Chapter 16

Verse one is the confirming order to the execution squad. The passage begins with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated, “Then,” followed by the aorist active indicative of the verb a)kouw which means to hear. John either sees or hears everything in these visions and in this case he hears what is said. “Then I heard.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. John as the human writer hears the information he puts down. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the continuation of the vision of the seven last plagues.

With this we have an objective genitive composed of two words, megaj and fwnh, and it is translated “a loud voice.” The source is from the temple. This is the voice of God the Father from the heavenly temple, not the voice of the angel of chapter 5:2 or 7:2 or 10:3, which takes us back to chapter 15:8. It all started with God the Father when the mandate was issued. God the Father in the heavenly temple sends a message to God the Son who is seated on the cloud through the officer of arms, 14:14,15. The Lord Jesus Christ is in charge of all historical judgements, especially this one, the seven last plagues. Therefore in 14:16 He is the recipient of the mandate. The pur sui vant officer who commands the judgment squad comes out of the temple and is placed on standby in 14:17. In the meantime the king of arms comes from the altar of imprecatory prayers with the co-ordinating orders, 14:18, and at this point one of the four living creatures distributes the bowls to each member of the execution squad who are seven pur sui vant messengers, according to 15:1, 7. Next, the pur sui vant officer who commands the execution squad goes from standby to assume command and the result is the function of the execution squad in chapter 16.

Behind all of this is a protocol system. This means, of course, that there are no accidents in the Christian life and this means that there are no accidents in history. It means that everything that happens in history, while we may be very sympathetic with the various categories of disaster which come to various people, it is always the result of their own individual or collective bad decisions.

“Then I heard a loud voice from the temple ...” The present active participle of legw is translated “which said.” It is a futuristic present; it is the voice of God the Father producing the action; it is a circumstantial participle. With it we have a dative plural indirect object, “to the seven angels.” These are the pur sui vant messengers who form the personnel of the execution squad. This voice from heaven, the voice of God the Father speaking from the temple merely confirms the orders which have been passed down through the chain of command under the doctrine of protocol. And with this confirming order the action actually begins.

The content of the confirming order starts out with the present active imperative of the verb u(pagw, a very strong verb for Go. It is an order to move out as we would say in military language. It is a pictorial present tense, it pictures the events in the process of occurrence and dramatises the great historical disasters that come at the end of the Tribulation. The active voice: the execution squad produces the action in obedience to the imperative mood of command which has gone through channels for the protocol system and is now reconfirmed from the castle itself.

The next word is “pour out,” e)kxew. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of this chapter in its entirety. The active voice: the execution squad will produce the action in obedience to the imperative mood of command. The accusative plural direct object follows, “the seven bowls.” We have a definite article taj denoting a previous reference, the indeclinable numeral e(pta, “Seven,” with fialh, “bowl.” The pulling of the pin of the grenade and the pouring out of the judgment is the execution of the judgements on earth. The seven bowl judgements are synonymous with the seven last plagues, 15:8; 21:9.

All of this verse is interpretation and the idea is not to get application here but to get interpretation for the entire chapter. We are to understand, therefore, that the administration of these seven bowl judgements, called “seven last plagues,” actually come from heaven, from God, and they are very carefully screened through a careful chain of command. The seven last plagues are seven historical disasters and these judgements prepare the way for Israel to become a client nation to God once more in the Millennium. They prepare the way for the unconditional covenants to Israel and these seven divine judgements complete the function of the justice of God in punishing the world and its inhabitants during the time of the devil’s desperation, the last half of the Tribulation.

Translation of verse one: “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, Go out and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.”

What follows in the obedience of the execution squad is both punishment of evil and evangelisation by disaster. Divine judgment means judgment which comes from heaven and comes from God. It is administered to the earth in the form of historical disaster. It always accomplishes two things: evangelism and the preservation of the human race from self-destruction so that history is perpetuated as far as the angelic conflict is concerned. Here it is going to preserve believers in the Tribulation so that at the end of the Tribulation, even though it is the worst disaster period in history for seven years, many believers will survive.

There are three reasons why we have judgment. First of all, evangelisation. It takes unbelievers who are inside the cosmic system and brings them back to reality and gives them another opportunity to face the issue of the gospel. So always historical disaster is a form of evangelisation and, at the same time a form of preserving believers. Believers are protected in disaster. Then, of course, it always fulfils the principle of punishment.

Verse 2 — we have the first member of the squad executing his command. The first bowl judgment is given entirely in verse two. This is a sort of warm-up to historical disaster in the form of cancer given to certain people. We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, “Then,” followed by the nominative singular of the adjective prwtoj, “Then the first.” The word “angel” is assumed, and rightly so. Then we have the aorist active indicative of a)perxomai, “moved out,” instant obedience. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the first member of the execution squad produces the action of the verb. The declarative mood is for the reality of this judgment beginning.

With this have the connective kai and e)kxew, “and poured out his bowl on the earth.” The aorist tense of e)kxew is a culminative aorist, it views the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, divine judgment in the form of historical disaster. This is a dermatological disaster, a disease of a malignant nature. The active voice: the first pur sui vant messenger produces the action. “Then the first angel departed and poured out his bowl upon the earth.” This reveals the primary heavenly virtue, the basic virtue of obedience to divine authority. Behind all protocol is the principle of virtue-first, and the virtue is humility. This angel is in his eternal state, in his status quo of ultimate sanctification. As such he is ready for instant obedience and there will never be any deviation from that. Note that you can be happy in a state of obedience; you can be happy in a state of authority. Authority is orientation to life.

Divine authority was expressed both through channels and directly from the temple. Verse one is actually a repetition of what we have been noting. Authority is a greater issue than freedom in the spiritual life and without authority orientation believers never grow in grace. They pick and choose what they hear, when they hear; they pick and choose the preachers, the ones that will entertain them, and they never settle down to the authority of one minister ever. This means they are unhappy people and they will never grow in the spiritual life. It just isn’t done that way. Freedom without authority is not only anarchy but it destroys all virtue in life. Authority is the key to humility, not freedom. The greater the freedom one has the greater the responsibility one has. Hence, freedom demands virtue for its proper usage and function. No freedom is ever used properly when the subject is arrogant. Arrogance destroys freedom long before historical tyranny destroys freedom. Obedience to authority is a virtue in heaven as well as on earth. Obedience to authority is something God requires from all believers as well as elect angels, and it is not degrading to be obedient to legitimate authority.

Now we have the nature of the first judgment and it starts out with the connective conjunction kai, translated “then” or “and,” with the aorist active indicative of the verb ginomai, “became.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The content of the first golden bowl produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the eschatology of reality in this future judgment, a reminder that when historical judgment comes our way, even as it will come in the future Tribulation, it is always brought on by bad decisions from arrogance. Arrogant people, even if they get the facts, never make good decisions. We have the predicate nominative singular from e(lkoj, the ancient Greek word for cancer. It is used for cancer, ulcer, or abscess. Two adjectives describe the ulcer, one is pernicious and the other is painful, “and it became a sore [or ulcer, cancer of the skin], pernicious and painful.”

The interesting thing about the first judgment is the fact that people rarely die from cancer of the skin. It is not one of the big killers but it is painful and that is the whole point. To be in a state of pain is as close as arrogant people can come to reality. When arrogant people are miserable, in a state of pain, they are as close to reality as they can possibly come apart from recovery from the cosmic system.

What follows gives us the devastation of religion in the human race. One of the greatest expressions of evil and arrogance is in the area of religion. Religious people are so arrogant that they get into politics, chapter 17; and then they get into all kinds of weird concepts which forms their religion, chapter 18. Both are judged at the seventh grenade. Ecumenical religion is characterised by the mark of the beast dictator. God gives the religious crowd of the Tribulation His mark of disapproval. The reason this is cancer of the skin is because the religious crowd are all wearing the mark of the beast dictator. Now God has His mark of disapproval in giving them cancer. So it might be said that the first judgment is mild and reveals our Lord’s sense of humour.

Next we have e)pi plus the accusative of a)nqrwpoj, “upon those men.” A)nqrwpoj refers to a category of mankind. The reason for the word “those” is because we have a definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun to distinguish religious people from the rest of the human race. The worst people are always religious people. These men are categorised by the articular present active participle of the verb e)xw, they are said to “have” something. The definite article used as a relative pronoun, “who.” The present tense is a retroactive progressive present, it denotes what has happened in the past: they first of all accepted the ecumenical religion of the beast sometime during the Tribulation and now they have this mark. So it shows what happened in the past and continues into the present. The recipients of this judgment accepted from their own free will the ecumenical religion of the beast dictator and they continued to adhere to that system as indicated by their mark. The active voice: all converts to ecumenical religion produce this action. With it we have the accusative singular direct object from the noun xaragma, a mark. We have previously noted that this mark is a brand or an ID card, 13:16,17. This is the ID card related to the computer to indicate slavery to a system, the ecumenical religious system which is tantamount to slavery to Satan. This brand or mark is computer tyranny, the total destruction of human privacy, therefore cancellation of human freedom. Once these people are on the computer they no longer have any privacy of any kind.

The principle of computer tyranny

1. High technology is no better than the people who use it or apply it. In other words, it has both good and evil connotations because it is no better than the people who use it. Evil people will find evil applications for it; good people will find good applications.

2. Evil people make evil application; good people make good application.

3. Hence, there is nothing wrong with technology and technological advance.

4. The issue is not scientific progress but the nature of people.

5. Freedom cannot exist without privacy. This means that freedom and privacy must coexist. Every attack on human privacy is an attack on human freedom. The answer to every bureaucrat’s dream is the system of computerised tyranny, because bureaucrats always want to know all about you and are always trying to stick their nose into your business. They claim that they are doing it for good reasons but it always destroys privacy. When you get on the computer your privacy is gone because Big Brother knows all about you. A good application is to have a record of criminals because criminals have no civil rights and therefore they have no rights to privacy or freedom. They have forfeited their right to privacy and freedom by the very nature of their crime. However, to have a computer record of law-abiding citizens in order to control them destroys their freedom because it destroys their privacy.

The converts to ecumenical religion in the cosmic system are in the computer and have a mark or identification. This is organised evil which makes it possible to torture and kill those who believe in Christ. Ecumenical religion of the Tribulation as a part of organised evil is both cruel and vindictive toward those who reject it. The identification mark and the computer list persecutes the nonconformist. That would be the doctrinal believer. Hence, computer tyranny plus demon terrorism becomes the greatest system of persecution the world has ever known.

The final phrase talks about their worship, the articular present active participle from the verb proskunew, “worship.” The present tense is a futuristic present, it denotes something that has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain that in thought it is contemplated as already coming to pass. The active voice: the Tribulational converts to the ecumenical religious system of Satan produced the action of the verb. And with this we have the dative singular indirect object, “his image.” The image is the statue of the dictator of the revived Roman empire.

Note again that the converts of the ecumenical religious system have the mark of the beast dictator on their skin. Therefore God adds His mark to their skin, a malignant ulcer and abscess. The malignancy on the skin match the malignancy of their soul for the most malignant of all souls is the soul of the religious person. They are negative toward the gospel, the have scar tissue of the soul, they reside permanently in the cosmic system.

Translation of verse 2: “Then the first angel departed and poured out his bowl on planet earth; and it became an ulcer on the skin, both pernicious and painful to those men who had the mark of the beast dictator, and who worshipped his image.”

In Leviticus 17:7 we learn that people who sacrifice to idols offer their sacrifices to demons. Deuteronomy 32:17, “They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to those they have not known [from doctrine], new demons who come lately, whom your ancestors did not fear.”

Heathen nations worship demons, according to Psalm 96:5, “All the gods of the people are demons, but the Lord made the heavens.” The word for idols there is really the word daimonia in the Septuagint translation.

Demon worship and idolatry often include child sacrifice, Psalm 106: 37-39.

Demon possession was the basis for capital punishment in Israel, Leviticus 20:27.

Jesus Christ, of course, controls history by the restraint of these demons, Exodus 12:12, “the demons of Egypt”; Numbers 33:4.

Demons are powerless to change the course of history, Isaiah 19:3. “Then the spirit of the Egyptians will become demoralised within them; also I will frustrate their strategy so that they will resort to idols of demonism ...”

Demonism is therefore related to any kind of judgment of a nation, Deuteronomy 18:9-12.

Satan and demons are often used by God in the administration of the sin unto death of a reversionistic believer, 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 Timothy 1:19,20.

When believers become religious and get into the cosmic one system, and in their arrogance begin to function at the various gates, they are therefore in a place of demon influence and God permits Satan to administer the sin unto death.

Psalm 109:7 tells us that Satan blinds through religion; he shortens life, verse 8; he removes people who have authority [removes their authority], verse 8; he can kill, verse 9; he can persecute children, verse 10; he can remove wealth, verse 11; he can turn everyone against you — verse 12; he can cut off posterity to the second generation, verse 13.

All of this means that many times when the born-again believer has made so many decision against God, God says, All right, he’s been living in your cosmic system, I’ll let you administer the sin unto death. Satan can never do this, of course, apart from divine permission but Satan has the power of death, 1 John 3:8; Hebrews 2:14,15. Satan was the one who killed the children of Job, Job 1:12, 18, 19. Satan motivated Cain to murder Abel, John 8:44; 1 John 3:12. When given opportunity he can execute believers under the sin unto death, 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 Timothy 1:19, 20. Needless to say it is a painful way to go.

Verse 3, we continue with the second member of the execution squad. Remember that all judgment from God has a grace connotation and the principle of judgment always has that in mind. The second concept is evangelism. All judgment is designed to evangelise the unbeliever. The unbeliever being brought back to reality then has the opportunity of taking what information he has received about the gospel and relating to his own life. This is often coming to the end of one’s own resources and therefore looking to divine resources for answers. So it becomes the basis of evangelism; it is actually the last call of evangelism. Then, of course, the third purpose for divine judgment is the perpetuation of the human race. Were it not for divine judgment as a sort of backfire the human race would destroy itself.

The word “second” in verse 3 is simply the word deuteroj, and it applies to the second member of the squad. There is no word for angel here. We know it is an angel, a pur sui vant messenger, from the context. The aorist active indicative of e)kxew means that he pulled the pin of the grenade in obedience to the command, “Then the second angel poured out.” The culminative aorist tense views the event in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the divine judgment of the sea.

The first bowl judgment was against the epidermis of the worshippers of the beast. The first judgment hit priority target number one: the religious crowd. The religious crowd are the strongest in negative volition toward the gospel or negative volition toward Bible doctrine. They always suffer from blackout of the soul and scar-tissue of the soul, reverse process reversionism.

The active voice: the second pur sui vant messenger produces the action of the verb as a member of the execution squad. This is a declarative indicative mood representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of eschatological reality.

With this we have the accusative singular direct object from fialh, referring to a bowl, and with it the possessive genitive singular of a)utoj, the intensive pronoun used as a personal pronoun because the Attic Greek third person personal pronoun was not brought into the Koine Greek. “Then the second angel poured out his bowl.

The target of the second bowl is given next in a prepositional phrase: e)ij plus the accusative of qalassa, “into the sea.” What kind of sea? The noun qalassa can refer to any body of water, salt or fresh. Previously in the first half of the Tribulation as a part of the second trumpet judgment, 8:8,9, one third of the water of the earth was affected but here all of some category of water. Remember that seventy per cent of the earth’s surface is water. In the northern hemisphere the ration of water to land is 60.7 to 39.3, while in the southern hemisphere the ratio is 80.9 to 19.1 per cent. It averages out to 70 per cent. The second trumpet judgment was directed toward one third of the water of the earth but this judgment is directed totally. So both freshwater and sea food is affected by this second bowl judgment. However, because of what is coming up in the next verse we have to assume that this is primarily a judgment against salt water and not fresh water as such. There is a little problem here because later on in the next verse we are going to see lakes and the Biblical definition of a lake is a body of water completely surrounded by land whereas in the Biblical definition of seas and oceans there is always some outlet at some point — some flow-in, some flow-out, whatever it is.

The result of this second bowl judgment is now given, “and it became,” the aorist active indicative of ginomai. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The declarative indicative mood indicates that the total judgment is on all salt water oceans and seas plus a couple of salt water lakes, “became blood,” the predicate nominative of a(ima. The significance of the blood is twofold. It is a reminder to all unbelievers of the end of the Tribulation that they have rejected the gospel, the only way of salvation. The comparative particle o(j plus the ablative of source, nekroj, indicates the nature of the blood, “as from a dead person.” Secondly, as the blood is a reminder of the saving work of Christ on the cross it is also a reminder that it is an ocean pollutant and the importance of oceans and seas in sustaining the natural balance of nature cannot be overestimated. So we have pollutant of all the salt water areas, and this illustrates the concept that we see today where people are very sensitive about oil spills is simply a reminder that we as members of the human race are dependant upon these oceans, even though they are salt water. The results are now presented in the context, “then every yuxh [soul] of life,” with it we have zwh.

Translation: “ and it came to be blood of a dead person: then every living creature [every soul of life] began to die.”

Death here means that there was tremendous loss of any type of food from the sea and anything that is beneficial from the sea. And this is only the beginning of these judgements. The ingressive aorist gives mankind a chance to repent, by the way, because the aorist active indicative “began to die” comes from the verb a)poqnhskw. The ingressive aorist denotes the entrance into the state or condition, it doesn’t mean that they all died at once.

The implication of all of this is that all of these people have heard the gospel many times. They have been evangelised, as we have seen, and all have had a chance to hear the gospel. The significance of oceans and seas becoming blood as from a dead man will be discussed when we get to verse six. Needless to say it is a reminder that an unbelieving world has persecuted and shed the blood of believers in Christ and those who communicate the gospel and teach Bible doctrine. While the first bowl judgment was against the epidermis of the religious unbeliever the second bowl judgment is against the conscience of the unbeliever as the seas an oceans become blood as from a dead man. So the second is an appeal to the conscience. Dead believers speak through this judgment.

The third bowl judgment is found in verse 4-7. It is going to take a little longer to develop these because there is an intensity as these develop. This is the administration of the third grenade.

“And the third angel poured out his bowl,” the culminative aorist views the third judgment in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results: divine judgment on the world’s supply of fresh water, “into the rivers,” e)ij plus the accusative of potamoj. All the rivers of the world are going to be affected. Also this judgment is against lakes, “springs of waters.” This is similar to the third trumpet judgment but far more extensive.

Note that all of these judgements are against the unbelievers only. Therefore God has provided at that time some special deliverance for believers on the earth. It should also be noted that these judgements are literal and not symbolic.

Anticipating the next verse, this pur sui vant messenger from the angelic college of heralds is not only a member of the execution squad here to administer divine judgment but he is also a communicator of Bible doctrine. He is a teaching angel, as found in the book of Zechariah. This implies that the teaching angels in the time of Moses who explained the Mosaic law to the people were from the same angelic college of heralds. The third pur sui vant messenger from the execution squad not only throws his grenade but in verses 5 and 6 he teaches the doctrine of the integrity of the divine judge and the guilt of the recipients of the punishment.

So we have in verse 5 the integrity of the judge brought in at this point. This is the proclamation of the third pur sui vant messenger. The greatest teachers from the angelic college of heralds are actually the officers of arms. Remember, they are seraph-type angels. Out of all of the millions of elect angels the angelic college of heralds is the highest form of aristocracy. These are the rewards and decorations that were given.

“Then I heard the angel related to the water judgment saying.” And what was he saying? First of all we have the present active indicative of e)imi. He is addressing himself to our Lord who is the judge, “You are.” The static present is for a condition that has always existed. The active voice: our Lord Jesus Christ as the judge produces the action of the verb, though the proclamation also applies to God the Father. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality.

Then we have the word dikaioj, used here for Christ as the judge. Later on our Lord is going to be called as the judge, dikaiosunh. The difference: dikaioj has to do with His perfect righteousness; dikaiosunh has to do with His justice and righteousness, with emphasis on His justice. In other words, the holiness of God is involved.

What is the holiness of God? We will use the modern word “integrity.” It is composed of His righteousness and His justice. Justice executes the judgment but it is done from perfect righteousness. The judge is perfect; the judge is eternal. There never was a time therefore when the infinite, eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, did not have perfect righteousness. And this means perfect righteousness with virtue. Righteousness plus virtue equals the perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many people have morality but it has no virtue. Morality minus virtue equals self-righteous arrogance; morality plus virtue is developed inside of the divine dynasphere; it is a grace system of morality.

“You are righteous [or just]” refers to God, and this means that the righteousness of God and the justice of God which is the source of divine blessing to the believer is also the source of divine judgment of the unbeliever. The justice of God is one half of divine holiness. God’s attribute of holiness is actually two attributes: justice and righteousness. Righteous was imputed to us the moment we believed in Christ and that established the grace pipeline. The justice of God initiates logistical grace support to the righteousness of God. The justice of God, for mature believers, initiates supergrace blessings. All blessing comes from the justice of God and it is imputed to the righteousness of God so that God is not compromised by blessing us. We are still sinners, we are still imperfect, we still fail as long as we live in this life. God, therefore, does not bless us because of what we do. God blesses us because He is perfect. That is the basis of all blessing. Grace is the function of the justice of God in imputing blessing to the indwelling righteousness of God which was imputed to us at the moment of salvation.

When the teaching angel says, “You are righteous [just],” he is indicating once again that just as blessing comes from the justice of God so judgment comes from the justice of God. And if both blessing and judgment have the same source then all things work together for good. God has designed a way of life, a plan for our lives, whereby we can have the same blessing in time of disaster as in time of prosperity. Even though the circumstances oscillate from prosperity to adversity, from adversity back to prosperity, our life and happiness and blessing goes right on regardless. The justice of God which is the source of divine blessing is also the source of divine judgment. The believer, of course, possesses the righteousness of God; the unbeliever does not. Hence, the same divine justice of God the Father which judged our sins while Christ was bearing them in His own body on the cross initiates the seven last plagues to the unbelievers of the Tribulation. That is why historical disaster. Man is the source of historical disaster, he is the product of his own decisions. There never has been a historical disaster whereby man did not make the decisions that produced it.

Man’s negative volition is the source of disaster but God adds something to it for this reason: the justice of God the Father set aside His eternal love for God the Son when God the Son went to the cross. The judging of our sins did not come from the Father’s love. Justice always supersedes love in God’s dealing with mankind.

The unbeliever does not have the righteousness of God that has been imputed to the believer, and not having that righteousness the only blessing he can get out of any kind of disaster or judgment is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So inevitably, all of these judgements are just another way of evangelising and bringing people to the end of themselves. Before these judgements are over it will be seen that no matter how great people are, how smart they are, no matter what provisions they made for disaster, they have absolutely no security. Bit by bit, as each grenade is thrown God takes a little more of their security until there is no human security left. And once no human security is left there is only one thing left, and that is to throw themselves on divine security. So the justice of God the Father which judged our sins when Christ was bearing them is the same divine justice which initiates these plagues, and for the same purpose: to bring people to reality. These same seven last plagues, then, are the expression of God’s perfect and eternal holiness or integrity.

Mankind is prone to be critical with regard to His judgements because mankind, of course, does not have all the facts. Furthermore, mankind does not understand either the essence of God or the total depravity of mankind. While man rationalises his sins and disobedience to the plan of God the integrity or holiness of God cannot ignore these things. Man is the product of his own decisions. Bad decisions from a position of weakness inevitably come into contact with the perfect integrity of God. The integrity of God, then, is the source of both blessing and judgment to mankind in human history. All blessings, temporal or eternal, are related to the fact that the justice of God judged all sins when Christ was carrying them on the cross. The very essence of God demands that all divine judgment be the expression of His integrity, whether it is the judgment of the cross or historical disaster in human history. Divine integrity never makes a mistake in either blessing us or in judging us.

Continuing in verse 5, the identity of the judge is now mentioned under the phrase, “You are just, O Holy One, who is, and who has always existed.” It is the articular present active participle “who is” that refers to the omega glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The phrase, “and shalt be,” in the King James version is not given here. But the second coming of Christ is always brought out by “and shalt be,” and because that is going to be a part of our subject it isn’t necessary to bring it in at this time.

Then we have the reason for all of this given in the perfect decision of the judge. We have the causal use of the conjunction o(ti, “because,” and with it the aorist active indicative of the verb krinw, “because you have judged.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the seven last grenades of the Tribulation and regardless of how long it takes to administer these judgements gathers them up into a single whole. The active voice: Jesus Christ as the judge produces the action. The declarative indicative mood represents the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality.

We also have the word “thus” in the King James, and that is incorrect and misleading. Actually what is found there is the accusative neuter plural direct object from the immediate demonstrative pronoun o(utoj, and it should be translated, “because you have judged these,” referring, of course, to people in the Tribulation. These are primarily unbelievers judged in the Tribulation but these judgements always do something else: they always pick up a few cosmic believers, believers who are in reversionism to stay are generally picked up as well. However, we are dealing primarily with judgment of the unbeliever.

Translation: “Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters saying, You are just, O Holy One, who is [the omega glory of Jesus Christ in His hypostatic union], who has always existed [ the alpha glory of Christ as eternal God], because you have judged these [unbelievers of the Tribulation].”

Principle: Perfect God with perfect integrity can only make perfect judgements; perfect God-Man with perfect integrity can also only make perfect judgements. These judgements emanate from our Lord in hypostatic union. To question the judgements of God is, of course, the quintessence of blasphemy and the ultimate in negative volition. How do believers question the judgements of God? How do believers question the actions of God? When we question the actions of God we are failing to recognise who is in control. The integrity of the judge, then, is the subject of this verse and Jesus Christ as eternal God and perfect humanity in one person forever is the perfect judge with the perfect integrity. It is interesting to note that the perfection of our Lord was attained in time through His residence, function, and momentum inside the prototype divine dynasphere.

Continuing the dissertation in verse six the punishment is equivalent to the guilt of the culprit. When people are punished by God they are guilty. The very fact that He is punishing them means they are guilty? Why? Because God is omniscient. In eternity past God knew of this accumulation of our decisions that lead to sin or to whatever may punishable. So God is the judge, He knows all the facts, and having a perfect knowledge He says, Guilty. Therefore, the punishment follows.

The causal conjunction which begins verse 6 is translated “For” in the King James version, but o(ti here should be translated “Because.” This is actually the second causal sentence, it introduces the principle that divine punishment matches the crime or the evil of the culprit. “Because they,” the Tribulational unbelievers, have done something. And the verb that is used is e)kxew, used here for religious people killing believers in the Tribulation, and here it means to pour out. They have poured out, “they have shed the blood of the saints.” God’s timing in blessing is perfect but God’s timing in judgment is just as perfect, and it comes from the same source, the integrity of God. God always waits until exactly the right time to lower the boom. In bowl judgements number two and number three, blood on the seas and all of the lakes and rivers, the timing is perfect. This is the absolute perfect time to have that happen so that those who shed the blood of believers are now going to be judged for shedding innocent blood.

“Because they have poured out the blood of the saints and the prophets,” remember, this is an Old Testament dispensation, the Tribulation is the end of the Age of Israel and prophets are simply Bible teachers. Note that the prophets and the gift of prophecy which is now a dormant gift will be revived in the Tribulation. This is because of the nature of the Tribulation which is a time of historical trends being determined by prophecy. And because there is no prophecy used for historical trends in the Church Age since the completion of the canon of scripture the gift of prophecy is dormant. The gift of prophecy is used in the Tribulation for the communication of Bible doctrine, and believers who respond to doctrine will often be martyred along with those who communicate the doctrine. So we have “saints,” the congregation, and “prophets,” those who teach the doctrine. The persecutors are primarily dictators, rulers, and religious types.

One thing about the book of Revelation is that it settles the problem of the noun a(ima, “blood,” in many ways. In chapter one we have the blood of Christ referring to eternal salvation. The blood referred back to the Old Testament offerings which portrayed reconciliation, propitiation, redemption, unlimited atonement, and we have therefore the use of blood in its symbolic sense for eternal salvation.

As we move along in the book of Revelation we come to literal blood. Here we have the blood of the Tribulational martyrs, later on we are going to have the blood of many armies slaughtered on the battlefield in a world war. The last great world war of history comes at the end of the Tribulation and, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ terminates it. The Armageddon campaign, by the way, is the Middle East campaign but the war is global. Until the second advent of Jesus Christ we will never be free from warfare. Warfare is a way of life in the human race, and will continue to be so, our Lord Himself prophesied it.

In this verse we see once again one of the signs of degeneracy and it comes from organised evil. Remember, we have three false systems in a nation: pseudo-morality — maximum arrogance, a system of morality in the cosmic system; disorganised evil; organised evil. Disorganised evil is always tolerant of Christianity in a country because Christianity is always trying to evangelise in that field and disorganised evil is trying to evangelise the Christians. When organised evil comes along it always persecutes the Christians, it persecutes self-righteous arrogance, and it even persecutes disorganised evil because disorganised evil competes with organised evil. This type of thing goes on constantly but the intensification of it will come in the future in the Tribulation when there will occur a tremendous persecution of believers, greater than any persecution of the first century and greater than any persecution in history. Here it is mention as “the blood of the saints and the prophets.”

The source of the persecution is twofold. It is primarily religion because religion becomes the state. When religion becomes the state, when religion and the state are one and the same, you have organised evil — the worst kind of organised evil. Religion is always inconsistent because religion does not have Bible doctrine to keep it straight, and not adhering to Bible doctrine religion always gets into irrationality and inconsistency. For example, the Word Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches illustrate the point. They have been giving money to various terrorist groups. As soon as they think someone is downtrodden they arm them and they actually sponsor terrorism in many parts of the world through their money. They are inconsistent. They are against violence but they support terrorism and this is what happens when Christianity becomes political. We are not here to be political, we are here to be totally and completely separated from politics. It is not a part of our Christian responsibility to get involved in politics, to get involved in social action, to become involved in the various political activities which eventually lead to civil disobedience. When Christianity becomes involved in politics and tries to tell the state how to run its business, inevitably it leads to civil disobedience. This is why so many born-again believers become revolutionary.

Why are we here? We are in this world but we are not of this world. That means simply that our role in our client nation is first of all to be good citizens, and that means everything that is involved in citizenship that does not enter into politics as such. We should serve in the military, we should pay our taxes and not cheat on our income tax. We should be involved in jury duty because Christians generally can think a lot straighter than most other people about the law. We are to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but the only way that we can help our country is to be involved in the plan of God for our lives. We are here to form a pivot to preserve our nation. The more mature believers the greater blessing to our country — blessing by association, blessing by having a pivot and the fulfilment of client nation functions. We have freedom of speech with goes with freedom of the press, preaching from pulpits, all tied in together. We are free therefore to evangelise, to witness, to support missionaries and evangelists. In sending out missionaries we are fulfilling the primary function of the client nation to God.

We as believers have a peculiar responsibility to our country because whether our country survives or not depends upon the believer’s attitude toward Bible doctrine. That is when Christians are tipping the balance in the direction of glorifying the Lord. But when believers become apostate and become involved in cosmic one, the interlocking systems of arrogance, and cosmic two, the interlocking systems of hatred (Satan’s anti-Christian propaganda machine), then through the various categories of arrogance they lose out completely and become detrimental. This is the place of negative volition; the divine dynasphere is the place of positive volition toward God’s plan.

As a result, when organised evil takes control of a government then there is persecution. Always when there is persecution a lot of believers get killed. This started in John’s day when he was writing this. The believers were being persecuted, they were being tortured, imprisoned and executed. Whenever that happens believers die without seeing what happened. In their death they are sometimes discouraged, especially if they do not have the proper doctrine, because it looks as though their persecutors are going to get away with it. But that never, never happens. That is the principle found in the last half of verse six. No one ever gets away with criminal activity, with persecution of the believer. The martyrs always die before they see the results because God is perfect, God’s timing is perfect, God’s timing with regard to His administration of justice is perfect, and there is always punishment for those who are criminals. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” applies as a divine law. So we have the punishment of the persecutors of believers in the Tribulation.

It begins with the conjunction kai which introduces a result from what precedes. It is translated “and so” or “therefore.” With this we have the perfect active indicative of the verb didomi which means to give here, “Therefore you have given.” The perfect tense is a dramatic perfect, it represents an existing state and describes vividly the expedition and ease with which God judges the religious crowd, the dictators, who are persecuting believers. The dramatic perfect emphasises the results of the action and emphasises the results of judgment from the third bowl which destroys the drinking water of the land mass on planet earth.

God took all of those religious people and they all have a computerised number, their card which they have to have to buy food or to have any privileges in the countries involved. Their number is 666 and is a part of computerised tyranny in the Tribulation, and it is also called the mark of the beast dictator. And God gives them another mark, a cancer under the second bowl judgment. So they have a mark of privilege, an ID card; now God gives them a warning. The second thing is that a lot of these people begin to shed the blood of the believers, so God gives them back blood. This time there is blood in the sea, blood in the fresh water, as we saw from the third bowl judgment. The first judgment was the cancer, the second and the third took care of water, both salt water and fresh water.

Note the principle. Before God administers any final justice He always gives the unbeliever an extra chance. They are still alive, they still have volition, they still have the opportunity of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal salvation, and we see God’s grace even in judgements. So divine judgements through human history have a twofold concept. They are designed to preserve the human race and to perpetuate it to the end of history. Left to his own devices man by man’s decisions would destroy himself, the human race would not survive. But the human race has survived and the human race will continue to survive because of divine judgment. That is a grace principle.

Then these judgements are administered in a very interesting way. There are warning judgements first. These first three judgements are warnings to unbelievers to bring them around to reality.

The active voice: God the Son produces the action of the verb, as so stated by the pur sui vant messenger. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. The accusative singular direct object is a(ima, “blood.” They shed blood; now they are drinking blood, “and so you have given them blood to drink.” The word “them” is the dative plural indirect object from a)utoj. The aorist active infinitive from pinw is the verb for “drink.” It is a dramatic aorist for a result which has just been accomplished or is on the point of being accomplished. Many of these people are going to die because they continue in negative volition. These are tremendous great warnings. Yes, they hurt; yes, they are uncomfortable, but they have tortured, they have killed, and they think nothing of it. Now they have a chance to think about it and to orient to the concept of the total depravity of man. They have chance to look at their lives and see their failures and do something about it, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They have heard the gospel time and time and time again, so it isn’t that they lack knowledge of the issue; they understand that Christ is the issue. That is not their problem. Their problem is that arrogance divorces from reality. When they have an ulcer on their epidermis and the only thing they can drink is blood they begin to think a little bit! They hurt, they are uncomfortable, they don’t like it. Inevitably they will then consider the gospel one more time, and that is the grace of God. God in His matchless grace has found a way to reach all kinds of people through punishment. The punishment is gradual but there never was a human being and there never will be a human being that didn’t have every opportunity to be saved, “and so you have given them blood to drink,” that is the dramatic aorist.

The second bowl judgment was against salt water of the seas and deprived the guilty of sea food by killing all life in the sea, plus destroying the cycle of evaporation of water and its precipitation to land mass. If the water is full of blood and the blood evaporates it is going to rain blood, and this would destroy crops and the food of the earth. The first water supply was hit with the third grenade, the third bowl judgment, and the fresh water supply in lakes and rivers and streams also turned to blood so that all the guilty have to drink is blood. They shed the blood of the innocent; now they drink blood instead of water. Divine justice always makes the punishment fit the crime and also gives those being punished a frame of reference so they can profit from their punishment. These are unbelievers we are discussing. We already know the blessings of being disciplined by God as believers. It is hard to realise that unbelievers in historical disaster or personal catastrophe are in a state of grace. God never punished anyone apart from His grace, and the only time that the state of grace is over is when the unbeliever dies.

The blood is a reminder that they have rejected the blood of Christ, the saving work of Christ on the cross. The blood is a reminder that they have reacted and have murdered Tribulational believers. The unprecedented violence in the Tribulation is punished and the imprecatory prayers of Tribulational martyrs are simultaneously answered.

So we have the justice of the third bowl judgment, and we find it in two words. The first is the present active indicative of e)imi, the verb to be, and with this we have the predicate nominative plural of a)cioj, “they are deserving.” The progressive present tense is for linear aktionsart. God is punishing them, giving them what they deserve. Even though He is tempering it with grace they do deserve it. God never punishes anyone beyond what they deserve. The active voice: the unbelievers of the Tribulation, especially religious types, produce the action of the verb. This is the declarative indicative mood for reality. The predicate nominative means deserving. Literally, it is translated “they are deserving” but it is an idiom which should be translated, “as they deserve.” So the last phrase of verse six: “therefore you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.”

The entire verse: “Because they have shed the blood of the saints and the prophets, therefore you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.”

Under the principle that grace always precedes judgment these Tribulational unbelievers have every opportunity to respond to the gospel and be saved. This means that they have been evangelised by gospel teaching. They have also been evangelised by disaster, crisis evangelism occurs during a time of historical disaster. Time, of course, is just a drop in the bucket compared to eternity and this principle of crisis evangelism as it pertains to the Tribulational unbelievers is found in Mark 8:35-38:

Verse 35, “For whoever wishes to save his soul shall lose it,” referring to people like the scribes and the Pharisees who were working to save their souls — salvation by works — “and whoever loses his soul [life] for my sake and the gospel shall save it.” So there we have a perfect picture of the religious crowd and the Tribulational martyrs.

Verse 36, here is the issue of crisis evangelism: “What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Unbelievers prosper, evil people prosper, but always if you can look far enough you will discover someone cracked the maturity barrier and they are being blessed by association.

Verse 37, “For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Nothing can buy salvation, it was paid for by the blood of Christ on the cross.

Verse 38, “For whoever is ashamed of me and my doctrines in this adulterous,” adultery, by the way, is used for religion — “and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father and with his holy angels.”

Crisis evangelism always occurs in times of historical disaster on the earth. Crisis evangelism takes the reality of catastrophe and relates it to the message of the gospel so that the unbeliever can focus his attention on that message which he has previously rejected. Under crisis evangelism many respond to the gospel, they become believers in Christ and, therefore, are snatched as brands from the burning. Others persist in their negative volition.

The Tribulational unbelievers thirsted for the blood of the saints and the prophets, and they martyred them. But God takes their thirst for blood one step farther and He gives them only blood to drink. Therefore, once again, God makes the punishment fit the crime in the administration of the third bowl judgment. Furthermore, these thirsty unbelievers also have a reminder from the splotch on their skin, the cancer of the epidermis. They chose the mark of the beast as a bad decision, therefore God gives them a mark from His good decision, His grace decision, something to make them hurt and bring them back to reality. This is the last call of evangelism for divine judgment is designed to bring the unbeliever to the end of his own resources and bring evangelistic reality into his thinking.

Verse 7 is more or less parenthetical and is designed to remind us of a principle. Not every one of us is in the firing line but everyone can enjoy when justice is accomplished in history. These angelic creatures, members of the nobility in the college of heralds, are the ones who are executing these judgements. The judgements come from God, the whole system of protocol filters out any injustice that might occur, they are perfect justice. Now we have a response from those who were the victims. The victims of these seven judgements are in the process of being judged and at the same time are also the recipients of crisis evangelism. There is an attitude in heaven on the part of the Tribulational martyrs which is expressed in this verse.

We note first of all that this passage begins with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Then,” followed by the aorist active indicative of the verb a)kouw which means to hear or to listen. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the apostle John who is the human author of the book of Revelation produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the continuation of this vision.

The vision deals with the altar, the objective genitive of the Greek word qusiasthrion, meaning altar. This is the altar of Revelation chapters eight, fourteen, as well as 6:9-11. The first of them is in chapter six, in which passage we find our Lord Jesus Christ has broken the fifth seal and the apostle John sees under the altar the souls of those who have been murdered because of the Word of God and because of the testimony which they have maintained.

Qusiasthrion has to do with a special altar in heaven where those who have been martyred are permitted to come to offer imprecatory prayers. This altar therefore personifies these Tribulational martyrs. They have advanced through Bible doctrine, they have suffered martyrdom because of this and they are the victims of great injustice. These Tribulational martyrs are winners all the way. They have utilised the principles of the Word of God, they have utilised the second stage of the faith-rest drill, the essence of God rationale, the plan of God rationale, the logistical grace rationale, the imputation of God rationale — they have used all of these rationales in a very marvellous way. So they died as great heroes in the battlefield of the angelic conflict, and therefore they are claiming a promise in heaven to which they have a right. They cannot see the circumstances on earth. They are waiting for justice to be accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the altar, therefore the imprecatory prayers, therefore this function of the faith-rest drill even in heaven.

The second passage is found in chapter 8:3-5. This angel, the king of arms, the highest-ranking seraph in the angelic college of heralds, took his place before the altar. He had an incense shovel made of gold and much incense was given to him that he might offer the prayers of the saints. These are the imprecatory prayers of the Tribulational martyrs and they were to be offered on the golden altar which is before the throne. And when the smoke of the incense, which are the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the hand of the king of arms, the king of arms took the incense shovel and filled it with fire from the altar. The significance is that there is no injustice in history that is not, sooner or later, punished by our Lord Jesus Christ. God’s timing in punishment is perfect and no group or individual ever commits an injustice against someone else without punishment being involved.

The third passage is in chapter 14:18, the king of arms who has authority over fire came from the altar, and he shouted with a magnificent voice, and he said, Send in your sharp sickle. This is referring to the seven last plagues, the seven bowl judgements. The saturation of degeneracy and all that pertains to it has now reached a point where the judgment is exactly on time.

In our verse 7 of chapter 16 we have, “Then I heard from the altar.” What was heard from the altar is stated next. We have the present active participle of the verb legw, and it should be translated “respond.” The pictorial present in which the mind pictures the events in the process of occurrence. The active voice: the martyred Tribulational believers under the altar of incense produce the action.

The vocative from the altar follows. It is found in the form of an affirmative particle nai, and it actually means yes. Then the vocative singular from kurioj followed by qeoj, “Lord God.” The word “Lord” is a reference to the unique person of Christ in hypostatic union, undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever; the second vocative, qeoj, refers to the fact that He is God. The other one has to do with His great power. It is pantokratwr which is correctly translated “the Omnipotent One” or “the Almighty One,” “yes, Lord God Almighty.” The significance of pantokratwr is that the most powerful of all demons under the command of Satan are called kosmokratwr. The last world war in history at the end of the Tribulation is started by kosmokratwr. Pantokratwr has greater power than kosmokratwr. Jesus Christ is the Almighty One, the pantokratwr. So His name is used to identify Him as the one who controls history. And since the altar is the personification of the Tribulational martyrs it is they who are speaking and using this vocative.

The response from the altar then follows. We have the fact that judgment is in the process of occurring. We have a nominative plural subject krisij and with it the possessive genitive from the pronoun su, “your judgements.” This is elliptical, the verb to be is applied, “your judgements are.” Then we have two characteristics, a)lhqinoj and dikaioj, “true and just.”

Translation: “Then I heard the altar respond, Yes, Lord God Almighty, your judgements are in accordance with doctrine and justice.”

A)lhqinoj, our first word, as used of the Tribulational martyrs recognises that the seven last plagues or bowl judgements are consistent with the doctrinal teaching of the Word of God. The second word, dikaioj, is used of the Tribulational martyrs recognising that the seven last plagues are consistent with the perfect holiness or integrity of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, the Tribulational martyrs recognise that they are receiving an answer to their prayers and they also recognise the fact that even though they did not live to see God’s judgment on those who were their persecutors, those who perpetrated injustice against them, they now know that is has been accomplished and that everyone who had anything to do with killing these innocent people is now in the process of being judged for it. The principle is that God does not overlook any injustice to any believer by any member of the human race. In the application of the essence of God rationale as well as the plan of God rationale the believer must recognise the fact that every injustice in life will be rectified, but it is God’s timing that counts.

There is a reason why God does not often give instant judgment for some injustice in life. This means that the function of the three stages of the faith-rest drill produce patience and peace of mind among believers even under the most unjust circumstances and the greatest of persecution and tyranny. Doctrine is the communication of he gospel under the circumstances of grace before judgment, and that is one of the ways in which it is used here and one of the reasons why the judgment is delayed. The judgment is delayed for several reasons. One has to do with the fact that many of these people who were their persecutors, had heard their testimony, had heard the gospel, and under the pressure of disaster they will make a decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are two principles that are found here as far as the Tribulation is concerned. The greatest saturation of evangelism in all of human history occurs prior to the last bowl judgements, the greatest historical disasters of history. All of that is called normal evangelism and we have studied it under the principle of grace before judgment. Once these seven bowls are administered as judgements then we have a new category of evangelism: grace in judgment. Grace in judgment is one of the most powerful systems of evangelism, and now instead of normal evangelism we will be studying crisis evangelism. Often in the midst of great historical disaster when people begin to hurt the fact that they are hurting and miserable and being deprived of their normal pleasures in life will bring them back to reality. Locked-in arrogance of cosmic one has blinded them, they are suffering from scar-tissue of the soul, they are in the tragic situation of spiritual blindness; and when you combine all of these things together it takes great tragedy, catastrophe and disaster to bring them back to reality, to bring them back to the point of where they realise their need for the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, to bring them to the end of their own circumstances in life where they can help themselves. God does not help those who help themselves. God helps the helpless, and this is dramatised by crisis evangelism.

So doctrine is the communication of the gospel under normal circumstances — normal evangelism. These unbelievers being judged in the Tribulation heard the gospel many times before divine judgment occurred. Justice is the function of divine judgment in crisis evangelism. This is grace in judgment. Many of the unbelievers who have been guilty of persecution and murdering believers in the Tribulation have heard the gospel many times and it is only when they are hurting under judgment that they will recall the gospel message which brought back to reality their situation and reminded them that they had come to the end of their own resources and they needed something beyond themselves.

Principle: the honourable purpose of divine judgment

1. Divine judgment is strictly a grace function from the holiness or the integrity of God. To appreciate this we go back to the imputation rationale. Human life is imputed by God in every case to the human soul. Man cannot create life; God has created life. That human life resides in the soul forever, not just during life but at dying, after death, and in eternity; and where that human soul resides in eternity depends upon attitude toward Jesus Christ. Human life is imputed at the point of birth and simultaneously Adam’s original sin was imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature so that we are born physically alive but spiritually dead. The wages of sin is (spiritual) death. That spiritual death occurs when we are born. This is the grace of God. Anyone who dies before reaching accountability automatically goes to heaven without believing in Christ. Accountability is the point at which a decision can be made. That is because the condemnation must precede justification.

What does that mean as far as our personal sins are concerned? All of the sins of human history, all of the sins that have ever been committed from the fall of Adam and the woman to the last sin of the Millennium have all been put into the computer of divine degrees, and they have stayed in the computer until our Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross. When He went to the cross every sin was imputed to Christ by God the Father and every one of those sins was judged.

What was the cause of all of this? God the Father loved God the Son with an eternal love, but God the Father had to set aside that love, it was superseded by the justice of God the Father. The justice of the Father took all of those sins, all of the sins of the human race that would ever be committed, and took them right out of the computer and imputed them to Christ and judged them. This caused our Lord to scream out, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” God the Father had to forsake the Son because He was made sin for us. God the Holy Spirit had to forsake the Son because He was bearing the sins of the world and God can have nothing to do with sin, God separated Himself from sin. Jesus Christ is the God-Man; it was His humanity that bore those sins. Even His deity could have nothing to do with them. So all of the sins were imputed to Christ on the cross and they were judged.

The source of salvation is the harshest divine judgment in history, the greatest judgment in history. The greatest disaster in history is the source of greatest blessing: our so great salvation, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” And this was in judgment, Christ was in judgment on the cross. In judgment the justice of God is the source of judgment; the justice of God is the source of blessing. In judgment the justice of God is functioning, the greatest disaster in history, and the source is the justice of God.

Now, we come to the cross and we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the moment we believe God the Father takes the other half of His holiness and He imputes it to us. We now have the righteousness of God and the source in the justice of God, and all blessing comes to us down the grace pipeline from the justice of God — one half of divine holiness, to the righteousness of God which is the other half of divine holiness. God doesn’t bless us because of anything we do, God blesses us because we have His righteousness; and the justice of God sends all blessing down the grace pipeline. Out of judgment comes the greatest of blessings.

We are faced with the fact that there are a lot of evil, cruel, vile, vicious people, religious people on the earth, and these religious people have persecuted and murdered the believers of the Tribulation. Therefore, this principle: the honourable purpose of divine judgment. Divine judgment is strictly a grace function from the holiness or the integrity of God, the same holiness or integrity of God that took our sins and imputed them to Christ on the cross.

2. This judgment is designed to protect the human race from self-destruction in the historical phase of the angelic conflict.

3. Man’s free will apart from restraint is self-destructive.

4. Divine judgment protects mankind from destroying itself and thereby provides the basis for the perpetuation of the human race throughout human history. The human race would have destroyed itself thousands of years ago were it not for the fact that divine judgment is a backfire judgment to protect the human race from self-destruction.

5. Divine judgment, then, is the grace function of crisis evangelism. In addition to protecting the human race from self-destruction divine judgment is the grace function of crisis evangelism. In the most severe judgements from God there is grace.

6. Apart from the physical death of those being judged the purpose of catastrophe and disaster is to orient man to the reality of his need for salvation. People are divorced from reality through arrogance. Life in cosmic one is saturation of arrogance. Arrogance divorces from reality. Even the source of psychosis and neurosis is related to arrogance. So to bring people back to reality their arrogance has to be eliminated somehow, and the only way to eliminate the arrogance in those who live in the cosmic system is to make them hurt so badly that they are brought to a temporary state of humility. They are brought to the end of their own resources and there is nothing they can do. Consequently, apart from physical death, for those being judged the purpose of the catastrophe or the disaster is to orient them to reality, to give them a realisation that they need this salvation that they have been hearing about in normal evangelism.

7. Normal evangelism is that period of grace before judgment, but those involved in the cosmic system are so divorced from reality through arrogance and scar-tissue of the soul that they do not respond to the gospel in normal times. There has to be crisis evangelism.

8. As long as people are alive there is hope, therefore any divine judgment that does not kill the recipient means crisis evangelism. Notice that in the administration of the first three bowl judgements no one has really been killed yet. As long as the unbeliever is alive there is hope that he will accept Christ as saviour.

God speaks to the human race through the communication of doctrine. This is historical grace. God speaks through the communication of three categories of doctrine; category #1, the laws of divine establishment; category #2, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; category #3, Bible doctrine. Each one of these three categories has a recipient. Category #1 doctrine, the laws of divine establishment, is for believer and unbeliever; category #2 is for unbelievers only; category #3, is for the believer only — doctrine is to orient the believer to the plan of God. So God speaks to the human race through the communication of Bible doctrine, this is historical grace. But God speaks through personal and historical disaster as well. If people will not listen to doctrine, if the unbeliever rejects the gospel, he can count on having some personal and historical disaster in his life which is crisis evangelism, crisis grace. Divine judgment is designed for evangelism just as certainly as gospel preaching or the believer witnessing to the unbeliever is designed to present information for his salvation.

So by way of summary, grace before judgment is the function of normal evangelism. Grace in judgment is the function of crisis evangelism. Judgment in historical disaster is designed to bring the unbeliever back to reality, to give him the opportunity to believe in Christ for until the unbeliever dies he can be saved at any time by personal faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, as long as the unbeliever is alive he can be saved, only physical death terminates the opportunity for the unbeliever to have eternal salvation. Up until the moment of physical death one can always express positive volition to the gospel by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For negative persons living in the cosmic system the mind is only stimulated and only motivated to consider gospel information when one is under pressure of disaster. Not only is crisis evangelism a part of divine judgment but, again, it is the perpetuation of mankind in history which, of course, is the second reason for the grace function of divine judgment. Man left to his own devices would eventually destroy himself and the rest of the human race with him. But God interferes with backfire judgment which destroys one portion of the human race to preserve the rest of the human race and, therefore, divine judgment is preventative surgery, the one way to guarantee that man will continue to live on earth during the course of human history. Remember that the justice of God — one half of divine holiness — is the source of both blessing and judgment during the course of human history. Furthermore, the greatest judgment of all was the cross itself which gives us the pattern — the justice of God is the source of judgment; the justice of God is also the source of blessing.

In verses eight and nine we have the fourth bowl judgment. In verse 8 we begin with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Then.” Next we have the adjective numeral tetaroj which means “the fourth.” This is the fourth member of the execution squad, a pur sui vant messenger, and he pulls the pin on the grenade of the judgment which has been issued to him. The pulling of the pin is described in the aorist active indicative of the verb e)kxew, “the fourth angel poured out his bowl.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the fourth member of the squad produces the action of the verb through obedience, therefore he has virtue. The indicative mood is declarative for the fact that we are now going to have another judgment, but a judgment that does not kill. Therefore we are dealing once again with the subject of crisis evangelism. We have the accusative singular direct object of the noun fialh, “bowl,” and it is said to be “his” bowl, a)utoj plus the genitive means that he possesses the responsibility for the administration of this judgment on the earth.

This is a fascinating judgment because we are going to note not only the obedience of this angel but its effect upon weather. The obedience of the fourth member of the execution squad emphasises the basic principle of virtue-first. The point is that no one is ever happy with freedom, no one even has the capacity for freedom, until he has the virtue of humility. Therefore, freedom cannot exist without authority and it is response to authority that changes everything.

The target is very important here. The target for this judgment is the sun, meaning that this plague or judgment will be used again in crisis evangelism. Solar energy penetrates the atmosphere in the approximate percentages: 35 per cent of solar radiation is reflected back into space by clouds, ice, and water; fifteen per cent is absorbed in the air by water vapour, ozone, clouds, dust, and air molecules; the remaining 50 per cent is absorbed at the surface and it becomes surface heating the earth and the atmosphere unequally. There is never any equal distribution. There is no equality in life and there is no equality in nature. Thereby it triggers global circulation of air and ocean currents and this, of course, has a great deal to do with weather.

So we notice the nature of the fourth grenade, or bowl judgment. It begins with the connective conjunction kai introducing a result from what precedes, “And so.” Next comes the aorist passive indicative of didomi. Ordinarily this word didomi means to give, here it means to delegate. Delegation of responsibility must go in the direction of virtue. Those who can properly qualify to properly fulfil delegated responsibility are virtuous. The members of this execution squad have perfect virtue, they are already in whatever is ultimate sanctification for the elect order of angels. The aorist tense is a dramatic aorist, it states a present reality from an eschatological event in the Tribulation. It is an idiom which is used for emphasis. The passive voice: the sun receives the action of the verb, and we have a declarative indicative mood for a dogmatic statement of eschatological doctrine. A very fascinating phenomena is going to occur at the end of the Tribulation prior to the greatest world war in history. So this is not a destroying judgment, the destruction comes in the last world war in history.

Next we have a dative neuter singular from the intensive pronoun a)utoj which is mistranslated in the King James version. The neuter is not translated “him,” it is translated “it,” and it refers to the sun. The corrected translation should read: “Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun; and to it [the sun]

Then we have the aorist active infinitive of kaumatizw which means to burn. The power is given here to burn,” but we are not talking here about sun-bathing, “the power to burn mankind.” And then we have the instrumental of two words, e)n plus the instrumental of pur which generally means fire but here means heat. This could means, therefore, to scorch with heat, unbearable heat. The recipients of this divine judgment do not die immediately but have plenty of time to think about the gospel.

What do we have here? First of all, the atmosphere which protects the earth from the rays of the sun is divided into five categories, the troposphere, the stratosphere, the mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere. Held in place by gravity, the atmosphere filters a certain amount of heat. The electrically-charged upper atmosphere is called ionosphere, and in the ionosphere we have the Van-Allen radiation belts. They have magnetic fields which deflect charged particles of solar wind and reduce their speed from supersonic to subsonic velocity. In the thermosphere gas has absorbed some of the ultraviolet radiation from the sun. In the stratosphere the ozone layer absorbs more of the ultraviolet rays, as well as high-energy cosmic rays which bombard molecules, and they create showers of less energetic cosmic rays. In the troposphere we have most of the oxygen, nitrogen and carbon-dioxide that supports life and this is the buoy which supports the flight of birds. In other words, the earth’s rotation on its axis causes the fluid outer core to act as a dynamo, and this produces a magnetic field which deflects solar wind and forms the magnetosphere, shielding the biosphere from hostile charged particles. This tremendous filtering of solar radiation is very important. Without it we would all burn up.

The fourth bowl judgment, then, obviously permits some of the gamma rays, the x-rays, the ultraviolet rays, and infrared to penetrate the ozone layer. Incoming solar radiation is balanced by heat radiating back into space from the earth. Water vapour and carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere intercepts some of this outflow, raising the temperature of the earth in what we call operation greenhouse. So we have, then, this sort of phenomenon occurring. God is going to allow a little more heat, the solar winds, to have a greater penetration at that time. It is not going to have any permanent damage because all the weapons for the Armageddon campaign will be operational shortly after this phenomenon occurs.

“Then the fourth angel [the pur sui vant messenger] poured out his bowl on the sun; and so there was delegated to it [the sun] the power to burn [or scorch] mankind with heat.”

Verse 9, the threefold results of this. We might call this weather disaster: the judgment of intense heat. We have another conjunction this time. It introduces some previous results and we translate it “Consequently.” With it we have the aorist passive indicative of verb kaumatizw which means to scorch, “Consequently they were scorched.” The culminative aorist tense views this judgment in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. We have studied those existing results under the principle of crisis evangelism. We see now that these people are hurting. They are suffering but they are not dying and they have the opportunity, therefore, to consider what Hell is going to be like without going there. Some people can only learn the hard way and until they hurt they don’t care. In the passive voice the unbelievers in the Tribulation who have been evangelised under normal conditions are now evangelised again under crisis conditions. The only difference between normal and crisis evangelism is this: in normal evangelism there is always a clear presentation of the gospel — usually many times, but under crisis evangelism only little phrases come in, and one hurts so much that he is brought out of the cosmic system in the sense of coming back to the reality of those things that were declared about eternity. This demonstrates the fact that even divine judgment always has a grace side, and that is not only true for the unbeliever but it applies to us to. Some people even get back to Bible class when they hurt enough!

“Consequently mankind were scorched,” and they were scorched with scorching heat. The scorching heat results from the opening either of the Van Allen belts or the ozone layer, or probably both. The recipients of this judgment are unbelievers in the last half of the Tribulation, the time of the devil’s desperation. We will have to classify this grenade as the weather grenade. So we have what could be called a weather catastrophe.

The weather of the earth is determined by the interaction of many planetary activities. For example, ocean movement, temperatures, rainfall, humidity, atmospheric pressure, sunshine, winds, all have something to do with weather. Weather starts with the sun’s radiation streaming toward the earth. As this radiation is moving toward the earth about 65 per cent of it reaches he earth. Thirty-five percent of solar radiation is reflected or deflected by clouds, dust, air, polar rock, ice, and so on. This means that 65 per cent is absorbed, and it is absorbed in three ways. Three per cent is absorbed by the ozone layer, 15 per cent by cloud and moist air, and 47 per cent is absorbed by the earth’s surface. The 65 per cent absorbed by the earth heats the atmosphere — unequally. Weather comes from the fact that it heats it unequally. At the equator warm, light water and air begin to move toward the poles, and they are replaced by heavier water and air which being much colder moves beneath them. Because the earth rotates these north-south movements are shifted toward the east in the northern hemisphere and toward the west in the southern hemisphere, and by warming different regions unequally, for example, the tropics are more strongly heated than the polar zones. Solar energy stirs the atmosphere into motion in a vast planetary scale. The result is what we call the wind system. Air warmed in the tropics rises and moves toward the poles where it cools and descends, and the rotation of the earth deflects these air currents into what we call globe-girdling cells of moving air. These cells define air circulation patterns and the prevailing winds at the surface of the earth.

The wind has a great deal to do with the weather. Surface wind plus the erratic westerlies at 60,000 feet and the Krakatoa easterlies at 80,000 feet have a tremendous amount to do with our weather. The jet stream, formed where warm tropical air meets cold polar air, travels around the mid latitudes at as much as 300 miles per hour, and the undulations of the jet stream travelling at roughly 35,000 feet affect surface winds which in turn affect the currents of the sea. Then there is the polar vortex moving sometimes at 40,000 feet and sometimes at 200,000 feet. The very climates of the earth, both in rainfall and vegetation, are vitally affected by the surging patterns of air, wind, and water which spread the sun’s warmth over the earth unequally. Like a giant engine the global wind systems and the wind cells function at the endless task of trying to erase the contrasts of temperature between the tropics and the poles. In addition, climate is affected by solar radiation, the hydrological cycle — evaporation and precipitation, wind currents, cold air transported from the poles to the equator, and warm air from the equator to the poles. They are constantly moving over each other and under each other.

Divine judgment of the fourth plague was a weather catastrophe in the form of scorching heat. Heat is necessary for planet earth but this is too much of a good thing. It is amazing how many times God judges us with too much of a good thing. Too much of a good thing, of course, not only indicates lack of capacity for life but it also destroys that wonderful variation in life from which we extract the virtue uses that are related to a personal sense of responsibility. Weather disaster is a part of crisis evangelism and there are two negative results in the rest of this verse: blasphemy toward God and rejection of Christ or negative volition. This doesn’t mean all people are this way but we simply have the fact that it is amazing that everyone doesn’t accept Christ under these conditions. Even when the message is as lucid as it could be, and even though the circumstances are made as easy as possible to believe in Christ, there are always those who are going to reject it. That is the fascinating thing about the human soul.

Here is the grace of God offering this last call, this last chance to be saved, bringing them back to reality because they are in pain, knocking out for the moment the arrogance by which they have rejected the gospel under normal circumstances. And what do they do? Here is God doing them a favour and they malign Him, and that is human nature. It says in verse 9 “they blasphemed the person of God, who has authority over these plagues: and, furthermore, they did not change their minds to give him the glory.” They turned against God completely.

The aorist active indicative of blasfhmew comes first. People without capacity for life can never possess genuine gratitude. Genuine gratitude is a sign of great capacity for life. Blasfhmew means abusive speech; abusive speech means abusive thought. Toward man blasfhmew means to slander or to malign; toward God the word is transliterated and we simply use the word blasphemy. This is verbal antagonism toward God. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. They not only rejected the gospel but they maligned God, they judged God. This means that they had moved once more back into the place of scar-tissue of the soul. The terrible judgment brings them out for a moment, gives them reality, gives them the opportunity of being lucid and thinking about it, and they maligned God and that puts them right back into cosmic one. That maligning of God, that judging, comes from the cosmic system. Only an arrogant person has the nerve to be judging other people. They maligned the “person” of God, the accusative singular, the direct object, means the person of God, not the name of God. They maligned His person even though He was doing them a favour. He was bringing them back to the point where they had to consider the great issue.

With this we have the articular present active participle of e)xw and it is translated “who has.” This is maligning God who possesses the authority, the accusative singular direct object of e)cousia, God has the authority, God has the power over these plagues, “and they blasphemed [maligned, judged] the person of God who has the authority over these plagues.” Blasphemy is only possible where truth or doctrine is known and rejected. Hence, the negative volition and the status quo of these Tribulational unbelievers. They refuse to take the responsibility for their own negative decisions and actions and therefore their divorcement from reality is simply arrogance, and arrogance is always human immaturity. These unbelievers blame God instead of their own volition for what is happening. They make wrong decisions and therefore have no control over their lives, no personal sense of destiny, and no capacity for happiness of any kind.

So far the first bowl judgements are not fatal. These unbelievers are getting four categories of judgment; none of them are taking any lives. So far these judgements are painful but they are not fatal, as illustrated by the fact that the recipients can not only speak but speak very forcefully in their blasphemy. They have the power of speech, they have the power of thought, “they did not change their mind about the gospel.” These judgements, therefore, are a part of crisis evangelism and comparable to the believer’s intensive discipline. Three categories of divine judgment follow the same picture: warning judgment, the seal judgements of chapter 6 and the trumpet judgements of chapters 8 & 9; intensive judgment, the seven last plagues; finally there will be dying judgment at the second advent, the baptism of fire.

In the crisis evangelistic situations they are deliberately being punished to the point of hurting so that they will give some consideration to the gospel. They have come to the end of their own resources, there is nothing they can do about the Van Allen belt, there is nothing they can do about the ozone layer, about bloody water, about cancer of the skin. So this is a good time to distinguish between the principles of discipline and judgment, and how they are related to grace.

Always, inevitably, all divine judgment is related to the grace of God. It comes from God’s virtue. God is not vindictive, God is not implacable, God is not petty, God is not jealous, God is not arrogant. Such a thought is blasphemous and unthinkable. God is virtuous; He has perfect virtue. These judgements all emanate from His perfect virtue, His holiness, His integrity.

Crisis evangelism emphasises the power of both the blackout of the soul and scar-tissue of the soul. For crisis evangelism in time of historical disaster there are always those who are so hard-headed that they will consider and then blaspheme. One thing about those who become too involved in the cosmic system: they have no capacity for happiness or life and this is manifest by the fact that they have no gratitude. The scar-tissued unbeliever who is positive at God-consciousness will always respond sooner or later under the system of judgment which we have noted here. In the closing phrase of this verse, however, we see those who are still negative, “furthermore, they did not repent,” the aorist active indicative of the verb metanoew. The word “repent” is no longer a valid word because it doesn’t have any connotation that relates to the Greek. Metanoew means a complete change of mind, not to feel sorry for sin or to feel guilty. it has no emotional connotation, it means to change the mind. In this case it means to change the mind about the gospel, to change the mind about the Lord Jesus Christ.

“furthermore, they did not change their minds,” the culminative aorist tense views their rejection of Christ in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. They refused. Many of them will die in the world war coming up, others will die at the baptism of fire, they will be judged, and they must take the responsibility for their own decisions, therefore the active voice: Tribulational unbelievers with blackout of the soul produce the action of the verb. While at the moment they are not taking the responsibility for this decision the time will come when they have to. Sooner or later we all take the responsibility, whether we want to or not, for bad decisions. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of their persistent rejection of the gospel under crisis evangelism.

Then we have the aorist active infinitive of didomi, “to give,” “to give him [God] the glory.” The Greek word doca has to do with the grace of God of providing, even in judgment, this wonderful opportunity for salvation. How could they give God glory? By personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The absence of the definite article emphasises the quality of the noun. Mankind shares in the strategic victory of the angelic conflict and when anyone believes in Christ he immediately becomes a strategic victor.

There are two categories of judgment from God. The first is judgment by death and the second is judgment by pain. Judgment by death is the function of God’s grace in the perpetuation of the human race during history. It is designed to protect the human race from the human race and thereby to protect the human race from self-destruction. Judgment by death, therefore, protects the human race from being destroyed by its own volition. Man’s free will apart from establishment restraints is self-destructive. When mankind is negative toward establishment authority, which occurs quite frequently in various parts of planet earth, man becomes degenerate under the principle of organised and disorganised evil. The killing of the citizens of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other cities of the plain was a divine judgment to protect the human race on planet earth. If the cancer is permitted to continue the human race would be destroyed, so periodically and when necessary in any given generation God wipes out a segment of the human race.

The perpetuation of the human race throughout history until the end of the Millennium is one of God’s grace functions in judgment, and God in His wisdom destroys a segment of the human in order to preserve the rest of the human race. Until the end of the Millennium God has promised that mankind will continue to live on planet earth and therefore God uses judgment by death to protect the human race from too many bad decisions which might destroy mankind. Backfire judgment therefore destroys the cancer of the human race to preserve any healthy portion of the human race; self-destruction is imminent from time to time. Judgment by death, therefore, is classified as preventative surgery by which God uses death to remove the cancer in order that the normal tissue might have a chance — the cancer of arrogance, degeneracy, organised evil, disorganised evil, etc. Mankind, therefore, will continue to live on planet earth until the end of the Millennium because of this category of judgment by death.

The second judgment is the one we will study in verse 10, judgment by pain. Judgment by pain is the function of God’s grace in crisis evangelism. Grace before judgment is the function of normal evangelism while grace in judgment is the function of crisis evangelism. Normal evangelism is the communication of the gospel message under normal circumstances and even under prosperous circumstances of life. Under these conditions the unbeliever’s rejection of the gospel message means both cosmic involvement and blackout of the soul. Under cosmic involvement the unbeliever becomes disoriented to reality so that he is totally indifferent to normal evangelism no matter how great or how powerful the communication may be through an evangelist, through the witness of some individual, through the written page, or whatever is used. Therefore, to bring the unbeliever back to reality, to give him another chance to hear the gospel, pain is introduced in one form or another through either personal or historical disaster. Under personal suffering or historical disaster the unbeliever feels one or more of the categories of pain provided by God in His grace. This pain does not kill the unbeliever, instead it becomes another call, and sometimes the last call, to believe in Christ under the concept of crisis evangelism. Crisis evangelism, then, is the judgment of God bringing the unbeliever through pain to the end of his human resources, to bring him back to reality by means of temporary deliverance from the cosmic system. Pain often brings people out of the cosmic system. The preoccupation with pain often supersedes preoccupation with self and the opportunity to recall the gospel message which has previously been presented under normal evangelism is therefore provided. Pain becomes so intense in divine judgment that it actually distracts the unbeliever from the abnormal functions of the cosmic system, and it gives him an opportunity to orient to reality and to use his volition to make a decision for or against the Lord Jesus Christ. So any judgment or historical disaster which does not kill believer and unbeliever is, in the case of the unbeliever, crisis evangelism.

We have studied four bowl judgements in which relatively few people have been killed. In the first five bowl judgements the unbeliever population of the earth is alive and in the increasing categories of pain, so that when we come to the fifth bowl judgment in verse 10 the unbeliever is under a state of grace whereby he can believe in Christ for eternal salvation.

Judgment by death in previous generations has made it possible for all of us who are believers to be evangelised in this generation. Therefore, judgment by death to others means blessing in life for us — eternal salvation through faith in Christ. Judgment by death is grace blessing to the living, it provides opportunity for making another decision and making the decision for salvation. Judgment by death to some, then, is always blessing by grace to others who are living. Judgment by death removes the unbeliever where he is in a temporary fire waiting for the lake of fire, but those who are left behind are blessed by the death of those who were taken. The cancer is removed and the patient lives. The reason why we have all had that opportunity to believe in Christ is because in past generations God has judged large segments of the human race by physical death.

Judgment by pain is a grace blessing to the unbeliever, another chance to believe in Christ. The unbeliever is still among the living and as long as he is alive he can be saved, the door is not closed until he dies. Judgment by pain to the believer is another story which we call discipline. Judgment by pain for the believer is another chance to get back into the plan of God. If the believer is disillusioned, upset, unhappy in the social world, that is pain. The pain may be a reminder that he has lost his first priority which is the perception of Bible doctrine. Whenever doctrine is no longer the number one priority the believer is going to suffer pain. First of all, our pain is produced by our bad decisions. Then pain is produced under the principle of warning discipline and as the believer becomes aware of pain he is also brought back to reality.

Most believers become sloppy in their attendance at Bible class because their priorities are sloppy and they get involved in cosmic one. They become involved in arrogance and arrogance always divorces from reality. Arrogance always produces the wrong priorities in life.

Pain is crisis grace to bring us back into the plan of God; prosperity is normal grace from momentum in the plan of God. So when you’re in suffering is always blessing; when you’re out suffering is a pain. The pain is simply one of those grace goads from God to bring the believer back into His plan.

Verse 10 — the target of the fifth plague is given in the first phrase in the Greek, Kai o( pemptoj e)cexeen thn fialhn a)utou e)pi ton qronon tou qhriou. We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai translated “Then.” We have the adjective numeral subject in the nominative case, pemptoj, translated “fifth.” It is an adjective referring to the fifth member of the execution squad. It is an adjective numeral, it is the subject in the nominative case, and it refers to the pur sui vant messenger who will pull the pin on the fifth golden grenade, the fifth plague or judgment. The verb which goes with the subject is the aorist active indicative of e)kxew, our verb for pulling the pin. It means to pour out. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the fifth pur sui vant messenger demonstrates his virtue and his integrity, his orientation to the plan of God, his happiness, his capacity for life through implicit obedience to authority. This member of the squad is happy, he has an eternal happiness. He has perfect capacity for life and he has absolutely no freedom.

Freedom is not happiness, slavery isn’t happiness. Happiness comes from capacity; capacity comes from authority. Authority is the basis for enforced humility, enforced humility is the beginning of virtue as well as the beginning of capacity for happiness and prosperity. Genuine humility is another step toward capacity for happiness, capacity for blessing, capacity for love, capacity for prosperity.

“And the fifth angel poured out his bowl,” and inside of that bowl is darkness. We have had a progressive system of pain in each one of these grenades and there are apparently certain ones who were evangelised with the first grenade, other with the second, the third, and the fourth. Now there are a lot of holdouts and this is, as it were, a last call before God is going to start taking some of them in death in the sixth and seventh plagues.

And where did this angel pour the bowl? We have e)pi plus the accusative of qronoj plus the possessive genitive of qhrion, “on the throne of the beast dictator.” The beast dictator is not only the political leader of the revived Roman empire of the Tribulation but he is also the religious ruler of ecumenical religion, the focal point of evil in the last half of the Tribulation. The target, then, is the great empire of the beast dictator of Revelation chapter thirteen, verses one through ten. The empire of darkness will receive darkness.

Each one of these judgements which keep people alive and in pain to bring them back to reality always fits the situation. The blood, for example: they had been shedding the blood of the martyrs, and so on; the difficulties with the heat: they had been putting the heat on others and now they were getting heat back.

The empire of darkness will receive a judgment called darkness. The intensification of evil causes evil initiators to suffer. Evil rewards evil with more pain and evil. The intensification of evil brings great pain and therefore to the perpetrators of evil. Those who sow in evil reap in evil, and even while they are reaping God is offering them another chance. The pain involved is to bring them back to reality. The greatest and most concentrated function of evil in all of human history occurs in the revived Roman empire in the Tribulation and it is brought about by evil, by the cosmic system, and by one function of cosmic two, religion.

The characteristics of the fifth plague follow in the next phrase. We have a sequential conjunction kai, “then,” and the nominative singular of basileia — “then his kingdom”, the kingdom of the beast. Basileia here could refer to an empire.

Next we have a periphrastic pluperfect passive composed of two verb forms, the aorist active indicative of ginomai and with it the perfect passive participle of the verb skwtow which means to be dark or to become dark. Translation so far: “Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast dictator and his empire was plunged into darkness.” This is literal darkness based on spiritual darkness. Spiritual darkness is cosmic involvement resulting in blackout of the soul and scar-tissue of the soul. Generally speaking, blackout of the soul occurs in cosmic one, whereas scar-tissue of the soul occurs in cosmic two. The two pretty well relate together and the spiritual darkness of degeneracy leads to the literal darkness of divine judgment. There is another form of darkness and that is religion. There is another form of darkness that goes with religion: not the religion of disorganised evil but the religion of organised evil. This is very similar to the ninth plague of Egypt in Exodus chapter ten, but it isn’t the same and it shouldn’t be related — except in one way. When that happened in Exodus 10:20 it says the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not release the sons of Israel. Actually, the man hardened his own heart. But why does it say that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart? Pharaoh was living inside of the cosmic system. He chose of his own volition to get into the cosmic system, and that is brought out in the first part of those plagues in Egypt where it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. So it started out with his own negative volition. His own negative volition brought him pain and therefore he would repent — change his mind — and say that he would release the Jews from slavery. Then, of course, he would renege, and once he did there would again be more pain. The next plague would be more pain and the more pain is the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Every time the Lord fired pain at Pharaoh he simply became stronger in his negative volition until the final plague which he couldn’t stand and finally released the Jews from slavery. But he had to have more and more and more pain. He was in the cosmic system, he hardened his own heart. The Lord hardened his heart only by adding more pain giving him a greater opportunity to say no.

Exodus 10:21, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt’.” More pain.

Verse 22, “So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.”

Verse 23, “They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the sons of Israel had light in their dwellings.”

The interesting thing about the darkness is that it also intensifies the pain. So, like the ninth plague of Egypt, we have a literal darkness covering the revived Roman empire, the kingdom of the beast dictator. It is the darkness of the blackout in the right lobe of Pharaoh that represents the degeneracy, the evil of the soul, that brings on this judgment. The darkness is literal and thick, light resistant, so that no form of humanly-devised system of light is workable. This darkness brings light to a standstill just as degeneracy and cosmic involvement also brings light to a standstill. The blackout judgment of the fifth plague here also delays troop movement so that the revived Roman empire cannot come to the rescue of the dictator of Israel — past of the Middle East campaign of that day, known as the Armageddon campaign, a campaign in the last world war of history. The Roman dictator cannot even honour a treaty which he made in Daniel 11:38 or Matthew 24:15. When the Jews are invaded by the king of the north and the kings of the east, part of the Armageddon campaign, there is darkness in his country and therefore he cannot mobilise or anything with regard to logistical troop movement.

This judgment in Revelation 16:10 refers to a literal darkness and certainly represents the spiritual concept of the spiritual darkness preceding it, the spiritual darkness brought on by the fact that organised evil had superseded disorganised evil and therefore persecuted and destroyed the believers wherever they could be found. In other words, God only sends darkness where darkness previously existed, or God judges spiritual darkness with literal darkness. Generally spiritual darkness refers to life and residence inside of Satan’s cosmic system, the cosmic dynasphere with its interlocking systems of arrogance, cosmic one, and cosmic two with its interlocking systems of anti-Christ hatred.

In Proverbs 2:10-14 we have one of those darkness passages, “For wisdom will enter your right lobe, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you,” comparable to the believer being in the divine dynasphere functioning at gate four, “to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks distorted things.”

The way of evil is organised evil; the man who speaks distorted things is disorganised evil. Often you have them coexisting, one not controlling the other. Once it gains the power organised evil persecutes disorganised evil, and that is why ecumenical religion in the Tribulation is so important. Ecumenical religion persecutes all of the religious systems of disorganised evil. Any cult, church or any organisation that calls itself religious and is disorganised will be persecuted. Crime will be persecuted. Organised evil wants all the power and once it gets the power and also persecutes the believers, that is where we get our Tribulational martyrs. It comes from this dictator and his system of organised evil.

Wisdom is not only the perception of doctrine but the ability to apply it. When you can use Bible doctrine and apply it it is a very pleasant thing, and furthermore, that knowledge gives you capacity for happiness, for life, for love, for blessing, and therefore your soul is in a state of happiness — because you have the capacity.

“Discretion will guard you.” In other words, you won’t make a jackass out of yourself running around trying to straighten out the world, you will be discreet. As you grow in grace you spend less time joining organisations to straighten out the country and more time with Bible doctrine. Therefore you straighten out the country through your advance to maturity, not by becoming involved in social action.

“Understanding will watch over you.” You finally understand what the plan of God is — it is to advance to maturity and thereby save the country.

Verse 13, “From those who leave the paths of virtue,” like leaving the divine dynasphere and getting into the cosmic system, “to walk in ways of darkness.” When you live in the cosmic system you are walking in the ways of darkness.

Verse 14, “Who delight in doing evil, and rejoice in the perversity of evil” — the organisational part of evil.

The importance of the accumulating treasure in heaven always refers to Bible doctrine in the soul. As doctrine comes in darkness goes out of the soul. In the context of Matthew 6:19-23 we have that statement where the body is full of darkness, and that refers to a person living in the cosmic system of Satan. “Where your treasure [your priorities] is there your right lobe will be also.” Illustration: “The lamp of the body is the eye”. The eye is used in the Bible for positive volition and constant perception of Bible doctrine, the function of gate four of the divine dynasphere. “Therefore if your eye is healthy,” momentum from perception and application of Bible doctrine in the divine dynasphere, “then your whole body is full of light,” the priorities of the plan of God are straight.

“But if your eye is bad your whole body will be full of darkness.” If you are not learning doctrine then your body is full of darkness. “If the light that is in you [the content of thought] is darkness, how great is that darkness,” the dynamics of cosmic thinking.

John 8:12, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of light [Bible doctrine].”

The unbeliever in the cosmic system is related to spiritual darkness forever, Romans 1:21, “… their foolish right lobe was darkened.” There is the darkness in the soul.

Being darkened in their understanding is what Ephesians 4:18 calls it, “Being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God [the divine dynasphere], because of the ignorance that is in them,” the great enemy is ignorance, “because of the hardness of their right lobe.”

Colossians 1:13, “For he [Christ] delivered us [believers] from the kingdom of darkness [Satan’s cosmic system],” when we believed in Christ we were immediately delivered from the cosmic system and entered for the first time the divine dynasphere, “and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of his love.” The kingdom of the Son of His love is the divine dynasphere.

Believers living in the cosmic system are described as living in darkness, 1 John 2:9, “The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his fellow believer is in the darkness [the cosmic system] until now.”

So darkness does have a spiritual as well as a literal connotation in the Bible. In Revelation 16:10 the spiritual darkness was judged with literal darkness and great pain. These unbelievers are in darkness spiritually through blackout of the soul and now God provides a physical blackout to intensify the pain. Tribulational unbelievers possess blackout of the soul because they have rejected normal evangelism; they are now in the process of crisis evangelism.

Disaster is a very strange thing. Disaster indicates who has it and who doesn’t. You never know what you are under normal conditions, you have to be in abnormal conditions. All of us under the grace of God are going to have opportunities to face the pressures of historical disaster and that is exactly what we have been studying in this fifth bowl judgment.

The corrected translation of verse 10 — “Then the fifth angel [the pur sui vant messenger from the execution squad] poured out his bowl [the fifth plague] on the empire of the beast dictator; then his empire was plunged into darkness; and they kept biting their tongues because of the pain.”

There are two categories of divine judgment of unbelievers in contrast to the word discipline which we generally apply to believers. The first is called the judgment of pain and the second is called the judgment of death. There are two categories of evangelism: normal evangelism and crisis evangelism.

Judgment by pain

1. Judgment by pain is the function of God’s grace in crisis evangelism.

2. Grace before judgment is the function of normal evangelism; grace in judgment is the function of crisis evangelism. Both are grace functions.

3. Normal evangelism is the presentation of the gospel in time of tranquillity and prosperity — normal times.

4. The administration of the first five bowl judgements in this context is historical disaster under the category of judgment by pain.

5. Normal evangelism occurs in the presentation of the gospel message through the evangelist.

6. In normal evangelism the unbeliever has the opportunity of considering the claims of Christ on his life objectively.

7. When the unbeliever rejects Christ as saviour in normal evangelism he enters gate two of cosmic one and/or gate two of cosmic two, both being negative volition gates. Cosmic one: the twelve gates of interlocking systems of arrogance. Negative volition at gate two of cosmic one originates from preoccupation with self. In cosmic two, gate two is also a negative volition gate but it is negative volition based on antagonism toward doctrine, toward truth, toward the gospel. In cosmic one the individual is occupied with self; in cosmic two the individual is anti-Christ, anti-God. They are two different categories therefore of negative volition.

8. Through cosmic involvement the unbeliever becomes disoriented to reality through the blackout of the soul, life in cosmic one, and through scar-tissue of the soul, life in cosmic two.

9. This condition insulates the unbeliever against the most powerful presentation of the gospel. Therefore he suffers from blackout of the soul and simultaneously he often suffers from scar-tissue of the soul.

Principle

1. God in His matchless grace gives the unbeliever another chance and another chance for salvation. As long as an unbeliever is alive there is hope. God gives the unbeliever another chance by the introduction of pain in one of its many categories.

2. Under personal suffering or historical disaster the pressure of one or more of many categories of pain forces the unbeliever in the cosmic system back to reality. Pain forces him to go from subjectivity to a very temporary objectivity. In that temporary objectivity he will have a few moments for retrospection to recall the phrases he has heard in the gospel appeal. Something will stand out in his mind in that very moment of lucidity which is enough to give him another chance to believe in Christ and have eternal salvation.

3. Being forced back to reality by pain the unbeliever is temporarily distracted from the influences of the cosmic system. For a few moments the cosmic system loses its influence so that he can once more objectively reconsider the message he has previously rejected.

4. Judgment by pain does not kill the unbeliever, as illustrated by the first five judgements in our context, Revelation 16:1-10.

5. Therefore, judgment by pain becomes the last call to personally accept Jesus Christ as saviour under the principle of crisis evangelism. Judgment by pain is crisis evangelism.

6. Crisis evangelism is the judgment of God bringing the unbeliever back to objective reality, and simultaneously to the end of his human resources. This temporary moment of reality is also a lucid moment with regard to being at the end of one’s resources.

7. Pain becomes so intense in this category of divine judgment that it distracts the unbeliever from his cosmic involvement. It removes temporarily the blindness and until he decides once again what he will do about the gospel. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose situation the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds [the gospel must go to the mind, people must have facts] of the unbelieving, so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Some unbelievers at this point believe in Christ and the scales fall from their eyes, as with Paul in Acts 9:18. Others, like the unbelievers in our context, again reject Christ as saviour, they do not repent or change their mind. Therefore, they return like the dog to his own vomit.

2 Peter 2:20, “For if after they have escaped the defilements of the cosmic system by knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ,” that’s crisis evangelism. This means that under normal evangelism they heard the gospel and said no. So their minds were blinded. But they escaped through judgment by pain. The pain was greater than the concepts of the cosmic system and they were distracted from their arrogance, they were distracted from their anti-Christian concepts and modus operandi, “they are again entangled in them,” they go back to cosmic one and two, “and are overcome [entrance into cosmic one, blindness of the soul; entrance into cosmic two, scar-tissue of the soul], the last state has become worse for them than the first” — they have become stronger in their negative volition after rejecting God’s grace in crisis evangelism. They have locked themselves for a second time into negative volition.

Verse 21, “For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it [during crisis evangelism], to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them.” They already knew it before, they had already said no before. When they say no under these circumstances God has exhausted His last grace function by which they could be saved. It would have been better if they had been in this crisis, this judgment by pain, without having known the gospel in the first place so that they would have a shot at the gospel in the second place. They have used up their options at this point.

Verse 22, Illustration: “It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and ‘A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mud’.”

Those in crisis evangelism who say no return to the cosmic system. Once the unbeliever has rejected Christ in crisis evangelism he has lost his greatest opportunity. Therefore he has rejected the strongest offer of grace and nothing is left for him but once to die and after that the judgment.

That brings us to the second category of judgment, judgment by death, which has an entirely different function. God’s judgements all have grace functions. Judgment by pain is an evangelistic function of God’s grace but judgment by death is God’s grace function in the preservation of the human race throughout history. God has promised that the human race and planet earth will not be destroyed until the end of human history, i.e.. the end of the Millennium after the Gog revolution. The problem is that man keeps trying to destroy himself on planet earth through the folly of his bad decisions from a position of weakness. Mankind in arrogance is determined to destroy mankind through lust for power.

The principle is very simple. Man’s freedom and function of his volition apart from virtue and establishment restraint is self-destructive. When mankind is negative toward establishment doctrine and the authority defined in it, and the responsibility developed from it, he becomes degenerate under one of two principles: organised or disorganised evil.

So judgment by death is designed by the grace of God to protect the human race from self-destruction. In other words, judgment by death is radical surgery to separate the infected part of the human race from the non-contaminated part of the human race, to remove, therefore, the contamination by death. The separation is permanent since God removes through physical death those who are contaminated giving the rest of the human race a grace opportunity to believe in Christ. The illustration is the killing of the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah. The contaminated part of the human race in the valley was removed, thereby giving the progeny of Abraham breathing space to use their own volition to be a part of the angelic conflict. The perpetuation of the human race throughout history down to the last day of the Millennium is God’s grace function in judgment by death. Hence, each category of divine judgment has a purpose.

We are dealing with unbelievers in the study of this doctrine but there is an application to us as believers.

Judgment by death: if it were not for judgment by death in previous generations of history we would not be here. We would not be believers on our way to heaven and eternal life after filling in our time on earth. The perpetuation of the human race is only possible through judgment by death. Judgment by death means the opportunity for evangelisation of the human race in future generations and the opportunity for born-again believers to advance to maturity and glorify our Lord Jesus Christ in future generations. Judgment by death means blessing to us therefore as Christians for we have used history’s greatest opportunity given to us by the grace of God. In past generations God has judged and removed large segments of the human race under the principle of judgment by death, and that has freed other parts of the human race who survive to continue on planet earth, to procreate, to provide for future generations. We are the product of those future generations and we have availed ourselves of the opportunity to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore judgment by death is a grace blessing from God to the living in every generation.

Secondly, judgment by pain. We have previously noted that judgment by pain is a grace blessing to the unbeliever, giving him another chance for salvation through faith in Christ under the category of crisis evangelism. We now note the application to believers. Judgment by pain steers the wayward believer back into the plan of God and the purpose of God. Judgment by pain distracts him from the cosmic system; it gives him the opportunity of rebound and to move into the divine dynasphere. Judgment by pain, therefore, is the grace blessing extended to the cosmic believer to reorient him to the reality and the importance of fellowship with God in time — recovery of life in the divine dynasphere. Therefore when the believer loses his priorities and starts to neglect the daily or consistent perception of doctrine God in His grace sends judgment by pain, warning by intensive discipline, to bring him back into the plan of God.

When you become sloppy in your attendance at Bible class and have those airtight excuses that hold no water with God, when you begin to put other things ahead of doctrine in your life, when there is some pleasure, some social activity, something that is far more important to you than assembling with other believers in Bible class, and thereafter you begin to hurt in some way and you start to experience pain, there’s always an overriding reason. We will call it discipline by pain, warning and intensive discipline, to bring you back to the point of rebound, to life and momentum inside the divine dynasphere, to bring back to your life capacity for life, love and happiness, to bring you back to the priorities of the plan of God, to steer you back on course in the plan of God and that momentum that leads to maturity and the glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 11 — the rejection of crisis evangelism in the administration of judgment by pain, or the negative reaction to the first five bowl judgements.

We note first of all the reaction toward God in time of crisis evangelism. We begin with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Then,” meaning after the first five judgements their reaction is recorded. The reaction is negative as noted by the aorist active indicative of the verb blasfhmew. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the reaction in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. This slander or blasphemy of the character of God results from the fact that they have rejected the message of crisis evangelism.

Remember that under the concept of crisis evangelism we find the unbelievers in cosmic one, they have definitely functioned at gate two, negative volition through preoccupation with self; also at cosmic two, gate two, negative volition because of some antagonism toward the truth formed in their souls. In this situation they are in great subjectivity. Arrogance, of course, produces subjectivity; antagonism toward the truth in cosmic two produces subjectivity. This means that they are at the end of the line. There is no possible way to break out of that subjectivity which is called blackout of the soul in cosmic one; scar-tissue of the soul in cosmic two. The only possible way to distract from subjectivity and the false concepts in the cosmic system is to produce a distracter. God produces the distracter — pain: judgment by pain in the first five bowl judgements. This pain is gradually intensified until there is total distraction from subjectivity which mechanically you could say one of two things: it pulls them out of the cosmic system or it neutralises the temporary effectiveness of the cosmic system. Either way the judgment by pain destroys the subjectivity and produces a temporary objectivity. And this is the lucid moment where they now have the opportunity for objectivity. The function of this objectivity is recall. They recall things that they have heard in the presentation of the gospel under normal evangelism. Others once again say no. Basically, that is what is being accomplished at this particular point. Once they say no in crisis evangelism then they actually slander God. This is the strongest subjectivity. The blasphemy is comparable to re-entry into cosmic one.

The active voice: the negative citizens of the revived Roman empire, adherents to the ecumenical religious system, produce the action. The action which is described in negative volition because the passage will deal with those who are negative. There is positive volition but this passage is not going to follow through on that. There is a constant process of people accepting Christ as saviour, either from normal or crisis evangelism. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the eschatological reaction to the warning of the judgment by pain.

The accusative singular direct object is qeoj, referring to God — God whose grace has provided this opportunity and they turn right around and express now the strongest arrogance, the strongest subjectivity, the strongest possible negative volition. To make sure that we understand we have the descriptive genitive of o)uranoj, “the God of heaven.”

Remember that there are four things that we are to distinguish. First of all, the two categories of divine judgment of the unbeliever and their grace connotation. There is judgment by pain and there is judgment by death. There is also a grace aspect of judgment by death and that has to do with the fact of removing the cancer so that the patient lives — removing the evil and degenerate part of the population so that there can be the continuation of the population on earth. We have two categories of evangelism that go with then judgment: normal evangelism and crisis evangelism.

Eventually the negative part is removed but the first thing we note here is the fact that there is slander of God, indicating that eventually those who persist in the slander of God, the strongest possible negative volition, will be taken out by judgment by death. That explains why at the end of the Tribulation there will be a tremendous number of survivors, both believer and unbeliever. The unbelievers at that point all have to be removed, the baptism of fire; the believers go into the Millennium. Many of the believers have been saved out of crisis evangelism.

This brings us to the point of were we note in the next phrase their failure to take the responsibility for their own decisions, therefore their inability to relate their bad decisions to these five judgements; and they emphasise their problem rather than the fact that their own volition brought them to that point. In other words, they fail to take the responsibility for their own decisions. This is brought out in two prepositional phrases. In each case the preposition is the same, the preposition e)k. E)k takes the ablative case and we have e)k plus the ablative of means, an unusual use of the ablative. The ablative is not the regular case for the expression of means, the instrumental case is. However, the ablative expresses means when the means is accompanied by an implication of the origin or the source, and that is exactly what we have here. E)k plus the ablative of means is translated “because of.” In each case we have an object of the preposition, the ablative plural from the noun ponoj plus a)utoj, the intensive pronoun used as the third person personal pronoun because the third person personal pronoun was not translated from the Attic Greek to the Koine, “because of their pain.” And the second reason: the ablative plural of e)lkoj which refers to their ulcers, “and because of their ulcers.”

We go right back to a principle: Religious people never take the responsibility for their own decisions. It is impossible to become a responsible person in life and at the same time be religious. Religious people become so self-righteous that in their function of self-righteousness they will never take the responsibility for anything that goes wrong, and they will never take the responsibility, therefore, for their bad decisions. Therefore they have no true sense of responsibility. They say, “I’m not wrong, God is wrong.” Therefore, the ulcer was a reminder that they had made a decision to enter into the ecumenical religious system. The ulcers were administered in connection with the first bowl judgment and the pain was therefore increased, and the increasing pain brought them to the point of reality, the point of objectivity, but they again said no. In all of these the unbeliever fails therefore to relate his suffering, his pain, to his own negative volition, in this case, negative volition toward the gospel, one of the many bad decisions. The unbeliever involved in religion refuses to take the responsibility for his decisions. He is therefore irresponsible, and the haven for irresponsible people is a system of self-righteous morality.

“Then they blasphemed [maligned, slandered] the God of heaven because of their pain and because of their ulcers.”

Their own negative decisions, then, have brought them to the place of great pain. The pain started with their decisions; God then uses the intensification of it — judgment by pain — in order to bring them to the point of crisis evangelism: operation high noon, where the pur sui vant officers continue to announce the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to these converts of Satan’s ecumenical religion. The constant recall of the gospel, the opportunity to accept Christ in time of this pain, represents the principle that as long as we are alive there is hope.

Reality, of course, for the believer is the necessity of rebound. When pain causes us to be distracted from whatever influences of the cosmic system may exist in our lives, that is our chance, our moment to begin recovery by making good decisions.

We note here their negative volition toward the gospel. The conjunction kai introduces a result from what precedes, “furthermore.” Next we have the aorist active indicative plus the verb metanoew, and this means to change the mind. Noew means “thinking”; meta means “change,” a change of thinking, a complete reversal of their thinking. Interestingly enough, this thinking has to be done under objectivity. Therefore we have the negative of objectivity, o)u. The negative of subjectivity is mh, which is not used here. This with the indicative indicates that they have a genuine opportunity. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views negative volition in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results.

Those so involved are going to die, judgment by death. There are three ways in which it can occur. It can occur in the sixth bowl judgment which will be the last great world war of history. Many will die in the seventh bowl judgment, civilians who will die because of ecumenical religion. Many will survive to the second advent and the baptism of fire will get them.

The active voice: unbelievers of the revived Roman empire produce the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the fact that judgment by pain brought them to a point of objectivity, and while they were still in objectivity they said no. Once again, they are taking the responsibility for their own decisions.

It says here that they couldn’t get away from something, and that something has to do with religion. Religion is described next in the prepositional phrase, e)k plus the ablative of e)rgon, and with it the inevitable possessive genitive of a)utoj, “from their works.”

The preposition e)k plus the ablative often denotes the direction from which something comes. Sometimes it gives a reason for why it comes, which is here presupposition for something. Hence, we are going to translate it “by reason of, or because of, or as a result of.”

“Then they blasphemed [slandered, maligned] the God of heaven because of their pain and their ulcers; furthermore they did not change their minds because of their works.”

They could never get away from the idea that they had to do something for eternal life, they could never get away from works. All religion is salvation by works and the manifestation of negative volition toward truth or doctrine. Being locked-in from their system of works derived from Satan’s cosmic system they continued negative toward the gospel.

The panorama of negative volition

The principle of negative volition is found in John 8:43-45. “Why do you not understand my method of doctrinal teaching? It is because you cannot hear my doctrine.”

Why couldn’t they hear? First of all, you can’t hear the Word when you get into gate one of cosmic one. That is the gate of motivational evil and it means you simply cannot hear the Word under these conditions. Then there is cosmic two were there is antagonism which throws up a negative barrage against the communication of truth or doctrine.

“You are from your father the devil.” He was speaking to religious types, the scribes and the Pharisees. They were in the cosmic system; “and you desire to do [works] the lusts of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning,” all murder is related to the lust of arrogance, “and does not stand in the doctrine, because there is no truth [doctrine] in him.” Arrogance squeezes out truth. “Whenever he teaches the lie he teaches from his own cosmic system; for he is a liar, and is the father of it.” He is the originator of the cosmic system.

“But because I speak the truth, you do not believer me.” If Satan came along and gave them a lie they would believe it, but He speaks the truth, they are in the cosmic system and do not believe Him. Those involved in the cosmic system as unbelievers will not believe the truth of the gospel, but given enough pain, without killing them, and they will be distracted from the influence of the cosmic system long enough to possess objectivity and lucidity and face the issue of the gospel.

1 Timothy 4:1, this Satanic teaching of the lie is delegated to fallen angels, demons. “But that same Holy Spirit explicitly communicates that in latter periods of time [Church Age and Tribulation] some [believers] will become apostate from doctrine, concentrating on [paying attention] to deceitful spirits [teaching demons] and doctrines from demons.” The problem is solved for the unbeliever by crisis evangelism and for the believer by the principle of warning discipline followed by intensive discipline, divine discipline by pain.

1 John 2:15,16 gives us the principle: “Stop loving the cosmic system.” The cosmic system is composed of cosmic one, emphasising arrogance or preoccupation with self; cosmic two, emphasising hatred or antagonism toward the priorities of God. Cosmic one emphasises self in contrast to God and God’s plan; cosmic two emphasises human viewpoint in contrast to divine viewpoint. Cosmic one delineates the philosophy of Satan at the time of his prehistoric fall; cosmic two emphasises Satan’s philosophy at the time of man’s fall. Cosmic one is the prehistoric policy of Satan extended into human history; cosmic two is Satan’s policy in history as the ruler of this world. Before man was created Satan was preoccupied with himself — arrogance; now that he is the ruler of this world he is preoccupied with being anti-God and anti-Christ.

Through entrance into cosmic one the believer becomes inculcated with Satan’s thinking before the creation of man. Through entrance into cosmic two the believer becomes indoctrinated with the thinking of Satan during the course of human history. Cosmic one reflects the thinking of Satan as the ruler of fallen angels; cosmic two reflects the thinking of Satan as the ruler of planet earth.

So we have: “Stop loving the cosmic system, or anything in the cosmic system. If anyone keeps loving the cosmic system, the love for the Father is not in him.” The love for the Father is motivational virtue at gate five, personal love for God.

“Because all that is in the cosmic system, the lust of the flesh,” the attack of the old sin nature seeking to control the soul, “the lust of the eyes,” motivational evil, gate one, cosmic one, “and the arrogant pattern of life,” the functional evil of gates two through twelve of cosmic one, “is not from the Father, but is from the cosmic system.”

This is how negative volition gets going. The cosmic system, therefore, becomes a tactical trap for the enslavement of the human race to Satan, enslavement of the unbeliever and enslavement also of the believer. Consequently the cosmic system is the factory for the manufacturing of losers. Losers are defined as unbelievers who keep rejecting normal evangelism, and as believers living in the cosmic system. That is why we have the mandate of Romans 12:3.

Cosmic involvement is the principle of negative volition. Under the principle of judgment by pain the first five bowl judgements are designed for crisis evangelism, another chance, another grace opportunity to have a temporary state of objectivity, and in that temporary state of objectivity to escape the shackles of Satan by personal faith in Christ. Again, the judgements include cancer of the skin to accompany the mark of the beast, contamination of both salt and fresh water with blood to accompany the shedding of the blood of martyrs, the unbearable heat to provide a prophetical view of the heat of Hell, and physical darkness to accompany the spiritual darkness, their blackout of the soul.

Satan is the ruler of this world. The kingdom of Satan is therefore called the kingdom of darkness, Ephesians 5:11; Colossians 1:13. Since the domain of Satan is the kingdom of darkness those who believers who reside and function in the cosmic system are said to be walking in darkness. Crisis evangelism is therefore designed for those who are walking in darkness. 1 John 1:6 and John 12:35 both say the same thing: “He who walks in darkness does not know where he is going.” 1 John 2:11 emphasises the fact that hatred or mental attitude sins of gate one, cosmic one, is walking in darkness and having the eyes blinded: “when anyone hates his fellow believer he walks in darkness [the cosmic system], furthermore he does not know where he is going because the darkness [the cosmic system] has blinded his eyes.” The same thing is true for the unbeliever. The unbeliever has his eyes blinded by living inside the cosmic system.

The world war at the end of the Tribulation will be fought everywhere, and will involve most of the nations of the world. It is not the same as the Armageddon campaign. So in making our distinctions we notice the second one, the Middle East campaign which is a part of that world war and called the Armageddon campaign. The world war is not Armageddon.

A campaign is different from a war. A campaign is the manoeuvring of armies in a certain area in connection with that war. So there are three words to become acquainted with: war, campaign, and battle. They are all different and all three are used technically in Revelation chapters 16 and 19. At the end of the Tribulation there will be war all over the earth but the portion that the Bible studies is the one that deals with the Jews, because God has promised that the Jews will never be destroyed and when Christ returns there will be living Jews who will be delivered. God has to keep His promise and Satan has to try to keep Him from doing it, so there is a specific Middle East campaign to wipe out the Jews. Occasionally we will call it the Armageddon campaign because one of the major battles, but not the greatest, was in Armageddon. Then we will study the battle of Armageddon, but that is only one of several battles. There is the battle of Armageddon, the battle of Idumea, and the siege of Jerusalem which determines where Christ is going to return and shut down the whole world war, His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives.

All three categories of warfare have a specific cause which will be mentioned in the context of Revelation 16:12-16. The order in which they occur is as follows: First there is the cause of the Middle East campaign, 16:12, the administration of the sixth bowl judgment; secondly, we will get the cause of the last world war in history, 16:13,14, the modus operandi of the war demons; the third is the cause of the actual battle of Armageddon in the Middle East campaign, 16:16, brought about by the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ controls history.

Armageddon needs a little summary. The cause of Armageddon is going to be given in chapter sixteen, verses 12-16. It will be related to war, to campaigns, to judgment by pain, judgment by death, and judgment for eternity. Then we will note the invasion of the Middle East, and that will take us to Daniel chapter eleven. Then we will go to the emergence of Jewish leadership for the crisis, Proverbs 24 and Zechariah 12. Then we will go to the siege of Jerusalem which is the major battle in the campaign in the last world war, and we will see the Jewish believers who do not participate legitimately, and why, in Matthew 24; and the Jewish believers who did legitimately participate, and why, in Zechariah 14. Then we will see the termination of the Armageddon campaign, the termination of the battles, and the termination of the entire world war.

In verses 12-16 we have phase one of the Armageddon or Middle East campaign. In verse 12 we have the cause of the invasion of the Middle East. Why do great armies suddenly invade the Middle East at the end of the Tribulation? The reason for it is the sixth bowl judgment. God is going to shift gears here and the last two bowl judgements are judgment by death. A lot of people are going to die.

In verse 12 we note first the target for the sixth bowl judgment. It begins with the sequential use of the conjunction kai translated “Then,” followed by the nominative singular from the adjective numeral e(ktoj, “sixth.” The sixth angel’s judgment is not judgment by pain, his is judgment by death. He is going to start the killing. All orders for killing in this judgment and the next one come from heaven. Heaven orders death. And this is grace because a lot of people are going to survive to the second advent because if this grenade.

So the sixth angel pulls the pin on this grenade, aorist active indicative of e)kxew, “poured out.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the sixth pur sui vant messenger from the execution squad produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of eschatology. He has been issued as a part of the protocol of heaven his very own fialh, grenade. It was issued to him by one of the so-called four beasts in the King James version, or one of the four heralds and this sixth grenade begins judgment by death. So it is his very own weapon. We know that from the possessive genitive of a)utoj.

The target? We have the prepositional phrase e)pi plus the accusative of potamoj, “river.” It is a large river. We know that from the accusative from the adjective megaj. And then the river is named, “Euphrates.”

“Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the large river, the Euphrates,” the 33rd largest river in the world. It is 1675 miles long. In the Millennium when the Palestinian covenant is fulfilled it will be one of the borders of the revived client nation to Israel. God has promised the Jews a piece of real estate they have never occupied and cannot occupy until the Millennium. The western border is the Nile river. It will be one of the largest nations in the world at that time. The Euphrates is mentioned not simply as a river but as a boundary, a marking line. It is mentioned therefore in a strict strategical sense as the barrier between east and west as far as the Middle East is concerned.

We have moved on to note the principle of judgment for eternity as the third category of judgment. Judgment for eternity deals with the great white throne judgment at the end of the Millennium, and we will study it at that time. For those who reject Christ as saviour under three categories of evangelism nothing is left for rejection by grace but the lake of fire forever and ever. There are three categories where a person has the opportunity either to believe or to reject.

The first category is really not gospel hearing but it is God-consciousness. That often determines the course of the individual. There is a point of God-consciousness, there is a point of normal evangelism, and there is a point of crisis evangelism. If under all of these three categories there is rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour then nothing is left but Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment,” that is the second death, the lake of fire. Only the person who has rejected Christ as saviour will occupy the lake of fire. The lake of fire, of course, is literal; it is eternal; it was prepared for the devil and his angels, Matthew 25:41. We are anticipating Revelation 19:20 where the first occupants of the lake of fire, the beast and the false prophet, will be a part of the unholy trinity and that will be studied at a later time.

How does all of this apply? There are actually two things that we must apply. The first has to do with an historical trend, the fifth cycle of discipline as it was administered to Israel in the time of the Jewish wars which began in 66 and really closed out in AD 73. In the function of normal evangelism the Jews had the opportunity of believing in Christ between 30 and 70 AD. They had a period of forty years of normal evangelism. During this time they first of all heard the message of our Lord Jesus Christ; after that they heard the message of the apostles. In order that they might focus their attention on the message they saw the miracles of our Lord; they saw miracles performed by the apostles. There was one other miracle that was used: the gift of tongues was given so that Jews would be warned historically, for the gift of tongues is evangelising Jews in Gentile languages. That was the warning that the time of the Gentiles was coming, it was a historical warning to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the gift of tongues was used in that period only, from 30-70 AD, and it was a part of normal evangelism. Normal evangelism gradually subsided. When the apostle Paul went to Jerusalem and his message was rejected there was a gradual subsidence of normal evangelism and eventually in AD 66 the Jewish wars began, so from 66-73 AD we have crisis evangelism in contrast to normal evangelism.

In 66 AD Nero sent Vespasian and his legions to put down a Jewish revolt, but the Jews were great fighters and the attempt didn’t succeed. But this was actually the beginning of the Jewish war, and with the Jewish war and the pain to the unbelievers of Israel we now begin the second stage of evangelism, judgment by pain. During this time many Jews came back to the Lord. Between 66 and 70 the war was not going too well and finally in late 69 the Roman legions came to the wall of Jerusalem. When they arrived there Vespasian heard that Nero had now been assassinated and therefore he went home to become the next emperor of the Roman empire. He left everything to do with the war to his son, Titus. At this particular point, August of AD 70, the Romans broke through the walls of Jerusalem. They destroy the city and from there we go from crisis evangelism to judgment by death. Judgment by death eradicated all of those Jews who were now under the principle of disorganised or organised evil. Only 90,000 people survived and they would go through the same process again. They were taken and sold as slaves so that they still had a chance under crisis evangelism, judgment by pain, and then they would individually either die as believers and go to heaven or they would die as unbelievers and go to eternal Hell.

This principle is taught under the concept that God never condones internationalism until the second advent, and that the world is divided up into nations. First, nationalism began as a part of the fourth divine institution, human government, with the Jews. When the Jews became a client nation to God nationalism began, Deuteronomy 32:8. Then, add to that the fact that He said in verse 33, “The Lord’s portion is his people.” They were the first client nation to God.

In Acts 17:26 the times of the Gentiles is about to begin, 70 AD, and therefore we have a new rule about nationalism, “And he made from one people [the people of the world] to live on all the surface of the earth, having appointed their time [when their country began], and the boundaries of their habitation,” all determined in eternity past. That is why Job 12:23 says, “He makes nations great, he destroys nations; he enlarges the nations, then leads them away [into slavery].” The rise and fall of nations depends upon their response to the laws of divine establishment with emphasis on the divine institutions.

During the first advent our Lord Jesus Christ predicted the fall of Israel under the category of judgment in time, judgment by pain and judgment by death. He also predicted the categories of evangelism that would go with it, normal evangelism and crisis evangelism. Some of these things are found in Luke 21:20-24. The times of the Gentiles began on that day in August when the temple was destroyed and since that time and to this moment no Jewish nation can be a client nation to God. In fact, there will be no Jewish client nation until the second advent of Christ. In the meantime SPQR became the first client nation and, bringing us up to date in this last half of the 20th century, the USA is a client nation today.

Note, then, the function of God’s grace in history. Normal evangelism from 30-70 AD as far as Jerusalem was concerned; crisis evangelism began in AD 66 with the Jewish war, and for those who rejected crisis evangelism there was judgment by death in August of AD 70. For those who were either positive at God-consciousness or would eventually believe in the Lord Jesus Christ there was another phase of judgment by pain, the 90,000 Jews who survived to go into slavery. It is not God’s will, therefore, for anyone to perish. This is illustrated by our Lord’s attitude toward Jerusalem which is mentioned in Luke 13:34.

We also note an application from this. While there is in the Tribulation great confusion on the earth from these bowl judgements there is perfect happiness and tranquillity in heaven. In heaven there are three categories of mankind: the Church in resurrection bodies; the Old Testament saints who will have a resurrection body at the second advent; the Tribulational martyrs. And there is perfect happiness in heaven because of capacity, and that capacity comes from being organised under the principle of protocol. Right now in heaven during the Church Age we have Old Testament believers and Church Age believers all in their interim state. They have perfect happiness under the principle of protocol. On the earth there is a great deal of confusion and disaster today, a great deal of tragedy, but protocol comes right into the middle of it only through the divine dynasphere, and the secret to your happiness, blessing, and capacity for life, is life inside the divine dynasphere.

Next in verse 12 we are going to study the cause of the Middle East campaign, sometimes called the Armageddon campaign because that is one of the major battles. Then, in verse 13 and 14 we are going to see the causes for the world war, and in verse 16 we are going to see the cause of the battle of Armageddon which is not the most dramatic one, the most dramatic one is the siege of Jerusalem. Specifically the cause of the Middle east campaign is going to be the pulling of the pin of the sixth golden grenade, the administration of the sixth bowl judgment.

We have made the distinction between war, campaign, and battle. In the section we are now studying we now have the cause of a war, the cause of a campaign, and the cause of a battle. Each one of these has its own categorical problem. In connection with the war it becomes a matter of political problems, economy, preparedness, industry, many, many factors. In a campaign it becomes a matter of weather and many factors. In a battle, the same factors plus supporting troops, disposition of the enemy, and other factors. In other words, in order to solve problems you must first of all categorise them. Once this is done, then you can deal with solutions in that isolated category and then relate it to others.

So far in verse 12, “Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates...” The result: “and its water was dried up,” the aorist passive indicative of the verb zhrainaw, which means not only to dry up but it means the removal of a barrier. This is a dramatic aorist tense presenting reality with the certitude of a future event. It is also a constative aorist which contemplates the action in its entirety, a strategic barrier has been removed. The warfare, therefore, is apparently already in existence and it is simply a matter of how it comes to the Middle East. The passive voice: the Euphrates river, a strategic barrier protecting the Middle East from the east receives the action of the verb. We have noted that the Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written, and in the time in which this was written the Euphrates river was the boundary line between the Roman empire and the Parthian empire of the east. No barriers exist for an invasion from the east into the Middle East and the land of Israel once this occurs. Therefore this phrase anticipates the great invasion of the Middle East by Asiatic powers.

The purpose of the sixth bowl judgment is given with the conjunction i(na which introduces a purpose clause. It is translated “that,” or “in order that.” This is a final purpose clause which expresses the purpose conceived as the aim or the objective of the action expressed in the main verb. With this we have the nominative singular subject o(doj, ordinarily translated “way,” but having some latitude in translation. Here it means “invasion route.” Then the objective genitive plural from the noun basileuj which in the plural refers to a group of Asiatic rulers.

They are said to come from the east, which is the prepositional phrase a)po plus the ablative of the noun a)natolh plus e(lioj, “from the rising of the sun.” It is an idiom meaning “from the east.” With this we have an appositional genitive plural from the definite article used as a demonstrative pronoun and translated, “Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates; and its water was dried up, in order that the invasion route for the kings, those from the east ...” Then one more verb, the aorist passive subjunctive from the verb e)toimazw, “might be prepared.” The culminative aorist tense views the invasion from the east in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the clash between east and west in the Middle East during the last half of the Tribulation. This, of course, will be a part of the Armageddon campaign in the last world war of history. The passive voice: the kings who invade from the east receive the action of the verb, that is, they receive a perfect invasion route. The subjunctive mood merely indicates that this is a purpose clause.

The problem with things like this is that the historical interpretation of Revelation is often a temptation to those who have the academic background for it. However, it is an erroneous interpretation: Revelation is prophecy after the third chapter. The temptation here is to interpret both Daniel and Revelation in terms of some past historical event which fits the case. There is always someone who thinks he is qualified to handle it from that standpoint. The true development is eschatological but there are very few pastors and theologians who know enough eschatology to really deal with it. This is often taught by good historians as the invasion of the kings from the east, and it is taught as a Kurdish invasion of Palestine which took place in AD 1191, in the middle ages. The kings of the east were considered to be Saladin and his Kurds who overran the Middle East. It makes a very nice story but it simply does not work out by historical interpretation, and it has nothing to do with eschatology. The kings of the east in our context could have been interpreted as Saladin while the king of the west, therefore, would have had to be Richard the Lion Hearted, Philip Augustus the king of France, and Frederick Barbarosa of Germany. Palestine would have been represented by the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem founded during the first crusade in 1099 when the holy city was conquered by Ramon, Count of Toulouse, and with him, Richard, Duke of Normandy and Godfrey who was also the Duke of lower Lorraine. Godfrey became the ruler of the first kingdom of Jerusalem under the title of Baron of the Holy Sepulcher. All this fits in certain ways, but there is no way you can take anything in the past when eschatology is intended and squeeze it in, there is always something sticking out. What is sticking out here is nothing other than Richard the Lion Hearted and, of course, the Jews were not in the land, it was a Gentile nation in the land. No matter how tempting we must stand fast with the eschatological interpretation of Revelation and not a historical one. In the future, after the Rapture of the Church and during the last half of the Tribulation, there will be this great world war.

The invasion which occurs in the future will be unprecedented. This invasion will actually pull all of the people who live on the earth at that time in the Asiatic and Pacific basin. They will form one great block and they will have a massive army of perhaps two or three million people invading the Middle East. Certain portions of this army will come into the state of Israel. The invasion is a part of, and the beginning of the great Armageddon campaign of which the battle of Armageddon is one of several battles. And what starts this invasion is the sixth bowl judgment, the function of the sixth angel on the execution squad.

Translation: “Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates; and its water was dried up in order that the invasion route for the kings, those from the east, might be prepared.”

Verse 12 simply gives us the cause for the Middle East campaign. It was the sixth bowl judgment. This is the first bowl judgment that is judgment by death in contrast to the first five which were judgements by pain. Judgment by pain is designed for crisis evangelism to orient to reality those who are in the cosmic system. Next, in verse 13, we will have the cause of the world war of which this campaign is a part, and we will see there demon activity. Finally, when we get to verse 16 we will see the cause of the actual battle of Armageddon in the Middle East campaign, and it will have to do with our Lord Jesus Christ controlling history.

This, then, is a great invasion. It is the invasion of a confederation of Asiatic powers at the end of the Tribulation; it is part of the last world war of history. It comes at the end of the Tribulation and is a reminder that warfare will still occur at that time. There will always be wars in history until the second advent, and there is no way to stop war for any period of time. The only way to have peace is to be well prepared, to have a strong military organisation. This will guarantee peace for often a generation.

When the sixth golden grenade [bowl judgment] was thrown immediately the barrier between the Middle East and Asia was removed, and with the removal of that barrier we have a phenomenal invasion.

Next we have the cause of the war. When this invasion took place and began a campaign a war was already in progress: the last world war of history. The cause of this war is given in verses 13 and 14, and in these passages we are going to see the kosmokratwr demons, the war demons.

In verse 13 we have the unholy trinity of the Tribulation. The passage begins with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, meaning “Then,” followed by the aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw, “Then I saw.” This is the beginning of another vision by the apostle John. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: John the apostle, the human author of the book of Revelation, produces the action of the verb in his vision of demon activity which leads to the Armageddon campaign of the Tribulation. But first there has to be a war. Wars come first, then campaigns, then battles, in that order.

Next we have to see how the war got started. Kosmokratwr demons have a great deal to do with warfare, small and great. Here we are looking at the start of a world war. So the active voice: John produces the action, and the declarative indicative mood is for the eschatological reality of the fact that historically in the past and in the future there is a war demon that starts the ball rolling. The principle is that there is a certain unreasonable and irrational factor in the cause of many wars; not all, but many of them. This, therefore, is related to the war demon. Under demon influence and demon possession man is determined to pursue a course of destruction which involves terror, warfare, violence, the expression of demon arrogance, vindictiveness, implacability and revenge motivation. It happens individually with people; it happens with groups. For the twentieth century illustration we have Adolf Hitler and Joe Stalin. Adolf Hitler’s determination to go to war illustrates the existence of the influence of these demons. War demons delight in involving nations and empires in terrible wars.

That introduces, then, the trinity of evil. The first member of the evil trinity is mentioned next beginning with a prepositional phrase, e)k plus the ablative of stoma — “from the mouth” of the drakwn, “dragon.”

“Then I saw three frog-like demons.” So we have the frog-like demons mentioned first and these three demons are going to be the source of all the problems. The only problem is that that is the way it is in the King James version, it is not the word order in the Greek. First we have the trinity, then we have the frogs. This is the evil trinity which begins with Satan himself, “from the mouth of the dragon.”

Thanks to the Septuagint we know that stoma has an equivalent in the Hebrew, peh, and that helps us to understand the meaning of stoma in this passage. It means “from the mouth of” literally, but it is an idiom. The idiom is derived from peh compared to stoma in the translation of the Septuagint and it should be translated “from the command of,” or even better, “from the conspiracy of.” So we have, “Then I saw three evil spirits from the conspiracy of the dragon.” They don’t pop out of his mouth, they come from the conspiracy. Therefore these demons are a part of Satan’s conspiracy. In Revelation 12:9 we saw that the dragon is Satan.

Next we have the dictator once again. There are two other conspirators. Satan is an angel, the leader of all the fallen angels and the highest ranking of the fallen angels. He is conspirator number one. Two other conspirators are the dictator of the revived Roman empire and the dictator of Israel. The conspiracy starts with Satan but the conspiracy demands the use of people. All effective conspiracies involve evil people and this one is no exception. So we will study again the beast dictator and his second agitator. We have already seen certain things about this dictator who is called the beast. He is a military genius, he gains control of the revived Roman empire through warfare. He conquers ten nations. He is a political genius and a religious genius. He has the power of miracles which is given to him by Satan, 2 Thessalonians chapter two. He also has the dynamics of verbal communication: the word “mouth.” He has the ability to communicate as one of the most important functions of life. Satan gives this dictator a supernatural power of speaking, of eloquence, and he uses it in the conspiracy. There is a time limit to this conspiracy, that is always one of God’s great weapons — time. There is a time limit to its function but it does result in the last great world war of history. There is also evil power being frustrated by a sense of humour, and this beast dictator with all of his genius has no sense of humour.

People, of course, who have too much power generally do not have a sense of humour, they take themselves very seriously. Too much power is defined as power accompanied by arrogance. To the extent that arrogance infiltrates the power systems that you possess, to that extent it becomes too much power. Arrogance plus power cannot laugh at self or at anything that is humorous. Arrogant preoccupation with self always takes self too seriously. The beast dictator cannot laugh at himself and all he can do is slander those who do laugh at him or those who are beyond his power. In this case he will use this for conspiracy.

We have also noted that the beast dictator with all of the great power that he possesses is miserable, frustrated and, above all, he is insecure. Out of his frustration and out of his unhappiness comes conspiracy. And the second phrase of this verse, “out of the conspiracy of the beast dictator,” becomes very significant. Here is a dictator who is totally miserable and unhappy because he has no capacity for life. He has great genius, great ability, is a very smart person in every sense of the word, he has succeeded militarily and socially in every possible way. He has everything going for him and yet he is a totally miserable person. This means that these things require the one thing that he lacks: capacity. Capacity is one thing that he will never have. Capacity comes from doctrine — from receiving Christ as saviour and, after that, through spiritual growth through Bible doctrine; or, as an unbeliever, capacity could come to him through the function of the laws of divine establishment. He could have capacity from establishment truth but he has rejected all establishment truth, he is a part of that system called organised evil. The beast dictator has a systematic or organised system of evil in his control of the revived Roman empire and therefore he is a persecutor of believers.

The problem with verse 13 in the Greek is that the frog-like demons are not found until the end of the verse. Correcting it in the English we would say, “Then I saw three frog-like demons from the mouth [representing conspiracy] of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast dictator, from the mouth of the false prophet.” That is the way we have it in the English but the unholy trinity is presented first as far as the Greek is concerned.

The devil is the central antagonist in the angelic conflict, in the human history phase, Hebrews chapters 1 & 2, he has an organisation to defeat mankind, Ephesians 6:10-12. Since Satan means “enemy” he is the enemy of the Church, Revelation chapter 2; he is the enemy of Bible doctrine, Matthew 13:9, 39; he is the original murderer of the human race, John 8:44; he is the enemy of Israel, Revelation 12:4, 13, 15; he is the enemy of Christ, Revelation 12:4. The devil has the strategy to control nations, Revelation 12:9; 20:3; he also has strategy to control the human race in the development of the cosmic system, 2 Corinthians 2:11. Resisting the devil means life in the divine dynasphere, God’s system for the believer. Since the devil doesn’t personally attack us, and so on, we understand that resisting the devil has to do with his cosmic system, cosmic one with its twelve gates of interlocking systems of arrogance; cosmic two with its nine gates of interlocking systems of anti-God hatred. When it says in James 4:8, “Draw near to God,” it means momentum in the divine dynasphere.

The second member of the evil trinity is a member of the human race, “from the mouth of the beast dictator [the ruler of the revived Roman empire and the leader of ecumenical religion]...”

The third member of the evil trinity — “from the mouth of the false prophet.” The false prophet is a Jew; the beast dictator is a Gentile. The Gentile dictator rules the revived Roman empire; the false prophet rules the Jewish state in the Tribulation. He is in on the conspiracy too. His first alias is “Dan the serpent”. That is the way the false prophet was described prophetically in Genesis 49. He is a Jew from the tribe of Dan; he is the dictator of the state of Israel in the Tribulation. He is also called “the wilful king” in Daniel chapter eleven. He is called the Anti-Christ in the sense of the false Messiah in Revelation 13:11; he is called the false prophet in Revelation 16:13, our passage. He is called the beast from the land in Revelation 13:11-18. So he has many designations and we can learn a great deal about him by studying all of these passages.

The last phrase in the Greek is one that deals with the demons themselves, “I saw three frog-like demons.” The frog-like demons are said to be unclean. This is a reference to cultic impurity. We have the Greek word a)kaqartoj and it is a very key word in this thing because “unclean” is a word which is used for fornication, idolatry, any form of religion that involves the phallic cult; and these war demons are worshipped in the Tribulation through the medium of idolatry just as in Old Testament times. There is a special warning about getting in contact with war demons through religion and through idolatry in Leviticus 17:7, “They shall no longer sacrifice their offerings to the satyr demon with whom they play the harlot.” The satyr demon is the one who brings on the war demon. “This shall be a permanent law in every generation.” In Deuteronomy 32:17, “They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to those who they have not known, news things who came lately,” the demons who came because of religion. First religion comes then idolatry, then the demons come into that area.

These demons are said to be “like frogs,” batroxoj. Why frogs? Batroxoj is used many times for people under a grotesque connotation. The whole concept of frogs is that frogs are like people when people are evil, when people are arrogant, when people are out of line as far as life is concerned. God even taught this to Pharaoh in Exodus 8:14 when He sent the plague of frogs, and it says the frogs were piled up in heaps when they died and “the land had a bad odour.” When people are compared to frogs that means that people are degenerate and the land stinks. Frogs in this context represent people but there is another reason why the frogs are mentioned: because frogs are great public speakers. Talk is used for conspiracy, for destruction.

In the English it sounds like this: “Then I saw three frog-like demons from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast dictator, and from the mouth of the false prophet.”

The word “mouth” in each case refers to conspiracy, and these demons are called kosmokratwr. Their organisation is copied after the elect angelic college of heralds. The kosmokratwr are the war demons, Satanic ambassadors who are involved in propaganda ministries to the rulers of this world. Actually, these three demons command a special battalion each of ambassadors or propaganda demons who are sent to the various capitals of the world to carry out Satanic policies of evil, e.g. Daniel 10:13ff.

One of the things that is always brought about by dictatorships is not only conspiracy but organised evil where before disorganised evil existed. The beast dictator has a systematic principle of organised evil. As the ruler of the revived Roman empire and as the leader of ecumenical religion he has developed a system whereby disorganised evil becomes non-existent and organised evil takes its place. When organised evil occurs then God must exercise His prerogative of justice: judgment by death rather than judgment by pain. In judgment by pain we have crisis evangelism but in judgment by death a part of the human race is eradicated in order that the rest of the human race might continue in history. In the martyrdom of mature believers we learn the principle that while doctrinal believers can coexist with degeneracy or disorganised evil they cannot exist in a society of organised and systematic evil. Organised or systematic evil always persecutes the truth, and what really brings about the whole thing is religion, just as Islamic people today have declared war on most of the non-Islamic world. So when you add religion to a dictator’s system you have the worst form of organised or systematic evil.

When a client nation has too much degeneracy, too much disorganised evil, and is therefore not controlled by the laws of divine establishment, some dictator rises up to suppress the disorganised evil of degeneracy. In so doing he often substitutes a systematic form of evil in which the government has one special characteristic: the union of religion and government. From this, of course, the government commits all of the crime and eliminates the general function of crime where crime is independent of the governmental system. The power of degeneracy or disorganised evil is crime and violence while the power of systematic evil is government using its authority and using religion as justification for destroying freedom, confiscating property, and murdering behind the facade of the greater good for the greater number. Systematic evil is characterised, therefore, by self-righteous arrogance; disorganised evil is characterised by criminal arrogance. The dictator eliminates private crime and substitutes public crime on a big scale.

The enlarged pivot of mature believers and the effective function of law and order, free enterprise, and military establishment hinders this type of function. It hinders the effectiveness of organised and systematic evil and prevents the rise of dictators such as the one we are studying in this passage.

Degeneracy or disorganised evil generally opens the way for the function of organised or systematic evil in a national entity. Degeneracy can coexist with doctrinal teaching and with the truth. The church evangelises degeneracy and degeneracy in its turn seeks to evangelise the church. The pattern of systematic evil replacing disorganised evil is seen quite frequently in history: in modern times the French revolution, the Russian revolution of 1917, the communist take-over of China, and rise of Adolf Hitler, just to mention a few. It proves the point that self-righteous arrogance always has greater power than criminal arrogance. Self-righteous arrogance is morality without virtue, and therefore the importance of the priorities in the plan of God — virtue first, for Christianity produces a morality totally divorced from any form of legalism or self-righteousness. Morality minus virtue becomes self-righteous arrogance and leads to organised evil, the systematic evil by which dictators rise to power. In permitting evil to run its course in human history God demonstrates the power of doctrine resident in the mature believer. The mature believer always keeps his priorities straight, doctrine is more important than life itself, and therefore the explanation for the martyrdom during the Tribulation.

The dictator demands and gains respect from the people, the leader functions under the principle of mutual respect. This, therefore, means that dictatorships eliminate any true system of leadership whereby the leader functions under the principle of mutual respect. The dictator demands respect through the infusion of fear, therefore the dictator uses his power to gain respect rather than any leadership ability he may possess. The worship of power is the dictator’s way of control of people in contrast to the leadership system. Leaders have ability and professionalism which inspires confidence and leads to the principle of mutual respect.

One of the great problems, and one we are facing today but is not nearly as great today as it will be in the Tribulation, is the fact that a dictator realises very early in his career that there is no power in public opinion. Public opinion caters to the viewpoint of the majority and the majority has no power or control in history. It is always the minority well organised that has the control. One hundred thousand Bolsheviks eventually took over the entire Russia. Sometimes it is a good minority like the pivot of mature believers in a client nation, but generally it is the very well organised system of evil, often working both through concepts of politics but more often through concepts of religion. Religion keeps people from thinking; religion is, of course, a form of emotionalism; religion is evil and Satanic in contrast to Christianity. The minority for evil often controls under historical trends. The communists were a minority, the Nazis were a minority. Organised minorities always produce dictators. Public opinion reacts to these minorities but public opinion has no organisation and no power. Public opinion is news today and gone tomorrow. It has no power against organised minorities and their depredations. Therefore public opinion can bully the weak and flatter the successful. Public opinion is all too often a system of arrogance (therefore weakness), a system of self-righteousness, a system of mass hysteria which assumes that their condemnation has influence for power — which it does not. We often operate on the false premise that public opinion has influence over evil. In reality evil cares absolutely nothing for public opinion except to mould it for its own devices.

The power of the dictator prevents him therefore from also thinking beyond the inventory of his ideas. But once a dictator becomes powerful then he seeks to make sure that the people that he controls never think beyond his inventory of ideas. All of this is what happens in this passage. Notice again that three times the word “mouth” is mentioned and each time it refers to conspiracy — well organised conspiracy. The dragon is Satan, the greatest creature genius of all history; the beast dictator is the most brilliant man of his day.

What we have in verses 13 and 14 at the start of the last world war in history is the beginning conspiracy. When we get to Revelation 19:19 we will see the last conspiracy in connection with that world war.

What is the answer to conspiracy? It can be very easily summarised by Hosea 4:1ff. This is an ancient problem, the kosmokratwr demons have been functioning throughout history.

Verse 1, “Hear the word of the Lord, you citizens of Israel.” Hosea addressed this to the northern kingdom which at this time was a client nation to God but was becoming very degenerate, very disorganised, very easily brainwashed, and therefore was in serious jeopardy; “because the Lord has a lawsuit against the inhabitants of the nation, because there is no doctrine being taught and nothing of grace being applied, and nothing of knowing God in the nation.” That is the three fold indictment. When nations fail these are the reasons: no doctrine, no grace, no knowledge of God.

Verse 2, “Instead there is lying, falsehood and deceiving, murdering and stealing, and they break in to commit rape. Therefore blood reaches out and touches blood,” an idiom in the Hebrew for violence. Violence starts with lying. When people start conspiracies inevitably conspiracy destroys individuals, first in the soul and then next in violence.

Verse 3, “For this cause the land shall mourn, therefore everyone who lives in it shall lose strength,” people become weak sisters — “along with the animals of the field, the birds in the sky, the fish in the lake; they shall be destroyed.” In other words the destruction of all categories of life through warfare.

Verse 4, “Only let no one [the believer in the cosmic system] try to destroy [or put down] the authority of someone who communicates doctrine; since your people [the northern kingdom] resemble those who try to destroy the authority of the priest,” the priest communicated Bible doctrine in that day.

Verse 5, “Therefore you have stumbled in the daylight, and even the prophet will stumble with you in night darkness; and I will destroy your mother [the nation].”

“Therefore you have stumbled” means they have entered into the cosmic system and they have done it in daylight in the presence of good doctrinal teaching. And even the prophet will stumble with you in night darkness” means apostasy in the clergy. “And I will destroy your mother” means the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline.

Now, why all of these things?

Verse 6, “My nation [the northern kingdom, at that time a client nation] is destroyed from lack of knowledge of doctrine. Because you have rejected the principle of knowing doctrine, therefore I will reject you from being a client nation [or priest nation] for me. Since you have neglected the doctrine of your God, I will neglect your citizens.” That is the end of the client nation.

In our passage we are going to see the Pantokratwr defeat and destroy the kosmokratwr. Also we note that the kosmokratwr are a demon system whereby the politics of the world result in a lot of wars. Kosmokratwr are therefore involved in the brainwashing techniques. The ultimate source in this life of distorted ideas and falsifications of history is the battalion of kosmokratwr demons, the war demons. Most antiwar movements come from war demons. The stronger the peace movement the sooner there will be a war. Peace movements, when they become popular and are taken seriously, inevitably lead to war because peace movements weaken the country in which they find themselves. The source of their erroneous concepts is always the same: the kosmokratwr demons. They have a knack of distorting things so that even born-again believers without doctrine believe the lie, as per 2 Thessalonians chapter two.

No one can have an inventory, then, of doctrinal principles and categories if he is constantly in his arrogance accepting false ideas. We can only accumulate an inventory of truth of doctrinal ideas by our daily positive volition toward doctrine properly taught. Believers who are short on doctrine are dupes to be used by evil political groups. They are even used by the kosmokratwr demons, for the kosmokratwr demons spread ideas. If doctrine, therefore, does not guide and control the life of the believer he has no control of his own life. He has no personal sense of destiny, no cognisance of the divine system, and he cannot make decisions from a position of strength, i.e.. the good decisions that relate to the plan of God. No one can have a maximum inventory of truth and at the same time reside in the cosmic system. Only the daily perception of doctrine provides the inventory of ideas with which to cope with personal and historical disaster. The daily decisions which accumulate the inventory of ideas, the personal control of one’s life all become important in understanding historical trends as well as God’s system, the Christian way of life.

1 John 2:15, “Stop loving the cosmic system, or anything in the cosmic system,” is a mandate to all of us. Cosmic one emphasises arrogance, preoccupation with self; cosmic two emphasises hatred, antagonism toward the priorities of God.

No believer can think beyond the inventory of his own ideas, and if his own ideas are the accumulation of Bible doctrine then he can discern for himself and understand and appreciate some of the tremendous things that are being written today by certain members of the fourth estate. While cosmic one emphasises self in contrast to God, cosmic two emphasises human viewpoint in contrast to divine viewpoint. Most believers today are completely hamstrung by human viewpoint. That is because their inventory is limited.

The cosmic system, especially cosmic two, is the manner in which the kosmokratwr demons work. They are described as frog-like demons. What is meant by that has nothing to do with how frogs look, it has to do with using frogs as the personification of evil. 1 John 2:16, “Because all that is in the cosmic system, the lust of the flesh [the old sin nature’s attempt to control the soul] and the lust of the eyes [motivational evil of cosmic one, gate one] and the arrogant pattern of life [the function of evil in the fragments of the grenade, like gate two: negative volition arrogance; gate three, authority arrogance; gate four, self-righteous arrogance], is not from the Father, but is from the cosmic system.” The cosmic system, therefore, is used — especially the ideas generated in cosmic two — not only to capture unbelievers but to capture believers so that they will not understand the clear delineations of historical trends given in the Word of God.

At the end of the Tribulation there will be a unification of all of the various Asiatic powers in the Pacific basin. They will be united and will form a tremendous sphere of influence and a power bloc in the last half of the Tribulation. That is the explanation for the beginning of the Middle East campaign. And while that is the cause of the Middle East campaign it does not explain the cause of the war in which that campaign occurs, the last world war of history at the end of the Tribulation. “The mouth of the dragon [Satan],” the mouth is used to explain conspiracy. When the mind thinks evil the tongue forms conspiracy. The tongue forms various categories of evil such as maligning, gossiping and judging, destroying the privacy of individuals. etc. This is Satan’s last conspiracy before the Millennium.

In verse 14 we have an explanation of the modus operandi of these three frog-like demons. We have had two world wars, World War 1 and World War 2. There have been world wars before but they were never called that. We do not know how long the Church Age will continue and if it lasts for any length of time there could be more world wars. We know that the Church Age is the calling out of a royal family for our Lord’s third royal title; He needs a royal family to go with it. So this is the dispensation of the royal family of God. When the royal family is completed there will be a resurrection, the royal family is removed from the earth. At that time we go back to the completion of the Age of Israel called Daniel’s seventieth week and the Tribulation, and in the Tribulation there will be a world war at its end. Here we have that last great world war in history and we are now going to study the cause of that last world war; it is strictly a demon activity. In that war there is a campaign and eventually there is a battle in that campaign called Armageddon, and we will see the cause of that battle. So this is really a passage of causes. At the second advent there will be the termination of that war, the campaign, and the battle.

Whenever a war is started there must be an appeal to the masses, not rationally but emotionally. People in a state of degeneracy or in a state or organised or disorganised evil are very vulnerable to having emotion dominate their thinking so that they cannot think rationally or with any ability at all. They cannot even use what inventory of ideas they possess. So we are going to note in the first part of this passage the emotional appeal to the general public. That is a major factor in every war and the kasmokratwr demons find some way to appeal to emotions. It is 100 per cent easier to appeal to someone’s emotions than it is to appeal to someone’s rationalism. Emotion has a place but it must always be subordinate to thinking and being rational.

So we find in right here in verse 14 the explanatory use of the post positive conjunction gar, “For,” and we now find out what the war demons do. They are so smart that they get the advantage and start wars and trouble by appealing to emotion. By appealing to emotions they are able to keep people from thinking straight. We have the present active indicative e)imi, “For they are,” a descriptive present tense. The active voice: the war demons produce the action. The indicative mood is declarative for an eschatological principle. With it we have a predicate nominative from the noun pneuma which is here used for demons, “spirits.” Then we have a descriptive genitive from daimonion, one of the Greek words for demons. “For these are the spirits of demons.”

What are these demons doing? The present active participle of poiew, they are “working”, and they are working with their minds. They are transferring thought that will start trouble, that is their whole concept of working. The perfective present tense refers to a fact which has come to be in the past and is emphasised as a present reality. These war demons have been operating since the fall of Adam and the rulership of Satan over the world, and they work with their brains. They are category genius in the demon realm and they transfer thought that starts trouble — conspiracy. The active voice: the war demons produce the action of the verb and they do it through deceiving. The primary system of deception is to be thinking while someone else is emoting even if they are smarter than you. Because they are emoting instead of thinking you can outthink them, and that is what the war demons do. The participle is circumstantial and with it the accusative plural direct object.

How are you going to appeal to emotions of all people? You have to do something special, and they do. They work miracles, shmeion, extra-natural acts. If you are going to get through with your propaganda work a miracle here and there, and that is exactly what they do. These are the spirits of demons performing miracles. They appeal to the emotions of the general public to bring them into the ecumenical religious system of Satan so that they can be propagandised for Satanic conspiracy. Don’t forget: it is religion that starts wars; furthermore, religious wars are the worst kind, they are the most brutal. The very intensity of religious wars indicates their relationship to demonism.

The war demons have been functioning in the field of violence, terrorism, and warfare since the antediluvian age and the days of Hercules. The function of the general public in the beginning of a war is emotionalism. This was illustrated by the French people in 1870, the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war. They responded emotionally to the Ems telegram which Bismarck used to arouse the emotions of the German people. There was a reaction from the French and so there was the Franco-Prusssian war.

Miracles always appeal to the general public. Such miracles are used by the war demons to motivate violence and terrorism among civilised people, “For these are the spirits of demons performing miracles.”

Principle: Emotion without truth or doctrine is irrational. Even if you have a good inventory of truth, even if you have a lot of good ideas, if emotion controls your soul and the next person’s and the next person’s, and it is very contagious, then you establish mass irrationality. Irrational people are impressed by what they cannot understand, including miracles. That is the key. It is not simply miracles themselves, it is what people cannot understand. Being impressed by what they cannot understand means that they immediately become emotional and irrational. Only doctrine can provide the relaxed mental attitude necessary to keep cool in historical emergency.

We call the next phrase in this verse the kosmokratwr conspiracy. It begins with the accusative neuter plural from the relative pronoun o(j. It is in the neuter because pneuma is, and pneuma is the antecedent, “spirits of demons who.” And what do they do? The present middle indicative from e)kporeuomai. Xenophon first used e)kporeuomai to mean to march out. It means to march out or to move out, and it connotes advance. So we are going to translate: “For these are the spirits of demons performing miracles who advance.” The pictorial present tense conveys to the mind a picture of this function as a procedure. The middle voice is a deponent verb: middle in form, active in meaning. The war demons produce the action and the indicative mood is declarative for an eschatological principle: the war demons advance to start the last world war in history.

Then we have a descriptive genitive singular with an accusative. The accusative is the word “kings,” e)pi plus the accusative of basileia, “on the kings.” They march on the kings of the entire world. The word for earth or world is o)ikoumenh which means populated earth.

Translation: “For these are the spirits of demons, performing miracles, who advance on the kings of the entire populated earth.”

In other words, the war demons are in the process of starting a general world war in the last half of the Tribulation. The world is filled with disaster areas from the administration of the first five bowl judgements and devastation in disaster areas does not hinder world wars when the war demons go into action. So it is an emotional war right from the start and very few parts of the world can afford a war as we have noted from the first five judgements.

Chapter 16:14 via Daniel 10:13,20,21

We must notice now the modus operandi of the kosmokratwr or war demons.

In Daniel 10:13 Gabriel is speaking to Daniel, “But the prince of the kingdom of Persia,” the prince of the kingdom of Persia is a kosmokratwr demon. He is Satan’s ambassador, agitator, conspirator, in the court of Persia where he has a battalion of war demons under his command. Gabriel explains that he couldn’t come immediately with Daniel’s answer but was delayed 21 days, “opposed me for twenty-one days,” the reason the kosmokratwr opposed him was because he was there to influence the Persian kings to hinder the remnant of Jews under Joshua the high priest and Zerrubabel the governor from returning to the land. Gabriel and Michael opposed the prince of Persia, which means that the kosmokratwr or war demon was a very high-ranking and very powerful fallen angel. The historical results are found in Ezra chapter four while the prophetical results of this spiritual battle are found in both the books of Haggai and Zechariah, “then behold, Michael [the archangel], one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia,” this is from BC 516-323, and Gabriel would frustrate Satan’s objective in the court of Persia. Gabriel as an archangel is more powerful than the kosmokratwr.

Verse 20, “Then he [Gabriel] said, ‘Do you know why I came to you? And now I shall return to fight against the prince of Persia [kosmokratwr]; then I will be leaving [the court of Persia], for behold, the prince of Greece is about to come’. ” The prince of Greece is another kosmokratwr demon who is now working in the court of Macedonia, the court of Philip and his son who became Alexander the Great.

Verse 21, “ ‘However, before I go I will cause you to understand what is inscribed in the scripture of doctrine. Incidentally, there is no one who reinforces me against these [the kosmokratwr] except Michael your prince’.”

From this we conclude that Gabriel and Michael as archangels are in the angelic order of battle and that is because they have the highest power in that order. They oppose equally powerful demons known as war demons or kosmokratwr, and when Gabriel is away teaching Michael replaces him in the court of Persia. This means there is a tremendous invisible unseen battle in every capital of the world during every generation of human history, including the time in which we live as well as in the future in the Tribulation. Until we arrive in heaven we will never begin to appreciate the tremendous invisible battle which is constantly occurring in every capital and in every important city and strategical geographical area of the day. So Daniel 10 verses 13, 12, and 21 plus Ephesians 6:12 are very significant in the understanding of the nature of this invisible conflict, a conflict being fought on earth during the entire course of human history.

So Revelation 14:16 says, “For these are the spirits of demons, performing miracles [an emotional appeal to the general public], who advance on the rulers [or the kings] of the entire populated earth.”

The next phrase presents to us the cause of the great world war in the last half of the Tribulation. Part of that great world war in the time of the devil’s desperation includes the Armageddon campaign. There is only one history book in which you can find what is behind every war, and that is the Word of God. The Word of God is really not a text book of history but any time that it deals with history it is totally accurate, and it does explain why there are wars.

Remember the principle: Evil flourishes in war obviously, but evil flourishes in peace just as much as in war. But, again, virtue also flourishes in war or in peace, in prosperity or adversity. So the circumstances of history do not hinder the function of evil or the function of virtue.

In spite of man’s efforts for peace (man always wants peace. Obviously, peace is related to normality and in that sense it is a good idea) if you compromise any form of truth for peace you are inevitably going to start a war, and a war that you will lose. If you compromise any of the categories of truth — category #1 truth, the laws of divine establishment, or category #2 truth, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, or category #3 truth, Bible doctrine for the believer; the result is war. In fact, one of the quickest ways to start a war is to have a lot of peace movements. In Matthew 24:6,7 our Lord makes it very clear that there will be wars throughout human history until He comes. Man will not accomplish in the dispensation of the Church or in the Tribulation what only Jesus Christ can accomplish in the Millennium. Therefore, warfare is a bona fide part of history. Ecclesiastes 3:8 — “There is a time for war and there is a time for peace.” There has to be a war. Injustices can only be corrected by warfare and when things get out of hand among nations warfare becomes the answer. Being oriented to peace means that you live a normal life, you have wonderful opportunities, but it doesn’t mean that you would ever compromise the wonderful principles of freedom in order to avoid war. People who avoid fights are always bullied by bullies.

Numbers 21:14 has this to say about war: “It is written in the Book of the Wars of the Lord, ‘Waheb in Suphah [Jehovah takes in storm]’.” The Lord therefore does have a book of wars and the Lord uses wars to take people by storm. The misnomer of warfare is found in Matthew 26:52. This is one of the most distorted verses in the Bible. People assume that this has to do with warfare but it has to do with crime, violence. “Perish by the sword” in this verse refers to capital punishment and has nothing whatever to do with military service. The sword always refers in these cases to capital punishment, as in Romans 13:4.

All national freedom comes from military victory and two factors are involved in the protection of national sovereignty and freedom. These factors are both found in Nehemiah chapter four and are virtue factors in warfare.

Verse 8, “And all of them together [Samaria under Sanballat, the Amonites under Tobiah, the Arabs under Geshem, the Philistines of Ashdod: four powerful nations which had united to destroy the Jews who had just come back into the land] organised a conspiracy to invade, to fight against Jerusalem and to manufacture harm to it.”

Verse 9, “But we made intercession to our God, and we established a military security system against them day and night.” They called up the military and went on red alert day and night. They set up their instant reaction force.

There are two factors there. There is a spiritual factor: they prayed because most of these people were believers. That is why they came back to the land, they believed the promises of God, they believed that God would bless them in the land. So the first thing they did was a spiritual factor when the crisis came. The next thing they did was to put their mobilisation plan into operation. That is the beginning of the spiritual factor. But there is also an establishment factor.

Verse 13, “Therefore I garrisoned troops on the lower slopes behind the walls as a mobile reserve. On the higher places I stationed the troops according to their tribes with their swords, their spears, and bows.”

Verse 14, “And I inspected the defences and I stabilised the perimeter. Then I spoke to the generals, the commissioned officers, and the men in ranks: ‘Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord, the hero warrior and respected one, therefore fight in battle for your brethren [fellow citizens: Divine institution #1], your sons and daughters [Divine institution #3, the family], your wives [Divine institution #2, marriage], and your houses.” So you see the legitimacy of warfare here: fighting for your fellow citizens, for those whom you love, and for your family, “and your houses”: always there is the principle that legitimate warfare is fighting for your privacy and your property. The house represents property; it is your privacy. You have a right to property and to privacy.

Verse 15, “And it came to pass that when our enemies heard that it [their plan] was known to us, and that God had frustrated their plan [surprise attack], then all of us returned to the walls, each man to his service.”

Failure of the military in the battlefield indicates lack of training, lack of self-discipline, lack of respect for authority, lack of motivation, lack of courage, lack of teamwork, lack of spiritual incentive to resist and fight which is so basic to the perpetuation of freedom in the national entity. Failure of the military indicates a general lack of character, virtue, stability, among the citizens of a national entity. God uses the military in action to demonstrate one of two things: the virtue of a nation or the degeneracy and decline of a nation. Therefore the military is an index of national character. Armies defend freedom; armies destroy freedom. Armies that defend freedom are virtuous in general terms; armies that destroy freedom are evil in general terms. The issue of national sovereignty, integrity, and freedom always depends, then, on which army wins.

All of these passages indicate that there is validity in warfare under certain conditions. There is never any validity to terrorism, to using the power of the military for crime or to abuse people, but under the laws of divine establishment the military is the first line of defence of freedom.

1 Chronicles 5:19, “And they [Israel] made war against the Hagrites [an Arab tribe], Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab.”

Verse 20, “And they [the Jews] were helped against them, and the Hagrites and all who were with them were given into their hands [the Jews defeated them]; for they [the Jews] cried out to God in battle, and he was entreated,” the hiphil infinitive of the verb zaaq and it means really to be propitious, “because they trusted in him.” They went into battle as born-again believers offering their prayers to the Lord, and as they went in to battle they went in trusting the Lord, the function of the faith-rest drill, and that is why the Lord was propitiated, and that is why they won.

Verse 21, the result: “And they took away [as booty] their cattle: 50,000 camels, 250,000 sheep, 2000 mule, and 100,000 men.”

Verse 22, “Many fell slain, because the war was from God [the God of war].”

Obviously we can’t say that war is evil. Evil things happen in war but evil things happen in peace time. We can’t say that war is wrong. Many wars are wrong but that doesn’t mean that war is always wrong. Here is a war that is right and is sponsored by God. And you have to remember no matter what the circumstances of life may be God’s plan for your life goes on. People are afraid of warfare but if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and functioning under the faith-rest drill it doesn’t make any difference.

Under the concept of leadership we should remember a principle that relates to our intake of Bible doctrine. Historical events produce a need, and leadership meets that need. If you are a prepared person through Bible doctrine historical events will produce a need and leadership always meets that need. Circumstances of life produce a market and leadership supplies that market. In other words, life is a market for leadership and crisis is often the stage for that leadership.

In Revelation 16:14 the next phrase we are studying presents to us the cause of the great world war in the last part of the Tribulation. Remember the principle: Evil flourishes in peace as well as in war. Evil things happen in war but evil things happen in peace. Also remember: Virtue flourishes in war as well as in peace. Therefore, war and peace is not the issue, the real issue is virtue versus evil. It doesn’t matter if we are having a war or living in peace time the issue remains the same.

Next we have the aorist active infinitive of the verb sunagw. While it generally means to assemble, here it means to mobilise. There is a mobilisation plan in operation, “to mobilise them.” The culminative aorist tense views the mobilisation of the world’s armies in their entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results, the escalation into total world war at the end of the Tribulation. Notice that this war is caused by war demons. The active voice: the war demons produce the action of the verb influencing the rulers of the earth to go to war. The infinitive of intended result means simply it combines purpose and result. The result indicates a deliberate objective on the part of Satan to entangle the world in a war so that he can control. The evil part of war is that Satan often gains great control of large portions of the population of the earth. Satan tries to control the earth, he is the ruler of this earth, and he often has to use war to do it. He prefers to use peace and he has often gained great control in time of peace.

Next we have a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative from the noun polemoj, “war” [not battle], “to mobilise them for that war.”

Then we have a very brief description of that war, a descriptive genitive from an adjective and a noun. The adjective is megaj; the noun is h(mera, “the great day.” What is the great day? The second advent of Christ, the dramatic termination of that world war. It is a reference, therefore, to the time when Jesus Christ will execute that perfect tactical victory of the second advent.

Then we have a very astounding phrase in view of the fact that a synonym for these war demons is kosmokratwr. After the words “great day” we have an appositional genitive pantokratwr. Pantokratwr goes with kosmokratwr to show who is going to win. The pantokratwr is the Lord Jesus Christ. Pantokratwr means “Almighty,” it refers to the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Kosmokratwr indicates the phenomenal power of these demons who command war demons to start wars in this world, but the pantokratwr is going to overcome the kosmokratwr. What is much stronger than the most powerful of all demons? The Lord Jesus Christ Himself. “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.” So we have the termination of that great war and the defeat of these war demons. Jesus Christ at the second advent is the Almighty God, so it is called “the war of the great day of God the Almighty one [or the omnipotent one].”

All of this brings us to a point. When war comes along it brings abnormal circumstances. There are abnormal circumstances in peace time, crime being a good illustration, but the abnormal circumstances of war time seem to multiply. Families are torn apart, loved ones are separated, and there is a tremendous need for leadership, a tremendous market for leadership. Life, again, is a market for leadership. We have, therefore, in verse 15 a parenthesis, a very special application to born-again believers living at that time. Of course, it applies to us today as it does to them.

First of all the verse begins with an eschatological principle. The first word is very important, it is a demonstrative particle, I)dou. I)dou is taken from the aorist active imperative of the verb o(raw which means to look or to see. The demonstrative particle means not to behold but to be alert. This, therefore, reminds us of the fact that one of our responsibilities is to be alert with regard to historical circumstances.

We have studied the doctrine of historical trends which, as found in the Word of God, are designed to keep you alert with regard to history. You have to be alert for certain types of adversity when they come. You have to be ready to crank up that second stage of the faith-rest drill. You have to take in doctrine on a daily basis knowing that God is never going to test you beyond what you are able to handle with the doctrine you have learned. For those who are not able to handle it it simply means that they have failed to fulfil the plan of God for their lives.

And this principle also deals with what we have been studying lately: the protocol of heaven. We have seen that great temple which is also a barracks and a castle. We saw God the Father use one of the highest-ranking angels in the angelic college of heralds, an officer of arms, to send a mandate, a message, to the cloud where the Lord Jesus Christ sits as the controller of history. He sent the mandate to judge the earth. In the meantime in the barracks was the special execution squad. Also in that same barracks area we saw the pur sui vant officer who was to command the execution squad. Then we saw in chapter fourteen that golden altar of incense where the imprecatory prayers of the Tribulational martyrs had been offered, and from that the king of arms, the highest-ranking angel in the college of heralds who brought a confirming order. We saw how the pur sui vant officer received his command and how the herald issued each one a bowl of judgment to be poured upon the earth.

We have noted that the first five judgements were judgment by pain, and that was the last call, crisis evangelism, to give people under conditions of pain a temporary opportunity inside of the cosmic system so that they could personally respond to the gospel which they had heard time and time again and to believe in Christ and to trust Him.

Now we go from those unbelievers and judgment by pain followed by judgment by death, grace judgements, to the believers. What about the believers? Everything we have been studying in chapters 14-16 deals primarily with unbelievers. There are two categories of believers. The protocol of heaven told us that there is great happiness in heaven. There is capacity for happiness and that capacity is based on protocol. Now that protocol comes to the earth. Our alert system today is the divine dynasphere. Protocol in heaven was brought to earth on the first Christmas day when the humanity of Christ was born into the prototype divine dynasphere. Then, when the Lord Jesus Christ ascended and was seated at the right hand of the Father He gave to the royal family the operational divine dynasphere. We have the operational type; our Lord used the prototype during His life on earth. Only inside of that operational divine dynasphere is there any happiness or blessing or alertness.

Once the Church, the royal family, is resurrected and we get into the Tribulation we are going back to the Age of Israel, and therefore they do not have the same ministry of God the Holy Spirit that we have; it goes back to Old Testament times. But they do have a basis for alertness, so when we have in this phrase, “Be alert,” it has to do with the fact that they have the same spiritual life that Abraham had based on the faith-rest drill. However, when we apply this we can apply it to the Church Age for our alertness is based on the very protocol of heaven, the use of the divine dynasphere. God has a plan for your life and therefore the first two words, translated from two Greek words, “Be alert,” tells us that we have an application coming up even though we are dealing with eschatological doctrine. So the very fact that it says, “Be alert,” reminds us once again of several things: God has a plan for your life and as long as you are alive that plan never changes. God’s plan for your life takes the protocol right out of heaven and brings it to the earth so that you can have heaven on earth, so that you can have happiness, so that you can have blessing, so that your life can be very meaningful and very wonderful.

Believers by the thousands, and perhaps even the millions, are going to survive some of the worst disasters of history and they will survive by being alert. Alertness is always the issue. Alertness, of course, is just as much an issue to us even though we do not live in an eschatological dispensation. We have the doctrine of historical trends and we have something that no other dispensation possesses, the operational type of the prototype of the first Christmas present in all of history. Needless to say many millions of believers and unbelievers will survive the worst disasters of history. The worst of all is the second advent and they will be alive for that event as well. The first application that we need to make right now is that no weapon or disaster will destroy the entire population of the world at any time. God will never permit the destruction of the human race by man’s bad decisions from a position of weakness, demon influence, or even divine judgment. In other words, the human race will continue until the Millennium, at which time the baptism of fire will take out all the unbelievers. By application, that means to us that there will never be any form of disaster that is not survivable.

Next we have the present active indicative of the verb e)rxomai, “I will come.” This is a futuristic present tense, it denotes an eschatological event, the second advent, which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain that in thought it is thought of as occurring now. That is the futuristic present tense. The active voice: our Lord Jesus Christ will produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of eschatological doctrine.

There has to be a comparative concept here. Whenever the second advent is mentioned there is usually something to accompany it. In this case it is going to be how we survive. This verse is a survival verse for believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And how is that going to be declared? By an analogy, the comparative particle o(j which is translated “like.” The particle sets up an analogy between the modus operandi of a thief in the ancient world and how we are going to survive, not by the analogy to the thief but by the analogy to the victim of the thief. The independent nominative of klepthj introduces the analogy, “like a thief.”

The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. In the ancient world the thief did not operate on the basis of stealth. Today, burglaries are usually accomplished under the key word “stealth.” They come unobtrusively, quietly. In the ancient world they didn’t do that. The key word was “sudden invasion.” The thief in the ancient world invaded the home of the domicile suddenly, unexpectedly, surprising the occupants who were his victims. Since the Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written we must recognise that there has been some change in the method of the burglary. Hence, to come as a thief means to come suddenly, to come unexpectedly, rather than to come quietly and stealthily. The burglar came suddenly to surprise the household and to overpower them, and the second advent will come suddenly, surprisingly, and the world’s population will be very surprised even though it has been declared as occurring.

All of this means something very simple to us. It means that in order to be protected in the ancient world against burglary you had to be alert, you had to have a system of protection, some security system. The burglary may happen infrequently but the point is: they had to be ready for it and they had to have some system, some weapon. It was all pre-prepared so that when the attack occurred they were ready.

Basically, this is what this analogy is all about. You and I live in the devil’s world where there is all kinds of injustice. The devil is never fair, the whole system he has set up, the cosmic system, is not fair either. Consequently, we have to be prepared, we have to be alert, we have to have a system. That is our survival. If you have a system you will come off a winner, you will be what is called by the next word makarioj, translated “blessed” or “happy.” Actually, it is in the singular here and so it refers to the fact that if you are prepared for anything in life it is because you are in God’s system, you are in God’s plan. God has a plan for your life, you are a believer, God has a plan for the life of every believer. The fact that you may be a loser living in the cosmic system, God still has a plan for your life, rebound is how you get back into the system. If you are not going to be taken by surprise, if you are not going to be overpowered by the enemy you must be in the system. That is the key: being in the system. The system is God’s plan and if you are in the system you have a wall of fire for everything in life and you also have the means of coping with every problem in life. The system is the key.

The next word is the word “happy,” and it means that the only true happiness in life comes from the system. Now basically, how did this system come about? Jesus Christ as eternal God became true humanity on what we celebrate as Christmas. On that first Christmas God the Father gave a Christmas present to God the Son. The humanity of God the Son had to be protected so that it could go to the cross. The cross had to come before the crown. There had to be a system, some means of protecting the humanity of Christ so that He could go to the cross and bear our sins in His own body on the tree. The only way this could be done was to give Him something that had never existed before in history, a prototype divine dynasphere. That was the system by which our Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity would achieve His third royal title, King of kings and Lord of Lords. In that prototype Jesus Christ was filled with the Spirit. He was born filled with the Spirit, He remained in the prototype divine dynasphere, never got out, never sinned, never got into the cosmic system even once, and therefore of course He was filled with the Spirit throughout His entire life. Secondly, He had the basic modus operandi down perfectly before He lived very long, and as a result Jesus grew in wisdom — the second gate and the fourth gate. Wisdom: perception of doctrine, “and in favour with God and man.” God: that would be gate five, the humanity of Christ developing a personal love for God. As eternal God, of course, there always existed love between the Father and the Son, but as true humanity He developed the motivational virtue of personal love for God. “And with man”, was gate six, impersonal love toward all: functional virtue. He also developed humility, “He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” He passed every test. Our Lord Jesus Christ at a very early stage reached the winner’s gate. So His humanity functioned inside the prototype divine dynasphere, and as a result our Lord Jesus Christ was qualified to go to the cross. Why? Because as a son of Adam He is the only member of the human race who from birth all of the way to the cross was absolutely sinless in His humanity. As deity He could not sin; as true humanity He was tempted and could sin but did not.

As God Jesus Christ could not be judged for our sins. We are all condemned at birth not on the basis of our personal sins. The wages of sin, one sin: Adam’s, is death, and Adam’s sin was imputed to each one of us so that our personal sins were never imputed to us for judgment. Instead they were imputed to Christ on the cross and Christ was qualified because of impeccability. As eternal God He was not able to sin; as true humanity living in the prototype divine dynasphere He was able not to sin. He was able not to sin as true humanity because the prototype divine dynasphere was the system that God the Father gave Him on the first Christmas. That was His birthday present and that birthday present carried Him to the cross. On the cross the justice of God the Father imputed all of our sins to Christ and they were judged. But remember that it was His humanity that bore our sins: He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. “He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Now we have in our passage, “Be alert, I will come as a thief. Happy is the one who watches.” The word “happy” of course, in the time of the worst historical disaster at the end of the Tribulation, tells us that the believer in the system possesses perfect happiness. The system produces something that nothing else in the world can produce, and that is capacity for happiness, not only capacity for happiness but capacity for prosperity, capacity for blessing, capacity for promotion, capacity for life. The unbeliever can have capacity based upon the function of gate three, enforced and genuine humility related to the laws of divine establishment, but we are talking here now about happiness in the system. Being born-again gives us great potential. We have all the talent that is necessary. Once we accept Jesus Christ as saviour we have the talent but the talent will never be useable by God unless we learn the play book, and learning the play book is learning the system. God has a plan for your life and that plan is a system and that system is the first Christmas present ever given. It was given to our Lord Jesus Christ and it sustained His humanity throughout the thirty-three years of His mission in the first advent on earth. Once our Lord Jesus Christ was ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father we have the dispensation of the royal family introduced. And what did He do? He turned right around and gave us the operational type divine dynasphere. We have to live in that divine dynasphere and when we do there is a word used right here, “happy.” But it is not happiness as such, it is the capacity for it as well, it is the capacity for anything. So in time of the worst historical disaster at the end of the Tribulation there is a plan for the believer at that time; there is a system, a momentum, and a priority concept in whatever God’s plan is for the Tribulational believer. And, of course, the only way that people can be useable and survive, and have great happiness, in disaster periods of history is to be in the plan of God, to know the system and to function under it.

The suddenness and power of the second advent will completely surprise everyone except the believer who has been living in the system. The mature believer has a maximum knowledge of eschatological doctrine, he will understand the prophetical trends of the book of Revelation, they have been crystallised in his soul. He will be functioning in whatever is comparable to our divine dynasphere and the principle is: the believer who keeps his priorities straight will never be surprised or overcome by any form of historical disaster.

So we have the articular present active participle of the verb gregorew. The word means to watch but it really means to remain alert, “Happy is he who remains alert.” The definite article is used as both the personal pronoun and the relative pronoun. It is a reference to the believer who is consistently positive toward Bible doctrine, the person who observes the priorities of the plan of God, the believer learns the play book, the believer who can interpret historical trends, the believer who understands the priority issue in the plan of God: In God’s plan, mandates first; in God’s system, virtue first; in God’s purpose, Christ first; in God’s policy, grace first; in God’s objective, momentum first; in God’s authority, doctrine first. These priorities always exist. This is the dispensation of the divine dynasphere and will not exist as such after the Rapture but the believers of the Tribulation have a system, a plan. God has a plan for your life just as he will have a plan for theirs. That plan includes certain characteristics: a purpose, for example. The purpose for the plan of God and the reason that we are sustained logistically on planet earth is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in time, therefore to achieve tactical victory through spiritual momentum in the divine dynasphere. God’s plan also has an objective: to advance to spiritual maturity in the plan, therefore to be a winner while living on this earth. God’s plan has a policy, and in the administration of the plan of God grace is the policy of God. Therefore, the importance of both logistical grace and supergrace. It must be remembered always that the point of reference for God’s plan is the justice of God which is one half of divine integrity. The other half of divine integrity or holiness is God’s perfect righteousness, and that is imputed to each one of us at the point of salvation. So a pipeline is established between the justice of God and the righteousness of God. The fact that we are alive right now, everything that we have, is courtesy of the justice of God. We might be a winner living in the plan of God or we might be a loser as a believer living in the cosmic system, but the justice of God sends us daily logistical support and it goes from divine justice to divine righteousness. This is grace. God doesn’t bless us because we are good or nice or moral, etc., God blesses us because we possess His righteousness. In the pipeline the initiating point is justice, the receiving point is righteousness of God. Therefore, God isn’t going to bless you because you do something, He blesses you because you have His righteousness. That becomes very important because grace is the function of the justice of God in imputing blessing to the indwelling righteousness of God. That is true of logistical grace and that is true of the six paragraphs of supergrace life.

God also has a system and the system of God calls for virtue-first. That is the way it was with our Lord in the prototype in the original Christmas present and the moment we accept Christ as saviour we receive that Christmas present. Virtue actually begins at gate three directed toward authority and that, of course, is basic virtue in life. Your attitude toward authority determines your integrity, your virtue in life. Then, of course, in gate we five we have motivational virtue directed toward God. At gate six, functional virtue directed toward man and circumstances. This is the issue in the plan of God: virtue-first, not service first, not straightening out your life first.

There are also results in the plan of God. Residence, function and momentum in the divine dynasphere, in the protocol. God has brought heaven down to earth and that protocol means happiness, and that protocol is brought down to the earth only inside the divine dynasphere. The first time we enter the divine dynasphere is the moment we believe in Christ, we are filled with the Spirit at that particular point. So protocol is the system and the system is protocol. The result is that good decisions, then, in the divine dynasphere give us strength for future options. Good decisions from a position of strength always keep the options open and it results in the believer having control of his life and it results in the believer having a personal sense of destiny whether living in historical prosperity or adversity.

We have also noted that the system has an enemy and that is the cosmic system of Satan. And the system has protocol in heaven through which Jesus Christ controls history, and people become the products of their own decisions; a protocol on earth which keeps the believer functioning on earth under the principle of virtue-first. It all adds up to the fact of watching, as per this passage.

So gregorew, therefore, has a meaning to us and in translation it reads: “Be alert, I will come like a thief [the surprise element of the second advent]. Happy is he who stays alert.” The present tense is a retroactive progressive present, it denotes what has begun in the past with the perception of Bible doctrine and continues to the very moment of the second advent. For us it is the principle of alertness as of the moment we accept Christ as saviour and as long as we live on this earth. It is a phase two alertness. Once we die or the Rapture occurs, whichever happens first, we are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord, we move into another state. We leave behind the operational, the functional divine dynasphere; we no longer need it. Therefore, the alertness is always related to the operational divine dynasphere, God’s system for our life. The active voice: believers produce the action of the verb by living in the system. The participle is circumstantial. In addition to this the action of the present participle is coterminous with the action of the main verb. The main verb here is the inserted e)imi, “happy is.”

The principle: There is no happiness in life apart from reception and application of doctrine, the momentum of the plan of God in every dispensation of history. The only happiness comes from your own capacity, and capacity comes from Bible doctrine. Staying alert has to do with the plan of God.

The next phrase is a little more difficult because, again, we have to go back to the time in which the Bible was written. We have a connective kai and then a present active participle from terew, and terew is used in a lot of ways. Here we have the military use of it and it means to guard, to be on guard duty. The customary present is for what habitually occurs when the believer is positive toward doctrine. Alertness means to walk our post; Gate five, toward God; gate six, toward people; gate seven, toward circumstances, so that we can arrive at gate eight as a winner. The doctrinal believer actually produces the action of the verb. It is a circumstantial participle.

Next we have the accusative plural direct object from i(mation which means a tunic, and it refers to the uniform of the day, of walking a post, being on guard duty, “and guards his uniform equipment.” Guarding his uniform equipment has to do with a custom in the ancient world. When a person walked his post and each guard peeled off at his post the sergeant of the guard would say, “Watch your tunic.” It meant that at some time during the night he was going to come by with the officer of the day and they were going to inspect every sentry post and if the man at, say, number three was asleep they had a very quick court martial. The officer of the day nodded and the sergeant of the guard stepped up with his torch and put it to the guards tunic and he was burned alive right then and there. Sometimes the guard would wake up and look for snow or something to roll in to put the flame out. If he survived he would go back to the barracks naked and suffer the sarcasm of everyone else in the platoon. And that is about what we have here: “so that he may not march naked, and they [the garrison] see his shame [his disgrace].” This is a military idiom, then, for a sentry walking his post and it becomes an excellent analogy to the doctrinal believer who understands historical trends at the last half of the Tribulation. And the analogy to us as believers: If we do not live in the God’s system we are going to get burned. Doctrinal alertness is absolutely necessary, not only for our survival historically but our blessing in all the categories of history. This alertness, then, is the function of the faith-rest drill which was spirituality in the dispensation of Israel and, of course, passed down to the dispensational part of the Tribulation.

In our study of this context beginning in Revelation 14:16 we began the study of the protocol of heaven. We saw how it related to the angelic college of heralds. On the first Christmas day the whole angelic host passed in review. That would include the angelic order of battle as well as the angelic college of heralds. These represent the aristocracy of the elect angels and, of course, they were very very interested then, as they are now, in everything that pertains to the first Christmas day; and to the first advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, the events which followed, and how we are going to utilise the greatest opportunity ever given to those who are believers in any dispensation of history. This means that Christmas has a great significance to us as members of the royal family of God, believers of the Church Age. Even Moses longed to see our day, and while he utilised the assets given to him more than any man in the Old Testament, nevertheless we have something far greater than Moses ever imagined and it is related to Christmas.

The angelic college of heralds is made up of seraph-type aristocrats plus cherub-type aristocrats plus a few pur sui vant messengers. We have seen how they are used in the protocol of heaven in chapters 14 and 15. We saw, for example, how the officer of arms, the second highest seraph in the angelic college of heralds takes the messages from the temple of heaven, from God the Father to the cloud where our Lord Jesus Christ sits as He controls history. Here is the second highest aristocrat in the angelic order and this aristocrat is one of the more famous of those who existed prior to the creation of man in the angelic phase of the angelic conflict. The privilege, therefore, of simply carrying that message was a fantastic thing to him. The mandate had to do with judgment on earth.

Simultaneously at the golden altar, the highest ranking angel, the king of arms, the angel who was the greatest of the prehistoric angelic conflict, brings a confirmatory mandate related to the imprecatory prayers of the Tribulational saints. Then, out of the temple comes our first cherub, a pur sui vant officer, and he goes on standby waiting to take his command. All of this is a part of the protocol of heaven. Since God the Father has committed all judgment to God the Son, according to John 5:22, 23, this protocol becomes very important.

Finally, the pur sui vant officer goes back and takes command of the execution squad made up of seven pur sui vant messengers. An angelic herald issues each one of them his golden bowl. So we have the protocol in heaven and that protocol means many things as we have noticed. It means capacity for happiness in heaven, capacity for blessing. The protocol of heaven means that there is perfect virtue among all creatures living in heaven at this time and that perfect virtue goes right back to the basic virtue of humility, humility directed toward authority. Humility is recognised in heaven and therefore freedom is related to capacity for happiness, capacity for blessing, all of the great capacities that make heaven a wonderful place. So the protocol of heaven is the basis of happiness.

Down here on earth, of course, we have great unhappiness because man is the product of his own decisions and man by man’s efforts is self-destructive. Therefore, God has protected man from destroying himself and has promised to preserve the human race until the end of history. All of this is possible because, first of all, even though man is the product of his own decisions and loses control of his own life and produces his own misery by bad decisions, God has provided some grace judgements. These grace judgements we have noted in chapter sixteen in the first eleven verses: the first five bowl judgements. These judgements all perform one thing: pain. Normal evangelism occurs generally in normal times — in times of prosperity or in times of certain kinds of adversity such as economic adversity — but it is the presentation of the gospel under normal conditions. Thousands and millions of people, of course, say no; they reject the gospel under normal conditions. This is not the end of evangelisation for those persons for eventually there is a second category of evangelism which we call crisis evangelism. It is related to a system, a category, of divine judgment: judgment by pain. Judgment by pain means that God brings about certain categories of adversity to you and you are in a state of pain, of misery. Your soul is in a state of great unhappiness and the purpose for this judgment by pain is to evangelise. All divine judgment is related to the grace of God. God is not arbitrary in His judgements, and while they come from His justice they are always related to His love, for God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to a change of attitude toward our Lord Jesus Christ. So crisis evangelism is designed with one thing in mind. Judgment by pain, one of the two categories of judgment of the unbeliever, is brought about in order to distract the unbeliever. The unbeliever lives in the cosmic system, he has rejected Christ as saviour, and so as he lives in there he is distracted from these things by the pain brought about through divine judgment. And the purpose is to give him objectivity in the cosmic system, to distract him from the trends of the cosmic system, and to give him a temporary objectivity so that he has another opportunity to accept Christ as saviour. So we have the principle of judgment by pain, the last call for those who would have the opportunity of believing in Christ.

Then in Revelation 16:12 we begin to see judgment by death. For those who reject the gospel under judgment by pain there is a second category of divine judgment, judgment by death. That would be the sixth and seventh bowl judgements. In the sixth bowl judgment, verse 12, we have the cause of the Middle East campaign at the end of the Tribulation. In the last part of the Tribulation we have the last world war of history, and in that world war we have three things: a war, and in that war a number of campaigns and in each campaign we have X number of battles. In verses 13-14 we have the cause of the final world war. In verse 16 we have the cause of the battle of Armageddon.

In the midst of this study of causes we have application. We have seen, for example, that life is a market for leadership and for those who are prepared God will always use them in the crisis. There will always be opportunity for many categories of leadership.

Before we go on to the cause of the battle of Armageddon we have application: “Be alert, I will come like a thief,” the surprise element of the second advent. Of course, those who are taken by surprise are those who are not prepared by doctrinal teaching. Then we have the word “happy.” For once it is in the singular. Generally in the plural it is translated “blessed.” “Happy is he [the Tribulational believer, the one who has momentum in the plan of God] who stays alert [a reference to guard duty] and guards his uniform.”

To us that means that there are believers who are alert because they are living under the protocol of heaven. God has a plan for the life of every believer but they are the ones who are utilising the protocol. They are the ones who find that every day is Christmas. And there are believers who have gone to sleep and they are living in the cosmic system. They are therefore distracted from God’s plan and they are the ones who are the losers. So we have winners and losers.

There is no other way to explain it all except to recognise that God has found a way to bring the protocol of heaven to the earth. Prior to the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ on the first Christmas this protocol was brought to the earth in a very limited way in the plan of God, but once the virgin birth occurred on that first Christmas day God the Father gave our Lord Jesus Christ a Christmas present. He gave Him the full protocol of heaven, He gave Him the prototype divine dynasphere, the basis for all happiness and blessing for those who are believers, the key to the plan of God. God the Father invented the divine dynasphere to sustain the humanity of Christ during the incarnation. This is the true meaning of Christmas. The original divine dynasphere, therefore, was a Christmas gift from God the Father to God the Son. It was to give God the Son, during His earthly ministry, the protocol of heaven, the great happiness and blessing that comes from virtue. Virtue is related basically to humility and therefore that is where it all begins. Because of the virgin pregnancy and the virgin birth when human life was imputed to the embryo-foetus of the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ He was born without the imputation of Adam’s sin.

When man is born into this world at the moment of birth human life is imputed to the human soul, and the soul is the residence for that human life. That human life will always reside in the soul. But simultaneously with us Adam’s original sin is imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature, and therefore we are born physically alive and spiritually dead. That is so if anyone dies before reaching accountability he automatically goes to heaven under the principle of condemnation must precede justification. Our personal sins are not imputed to us for judgment, they are reserved for the cross, but it was different with our Lord Jesus Christ.

The old sin nature is formed because the man wilfully sinned in the garden, but our Lord Jesus Christ did not have an old sin nature because of the virgin pregnancy and the virgin birth. Therefore, when He came into the world human life was imputed to the human soul and our Lord has human life in the human soul of His humanity forever. That is a part of the doctrine of the hypostatic union. But Adam’s original sin was not imputed to Him and therefore into His human spirit there had to be something. Our Lord was born trichotomous as Adam was created trichotomous. Adam became dichotomous through sin. There had to be something, some present, for the first Christmas day, and that present was the prototype divine dynasphere. Our Lord was given that prototype divine dynasphere on that Christmas day. That has more to do with your happiness, your blessing, the meaning of your life, the significance of your life than anything else.

There is a Christmas message found in Hebrews 10:5-9, “Therefore, when he [the incarnate Christ] entered into the world, he spoke [Psalm 40-6-8],” here is the subordination to the Father’s plan, here is the beginning of that great dynamic, humility, that great happiness, that great blessing that came to our Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity. “ ‘You [God the Father] do not desire sacrifice and offering.’ Throughout the entire Old Testament salvation was taught through sacrifices and offerings. In the Age of Israel ritual was the means of teaching because they did not have a completed canon of scripture. There were two categories of people who taught: the prophet and the priest. The priest taught by ritual; the prophet taught by message. None of the sacrifices which were part of the ritual could propitiate God the Father, it took our Lord Jesus Christ and His ministry to accomplish that fact. Therefore we have the phrase that our Lord recognises. There is no efficacy in animal sacrifices, they are merely a teaching aid, the real efficacy is through the first Christmas when our Lord came to the earth …

‘but you have prepared for me a human body,’ no human body is more important in history than the human body of our Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world on that first Christmas day, ‘Behold, I have arrived,’ Jesus Christ has come as the God-Man, the unique person of the universe, ‘(In the scroll of the scripture it is written concerning me) I have come to accomplish your plan, O God,’ the plan of God the Father called for God the Son to become true humanity on that first Christmas day, and from that cradle to go to the cross, and from the cross to receive the crown at the second advent.

When He calls God the Father “O God” He is speaking from His humanity. Of course our Lord is eternal God Himself but He is talking to the Father. Our Lord Jesus Christ was born inside of the prototype divine dynasphere. He was in the plan of God right from the start, His humanity was protected and He expressed true humility, He subordinated Himself to the Father’s plan. A plan always has authority, therefore He subordinated Himself to the Father’s authority.

Just before our Lord went to the cross he expressed again this same concept in Matthew 26:36, “Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit down here while I go over there and pray.’ And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee [James and John], and he began to experience great distress.”

Why? Because Jesus Christ is eternal God. As eternal God He can have nothing to do with sin. Jesus Christ is also true humanity. As true humanity, within 24-hours He must receive the imputation of the sins of the world and be judged for every sin that has ever been committed in the history of the human race. Therefore He began to think about this and He was in a point of great distress; this was a crisis in His life.

“Then he spoke with them [Peter, James and John].” Notice that these are three of the greatest men in the early church but they are no use to Him. They can’t counsel Him, they can’t help Him, they can pray but they can’t be any good. He has to work it out for Himself. Ultimately you can be surrounded by the greatest advice in the world and the greatest believers and they cannot do anything for you, you have to do it yourself. God’s plan is to make you spiritually self-sustaining, for you to take the responsibility for your own decisions, good or bad, and for you to make your decisions in relationship to the plan of God for your life

‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death [He was about to die]; Stay here and concentrate [in prayer] with me.’ ”

“And when he had advanced a short distance, he fell on his face and prayed , saying, ‘My Father [He is speaking from His humanity], if it is possible, let this cup be removed from me; however, not as I will, but as you will’.”

What was that cup about to be administered? That cup had all the sins of the world in it. All of the sins of the world had been collected in the computer of divine decrees and filled the cup. So there is the cup and God the Father is about to pour the cup of His wrath from heaven upon God the Son. These sins are to be imputed to Christ on the cross.

Notice what our Lord said: “Not as I will, but as you will.” He was still inside the prototype divine dynasphere. He was still functioning at gate three, and here He brings genuine and enforced humility together demonstrating the power of virtue, for this is the most basic virtue of life. Not only is humility capacity for life, capacity for happiness, capacity for blessing, but it is the basis for all power in life. There is no power in arrogance; all of the power is in humility.

And when He came back and found His disciples sleeping he said to Peter, “So, you didn’t have the power to concentrate with me for one hour?” That is true. Peter did not have the power. Later on Peter would get the operational divine dynasphere but it would not be available until the day of Pentecost which would be ten days after our Lord’s ascension. Our Lord’s humanity was in the prototype divine dynasphere and He said, “Peter you do not have the power to concentrate.” The protocol of heaven has come to the earth and He tells Peter what his problem is now, “You have no power.” And what does He mean? The divine dynasphere: You have no dunamij.

Verse 42 — “Again, a second time he went away and he prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done’.” There is the classical illustration of how in a magnificent way the divine dynasphere, the protocol of heaven works. It took the apostle Paul, the great genius of history, to describe our Lord’s function inside of the divine dynasphere — Philippians 2:5-8.

“Keep on thinking this within you which was also resident in Christ Jesus,” Our Lord Jesus Christ lived His life on earth in His humanity in the prototype. Now we have the operational type divine dynasphere. He kept thinking from gate four; we must keep thinking from gate four. He had the full realm of doctrine in His human soul. He learned the whole realm of doctrine, “who though he eternally existed in the essence of God, he did not think equality.” One of the most arrogant thoughts that ever comes into this world is that we are all equal. There is no such thing as equality and there never will be. We are not born equal; we do not live equal. Equality is the propaganda of Satan; “with God a profit to be seized and utilised,” He did not use His equality with God to gain anything. He had perfect happiness, perfect control, perfect capacity for life, “but he deprived himself of the proper function of deity.”

How did He do that? When Satan came to tempt Him Satan had already seen that He wasn’t going to sin in any ordinary way. So Satan in his great genius hit on a plan to get our Lord to act independently of the Father’s plan, to get our Lord outside of that divine dynasphere — Matthew chapter four. But our Lord did not use His deity to act independently of the Father’s plan. When you and I get into the cosmic system we are acting independently of the Father’s plan and we are less than no good; “when he had received the form of a servant [He became the Father’s servant], when he had been born in the likeness of mankind. In fact, although he was discovered in outward appearance as a man [true humanity], he humbled himself [the function of gate three] by becoming obedient to the point of death, that is the death of the cross.”

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ God has a very specific plan for your life. His plan for your life includes a purpose: glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ in time; an objective: advance to spiritual maturity utilising the operational divine dynasphere; a policy: grace as the policy in administering His plan for the Church Age believer; a system which calls for priorities — virtue-first; a point of reference: the integrity or holiness of God; an authority: the Word of God, Bible doctrine; a result: good decisions from a position of strength which result in having control of your life and a personal sense of destiny. There is an enemy, the cosmic system, and there is a protocol, the protocol of heaven.

When our Lord Jesus Christ ascended and was seated at the right hand of the Father He was given His third royal title. In that royalty He did not have a royal family. In His first title which is His title of deity He has a royal family, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. His royal title: the Son of God. When He was born into the world He was born into a royal family. Joseph was descended from David through Solomon; Mary was descended from David through Solomon’s younger brother Nathan. He was born into royalty. His royal family: the Davidic dynasty. And in addition to that He had a title: son of David and the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Our Lord Jesus Christ was minus a royal family when He received His third royal title, therefore He was given a royal family. The royal family was given as an additional Christmas gift by bringing to a halt the Age of Israel, and by introducing the Church Age, the dispensation of the royal family. The purpose of the Church Age was to interrupt the Age of Israel to call out a royal family. When the royal family is completed we have the Rapture or the resurrection of the Church and then the Age of Israel continues with the Tribulation. We are studying the Tribulation and the cause of the last world war in history in the last year or so of the Tribulation.

In the system of priorities for the plan of God in any dispensation, but especially ours, in God’s plan the mandates are first. We have to learn the general order for the plan of God. In God’s system it is virtue-first. Before we are qualified to do anything we must acquire at least the first category of virtue: gate three, the first and most basic of the virtues in the operational divine dynasphere, humility directed toward authority. There is no happiness until we have settled the matter that there will never be equality in this world and there will always be authority. Our relationship to authority produces the basic virtue of enforced and genuine humility.

Gate one, as we have noted is the filling of the Spirit; gate two: basic Christian modus operandi; gate four is the momentum gate for perception and application of doctrine. Gate five is virtue-first. Before you can ever produce anything that will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in this life there must be motivational virtue. The only motivation for the spiritual life is found at gate five, confidence in God. If you do not have confidence in God, the function of motivational virtue at gate five, you will never function in production. You must have motivation for that is the key to life. It isn’t what you do in life that counts, it is your motivation in doing it, and motivational virtue always begins at gate five. It has love for God and confidence in God. We have seen that motivational virtue that produces personal love for God also produces at gate six functional virtue, impersonal love toward the entire human race. But what is necessary for the future? Motivational virtue produces confidence in God and when you have motivational virtue, confidence in God, you have functional virtue, courage toward man and circumstances.

The real issue is whether you are prepared for whatever circumstances that may exist. Do you have capacity for happiness and blessing in every form of circumstances? God’s plan goes on whether the weather is hot or cold, whether we are in a period of adversity of prosperity, whether there is war or peace. So the circumstances of history have nothing whatever to do with the plan of God.

God’s plan demands virtue-first. That is the second priority. In God’s purpose, Christ first; in God’s policy, grace first; in God’s objective, momentum first; in God’s authority, doctrine is first. Therefore we have the system, and the system is protocol. God has brought heaven to earth through the protocol system, the divine dynasphere. God has a plan for the life of every believer and if the believer lives inside of the divine dynasphere then, of course, he will come up a winner. Living in the cosmic system means living one’s Christian life on this earth as a loser. Being a loser doesn’t mean you lose your salvation, it means that you lose all of the rewards and decorations. So don’t sit on the bank waiting for the river to pass you by. Learn Bible doctrine today, tomorrow, and the next day and then you will get the priorities straight.

Without a system we have no standards, no co-ordination, no performance, and no effectiveness. In the divine system the ability resides in the essence of God; the compliability resides in the volition of the believer. Without the divine system the believer has no standards. He goes on his own standards, he develops his own self-righteousness and he develops self-righteous arrogance, lives in the cosmic system, and is a loser. So the standards must come from virtue-first. The believer has no co-ordination. The application of doctrine to the circumstances of life and becoming spiritually self-sustaining, fulfilling the system of virtue-first, demands co-ordination. That co-ordination comes from protocol. The only protocol in the world today that counts is the divine protocol of heaven, it all resides inside of the divine dynasphere, the first Christmas gift which God the Father gave to the humanity of God the Son at the virgin birth — the prototype. We now have, in this dispensation only, the operational type.

The believer also has no standards, no co-ordination, and no performance. The only performance that counts is momentum in the system, momentum in the principle of protocol. The believer has no effectiveness, neither the attainment of spiritual maturity nor the glorification of Jesus Christ nor any legitimate Christian service, unless it is the production of God’s system. Therefore, it is important to understand the dynamics of the spiritual life, to understand the issue, and to understand that God has a system and that apart from that system we are in a very bad situation.

Going back now to our passage in Revelation 16:15, “Be alert.” Our alertness, by way of application, depends upon our living inside the operational divine dynasphere, functioning at the various gates. Then we studied the analogy: “I come like a thief,” which has to do with the surprise element of the second advent. “Happy is he,” by interpretation this is the Tribulational believer who is positive toward doctrine, has momentum in the plan of God, and is a winner in his own particular dispensation.

Right now the application belongs to us. “I come like a thief” means that events are going to move rapidly, things are going to come suddenly. Anything that is bad news, anything that is tragedy always takes us by surprise. You have to, therefore, have preparation and the only preparation is in the system. You have to be able to handle the situation and resolve the situation. You have to be able to meet your own problems and solve them and not lean on someone else. You must become spiritually self-sustaining. All of that, of course, is the production of the system. And there is happiness in the system. Just as there is happiness in heaven for the protocol of heaven so there is happiness on earth because the protocol system has been brought to us as members of the royal family. “Happy is he who stays alert,” and this is the word, as we saw, for staying alert on guard duty, “and guards his uniform equipment,” which has to do with the general orders to the guards as they were posted. So the concept is alertness. We must be very alert with regard to life and its circumstances. Alertness is a part of the function inside of the divine dynasphere, and just as life is a market for leadership, so life is a challenge for alertness.

Now for the final purpose clause in verse 15. We begin with the conjunction i(na which introduces a purpose clause. And this is a negative purpose clause, i(na mh, and mh is simply the negative in the Greek used with the subjunctive in contrast to o)uk which is the negative used with the indicative mood. So the negative purpose clause could be translated “lest,” or “in order that not.”

With this we have a present active subjunctive from the verb peripatew which means to walk, but it also means to march and in the connotation where military terms are used in context here it means to march, “so that he might not march.” The present tense is a futuristic present, it denotes an event which has not yet occurred: the disgrace of any individual believer because he is a loser. This occurs after death to find out if you have marched naked or not. This is also a pictorial present, it presents to the mind a process of failure, a process of becoming a loser, a process of the believer living inside of the cosmic system, living with negative believers in the last half of the Tribulation. The active voice: Tribulational believers who are losers produce the action of the verb, negative volition, and by application it applies to anyone in the Church Age who is a loser. The subjunctive mood simply forms the negative purpose clause. With it, instead of the usual accusative direct object which would ordinarily follow, we have an independent nominative from the noun gumnoj, which means naked, totally unclothed, totally out of uniform. The independent nominative is used when an idea is conceived of as independent of any particular verbal relationship. Therefore the expression of the idea is left alone in the nominative case. That is why we do not have an accusative direct object. This nominative case names an idea rather than the object. Translation: “in order that he may not march naked.” The whole purpose here is to express an idea, not an object of the verb. That is why it is in the nominative case.

What is the idea? Just as sure as you are sitting here you are going to be a loser in life if as a born-again believer you miss the boat with regard to the plan of God, if you lose your alertness. Your alertness is positive volition toward Bible doctrine on a daily basis, your alertness is living in the divine system of protocol, living in the plan of God, the divine dynasphere. So we have the principle: “so that you may not march through life naked.”

From the analogy it is concluded that a certain number of Tribulational believers are going to be losers just as there are losers in the Church Age. Being a loser does not mean that you are going to lose your salvation. The analogy also implies maximum divine discipline for believers who fail. In the Tribulation many of them will die the sin unto death. Many sleeping sentries died at their post, they were burned to death before they could wake up. They went to sleep and they took the consequences of their own decision to fall asleep. Others, of course, were not burned to death but they were singed badly enough to learn, and therefore they were useable again for guard duty at a future time.

Then there is one more phrase we have here, a connective conjunction kai and a present active subjunctive from the verb blepw which means to see with the eye or to see quickly. It is translated, “and they see.” It is a pictorial present. The active voice: other members of the military organisation see in the garrison the shame you have brought on yourself, but by analogy it means other believers in heaven are going to see that you were a loser at the judgment seat of Christ and you are going to be ashamed. There will be no shame after physical death, “absent from the body, face to face with the Lord,” but once the judgment seat of Christ occurs that is where the losers are going to be ashamed.

The potential subjunctive mood here implies a future reference and is qualified by the element of contingency. The future reference has to do with the judgment seat of Christ; the element of contingency: you don’t have to be a loser. Right now you might say to yourself, “I am a loser.” That can all change.

Now we have that accusative singular direct object from the noun a)sxhmosunh, the strongest word for shame. And with that the possessive genitive from a)utoj, “his shame [or disgrace].” The loser is going to have one bad moment in eternity and that is at the judgment seat of Christ. At that particular time, if he is pronounced a loser then there will be that moment of shame because he had the same opportunity to be a winner as any other believer. The pattern of the judgment seat of Christ for the Church Age is the same pattern of evaluation for the Tribulational believer at the second advent. The two categories of Tribulational believers found in this passage are the same as in the Church Age, winners or losers.

“Be alert, I will come like a thief [the surprise element of the second advent]. Happy is he [the believer] who stays alert [living in the plan of God], and guards his uniform, so that he may not march naked, and they [the garrison of believers] see his disgrace [of being a loser].”

That brings us to the challenge which has to do with one thing only: Are you a winner or a loser at this point?

The Armageddon campaign is a part of the world war at the end of the Tribulation. It is the sixth plague or bowl judgment and, of course, it is a part of a world war called in verse 14 “the war of the great day of God the omnipotent one.” The Middle East campaign of that final world war of history is called sometimes Armageddon. From this we derive the title of the whole study which is the Armageddon campaign. In addition to that we now have in this particular passage a battle, the origin of the battle of Armageddon. We have previously seen in verse 12 the cause of the campaign in the Middle East at the end of the Tribulation. We then went to verses 13 and 14 where we saw the cause of the last world war in history. Now we have the cause of the battle of Armageddon.

We begin verse 16 with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Then.” We are in sequence again. With this we have the aorist active indicative of the verb sunagw which means to assemble. Here it means concentration of forces. All of the Greek terms in this passage are military terms down through this verse and we have had to change the translation radically because of that. We have a culminative aorist tense contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety, the concentration of foreign armies in the Middle East, but we regard it from the viewpoint of existing results. There are at least four major battles, the battle of the valley of Jehoshaphat, the battle of Idumea, the battle of Armageddon, and the siege of Jerusalem, all of which are a part of that world war. The active voice: Jesus Christ who controls history produces the action of the verb.

While the last world war of history was started through demon activity it is our Lord Jesus Christ who assembles the armies of the world in the Middle East for their destruction at the second advent. No matter how war or any historical disaster is started it is our Lord Jesus Christ who either directly controls or permits the course of the catastrophe under the principle that man is the product of his own decisions. Evil is the principle by which man creates his own misery and his own historical disaster. Man being the product of his own decisions means simply this: When there is any catastrophe or disaster in a country it is always because there are too many negative decisions, because there are too many believers who are negative toward Bible doctrine. As goes the believer so goes the national entity. When believers are negative toward doctrine inevitably we have trouble. We have now come to the sixth bowl judgment where we have judgment by death rather than judgment by pain.

Our Lord Jesus Christ often starts a backfire judgment which controls the situation and perpetuates the human race in the historical extension of the angelic conflict. Again, the application: There is no sophisticated weaponry or anything else that will destroy the human race from the face of the earth. There will be wars and many more wars until the second advent of Christ but man will not be destroyed by war, the human race will continue to exist on planet earth as per the grace of God. Jesus Christ controls history through His own policy of blessing by association with the pivot of mature believers or by divine judgment. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the doctrine that Jesus Christ controls history.

“Then he [our Lord Jesus Christ who controls history] concentrated them.” The indicative mood is declarative for the fact that we have troop concentrations of all the power spheres of the Tribulation as an extension of the last world war in history.

The Middle East is always going to be a place of world war because strategically the Middle East is between two key geographical spots in history.

With this we have the accusative plural direct object from a)utoj, the intensive pronoun used as a personal pronoun. It covers the armies of the king of the north, the armies of the kings of the east, a group of Asiatic powers on the Pacific basin, the Arab armies of the king of the south, the king of the west. We are not going to be dealing with the world war in general, we are going to limit it to the Middle East and the campaign of the Middle East because the Word of God always has a spiritual lesson to teach us. Therefore, in order to understand the spiritual lesson it becomes necessary for us to concentrate and focus on that part of the last world war in history that pertains.

A prepositional phrase follows: e)ij plus the accusative of topoj, “in a place,” battles have to take place on terrain, on the sea, in the air. Battles are always fought in a place, but before you have battles you have campaigns and before you have campaigns you have wars; “which was called,” the present passive participle from the verb kalew. This means that everything for a war had to be organised and these people were organised. There are always countries that are organised for a war, there are always countries that are looking for someone to pick on. To fight a war it takes a whole people with the right mental attitude. The present tense is a descriptive present of the participle kalew. The passive voice: the locale receives the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. It is “called in the Hebrew language,” the adverb E(braisti means in the Hebrew language. In the Greek we simply transliterate it Armagidw, the valley of Megiddo. Armageddon is the valley of Megiddo. We can translate it literally, “the mountains of Megiddo” because a(r refers to the mountains that go around it. The Megiddo range of mountains overlooks the valley of Esdraelon where Napoleon, after seeing it and its plains from one of the hills, exclaimed, “All the armies of the world can manoeuvre here.” To the west of the Megiddo range is the valley of Megiddo, to the north lies the valley of Esdraelon. It is a beautiful plain for a battlefield and it will form one of the great future battlefields of history. We simply call it from the Greek “Armageddon”; it is a transliteration from the Hebrew. Remember, however, that Armageddon is only one of several battles which is going to be fought in the Middle East during this world war.

Translation: “Then he [our Lord Jesus Christ] deployed them in a place which is called in the Hebrew language Armageddon.”

The cause of the world war in the last half of the Tribulation is the modus operandi of the kosmokratwr, the war demons, who take their orders from the unholy trinity. The cause of the Middle East campaign of that world war is the administration of the sixth bowl judgment. In beginning our study of Armageddon we note the deployment of troops from the army of the kings of the east in the valley of Esdraelon. They have invaded and have crossed the Euphrates. The king of the north has concentrated his armies at this time in North Africa, they have already been through the Middle East. We have prophecies regarding this in Joel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah.

One of the first things we note about warfare is that many nations are never prepared for it because they have been under the influence of peace movements. When people start thinking in terms of peace they are never prepared for war. Therefore, they cannot defend themselves and they are often enslaved. In Jeremiah 6:13,14 peace propaganda is used as a weapon for war. Whenever a nation starts screaming for peace it generally means that in a very short time they will be attacked. The doves are a part of organised evil in a nation. You have to have common sense, you have to be able to orient to reality. If you are in a state of arrogance you can’t orient to reality in either your personal life or the life of the nation in which you live. But if you as a believer are oriented to reality through the protocol of the divine dynasphere then you can recognise that when too many people start screaming for peace at any price you are in for war, you are going to be attacked. The enemy is going to take advantage of you at every possible turn. The peace movements are an announcement to the enemy that we are weak and they are looking for places to start attacking us, taking advantage of us.

Jeremiah 6:13,14, “For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, every one is greedy for gain, and from the prophet even to the priest every one manufactures lies. And they have healed the wound of my people superficially” — they have passed out propaganda saying, ‘This is the answer,’ “saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.”

Jeremiah 8:11, “And they heal the brokenness of the daughter of my people superficially by saying, ‘Peace, peace’; but there is no peace.”

When people start peace movements and they gain momentum you can guarantee that there is war just around the corner.

For the mature believer, no matter how bad things get and no matter how bad a shape the military may be he can look from his spiritual life to the principle of Hebrews 11:34, “… become courageous in battle, put to flight invading armies.” That is the winner believer, the mature believer, the believer who has advanced in the protocol of the plan of God, the divine dynasphere. Maximum doctrine resident in the soul gives the mature believer battle courage, moral courage to make the tactical decisions under combat pressure. This is how heroes are born.

The testimony of mature David is given in Psalm 27:3, “Though an army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid; though wars rise against me, in spite of this I keep having my confidence [in God].” The mature believer, the winner, is protected in combat, according to Job 5:20, “In war he will redeem me from the power of the sword.” Even in military disaster, Hebrews 11:34, “escaping from the mouth of the sword.”

Warfare demands concentration, courage in combat. Deuteronomy 20 is one of those passages that gives us an extrapolation of the army regulations of the Jews. The Jewish nation as a client nation to God had a strong military establishment and they had a lot of army regulations. Some of them have been incorporated by God the Holy Spirit into the Word, and it shows you all at once certain principles: the importance of your spiritual life, the importance of being prepared for life in general which prepares you for war specifically, and any other crisis.

Deuteronomy 20:1, “When you go out to battle against your enemies and see [in reconnaissance] horses, chariots, and infantry more numerous than you, do not be afraid...”

Don’t be afraid! But that doesn’t come suddenly. You can’t tell people on the battlefield not to be afraid. The people who can obey that mandate are the people who live in the protocol system of God, the people who are prepared spiritually, the people who are positive toward Bible doctrine every day.

Remember the principle that is involved here: Historical events produce a need, and leadership meets that need; circumstances of life produce a market, and leadership supplies that market. Life is a market for leadership; crisis is the stage for that leadership. So when the mandate is given, “Do not be afraid of them,” that is for those who can obey it. Remember that courage is the ability to think under pressure and those who can think under pressure are those who have been thinking under pressures in life long before the battle — those who can use the essence of God rationale, those who can think in terms of the plan of God rationale, those who can think in terms of the logistical grace rationale, those who can think in terms of the imputation rationale. If you can think in terms of rationales then you can think under pressure. Remember that the circumstances of life produce a market, and with your ability to think under pressure you are going to provide the leadership for that market.

“… do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God,” that is it right there. Those who are best prepared for any crisis in life are those who can know the Lord as their God, those who have personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, those who have not only believed in Christ but have recognised the principle of protocol. Protocol is order, and the reason that some will never get with doctrine is because there is no order in their life. It is the same reason that they can’t even hang up their clothes, the same reason that they are not neat in any sense of the word. They are not categorical, they are not neat, they can’t think, they are not ready to learn doctrine because they won’t learn the vocabulary because they are lazy in their mind. Yet, God’s whole plan is a plan of categories, a plan of protocol. It is heaven on earth, and He supplies through grace, the filling of the Spirit at gate one, the faith-rest drill at gate two, enforced and genuine humility at gate three. Freedom does not prepare people for a crisis; authority prepares people for a crisis. That is why the profession of arms always leads an abnormal life in normal peace time, because in the profession of arms you can’t live a normal life; you are preparing for the abnormal, you are preparing for the battlefield, you are preparing for pressure. And in the same sense, when you walk into Bible class, you are preparing yourself for life, for the future. You are preparing yourself to market yourself as a leader in the future. Protocol has authority and authority is something some believers can’t take.

“… who brought you up from the land of Egypt is with you.” He has already demonstrated His faithfulness. He was faithful under more difficult circumstances, He will be faithful again.

Verse 2, “Now it shall come to pass that when you are advancing into battle, the priest shall come near and speak to the army,” spiritual preparation for what is to come. It takes spiritual preparation to fight professionally.

Verse 3, “Then he shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, you are advancing into battle against your enemies today. Do not faint in your right lobe.” Right lobes minus doctrine faint every time. “Do not be afraid.” Who is going to be afraid? Those who have not lived under the protocol system of God’s plan. God’s plan doesn’t spell out freedom for you, God’s plan says stand fast in the freedom, and stand fast is a military word for being under authority. It is the authority of the plan of God that makes your freedom meaningful.

( “Stand fast, therefore, in the freedom wherewith Christ has made you free.” Christ has made you free in the sense that it gives you the option day by day to take in doctrine and to grow in grace. When you turn down that option you are a loser)

“… or panic before them.” You cannot handle your weapons if you are trembling, and they had been trained to use their weapons and to use them professionally.

Verse 4, “for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to deliver you,” to be winners.

Verse 5, “The officers will speak to the troops, saying, ‘Who is the soldier who has constructed a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go on leave and return to his home, lest he die in battle and a civilian dedicate it.” There are some experiences he should have first to give meaning to his professional function.

Verse 6, “Furthermore, who is the soldier who has planted a vineyard and has not yet begun to enjoy it? [He hasn’t had a chance to sample the wine] Let him take a furlough and return to his home, lest he die in battle and a civilian enjoy his wines.”

Verse 7, “Furthermore, who is the soldier that is engaged to a woman and has not married her? Let him take a furlough and return to his home lest he die in battle and a civilian marries her.”

Verse 8, Why all of this? These are the people who do not go into battle single minded. They cannot concentrate on their job. When they get some orders they will not be able to obey them because they are distracted. The distractions of life are always a test. Is Bible doctrine more important to you than some lovely, beautiful woman, some magnificent home, a good bottle of wine? What is more important?

“Then the officers will speak additional words to the troops, and they shall say, ‘Who is the soldier that is afraid and fainting in his right lobe?’ ”

You may say that the beginning of courage is to admit it. No, it is to admit it for the sake of the whole outfit.

“ ‘Let him take a furlough and return to his home, so that he might not cause other soldiers’ right lobes to melt like his right lobe’.”

Fear is contagious, therefore eliminate it. That is exactly what God is going to do when the crisis comes. There is going to be a place for leadership but you don’t develop leaders by snapping your fingers, you develop leadership today, tomorrow, and the next day, the next day. So this excerpt from the Jewish army regulations emphasises not only moral and battle courage but indicates the importance of protocol, concentration on the profession of arms during the battle. To be effective in combat the soldier must concentrate on his job of killing, he must destroy the enemy in a totally objective and professional manner. This cannot be accomplished apart from courage in battle. Courage is the ability to think under pressure and therefore the combat soldier must avoid all emotion. So the combat soldier must avoid emotion and concentrate, he can’t be emotional and concentrate at the same time. He must concentrate on his function in battle, the operation of his weapons, the manoeuvres involved, and so on. The soldier cannot be distracted by his new home he has not completed, the business deal that is not completed, or the woman he hasn’t married. His memories must be pleasant but not distracting. The soldier who is distracted in combat is a casualty, he will lose his life, he will jeopardise the success of that combat arm, and therefore the army regulations were printed in the Word of God which lives and abides forever because it has spiritual significance to all of us.

In Daniel 11:36 we have the Jewish dictator of the state of Israel in the last half of the Tribulation. He has the problem of arrogance as all dictators do. There are three concepts that relate to the function of arrogance at gate one of cosmic one.

The first has to do with flaws. People have flaws, and flaws in people are divided into two categories: real flaws which result from lack of virtue or life in the cosmic system, and pseudo-flaws in which a person’s flair of scintillating personality is mistaken for either arrogance or a flaw. Pseudo-flaws are simply personality expressions and have nothing whatever to do with cosmic involvement. You do not determine the spiritual life on the basis of a person’s personality.

The second concept has to do with hang-ups. A hang-up is an obstacle in the normal function of life related to involvement in gate one of cosmic one which is motivational evil. People who are arrogant and living at gate one of cosmic one become snags in some form of subjectivity or abnormality. Only arrogant people have hang-ups which is, of course, the cosmic manifestation of their cosmic involvement. A principle we will note is the fact that when people are arrogant they cannot handle the pressures of life.

There are two kinds of hang-ups: blind hang-ups from blind arrogance, the expression of arrogance without identity; known hang-ups from known pride or arrogance. If a believer has power or authority the challenge of that power or authority results in abnormal behaviour. Hence, the explanation of the second beast of Revelation 13:11-18 and/or the false prophet, and/or the king of Daniel 11:36.

The third is concept syndrome. The symptoms of arrogant hang-ups are called syndrome. Syndromes are symptoms typical of a condition, and the condition is arrogance, involvement in cosmic one, involvement in the interlocking systems of arrogance.

The great enemy of momentum in the divine dynasphere and the fulfilment of the plan of God for your life is arrogance at gate one. That is the gate of motivating evil. Note that gate two of cosmic one where arrogance rejects the authority of the Bible teacher, the authority of the boss, the various categories of authority under establishment, means loss of consistency in the protocol system of God, and that is the plan of God for your life. Therefore, we have developing, of course, a lot of syndromes. The most common ones that we have studied in the past: the legalistic syndrome where people are always trying to run your business and not giving you your privacy of your priesthood and the opportunity to make your own mistakes from your own volition, and to relate it to your volition; the guilt syndrome, which explains why a lot of people do a lot of things, the right things in wrong ways; the emotional syndrome; the cowardice syndrome; the inadequacy syndrome; the socialist syndrome; the liberal syndrome; the antiestablishment syndrome; the anti-Semitism syndrome. These are the ones that have rejected the protocol of the plan of God.

The Tribulation is a time when many believers are trapped in the cosmic system, especially troubled by the antiestablishment syndrome, or what we might call the hippie syndrome. Matthew 24:12 mentions it specifically related to the Tribulation, “also because lawlessness [antiestablishment syndrome] shall increase the love of many [Tribulational believers] will be extinguished [in cosmic involvement, arrogance as a motivational evil, gate one].”

There are two kinds of arrogance related to authority. There is the arrogance which rejects authority over it and the arrogance which uses authority in terms of tyranny. On the one hand tyranny is arrogance, but on the other hand someone’s rejection of authority is also arrogance. That is why some of the most arrogant people in the world are scum. Scum are always arrogant; aristocrats are sometimes arrogant. The worst arrogance of all is with scum. Inevitably they are whiners and complainers and rejecters of authority and arrogant. Arrogance cannot stand social, economic, political or spiritual pressure. So we have the principle as to why we have these dictators in the Tribulation. It relates to a concept: arrogance cannot stand pressure.

When arrogance is challenged abnormal behaviour and emotional reaction begins. This is why gate one of cosmic one is the arrogance gate. Under pressure it triggers jealousy, hatred, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, revenge motivation. Since arrogance is an unrealistic and expanded opinion of self it resides in the soul under normal circumstances in a state of contentment with the expanded image it has created. But normal circumstances always give way to pressure and arrogance cannot stand pressure. To the extent that you entertain arrogance in your life, or live in the cosmic system, to that extent you will never be able to apply one bit of doctrine you have learned and you will never be able to stand pressure, you will always crack one way or another under pressure. If you put arrogance under pressure it contracts, forcing the pressure to increase, and eventually it detonates. Anything which compresses arrogance creates a pressure which must explode. The pressure on arrogance at gate one produces compression which detonates the grenade and produces the fragments of the grenade, the other gates in cosmic one. For example, gate two, negative volition arrogance. When you are preoccupied with yourself in arrogance obviously you are not going to listen to the Word of God objectively, you are not even going to expose yourself to it. Negative volition is preoccupation with self and is that state whereby you say, ‘Yes, I like doctrine, I’m just not going to go every night, I’m not going to become a fanatic.’ That is negative volition arrogance. Or there is authority arrogance. Authority arrogance means there is no virtue in the life. If you don’t have basic virtue you don’t have any of the other virtues. You don’t have love for God as a motivational virtue and you don’t have impersonal love for all mankind as a functional virtue.

Another fragment of the grenade is self-righteous arrogance which includes pseudo-morality as well as crusader arrogance. There is at gate seven, psychotic arrogance, which is always the drive toward unreality. At gate eight there is another fragment: the arrogance of unhappiness which comes from subjective preoccupation with self. Gate nine: iconoclastic arrogance, subjective preoccupation with others. There is rational or irrational arrogance, the arrogance of emotion, the arrogance of ignorance, the arrogance of a brilliant intellect. People with a high IQ have a string tendency to be arrogant and their arrogance destroys them. They are always surpassed in life by people who are not as smart but who are well regulated under the principle of basic virtue in life, enforced and genuine humility. The plugger gets there first. There is the arrogance of Christian service which explains why so many believers today are “hustling for God,” they are “doing the right thing,” etc. But what is wrong with the “right thing” is the fact that they are doing it in the cosmic system and it is wood, hay, and stubble. There is client nation arrogance which is what we have today in Christian activism, civil disobedience among believers.

Arrogance creates a maximum hypersensitive situation, hypersensitive spots on the soul. These are actually hang-ups which produce syndrome. A hang-up, again, is an obstacle to normal living and objectivity. It relates to the function at gate one, cosmic one. A hang-up is becoming snagged in some form of subjectivity or abnormality of the soul, therefore hang-ups are highly sensitive barriers which are vulnerable to injured pride. It is very easy to have pride injured because arrogance or pride simply cannot stand pressure. People just can’t take it. You say something in jest and in humour and they fall in a dozen directions, get upset, take it seriously, take it personally. Syndromes are symptoms of these hang-ups in cosmic one.

Many believers possess an arrogance to which they are blinded and unaware of its existence until pressure comes to that area and they are crossed or frustrated. Sooner or later doctrine will offend the arrogance of such a believer and the pressure on arrogance pulls the pin out of the grenade and the fragments scatter. They bring misery to self and anyone else in the periphery of the pulled pin. Arrogance creates vulnerability in areas of hypersensitivity which when attacked produce functional evil in the cosmic system: pressure like jealousy or bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, self-pity, guilt complex, revenge motivation, like the trigger releasing the firing pin to strike the primer to fire the cartridge of functional evil. Even legitimate Christian service inside the cosmic system becomes wood, hay, and stubble, Philippians 1:15. This explains abnormal behaviour. Note: All dictators have abnormal behaviour.

The basic principles of warfare

1. Objective: The purpose of a military operation is the attainment of the objective assigned to a designated force. From the largest military group of armies down to the smallest platoon or squad there is always the principle of objective, and this objective constitutes the guide for the interpretation of orders, the formulation of decisions, and the deployment of the force. The nation, its military forces, and each part of the military organisation have their specific objectives. The selection of national objectives we call strategy; it depends upon political, military, and economic conditions which are variable.

The first objective must always be the neutralisation or the destruction of the power of the opposing military forces to fight. This means, of, course, decisive defeat and destruction of the opposing army — always a first consideration. The second objective is to possess localities which contribute to he national objective.

2. Offensive: Offensive is the only action by which a decision is gained. Offensive brings victory while defensive can only avoid defeat. The only effective way to wage war is to act on the offensive — destroy the enemy armies. The offensive increases the effectiveness of the force adopting it, it raises morale, it permits concentration of effort, it allows freedom of action. The defensive should be used to assist the offensive action elsewhere to gain time, to utilise good terrain of to compensate for weaknesses. Some time the defence is used in the offence as a pivot of the envelopment. The offensive should be used when there is any reasonable chance for success.

3. Mass: This is a military term meaning combat power, a concentration of combat power at a point of maximum effectiveness. Mass or combat power includes numbers of troops, weapons, tactical skill, discipline, fighting ability, resolution, morale, leadership. Success in warfare is attained by the proper employment of mass in a main effort attack at the proper time and place for the accomplishment of a definite objective.

4. Economy of force: This is the means by which mass is employed in the main effort. The time and place of the main effort having been determined, men and means are conserved by reducing their employment in other directions, i.e. is other directions to the minimum consistency with safety.

5. Movement: Movement means the manoeuvre of combat elements. In the offensive this principle is used to bring mass into close grips with the enemy in order to secure decisive results. Movement is designed to place mass in the best place for attack. Movement is most effective when concealed. In many cases movement is only possible by the effective employment of fire power.

6. Surprise: To obtain maximum effect with minimum loss surprise must be employed. It may take the form of time, place, direction, force, tactics, or weapons but there must be an element of surprise in two or more of those principles: e.g. surprise as to the place where you show and the direction of your force. The main factors of surprise are preparation, secrecy, and rapidity.

7. Security: (Don’t take the press!) Security embraces all measures taken to guard against observation and surprise, to ensure against hostile interference with operations, to gain and maintain the power and momentum of free action.

8. Simplicity: Military plans should be simple so as not to sponsor complicated movements. Orders should not be ambiguous but direct and free from contingencies. Frequent changes in plans should be avoided. Unity of command must always be observed.

9. Co-operation: Teamwork demands that all military units and persons involved in a mission work together to accomplish the mission. To do this co-ordination must be secured and there must be virtue and honour in all military organisations involved, the setting aside of all prejudices toward other services.

Daniel 11:36: We start out with a Hebrew word, ha melek. It is correctly translated “the king,” but in view of all of the eschatological doctrine we would call it “the dictator.” It refers to the second beast of Revelation 13:11-18, the dictator of the Jewish state in the Tribulation. We have seen his many names, false prophet, Antichrist, and so on. “And the dictator shall do keep doing,” the qal perfect of asah. Dictators have to hustle, if they ever stop doing things they are dead. This one is going to lose out because he relates everything that he does to his own arrogance. No one can take a position of leadership and do very well in a state of arrogance because inevitably he relates everything to his own arrogance, “according to his own will.” The word for “will” is ratson. That means that arrogance has crept in and it is in the form of a syndrome. He has a hang-up and the hang-up has resulted in a syndrome. What does this mean? This means that this dictator was a brilliant man but he started to think that he was God in his arrogance. Therefore he emphasised his decisions rather than on information on which good decisions are made. He didn’t have the facts, all of the information. “According to his own will” emphasises his volition, not thought. Good decisions come from facts; facts require thinking to synthesise them and make the right decision.

Obviously he has failed because the next phrase says, “and he shall exalt himself,” the hithpael imperfect from the verb rum. The hithpael stem is reflexive, it means to lift one’s self up in total arrogance. The dictator is living in cosmic one, he is filled with his own self-importance, and because of this he assumes that he can’t make a bad decision and that any decision he makes is the sovereignty as God as far as he is concerned. Therefore, another hithpael imperfect from the verb gadal which means to glorify self, “above every god.” The dictator is trying to pass himself off as the Jewish Messiah, he is a Jew, “therefore he shall speak,” the piel stem of dabar, he makes a lot of speeches. And he doesn’t say “marvellous things,” the Hebrew says “blasphemous things,” and he will speak blasphemous things “against the God of gods,” our Lord Jesus Christ, “and he will be successful.” Here is an interesting thing. Why is he successful? At this moment his arrogance is not destroying his success. Therefore, we have to look at this as pseudo-success. Here is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is going to permit this man to lie about Him. Why? God has perfect confidence; God is God. Application: Do you keep your mouth shut when people lie about you?

So he shall have success, but his success is not going to last, he is no winner. He is temporarily on top, “and he will be successful until the Tribulation [not the indignation] has been completed,” qal perfect of kalah, completed.

Then the last phrase is not “what is determined shall be done.” It should be translated, “for what has been decreed shall be accomplished.” It was entered into the computer of divine decrees by the omniscience of God. He knew all about this man, every deed, every action, every motive, and at the right time in the last half of the Tribulation we get the printout in human history.

Translation: “Then the king [Jewish dictator in the Tribulation] will do according to his own will, he will both exalt and glorify himself above every god; furthermore he will speak blasphemous things against the God of gods [Jesus Christ, the God of Israel]; he will be successful until the Tribulation has been completed, for what has been decreed [in eternity past] will be accomplished in time.”

That is the beginning of the Armageddon campaign and there is a very simple principle here: Jesus Christ controls history and all the Satanic opposition has not changed one iota of historical fulfilment of the divine decrees.

Verse 37 starts out in the King James version, “Neither shall he regard.” That is not correct. We have a negative lo followed by the verb bin (pronounced been), and it means to understand, “He will not understand.” There are a lot of reasons for that which we have studied in relationship to arrogance and all the principles involved with arrogance, the hang-ups, the syndromes, the flaws. If there is anything that makes life miserable for human beings it is the inability to understand the absolute eternal truth, and the one who presents it to us, God Himself. Ignorance is one of the greatest sources of unhappiness when it is related to arrogance. Arrogance plus ignorance means no capacity for life, no capacity for happiness, no capacity for blessing.

Ignorance has nothing to do with IQ; ignorance has to do with volition. Any believer can understand the Word of God, he has the equipment to do so, all provided by logistical grace. So you can be dumb or smart, have a low IQ or a high IQ and you can still be ignorant because the major issue is your attitude toward doctrine and your volition. Like everyone else, this Jew in the Tribulation has heard the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This man is still an unbeliever and he has made his decisions although he will have other opportunities because he isn’t dead yet. He will be one of the two people who will be cast into the lake of fire alive before anyone else occupies the lake of fire. They will precede the devil and his fallen angels and all unbelievers into the lake of fire by 1000 years. This indicates something of the tremendous build-up of the evil in these two dictators. This is the Jewish dictator; we have studied the Gentile dictator, the ruler of the revived Roman empire.

So it says, “He will not understand.” Here is the greatest tragedy in life. People are always trying to understand people, they are always trying to understand what makes others tick. Some people are so subjective they are trying to find out what makes themselves tick and why they are the way they are. This man, it says, “will not understand the God of his fathers.” The fathers go back to Abraham. This man is a Jew and the God of his fathers is the Lord Jesus Christ. So he has rejected truth, and in rejecting truth he has moved into cosmic one where he suffers from blackout of the soul, and cosmic two where he suffers from scar-tissue of the soul. He is also the subject of a prophecy in Genesis chapter 49. Genesis 49 gives us the prophecy of each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Three verses of that prophecy, verses 16-18, give us the prophecy regarding this dictator. We know the tribe from which he came. It was one of the first tribes to go into apostasy in the past history of Israel. It is also the one tribe that did not have any evangelists in the Tribulation out of the 144,000.

Genesis 49:16-17, “Dan shall rule his people [prophecy of the Jewish people at the end of the Tribulation], as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a snake in the road [he is no good to anyone who comes into contact with him], a cobra in the path, which bites the horses heel, so that the rider [Israel] falls backward.” Israel’s greatest period of apostasy will come at the end of the Tribulation under this dictator.

Verse 18, the prayer for mature believers living in Israel in the last half of the Tribulation is noted. This is a prayer that will be uttered many times by Jews who have momentum through doctrine: “O Lord, I wait for your deliverance.”

This dictator is organised, except in one area. It says in Daniel 11:37, “nor the desire of women” in the King James version. We have the noun chemadah which is used for sexual desire and conjugal love. In this case the man is a man and he doesn’t have any sexual desire for women, which means he is a homosexual. In other words, the dictator of the Jewish state is a homosexual, and the principle is very simple: when rulers are degenerate for any reason their rule becomes a total disaster. No matter what ability a person may have, if for any reason he is a degenerate ruler the rule becomes a disaster. This means that his administration is, of course, free from harem rule, like Anthony and Cleopatra, but it has a much more evil influence.

The Bible has a few things to say about homosexuality. Like any other form of fornication it is a sin, but there are certain sins that are degenerate and there are certain sins that are sins but not degenerate. The tendency may be there but it must be remembered that temptation is not a sin, it is when one succumbs to the temptation that it is sin. The succumbing to the temptation, as implied by this noun, indicates no integrity, degeneracy, total inability to rule, and inevitably great judgment must come from God to straighten out the situation. The fact that homosexuals have held high office and high positions shouldn’t be surprising, it happens periodically in history, and it always reflects the degeneracy of that particular state. Here we are looking at the state of Israel in the last half of the Tribulation.

Then to add degeneracy to degeneracy we have the phrase, “nor regard any god.” which is the qal imperfect of bin again, and it means “nor does he recognise any god.” This indicates the fact that the Jewish dictator of the Tribulation is an atheist even though he is the head of the Jewish religion, Judaism in the Tribulation. There are two great religious systems in the Tribulation that are mentioned eschatologically. The first is the international religion of the revived Roman empire and it has converts all over the world. Then in Israel there is Judaism, a very apostate type of religion. Both of these are religions that worship some kind of a person or a supreme being, but this ruler in Jerusalem is an atheist which means, once again, that he merely uses religion as a means of maintaining his power. Personally he doesn’t believe any God exists, he is a totally arrogant person, and because of this he is simply, therefore, a politician. The difference between a politician and a statesman is the fact that a politician uses anything and everything in order to gain power, whereas a statesman has some principles and adheres to some system of principle related to the function of authority. A politician is all things to all men to the enth degree.

This Jewish dictator has the total combination of megalomania, “for he shall magnify himself,” the hithpael imperfect of the verb gadal. The hithpael stem is reflexive and it means “he shall glorify himself above everyone else.”

Translation: “he will not understand the God of his fathers [Jesus Christ] nor have desire for women [he is a homosexual], nor does he recognise any god [he is atheistic]; for he will glorify himself above all.”

This man combines his genius with the phenomenal system of genius that Satan has developed in the human race and exploits it to the maximum, and he becomes the number one man in the state of Israel during the last half of the Tribulation.

In verse 38, as a prelude to the Middle East war, he also has a foreign policy for his land will be very shortly be invaded by many armies. The verse begins, “But instead he will honour a god of fortresses.” That Hebrew phrase should be translated, “Nevertheless in his status quo [as a dictator] he will give honour to the god of fortified cities.” Giving honour is simply an idiom for making a treaty with someone, and that someone is called “the god of fortified cities.”

The old Roman empire was a vast domain of fortified cities all of the way from the Atlantic to the Rhine, along the southern part of the Danube, the Euphrates, from the North Sea to North Africa. It was sometimes called the area of fortified cities. Furthermore, the rulers of the Roman empire always took the title of Kurioj, “Lord,” to indicate their deity. So the god of the fortified cities merely links the old Roman empire of the Church Age with the revived Roman empire of the Tribulation and provides another title for the dictator whom we have studied as the beast of Revelation 13:1-10, the feet of the image, the little horn of Daniel 7, the prince who shall come in Daniel 9, the man if sin, the Antichrist.

It also says, “a god whom his fathers did not know.” This is the same dictator whom we have studied as the beast dictator of the revived Roman empire. And, “he will give honour [he will make a treaty]”, the piel imperfect of the verb kadad. The piel is the intensified stem and in the piel this can be used to designate a treaty.

So we translate: “Nevertheless [in his status quo as dictator] he will give honour [treaty recognition] to the god of fortified cities [the beast dictator of the revived Roman empire], even to a god whom his fathers did not know [a reference to a system of worship: the international ecumenical religious system of the Tribulation]...”

The rest of the verse says, “he will honour [make a treaty],” and then we have some of the factors involved, “with gold, silver, precious stones, and other valuable commodities.” We do not need to know the details except that he is buying protection. He recognises that he is in a jamb as far as foreign policy is concerned. The Middle East is a bridge between three continents and it has all kinds of strategic importance. This dictator has to make a decision. There are four great power blocs within his vicinity: the pan-Arabic bloc [the king of the south]; the king of the north [which today would be the Russian communist empire]; the kings of the east [in the future that will be all of the Asiatic powers, “kings”, plural]; the king of the west [western European culture, the united state of western Europe, the revived Roman empire]. The dictator of Israel will make a deal with the king of the west, he needs his protection, there is no way that he can cope with power blocs. Spheres of influence are impossible and they will destroy him.

So he makes an alliance, but when you make a deal with the king of the west you must remember that religion in the world reaches its peak in the Tribulation. Once the Church is resurrected and the Tribulation begins you have the greatest period of religion the world will ever know. Today religion is under restraint because we are in the Church Age and all it requires is that there be five people in a pivot in some area and there is a restraint on religion. There is no blessing but there is restraint. The restrainer is removed at the Rapture. God the Holy Spirit of the divine dynasphere, the operational type, goes to heaven. Religion, therefore, has its greatest day — no restraint on religion of any kind. Therefore religion is going to reach its peak and you cannot make a treaty without religion being a part of it. So Israel makes a treaty with the revived Roman empire but has to accept the international religion of the revived Roman empire.

So the alliance will be made and in forming this alliance Jews must pay heavily. First of all they must set aside Judaism, or combine it, and they must accept the religion of the west. There will be financial and commercial considerations as well as religious. The Jews are forced to accept this ecumenical system which we will study in chapters 17 & 18. Like the statues of Jupiter, representing Antiochus Epiphanes in the past which was erected in the holy of holies, so another statue of another dictator is going to be put in the holy of holies of the Tribulational temple. This is called the abomination of desolation.

The domestic policy is given in verse 39, “This shall he do in the most strongholds [King James version]” is not correct. “Consequently he will construct a system of defence fortification” is the correct translation, “with the help of this foreign god [the dictator of the revived Roman empire].” Then we add one more thing: “to those who acknowledge him he will enrich with great wealth.” And when it says, “he shall cause them to rule,” that is the hiphil stem of the verb mashal, and that is a correct translation. The hiphil stem is causative active voice: “he shall cause them to rule over many [over many Jews].” As the false Messiah he divides up the land. “he will distribute the land for a price” is the corrected translation.

Translation: “Furthermore, he will construct a system of defence fortifications with the help of a foreign god; he will enrich with great wealth those who acknowledge him, and he will cause them to rule over many Jews, and he will distribute the land on the basis of monetary consideration.”

We know that when the Lord ,returns the land will be distributed by tribes, so immediately we know that we are dealing with a false doctrine and an evil dictator. All dictators, by the way, are not evil. It is very difficult for a dictator not to be evil because of the arrogance problem.

Now, all of this domestic policy is a very definite way to start wars. Wars aren’t started with foreign policies alone, they are started with domestic policies. The Russians recognised that in order to keep communism alive they had to get into wars. Stalin realised he was losing his power in the late 1930s and he had some conspiracies with which to deal. He had already killed a couple of million people in one year but he wasn’t keeping control, so his domestic policy was to regain control of the army. The best way to do this was to put them in a shooting war and he attacked Finland. The Finns clobbered his army so he pulled back all of his high-ranking generals, executed them, and replaced them with young colonels who became the general officers in world war two. But, you see, domestic policy influences foreign policy in many ways.

All of this means that there is a relationship and this dictator is going to be in the middle of that great world war of the future. It will be fought in the Pacific, it will be fought in Europe, it will be fought everywhere until the very end when all of the armies are going to unite to stop the Lord.

Verse 40 — the cause of the world war in the Tribulation. We have already seen the cause related to kosmokratwr demons. Now we have a double invasion of the Middle East. The kosmokratwr demons have done their job well and now there is motivation to invade the Middle East. The first invasion of the Middle East, however, was not designed to get the Middle East as such but to get a bridge to Africa. When we see the first invasion from the king of the north he is going to come across this bridge because his objective in to conquer all of Africa. He is going to get as far as Egypt and set up a base going toward Libya and going south toward Ethiopia. His objective was to conquer all of Africa because this dictator realised that the natural resources of Africa had never been tapped and anyone who wants to rule the world must have those resources. Africa will always be easy to conquer because Africa has had only two stabilised nations outside of Egypt and they were in the south, South Africa and Rhodesia. Egypt is also a stabilised nation so the king of the north decides to cross the bridge and conquer Africa.

The reason why it is precipitated: “Now at the time of the end [end of the Tribulation] the king of the south [the Arab league of the Tribulation] shall make war with him [the dictator of the Jewish state], therefore the king of the north shall launch a blitzkrieg attack.” Here is the first cause, then of the invasion of the Middle East. Here is the beginning of what will eventually be the Armageddon campaign and it will be provoked by Arab aggression to wipe out the Jews. The king of the north has plans to conquer Africa and the Arabs have spoiled his plans, therefore he must launch his attack. Notice, it says “and shall come against him,” the hithpael imperfect shaar should be translated to launch a lightning attack, a speedy attack. A blitzkrieg follows the principle of protecting your forces from heavy casualties. The faster you move the fewer casualties you have. If you stop and slow down or sit down then you are going to take a real pasting. That is why all decisions in warfare are made by being aggressive. The offensive brings victory; the defensive never will do it.

The king of the north immediately sees the problem. As soon as the Arabs start attacking the Jews on the bridge the only way to clear the bridge is to attack. So he launches the attack and he is going to come right through the land, hit a few places but not stop, and he is going to go down to Egypt. From there he is going to launch his plan to conquer Africa. But something is going to happen, Jesus Christ controls history.

In Revelation chapter sixteen we saw that the cause of the last world war of history is the komsokratwr demons, the war demons. The war demons obviously had a great deal of influence on the Arab countries and therefore in Daniel 11:40 we see a double engagement of the Jewish state in the Tribulation.

We have noted at the beginning of the verse, “Now at the time of the end [the end of the Tribulation] the king of the south [the Arab bloc in the Tribulation] shall make war with him [the dictator of the Jewish state in the Tribulation], therefore the king of the north [comparable today to the Russian communist empire] shall launch a blitzkrieg attack against him [the Jewish dictator] with both armoured forces and mechanised infantry, also with many ships; and he [the king of the north] shall go through many countries.”

There are two invasion routes to cross the bridge between Asia and Africa. The bridge is the Middle East. To the north of the bridge is the Bosporus, the south west of the bridge is the Suez Canal. How to cross this bridge from the communist Russian empire: there are two possible ways to go. Plan A: There is a very definite system of roads that go right to the border of the USSR today. Those roads stop just at the border of eastern Turkey where they could very easily connect up with some fair roads that go through eastern Turkey down through Kurdistan and Syria. Once in Syria you are on the bridge. This plan A would be the ideal way, and seems to be the way. By coming through the Bosporus and around Turkey, coming into the eastern Mediterranean, they can support their army by water as well as by land, a double logistical opportunity. That is why we have, “and with many ships,” at the end of this verse.

Plan B: This is a possibility. They move south into Iran, cross the upper Tigris and Euphrates into Syria, and then follow the same general route. The problem with moving into Iran is that you also have the Iran- Iraq problem. Both plans, however, converge on the state of Israel. Plan B might be rejected for the simple reason that we studied in Revelation 16:12 that the Euphrates river is dried up as any kind of a barrier against an invasion, and since this is the route that the kings of the east will take it is obvious that plan A is the way that they are going to come. However this passage follows the blitzkrieg attack of the king of the north and not the attack of the kings of the east who will later on cut off his supply route.

At the end of verse 40 we have the qal perfect of the verb shataph and is translated “overflow” in the King James version but should be translated “overwhelmed,” complete, successful, rapid movement, overwhelming movement, establishing along the way a perfect supply route. So we translate it: “and he will overwhelm and pass through.” This is the beginning of the Middle East campaign. The first move: the Arabs attack the state of Israel. That will upset the logistical bridge. Therefore, to stabilise the situation the king of the north launches his tremendous armies.

The deliverance of mature believers is the next item. Obviously many armies in this world war are going to converge on the Middle East, and the first obvious question is: What happens to all of those Jews who accepted Christ at this time?

Verse 41, “Also he [the king of the north] will invade the land of beauty [Israel], and many [Jewish believers who have failed to execute the plan of God. These are the ones who reject doctrine and ignore the warnings of Matthew 25:15ff] will fall [the sin unto death for believers]; but these [there are always believers who are in the plan of God and who have their priorities straight] ...”

There is one verb that is used to describe their deliverance, the piel imperfect of the verb malat, and it means “they shall escape.” The qal stem is never used in this verb in the Bible; it means to be smooth or slippery. The piel stem means to escape from danger by thought, by using your ingenuity, by applying doctrine. So the time comes when all the doctrine that people have learned who are believers they get to apply in escape. That is what malat means. Strangely enough, in the hiphil stem the same verb means to give birth to a child. However, in the piel stem we are giving birth to an idea — thought. You manufacture thought under pressure to escape. That is another definition for courage, the ability to think under pressure.

The king of the north and his great invading army is on its way to Egypt. Therefore, they are not stopping to conquer these countries but merely to secure a logistical route for supply to the base in Egypt. Egypt is going to be the base for the conquest of Africa. The mature believers are going to be able to escape, there is a lot of escape area where these invading armies will not go. Those who obey implicitly the instructions of Matthew 24:16ff are definitely going to escape, and that is what comes up next.

The rest of verse 41, “but these shall escape danger from his [the king of the north] hand: Edom, Moab and the foremost cities of the sons of Ammon.” Edom, Moab and Ammon are geographical locations, areas where there is a lot of high mountains and high desert country. They are all Arab areas today but this does not imply that the Arabs escape the king of the north on his way to Egypt. It does means that their lands provide haven. Of course, the mountains of these areas are going to be the refuge for those who are winners. They are going to stay there and wait for the second advent, at which time they will begin another phase of the plan of God — the repopulation of the earth. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. Today Edom is the land of Trans-Jordania and Saudi Arabia, Moab is the land of Trans-Jordania, Ammon is the country of the United Arab Republic or Syria. The mountains of these areas are excellent refuge country and that is exactly where they are going to hole up, as per the instructions of Matthew 24.

Verses 42, the king of the north reaches his first objective. “Then he [the king of the north] will stretch out his hand [has to do with conquest] against other countries, and the land of Egypt will not have deliverance.”

Why will he go into Egypt? The reason is given in verse 43, “But he shall have power,” King James version. That it incorrect. It is literally, “He shall rule.” We have the qal perfect of the verb mashal and it means to rule, “Consequently he will rule over the treasures of silver and gold, and over the valuable commodities of Egypt,” valuable commodities of Egypt can refer energy-type things like oil, similar types of wealth from the 20th century. The next phrase becomes very important because this tells us exactly what the king of the north had in mind in this great world war. His ambition is to conquer all of Africa. Apparently Africa is going to remain in a state of great confusion where there are a lot of small countries and none of them are very strong and able to resist a really well-developed modern army. That is exactly what we have coming up next, “the Libyans and the Cushites are in his line of march” is the correct translation.

The Libyans means that once he hits Egypt he has one idea in mind. There are two things that are absolutely necessary to conquer Africa: you must control north Africa to control the Mediterranean; you must go down east Africa, and Ethiopia would be the first stop. That is the objective of the king of the north. Egypt is the base. He now has a supply line, the bridge which is the Middle East, and also has his navy and a large merchant marine in the eastern Mediterranean. This means that the king of the north at this point controls the Mediterranean, a very important factor.

Verse 44, “But tidings out of the east” should be, “But intelligence information from the east and from the north will disturb him.” The king of the north has now set up his invasion base in Egypt. “From the east” refers to the kings of the east invading the Middle East. That threatens the supply line in the Middle East. The intelligence information from the north means that there is some navy of the king of the north, perhaps the revived Roman empire navy. The king of the north is disturbed because he is now defeated by logistics. He is going to lose both of his logistical lines, the one to the north in the Mediterranean and the one though the Middle East. So what can he do? All he can do is bring back his armies, set up holding forces, turn around and go back and open up his land route; “therefore he shall advance with great anger [into the state of Israel] to cause destruction and to annihilate many [Jews].”

What happens to people in an invasion? This is what happens to unbelievers and Jewish believers who are losers. This is what it is like to have this army turn back in great fury. He is not only trying to reopen his logistical supply line but he is also going to take it out on the people of Israel. There, again, you see the influence of one of those battalions of war demons.

Isaiah 3:16, “Moreover, the Lord said, ‘Because the daughters of Zion are proud [arrogance],” this is not punishment by pain, that was punishment coming down. This is punishment by death. They have failed to respond to the wonderful crisis evangelism and judgment by pain, “and walk with their heads held high and seductive eyes, and walk with short sexy steps.” The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written: the short steps are to make the ankle bells ring, “and tinkle the bangles on their feet,

Verse 17, “therefore the Lord will afflict the scalp of the daughters of Zion with scabs, and the Lord will make their foreheads bald.” That is judgment by pain, crisis evangelism.

Verse 18, “In that day [of disaster] the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, their hats, crescent ornaments [jewellery],

Verse 19, “dangling earrings, bracelets, veils,

Verse 20, “headdresses, ankle chains, sashes, perfume boxes, amulets,

Verse 21, “finger rings, nose rings,

Verse 22, “dress robes, jackets, coats, money purses,

Verse 23, “hand mirrors, undergarments, turbans, and veils.

Verse 24, “Then it will come to pass that instead of sweet perfume there will be a terrible stench; instead of a belt, a rope.” In the ancient world when men were carrying off women as part of the booty of war they put a rope around their waste and hauled them off. From then on the women were the slaves of whomever held the other end of the rope; “instead of well-set hair, pulled out hair; instead of fine clothes, the wearing of sackcloth; instead of beauty, branding [they are slaves].”

Why is this going to happen to the women?

Verse 25, “Because your men [the Jewish army of that dictator is a professional army and no good] will fall by the sword, and your heroes will die in battle.

Verse 26, “Therefore her door [the door that they break down to come and take her] will scream and mourn; and deserted she will sit on the ground [in great humility].”

Why all of this?

Jeremiah 6:22, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, an army is invading from the north [the king of the north], even a great nation will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth.”

Verse 23, “They seize bow and spear [they are armed]; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voices roar like the sea, they ride on horses [mechanised infantry], armoured as a man for battle against you, O daughter of Zion!’ ”

That explains why women are abused in mass: because there is no military establishment to keep out the enemy. Once the king of the north goes through that is a very light thing, but when he comes back it is going to be judgment by death.

Daniel 11:45, the verse that brings us back into focus with regard to this Middle East campaign, “Consequently he [the king of the north] shall establish his command post between the seas [between the Mediterranean and the Dead Seas] toward the glorious Holy Mountain [Mount Zion],” that means the command post will be just east of Jerusalem, “where he shall come to the end of his career, and there is not anyone who will help him.” That introduces the principle that Jesus Christ controls history.

The conclusion of the matter as far as we are concerned: there is a great protection against this factor. The first protection is in the laws of divine establishment: freedom through military victory.

Psalm 33 is where we put it all together with regard to this type of disaster.

Verse 1, “Sing with happiness to the Lord, you winners [mature believers who have integrity]; a psalm fitting for those who have integrity.”

Verse 2, “Be motivated to praise the Lord with the lyre; sing to him with the harp of ten strings.”

Verse 3, “Sing to him a new song; play skilfully with loud strumming.”

Verse 4, “For the word of the Lord [Bible doctrine] is integrity; and all his provision is in faithfulness.”

Verse 5, “He loves integrity [righteousness] and justice [the two aspects of the holiness of God]; therefore the earth is full of grace of the Lord.”

Verse 6, “By the word of the Lord [Bible doctrine] the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all of their stars.”

verse 7, “He accumulates in a mass the waters of the sea; he stores in warehouses the roaring deeps.”

Verse 8, “Let all the earth respect the Lord; let all the people of the world be his guests.”

Verse 9, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded and it stood fast.”

Verse 10, “The Lord frustrates the plans of nations [Jesus Christ controls history]; he neutralises the conspiracies of peoples.”

We do not have the ability to ferret out conspiracies against our person individually, and against groups or against nations. The Lord does. If you are a winner you don’t have to worry about it.

Verse 11, “The plan of God stands forever, the thoughts of his right lobe [Bible doctrine is the mind or the thinking of Christ] are for all generations.” We are studying the Tribulation, yet these things are for us.

Verse 12, “Happiness to that nation whose God is the Lord [client nation to God], and the people he elected for his inheritance.” This verse describes a client nation. It doesn’t say they are all believers but it does say that God uses that nation to fulfil the principles of client nation activity, i.e. evangelism, the teaching of Bible doctrine, missionary activity, and to set up a system of establishment compatible with category #1 truth.

Verse 13, “From the heavens the Lord has looked; he has seen all mankind [Jesus Christ controls history];

Verse 14, “From the place of his throne he looked on all the inhabitants of the earth,

Verse 15, “he who forms the right lobes of all the human race, he who perceives all their works [the omniscience of God].”

Verse 16, “No king is delivered by a great army;” that is the story of the king of the north, “a strong man is not delivered by his great strength.” If you are depending on muscle you will never make it. What you need is not definition of your muscles on your body, you need definition of your thoughts in your mind. There is where it counts. The real power is not in muscular development of the body but in discerning thinking of the soul.

Verse 17, “The war horse [the armoured forces] is a strong delusion for victory; therefore by his strength he cannot deliver,” that is the king of the north.

Verse 18, “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who respect him [protocol], to those who trust in his grace.”

Verse 19, “To rescue their souls from death, and to keep them alive in economic depression.”

Verse 20, “Our soul waits in confidence for the Lord;” confidence is gate five, a motivational virtue directed toward God, “he is our help and our defence.”

Verse 21, “For our right lobes will rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name,” the three stages of the faith-rest drill.

Verse 22, “O Lord, let your grace be upon us, according as we have trusted you under this pressure.”

There is the key to the deliverance of thousands and thousands of civilians, and a scratch army of believers who have followed the plan of God to the high ground and will defend in a magnificent way, because of spiritual factors as well as motivation, Jerusalem in its most awful day of siege.

Chapter 16: background — Proverbs chapter 24

We have noticed that the Jewish national army under the dictator, the false prophet, has failed. It was, of course, an apostate army and inevitably it had to be judged. But there is still a lot of military talent in Israel and all of this military talent is about to be brought together under two great leaders. Two general officers of the Jewish army are going to rise and stand in the crisis. By the time we meet them in Proverbs 24 and Zechariah 12 they will be general officers.

We begin, therefore, by learning a few things about the subject of leadership. First of all the premise of leadership. While the emphasis in our passage is on military leadership these concepts do not exclude leadership in every realm, even leadership in ladies as well as in men. The premise of leadership is based upon three very simple principles:

1. Historical events produce a need and leadership meets that need.

2. Circumstances produce a market and leadership supplies that market.

3. Life is a market for leadership; crisis sets the stage for that leadership.

Under this premise there are two concepts with which we should be familiar: God uses prepared people and, if God doesn’t promote you you are not promoted. The time has come in the crisis of the Middle East campaign for God to promote some prepared people.

The second principle of leadership, and a very important one and one that should be kept in mind as a part of rightly dividing the Word of truth, is that leadership must be distinguished from management. While leaders are always managers, managers are not leaders. Leadership motivates people; management regulates people. Leadership necessitates the establishment of authority; management is the bureaucratic enforcement of regulations without ability, without integrity. Management bullies, requires no honour or integrity; while leadership motivates even the dullest routine of garrison and training. Leadership delegates authority; management abuses authority by doing to do all the work one’s self and take all of the credit for it. Therefore, leadership delegates authority; management abuses authority. Leadership cannot function without honour and integrity; management produces hypocrisy, inordinate ambition and, quite often, dishonesty. Management loses a status quo; leadership produces maximum results. If you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ are faithful in the protocol plan of God inside of the operational divine dynasphere you will be a leader and you will avoid the pitfalls of management.

The third concept we should know by way of introduction to our passage has to do with the attributes of leadership. While they apply always to the military they apply to every realm of life. Leadership is not confined to the military profession but should extend into every facet of life.

First of all, then, a leader must be organised in his own personal life; he must be organised in his thinking; he must be organised in relationship to his time; he must establish routines so that the priorities of life can receive his full attention and never be neglected. Disorganised people do not make good leaders. It is almost impossible for a disorganised person to be a leader. Leaders must understand both self and group discipline and the significance of organisation. Therefore, to be a leader one must have great self-discipline and relating that to the routine of life. To the extent to which you are a disorganised person in life to that extent you have eliminated yourself from any form of leadership. A leader must have respect for authority, the basic virtue of humility, and know how to use both authority and humility so that he does not abuse anyone under his command. He does not abuse the authority given to him in any given situation or organisation.

Subjective and arrogant people do not qualify for being leaders. As a born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you have the leadership training course provided for you by God. The protocol of heaven is brought to the earth. Unless doctrine is first in your life you will never be a leader, you will be a loser in every possible way. It is the day by day perception of Bible doctrine that organises everything in your life and makes you a prepared person so that at the right time God can promote you. There will always be a market for leadership, for those who have set up a routine in their lives whereby doctrine is first. It makes no difference where you are or what excuse you may have given to yourself, and possibly others who stuck their nose in your business. There is no system in life whereby you cannot put doctrine first. Gate five will result — motivational leadership — but you must have the spiritual factor: motivational virtue. That includes personal love for God, confidence in God, occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. Gate six: functional virtue directed toward man and circumstances. All manifestations of leadership are directed toward people and toward the circumstances of life. Gate seven: the testing. No leader is worth his salt unless he can pass tests, and every leadership test is found at gate seven. Gate eight is where you become a winner, where you become a prepared person, and God uses a prepared person.

So our first attribute of leadership is the fact that a leader must be organised in his own personal life. Being organised in his own personal life means that he must have right priorities, and whatever the priorities are after doctrine, doctrine must be first in order to fulfil God’s priority which is virtue-first.

The second attribute of leadership. A leader must possess personal integrity. This means to us as believers, virtue-first. Leadership demands a relaxed mental attitude in life. A relaxed mental attitude can only come from humility — enforced humility and genuine humility. Humility is the key to objectivity in life and no one succeeds as a leader without objectivity. Leadership must have that relaxed mental attitude, and that means total freedom from the arrogance complex, freedom from motivational evil at gate one, cosmic one.

The third attribute of leadership. A leader must avoid personality moulds, personality types. Most people think they are a leader if they can act like general Patton. “Macho” does not mean leadership; “macho” means arrogance and stupidity. You must always function within the framework of your own personality. You may admire people who have a different personality but if you are ever going to be a leader it must be done through your personality. Your personality doesn’t make you a leader; neither does the personality of George Patton make him a leader. What is going to make you as a believer a leader is the Bible doctrine resident in your soul, being spiritually prepared, for God uses prepared people and God promotes prepared people. Avoid imitation of someone else’s personality. If you ever want to emerge as a leader you must have your own foundation, your own personality, backed by your own humility.

The fourth attribute of leadership. Leadership demands knowledge: knowledge of doctrine, knowledge of your profession, knowledge of your business, knowledge of whatever you do in life. You cannot emerge as a leader and take people out. You have to know more than they know; you have to understand the issues in business, in profession, in organisations, in the modus operandi of life.

The fifth attribute of leadership. As a result of understanding the principle of authority, which includes the principle of self-discipline and the table of organisation in which he functions, the leader must possess both objectivity and loyalty to higher echelons of command and to those who are under his command. He has directional loyalty. If you do not have directional loyalty you will never make a leader. Some people fail as a leader because they are only loyal to those under their command. That is the only direction in which they go. Some fail because their loyalty is only directed toward their superiors. You cannot freeze up and be directional, you must go in every direction. You must understand that loyalty demands flexibility and you have to be able to think and to balance out the directions of your loyalty.

Objectivity resolves personality conflicts. Loyalty produces good command function which takes cognisance of the objective while not losing track of the good of those in one’s command. A leader never uses his command to advance himself. Therefore the leader exercises fairness and objectivity toward those in his command, looking out for their best interests in the accomplishment of the assigned objective or the departmental profile.

The sixth attribute of leadership. A leader must have common sense. Sooner or later it must be developed. It is impossible to have common sense if you are a subjective [living in the cosmic system] person. Objectivity is absolutely necessary in the thinking of leadership and if you are a subjective person you will never make a leader. From objectivity you learn common sense in your profession. You learn from common sense flexibility as well as the understanding of people, and you recognise that no one is perfect, yet you manage to train and bring into a system of discipline or organisation the talents of these people, not their perfection. The leader who is looking for perfection is through. There is no such thing as perfection. The leader must be fair to all of those under his command and be free from prejudice because of personality conflicts with superior officers.

The seventh attribute. The leader must develop and acquire executive ability. He must learn to analyse, to organise, to categorise, to systematise, to synthesise, and he must learn to communicate. Leaders cannot be leaders unless they can teach. All leadership must have the ability to teach, to train those under one’s command. That is why parents fail: they do not communicate; they are not leaders. Leadership requires good public speaking, the ability to train, and good public speaking requires poise. You cannot be a leader without poise. If you fall apart every time something goes wrong you will never make it.

The eighth attribute. A leader must have good health, presence, motivation, endurance, and nervous stability. By being well organised this energy is directed in the best interests of his command and organisation. Add to this his confidence, his dress, his carriage, his poise, his good manners, his thoughtfulness and, in some cases, even flair, but flair is not necessary for leadership. If flair does not match your personality, avoid it. Flair is not leadership.

Leadership must be related to the profession. For example, a pastor’s leadership must be related to his communication of doctrine. A pastor is not a leader unless he communicates doctrine. A pastor should never be seen running around calling on people and wasting his time. A soldier’s leadership must be related to his ability to train troops, you cannot lead untrained troops and be successful in battle. All great leaders have understanding of logistics, how they are supported, and terrain, and appreciate the importance of intelligence regarding the enemy, be vitally interested in tactical timing, and have the ability to think and make decisions under pressure. Business leadership must be related to marketing ability, for no matter how good the service or product may be you cannot be successful in business and make money unless you can sell the service or market the product. Political leadership must be related to establishment principles and the communication of these principles to the general public. A politician may have good ideas and solutions to national or local problems but these ideas are no good unless he can sell them to the general public. Good leadership in politicians results in being a statesman. Good leadership in a labour union must include the highest from of integrity, the ability to have the interests of the union in balance with the state of the economy. Union leadership cannot provide for the union what the economy will not bear. All categories of leadership must relate to their objective, to the status quo of the national entity, so that they are not in conflict with the laws of divine establishment and then abuse their leadership status to avoid ever solving problems by violence or revolution. No leader ever gets involved in violence or revolution as the solution to a problem. Good leadership in any field always balances the objectives of its organisation with the public welfare.

The crisis in any nation is always the market for leadership and God uses prepared people. The Middle East invasion of the Armageddon provides one of the great crises in history by which leadership rises to the top. In Proverbs 24 we have the basis for crisis leadership.

Verse 1 — the piel imperfect of chanah is the command for “Be not envious,” and it refers to jealousy, one of the functions of gate one, cosmic one or motivational evil. Jealousy is one of the basic reasons why people of great potential never realise it. Everything that is great in a person is destroyed by jealousy. Jealousy squeezes the greatness out of anyone, it is the destroyer of capacity for life, and a person who has any kind of a jealousy problem will never have any happiness or capacity for happiness. Whatever jealousy achieves jealousy loses immediately. Jealous people are miserable people; jealous people become the villains of life because jealousy is one of the strongest areas of motivational evil. So when it says literally, “Do not be jealous of evil men” it merely indicates that jealousy puts the individual involved on a par with evil. When you become jealous of jealous people you have reached the bottom. Jealousy is the destroyer of leadership. Whatever potential you have and whatever you have attained is neutralised by jealousy. So jealousy is more than a sin. Jealousy is a sin, a mental attitude sin, but jealousy is far greater than that, it is the basis of most of the motivational evil in life.

Next we have with jealousy, desire. Jealous people always have unfulfilled desires. “And do not desire to associate with them.” Jealousy gravitates to jealousy; jealousy produces the desire of association with jealousy. Evil associating with evil can only produce evil, therefore jealousy is a self-destroyer. The desire to associate with evil comes from being evil. Being evil here is being jealous. Jealousy may appear to you to be innocuous but jealousy is always the beginning of an evil life. An evil life cannot fulfil the plan of God, cannot function under the principle of leadership, and an evil life is a wasted life. Evil does not destroy your salvation but you will arrive in heaven with minuses for life and resurrection body minus the order of the morning star, minus the uniform of glory, minus the various crowns of decorations, minus the honours list and the new knighthood for eternity, minus about everything that would make your life significant. Your options and your opportunity is in time; jealousy destroys all options. A jealous person is a dried up prune.

Verse 2 — describes how evil inevitably associates with evil and how the wrong company diverts the believer from his primary objective — Bible doctrine, fulfilling the plan of God. There is nothing in this life to associate with evil [living in the cosmic system] without being tainted by evil. “For their right lobes study violence.” The word “study” is an incorrect translation, it is the word hagah in the Hebrew, and in the qal imperfect it means to murmur, to plot, and to meditate. Here the translation should be, “Their right lobe meditates violence and tyranny.”

Jealous people have nothing to restrain violence in their soul. They meditate on oppression, on violence, on tyranny. Tyranny knocks out leadership; tyranny is the abuse of power and authority completely neutralising any leadership. No one can truly be a leader until he has learned to discipline himself and has learned the value of authority in life. Leadership is not interested primarily in freedom: leadership fights for freedom, leadership centres and focuses on orientation to authority. Tyranny is the distortion of power and authority, lack of self-discipline. All of it is related to gate one, cosmic one, the arrogance gate, motivating evil.

Next we have communication. “Also their lips talk slander.” Jealous people try to satisfy their frustrations by slandering others, by making others appear smaller or less than they are. The first two verses, then, emphasise cosmic involvement, and specific cosmic involvement that hinders leadership. Verse 1 emphasises the importance of the association with evil, but verse 2 emphasises how this evil goes into action. You are not better than someone else because you can malign them or slander them or run them down. It does not make you superior, it make you simply evil.

Verse 3 — “By means of wisdom.” the Hebrew word for wisdom is chakmah. This is the function to us of gate four of the divine dynasphere, the function of the royal priesthood in the perception of doctrine, the perception of the royal ambassadorship in the application of doctrine. You can get perception even in the cosmic system but you will never have it for application or growth because it never transfers to the right lobe. Wisdom is both the perception and the application of doctrine, the fuller function of GAP

“a house is constructed.” The construction of a house is the edification complex of the soul which is only completed when the believer attains gate eight of the divine dynasphere. The construction of your life, the organisation of your life, all of this is meant by the building of a house. This house is constructed in the soul, this house in the soul is the building up of your leadership attributes, the building up of the plan of God in your life, the thing that makes you aware in the protocol system. Protocol in the divine system is heaven on earth.

“By means of understanding doctrine” is the next phrase. Next we have the hithpael imperfect of the verb kum, and the hithpael stem is the reflexive stem in the Hebrew. In the qal stem the verb kum means to stand upright, in the hiphil stem it means to appoint or to confirm, in the hophal stem it means to be confirmed, in the niphal stem it means to rise up, but in the hithpael stem it means something entirely different not even suggested by the King James translation which simply says, “it is established.” It means to prepare one’s self. “By means of understanding [doctrine] one prepares himself,” for life, for blessing, for leadership, for all of the things that God has ordained in His plan for winners. The winner is the believer who advances to gate eight, the one who therefore glorifies the Lord by maximum doctrine resident in his soul. The winner has achieved the tactical victory of the angelic conflict, he has maximum doctrine not only in his soul but in his system of priorities. The winner is an organised person, it is inevitable that he will organise himself as he advances in the plan of God. He is spiritually self-sustaining, he has the ability to handle his own problems, he does not use crutches, he doesn’t have to run to someone else and lean on them. He is therefore already a leader and only a crisis will bring out the greatness of this individual. God often provides crises to introduce His prepared person, His leader for a given situation. Positive volition toward doctrine, the daily function of GAP in the divine dynasphere, supersedes all other mandates for the life, and all that it takes to be a winner is constructed on the perception of doctrine.

Verse 4 — we begin to see that principle that we noted, the principle that has to do with organising the life. You must be an organised person. “And by [means of] knowledge,” the act of knowing doctrine, the function of GAP. Next we have the word “chambers” which would really be compartments. “And by means of knowledge the compartments [of the life] will be filled,” the compartments have to do with your capacity for life. As you construct in your soul a vast structure the greater that structure is the greater your capacity for life will be, the greater your capacity for life the greater your blessing. Your blessings are going to be given to you on the basis of capacity. God blesses for two reasons: to spank you and to give you the opportunity of expressing your capacity for happiness. God will often give you something that you want just to show you that your priorities are wrong. You will have something in your life that you associate with happiness and you will be miserable with it. Without capacity the misery is unbelievable. Some of the most miserable and disillusioned people in the world are people who are promoted beyond their capacity, something that never happens to believers who advance in the plan of God.

So God can give you the accoutrements of happiness but He cannot give you happiness. God cannot make you happy, and if God cannot make you happy people cannot make you happy, pleasant circumstances cannot make you happy. Only you have the ability to make yourself happy and that ability comes from doctrine first. Capacity must precede happiness. The chambers here are the compartments of capacity for life, happiness and blessing. “By means of the act of learning doctrine the compartments [of the life] will be filled with all wealth” — wealth is capacity in the soul, not money. Money can come and go but those who have capacity from Bible doctrine have something they cannot lose.

Then we have an explanation of all of this wealth, “precious and pleasant.” The word “precious” means something of value, and the word “pleasant” means something stimulating. “All wealth” is something of value and something stimulating. There is as close as we come in this passage to defining capacity for life.

Verses five and six deal with the soldier, the leader. It explains two men.

Verse 5 — “A wise man” is incorrect. The first word in this verse refers to a soldier, to someone who is skilled or knowledgeable. As the context goes on it is dealing with the military profession. It can be someone who is skilled in any profession but the rest of the passage indicates which profession. So we translate: “A wise soldier,” an intelligent soldier, a wise soldier. By way of application it refers to the believer who is a winner, “is strong.” What does it mean that he is strong? Well, it doesn’t even say that he is strong. It is a prepositional phrase which means something else entirely. The word is ba oz and it means “in power.” “A wise soldier lives in power.” That has an application to us. Remembering that as believers we are all in the angelic conflict, and therefore soldiers. Oz refers to the divine dynasphere. We live in the system, the protocol system provided by God, and only when we function in that system are we winners. You cannot live in power unless you choose for power, and you do not choose for power unless Bible doctrine is first in your life.

“And a man of knowledge strengthens his professional ability.” That becomes very important. All of this, therefore, becomes the basis for understanding the rise of great leadership in the crisis. God uses the crisis to introduce His leaders. God’s leaders and man’s leaders are not always the same. “A wise man lives in the power of Bible doctrine, and a man of knowledge strengthens his professional ability.”

Proverbs 20:18 should be included at this point: “War plans are formed by wisdom and planning [professional military leadership], and by means of wisdom they make war.” Military leadership is defined in terms of rank, a table of organisation. The Roman centurion was a high ranking officer in Israel. He came to the Lord one day and made a statement that demonstrated that it was no accident that he was a high ranking officer. He was a believer with maximum doctrine in his soul and demonstrated it in a very dramatic way.

Matthew 8:5 — the centurion has a very sick son. He has come to Capernaum. “And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, entreating him,

Verse 6 — “and saying, ‘Lord [Romans only used the word “Lord” for the Caesar. This centurion is a believer and uses the word in relationship to Jesus Christ] , my son is lying paralysed in his quarters, suffering great pain.’

Verse 7 — “And he [Jesus] said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ ” In eternity past our Lord knew the situation and He was going to test this man in an unusual way. This centurion is a great leader, he can think clearly, he is not silly.

Verse 8 — “But the centurion answered and said, ‘Lord, I am not qualified for you to come into my quarters, but speak with a word, and my son will be healed.’ ”

Verse 9 — “ ‘For I, too, am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it’.”

Verse 10 — “Now when Jesus heard this, he marvelled, and he remarked to those who were following, ‘In truth I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even among the Jews’.”

Here was a Gentile, a believer, a person with doctrine. No one knew that he had all of this doctrine but a personal crisis came along and he went to the Lord, approached Him on the basis that He could do something about it, and He understood that. He didn’t have to come ten or fifteen miles to his quarters. He could speak the word where He was and the distance meant nothing. Mature people, winners, are free from silliness.

Verse 13 — “And Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Let it be done as you have believed.’ And the boy was healed in that very hour.”

When the centurion goes back he knows that he is going to find the boy well. What did this man have in the light of what we have? At gate five he was occupied with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is motivational virtue. He was motivated to go to the Lord with this problem of his son’s serious illness. Because he was occupied with the person of Christ, in his motivational virtue he had confidence in the Lord. He never wavers. What you don’t get in this passage is what he did in his profession. He has the comparable functional virtue — courage toward man and circumstances, courage in life. Confidence in the Lord means courage in life. The fact that the boy was healed is incidental. What really counts is not the healing at all, the issue is: he had total confidence in God. Confidence comes from day by day by day decisions to take in doctrine.

Proverbs 24:6 — this verse is the one that will explain the leadership that came to the front when the king of the north invaded Palestine.

“For by wise counsel thou shalt make war,” is not what the Hebrew says at all. We have a prepositional phrase and it should be translated, “Because by the art of leadership thou shalt make war.”

“Therefore,” says the last phrase, “victory resides in the one who commands” — the one who has learned the art of leadership, the one who has developed the art of leadership, the one who understands the art of leadership. There is your victory.

God designed a plan for your life. In designing that plan you are supposed to be a winner but you have to make decisions and you have to initiate the action and you have to organise your life to be a winner, to take in doctrine today and tomorrow and the next day, to pass the many tests that will come your way. You are not going to make it by making resolutions, there must be order in your life and in your thinking. God uses prepared people. If the crisis came to morrow the question arises: Would you be prepared?

Zechariah 12:1-6

Three times in history Jerusalem has been under very special siege. Each time it has something to do with the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline, except for the last one. The first two are historical; the last one is prophetical. In 586 BC the Chaldean army besieged Jerusalem and eventually destroyed it. This was the first administration of the fifth cycle of discipline to client nation Israel. The second time, in AD 70, the siege lasted for many months but the Romans under Vespatian, and later Titus, took the city and the Jews went out under the fifth cycle of discipline. The third is a prophetical siege which occurs in the last world war of history at the end of the Tribulation. At that time the city will be almost destroyed and then the Lord Jesus Christ will come to deliver it, and it will be the beginning of client nation Israel for the last one thousand years of history. The prophetical study of the siege of Jerusalem occurs in two passages: Zechariah 12:1-6; 14:1-4. We begin now to note the siege of Jerusalem from the standpoint of leadership. Later we will note it from the standpoint of the deliverance of the second advent.

In Zechariah 12:1 our first word is “The burden” for Israel. The Hebrew word for burden, masha, has a special prophetical meaning. What the King James version calls “burden” means a prophecy or an oracle, “The prophecy of the word of the Lord concerning Israel” is the corrected translation. The prophecy is a part of the Armageddon campaign in the Middle East.

Then we have a description of our Lord, for it says that He is the one “who stretches forth.” Actually, it should be translated “the one who extends [or measures out] the heavens.” The same Lord who created the universe is the Lord who is now giving us this prophecy, and that is the second person of the Trinity because the scripture says, “By him are all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible or invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created by him and for him.”

Corrected translation of verse 1: “The prophecy of the word of the Lord concerning Israel. A declaration of the Lord, the one who measures out the heavens, and the one who decrees the earth, and forms the life of man within him.”

That last phrase is extremely important as far as doctrine is concerned because it emphasises a fact which has been the subject of controversy in the time in which we live. Where does life originate? The lie is to state that life begins in the womb. There is no life in the womb; no woman has ever carried life. All life is formed by the Lord Himself. Life is imputed after birth “and forms the life of man within him,” after we are born.

This is an obvious reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. John 1:3 says, “all things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” So, it is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who imputes life after birth. The eternal God, Jesus Christ, is the creator of the universe, and He now speaks of His return to the earth to be the ruler of the world under operation footstool.

In verse 2 we begin the prophecy. The prophecy begins in the last world war in history, in the last campaign of that war, and there will be several battles. One of them is the siege of Jerusalem, and it is so stated in verse 2, “Behold I have appointed Jerusalem a drinking cup of staggering [of intoxication],” not a cup of trembling as in the King James version. This means the divine judgment involved. In this case the ones drinking from the goblet of divine judgment are those invading armies we studied in Daniel chapter eleven. The same language is found in Isaiah 51:17 regarding the fifth cycle of discipline administered to the Jews in 586 BC, “Rouse yourself! Get up, O Jerusalem, those of you who have drunk from the Lord’s hand the goblet of his anger; the drinking goblet of staggering intoxication you have drained to the dregs.” So drinking from the cup always denotes judgment.

There is another cup that denotes judgment. When our Lord Jesus Christ approached the cross He said, “Father if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me.” The cup had to do with the sins of the world. On the cross our Lord Jesus Christ received the imputation of our sins for He drank from the goblet the entire sins of the world. That means, again, judgment.

So whenever drinking from the goblet is mentioned as having to do with staggering or intoxication it is always a form of divine judgment. As we have seen there are two categories of divine judgment. First of all, there is judgment by pain; secondly there is judgment by death. Each one has a grace purpose. Judgment by pain is crisis evangelism. Judgment by death always has a purpose. a grace purpose, and that is to eliminate from the human race those areas which would eventually destroy the human race. Judgment by death is God’s way of guaranteeing that there will always be people on planet earth. At the second advent there will be millions of people who will have lived through the Tribulation and at the end of the Millennium there will, again, be millions of people.

Jerusalem is going to come under heavy judgment at the end of the Tribulation, “and also to Judah shall it be in the siege of Jerusalem.” In other words, Judah will also suffer. The Arab army known as the king of the south will be occupying parts of the state of Israel. They will be destroyed at the second advent, Isaiah 63:1-6. The army of the king of the north will invade, and after reaching north Africa will have to come back and besiege Jerusalem. The army of the king of the west will be present as representing the revived Roman empire. Also the armies of the kings of the east will be invading at the same time and will in a great battle in the valley of Esdraelon. All of these things mean the conversions of several millions of men representing various armies in the world at that time, and so we have the siege of Jerusalem introduced.

We have already noted very briefly that the Jewish regular army is going to be destroyed. It will be destroyed before this siege takes place. And so we read in verse 3, “And it shall come to pass in that day that I will appoint Jerusalem a stone, a burden too heavy to lift.” In other words, the attack upon Jerusalem is a guarantee of the destruction of that army, just the antithesis of the two previous sieges, one by the Chaldean Nebuchadnezzar, and one by the Romans under Titus. So here is the principle that Jesus Christ controls history and anyone who attacks the state of Israel in the end of the Tribulation will be destroyed. That means the army of the king of the north, the armies of the kings of the east, the Arab army, the army of the revived Roman empire, as well as the apostate army of the state of Israel. That means that with all of these armies invading with the potential to completely destroy the Jew and wipe him out that Israel is in a very serious jamb, and there are many thousands of born-again Jews living in Israel at that time. So the Lord Jesus Christ is going to protect them and he does it directly through His divine power. He does it indirectly though the laws of divine establishment, He does it permissively through allowing the trends of evil to come to their terrible conclusion, having run their course.

No one has ever been able to solve the Jewish problem in the Middle East because it is the focal point of the angelic conflict. Many attempts have been made to solve the Jewish problem throughout the thousands of years of history. Since BC 1440 when the Jews finally occupied the land no one has been able to solve the problem of Israel in the Middle East. Israel is a stone too heavy to lift, and anyone who attacks Israel is judged under the principle of paragraph three of the Abrahamic covenant. Only Jesus Christ can resolve the problem of the Jews in the Middle East and only Jesus Christ will lift the heavy stone at the second advent. In the meantime the Jews will be under very heavy pressure in the Middle East. Their friends will turn against them, their enemies will constantly be putting pressure on them, and should the Church Age last for another 100, 200, or even 300 years this will be true all of that time. Jews in the Middle East are a thorn in the flesh of the Arabs and a problem for all the nations of the world. In that day, in the context when the king of the north will seek to lift that stone, he will find that the stone will be too heavy to lift. Many nations have been crushed by anti-Semitism which is a one-way street to destruction. For anyone who tries to lift the stone the stone will fall down on them and destroy them.

“for all the peoples; in fact all the ones trying to lift her [destroy Israel] shall be completely crushed. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against her.”

The Arab armies are going to be slaughtered in the Armageddon campaign, they are the first to attack the Jews in that world war. In Isaiah 34:5,6, “For my sword is satiated in heaven, Behold it shall descend for judgment on Edom, and upon the people I have devoted to destruction [not only will the Arabs be destroyed in those days but also the other nations as well]. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made fat, with the blood of lambs and goats [analogy to slaughter], with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has slaughtered in Bozrah [the Arab country called Edom], a great slaughter in the land of Edom.”

Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 describe the invasion of the king of the north. And what happens to him when he tries to lift the stone? Ezekiel 39:11, “And it shall come to pass in that day that I will give Gog [the king of the north] a burial ground in Israel, the valley of those who pass by east of the sea, and it will block-off those who pass by, so that they will have to bury Gog there [before the roads will be opened], therefore I will call it the valley of Hamon-gog [the multitudes of the army of the king of the north].” Verse 12 tells us that it will take seven months for the house of Israel to bury that army.

Joel 2:20, “I will remove the northern army [the king of the north] far from you, consequently I will drive it into the parched and desolate land, its vanguard into the eastern sea [the Dead Sea], its rear guard will be on the western sea [the Mediterranean]. Its stench will rise up and a foul smell will cover the land...”

So it will be a great slaughter for those who attempt to destroy Israel. God can deal with His people in judgment, He has not given the prerogative to anyone else.

So Zechariah 12:3 concludes, “and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against her.” These verses provide the background for that great act of leadership, crisis leadership. Historical crisis is God’s way of promoting prepared people. If God doesn’t promote you, you are not promoted, and in time of crisis God does promote prepared people. Preparation for disaster means maximum doctrine resident in the soul, living under the plan of God.

In verse 4 we actually begin to see what is going to happen. God is going to strike down the enemy. “Thus says the Lord, ‘In that day [that these armies will invade the land] I will strike every horse with consternation, and his rider [the dictators, the politicians] with madness. Therefore, in the house of Judah [the Jewish state in the Tribulation] I will open my eyes [exercise divine power], I will strike every horse [the invading armies] with blindness’.”

So we have the fact that the Lord will again eventually intervene, but there is going to be an interim before the Lord intervenes, before the Lord can come and strike. Before that time we are going to see crisis leadership.

The horses represent mechanised infantry in modern terminology but mechanised infantry usually moves rapidly behind armour. Here there is no such thing. There are ten passages that explain this verse. They have to do with supernatural darkness. Just before the small scratch army in Israel, the new army, is destroyed supernatural darkness occurs on that day, Isaiah 5:30, “He shall roar over it [Jerusalem] in that day, as one looks toward the land, behold, there is great darkness.” The land is covered with a darkness that is so thick that light will not penetrate it, the same darkness that covered Jerusalem at the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 13:9,10, “Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel with fury and burning anger, to make the land desolate; and he will exterminate its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not reflect its light.

Isaiah 60:2, “For behold, darkness will cover the earth, the deep darkness over the armies; however the Lord will rise upon you, and his glory will appear to you.”

But before that point is reached something has to happen, and something does happen. In Zechariah 12:5, “Then the governors” is incorrect. We have the Hebrew word aluph, and it means general officer, “of Judah.” So the translation is: “Then the generals of Judah.” These are not the generals who served in the apostate army of the dictator of the state of Israel, these are men who are prepared men and have suddenly come into focus. They are prepared spiritually and professionally. It is a reference to believers who are winners in the plan of God. At this crisis point these two officers come to the front. The crisis is designed to introduce God’s men for the crisis, and God promotes them at this point.

“Then the generals of Judah will think in their right lobes, ‘My encouragement [or strength, is the mature believers who] are the citizens of Jerusalem,” in Jerusalem there are a large number of believers who have matured in the last half of the Tribulation. They have followed the plan of God and so they are going to make an army out of these citizens, “through Jehovah of the armies, their God and ours.” “My strength [i.e. my troops, the only ones who will resist] is the citizens of Jerusalem through the Lord of the armies, their God and ours.” “Their God and ours” means that this is an army of believers. It is made up of citizens, they are qualified to resist and fight, not because they are professional soldiers but because they will not surrender, they will not give in to the enemy.

Verse 6, “In that day I will make the generals of Judah like a pan of fire in kindling and a flaming torch among dry leaves, therefore they will consume on the right and on the left all the besieging troops. Consequently, the citizens of Jerusalem will live again in their own place in Jerusalem.” In other words, they will bring about peace.

Verse 6 is a very important verse. It describes generals pulling together a scratch army of the citizens of Jerusalem. Who are the citizens who have survived so far? These are the winners, the citizens who are believers, the great ones who are going to do the job. When it says in the King James version, “they shall devour”, it means to consume, and in this case it means to annihilate. They will consume or annihilate on the right hand or the left. They will put up a phenomenal fight to the end, resisting the invading armies. They will not be destroyed, they will actually deliver Jerusalem. Eventually, of course, they would have been overpowered by the sheer numbers against them. These generals did not give up, they knew that “if God be for us, who can be against us?” This was the attitude they took and in that day they stand in the crisis. Why will they stand in the crisis?

Historical events produce a need and leadership meets that need. In the case of Zechariah chapter 12 the need was for some type of military leadership to stand in the gap, to come forward and say, We will not give up, we will fight. That is what the need always is. Secondly, circumstances produce a market. In this case the circumstances produced a market for military leadership. The Jews were besieged by great armies and were in the process of being destroyed. In this desperate situation circumstances produced a market and leadership always supplies the market. This is not talking about natural leadership, this is about God using prepared men. Crisis sets the stage for that leadership. This leadership inspires people and the reason the citizens did so well is because the leadership is so great.

Matthew 24:15-28

We are going to pause long enough to see the two categories of survivors in the siege of Jerusalem: Category #1, civilians; category #2, military types. The interesting thing is that the Tribulation is divided into two parts. In the first three and a half years survival mandates all relate to obeying God’s Word, and survival is important because God has told us exactly how these people will survive. In the first half of the Tribulation believers in Israel are to flee. They are to run away; they are to move; they are not to stay in Jerusalem because they will be destroyed if they do. That is the mandate. But in the last half of the Tribulation the mandate from God is the antithesis: don’t move, stay and fight. The great overall lesson is the principle of flexibility. Timing is everything. You have to know that there is a time to fight and a time for peace, there is a time to run and there is a time to stand fast. Timing is very important in life and many believers cannot figure out timing and will never have time on their side, simply because they do not know enough about the Word of God to follow the timing of Bible doctrine.

There is, therefore, a principle which is absolutely necessary if we are going to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the principle of flexibility. Bible doctrine is totally inflexible as far as its content is concerned. Anything that comes from God is an absolute and all the principles and categories of Bible doctrine form into and crystallise into absolutes. But the application of these doctrines is something else. It requires an antithetical movement. You must be absolutely dogmatic about doctrine but you must be absolutely flexible in the application of doctrine.

We must learn to distinguish between the two categories of Jewish believers in the Tribulation. In the first half we have the command to flee to the high desert country — Edom. Moab and Ammon. In the last half of the Tribulation we have the command to fight. The interesting thing about the dispensation of the Church Age is that we do not have the same guide lines as they have in the Tribulation. The reason for that is because we are in the dispensation of the royal family of God, the Church Age, and God’s plan for our life is the operational divine dynasphere. Therefore, we must function inside of the divine dynasphere. Our flexibility is not in the divine dynasphere, it is the application of doctrine from the divine dynasphere. When we apply doctrine to experience and to the circumstances of life we use different doctrines for different situations. By learning doctrine we make flexible applications, we do not have the same doctrine for every situation. We must have application from many circumstances of life and therefore we are not given specific mandates telling us when it is time to take a trip and when it is time to stay and fight. We are not given that type of information because we have the greatest system that God has ever decreed and ordained for believers of any dispensation, i.e.. the operational divine dynasphere. Therefore we are expected to learn doctrine at gate four, to develop momentum. From that momentum we are expected to use the many many applications and options that are open to us as circumstances in life vary.

We have been emphasising that God uses prepared people, and there is no preparation apart from perception and application of Bible doctrine. So we have noted the principle that you must have first in your scale of values Bible doctrine. The number one priority of your life must be doctrine and if it isn’t you will always make the wrong decision. That is inevitable. If anything is more important to you than Bible doctrine then you’ve had it and you will never come up with the right application, you will always make the wrong application, and you will go into discipline by pain, and you will always wonder why, and you will always find an excuse, and you will learn to rationalise. Those who make wrong decisions rationalise the problems that come to them because of their bad decisions.

Matthew 24:15 — “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation.” Literally, “the detestable idol of destruction.” It is an image that will be put up in the Jewish temple in the Tribulation. It is a facsimile of the beast dictator of the revived Roman empire, “which has been communicated through Daniel the prophet, set up in the holy place (let those who have doctrine make the application)” — what application?

There will be toward the middle of the Tribulation a very strange thing. Jews who are unbelievers will be worshipping under the religion of Judaism when all of a sudden the dictator of the Jewish state will forbid any further Judaism and compel the worship of an image and to become a part of international religion, the religion of the revived Roman empire. This is all part of the treaty between Israel and the united states of western Europe at that time. This treaty includes the acceptance of the religious system of the revived Roman empire. An idol will be put up in the temple and there will be all sorts of activity with regard to the new international religion. Once this happens and once an idol is placed inside the temple that is a very clearly-defined action which calls for believers to make an application: get out of Jerusalem. To stay in Jerusalem means to die and God has a plan for these believers who were saved in the first half of the Tribulation. It calls for them to be preserved during the last half of the Tribulation because they are going to be a cadre for the repopulation of the earth during the Millennium.

Verse 16, “then those same ones in Judea flee to the mountains [high desert country],” the high desert country is clearly defined in Daniel 11:41.

Verse 17, “let him who is on the roof not come down to pack needed things that are in his house,” in other words, just get out.

Verse 18, “also let him who is working in the field not return to get his coat.” Don’t go home to get a coat, get out now. A quick decision must be made. This is the signal to get out now. Make your decisions ahead of time so all that you have to do is grab your rucksack and go.

Verse 19, “But woe to those who are pregnant,” a historical crisis is very hard on pregnant women, “and to those who are nursing babies in those days!”

Verse 20, “Furthermore, pray that your flight does not occur during inclement weather, or on the Sabbath day.”

This simply means that we have a mandate, and it is a very clearly-defined mandate, a mandate that explains in very simple detail for very simple people what they are to do. This ought to tell you something. Does it suddenly dawn on you that you are not s simple person, and that you live in a dispensation where nothing is very simple, and that you are not ever given such simple commands as this? Most of the decisions you have to make are very complicated and the principle on which they are based is very important: you and I as believers in this dispensation are required to put doctrine first. We are required to understand the Word of God. Our failure to understand the Word of God means that we make bad decisions, and our own bad decisions mean that we produce in ourselves terrible misery and unhappiness. It is our own fault, we are the products of our own bad decisions. The way of life for us is much more subtle and requires that we keep our priorities straight. The Word of God gives people in the future, Tribulational believers who are going to live under most unusual conditions, a much shorter version and a very clear version. They do not have the divine dynasphere, it goes to heaven at the Rapture, therefore they must have some very specific commands.

Verse 21, “For at that time [the last half of the Tribulation] there will be such great oppression [tribulation] such as has not occurred since the beginning of the kosmoj [human history: not the creation of the world, but the fall of man] until the present time, nor ever will occur again.”

Verse 22, “And unless those days [the last half of the Tribulation] had been cut short no human life would have been delivered,” Jesus Christ controls history and the fact that there will be millions of people alive at the second advent indicates the fact that not only does He control history but He gives very specific controls and mandates whereby people will survive, “but for the sake of those who are elected to privilege [born-again Jews living in Palestine who must be alive at the second advent and will be there for the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants to Israel] those days will be cut short.”

Verse 23, “At that time [after believing Jews have reached the high desert country].” The Jews who get up in that high desert country are now safe. God has a wall of fire around those Jewish believers. They have followed instructions implicitly. They move, as it were, into their own divine dynasphere; they are in a place of safety. These are civilians, they will not be doing any fighting during the Tribulation. However, after a great spiritual victory there is often great failure because a great spiritual victory tends to arrogance. Arrogance puts us into the cosmic system where we are vulnerable to defeat. Therefore some additional advice has to be given. Satan is going to set up a propaganda system designed to get people out of the high desert country, to leave the place that God has provided for them. They are only safe in that place. God does not provide safety for them anywhere else.

“At that time if anyone will say to you, ‘Here is the Messiah,’ or ‘There is the Messiah,’ do not believe that person.” One of the important things in life is not to be a sucker for false doctrine. Never allow culture to become your doctrine, get your doctrine from the Word. All the doctrine that we have comes from an entirely different culture. Many times people allow their culture to become their doctrine and therefore they get into false doctrine. These people are looking for the Messiah, they know they are supposed to stay there in the high desert country until He returns, they are safe where they are. But the propagandists can crank out sound, and they say, “Messiah has come, come on out of the mountains now, all is clear.” The command is: “Don’t you believe that person.”

The faith-rest drill is negative as well as positive. There are certain things you must believe vigorously, there are other things that you must reject vigorously. When the propaganda starts you have to reject it.

Verse 24, “For many false Messiahs, also false prophets, will appear on the scene,” there is always a real slick operator with a nice personality and a beautiful turn of words who will come along with his messages and try to persuade that the Lord has returned. In order that you “know” that they are from God they are going to perform miracles, “and will show great miracles and wonders, to deceive even believers, even those elected to privilege.” The issue of miracles is gone. The last legitimate miracle occurred when the canon of scripture was completed. Nothing is ever attested by miracles. Satan is in the miracle business and he uses miracles to deceive believers. God does not permit His messengers to perform miracles.

Verse 25, “Behold, I have told you in advance.” They have already been told these things; they already know these things. These are things they will have understood.

Verse 26, “Consequently, if they shall say to you, ‘Behold, he [Christ] is out in the desert,’ do not go out [do not leave the place of refuge], or, ‘Behold, he is in one of the inner rooms,’ do not believe that propaganda.” In other words there are going to be all kinds of persuasive devices just as everything is being done to persuade us as believers to get out of the divine dynasphere. God does not intend for any of us to live outside of the divine dynasphere. That is our mandate, our place of refuge.

Verse 27, “For just as lightning comes from the east, and flashes toward the west, so the coming of the Son of Man will be.” Just as lightning can be observed by all so the second advent will be observed by all. We have noted the fact that the entire earth is going to be covered with darkness. That darkness is to preserve those who are fighting, obeying their mandate, in the second half of the Tribulation. When Christ returns it is the only light that can penetrate that darkness, and so every one on the earth will see Christ returning, Revelation 1:7.

Verse 28, “Wherever there is a corpse the vultures will be gathered.” The “banquet of the vultures” will be the closing part of the Armageddon campaign. One way the believers can tell when the Lord has returned is that there will suddenly be vultures. We will be noting this later. Just as anyone can see lightning in the sky during a storm so anyone can see the second advent, and those who have fled into the high desert country are going to see millions of vultures feasting on carrion and human bodies. There is no problem to read the signs.

But it is not so simple for us. The question is: Can you read the signs? Do you have any flexibility of application? There is no flexibility in perception of doctrine, doctrine is dogmatic; but from a dogmatic base you have many options and many flexible attitudes which must be developed. You must learn flexibility. This is impossible unless you put virtue first. Virtue-first means humility. Without enforced and genuine humility you are never going to make it in the spiritual life. While some of these people will fail you also are going to have egg on your face unless you learn daily the doctrine of the Word of God.

Zechariah 14:1-9

The battles of the Armageddon campaign are going to be terminated dramatically by the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are now looking at the siege of Jerusalem and how it terminates with the second advent. Everything comes together at the second advent of Christ. The prophetical time designation is given in Zechariah 14:1 — “Behold, a day [the second advent of Christ] has come for the Lord.” The day of the Lord includes three spheres of eschatological doctrine. The Tribulation in the broader view is a part of the day of the Lord. The 24-hour day of the Lord is the second advent. Then, in the broader view, again, the Millennium is a part of the day of the Lord. So that sometimes, as in Joel, the day of the Lord includes all three of these. Sometimes it is just one day, the second advent, sometimes it is a part of the Tribulation, and sometimes it is a reference to the Millennium, and sometimes all three. The day of the Lord is to be distinguished from the day of Christ which is the Rapture of the Church and is not a 24-hour day, it takes a few seconds.

The next phrase in the King James version, “and thy spoil,” etc. should be translated “and your profit shall be distributed among you.” This is not talking about spoil, which has a battlefield connotation, but it is talking about blessing, the temporal blessings of mature believers. “Shall be distributed” means the judgment seat of Christ for Tribulational believers and Old Testament saints. It is the pual perfect of the verb chalaq. Chalaq in the qal stem means to be smooth or to divide, in the niphal it means to be distributed, in the hithpael it means to divide among yourselves, in the piel it means to distribute. The pual is the passive of the piel and it should be translated “be distributed [or divided] among you.”

“Behold, a day has come and your profit shall be distributed among you,” a reference to winners in the Tribulation. At the end of the Tribulation they are winners.

Verse 2, “For I will assemble all nations against Jerusalem.” Note that, first of all, in verse one the subject is the second advent. The second advent divides believers into two categories, winners and losers. Before the second advent and during the adversities of the Tribulation winners in the Middle East receive certain blessings because God’s plan for the believer goes on in time of adversity.

We may be living in a time of no prosperity. It makes no difference, there is still prosperity for you as an individual. Occupation with Christ becomes the motivational factor, and having the capacity for love, the capacity for happiness, the capacity for blessing, there is fantastic blessing for believers. The wealth, riches, promotion, success, prosperity, are just as real in time of adversity as they are in time of prosperity.

The prophetical time designation for all of this is the second advent of Christ. In verse 2, therefore, what happens just before the second advent? What are winners and losers doing? “I [Jesus Christ who controls history] will assemble all nations against Jerusalem for warfare.” Jesus Christ controls history in three ways: direct control through the function of His divine essence; indirect control through the laws of divine establishment; permissive control which means permitting the angelic conflict to run its course in human history and permitting people to see the consequences of their own bad decisions. The presence of all nations in the Middle East at the end of the Tribulation is a combination of the first and the last principles of how Jesus Christ controls history. The Jews have an unusual opportunity. They have made very bad decisions at the end of the Tribulation and the consequences of those tribulations are obvious to them. They have the opportunity of seeing them. It is always, therefore, a wonderful thing to learn of your own bad decisions. The Middle East is always going to be a hot spot and, once again, the Jews in the middle of the Tribulation under their very bad leadership, the dictator of the Jewish stage of Israel, made very bad decisions which resulted in armies massing in their country.

When it says, “I will assemble all nations against Jerusalem for warfare” it is referring to four power spheres: the king of the south, the king of the north, the kings of the east, the king of the west. They all have troops in the Middle East.

The situation is described in Joel 3:9-12.

Verse 9, “Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war; mobilise the mighty men! Let the soldiers assemble, let them invade!

Verse 10, Israel is told to prepare for war but they didn’t do so. They were listening to the prophets saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but the Word of God says, ‘There is no peace.’ They couldn’t see the war coming. So: “Beat your ploughshares into swords,” they should have been building up their military. This is a mandate from the Word of God, “And your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, ‘I will enlist’.”

Verse 11, “Lend aid and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather there. Bring down, O Lord, the mighty ones.” Only the Lord could help them. They had made so many mistakes they attracted every army into the world into their area.

Verse 12, “Let all the nations be aroused and come unto the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all surrounding nations.” A lot of nations made a decision to invade the state of Israel and the Lord will judge them for it.

Continuing in Zechariah 14:2, “therefore the city will be captured,” the city would be captured when the king of the north comes down for the first time on his way to Africa, but later when he comes back part of it will be captured again. What happens when a nation is exposed to invading armies? “their homes will be plundered,” their is no respect for privacy or property, and there is no freedom, “and their women raped, and half of the city will depart into slavery, but,” and after that conjunction we have the believers that we studied in Zechariah chapter twelve, “the remnant of the people [believers who are in Jerusalem] will not be cut off from the city.”

When it says “half of the city will depart into slavery” it is referring to the losers. Even though losers stay alive they stay alive for one reason only: to be miserable. There will be born again believers among those slaves. Losers always live miserable lives, yet there is no excuse for it, for every believer as of the moment of personal faith in Jesus Christ was designed to be a winner. So we have in verse 2 plunder, rape, violence, and slavery. This is what happens to the losers. This is why the laws of divine establishment emphasise the military as the guardians of human freedom. All freedom in a nation is purchased on the battlefield, never at the conference table. Politicians cause wars; soldiers bring peace; that is the principle of Bible doctrine.

“but the remnant of the people,” these are the believers who grew in grace in a very short time and are living in the Middle East at the end of the Tribulation. They have less than three years to advance to maturity, and they make it. They have their priorities straight. They are almost fanatical about Bible doctrine and you have to be that way at times. There are two kinds of fanatics: people who are arrogantly fanatic; those who are fanatical about having a right scale of values and refusing to depart from it; a grace fanaticism that is necessary when the pressure becomes great.

At some time or another people are going to do everything they can to diminish your attitude toward Bible doctrine. At that point you just have to stand up in your own “nasty” personality, be a fanatic and say no, I’m going to stick with doctrine.

This is the reason why they have the command to fight in the last half of the Tribulation. In each segment of the Tribulation we have seen that survival depends on obeying the mandates of that section. In the first half of the Tribulation is was “flee”; in the last half of the Tribulation is was “fight.” All the Tribulational martyrs in the Middle East are not necessarily reversionistic. Some took a stand for doctrine, were fanatical, and that is why they died. And they died honourably. A lot of believers are losers, so you always have to distinguish this fact because winners and losers are dying a the same time.

So, “the remnant of the people will not be cut off from the city.” They will stand fast; they will obey the command.

Zechariah chapter 13 tells us in two verses just what this is all about, verses 8,9: “And it shall come to pass in all the land … that two thirds of it will but cut off and perish; one third will be left behind. And I will bring the one third [believers who are winners] through the fire [the siege of Jerusalem, the Armageddon campaign], refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested.” And how will they pass the test? “They will call on my name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ” They are delivered, and that is exactly what it is saying at the end of chapter fourteen, verse two.

Verse 3, “Then the Lord will go forth [advance] and fight against those nations,” were it not for the intervention of the Lord none of them would have survived. But they all survive, same principle as Isaiah 63:1-6, “Like his fighting on the day of battle.” This verse refers to direct intervention in history. Jesus Christ will personally slaughter all of the enemy and that explains the vulture banquet at the end of Revelation chapter nineteen.

Verse 4, “Consequently on that day [the second advent] his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives,” the Mount of Olives is the place for the second advent, “which lies in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will split in its middle from east to west forming a great valley, therefore half of the mountain will recede toward the north and the other half toward the south.” So there is an east-west valley which becomes important because it is the means of establishing Jerusalem as a sea port.

The path of this valley is reminiscent of the Red Sea. In the Red Sea the Lord Jesus Christ provided a path through the water; in this case He provides a path through the mountain and apparently the Jews are backed up against the east and are holding out there, and this valley gives them their avenue of escape so the Lord can deal with those nations. Just as Jesus Christ, then, parted the Red Sea making an escape from Pharaoh’s chariot army, so He will split the Mount of Olives with the result that another escape hatch is provided. The result is the formation of the great east-west valley similar to the path of the Red Sea running in the same direction from west to east.

Up until this time the Jewish believers in the siege of Jerusalem have been fighting. Now they are commanded to retire in verse 5, “And you will flee,” the qal perfect from the verb nus. Nus has a number of related meanings: to flee, to run, to retreat or to retire. Here is should be translated, “And you shall retreat [or retire].” It is going to be done in an orderly manner, “with the result that you will escape through the valley of the mountain.”

The escape of the believers clears the deck for the annihilation of the armies besieging Jerusalem. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes back something is going to happen. The armies of the kings of the east are in the valley of Esdraelon. The king of the north with his great army is invading Jerusalem, moving in from the west and south west. The Arabs are in the Negev and in Edom. All of these troops which have come to take this prize in the Middle east are going to be rapidly organised by Satan and they will all turn to try to fight the Lord and the army that comes with Him. That is Satan’s last gasp in the last world war in history.

The next phrase: “for the valley of the mountain will reach unto Azel,” in the time of Zechariah Azel was a well known town near Jerusalem. The only trouble is that Azel didn’t survive; Jerusalem did. It was on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives and that is all we know about it. This passage again explains the Millennial passages that talk about Jerusalem being a sea port in the Millennium. Such a valley would create a low place east of Jerusalem and that would cause the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean to meet forming a body of water flowing into the old Jordan river bed and then into the Red Sea.

“you will escape just as you have escaped before [in the face of] the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah,” the greatest earthquake apparently the Jews ever had was in the days of Uzziah and they escaped then because a valley was formed. Cf. Amos 1:1.

Revelation 11:13, “And in that hour there was a great earthquake.” That earthquake had to do with the killing of the two witnesses, Moses and Elijah. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake. That is judgment by death. They had already had their crisis evangelism.

No sooner has the shock of the earthquake concluded but the armies of the king of the north appear. We have two earthquakes then. When the king of the north is approaching Jerusalem he is slowed down by an earthquake. That earthquake is to destroy the east side so that it makes good field fortifications. The believers use the rubble for fortifying that part of Jerusalem and they resist. The army of the king of the north comes in and takes two thirds of the city. Then, when the Lord comes and part of the Mount of Olives goes north and part goes south, there is this valley and this is the way that they will retire from the scene leaving the battle to the Lord to annihilate the enemy.

“Then the Lord God [Jesus Christ] will come [second advent], and all the saints with him.” Who are all the saints? They form two categories. Group A: believers in resurrection bodies. During the Tribulation these who are winners have been receiving their decorations, they have been presented in the court of heaven. The losers are with them. Group B: Old Testament saints. They have just received their resurrection bodies; the Church Age believers have had theirs for seven years. These come back with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 6, this is the day of darkness which preserved the lives of the believers. “And it will come to pass in that day that there will be no light; the beautiful light from the stars will be shut down.” The darkness is so thick that light cannot penetrate it.

Verse 7, “But it will be a unique day, the same day will be known to the Lord, not day, not night;” because the earth is locked in with this darkness, “now it shall come to pass at the time of evening that suddenly it will be light,” the second advent.

Verse 8, “Then it shall come to pass in that day [the Millennium] that the living waters will flow out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea [Dead Sea] and the other half toward the western sea [Mediterranean]; in summer and in winter it shall be.” There will always be a port there in summer and in winter. Ezekiel 47:1 talks about this when it says in the middle of the verse, “and water was flowing down from under the right side of the temple, from south of the altar.” Joel 3:18 also describes it.

The great supply of water in the desert in the Middle East is also something that will occur at this time. Psalm 46:

Verse 1, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” When is God a help? Now!

Verse 2, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though mountains slip into the middle of the sea;”

Verse 3, “though its waters roar and foam, though mountains quake at its swelling pride.”

Verse 4, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God [Jerusalem], the holy dwelling places of the most high.” Jerusalem, capital of the world in the Millennium.

Verse 5, “God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when the morning dawns [second advent].”

Verse 6, “The nations made an uproar [the last world war of history], the kingdoms tottered; he raised his voice, the earth melted.”

Verse 7, “The Lord of the armies is with us [second advent]; The God of Jacob is our fortification.”

Verse 8, “Come, behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolation upon the earth.”

Verse 9, What is He going to do? He is going to terminate all wars at the second advent. This is the second advent passage. “He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; he burns the chariots with fire.”

Verse 10, What is the application? “Relax, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” That isn’t the Church Age, that is the second advent.

Zechariah 14:9, “Then the Lord [Jesus Christ] will become king over the entire earth; in that day [the Millennium] the Lord will be unique, because his title is unique.” Our Lord has a unique title, that is why the Church Age is a unique age and why in this dispensation believers are royal family of God.

Isaiah 63:1-9

In this last world war of history there are three outstanding things according to the eschatological doctrines that we have studied. There is a great deal of demon activity, there is a tremendous amount of human activity, and there is divine activity which terminates the entire war.

Isaiah 63:1-9 is another view of terminating this world war. It begins literally, “Who is this one coming from Edom, with clothes stained bright red with blood from Bozrah …” The question indicates the fact that the Arabs were also involved in this Middle East campaign. In fact, they started the ball rolling, according to Daniel 11:40. They actually attacked Israel.

We do not know when the Tribulation is going to occur. Before the Tribulation can occur there must be the resurrection of the Church which terminates the Church Age. However, the Arabs will never change their attitude toward the Jews and right down to the second advent they will be antagonistic against Israel. In the area of the southern part of the state of Israel there will be a great battle, the battle of Idoumea in which the Arabs and the Jewish army are fighting it out. The Lord Jesus Christ comes to deliver that Jewish army. In doing so He takes a stand once again. Jesus Christ is the God of Israel.

Edom is the homeland of two Arab groups, the Edomites and the Nabataeans. Today modern Edom belongs to Saudi Arabia and Jordan primarily, but it is Arab country. The Arabs, of course, always take advantage of historical unrest and they have since there have been Arabs in the Middle East. The Edomite Arabs began their antagonism toward Israel when they refused to permit the Jews of the Exodus generation to pass through their land on their way to their own land, Numbers 20:18ff. The Edomite Arabs were in a great war with King Saul, 1 Samuel 14:47. David defeated the Edomite Arabs and annihilated most the male population at that time, 1 Kings 11:15,16. In BC 875 the Arabs of Edom formed a league with Ammon and Moab who are also Arab peoples and they invaded Judah in the time of Jehoshaphat. The invaders were miraculously destroyed in the valley of Berachah, 2 Chronicles 20:22. The Edomite Arabs were successful in revolting against Judah under King Jehoram and maintained their independence for half a century, 2 Chronicles 21:8. While Amaziah carried out successful campaigns against the Edomite Arabs, 2 Chronicles 25, the Jews were never able to subjugate them after that, and when Nebuchadnezzar administered the fifth cycle of discipline in BC 586 the Edomite army followed the Chaldeans and slaughtered every Jew they could find. This slaughter of the Jews is mentioned specifically in Psalm 137:7, “Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem, who said, ‘Destroy it, destroy it, to its very foundation.’ “Because of this Arab treachery Edomite Arabs were denounced by several of the prophets: Jeremiah in chapter 49:17 and Lamentations 4:21; by Ezekiel in chapter 25:13,14; by Amos and by Obadiah. As a reward for helping the Chaldeans against Judah Nebuchadnezzar gave the Edomite Arabs all the land between Judah and Egypt. Their reward didn’t last long because another tribe of Arabs descended from Ishmael, the Nabataeans, came in and destroyed or intermarried with them. For 400 years the Edomite Arabs continued until the Maccabaeans finally subdued them. John Hercanus conquered the Edomite Arabs. He was the grandson of one of the Maccabaeans, Matthias. However, the conquest would give rise to an Edomite Arab whose progeny would play a leading role in the political scene of the Levant for two centuries. His name was Antipater and he was the father of Herod the Great. Herod the Great was an Edomite Arab and he exterminated the Hasmonaean dynasty of the Jews and under Roman sponsorship took over the kingdom of the Jews.

There will never be a cessation between Israel and the Arabs. Bozrah was the capital of Edom in the time of the writing of Isaiah and, therefore, the capital of the Edomite Arabs. The question in Isaiah 63:1 is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ who has just slaughtered the Edomite Arabs. In Revelation 19:13, “And he was clothed with a robe dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God,” a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. In verses 15 and 21 of chapter nineteen we have a detailed description of that great slaughter. Isaiah also anticipates it in Isaiah 34:5,6.

The next phrase in Isaiah 63:1 is “the one who is royal in his dress,” the Lord Jesus Christ is being described, “marching in the greatness of his power? ‘It is I who speak in righteousness, I am the one mighty to cause deliverance’.” This is the Lord Jesus Christ identifying Himself prophetically. The principle is that He slaughters these Arabs from the standpoint of His perfect virtue. As eternal God He has perfect virtue; as true humanity he has perfect virtue. Note that virtue is related with the slaughter of the enemy.

Verse 2, “Why is your clothing red, and your royal garments as one treading the winepress?” It is a rhetorical question as far as Isaiah is concerned but it becomes necessary to understand that the first function of our Lord Jesus Christ at the second advent is the destruction of many evil armies, and He breaks all records in the slaughter of these armies.

Verse 3, in the answer given, our Lord speaks: “ ‘I have treaded down the winepress alone’,” our Lord is followed by three great armies, an army of angelic creatures who have thrown out of heaven in the middle of the Tribulation Satan’s great army, the believers of this dispensation who are royal family of God in resurrection bodies, and then the Old Testament saints and Tribulational martyrs in their resurrection bodies. And all of these armies follow our Lord (Revelation 19) but none of them fight. And so the word “alone” is the key to understanding grace. God’s policy in His plan for our lives is grace, and note who does the work. He does it alone, He does it without help. Three passages summarise the slaughter of the Arabs and the other invaders of the future: Revelation 14:19,20; 19:13,15; Isaiah 34:2-6. — “consequently, from the people who accompany me there is no one doing the fighting with me. I have treaded them down in my anger, I have trampled them in my wrath; so that their blood has been splashed on my clothes, therefore I have stained all of my clothes with their blood.”

These first three verses indicate the principle that the Arabs here, like all of the invading armies, are criminals. Evil always expresses itself through violence. The principle is: God meets violence with violence. You cannot stop crime and warfare by disarmament. To disarm a nation invites disaster and in the devil’s world peace is maintained by a strong military establishment. These verses describe the great slaughter of the Arab Armageddon and in this way the Arab problem is finally resolved by our Lord Jesus Christ who controls history now and who controls history then. This is not a brief for us to hate the Arabs; we are not to hate anyone.

Verse 4, “ ‘For the day of retribution was in my right lobe’,” the third paragraph of the Abrahamic covenant says that anyone who enters into any form of anti-Semitism is going to die for it, and this is the justice being administered here. The Arabs invade under the principle of anti-Semitism, “ ‘and the year of my redemption [of Israel] has come’.” Israel will be redeemed in the sense of once again being restored as a client nation. This is historical restoration. Not only does Jesus Christ control history but at the second advent He is going to rectify the evils and injustices of history resulting from Satan’s rulership of this world. One of these injustices filled with evil is the Arab persecution and antagonism toward Israel. Remember that while both Arab and Jew are Semitic; the word “anti-Semitism” means hostility toward the Jew. History must run its course under cosmos diabolicus while the royal family is being formed during the Church Age and the Age of Israel is being completed in the Tribulation. Therefore the day of restitution cannot occur until the Church Age is completed by the Rapture and the Age of Israel is completed by the Tribulation. That is the day of restitution in the heart of our Lord. The second advent of Christ is the time of reckoning, the time of judgment on the Arab nations; it is the time of the Arabs Armageddon. Israel will be delivered from all her enemies at the second advent. This is the purpose of Armageddon and of the baptism of fire which follows. The Millennial reign of Jesus Christ will terminate all anti-Semitism in history and the Jew will then become again a blessing to all.

Verse 5, “ ‘So I looked around for assistance but there was no one helping me, consequently I was shocked, however my arm [Jesus Christ] has delivered me’,” those Jewish believers fighting in that south eastern corner of the state of Israel were helped by the Lord, “ ‘and my righteous indignation [virtue] sustained me’.”

Verse 6, “ ‘Therefore in my anger I will trample their armies [the Arab army of Edom] and in my fury I will make them drunk and I will cause their life blood to pour out on the land’.” That is deliverance.

Verse 7, the response of the believers to this statement of our Lord. “I will be caused to remember.” This is the Hebrew word zakar. In the qal stem it simply means to remember, in the niphal stem it means to be remembered, but in the hiphil stem it is causative: I will be motivated to remember. Question: Do you remember the Lord? Who is first in your thoughts? You will never be motivated to remember until you understand doctrine. If you do not know doctrine you cannot remember the Lord. These people were motivated to remember the Lord in their deliverance. They were delivered from a disastrous military situation. Had the Lord not intervened they would have been wiped out. They were motivated to remember by the grace activity of the Lord — “the grace of the Lord, according to all which he has benefited us, even the abundance of good to the house of Israel, with which he has benefited them according to the riches of his grace.”

Verse 8, “Consequently, he [Jesus Christ] said, ‘Truly, they are my people [Jews who are born-again], sons who will not prove false’. Therefore he became their deliverer.”

Verse 9, “In all their affliction [anti-Semitism] he was afflicted, therefore the angel of his presence delivered them; in his love and in his grace he sustained them; and helped them throughout history.”

The subjective person in life is full of questions about why he is there, why his circumstances, what is the origin of everything? Why have the human race on the earth? If God knew ahead of time everything that was going to happen, why did he let it happen? This is subjectivity, and subjectivity to the point of disorientation to one’s circumstances. The objective person in life recognises he is in a set of circumstances and takes it from there. He doesn’t question why, he learns how the plan of God operates in his circumstances. This is why subjective people are inevitably arrogant. They emphasise themselves above the circumstances of life and anything else that might be a source of inquiry to them. Consequently the arrogance of subjectivity has a great deal of difficulty in learning God’s plan and God’s system. But even for those who are subjective, as well as those who are objective in the Christian life, occasionally we do get an explanation as to the whys and wherefores of life.

We have found such an explanation in the past few chapters we have been studying in the book of Revelation. In one word the explanation is protocol. The protocol of heaven is a system of divine order which guarantees happiness and blessing forever for the believer who is a winner. The protocol of heaven belongs to every elect angel; it also belongs to every saved person of the human race who resides in heaven. The protocol of heaven is a source of both divine blessing and, at the same time, divine judgment on earth during the course of human history. The protocol of heaven as the source of divine blessing and happiness comes from the order and system of God’s plan for the believer in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the protocol of heaven as the source of divine judgment originates from the interaction of elect angels functioning under divine mandates. All divine mandates originate from the justice of God, one half of divine holiness — the other half, of course, being God’s perfect righteousness.

Protocol is defined as a rigid long-established code prescribing complete deference to superior rank and strict adherence to due order of precedence and precisely correct procedure. Protocol, therefore, recognises the principle of authority under the laws of divine establishment. Protocol recognises and obeys authority, consequently protocol requires virtue for its existence. Therefore we go back once more to the premise: the fact that the objective person is a virtuous person because of his humility, his teachability; whereas the subjective person always wants to know what causes this and what causes that, and is always disoriented to his own circumstances or very dissatisfied with them. Protocol is related to basic virtue in life: enforced and genuine humility. Basic virtue demands recognition of authority and orientation to whatever circumstances may exist. Protocol is related to motivational virtue through the principle of the believer’s worship of God; and protocol is related to functional virtue through the modus operandi of virtue morality rather than morality by arrogance or self-righteousness. Self-righteous people are subjective, they emphasise their own personal modus operandi about everything else in life, and they consider themselves totally superior because they are not like others. They are the Pharisees of the 20th century.

The fact that protocol is a part of God’s plan, God’s policy, and God’s system for believers on earth, emphasises the conclusion that protocol exists in heaven. God has also established a system of protocol in heaven for all creatures. Power cannot compete with divine power. Man’s power, angelic power, will never compete with heaven. There is no competition of power in heaven, heaven is a place of perfect happiness. The perfect happiness of the elect angels and the perfect happiness of believers who have died and gone to heaven is a happiness based upon order, protocol, authority, humility. The basis for our study of protocol in heaven was the fourteenth chapter of Revelation, beginning in verse fifteen, so that we have now become familiar with the general concept of protocol.

We have learned from all of this that protocol without virtue is ritual without reality, for there are a number of forms of protocol on earth which are related to arrogance, related to ritual, and have no meaning as far as divine truth is concerned. The categories of angelic aristocracy emphasise to us the fact that one of the reasons for perfect future happiness in heaven is the fact that everyone is related to the reality of heaven through protocol. Protocol and God’s plan for the believer, therefore, must become a reality on earth for God has found a way to bring heaven to earth for believers who are positive to doctrine. Protocol, therefore, is the key to the plan of God, God’s system. Protocol is related to the priorities of the plan of God. Protocol is found in God’s plan under the principle of mandates first; they are found in God’s system under the principle of virtue first; it is found in God’s purpose under the principle of Christ first; and it is found in God’s policy under the principle of grace first; it is found in God’s objective: momentum first — becoming a winner; it is found in God’s authority under the principle of doctrine first. God’s plan for the believer in time has protocol. Protocol functions in three categories of virtue, and therefore the system of virtue-first. Unless you and I as believers possess virtue from the divine system we will be troubled and unhappy all of our lives as Christians on this earth because we are minus protocol. There is no protocol apart from virtue and there is no virtue in the Christian life apart from gate three of the divine dynasphere. Without humility you will never orient to the circumstances of life; without enforced and genuine humility you will always be saying, Why? why? why? Yet eventually positive volition persistence always gets the answers as to why. But the little smart person always wants to know all of the whys at one time.

No one can be objective and oriented to his circumstances, be they humble circumstances or exalted, without virtue. Virtue has as its object authority. Without recognition and submission to authority it is impossible to be oriented to any set of circumstances in life, and therefore it is impossible to be happy. Happiness comes with virtue; virtue comes with humility; humility orients to the authority of your circumstances. Children in the home have the authority of parents, the wife has the authority of the husband, all of us have the authority of establishment in government. So it is with God’s plan for your life. God has a plan for your life and that plan only guarantees you happiness and blessing if you follow the protocol of the plan. The protocol of the plan is the system in the plan, and the system in the plan demands daily adherence to Bible doctrine, demands the humility enforced and genuine. Without enforced and genuine humility there is no recognition of the protocol of life.

In the fall of Satan, the first sin among creatures, Lucifer the son of the morning was the highest ranking cherub. He was the greatest of all creatures, he had the greatest beauty, the greatest personality. Satan’s sin was based on his failure to recognise protocol: he did not recognise the protocol of heaven. In his arrogance he rejected the protocol of heaven and Satan became the first sinner when he said, “I will be like the most high God”. So following the pattern of arrogance — Satan’s pattern, Satan’s subjectivity — it is fascinating to note that the most beautiful creature that ever lived was Lucifer the son of the morning. He was very subjective and he was very arrogant about it all. He didn’t ask the origin of things; he knew that, and knowing the origin of his own existence he defied that origin, he rejected that authority. In heaven he by-passed protocol and in so doing he destroyed himself and at least one third of all the angelic creatures. In the angelic conflict that followed he learned that he could not overcome the protocol of heaven. Satan never has a happy day even though he has the greatest power of any creature on this earth. He is a totally miserable person.

God’s plan functions on protocol, protocol in three categories of virtue in the divine dynasphere. For the reason that believers are ignorant of protocol they have failed in the spiritual life. The system of authority for protocol in heaven is a very simple one. God the Father is the authority for protocol in heaven; God the Father is the author of the divine plan for the angelic creatures and for the human race. God the Son is the winner in that plan for the human race, He is the saviour of the world. God the Holy Spirit is both the revealer and the power of that plan.

Certain elect angels are involved in the administration of God’s plan. Certain members of the human race have received from the grace of God gifts, authority and responsibility in that plan. The chain of command, therefore, is very important. And when any believer in his circumstances in life loses his objectivity, ignores and violates the chain of command of protocol, he is a disoriented person and very unhappy. There is no happiness in life apart from protocol; there is no happiness in heaven apart from protocol. The protocol of heaven has been attacked but that attack lost out in the prehistoric angelic conflict. Protocol on earth is now under attack and we are a part of the warfare, the extension of the angelic conflict to human history.

Remember, therefore, that in the prehistoric angelic conflict protocol in heaven was the object of attack. Now that that has been settled protocol on earth is the object of attack. Therefore we read every days of certain things that have happened, certain criticisms of the government made by the press, which it is free to do, but certain criticisms violate the protocol of government. When the protocol of government is violated then there is misery for everyone in the national entity. So protocol becomes a major issue in life.

We are studying the seven last judgements in history at the end of the Tribulation. These judgements come form the protocol of heaven and they are designed to bring happiness to the human race through the policy of grace. Even judgment has that purpose. The protocol of heaven in the administration of these seven last judgements of the Tribulation has been noted. We have noted in Revelation 14:15 that God the Father delegated these judgements to God the Son, under the principle of John 5:22ff, all judgment has been delegated to the Son since His resurrection and ascension. So we find God the Father in the heavenly temple sending the mandate for the delegation for the seven last plagues, and we find Him using one of the highest ranking angels out of the angelic conflict. He uses as a messenger an officer of arms. God the Son as the judge exercises the mandate of God the Father. Then we saw a chain of command in protocol by which it is handled. We saw, for example, that the protocol results in seven last plagues of the Tribulation. We see a judgment squad emerging, it is made up of wingless aristocracy in the angelic college of heralds, the pur sui vant messengers. In Revelation 14:17 we saw a pur sui vant officer, a cherub-ranked angel who took command of the execution squad. We saw the pur sui vant officer commanding this squad in chapter fifteen. In the meantime the phrase “another angel” in 14:18 is used for the highest-ranking angelic creature in the college of heralds. The king of arms comes from the altar of imprecatory prayers with a confirmatory order of execution. The confirmatory order of execution in 14:18 relates imprecatory prayers of the Tribulational martyrs to the divine order sent through the chain of command. Next comes one of the angelic heralds called “living creatures” in 15:7. He is the one who issues the bowl judgements to each one of the execution squad. Then the pur sui vant officer who went on standby in verse 17 takes command of that squad in 14:19. The execution or judgment squad of seven pur sui vant messengers goes into action in chapter sixteen.

Chapter 16:17 — we find the execution once more of judgment coming from the protocol of heaven. That means that these judgements have a purpose, and that purpose is happiness. The protocol in the angelic college of heralds leads us to the conclusion that while each one of these judgements increases in severity each one of the judgements has a grace purpose from God. So blessing from God has a purpose; judgment from God has a purpose. Blessing from God comes from the protocol of heaven; judgment from God comes from the protocol of heaven. In connection with that we have two categories of judgment which are pertinent in this passage. First we have judgment by pain, and secondly we have judgment by death. There is also eternal judgment but that is really not pertinent here at the moment though it certainly plays a part later on.

The judgment of verse 17 will be the last of the Tribulational judgements. The seventh pur sui vant messenger involved is also going to become a great Bible teacher in chapter seventeen. We begin verse 17 with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, “Then.” With this we have the nominative singular subject from the numeral e(bdomoj, “the seventh.” It refers to the seventh member of the execution squad, the pur sui vant messenger from the angelic college of heralds, “Then the seventh [angel].”

Then we have the aorist active indicative from the verb e)kqew, “pour out.” This is a judgment by death and it will be the death of all religion on the earth. The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety. It gathers up into one entirety a succession of divine judgements which occur just before the second advent. It includes natural disasters, personal judgements against the ecumenical religion, and an unparalleled upheaval of land mass on planet earth. This is a combination of judgment by pain and judgment by death. All of it is designed to judge, to destroy, to discredit all of the world religions. The active voice: the seventh pur sui vant messenger is the one who produces the action of the verb as a member of the execution squad. He is the angel in chapter 17:1ff who will be teaching John about world religion, international religion of the Tribulation. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of eschatological reality at the end of the Tribulation.

Once again, we have the accusative singular direct object from the noun fialh and it refers here to the seventh bowl judgment which is a combination of grenade fragments, all of which are designed to judge international religion. This grenade is said to be poured out in the air, the preposition e)pi plus the accusative of the noun a)er, referring to the atmospheric band around the earth. In Ephesians 2:2 Satan is called the ruler of the kingdom of air, and it is the same noun. In other words, the seventh bowl judgment is directed at Satan’s kingdom throughout planet earth, especially religion.

Translation: “Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl on the air [on the kingdom of Satan].”

This is the final category of intensive judgment administered prior to the second advent of Jesus Christ. It includes numerous judgements throughout the world which are contemporaneous with the last great world war of history. They are generally directed toward ecumenical religion throughout the world and include great natural disturbances. The natural disturbances include judgment by pain as a part of crisis evangelism as well as judgment by death to remove the influence of religion from the earth. The divine declaration regarding this is given, starting with the word kai, “and,” followed by megaj which means here “magnificent” and the noun phone meaning voice, “and a magnificent voice.” It is the voice of God the Father, author of the divine plan.

Next we have a verb, the aorist active indicative of e)xerxomai, and it means to come out of the temple. It was the voice of God the Father from the temple who sent the mandate to God the Son in chapter 14:15. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the voice of God the Father from the temple produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for eschatological reality. Then we have e)k plus naoj, “from the temple,” followed by a second preposition, a)po plus qronoj, “from the throne,” and then the present active participle of legw, all of which is translated, “Then the seventh pur sui vant messenger poured out his bowl [the seventh plague] on the air; and a magnificent voice came out of the temple from the throne and said...” The descriptive present tense of legw means that this is a very dramatic thing which is going to be said. What is said is one word, the perfect active indicative of the verb ginomai. It means to become, to be, and we translate it here, “it is done.” It has been accomplished. The perfect tense is the intensive perfect emphasising a finished product. When special attention is directed toward the result of the completed action stress on the existent fact is intensified. This is the Greek way of emphasising the fact that a thing is, therefore the idiom is translated best by the English present, “it is done, completed.” The active voice: the seventh last plague or bowl judgment of the last half of the Tribulation produces the action, the completion of God’s judgment of the earth at the end of the Tribulation. The declarative indicative mood is for a statement of future fact at the end of the Tribulation.

Note that the first heaven or atmosphere is related to the earth, and Satan rules the earth, including the atmospheric band around the earth, according to Ephesians 2:2. He is the prince of the atmospheric band around the earth.

Both warning and administrative judgements have been administered to the people of the earth, warning judgements: the seven seals, the seven trumpets; intensive judgements: the seven last plagues. There is nothing left but the principle of one more time with evangelism, one more opportunity for everyone to accept Christ as saviour and avoid the terrible eternal judgment of the lake of fire.

This phrase in a very different form is given at the cross. At the cross our Lord Jesus Christ used the verb telew. He used the same perfect tense: it has been completed in the past with the result that it stands completed forever. The Lord Jesus Christ completed everything at the cross that will ever be needed for salvation. What this means is that the omniscience of God the Father put into the computer of divine decrees every personal sin ever committed in the human race, so that in the fullness of time our Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross and was judged for those sins. When that judgment was all finished our Lord said, Tetelestai, it has been finished in the past with the result that it stands finished forever. Now, in our verse, for judgment we have a different verb. We have the same morphology, the same perfect tense, “it has been accomplished, it is done.” All the judgements of the Tribulation are completed with the seventh bowl judgment.

Verse 18 — the third and final grace warning. The aorist middle indicative of the verb ginomai begins the verse, “Then there were.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety and indicates that this fulfils the concept of grace before judgment. No one has ever been judged as an individual, no one has ever been judged collectively until first of all there was some kind of a warning from God. The declarative indicative represents the verbal action from the viewpoint of its eschatological reality. This continues into the Tribulation and right down to the second advent.

We have studied before the previous warnings, the phrases, “flashings of lightning.” The word “noises” which should be “sounds,” and “thunders.” So the corrected translation is: “Then there were flashes of lightnings and sounds and thunders; also there was a great earthquake, such as had not been since mankind came to be on planet earth, so great and so powerful.”

Apart from the concept of warning of the final judgment of the seventh bowl before the second advent this is a statement with great doctrinal implications. The greatness of this earthquake is compared with all other earthquakes in history as being much greater. It will undoubtedly take a lot of lives, indicating the fact that this is also judgment by death as well as judgment by pain. Not only is it judgment by pain whereby those who survive — and there will be many unbelievers who survive to blaspheme and to reject Christ as saviour in some cases; in other cases to believe in Christ — but there will also be those who are taken, and those who are taken by death are simply being removed as a part of the cancer so that man can continue to live in the last days of the Tribulation before the second advent. When our Lord returns to the earth there will be many millions of people, both believers and unbelievers, who have survived it all. The instability of the earth’s surface is a reminder of the instability of mankind at the end of the Tribulation.

In verse 19 we have the judgment of cities and of religion. The passage actually begins by pointing out to us that certain cities are going to be removed from the earth as far as their construction is concerned, not their general location. The first city that is mentioned is Jerusalem. “Then the great city [Jerusalem] was split,” but that isn’t what the Greek says. The Greek uses the aorist active indicative of ginomai again. Ginomai is one of the verbs to be and generally translated “to become.” It means to be split or literally, to come to be split in three parts. It was because of this that many of the believers were able to hold out in Jerusalem, it formed a natural fortification. “Then the great city [Jerusalem] came to be split in three parts.” Zechariah 14:4,5 mentions a similar earthquake which occurs at the second advent. Earthquakes are always related to divine judgment on mankind, as per Isaiah 29:6. They are therefore very prominent during the time of the Tribulation, according to Luke 21:11. We also note that many other cities throughout the world collapse, “also the cities of the Gentiles collapse.”

In the last half of verse 19 we have a reference to a system which is Satan’s ecumenical religious system of the Tribulation. It is called Babylon, “furthermore Babylon the great was remembered before God to give her the cup of wine full of the wrath of his anger.” This is the seventh bowl judgment, it is an attack on and a destruction of ecumenical religion in the Tribulation. Babylon is identified as Rome, the capital of ecumenical religion in the Tribulation. The reasons why it is called Babylon we will study in the next chapter which is a detailed account of Babylon as a religious system. The fact that it is remembered is a little different from what we have been having. There is a switch from the verb ginomai to the aorist passive indicative of the verb mimnhskw which does mean to remember. This time it is the memory of God, it is the computer of God, it is the function of His justice, it is the function of protocol in heaven. The aorist tense here is a culminative aorist, contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety but regarding it from the viewpoint of existing results, namely the judgment of ecumenical religion, the greatest enemy to the human race.

This seventh bowl judgment is amplified in the next two chapters. In chapter 17: the judgment of ecumenical religion controlling the state, the union of church and state; in chapter 18 we will see how many businesses in the Tribulation depended on ecumenical religion and how they all went down with that religion. The aorist tense merely states the case but the next two chapters give the details. Actually, Babylon is a city but not the ancient city of Babylon where the religious system of Satan was crystallised. It is a reference to Rome as the capital of ecumenical religion as well as the revived Roman empire. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of eschatological reality to be amplified in chapters 17 & 18.

Next we have an improper preposition e)nwpion, “in the presence of,” plus the genitive of qeoj, “in the presence of God,” and then we have “to give to her.” We will study in chapter 17 why religion is called a woman, “the woman [whore] riding on the scarlet beast.” This is not a reference to Christianity or orthodoxy from the Word of God, it is a reference to the Satanic system. The feminine gender matches the mother of prostitutes in chapter 17 verse 5 which is the interpreting verse for this phrase.

The aorist tense of the verb didomi, to give, is a constative aorist, it contemplates the judgements of the next two chapters in their entirety, the judgements of international or ecumenical religion in the Tribulation and the judgment of all of the things related to it. The active voice: God produces the action of the verb. Fascinatingly enough, when this passage opens up, and other passages like it, there is a union of church and state in the revived Roman empire. The revived Roman empire is made up of ten nations of the old Roman empire. Rome will be the capital of the prophetical empire. It is a great political empire and in union with it is a religious system, one of the greatest and worst religious systems of all time, a Satanic system such as the world has never seen. Interestingly enough, while the king of the west or the revived Roman empire begins with the union of religion and state, which always is tyranny and always destroys freedom, eventually the political comes to despise the religious and God uses the political to destroy the religious at the end of the Tribulation. A part of the judgment on the ecumenical religious system is the fact that the political organisation turns against it and destroys it. There can only be temporarily, then, this type of tyranny. Eventually this type of tyranny breaks apart as it has so many times in the past.

Since verse 19 is primarily devoted to the judgment of cities complete details are not given. There are three categories of cities, however, which are mentioned. Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel. The reason for it was to provide fortifications for mature believers to fight and to resist the enemy at the siege of Jerusalem. Secondly, we notice Gentile cities throughout the world where degeneracy has reached a saturation point, like Sodom and Gomorra of old, and like Babylon of ancient history. Then we notice that the word “Babylon” itself is a reference to a system whose headquarters is in Rome. While only Rome is implied in this verse the judgment of Babylon the great is the judgment of that ecumenical religious system throughout the entire world at that time. The cities of the Gentiles would include prominent cities in the various empires involved in the world war at the end of the Tribulation where degeneration has reached a saturation point. Degeneration inevitably invites very violent and vicious warfare.

Then there are topographical judgements, as noted in verse 20. “Then every island [probably volcanic] vanished and mountain ranges could no longer be found.” The precedent for islands blowing up is found in past history. There will be great loss of life in the disappearance of these islands. These volcanic islands disappearing prepare the way for the great topographical changes in the earth which will occur in the Millennial reign of Christ. We also note that mountain ranges are going to disappear. Here the mountains probably refer to volcanic mountains located on islands, and on continents as well. The topographical changes in mountains is related to the second advent and this fact is found in Isaiah 40:4,5 “Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; in order that the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind will see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Then in Isaiah 42:13, “The Lord will go forth like a warrior, he will arouse motivation like a man of war. He will utter a command, yes, he will life up a war cry. He will prevail against his enemies.” And in verse 15 of the same chapter: “I will lay waste the mountains and hills.” In Isaiah 49:11, “I will make all my mountains a road.” In Isaiah 54:10, “ ‘For the mountains will be removed and the hills will quake, but my grace will not be removed from you, and my covenant of peace will not be shaken’, says the Lord who protects you.” In Isaiah 64:1, “That thou would split the heavens and come down [second advent], mountains therefore will shake at your presence.”

In verse 21 we have the great hail storm. We have in this passage the record hail storm in history. The corrected translation of this verse is: “And large hail stones weighing about 100 pounds each came down from the atmosphere on mankind,” this would be hitting the unbelievers of the human race. In this case the bombardment of the 100 pound hailstones is divine judgment from heaven . The destructive force of such a bombardment staggers the imagination. It would kill mankind and property, of course. Such hail in an atmospheric discharge of tension of the physical extremes of heat and cold and their conflict certainly reflects the conflict between the sovereignty of God and the negative volition of mankind who have rejected Christ under the crisis evangelism of the previous judgements. When man’s volition comes into conflict with the will and plan of God judgment disaster is inevitable, just as when extreme heat and cold meet in the atmosphere’s thunder storms to form hail. The plague of hail in Egypt in Exodus 9:22ff indicates the connotation of the divine judgment on both mankind and nations who refuse to execute the will of God and the plan of God. In Joshua’s defeat of the five kings of the Amorites in the battle of Gibeon part of the pursuit and exploitation of the victory came from God Himself who killed more of the enemy with hail stones than were slaughtered by the pursuing troops of Joshua — Joshua 10:11. The same type of hail storm is mentioned in Ezekiel 38:22 — “I shall enter into judgment with the king of the north; I shall rain in him, and on his troops, and on the many people who accompany him, and overflowing rain with hail stones, fire, and brimstone.” And what is the human reaction to all of this? “Then the survivors blasphemed God [negative volition at the point of crisis evangelism or judgment by pain] because of the plague of hail; because its plague was extremely severe.”

So they missed the grace principle found in this judgment. The plague was general throughout the earth and killed X number of unbelievers, probably the armies that we have been studying in the last great world war. The unbelievers who survive still have a chance for eternal salvation under the principle of crisis evangelism, and many of these survivors, of course, reject the opportunity. These judgements of the seven bowls are the last call of evangelism, the final manifestation of the grace of God. Divine judgment always has an evangelistic appeal and rejection of Christ under these circumstances emphasises the power of human volition in this historical stage of the angelic conflict.

Protocol: 2 Peter 1:2-9

In Revelation chapters 14 and 15 we have studied the concept of protocol. We understood the protocol of heaven and how it guarantees perfect happiness for all who go to heaven. We understood protocol as it related to virtue in heaven and some of that is very fundamental in the doctrines of Christianity. For example, Jesus Christ is God. As God He has all of the attributes of the Godhead. He has identical essence with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. The characteristics of our Lord’s deity made it absolutely impossible for Him to go to the cross. As eternal God and having perfect integrity there is no way that he could receive the imputation of the sins of the world and be judged for them. Therefore He had to become the God-Man. In becoming the God-Man our Lord Jesus Christ resolved the problem of eternal salvation. Our Lord received the imputation of our sins from the justice of God the Father and every sin in the history of the human race was judged by God the Father. In order to arrive at that point our Lord had to have perfect virtue in His humanity. As deity His perfect virtue was in His holiness, justice, and righteousness. He arrived in that state for the prototype divine dynasphere produces perfect virtue, it is a protocol system, it is the protocol of heaven brought to the earth. Therefore He was qualified to go to the cross, and even at the last moment He said, “Father, if it be thy will let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but thine be done.” In other words, he was willing to go to the cross and be judged for our sins.

The point of reference is the justice of God which is one half of divine integrity imputed our sins to Christ on the cross and He was judged for them. Therefore we have the principle, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” When we do the justice of God makes a second imputation: our sins were imputed to Christ on the cross and one half of divine integrity/divine holiness, God’s righteousness, is imputed to every one of us at the moment we believe in Christ. The justice of God is still the frame of reference and still our point of contact, and He imputes to each one of us the righteousness of God.

We as believers therefore possess perfect divine virtue. The justice of God imputes all blessing to the believer, winners or losers, down through the grace pipeline to the indwelling righteousness of God. We therefore possess a unique virtue, a virtue which came from the protocol of heaven, and therefore we are required as a part of the Christian way of life to develop this virtue. It is impossible for any of us to develop and manifest the virtue that we possess at salvation, therefore an operational type divine dynasphere was given to us and this operational type divine dynasphere is the protocol of heaven. Gate one is the filling of the Spirit; gate two is basic Christian modus operandi, rebound and the faith-rest drill; gate three is enforced and genuine humility; gate four is the momentum gate, perception and application of Bible doctrine; Gate five is motivational virtue directed toward God, the function of our royal priesthood; gate six is functional virtue directed toward man and circumstances, the function of our royal ambassadorship; gate seven is momentum testing; gate eight is the winners gate. All virtue is developed inside of this system.

In Revelation chapters 17 & 18 we are going to study the cosmic system, Satan’s system, and we are going to see what he develops by way of a counterfeit. His counterfeits are called religion. Christianity is not a religion. In Christianity God seeks man through the work of Christ on the cross; in religion man seeks God through his own works and through his own function. Therefore we are reminded of the protocol of heaven. This protocol is great happiness, great blessing, beyond our imagination, and the point is that in this dispensation we have heaven on earth in the form of the divine dynasphere, a protocol system.

We begin a consideration of protocol with the concept that the person who controls your life controls your happiness, or lack of it. Generally, if someone else controls your life you are a miserable person. In personal love the object of your love controls your life and happiness; in impersonal love you control your life and happiness because of virtue developed in the protocol system. In impersonal love which is the only virtue-love directed toward humanity you control your own life and your own happiness. You do so because of virtue developed in this protocol system. In both personal love and personal hatred you surrender control of your life to someone else. When you love someone else very dearly they have an influence on your life; when you hate someone very much they are influencing your life in a very negative way. In other words, you turn over your happiness and its control to someone else unless you have this virtue provided by God in the protocol system. Therefore the importance of both protocol and virtue in God’s plan. This is the divine system which He has ordained for every believer in this dispensation, the Church Age, the dispensation of the royal family of God.

Personal love only has virtue when it is directed toward God. Personal love directed toward mankind has no virtue, therefore neither happiness nor a spiritual connotation. Impersonal love not only has virtue when directed toward mankind but impersonal love is the only way in which you maintain control of your own life through good decisions from a position of strength, and continue to have a personal sense of destiny. Through impersonal love for all mankind, therefore, you control your own happiness. It doesn’t depend on the attitude of anyone else whether their attitude is favourable or unfavourable. Through protocol and virtue God has found a way to control your life and to bring into your life perfect happiness, regardless of the circumstances of life. Every time you get mad or jealous or bitter or vindictive or implacable you surrender your happiness to someone else. In other words, this goes back to Satan’s cosmic one, Satan’s philosophy in the prehistoric angelic conflict. At gate one we have motivational evil: arrogance, jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, hatred, self-pity, revenge motivation, and so on. At the other gates we have the fragments of the grenade and functional evil — self-righteous morality which is not morality at all, and crusader arrogance. This is what happens when you do not have control of your life.

The function of your royal priesthood and the function of your royal ambassadorship under the divine plan, the system of protocol and virtue, is the only way of happiness and blessing in your life. God has found a way to bring heaven on earth through this system. Every believer, of course, has two royal commissions. Every believer is a priest. This means that in the system as a believer priest he has a life directed toward God. Every believer is also commissioned as an ambassador. As such he has a life of virtue toward mankind. Therefore the life of the believer is divided into these two categories related to these two commissions — the priesthood directed toward God; ambassadorship directed toward man. They only function inside the protocol system. Not only do they function in the protocol system but they operate on virtue only. The protocol system provides the virtue, therefore we must understand protocol and we must be inculcated with virtue before we can fulfil the perception and application of God’s plan to our lives. As a royal priest the believer’s virtue gravitates toward perfect virtue.

The very fact that you and I possess the righteousness of God, one of the 40 things that we receive at salvation, demands that there be a system whereby virtue can be manifest to the entire human race. Personal love for God is the only category of personal love that has any virtue and, as we have noted in the past, personal love toward mankind has no virtue. When we say to a member of the human race, “I love you,” that means they are attractive, that we have rapport with them, that they the object possesses something that is attractive to us. That is personal love. Personal love, of course, is directed toward a few with whom one has rapport, but personal love has no virtue. Once you introduce virtue into the situation, once the subject has virtue, it not only extends in great capacity for love for a few but it extends to all the human race, those who hate you, those who despise you, those who are antagonistic toward you, those who are attractive. So impersonal love is the virtue which we need in our relationships with the human race. This interaction is impossible unless we possess virtue, and that virtue must be in the system. Therefore Christianity is separated from all that might be classified as religion because in religion there is some system, some organisation, some way in which an expression of self-sacrifice may be made, an expression of ecstatics, some function whereby man is making some sacrifice in order to gain divine approbation or the approbation of someone in life. Personal love for God, then, is the only category of virtue. When a believer in the protocol system at gate five has personal love for God that personal love has its own virtue. That virtue, of course, comes from perception and application of doctrine at gate four. Therefore virtue becomes the major issue in the Christian life. Christianity isn’t running around doing things for God; Christianity is the development of virtue. Virtue-first is always the principle. Personal love for God means that we make God the source of our happiness and our blessing. We have personal love for Him and therefore God influences us through Bible doctrine. Personal love for God is impossible apart from life in the divine dynasphere, God’s protocol system, therefore personal love for God is motivational virtue, gate five of the protocol system. Impersonal love for all mankind protects this personal love for God, it keeps the believer from having his happiness depend on someone else. Therefore it is compatible with protocol for impersonal love is the only virtue-love directed toward mankind, and so impersonal love toward all mankind is the function of the believer’s royal ambassadorship. In the protocol system of God gate five is the motivational virtue and gate six is the functional virtue.

We have studied in the past the protocol of heaven and noted that it is a system of divine order which guarantees maximum happiness and blessing forever. We have noted that the protocol of heaven belongs to every elect angel and every person who is saved in the human race and residing now in heaven. When we die we are said to be absent from the body and face to face with the Lord; we enter into a perfect protocol system. The protocol of heaven is the source of both divine blessing and divine judgment on earth during the course of human history, for the protocol of heaven as the source of divine blessing and happiness comes from the order and system in God’s plan for the believer in Christ so that the protocol of heaven as the source of divine judgment originates from the interaction of the angels functioning under the divine mandate. In revelation chapter 14 we studied the three orders of elect angels involved and we saw coming from the throne room a mandate for judgment to our Lord Jesus Christ carried by the officer of arms. We saw the king of arms coming from the altar of imprecatory prayers conforming the mandate. We saw the pur sui vant officer step out and go on standby to take command. We saw the formation of an execution squad in chapter 15. This squad is commanded by the pur sui vant officer and each member of the squad is also a member of the lower status of aristocracy called pur sui vant messengers. We saw them go into action in chapter 16, so that in Revelation 14,15, and 16 we have seen the whole concept of the protocol of heaven and how it relates to judgment. We have also seen that there is grace in judgment. For example, in the first five bowl judgements of chapter 16 we noted the principle of protocol once again under the concept of judgment by pain. Under the concept of judgment by pain the world was filled with millions of unbelievers who had been exposed to the gospel and this was their opportunity for recall under the principle of crisis evangelism. Under judgment by death we noted that certain segments of the human race were removed in order that the rest of the human race might be perpetuated. Also noted is the eschatological principle that the human race will continue to exist on the earth and that any system of sophisticated weaponry of any kind, any enemy of mankind (like the flea or the virus), or all of man’s attempts to destroy himself and destroy others, all of these will come to nil because the protocol of heaven guarantees that certain divine judgements will eliminate from the human race those who are bent on destruction of the human race. The protocol of heaven is therefore the interpretation of chapters 14, 15, and 16 of the book of Revelation.

We have previously defined protocol and we will now study the definition of protocol as it relates to the plan of God. One of the things today on which Christianity may be criticised is that they have lost the concept of precisely correct procedure and have instead given way to the cosmic system with its very sloppy procedures. Christianity and it modus operandi is very clearly defined. Protocol, therefore, recognises the principle of authority under the laws of divine establishment; it recognises and obeys authority and consequently requires virtue for its very existence. Protocol is related to virtue in God’s plan for believers, the operational divine dynasphere. At gate three is enforced and genuine humility, the beginning of teachability. Humility is always directed toward authority and without humility there is no capacity for life, capacity for happiness, capacity for blessing, capacity for success or promotion. Therefore this is basic virtue in life. Then at gate five there is motivational virtue directed toward God; gate six functional virtue directed toward man and circumstances. The entire concept of Christianity, therefore, is always virtue-first, and virtue is directly related to protocol. Without the two there is no Christian way of life. The fact that protocol, then, is a part of God’s plan and God’s policy, and God’s system for believers on earth emphasises the conclusion that protocol also exists in heaven and that God has established a system of protocol in heaven, for creature power cannot compete with divine power in heaven or on earth.

We have also noted that protocol is the basis for great happiness because protocol means that everyone is organised. Again, we note that protocol is based on respect for authority, not fear of authority. The function of protocol is based on virtue, not on superiority; protocol orientation to man’s confidence so that no one is disturbed by greater authority or power in another. Protocol without virtue, then, is like ritual without reality. In heaven protocol is the function of aristocracy, those elect angels who were winners in the prehistoric angelic conflict. This protocol in the angelic college of heralds leads us to the conclusion that in the previous historic angelic conflict God’s plan for elect angels included the principle of virtue-first.

Protocol is one of the great objectives of the Christian life. When you fall in love with someone you generally find something in them which is attractive to you. You are stimulated by them, there is a rapport established, and at the same time you do not see the flaws of that individual. But when you love someone from the standpoint of virtue or impersonal love you love them from the standpoint of the entire person and you accept them with their flaws as well as the points to which you have been directed by way of interest and rapport. Therefore virtue-love is never disillusioned, never disappointed, and there is no adjustment to be made in the virtue of impersonal love because it complies with the entire system of protocol. Impersonal love has no prejudice, therefore it makes no adjustments. By way of contrast, personal love is filled with blindness and prejudice, emphasising rapport with the object rather than the virtue of the subject. Our study of protocol in heaven is compatible with virtue-love’s dynamics on earth. Protocol in heaven comes to earth in the divine dynasphere, the love complex, and it is this which turns Christianity into something entirely different from any system of religion that has ever existed. Virtue is the major issue. God has a plan for your life and that plan demands capacity before anything else. That capacity demands that you be in the protocol system. It also demands that you have virtue-first in your life.

And this is not unusual. At the time of the writing of the New Testament the Roman empire was very much in function and the Romans were very interested in virtue, at least one segment of them, those who were in a very special philosophical system. Virtue became not only a philosophical subject but the man on the street had many ideas about it. Stoicism was the philosophical system in which the Romans tried to explain virtue, but all they could really do was to end up explaining ethics. Empiricism has sought to penetrate the various barriers and go back to the absolute and has failed. So always philosophical concepts have to come back to something that is relative, and so it was with the idea of trying to explain virtue in terms of philosophical thought. It was impossible. Virtue can only be explained by the protocol of heaven.

There is a Greek word which was used by everyone, Roman and Christian alike, a)reth. Everyone was trying to explain it and define it. The apostle Peter himself had a great deal to say about it and he used this word which is also found in stoic philosophy. In 1 Peter 2:9 Peter used the word but unfortunately the King James version translated it “praises,” a word it does not mean, “You are a chosen race,” referring to the impact of Christianity on the client nation. Once Israel went out in AD 70 under the fifth cycle of discipline the times of the Gentiles began and it continues until the Rapture. There are no client nations to God in the Tribulation. As goes the believer in that client nation, the pivot, so goes the nation. In the dispensation of the Church we only have Gentile client nations to God and therefore believers play a very important part. There is no such thing as a Christian nation but there is such a thing as a client nation to God and it is influenced by the pivot of mature believers. If the pivot is large through the function of the protocol system there is blessing to the nation; if the pivot shrinks from life in the cosmic system then the nation undergoes the five cycles of discipline. “You are a royal priesthood,” this is the only dispensation in which every believer is his own priest representing himself to God. The reason for this is that we are royal family of God and we live in a protocol system. We are “a holy nation,” referring to a client nation to God, “a people for God’s own possession,” the royal family of God. And why are we these things? In the middle of verse 9, using the conjunction i(na to introduce a purpose clause, “that you may proclaim the virtues [not the praises] of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light,” the point being that before we accepted Christ our life was darkness. We didn’t have the key, the protocol of heaven, but once we believed in Christ we were called into light. We are even commanded in 1 John 2 to walk in the light. The light is simply the divine dynasphere, the protocol system. God has brought heaven to earth in this protocol system designed for us. So we have left darkness, we have moved into light and that means virtue-first.

In 1 Peter 1:2 we notice some of this principle stated by the apostle Peter: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” Grace is the modus operandi of the plan of God and also the policy of God in the protocol system. Peace really means prosperity and it is multiplied in knowledge. That brings us back to the protocol system. If it is multiplied in knowledge then the importance of gate four, the momentum gate, the perception and the application of doctrine. It is supported by gate one, the filling of the Spirit; gate two, the faith-rest drill which produces objectivity; gate three, enforced and genuine humility which produces teachability; and these gate support gate four, the basis for the multiplication of grace and prosperity in the life.

Verse 3, “seeing that his divine power [the divine dynasphere],” God provides everything necessary inside the protocol system which calls for God to work on our behalf; we do not work on His behalf. If there is legitimate Christian production that production must come from the momentum of gate four, “has given to us everything pertaining to life and godliness,” life here means capacity for life; godliness means fulfilling God’s plan for your life, “through the true knowledge of him [the function of gate four] who called us to his own glory,” we were called to His glory, He produced glory in the prototype divine dynasphere, the result was doca [glory]. We are in the operational type and are to produce that same doca or glory and it is related to the fact that only virtue can function in the protocol system of God, “and virtue.” We are called to virtue and virtue can only be manufactured in one place, the divine dynasphere.

Verse 4, “Through which things [the divine dynasphere and it is the manufacture of virtue] he has given to us his precious and magnificent promises,” these promises are eventually brought together in the second stage of the faith-rest drill under the concept of the doctrinal rationales, “that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature,” through residence, function and momentum in the divine dynasphere you are able to produce the same virtue that the humanity of Christ produced in facing life. You cannot have perfection, no one is perfect in this life, none of us ever will be, but we can produce virtue, “having escaped the corruption that is in the cosmic system by lust.”

Verse 5, “Now for this reason also, applying all diligence, in your doctrine supply virtue,” doctrine produces virtue, “and in your virtue, knowledge [application of doctrine];”

Verse 6, “and in your knowledge, self-discipline,” to the extent that you and I as believers are disorganised in our personal lives we are unhappy people. Self-discipline is the beginning of virtue; self-discipline is related to humility: enforced humility, and from enforced humility comes genuine humility, and from genuine humility come capacity for life. So there are all sorts of things to make us unhappy. A disorganised person has disorganised thinking; disorganised thinking cannot straighten out priorities, therefore he has made himself unhappy by the use of his own volition in his disorganised state, no protocol in his life, no organisation.

Other people can make you unhappy by the things that they do because you are disorganised, you have no protocol, you have no virtue, you have no capacity for happiness, and the lack of virtue or impersonal love toward all means that they can make you happy or unhappy. You no longer control your own happiness or unhappiness, the other person controls it. You say that you love them and that is fine, but you have now surrendered your control to them because that is personal love. You could love that person and have a great life of happiness with them in either friendship or marriage. You could have a great relationship with them if you had virtue because virtue means that inside of you is impersonal love directed toward all. Because you have this virtue toward all you take the tolerance, you take everything that expresses impersonal love and apply it to this person with the flaws, and now you control your own life and still love them. But what does it for you? Impersonal love, not personal love.

The same thing is true in hatred. If someone hates you and that bothers you, they are rude, they do something that bothers you. To the extent that that bothers you you have no virtue, but to the extent that you have impersonal love for all then you have control of your life. Otherwise tomorrow in traffic the first person who is rude to you and makes you mad controls your life, they control your happiness — they cut in front of you and you are mad at them, etc. You must have control of your own life and the only way you can do it is by protocol plus virtue.

“and in your self discipline, perseverance,” one thing God’s plan does for you is organise you, it gives you a system of priorities. Your number one priority is at gate four: Bible doctrine. Everything else in you life is built around that and that gives you your momentum, that gives you your motivation in life toward God, that gives you your virtue directed toward man and circumstances, “and in your perseverance, godliness [spiritual maturity at gate eight, you become a winner]”

Verse 7, “and in your godliness, capacity for love [brotherly rapport], and in your capacity for love, the virtue of impersonal love.”

Verse 8, “For if these virtues are yours and increasing,” the momentum from residence and function in the divine dynasphere, “they render you neither useless nor unproductive in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Verse 9, “For he who lacks these virtues is blind, short-sighted, having forgotten purification from his former sins [having forgotten even the very principles of eternal salvation].”

The great issue that we must face in order to understand the great difference between Christianity and religion is the issue of protocol and virtue.