hour. This first king of the king of Greece smells as foul to God as a breeding billy smells to a person. But the human-appearing image that King Nebuchadnezzar saw has no apparent erect penis; for when this image is seen, the first king of the king of Greece has already been broken and the two legs are visible in the vision Daniel sees in Belshazzar s third year, when the first king or great horn is suddenly broken, and from around the stump come four horns or kings, and on the head of the north horn or king of the North emerges a little horn. Biblical scholars identify these four kings as the Diadochi, Alexander s generals. But there is a problem here that has been glossed over by would-be historians who have four divisions of the Greek Empire fulfilling Daniel s vision. These four divisions are Ptolemy Soter ruling Egypt; Seleucus Nicator ruling Syria, Babylonia and territory east to India; Lysimachus ruling Asia Minor; and Cassander ruling Greece and Macedonia (from The Middle East in Prophecy by Herbert W. Armstrong (1948, 1954, 1972) For too many years, the Sabbatarian Churches of God taught that the four horns that emerged from around the stump of the great horn of the king of Greece were Alexander s four generals [the Diadochi] who ruled his empire after his death, but this teaching is historically dishonest. In shadow and type only, Alexander the Great represents the first king of the kingdom of Greece: when he is suddenly broken [dies suddenly] he left a huge empire of many mostly autonomous territories, stretching from Macedon through the Greek poleis that Philip subdued to Bactria and parts of India. This empire included Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia. And without a chosen successor, Alexander s empire was divided with Meleager, a Macedonian officer of distinction, supporting the claims of Arrhidaeus (Alexander s general entrusted with Alexander s funeral) to the vacant throne, and with Perdiccas supporting the ascendancy of the expected son of Alexander and Roxana. Reconciliation between Meleager and Perdiccas formalized a division of royal authority between Arrhidaeus and Alexander s still unborn son, with Meleager and Perdiccas to jointly serve as regents for the child. However, in the Partition of Babylon, Alexander s generals agreed that Philip III, the epileptic illegitimate son of Alexander s father, and Alexander s unborn child should be jointly recognized as kings. Perdiccas, acting in the name of the two kings, plotted against The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 3

4 Meleager and put him to death. But the presumptuousness of Perdiccas caused him to order Antigonus, governor of Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphylia, to attack the unconquered provinces of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia, which Antigonus refused to do. Antigonus was summoned to stand trial for his disobedience, but fled to Europe where he entered into an alliance with Antipater, Creterus, and Ptolemy. Perdiccas moved to attack Ptolemy in Egypt, but failed to cross the Nile. A mutiny broke out among his troops, and Perdiccas was assassinated by his officers, Peithon, Antigenes, and Seleucus. The division of Alexander s empire into two legs occurred before the Wars of the Diadochi, which saw Ptolemy establish the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, and Seleucus I establish the Seleucid dynasty and the Seleucid Empire Seleucus was nominated as the satrap of Babylon in 320 BCE, but Antigonus forced Seleucus to flee Babylon. Ptolemy enabled Seleucus to return in 312 BCE, and Seleucus conquered Persia and Media, then defeated Antigonus in the battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE, and defeated Lysimachus in the battle of Corupedium in 281 BCE. The cavalry generals who supported Perdiccas were rewarded in the Partition of Babylon by being made satraps of the various parts of the empire: Ptolemy received Egypt; Laomedon received Syria and Phoenicia; Philotas took Cilicia; Peithon took Media; Antigonus received Phygia, Lycis, and Pamphylia; Asander received Caria; Menander received Lydia; Lysimachus received Thrace; Leonnatus received Hellespontine Phrygia; Neoptolemus possessed Armenia; Antipater and Craterus jointly ruled Macedon and the rest of Greece; and Eumenes was to receive Cappadonia and Paphlagonia when they were subdued. In the east, Perdiccas left Taxiles and Porus to rule over their kingdoms in India. Alexander s father-in-law Oxyartes ruled Gandara. Sibyrtius ruled Arachosia and Gedrosia. Stasanor ruled Aria and Drangiana. Philip ruled Bactria and Sogdiana. Phrataphernes ruled Parthia and Hyrcania. Peucestas ruled Persis. Tlepolemus ruled Carmania. Atropates ruled northern Media; Archon ruled Babylonia; and Arcesilas reigned over northern Mesopotamia. In the Sabbatarian Churches of God teachings about the four horns being the Diadochi a lot of generals and rulers were mysteriously omitted. Yes, following Alexander s death the Greek empire was divided into two legs in the disputing between Meleager and Perdiccas, and from these two legs came the Ptolemaic Empire and the Seleucid Empire; so the shadow serves as a general overview of what will happen (but has not yet happened) spiritually in the Abyss. But the shadow does not adequately fulfill Daniel s visions: there were simply too many Greek generals and rulers to be described by four horns or kings, or by ten horns on the head of the fourth king, the king of the North. But in Daniel s vision in the third year of Cyrus (Dan chaps 10 12), the angel who was withstood for twenty-one days by the kings of Persia was not prevented from coming to Daniel by human kings, who would have been as weak in the presence of the angel as Daniel was. The angel was prevented from coming to Daniel by demonic kings; for Michael, one of the chief princes, had to come to the angel s aid when he was left alone with the kings of Persia (Dan 10:13). Plus, the angel tells Daniel that when he leaves, he will return to fight against the prince/king of Persia, and that when he leaves, the prince/king [sar] of Greece will come (v. 20) this king of Greece is the bronze The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 4

5 kingdom that shall rule over all the earth (Dan 2:39) of Nebuchadnezzar s vision. It is not a king or kingdom of this world. In the human-like image that King Nebuchadnezzar saw, the belly and loins (down into the thighs) were bronze. The division of the image into two legs occurred in the bronze portion and from the Wars of the Diadochi emerged two Greek empires, the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt and the Seleucid Empire that stretched from Mediterranean Sea to the Indus Valley, and ruled an area of 1.5 million square miles (the United States occupies approximately 3.8 million square miles) at one time. Rome, then a single kingdom, defeated first the Ptolemaic Empire, then the westernmost portions of the Seleucid Empire. The eastern portions of the Seleucid Empire either became autonomous kingdoms or were gobbled up by larger neighbors. Rome didn t occupied these lands, and was, instead, defeated in the east by the Parthian Empire, which then occupied much of the Seleucid Empire s holdings in modern Iraq and Iran Chinese writers at the time of Christ seemed to believe that the Parthian Empire, which shared a border with China, was equal to their own empire. So it is always historically inaccurate to say that Rome defeated the derivative Greek Seleucid Empire, the majority of which was either absorbed by or defeated by Parthia. rd During the 3 -Century BCE, Parthians (some of whom were displaced Israelites from the northern kingdom of Samaria) migrated from central Asia steppes into northern Iran where they temporarily submitted to the rule of the Seleucids. However, nd in the 2 -Century, when the Seleucids were preoccupied by affairs in Judea, Parthia rebelled against the Seleucids and established an independent state that steadily expanded by gobbling up Seleucid territory, conquering Persia and Mesopotamia and eastward into India. The Arsacid dynasty that ruled Parthia claimed a connection to Israel s ancient King David, so the dynasty looked westward when Rome defeated the Seleucids and Antiochus III at Thermopylae and Magnesia (ca 191 & 190 BCE). Then in 64 BCE, Pompey conquered what remained of the Seleucid Empire and encountered the Parthians at the Euphrates. nd In the 2 -Century, Judea lay between the Greek Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires. For most of the years between when Alexander died and when the Maccabean Revolt occurred, the Ptolemaic Empire ruled Jerusalem and had begun a process of Hellenization that saw construction of a gymnasium and Jews removing the marks of circumcision so that they could compete in Greek games (competely naked). These liberated Jews repudiated the Torah; so for them, the high priest was simply a political appointee, and usually a very corrupt one. Therefore when the Seleucids gained control over Jerusalem followed by Antiochus Epiphanes IV becoming ruler, Antiochus treated the High Priest as a local governor who could be appointed or dismissed at his whim to orthodox Jews, the High Priest was divinely appointed. When the corruption in the priesthood became so bad that to restore order Antiochus attacked Jerusalem, sacked the Temple, and took captives, Antiochus demanded that all Jews submit to total Hellenization, which meant banning Jewish religious practices. In 167 BCE, the daily sacrifice was ended, Sabbath observance was banned, and circumcision was forbidden. A statue of Zeus was placed on the altar, and possession of Scripture was punishable by death. Antiochus Epiphanes overreached, and revolt was inevitable. The Maccabees as physical sons of light brought an end to the shadow of heavenly events that sealed and kept secret the visions of Daniel. The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 5

6 The ruling hierarchy of the prince of this world, the king of Babylon (see Isa 14:4), is seen through its shadow, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar and extending through Antiochus Epiphanes IV. Because Christ Jesus and spiritual sons of light defeat the four demonic kings and the little horn by a different manner than how the Maccabees defeated the Seleucid Empire in all of its withering might. Rome, the Rome empire, and the Roman Church are not part of Daniel s visions, and to put Rome into these visions is to identify oneself as a false prophet. So why do so many Christians believe that Rome defeated Greece and formed the two iron legs of Nebuchadnezzar s image, when under Alexander, the Greek kingdom stretched into the Indus Valley and continued to rule Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan under the banner of the Seleucid Empire until immigrants from the steppes and the local Persian populations formed the Parthian Empire? Have these Christians not heard of Parthia, or of the Magi, members of Parthia s lower house (equivalent to Britain s House of Commons), who came to honor Jesus? Do they not know of Rome s struggle with Parthia over Judea in the years BCE, or what happened to Rome in its wars with Parthia? The two iron legs of Nebuchadnezzar s vision are not Rome and Parthia, the two empires that occupied the Greek Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires; rather, the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires form the shadow and copy of the demonic kings of the South and of the North that war against each other after the first king of the king/kingdom of Greece is suddenly broken at the Second Passover because he is first. Again, Rome, the Roman Empire, the Roman Church none of these entities belong in the visions of Daniel. To put them in his visions is to identify oneself as a false prophet, a false teacher of Israel. The vision Nebuchadnezzar saw has the God of heaven giving to this king of Babylon to rule, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens (Dan 2:38). It is this king of Babylon that is the head of gold. Daniel identifies Nebuchadnezzar as this king, but God never gave the children of man in China or in Chile or in Canada to Nebuchadnezzar to rule. He certainly never gave the fox or the vole to Nebuchadnezzar to rule. He never gave vultures and sparrows to the king to rule. So what Daniel tells the king is problematic, unless Nebuchadnezzar is the shadow and copy of a spiritual king of Babylon as the man Alexander is the shadow and copy of the spiritual first horn [king] of the king of Greece. In John s vision [the Book of Revelation], death is personified as the fourth horseman (Rev 6:8). Sin is also personified as the third horseman although this identity isn t as apparent. But in writing about himself, the Apostle Paul personified sin, What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, You shall not covet. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. (Rom 7:7 12 emphasis added) The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 6

7 The law (i.e., the commandments spoken at Sinai) made sin alive as if Sin were a person who was brought to life at Sinai to slay the entirety of the nation that left Egypt, from Aaron down to the lowest of the common men who had joined with Israel as the mixed multitude. Moses who was of Israel but who had been separated from Israel since he was weaned off milk was not with Israel for forty days after Sin was made alive. Nor was Joshua, who was halfway up the mountain. But the people who would not listen to the Lord when they were in Egypt (Ezek 20:8) were spiritually slain when Sin was made alive: When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So Aaron said to them, Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt! When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. (Ex 32:1 6) The people had promised less than fifty days earlier to keep the commandments and the rules and to do all that the Lord had said to Moses, but when Sin was brought to life by the giving of the commandments, this destroyer caused Israel to break the foremost of the commandments: they made for themselves another god other than the Lord, a god of gold Daniel tell Nebuchadnezzar that he is the head of gold of the humanappearing image the king saw in vision. The people of Israel made for themselves a god of gold that was a shaped like a calf when King Nebuchadnezzar had his human nature taken from him for seven years (Dan chap 4), he was given the mind of an ox (v. 25), a castrated calf; for Nebuchadnezzar served as the shadow and type of the spiritual king of Babylon (Isa 14:4), the fallen Day Star, Lucifer, the god that the people worshiped in Egypt and in Chaldea. When the people of Israel at Sinai made for themselves another god, they returned to worshiping the Adversary [used metonymically], the reality who cast his shadow into time as Nebuchadnezzar, the human king of Babylon. The image Nebuchadnezzar saw in vision was that of the Adversary s reigning hierarchy after the first horn, the great king of the king of Greece, is broken; for the standing first horn that rises from between the eyes of the he-goat that tramples the ram would appear as an erect penis on a Buddha-like statue. It is only after this first horn is broken that the legs of Nebuchadnezzar s image will develop as the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires developed from Alexander s Greek Empire after Alexander died suddenly in Babylon II. Is Sin as the king of the South only a metaphor? Is Egypt simply a metaphor for wrong doing? Is the Adversary only a metaphor for all the things wrong with this world? The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 7

8 Is Death simply a metaphor, or is death the real absence of life? Is Death as the king of the North, the king of Assyria, only a metaphor in a mythic tale intended to compel Hebrew children to practice good behavior? Is salvation a myth? The Adversary would certainly like human beings to believe that salvation is a myth. In a world of real things that can be touched, seen, and measured, those things that are of God are not-real, in that they cannot be seen. They are not physical. They do not have mass. They cannot be held. But they can be known through the things that are real forming their shadows. There is a portion of the Preface to A Fresh Look at Typology that is appropriate here: A point on a two-dimensional plane would (if it could) perceive a cylinder as a circle: none of the cylinder s height would be discernable. Likewise, threedimensional objects in a fourth dimension (space-time, a dimension necessary to allow for movement of entities possessing mass) will be unable to perceive evidence of life in another inclusive dimension; i.e., heaven. And that is what heaven is: a timeless supra-dimensional realm in which the four known forces exist as an unfurled primal force. It is the dimension that exists on the other side of a sudden creation, a dimension in which all living entities must function as one entity in a similar way to how cells in a human being function together to produce one person. Timelessness dictates that what-is must co-exist with what-was and what-will-be, and in this analogy, disobedience or lawlessness is like a cancerous tumor. Because of conflicting values, disobedience produces paradoxical gridlock in a timeless realm, and as such, must be eliminated whenever found. Because a point on a two-dimensional plane perceives a cylinder as a circle doesn t make the cylinder any less tall: calling a cylinder a circle merely illuminates the limitations that have been placed upon the point. Thus, denying the existence of an inclusive dimension and a supreme deity reveals the limitations placed upon the thoughts of the person doing the denying. It would be fruitless for two points on a plane to argue about the nature of the cylinder that they sincerely believe to be a circle. Their disputing would be meaningless. That point on a two dimensional plane when encountering a cylinder would not be able to perceive any of the cylinder s height. Only by the cylinder casting its shadow onto the two dimensional plane could this point determine the cylinder s height, and this determination would be made by observing where the light was and where the light was absent (or where it was dark). And if this point did not know to attach significance to the presence and absence of light then the cylinder s shadow that reveals the height of the cylinder would have no meaning to this point. Now move to more dimensions: human beings are not points on a two dimensional plane, but rather, they are enlivened jars of clay in four dimensions. But human beings will have no more knowledge of what occurs in another dimension heaven than a point on a two dimensional plane has of height. Only through shadows can human beings see into the heavenly realm, but these shadows are not cast upon the earth s geography. Shadows made in the heavenly realm are cast upon the mental topography (mental landscape) of humankind, with this mental topography revealed though the actions or acts of fleshly human beings. Unrighteousness is, now, spiritual The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 8

9 darkness stemming from something or someone in the heavenly realm blocking the light that is God. And it is the prince of this world that blocks that light. Christians have, for centuries, been able to live their lives without realizing that their inner selves, through possession of everlasting life in Christ Jesus, cast shadows backwards in time, with these shadows revealing their relationship with God, their relationship seen in the acts and actions of physically circumcised Israel. In other words, indwelling sin (lawlessness) in the Christian Church is visibly seen in the historical record of ancient Israel; for when Christians have no indwelling sin, they are sons of light (John 12:36) who cast no shadow for light illuminates and casts no shadow. It is only those things that block the light that cast shadows. Thus, sin casts a shadow and appears black in this world; hence, Sin rides a black horse (Rev 6:5) as it buys and sells both the early and latter harvests of this world. But Sin, the four headed, four winged leopard that Daniel saw in vision (Dan 7:6), is as real as is Christendom s transgression of the Sabbath because of sin and death dwelling in the fleshly members of disciples. Prophecy and understanding prophecy is not essential for salvation, but only those disciples a remnant who keep the commandments and hold the testimony of Jesus (Rev 12:17), which is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10), will physically cross into the Endurance, the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years. Every other faithful disciple will be killed and will await resurrection when Christ Jesus returns as the Messiah the Remnant who keep the commandments and have the spirit of prophecy will be witnesses to the third part of humankind (from Zech 13:9) in the Endurance as the two witnesses were witnesses to Israel in the Affliction, the first 1260 days of those seven endtime years. So understanding prophecy is important, even if not for salvation. Understanding prophecy prevents a disciple from being deceived by unfolding events in this world and in the Abyss, and understanding prophecy will give those disciples a work to do throughout the last 1260 days, which, unlike the Affliction, will pass fairly quickly. For far too long, the many false prophets that Jesus promised would come have spoken and written what is not true, inserting the Roman Church and the Pope into any scriptural passage that can be twisted open far enough to fit these false witnesses for Christ. But Trinitarian Christendom doesn t come under the umbrella of the king of the North and the little horn, the man of perdition. Arian Christendom does. Trinitarians serve the spiritual king of the South. So while most Sabbatarian Christians watch to see what the Roman Church does as events unfold in the Middle East, the boys from Salt Lake, equally dedicated to Sunday observance, quietly gain control of the food reserves of America and to a large extent, of the world. Their plans to leverage food into discipleship are well advanced and really cannot be prevented. Unaware that they await the Second Passover liberation of Israel, they have nevertheless prepared for the resulting collapse of civil governance, and they have prepared well. The false prophet (the first beast of Daniel chapter seven, the first horseman) will come to the already existing office of prophet, and coming as Joseph, he will be enthusiastically welcomed. Christian fundamentalists are today blind, and will be blind when they are filled with spirit and liberated from indwelling sin and death; they have been and will continue to be blind for they were born in darkness. Their teachers have trained them to hate the Pope, a man like themselves, a man who is also blind. And their hatred is a poison that will kill them; for when all Christians are born of spirit and born filled with spirit at the The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 9

10 Second Passover, all Christians will be brothers to these fundamentalists. Each will deserve the love Christ Jesus has for them and for fundamentalists, love that caused Jesus to wash the feet of Judas Iscariot when He knew who would betray Him. * The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God s dismissal. * * * * "Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved." [ Home ] [ Sabbath Readings ] The Philadelphia Church Sabbath Readings R 10