Last Days Timeline, A literal interpretation of biblical prophecy, second edition by Gregory Supina - HTML preview

Chapter 2: “And I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his

hand! Then I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he said to me, ‘To measure Jerusalem, to see

what is its width and what is its length.’ And behold, the Angel who talked with me came

forward, and another angel came forward to meet Him and [He] said to him [In context, the first

Angel, the one speaking to Zechariah, talks to the second angel and sends him on this errand.] , ‘Run, say to

that young man, “Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages [or ‘suburbs’] without walls, because

of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around,

declares [Yahweh], and I will be the glory in her midst.”’ Up! Up! Flee from the land of the

north, declares [Yahweh]. [The ‘land of the north’ is Persia, including Babylon.] For I have spread

you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, declares [Yahweh].

“‘Up! Escape to Zion, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon . For thus said [Yahweh]

of hosts, after His glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you

touches the apple of His eye: ‘Behold, I will shake My hand over them, and they shall

become plunder for those who served them. Then you will know that [Yahweh] of hosts

has sent me. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in

your midst, declares [ Yahweh]. And many nations shall join themselves to [ Yahweh] in

that day, and shall be My people . And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that

[Yahweh] of hosts has sent me to you. And [Yahweh] will inherit Judah as His portion in the

holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.’ Be silent, all flesh, before [ Yahweh ], for He

has roused Himself from His holy dwelling.”

First, notice the world-wide scope of this prophecy. This is not just a prophecy about the small nation of Israel with its “local” god who would deliver them from their local enemies, as so very many vain academics like to think. This prophecy is about the whole world, about the “many nations” who will “join themselves to Yahweh,” to the Messiah and God Jesus in the end times, to war against the four Satanic kingdoms that have also gathered many nations to themselves over all the earth. Yahweh sent four horsemen out into all the earth at this time, at a real time in 519 BC, and this is not a fictional prophecy invented centuries later by some liar who was pretending that he lived during the time of Darius, the king of Persia. This is about a real battle between God and Satan that would rage over all the earth for more than two and a half millennia, until all the earth rested with Yahweh as their King.

Zechariah was a priest to Israel while they were recovering from the great tragedy of experiencing the destruction of their homeland, temple and families, and after many of the survivors were taken as captives into Babylon. And all this occurred because God allowed vain and greedy Babylonians to

 

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start that war for the most evil motives, for profit and pride. But God had to allow this, because His priesthood of Israel forgot their purpose and instead worshiped the demonic gods of Babylon, as well as their own flesh. Yet this captivity changed Israel’s perspective from a national to an international focus, from being priests ministering to themselves alone, to being God’s priests ministering to all the world, as per God’s covenant with Abraham. So the elect in Israel were learning things through God’s discipline. And this was God’s intention all along. Through many trials, the elect in God’s one and only priesthood of Israel, all whom God gathered into her, had to learn to serve the entire world.

God created His priesthood, His church of Israel, through Abraham, who was a priest from the lineage of Seth. And the mission of Seth’s lineage was to serve as God’s priests to the whole earth, although God granted the world only one of these priests per generation. It was only after the world became more populated that God created His priestly nation of Israel, through one generation’s priest descended from lineage of Seth, through the priest called Abraham. So the mission of Israel’s nation-priesthood was to serve as God’s priests to the whole world, to teach God’s words to all who were willing to hear, and to plead for all kinds of people in the family of humankind, before the face of God. Israel was to be a counseling body of God’s servants, nullifying the works of Satan, so they could build up God just, equitable, loving kingdom on earth, where all the elect on earth could serve one another in God’s name, through love. For Yahweh had declared: “Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him” (Gen. 18:18, WEB).

Now, at this time, while His church of Israel was growing into its international ministry, God sent this Angel, His Messenger, who was obviously Jesus, then caused this prophet to see four horsemen. These four horsemen were not the same ones John saw when he wrote the Revelation, because the mission of these four was very different. These four must have also been angels of God too, since they were sent to “patrol the earth,” to observe and assess the lives of all the people of the earth. Of course, this assessment was not to inform God about them, since God already knew the hearts of all human beings. Rather, they made this assessment for the sake of Zechariah and Israel’s priesthood of believers, including us. These four riders were witnessing to us, testifying about the state of the world back in those days, before Satan’s four kingdoms corrupted it, how it all “remains at rest.”

That is, after Babylon and in the early years of Persia, before the third and fourth Satanic kingdoms arose and spread their religion of humanism into all the earth, the earth’s population did not have many major wars, only sporadic wars that its people could flee, where people could find “rest” for their souls. Notice also how two of the angels rode on red horses, one on a sorrel horse (a light reddish yellow) and one on a white horse. And the two red horses were likely two different shades of brownish red, one a darker brownish red and the other a lighter brownish red (because horses are never a primary red). The colors of these horses are significant in context, just as the colors of the four horses were symbolic in the Revelation. In the Scriptures, God frequently divided the world into four quarters. So did these four horses represent the skin colors of the nations inhabiting the earth?

Yet these four horsemen were sent to the four quarters of the earth’s population to search out and testify about the general status of human spirits, not to report on the political and economic states within the four physical quarters of the planet. And the colors of the horses also suggest the spiritual attributes of the four quarters. If the colors of the four horses are interpreted in the traditional Jewish way, red would represent violence, unjust wars and murder, the shedding of blood and sin. The sorrel horse would be off-yellow tinted with red, and would represent lies, delusions and a corruption of truth, since only pure yellow, like sunlight, represents pure truth. Thus, the light reddish yellow may represent lies or false teachings leading to sinful bloodshed and death. The color white usually represented purity, righteousness done through a pure, just, God-like love, those who respect their

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siblings in the family of humankind and equitably serve them, who seek and do the will of God. So this is more likely what the four riders were reporting, though they said the earth “remains at rest.”

The colors of the four horses suggested that two of the four quarters of the earth, or about half of its population, lived in ways characterized by the unjust shedding of blood. Then about one quarter lived according to harmful lies, delusions and false teachings. Only about one quarter of the world pursued God-like love, true justice, equity and purity. And this last quarter would have lived among all the other three quarters of violent and deluded people. Thus, the kind of “rest” found on the earth was not a Sabbath rest, not godly peace of the heart through the spirit’s deep trust in God. Rather, it would be merely the blind acceptance of status quo by the elect who sought the just loving ways of the real God, though most did not know His name. It was a settled belief of their spirits that the ways of the world order, with all its injustice and crimes, was the norm and could not be changed. These truth and love seekers accepted the evil in the world, although some could flee from some of the devil’s lands into places where they could find some “rest” from the non-elect exploiters and thugs.

God was allowing this rather sad state of the world to exist for an appointed time. And, as Paul said in Acts 17:30, God often overlooked the sins of the Gentile nations back then, in the times before Christ’s first advent, unless the spirits of the sinners deliberately opposed Yahweh God Himself, or sought to interfere with His works for His true priestly nation of Israel. In the millenniums after the world-wide deluge of Noah’s day, God primarily focused on teaching the spirits of individual elect Gentiles around the world, and training them to love in a just and pure way, while He was also teaching, training and building up His priestly nation of Israel, so they could minister to the world.

So God disciplined His nation priesthood of Israel far more often and more severely than He ever disciplined the Gentile nations. God struck Israel very hard whenever they ignored His teachings, rebukes and His corrections of their lies or sins. God seldom punished the Gentiles as badly as Israel, even when the Gentiles committed the same kinds of sins or believed the same kinds of lies as Israel. For His church was created to serve Him as His corporate assistant teacher and as an example of His just, loving ways. And God judges teachers far more strictly than their disciples. For the teachers should know how much harm they cause to their people when they stray. But the Gentiles did not possess God’s Word, nor did they have anyone to rightly teach its true meanings, like Israel did. God called, taught, trained and sent many prophets and teachers to Israel, before and after they sinned. But God did not do this for most Gentiles. Thus, the elect among the Gentiles had far less of an opportunity to learn as much about how to love rightly and justly, although God taught the elect in every land throughout all time about the basic principles regarding His just, equitable kind of love.

Our just God recognized that elect Gentiles were not as culpable for their sins, yet also saw how Israel could not stop lying and sinning, despite all the revelations and discipline He gave them. So He decided it was time to fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant with Israel, by bringing Israel into His predestined New Covenant, along with all the Gentile elect He would gather into Israel. It was time for God to take up the full responsibility of teaching and training all Jewish and Gentile elect. The spirits of the elect would no longer need to rely on human priesthoods or human teachers, although He would send them these as well. Rather, God Himself would cleanse His elect from sin, so His Holy Spirit could then enter their washed lives and become the principal Teacher and Lord of each individual elect soul. God would come to all the elect in a body of a man, as Jesus the Messiah, to make a final sacrifice which provided forgiveness for their repented sins, and for all unintentional sins. Then their relationship with Him would be restored, so His Spirit could enter their hearts. Thus, each elect spirit could then be personally counseled, taught, rebuked and trained by His Holy Spirit.

 

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After Jesus came, His New Covenant Gospel was preached to all the world, drawing Gentiles into His church of Israel. But Satan’s fourth kingdom of Rome also spread out into all the world, to steal truth and love from every place on earth, through its demonic religion of humanism. So now there is no more “rest” for people anywhere, except for those who have repented to the real Jesus, our God. Through Jesus, all the spirits of Jews and Gentiles can enter His eternal Sabbath rest, trusting in His love, power and wisdom, and all the elect will do so soon; the earthly deceased will rest in Jesus at the gates of heaven and those living on earth will do so in the end times. By the time Jesus returns, the Gospel of Yahweh Jesus will be experienced by all the elect in the world, and so will the deadly corruption of Roman humanism. Thus, the elect and non-elect will soon be divided everywhere on earth. Then our Jesus will return to remove literally all non-elect from earth, along with terrorism, financial oppression, class systems, human worship and all the other evils from Roman humanism.

God will not only console His elect children through His teaching and training, but also comfort His elect through His acts of love on earth too, even by miracles of healing and personal prophecies. And God will reveal His truths and His will to His elect whenever they want or need want to know it, if it does not interfere with His purposes. For God keeps some things secret, until His children and even the angels are ready and able to understand. Nevertheless, our heavenly Father grants His children a far greater access to Himself and His knowledge than the angels, since the spirits of His children are created with an innate ability to comprehend His will, because their spirits are created in His image.

In our eldest Brother Jesus, God walks among us. And this Angel speaking to Zechariah was Jesus. So God the Father’s words to Him were especially “gracious and comforting,” when Jesus asked the Father why there was no mercy for Israel after being angry with them for almost 70 years, after the last of the sinning generation died in captivity after losing their temple, leaving no place for the next generation to worship in His presence. For the same Holy Spirit who dwells in our hearts, the Spirit of our Father and Jesus who stands beside our spirits, then declared: “I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster” (Zech. 1:14b-15, ESV). Yes, there were elect all over the world, whose spirits were truly learning about just, equitable, God-like kind of love directly from the Holy Spirit of Jesus. But the non-elect Gentiles of the world were also corrupting those elect, even tainting the elect in Israel, who actually received the written words of God to keep them pure, as God’s priesthood. The Babylonians and Persians were negatively influencing the beliefs and practices of elect Jews. Then the other two kingdoms that would further develop Satan’s inwardly deadening religion of humanism, that is, Greece and Rome, would soon make the church of Israel even worse, full of dehumanizing class systems, worshiped human gods and other ruinous evils.

So God would begin to eliminate the corruptions of Satan’s children, and purify His elect, especially His priesthood of Israel. But God is not rash and impulsive, nor so ignorant that He would simply destroy without a solid and effective plan to save His elect from all their previous corruptions. Thus, our heavenly Father would both scatter the corrupted Israel, and build up the elect in Israel at the same time. For a half of a millennium, God would divide His priesthood of Israel into many bitter factions, then use their beloved demonic humanists of Rome to disperse them throughout the entire world, just after He sent them the salvation of His New Covenant through His body of flesh, in the Messiah Jesus. Next, over the next two millennia, God would reveal the evils of humanism to all His elect, while allowing the non-elect to fall deeper into Roman humanism, until they almost destroyed themselves, along with the earth beneath their feet. During this time, very many Gentiles would be joined to the Jews in His priesthood of Israel. And, once He finally separated His loving elect from

 

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the non-elect, our God would destroy Roman humanism through many world-wide plagues and by His wrath, ending it forever on the day He returned to rule His elect in His holy earthly kingdom.

As our loving Father, God will always grant all His Jewish and Gentile elect access to His throne, so we may speak to Him personally, so we all might become one people in His true church of Israel. Jesus, our Father and His Holy Spirit are one and the same Spirit, one Being who relating to us with one indivisible love, purpose, authority, power and thought. And His one Spirit desires to personally hear us, without placing any time limit on when or how long He shall speak with our spirits, willing to discuss anything and everything we could ever want to talk about. He loves us, so He serves His children by giving us counsel of every kind, by comforting, teaching, guiding, rebuking, correcting, entreating, encouraging and reasoning with us. But, for a time, He must limit what He says to most of his infantile elect, and grant each child only what each can bear, based on each individual spirit’s capacity. God also does this for His servants, for the elect angels and all the other heavenly spirits who are not as able to comprehend all that He knows. Yet, make no mistake, elect human spirits are made in God’s image, and can mature into spirits able to know far more than the angels or the other living creatures in heaven, eventually able to discern between good and evil in a far greater capacity than the rest, able to lovingly serve other life together with our Father and Brother, just as He does.

God was a little angry against the Gentile nations, but restrained His wrath against their ruthless injustice and corrupting lies, since He knew they were acting in ignorance, because they possessed only a very limited knowledge of their Creator and His teachings, only what their infantile spirits could see by studying His physical and spiritual creations. Yet we must realize that, throughout history, God’s Holy Spirit did indeed teach some of His truths to all the elect hearts among the Gentiles, even as He wrote His most effective and beneficial spiritual and physical ways in His creations. In His spiritual and physical creations, God wrote whole diatribes against their delusions and lies, with very many illustrations revealing the consequences of sin. Therefore, none of the Gentile nations were entirely innocent. This knowledge of both good and evil, although limited, made them guilty whenever they blatantly ignored or rebelled against those clear and obvious truths, whenever they sinned. So all who hated God’s light of that lesser knowledge, certainly did earn the condemnation they will receive when they wake from their earthly perceptions and stand before the Judge, before Jesus at the gates of heaven on the last day. But those who reject to the truths of God revealed through the awakened, revived elect in the end times, will multiply their condemnation on that last day at heaven’s gates. Their delusions and lies will be darker and deeper inside them, far more tormenting to them, as they fall through the endless, empty, lightless pit of frustrating despair.

Whenever the non-elect or deceived elect harmed or killed the just and loving elect, or sinned in other obvious ways against God’s creations, they offended the Creator. But they earned hell even more when they mocked God’s Word and His priesthood of Israel, since all that was written in God’s creation confirmed that God’s Word was true, and that God Himself created the priesthood of Israel. When they did evil, God “was angry but a little,” but “they furthered the disaster” (1:15b) that was coming against them, when they fought against the truths in God’s Word then murdered God’s own priesthood, without bothering to distinguish between the faithful and corrupt. They added multiple times more afflictions owing to them. God was angry “with the nations that are at ease,” with the nations that were arrogant and content to live in lies and sins, feeling secure in the unjust systems they established for themselves, to gratify their own lusts. But, even so, the Gentile elect sinners whom they corrupted were mere products of those twisted societies, who became what they were because God had handed their nations over delusions. And all those elect would be cleansed and purified on the judgment day. But, when the nations actively opposed God and His Word brought by

 

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His elect in His true priesthood, when they even killed those who confirmed all that God wrote in His creations, then God’s wrath would destroy their earthly lives as well as their eternal existences.

Of course, God has never left His elect without a priesthood, since the days of Adam, Abel and Seth. Then the love of His eternal Spirit made an eternal covenant with Abraham’s elect descendants who came only through Isaac and Jacob, before any were born, that all these elect would always serve Him and His creations as His nation of priests. And God did this with the full knowledge that they would sin, although He also predestined all those elect priests to be washed clean of that sin by the Messiah’s sacrifice, then have their spirits purified by His teaching and training. Those elect did not choose who would or who would not become God’s priests, any more than any of their spirits had decided to be created in God’s image as His elect children. For God Himself always created His own elect spirits as His children, then chose them all to become His own priests, whether or not those priests willed or did not will to become His priests. Spontaneously they will all become His eternal family of His priesthood, because God alone is the only High Priest, King and Judge, not any man. And God alone judges the guilty or determines whom He will forgive through His own sacrifice, not man. God alone decides whom He will personally teach and train for their salvation, and those who receive this gift cannot stop Him from granting it to them, nor erase this truth from their own spirits.

Since God cannot oppose Himself, cannot work against Himself or make mistakes, it is impossible for Him to break the eternal covenant He made with Abraham and His descendants. For breaking His promises would require Him to break His very self, and all that exists through Him, which He simply cannot do. Yet God allowed His temple, where His presence was to be represented among His people, to be destroyed by Babylon, then once again by Babylon’s fourth kingdom of Rome. In fact, God will eventually wipe away the entire earth and material universe. And when God took away His temple, He was telling His priesthood of Israel that: (1) their earthly lives are temporary, so they are not to live for things of this earthly existence; and (2) He would not allow them to abuse His name, that He would not permit Israel to possess a sign of His presence while they ignored and opposed Him and His counsel, while they committed adultery by worshiping other gods and taught the lies of demons and human gods. Rather, God would destroy their earthly lives through the very nations who taught them to worship those false gods. For, if God allowed His temple to remain among them while they esteemed and served human and demonic gods, the world would see it as God’s endorsement of lies and sins. And God could never allow such a slanderous thing to occur.

Thus, God caused Babylon, the people who evangelized the very same false gods adopted by Israel, to destroy their temple and to take His people captive. Then, when Israel also worshiped the human gods in the way Rome taught them to esteem and serve them, God did the same again. Yet God did not allow His priesthood of Israel to be assimilated into Babylon or Rome. The true Israel, none of the loving and awakened Jewish or Gentile elect brought into it, have never actually vanished into the darkness of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. Always, God’s Holy Spirit has called some of His elect to refute the lies of Satan’s four kingdoms, although fake churches and synagogues have been very busy adopting that devil’s religion, working very hard to violently disseminate those demonic lies throughout the world. For God could never let His people be entirely swallowed by humanism. Throughout history, God has called His elect to oppose its precepts, and has been eroding the worship of unjust human gods in hierarchical class systems. Yes, those elect servants of God have been very imperfect, not adequately taught and trained by God. But they are getting better as the centuries pass, and will be quite good by the end times, needing to mature at a more rapid pace.

Eventually, almost all the non-elect will gravitate towards unjust Roman fascism, choosing “strong,” dishonest, self-serving, psychopathic leaders to rule over them in steep hierarchies. But the elect will

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move towards building biblical democracies and choose the just, equitable, honest, humble, loving administrators that God chose to serve them as their equal siblings. In the end, Yahweh will rescue His church of Israel. He will also restore Jerusalem as a great “city without walls,” living in peace until the earth’s end, and make it large enough to accommodate all His people (Zech. 2:4). Yahweh told us, “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy; My house shall be built in it, declares Yahweh of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem…. My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and Yahweh will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem” (1:16-17, ESV).

According to Zechariah and the other prophets of God, all the cities in Israel will “overflow” as beautiful, prosperous unwalled places of peace. But this did not truly occur in Zechariah’s day, and generations of war came after that. The deaths and scattering of a humanistic, apostate Israel resulted during the following centuries. Then these prophecies about peace for Israel and Jerusalem never were fulfilled since, not even after God recently restored Israel as a nation, just before the end times will begin. For these were end-time prophecies about Yahweh God returning to Israel and Jerusalem, in Jesus’ body, after His elect will finally reject the lies of humanism and learn that He alone is God.

Most Jews have remained tainted by the Babylonian, Persian and Greco-Roman forms of humanism since the days of Zechariah. As we read this prophecy in the context of all the other prophecies about the end times, we can see that Zechariah is describing Messianic times. And all these good things that God was going to grant Israel would be given when the Messiah Jesus, who is Yahweh God, will return in glory, to rule the world from Jerusalem. Then Israel will be comforted and live in peace, free from conflicts and wars. And those end times, which clearly have not yet begun, will require many years of preparing God’s elect and His true church before they could even start to unfold. For Zechariah saw visions about the four kingdoms of Satan, the same four which the prophet Daniel saw in the generation before him. After the visions of the four horsemen, Zechariah saw four horns, and the Angel told him, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem” (1:19, ESV). Then he saw four craftsmen, and was told, “And these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter it” (1:21, ESV). So the “horns” are the powers of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome that would scatter God’s elect of His true church of Israel. But God would also send “craftsmen” to build up His true church during all those times of Satan’s four kingdoms, who would be teachers of God’s truth sent during each of the times of the four Satanic kingdoms, who would terrify the horns with their solid truths.

After seeing the horns and craftsmen, Zechariah saw “a man with a measuring line in his hand” going “to measure Jerusalem” (2:1-2), to build up Jerusalem in the end times, after the days of the four kingdoms of horns and the groups of craftsmen sent out by God during the times of those four kingdoms. Then another angel or messenger of God told Zechariah: “Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares Yahweh, and I will be the glory in her midst” (2:4-5, ESV). The Spirit of Yahweh in Jesus will the “wall” protecting Jerusalem in the end times, and her “glory.” And this was about the end times, not during the time of Zechariah, because he lived during the times of the Persian Empire, which was only the second of the four kingdoms or horns. Thus, there were still two scattering and destroying horns that had not yet risen. Greece and a Greek colony called Rome had to conquer the entire world before Yahweh Jesus was to come as the “wall” of Jerusalem and its glory. Then there were also many “craftsmen” whom God had to send into the world, while as those four demonic kingdoms spread out their psychopathic religion of humanism into it. First all of God’s elect had to learn much about God and His ways of just love before Yahweh would come to dwell in Jerusalem forever, as their infallible Protector and King, as the glorious Teacher of all of the people.

 

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Zechariah was prophesying about the second advent of our Messiah and God in the end times when he wrote: “Up! Up! Flee from the land of the north, declares Yahweh. For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, declares Yahweh” (2:6, ESV). Clearly, this is about the Diaspora of the Jews in the end times, since the Jews had not yet been scattered throughout the earth “as the four winds of the sky” in the days of Zechariah. But, like the other prophecies say, after that happens, God will begin to bring Jews back to their land just before the end times begin, then return all the rest of the Jews after Yahweh, in the human body of the Messiah, returns to “sit” within Jerusalem.

This prophecy was commanding the future world-wide Diaspora in the end times, as the four horns attack Israel through the Roman beast’s international armies in the days before Jesus returns: “Up! Escape to Zion, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. For thus said Yahweh of hosts, after His glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye: ‘Behold, I will shake My hand over them, and they shall become plunder for those who served them. Then you will know that Yahweh of hosts has sent me. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst,’ declares Yahweh” (Zech. 2:7-10, based on ESV).

Those who “dwell in the daughter of Babylon” are the true elect Jews who live in the nations of the world conquered by the humanistic traditions and religion of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. These were the four horns who “plundered” God’s nation priesthood of Israel, who is “the apple of His eye.” And it is in the end times, during the eras of the sixth and seventh seals, the God will send many destroying plagues to “shake His hand over them,” to destroy their unjust humanist rulers and hierarchical class systems. Also, fake humanistic synagogues and churches “served” the four horns, by syncretizing the religious worship of human gods with the worship of Yahweh God, as the most evil “daughter of Babylon.” And this is why Yahweh God commanded the Diaspora, “Up! Escape to Zion, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon.” This is why, in the very end, God will also command the Gentiles and the Jews in the fake humanistic church, “Come out of her, My people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don’t receive of her plagues, for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities” (Rev. 18:4-5, WEB). For God will bring many Gentiles into His priesthood of Israel, and they will serve His creations in His name as well.

For Yahweh God also prophesied: “And many nations shall join themselves to Yahweh in that day, and shall be My people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that Yahweh of hosts has sent me to you. And Yahweh will inherit Judah as His portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem” (Zech. 2:11-12, ESV). When it says that “many nations shall join themselves to Yahweh in that day,” it is speaking about the end times, after the “sealing” of the saints or revival of God’s true, just, loving church during the era of the sixth seal. And those “nations” (Hebrew = goy, “nation, people, Gentiles”), it is referring to those not physically descended from Jacob, that is, Gentiles. Very many elect Gentiles will become God’s true priests serving His creations. But one question that bothers me is this: “Who is the antecedent of the pronoun ‘me’ in the phrase, ‘you people will know among you that Yahweh of hosts has sent me to you’ (2:11, ALT)?” Some seem to think it must refer to Zechariah, the prophet who wrote this. But this is Yahweh God speaking here, and this is indeed a Messianic prophecy about the end times. So the antecedent of “Me” is Yahweh, who sends Himself, the Creator Spirit in the human body of the Messiah, to the Jews in Jerusalem during the end times.

Now look at this clause in this translation: “And Yahweh will inherit Judah as His portion in the holy land...” Here the verb is a form of “nawkhal,” which means “to get or take as a possession.” And it cannot possibly mean “will inherit” here, since the global context of the entire Bible clearly states that God has been the only Owner of Judah and the entire universe from the beginning, and has only granted a stewardship of some of His properties to a people or individual, where all stewards are

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expected to faithfully use His property only for His own good, just, loving purposes. Then the nest phrase is based on a form of the noun “khaylek,” which means, “portion, track, territory.” Thus, it is blatantly wrong to interpret this as the ESV has done, since they obviously did not consider who was speaking and the global context of this text. Rather, it should be translated something like this: “And Yahweh will take possession of Judah as His portion in the holy land again …” That is, God’s temple and His presence resided in Jerusalem, in the southern territory of the holy land, since Solomon built it. So Judah will once again be where Yahweh resides, in Jesus, in Jerusalem and in Judah when He destroys the four horns or four kingdoms of Babylon (i.e., including Persia, Greece and Rome). God will not inherit Judah from any humans, nor from any other entity, since no entity exists which can give God land or anything else, not as an inheritance or in any other way. For the only thing that a nation or individual can do is faithfully commit to employing that property for God’s just purposes.

And, clearly, since Zechariah wrote this after Daniel’s prophecy had be circulated among the devout Jews of his time, the four horns are an obvious reference to Babylon’s four kingdoms. The first kingdom, Babylon, conquered Judah, then took the people of Judah captive into their own lands and scattered them throughout its empire. Next, Persia forced obedience and further influenced Jewish religious doctrines through acts of terrorism. Although they did allow some Jews to return to Judah, the Persians were dictators who did not allow much freedom and Judah had to blindly serve them.

The last two of those four horns rose up long after Zechariah’s death. Greeks, especially humanists in the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires, then greatly corrupted the Jewish religion. And those Greeks also tried to force all the Jews to convert to their religion of secular humanism. Lastly, the Romans further corrupted Judaism, and have been doing so to this day. Basically critical part of Judaism is based on Greek and Roman humanism, including all their anthropological doctrines, hierarchical structures, forms of leadership, traditions and so on. Then it was this Roman influence, perpetrated by the proud Greco-Roman precepts of status and the worship of the demon Mammon, which convinced some Jews to murder their Messiah Jesus, by handing Jesus over to those Romans. Those non-elect Jews helped the fourth kingdom of Satan nail the body of their Messiah, with God’s Spirit in Him, to the cross. Then, for all these efforts, Rome later destroyed Jerusalem and Judah, exiled or enslaved most of the Jewish survivors in Judah, transformed Jerusalem into a pagan city, and then prevented Jews from visiting Jerusalem, through Rome’s prophesied wars against God. So let the elect realize that nothing good comes from heeding the precepts of humanism from the four horns.

This prophecy of the four horns cannot refer to anything else but the four humanistic kingdoms that Daniel prophesied about only a few decades before Zechariah’s prophecy. It cannot refer to Assyria, although she too attacked Judah. For Assyria only conquered and scattered some of the northern tribes of Israel, and most of the devout from those had previously fled to Judah. But Zechariah’s four horns scattered Judah. And it cannot refer to Egypt as one of the four horns, since Egypt did not scatter Judah either. It can only refer to Babylon and the three other kingdoms Daniel prophesied about. Also remember, that Zechariah wrote his prophecy during the days of the Persian Empire. So he knew that the first of Daniel’s four kingdoms, Babylon, already ceased to be a physical kingdom by that time. Yet Zechariah frequently spoke about Babylon as though it still existed, and would continue to exist during the times of all four horns or powerful kingdoms. For he saw Babylon’s influence everywhere in Persia, even in Greece and throughout the known world. So we must interpret his prophecy according to the way he interpreted it in those days, back in about 519 BC.

Zechariah, as an priestly scholar of the Bible, certainly read Daniel’s prophecy. Also, Zechariah, together with many other priests and religious teachers, certainly would have preached Daniel’s prophecies to the Jewish people long before he gave his own prophecy. So, when this prophecy

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referred to four horns, we can assume that most devout and knowledgeable Jews of that day would instantly recognized them as Daniel’s four kingdoms, as Babylon, Persia, Greece and the kingdom that would come after the Greek Empire, which was the Roman Empire. God provided His people with the means to identify four horns in Zechariah’s prophecy, since God never made the words of His prophecies too ambiguous for His earnest and informed elect to comprehend them. God never gave a prophecy that could not be readily interpreted by the elect who truly knew His Word. And, since God did not bother to identify these four horns, we can assume it was because He had already identified them, as the four kingdoms of Daniel’s prophecies just a few decades ago. God knew His people would immediately realize that these four horns were the four kingdoms in Daniel’s works.

Then consider how Daniel also prophesied that all four kingdoms would continue to exist until the Messiah came to rule the earth and destroy all four. So here we see that Zechariah was prophesying about two existing kingdoms (Babylon and Persia) and two future kingdoms (Greece and Rome), as the four horns. So this leads us to believe that Zechariah was also prophesying about these four horns, and their demise, in the end times. In short, the one and only logical interpretation of the four horns in Zechariah’s prophecy are the four kingdoms of the beast prophesied in Jesus’ Revelation to John the apostle, who will exist until the Messiah comes to destroy him, so Jesus can rule the earth.

Remember that God also showed Zechariah “four craftsmen (Hebrew = khawrawsh, referring to any kind of a skilled worker, such as a carpenter, stonemason, brick layer, engraver, blacksmith, etc.). Yet these “four craftsmen” do not seem to be mentioned anywhere in the other end-time prophecies. So who are they? To determine who they are, we must examine the local and global context. First, the role of these four craftsmen was to “terrify” and “cast down the horns of the nations,” or to throw down the powers of the four Gentile kingdoms where were God’s enemies. So these four craftsmen were obviously on God’s side, sent by God to war against the four Satanic kingdoms of the beast.

But no one uses the skills of craftsmen in woodworking or masonry to war against powerful evil kingdoms. Craftsmen may assist armies, but only the soldiers do the actual warring. Since these “four horns” all thoroughly trained and armed their soldiers, craftsmen would not “terrify” them. So how could these craftsmen, fighting on God’s side, put up any kind of effective resistance against ruthless and highly trained armies? Well, perhaps these were not craftsmen of physical products, but of spiritual products which would “terrify” God’s enemies. Godly craftsmen primarily build things for domestic purposes, and it is also interesting that Jewish scholars often trained to be physical craftsmen of some kind too. So these experts in teaching God’s Word to the general population then considered themselves to be craftsmen producing solid and durable teaching from the resources in God’s Word. And most of the elect whom God has raised up to speak His truths against Satan’s four kingdoms, both during the Old and New Covenant times, were also working men, craftsmen. They generally were not warriors, and certainly were not physically feared by the armies of Satan’s four kingdoms. So, since this prophecy says these lowly craftsmen will “terrify” and “cast down” those in the four powerful kingdoms warring against God, it must be referring to these spiritual craftsmen.

And it must be talking about a spiritual battle, a religious and moral warfare. The four craftsmen from God’s just and loving spiritual kingdom “terrify” the four unjust and psychopathic evil spiritual kingdoms of Satan. The skilled teachers of God’s truths “cast down” the spiritual powers of the four horns, making the four horns unable to take captive the minds of the spirits of God’s people. God’s skilled craftsman nullify the lies and undo the works of oppressive human gods and their hierarchical class systems, bring freedom from ignorance, fear, slavery and exploitation to the people. And, just as the four horns were four empires with with many rulers from each, the four craftsmen were groups of God’s teachers sent to war against each of the four horns: one group sent to spiritually war

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against Babylon, one to fight Persia, one to attack Greece and one to overcome Rome a little at a time over a long period of history, until they finally achieved the victory of God’s truth through the second advent of their Messiah and God Jesus, so all the earth could live just, loving lives in peace.

We have seen these craftsmen come throughout the history of the “four horns,” starting with the prophets, priests and teachers of God’s Word in the Old Covenant times, such as Daniel, Zechariah, Ezra, Nehemiah and others. Then God sent craftsmen to Israel and to the whole world throughout these New Covenant times, beginning with the disciples and apostles of Jesus, but also including very many elect souls who taught the biblical precepts of justice, equity, democracies led by servants of the people, and many other loving ways of God. In the days of each kingdom of the beast, true elect did rise up to rightly handle the Word of God in a way that did “terrify” and “cast down” the spiritual power of each of the four horns. Physical warfare failed to protect God’s true Israel from the spiritual attacks of the cunning humanistic four kingdoms. But the lowly, common, loving souls among God’s people successfully defended God’s kingdom and preserved the truths God revealed to them, keeping their hearts free from the enslaving humanistic corruptions of the four demonic horns.

Our God, the Messiah Jesus, has always kept on teaching His truths of His Word to elect spirits, confounding Roman humanists for two thousand years, forcing them to fearfully submit to God’s Word many times, although mostly sent common people to fight against those proud, esteemed, powerful human gods ruling over vast militaristic empires. There were even times when humanistic dictatorships fell due to God’s works through His common elect. His skilled “craftsmen” fought with “divine power to destroy [spiritual] strongholds,” to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey” God (II Cor. 10:4-5, ESV). Truly. His craftsmen have terrified and cast down the “four horns” from the very beginning.

During the era of the sixth seal, God’s craftsmen will indeed become very skilled in nullifying Satan’s work and in building up His just, loving kingdom. But the elect need to prepare for that time now, by letting Jesus’ Holy Spirit teach and train their spirits to be just and loving, since the end times are coming soon, and the elect will need to be wise, very skilled craftsmen and craftswomen in the works of God. This is our salvation, our preparation and calling, where every day on earth will teach and train our spirits more than a thousand years in heaven. Our primary work as a people or as a church is to learn to do and to do the loving righteousness of God. It is not evangelism, especially not the fake kind of evangelism taught by humanistic churches who despise the real Gospel and seek only tithing members. A true biblical kind of evangelism is done by elders who are thoroughly taught God’s Word, who rightly teach those truths to others. But all members of the body of Jesus on earth are not teaching and judging elders. Most organs keep the body alive, and some carry the body to others, so our hands may do the works of God for those others, even for all God’s creations of life.

Let God’s people flee from every “daughter of Babylon,” which includes every nation, group and individual that has adopted Persian, Greek and Roman forms of humanism. This exodus out of humanism into the Messiah will take place just before Yahweh, in the Messiah Jesus, becomes Jerusalem’s protecting “wall” and the “glory in her midst,” returning to justly rule the earth for more than a millennium. Just as the enslaved Jews of Egypt, along with many Canaanite and African slaves who joined them, were set free in the days of Moses, and plundered their former owners and taskmasters as they escaped, so too will the elect will plunder the beast’s lands after Jesus returns. Throughout history, whenever any a people or an individual touched the apple of God’s eye, even if that persecutor of God’s just elect was a false church who did so falsely in Jesus’ name, God has handed that offender over to Satan’s delusions for the destruction of the flesh, and that sinner may be

 

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cast into the second death of hell as well. But the elect have a better hope of deliverance from all lies and delusions which enslave their spirits and flesh, into an abundant life of loving and being loved.

Whenever a nation has come against Israel or any of God’s true elect, even against the elect who do not yet consciously know the name of Jesus, God has crushed those unjust and arrogant souls, first by casting them into darker and deeper delusions, then by handing them over to be slaughtered and plundered. God has mercy for the merciful and just, who forgive the truly repentant. But God cannot have mercy on the falsely repentant, who only beg for their own welfare without love or concern for their victims, who have acted without mercy against innocent souls. And neither can His wise elect.

This prophecy is about a time of prosperity, with much livestock and food. More than this, they will live in peace with Yahweh as their protecting “wall” and as their “glory” in the midst of them. So this must be speaking about the millennium of the end times, after Jesus returns. This is saying that Jesus will return after the faithful Jews have fled from the “daughter of Babylon,” and from Roman humanism in particular. For Jesus will destroy the beast’s northern kingdom, since it dared to plunder elect Jews and Gentiles throughout history, and touched the apple of God’s eye to harm it, and fought against God Himself. And, since Roman humanism, especially the beast’s sect of Roman fascism involving the worship of chief human psychopath, has spread throughout the world, let the world hear this prophecy: “Be silent, all flesh, before Yahweh, for He has roused Himself from His holy dwelling” (2:13, ESV). Already the signs of the end times, the worldwide earthquakes with meteors striking the earth like bombs, is just around the corner. Jesus is rising up to cast tribulations upon the earth, and especially upon the loveless non-elect. He will destroy them all, but none of the elect spirits can die, only their flesh can perish, and that flesh is merely a perception of their spirits caused by God. So let elect spirits rouse their courage and use each day to learn the ways of Jesus.

Shortly after God “has roused Himself from His holy dwelling,” the beast and his worshipers will be utterly destroyed. Then, once the beast is removed, and his kingdom is slaughtered and plundered, the “many nations” who joined “themselves to Yahweh” and became His people will live in peace and loving joy. They will no longer beg God for justice, equity and a chance to live in peace, since they will already have all that. So, in a way, that will be a day when “all flesh” will be silent before Yahweh, our God, though He will not be silent with His teachings, guidance, counseling, comfort and wisdom. And all will submit to His truth and wisdom. When Yahweh, the Messiah, comes to Jerusalem and dwells in the midst of His people, both the elect Jews and elect Gentiles shall fully know their God whom all the prophets wrote about. And know Him, they shall know themselves from the inside out, since all the elect have spirits that were created in His loving, serving image.

Remember how John said the beast will come during the time of the seventh trumpet. The seventh trumpet will sound immediately before the beast rises to power and, of course, after the days of the sixth trumpet, after a world war involving an army of two hundred million “horsemen.” For that great war must first weaken all the other world powers to provide the opportunity for the beast's kingdom to become the dominant world power. Furthermore, the beast will come years after Islam falls. For the Islamic religion must die out, and many Islamic nations must become Christian lands, before Israel can possess the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and rebuild the third temple. We know Islam will fall since the only location in which God's law allows His temple to be built is on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which Muslims now possess and will not relinquish until their religion has fallen. Thus, Islam will collapse, and all elect Muslims will then place their faith in Christ, sometime before the beast rises to power. Also, that third temple must be completed and making sacrifices to God before the beast will conquer Jerusalem for three and a half years, then defile that

 

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temple and stop its sacrifices. Then he will withdraw his troops from the Middle East, only to return to crush the Jewish rebels near the end of his seven-year reign, but will be crushed himself by Jesus.

In the prophecies of Daniel, it says that, when the “beast” rises to power, he will attack the “south,” against forces which are prophesied to include Israel’s army, together with Egypt, Iraq, Syria and the other nations Daniel mentions. Therefore, in the eyes of Israel, the beast’s armies come from a nation located generally north of them. This attack must occur almost as soon as the beast rises to power, since the beast overcomes and occupies Israel and those other nations in the Middle East and Africa during the first 42 months (three and a half years) of his seven-year reign. But the nations that the beast will attack are currently Muslim nations, all except Israel and Ethiopia. Consequently, since these nations will be the beast's enemies from the moment he rises to power, and they all seem to be siding with Israel, the main target of the beast, we can assume that those Muslim nations will have begun to serve Jesus years before the beast rises to power. We can logically conclude the conversion and revival of those Muslim nations, prophesied by Isaiah and others, will take some time and must occur several decades before the seventh trumpet sounds. Muslims must convert to Christianity during and after the era of the sixth seal, with the prophesied revival of the true church. And some conversions may occur as late as the time of the sixth trumpet, although most will likely occur much sooner. But only Muslims becoming Christians would explain why they allow the third temple to be built and why they side with Israel from the very beginning of the beast’s seven-year reign, to fight the beast as allies of Israel. And, since the process of building the temple will take at least a decade, but could only begin after Islam falls, Islam will likely fall, and most devout Muslims probably will convert to Christianity, more than a decade, possibly more than two decades, before the beast comes.

Two Prophets and Great Tribulation

During the first three and a half years of the beast's rule, God will send two prophets to proclaim His words to all the world, just after the beast invades Israel, the Middle East and other lands. These two prophets seem to preach on or near the temple grounds, which also indicates that a third temple will be built in Jerusalem before the two prophets come, and before the beast comes. While the two are prophesying, the beast’s armies will be trampling Jerusalem and all Israel. So there will not be any real freedom of religion, but some tolerance of it, until the beast leaves and murders the two. These two prophets shall proclaim the words that God commands them to utter for the sake of God's elect and against God's enemies, especially against the beast. So, while the beast tramples Jerusalem, God's words shall still be proclaimed by these two, and by other true Christians, to the whole world.

After 1,260 days (about half of the beast's seven-year rule), God will let the beast assassinate the two prophets. Yet, three and a half days after the two prophets die, God will raise their bodies from the dead and take them up to heaven. When they rise, an earthquake shall rock Jerusalem and 7,000 souls will be killed there. About this time, “news from the east and the north shall alarm [the beast], and he shall go out” (Dan. 11:44), so the beast will leave only a small remnant of his troops behind, to guard his conquests until he returns. For he will need most of his troops to defend his homeland from the armies of the east (China?) and the north (Russia?) at that time. Also, before the beast will leave, possibly during the three days that the two prophets remain dead in the temple area, the beast will desecrate the Jerusalem temple and stop the sacrifices being made there. After doing this, he will temporarily withdraw from Israel to defend his homeland from invading armies, just as Daniel said. Yet, from that day on, the beast begins to behead Christians and Jews in his own European kingdom.

So we must now ask why the beast will suddenly decide to persecute the elect, since he never did so before this time. He allowed the two elect prophets to preach for three and a half years and did not

 

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persecute either Jews or Christians in his homelands during those first three and half years. Only after he leaves Israel and the Middle East will the beast kill members of God’s true church (both elect Jews and Christians). And, while the beast kills the true elect, he does not kill members of the false church, the Great Prostitute. He does not destroy the false church until the end of his reign.

Why? The Scriptures does not directly give the answer. But we can speculate that it will be because, as soon as the bulk of the beast's armies leave Israel and the Middle East, the beast’s remnant of occupying forces will be overthrown by Jews and Christians. For Daniel said that Israel’s allies will be Christians from Egypt, Iraq, Syria and the other formerly Muslim nations (i.e., Daniel's reference to the “south” seems to indicate that all these nations oppose the beast from the very beginning of his reign). Therefore, if Jews and Christians rise up in rebellion, almost as soon as the main body of the beast's army leave the region, it will infuriate the beast, causing him to retaliate against all Jews and Christians in his homeland. He probably starts beheading all the true Christians because they will sympathize and support the Middle Eastern Christians and Jews who are opposing him. But he will not harm the members of the Great Prostitute and her daughter churches at that time because they most likely will condemn the true believers in God’s prophecies, and side with the beast at that time. For why would the Great Prostitute’s theistic humanists join a rebellion against the humanistic beast while they are sitting on the back of the beast, enjoying his favors and sharing in his unjust beliefs?

Hence, as previously mentioned, Scriptures tell us how Satan, in the end times, will become enraged against Israel and “make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 12:17, ESV). In other words, he will attack Gentile Christians when he can no longer attack Israel. Then Scriptures also indicate that Satan’s war against Israel and her offspring will result in a severe persecution, where many souls will be “beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God,” even all the elect “who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands” (Rev. 20:4, ESV). And the beginning of this persecution seems to occur very soon after the beast murders the two prophets.

Let me repeat, the physical temple in Jerusalem must exist during the entire seven-year rule of the beast because Scriptures say: (1) the beast will stop temple sacrifices in the midst of his reign, and (2) John measured the temple before the two prophets began their ministry at the very beginning of the beast's reign. Here John was obviously referring to a physical temple. For, since he said it would be trampled by Gentiles while the two prophets prophesied, he could not be speaking figuratively about the temple in heaven (especially since the only temple of God in heaven is the body of Jesus). When John was transported into the future and measured the temple in Jerusalem just before the two prophets began to prophesy, John had to be talking about a physical temple which will exist in the city of Jerusalem. Therefore, a third temple will be built in Jerusalem before the two prophets come, before the first half of the beast's reign. And the Jews would need to start building that temple long before the beast rises to power, since it would take about a decade or longer to construct it properly.

And notice how, as John measures the temple, he does not measure “the court outside the temple,” because “it is given over to” the Gentiles. But, if only the outer court is trampled by the Gentiles, we know the abomination that causes desolation would not have occurred yet. For that abomination will occur when pagan Gentiles enter the inner courts, even the Holy of Holies. Thus, the beast’s act of causing this abomination must occur sometime after the two prophets are killed, after they minister for “forty-two months.” This also suggests that, while the beast will be occupying Israel during this time, he is not simply trying to destroy military powers and material structures. Rather, his purpose for invading Israel and the “south” must involve something more subtle. It will be the beast’s attack against the spiritual forces that threaten his power. His goal will be to destroy faith in Israel’s God.

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The beast will first attempt to destroy faith in the traditional humanistic way, by deceiving, duping and deluding the elect—by forcing propaganda down the throats of unwilling souls, while bribing and flattering all who cooperate with him. Then circumstances will interrupt his campaign to wear out the wills of the Jews and Christians in that region. For his homeland will be threatened from the north and the east, making it necessary for him to quickly remove most of his troops from the south. So, when the frustrated beast realizes that he must leave Israel, he will strike one last low blow against God, by entering the temple to commit the “abomination of desolation.” But, as soon as he returns to his European homeland, Israel and her Christian allies (Egypt, Iraq, etc.) will overcome the remnant of his troops in the Middle East. This must be when the enraged beast begins to kill all the elect in his homeland. Thus, the Christian’s “great tribulation” begins after the two prophets die.

Revelation 11:1-14 (ESV): “Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told,

'Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not

measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations [i.e.,

Gentiles], and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority

to My two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.' These are

the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if

anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone

would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky,

that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the

waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as

they desire.

“And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit

will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the

street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was

crucified. For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and

nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those

who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents,

because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.

“But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up

on their feet, an d great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from

heaven s aying to them, 'Come up here!' And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their

enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city

[i.e., a tenth of Jerusalem] fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest

were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe has passed; behold, the

third woe is soon to come.”

In their prophecies, Ezekiel (40:3) saw a man measuring the temple and Zechariah (2:1) saw a man measuring Jerusalem. These acts of measuring revealed God’s judgments. When John measured the the inner courtyard, where the Jewish people prayed, as was well as “those who worship there” and the alter, it was to reveal how many elect Jews God would sanctify and how many sacrifices of the worshipers would be made for atonement. Therefore, it revealed that God would make very many Jewish elect ready to receive a close relationship with Him. But John was specifically told, “do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.” That outer court was for the Gentile worshipers of God who had not yet fully converted to Judaism, yet still wanted to pray to Him. However, the “nations” or Gentiles who trampled that “court outside the temple” were not worshipers at all. These Gentiles

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were the beast’s secular and likely armed soldiers occupying Israel, watching for signs of rebellion by devout Jews, whom they and their worshiped beast hated. So, when John went to measure the temple, that outer courtyard would not provide any kind of approximate estimation of how many Gentile worshipers existed at that time, during the first half of the beast’s reign in the end times. For Daniel said the beast's armies will occupy Israel during the first three and a half years of his reign.

So God took John to the future temple in Jerusalem existing in the end times, at a time while armies of the beast occupied Jerusalem and Israel. Therefore, we know that a third temple will be built on the temple mount in Jerusalem before the beast acquires his reign over the new Roman Empire of seven European nations. At that time, before the last invasion of the beast at the end of his seven years, the beast will merely enter the Gentile’s outer courtyard only, while allowing the Jews to worship freely in the inner courtyard and make sacrifices at the alter. So the beast will reluctantly allow some freedom of religion, as most modern secular humanists do, even as they are attempting to corrupt or destroy all non-humanistic religions with their false-reasoning, slander and propaganda.

But Jesus also tells John that there will be a time limit on this freedom provided by the beast. The beast will not enter the Jewish court of the temple grounds only during the first three and a half years of his seven-year reign, that is, only for the first 42 months of his reign. Since the beast’s armies will not enter the inner temple grounds until three and a half years expire, it implies that the two prophets will be prophesying in that inner Jewish part of the temple grounds, since these two will prophesy in a way that kills Israel’s enemies, like the beast’s people, and the inner temple grounds will be the only safe place to preach such things within all the land of Israel. But devout Jews would make those prophecies public. In our day, this could even be done by making videos broadcast on the internet.

Then our God Jesus also told John, “I will grant authority to My two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” Note that this must be Jesus speaking since only He is God and God alone bears the ability to grant the authority to speak in His name. Now the 1,260 days are about 42 months or three and a half years. But this is far more specific number, which will enable a far more precise countdown, so the Jews will be able to calculate exactly when the beast will come to murder the prophets, then also commit the “abomination of desolation” in the Holy of Holies. After that, the beast shall withdraw most of his troops to engage in the world war started by the armies of the east. Thus, the Jews will be able to use that time to prepare for a rebellion against the few occupying forces remaining, as well as for the ceremonial cleansing of their temple after it.

The authority Jesus grants to these “two witnesses” will be great. For He declared, “These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed” (11:4-5, ESV). These two will stand in the very presence of our God Jesus, and speak only the concepts that Jesus pours into the minds of their spirits and also commands them to utter. So every word will be a word from God and they will prophesy with great power from God, with God’s authority in all the words that God commands them to utter. Their words shall even bear the power to kill those who try to silence them, any enemies of God’s people. But they will only prophecy in the third temple during the first half of the beast’s reign, that is, only for the 1,260 days.

Since the two prophets are clothed in sackcloth, they seem to be mourning or grieving, and are likely lamenting the apostasy of Israel in not yet accepting Jesus as their Messiah, although they will let the Christians from Egypt and from the lands that once formed the ancient Assyrian Empire, worship Yahweh God in their outer courtyard and even make symbolic sacrifices for them, because Jesus will fulfill all God’s just and loving Law through those believers. Furthermore, these two prophets will be

 

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mourning the current and future deaths caused by the beast in Israel and the world. So they will be calling Israel to repentance, preparing the elect Jews for it on the day Jesus will return to Jerusalem.

What John was told about these “two witnesses” refers to Zechariah’s prophecy (4:1-14). Olive trees provide a nourishing and tasty oil for the preparation of Israel’s kinds of foods, which is why some Jewish prophets valued olive trees so much. And lamps on high stands provide light for many people at once, and two lamp stands were always lit in the Holy Place, just in front of the curtained entrance to the presence of God in the inner chamber called the Holy of Holies. So this image symbolized how the two prophets will be anointing the people with the “oil” of God’s Spirit, nourishing their spirits, as they enlighten them with His teachings spoken out loud through their own human mouths.

God also works His power through these two prophets against their enemies, who are the enemies of God, in exactly the same ways that God worked plagues against the enemies of two Old Testament prophets named Elijah and Moses. For not only will fire destroy their enemies whenever they speak in Jesus’ name against them, but “they have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire” (11:6, ESV). God shut up the sky (stopped the rain and caused a severe drought) when Elijah spoke a word from Yahweh against the wicked king Ahab (I Kings 17:1). God also burned Ahaziah’s soldiers who came to arrest or kill Elijah (II Kings 1:10). Long before that, God struck Egypt with many plagues through Moses, and turned their water into blood (Ex. 7:14 to 12:32). Thus, we conclude that the bodies of these two prophets will have the life-giving spirits of Elijah and Moses in them, and that Elijah will indeed return to Israel in the end times, to prepare the hearts of Israel for the second coming of Jesus, their Messiah, just as he came to prepare them for the first advent of Jesus in the body of John the Baptist.

These prophecies and visions that our God Jesus gave to John are actually telling us that Elijah will come again before the glorious secon advent of our Messiah and God Jesus, and that Moses will come with him. So surely this means that the human spirits of Elijah and Moses will be placed in the bodies of babies who will be born on earth to live during the end times, and it is even possible that these two babies may even be living right now. Then it also indicates that, since these two prophets will do the very same kinds of works for God, and think in the very same ways regarding God’s enemies, that their minds of their spirits will remember all the times they walked in the flesh during the ancient past, will retain all their past memories of life experienced by their flesh in their past lives. For earthly past and future times exist simultaneously. The spirits in us are eternal beings that have minds with memories and wills. And, although all have been appointed to die only once and go to the judgment at the gates of heaven (Heb. 9:27), God can appoint some human beings to die in the flesh more than once, after they die and go to the gates of heaven. In fact, God carried Elijah to the gates of heaven in a chariot of fire after his first life on earth (II Kings 2:11), and Elijah died by beheading the first time during the ministry of Jesus (Mat. 11:8-15; 14:6-10; 17:10-12) although Peter, James and John saw him, together with Moses, again after his death, at the transfiguration of Jesus (Mat. 17:1-3). So Elijah and Moses are appointed to die a second time as the two prophets in Jerusalem’s temple, as part of the “abomination of desolation” which will be committed by the beast.

After “forty-two months,” the beast will kill the two prophets where they stand and in public, which suggests that he will kill them by the “sword,” that is, by weapons of war, such as guns. But God will have timed how many days they will speak and also commanded what they will prophecy, so they will have fully completed all the proclamations of all God sent them to say. It will take another three and a half years before the hearts of all the elect in Israel will repent to Jesus, but the time for words will be completed. After this, it seems that many in Israel will still take pride in their Old

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Covenant Law and traditions, in their Jewish identity and independence from what they will consider to be Gentile Christian pollutions of God’s Word. This will be partially good, since there actually are many humanistic corruptions in Christendom, which may be addressed by some conversations with orthodox Jews. And there are also numerous Jewish doctrines and traditions corrupted by humanism, so they may be helped by conversations with true Gentile Christians from the sixth seal’s revival too.

The point is that the prophecies say that a large portion of Jews in Israel and the Diaspora will not repent to their God and Messiah Jesus until He physically returns to Jerusalem, which means these Jews will think they have no need for repentance until then. Besides, their most urgent priority will be to overcome the invading beast during those times, and their rebellion against the greatly reduced occupational forces the beast will leave in Israel after he leaves to protect his homeland. But Israel’s independence from the beast will not last long, only a few years. For, during the last months of the beast’s seven-year reign, he will return to Israel in a rage, along with an even larger, international army, intending to utterly destroy Israel forever. And those vast armies will kill many and do much damage to their land, until the power of our God Jesus will destroy all of that army at Armageddon.

After the two prophets “have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city [i.e., Jerusalem] that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days come from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth” (11:7-10). So the will indeed “have finished their testimony,” and all that God wanted them to say will have been said before the beast will kill them.

Notice also a number of details here. For one thing, it identifies the beast as one “that rises from the bottomless pit,” that is, from hell, indicating the demonic nature of the beast. For Satan himself controls every thought and deed of the beast, as well as empowers the beast to perform signs and wonders. Then this prophecy says the beast “makes war” on the two prophets, and “conquers” them, suggesting a series of battles with the two prophets and their supporters, resulting casualties among both, until the beast’s soldiers can finally shoot or injure the two prophets to death. Then some translations say “their dead bodies will lie in the street,” which is likely wrong. The word “street” is a translation of the Greek noun πλατεία (a wide or open place, an open square or meeting place, or a street). In context, it would refer to the place of prayer for the Jews in the temple grounds, since that would be the only place where the two prophets could proclaim the words of God, since the Gentile place of prayer in the temple grounds, and all of Jerusalem, would remain under the control of the beast’s armies until that time. So, just before the beast withdraws to protect his Roman homeland in the middle of his seven-year reign, he will enter the Jewish place of prayer, war with and murder the two prophets, enter the temple to commit what is called the “abomination of desolation,” and leave the bodies of the two prophets lying in that place of prayer, unburied, to keep the temple grounds ceremonially defiled. And secular people from all over the world will enjoy this kind of defiling.

It also appears that many secular and religious humanistic Jews will also rejoice in the deaths of the two prophets, even Jews who go to the temple to pray and make sacrifices. For this prophecy calls the city of Jerusalem “symbolically ... Sodom and Egypt,” although it is the city “where their Lord was crucified.” So we must assume that, although 144,000 male Jewish virgins and the two Jewish prophets proclaim the Gospel to Israel in the end times, after the sixth seal’s revival, many or most of the Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora will somehow remain apostate, and will not recognize Jesus as their Messiah, Lord and God. In other words, Zechariah was right about the surviving elect Jews not

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repenting until the very day Jesus returns to Jerusalem. For many of the people in Jerusalem will be as wicked as the greedy and selfish people of Sodom,” even as evil and psychopathic as their own enslavers in “Egypt” during the time of Moses. And, if they are that bad in the days just before the return of Jesus, then how can anyone declare that modern Israel is a “bastard state” since they think that Israel cannot be a true nation again until all the Jews convert to their brand of fake Christianity?

As other prophets said, many Jews will even “make a covenant” with the beast when he conquers Israel and the Middle East, spying for him and providing support for all of his unjust, delusional humanistic ways. So those Jews will certainly celebrate after the beast kills the two prophets, and even insist that their bodies must be left to rot in the temple grounds. For they will want to gloat with the beast over their deaths, which they will falsely reason to be a proof to the world that the religions arising from Israel are nothing but irrational superstitions. And this prophecy also reveals the world-wide scope the two prophets’ minstry and plagues when it says: “some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth” (11:9-10, ESV).

If the two prophets will torment “those who dwell on the earth,” with fire and other plagues called down on those widely varied kinds of people, they will do so in the name of God and those plagues will be performed through God’s power. Thus, like Elijah, Moses and all the prophets of the past, the two prophets will first give prophecies, with warnings, to those distant lands before God strikes them. And those prophecies and warnings will be translated into the languages of those people. But how would the two prophets do all this if they remain in Jerusalem’s temple grounds throughout those three and a half years? Furthermore, how will the secular supporters of the beast from all over the earth, who speak many different languages, then “gaze” at the bodies of these two prophets for three and a half days? All this was impossible in the first century, when John prophesied about this, yet he still said this would occur, even though others would laugh at and mock such a thing. For it seems that John somehow realized that all this would be possible in the end times, with technology.

By the way, here it does not actually say “some” of the people from all over the world will gaze upon the dead bodies of the two prophets. The words in Greek are: βλέπουσιν ἐκ τῶν λαῶν καὶ φυλῶν καὶ γλωσσῶν καὶ ἐθνῶν τὸ πτῶμα αὐτῶ, which simply means, “from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations, they were gazing at their corpses.” This indicates people from all over the world, shall rejoice in their deaths because they side with the beast, mostly those whom we call secular humanists. And the verb indicates a careful observation of their dead bodies. So there will not be merely a small local crowd gazing at their bodies. There will be very many people from everywhere on earth peering at their bodies, all at once, but without actually coming to Jerusalem.

If people from all over the world will have the ability to study the two corpses in the temple grounds, and presumably do so whenever they want to gloat or have a party to celebrate it, over a period of three and half days, clearly this has only become possible all over the world within the last couple of decades, through the Internet. And this prophecy could not possibly have been fulfilled before now, not even through television, which would only briefly show the images during news broadcasts. Our technology for viewing distant places in real time through web cams is the kind of the “knowledge” that Daniel prophesied would “increase” at “the time of the end” (Dan. 12:4). For, until recently, it would take years, not three and a half days, for news about the death of the two prophets to reach places all over the earth. But, now that it is possible, it suggests that the end times are very near.

 

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So there will likely be a web cam installed where these two will prophecy and preach, which shall also overlook their dead bodies after they are murdered. But, within three and a half days, as the beast prepares to return to his homeland, God will raise the bodies of His two faithful servants to life, just as God raised the dead body of Jesus. “But after the three and a half day a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then I heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here!’ And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them” (Rev. 11:11-12, ESV). The world will also see the two dead prophets rise from the dead and ascend into the sky, which will make the mockers of God very afraid, although not enough to repent. The humanists will simply invent lies to explain away what they all saw with their own eyes, as they always do. But God will actually do all this. It will be real.

First the wicked rejoice over their “victories,” which foolishly cause pain and death through cheap vengeance. But elect spirits ponder that stupidity, and wonder why the wicked laugh, knowing their evil “victories” are all self-destructive, ending in their own losses through pain and death, thus, can never be celebrated by the honest. So the elect learn from that insanity, and conclude that there is no wisdom in evil, since wisdom is an aspect of love, and the non-elect simply cannot love at all. Then the elect turn to God, to learn to love, to nullify the evil works of the non-elect and build up what is just and equitable for all, even for strangers in far-off lands. And, when God enables these kinds of victories for His elect, their spirits can honestly rejoice in them all their lives, even for all eternity.

God teaches loving ways that restore truth and life, so His elect children might rejoice in it. It has always been this way. The wicked strive for a temporary and foolish gratifications of carnal revenge, greed, lusts and fleshy impulses, without considering the negative long-term effects of their actions. The wicked are never wise in applying or even exploring the complexities of truths and knowledge, never in ways that build good and loving lives. They are only cunning in the foolish ways of tearing down lives through slander, deceptions and violence, so their harming and killing can temporarily make them feel like gods exerting power over other lives, though they destroy themselves as well.

Now consider again how all the beast's allies on earth will gaze at the bodies of the two prophets for three and a half days, but see them actually rise to life and ascend beyond their reach. This will stir up horror and dread deep within themselves, for their spirits will briefly wake in the sight of God’s work, and know this miracle foreshadows their certain doom. However, by the end of the day, their lying and loveless spirits will tell their minds of flesh that there is no such thing as eternal spirits which must face the consequences of spiritual evil, and no such thing as a judging God. So, within a few hours, they will fall back into their dull, materialistic delusions and lies, without even a thought of repentance. They will think they have overcome the realities of love, morality, truth, wisdom and God, and will call it all “religious superstition,” as their own materialistic superstitions and their own blind, dumb worship of the beast, which will be even stronger than their self-worship, enslaves them.

So God will let them think this, for a moment, so they can expose themselves as loveless, irrational fools. They will be allowed to steal some stewardship of God’s property on earth for a time, so they can prove that they deserve eternal hell. But God only grants the elect a true stewardship of His property, along with His blessings and care of that property, so they might build up lives and fulfill His purposes for their own inner joy. God merely lets the non-elect temporarily steal from Him, until He calls His elect to return that property to Him, so those loveless non-elect might heap up their eternal condemnation through their striving to become human gods, so their inflating empty lies and delusions on earth will cause themselves greater torment in hell. Still, God will soon have mercy on them, and kill them, so their torment in hell cannot grow too great for their weak, non-elect spirits.

 

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Even now many humanists think they have overcome God and openly declare that God is dead, then make up lies so they can pretend that His biblical truths and His spiritual creations are fiction. They think their fake science has “proved” that God did not create the universe, even while real science actually provides more evidence than ever before that the universe, and all earth’s complex life, must have had an extremely intelligent Creator. They mock God by killing His people or by stopping His words from being uttered through mouths of flesh. But this only proves they are ruthless fools. Man cannot silence God, nor the God-like, wise, just love He created and teaches to the truly rational and honest minds of elect spirits. It is certain their self-destructive lies and sins will never overcome the omniscient and omnipotent God Himself. For the laws and ways of God are unalterably written in all His spiritual and natural creations, making it impossible to ignore or oppose them without producing extremely negative effects, even outright deadly and totally destructive consequences for themselves.

God's Spirit will always directly counsel and teach the spirits of His elect children, with words and concepts that cannot be heard by the ears of flesh, making them wise, making their actions effective and able to bear positive long-term effects. No one can stop this, unless they first silence God, which is utterly impossible. Now there are many ways in which God makes the wicked realize that their war against Him is futile and doomed, if they would be willing to listen. And one of these ways is by undoing the evil they so zealously work upon the earth, even by raising the dead. When, when they realize they cannot defeat God, they also know their doom is certain. Yet they love the darkness of their father’s delusions and lies so much that they dismiss those realities, even the sights seen with their own eyes, almost immediately, without even considering that they need to face facts in order to survive. None of the non-elect will ever repent into God’s created realities, truths and wisdom. For they hate the real God and His good creations, so they redouble their efforts to oppose Him, so they can delude themselves into thinking they are their own gods, even bearing power over life and death.

After the two prophets are murdered, but rise to life so their transfigured bodies can ascend into the third heaven, the beast and most of his troops shall withdraw from Jerusalem. So most of the people in Jerusalem, Israel and the allied Christian nations around them will want to war against the beast, who will leave some troops and his spying minions there to maintain his authority. Yet this prophecy in the Revelation to John then says: “And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come” (11:13-14, ESV). So who are the 7,000 who will be killed, and what are the second and third woes?

As mentioned, the prophesied conversion of the Muslim nations will have already occurred by this time. And Israel will also have built its third temple. Thus, many Jews will be worshiping God then, although many will deny that Jesus is their Messiah and some will even support the humanistic, fascist beast. So there will be a rising hope for a rebellion against the beast in the entire region at that time, although the elect will be hesitant due to residual armies and spies the beast left in their lands.

Now, since 7,000 will die in Jerusalem at this time, but will cause “the rest” to be “terrified,” that is, to fear the real God Yahweh and give Him “glory,” this suggests that most of the 7,000 who will be killed in the city will be the enemies of God. Perhaps most will be the soldiers and spies working for the beast. For it is possible that the beast’s headquarters for his operations in that region will be in that city, since the beast’s most inward motivation for his invasions of those lands was to corrupt and eventually destroy the Judeo-Christian religion. But the beast might build his headquarters in great haste, ignoring the local building codes designed to accommodate for periodic earthquakes in the city. So the offices and residents for his people might collapse upon them, perhaps at night, before most have a chance to escape. Then these 7,000 deaths of the beast’s forces will rebuke Jerusalem's

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wickedness, causing the survivors to give glory to God after that earthquake, then encourage them to rebel against that beast. Of course, this is mere speculation, but the text implies something like this.

This fear of God and giving Him the glory is not the time when Israel repents to Jesus and His truth. But it definitely implies that there will be many Jews who will have remained apostate until that very day, but will begin to trust God more on that day, and fight for the respect and freedom of their faith in God. That is, many secular and many Old Covenant Jews will have been acting against Jesus and against His two prophets until then, and some Jewish secular humanists even will have been cajoled into spying for the beast. But most of the surviving Jews in Jerusalem will then fear God and give glory to Him after this earthquake, although not all will directly place their faith in Jesus just yet.

Then, after most Jews place their faith in God, it will open the doors for a rebellion against the remnant of the beast’s troops remaining in Jerusalem and Israel. This will also strengthen and stir up rebellion in all the other occupied Christian nations around them, all the lands which the beast had conquered in the Middle East and Africa. This will likely the primary cause of the beast’s subsequent persecution of Jews and Christians in homeland and why he will return to Israel in a rage to conquer Israel about three years later, with all his international troops camped in the valleys of Armageddon.

Most of the Jewish survivors in Jerusalem after the earthquake will be God’s elect, with spirits born of God, with spirits able to love and develop true faith in God, even though they still cling to an honest Old Covenant relationship with Him. Still, Jesus will be their God, although they will not yet recognize His Spirit as their God Yahweh, to whom they give glory. And, as Zechariah said, all the Jews on earth will look upon Yahweh on the day that He returns, meaning they will physically see Jesus before their spirits will trust that He is indeed Yahweh their God. Only then, when the body of Jesus physically returns to destroy the beast's armies who are trying to annihilate them during his second invasion, will all the surviving Jews on earth repent to Jesus, mourning for Him whom they had pierced so many centuries before that day (Zech. 12:9-10). But those Jews are His loving elect.

This particular part of this prophecy does not define the second and third woes it mentions. Nor does it clearly identify the recipient of these woes. So we might assume that it is prophesying about three woes for that city of Jerusalem, since Jerusalem is the subject here. Thus, the first two woes may be: (1) the desecration of Jerusalem’s temple by the beast’s abomination that causes desolation; (2) the killing of the two prophets, with its accompanying earthquake; then (3) the beast's return to Israel, when his international armies camp in the valleys of Armageddon and surround Jerusalem. But the beast will not be able to carry out his plans to utterly destroy Jerusalem and the holy lands, nor the surrounding Christian nations, since Jesus will return before he can do so, and destroy him instead.

Now let me repeat, since God will grant the two prophets the power to destroy their enemies in the same ways that Elijah and Moses were granted the power to destroy their enemies, the thoughts and inclinations of their spirits will be the same as those of Elijah and Moses. So it seems that the human spirits of Elijah and Moses, because they will still bear the teaching and training from God’s Holy Spirit that was granted during their past lives, will be the very same human spirits placed in new bodies born during the end times. For the spirit in a person is the essential being of a person, the real person, and capable of managing all the thoughts in one’s soul, both its own thoughts and will as well as the thoughts and will of the mind of flesh, including all the memories of one’s earthly life.

So, if the spirits of Elijah and Moses will be placed in new bodies born during the end times, those two bodies shall be the real Elijah and Moses, although they might have different human names and outward appearances. But also remember an event in the ninth century BC involving Elijah’s prophecy against king Ahaziah, declaring that Ahaziah would surely die. And, in those days,

 

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superstitious souls thought a prophet's words would fail and not come to pass if they could first kill the prophet. So Ahaziah sent fifty soldiers, likely with orders to kill Elijah. “But Elijah answered the captain of fifty, ‘If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.’ Then fire did come down from heaven and consumed the fifty” (II Kings 1:10, ESV). Also, the Pharaoh in Moses’ day tried to kill Moses and his people as they left Egypt, but his armies drowned in the sea. Thus, the beast in the end times, whose non-elect soul will be taught by Satan in the same way as the souls of Ahaziah, the Pharaoh, and Herod (who killed Elijah’s body during Jesus’ first advent), will try to murder Elijah and Moses again, but will fail, since they will rise into eternal life.

And God intentionally associated Elijah and Moses with Jesus during our Lord’s first advent, since Moses was with Elijah during Jesus’ transfiguration, and both were talking with Him (Mat. 17:3), likely about His second and glorious return in the end times. Surely the spirits of Moses and Elijah will be the two prophets in Jerusalem during the end times, since God never called any of the other Old or New Testament prophets to destroy His enemies in the ways He called Moses and Elijah to destroy them, by fire, drought, turning water into blood and other plagues. And there are also other Scriptures which tell us that the two prophets will be Moses and Elijah. In his prophecy about the end times, Malachi relates both of them to the “day of Yahweh,” which is Jesus’ second coming.

Malachi 4:4-6 (ESV): “Remember the law of My servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I

commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the

great and awesome day of [Yahweh] comes. And he [Elijah] will turn the hearts of fathers to

their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a

decree of utter destruction.”

Just before Christ's second advent, Moses and Elijah will come. And Moses is mentioned before Elijah, because God gave us the “shadow” of His Law through Moses, the very same Law which the teaching, training and power of Jesus will fulfill in us and through us for our salvation. So Moses also will be sent to remind us and teach us about the Law that God gave us through him. Here it does not specifically say Moses will come with Elijah but, on the other hand, it does not say he will not come with Elijah, while asking us to remember Moses on the day of the Messiah’s glory. Thus, this prophecy of Malachi, in the global context of all the other Messianic prophecies, does clearly imply that Moses will come with Elijah, as one of the two prophets in Jerusalem just before Jesus returns.

Then we must remember how the Revelation prophecy told us that these two prophets are, “the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth” (Rev. 11:4, ESV). This was a direct reference to Zechariah’s prophecy about two olive trees and the lampstand with the two pipes (Zech. 4:2-3,11-14). But Zechariah’s prophecy about the olive trees is a part of a Messianic prophecy dispersed throughout his whole book, and we need to look at two of the chapters in his book before we can comprehend his words about the two prophets—whom John calls the two olive trees and two lampstands standing before the Lord of the earth, preparing us all for Christ’s return.

Zechariah 3:1 to 4:14 (ESV): “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before

the Angel of [Yahweh], and Satan standing at [Joshua’s] right hand to accuse him. And

[ Yahweh ] said to Satan , ‘[Yahweh] rebuke[s] you, O Satan! [Yahweh] who has chosen

Jerusalem rebuke[s] you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?’

“Now Joshua was standing before the Angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the Angel

said to those who were standing before Him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ And to

him He said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you

with pure vestments.’ And I said, ‘Let them put a clean turban on his head.’ So they put a

 

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clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the Angel of [Yahweh] was

standing by. And the Angel of [Yahweh] solemnly assured Joshua, ‘Thus says [Yahweh] of

hosts: If you will walk in My ways and keep My charge, then you shall rule My house and

have charge of My courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are

standing here.

“Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are

men who are a sign: behold, I will bring My Servant the Branch. For behold, on the

Stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single Stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its

inscription, declares [Yahweh] of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a

single day. In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to

come under his vine and under his fig tree.’