PROPHECY: TWO WAYS TO SEE

In Scripture, God uses prophecy to tell us the future in two different ways, which translate into time distances. He uses a microscope to tell us the immediate prophecy which those spoken of can expect to happen very soon, in their lifetime or right after. The reason for the microscope and not the naked eye is because it gives more detail. The eyes will witness it the moment it starts, the microscope shows what it will be very soon, in minute detail. Then there is the use of the telescope, to give us a very futuristic look at what will happen during the last days (today for us), the Great Tribulation or the Millennial Kingdom.

In some or many instances in Scriptures, both a microscope and a telescope accompany ones eyes, in the same prophecy. We call this a "dual fulfillment". The hearer will get a detailed prophecy, see it with his own eyes in his lifetime, and get another prophecy or the same exact prophecy for the future, distanced by years, decades, centuries or millennia.

Isaiah 14:1
For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.

• Prophecy for the Last Days and the Millennium
• They went back to their land in 1948
• Thus far, many nations have joined and now left her, so no strangers have ever really joined permanently with them, not even the U.S., for long

• Here enemies will finally serve them
• Their wars will be over for good, at least for a thousand years.
• At that time, God will again, for the last time, fight it for them

• All that Israel ever wanted, bargained for, gave away land for, gave away terrorist prisoners for, gave away financial support for-land that was freely given to them by their God
• This is the perfect example of works versus grace

• This reference can be either Nebuchadnezzar or the anti-Christ, as the king of Babylon is a type of the anti-Christ and the Babylonian kingdom was very much like it:
• Gold, for a head in Daniel
• The Golden City of Babylon will exist, either as Rome, or not. Nevertheless, it will be the same city of mystery religions, as Mystery Babylon, and thus destroyed

• The head was Babylon.

MYSTERY BABYLON:

• The ability to persecute and the very supports holding up Babylon, destroyed by God
• Once that happens, the kingdom is done.

THE STAFF OF BABYLON: BROKEN

1. A stick carried in the hand for support or defense by a person walking; hence, a support; that which props or upholds. Bread is the proverbially called the staff of life.
   The boy was the very staff of my age.
   Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Psa 23.
2. A stick or club used as a weapon.
   With forks and staves the felon they pursue.
3. A long piece of wood; a stick; the long handle of an instrument; a pole or stick, used for many purposes.
4. The five lines and the spaces on which music is written.
5. An ensign of authority; a badge of office; as a constables staff.
6. The round of a ladder.
7. A pole erected in a ship to hoist and display a flag; called a flag-staff. There is also a jack-staff, and an ensign-staff.
8. In military affairs, an establishment of officers in various departments, attached to an army. The staff includes officers not of the line, as adjutants, quarter-masters, chaplain, surgeon, _c. The staff is the medium of communication from the commander in chief to every department of an army.
9. A stanza; a series of verses so disposed that when it is concluded, the same order begins again. Cowley found out that no kind of staff is proper for a heroic poem, as being all too lyrical.
10. Stave and staves, plu. of staff. [See Stave.]

• When God brings down the wicked, their allies are helpless and scatter like rats
• Besides, like it says, who can stop God?

• This has never happened in man's long history after the Fall
• Spontaneous worship erupts
• Peace followed by praise, because of the knowledge of the LORD

• No more complete deforesting just for the sake of huge castles!

• The anti-Christ defeated, he shows up with the rest of the lost men, kings and all, in hell.
• Just another eternal prisoner with a number....

• All of this time men on earth believed the anti-Christ was a supernatural wonder, only to find out he as just flesh and bones, destined for hell
• They still marvel and wonder, hence the questions......

• Appearance and noise is all that he was-all just show
• The viols are the instruments, as Lucifer was originally some sort of worship leader in Heaven
• Worms, eating him alive, forever

Ezekiel 28:13
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

• This is the only occurrence of the word "Lucifer" in the Scriptures
• Lucifer is well known among satanists, New Agers, but not found in many versions of the Bible
• Instead, he is referred to here as "the morning star", which is doctrinally incorrect, as the Morning Star is the LORD Jesus Christ Himself

• The enemy's issue with God is the same as man's, authority, sovereignty, power, rule
• The intense blindness it took to think that a created thing can rise above its Creator
• "Rise above", "Ascend into Heaven", "Exalt my throne", "Sit upon the mount", "Sit in the sides of the north", "above the heights of the clouds" (specifically above all of the earth-God's focus, all galaxies, celestial beings), "be like the Most High"- be just like God
• All as a mere created being-this is the source of sinful pride and arrogance in man also

Ezekiel 28:16-19
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

1. Injustice; unrighteousness; a deviation from rectitude; as the iniquity of war; the iniquity of the slave trade.
2. Want of rectitude in principle; as a malicious prosecution originating in the iniquity of the author.
3. A particular deviation from rectitude; a sin or crime; wickedness; any act of injustice. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God. Isa 59.
4. Original want of holiness or depravity.
   I was shapen in iniquity. Psa 51.

• This is for whom hell was made
• Sides..............different sides, not the sides of the north, but of th south

Luke 13:27
But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.

Isaiah 14:16
They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

• In the end, the enemy will be reduced to less than man, powerless, weak, a marvel to look upon
• The thought that this was the being which tortured mankind for centuries, destroyed families, civilizations, kingdoms, lives, deceived so many-reduced to nothing

• The world untamed, wild, manmade objects destroyed, and imprisonment of men in their minds (false religion)and bodies, (captivity, war)-literally
• The original plan for mankind was to tame the land, as a garden. That was universal, not just local
• Mankind likes to call it "lion country", bear territory", etc., thinking he is so righteous in "preserving the wild"
• Being stewards is not destruction, but being preservationists is, as wild beast kill people, lack of cultivation starves people

• Sepulchers, tombs, nice headstones neatly engraved for prominent people
• The lost have their homes after death, but it is not the grave
• The abominable branch is in contrast to the real branch, Jesus Christ

• This is as opposed to the real Branch, of Righteousness, the LORD Jesus Christ Himself

Isaiah 14:21
Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

• The consequences we face often spill over into the next generation, to the innocent
• This negates the idea that our sin does not affect others

• A besom is simply a broom

FOCUS SWITCH: "THE ASSYRIAN"

• "The Assyrian" is possibly, probably a title of Isaiah 10: Micah 5, Zephaniah 2

• This is the whole earth, the empire of the anti-Christ
• This is the Day of the LORD, not Assyria's empire

• The implied answer is, "No one can!"

• Most likely many were elated at his death

AHAZ: A RECAP

• Son of Jotham (Isaiah 1:1)
• King of Judah
• Made his son pass through the fire
• Burnt incense in the high places
• Beseiged by Rezin (Syria) and Pekah (Israel)
• Used God's treasury to get help from Tiglath-Peleser to defeat the above two

FOCUS SWITCH AGAIN: PALESTINE

• The judgment here is on Philistines names the land "Palestina" way back before Abraham's days (when the Canaanites were there)
• Ashkelon, Ashdod, etc.
• The seed of the serpent, now the ROOT of the serpent
• In their history, "your worst kings are about to come"
• This shows that the rule of man is always going to make things worse

"Palestine"

• NAME: The origin of the word "Palestine" has been hotly debated for years, and no one knows with absolute certainty the real exact origin, just a fuzzy line
• It comes from a Latinization of the word for Philistines
• Using the name "Palestina" was simply the Latin way of pronouncing the name of Israel's ancient bitter enemy, the Philistines.
• It means "Eretz Yisra'el" (LAND OF ISRAEL) or "Terra Sancta" (HOLY GROUND)
• In A.D. 135, Hadrian erased the name "Provincia Judaea" (Province of Judaea) so as to wipe out all memory of the Jews and remove any connection to their own Promised Land, and replaced it with "Provincia Syria Palaestina”
• The definition of the word is translated loosely as "rolling" or "migratory", indications being that this was not a permanent people and also that they were actually originally The Philistines
• "Palestina" is also believed to be perhaps derived from both the Egyptian and Hebrew word peleshet
• Palestine was never an Arab country of any kind at any time
• The words "Palestine" or "Palestinian" of "Palestina" or "Filastin" does not appear in the Koran.
• The term "peleshet" appears in the Jewish Tanakh no fewer than 250 times.
• Even in the PLO's own terrorist charter, Jews living in "Palestine" prior to 1917 were supposed to be referred to as "Palestinians."
• A derivative of the name "Palestine" first appears in Greek literature in the 5th Century BCE when the historian Herodotus called the area "Palaistine" (Greek - ?a?a?st???). In the 2nd century CE, the Romans crushed the revolt of Shimon Bar Kokhba (132 CE), during which Jerusalem and Judea were regained and the area of Judea was renamed Palaestina in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel.
• The origin of the term "Palestine" is Jewish, and was a derogatory term used for Jews prior to the twentieth century-Muslims hated the term and would have never adopted it for their own
• In modern history, the land they now call "Palestine" was not called that until after 1920, and was coined by Yasser Arafat's father, not by God.
• They rather wanted to be called "Southern Syrians", not "Palestinians"
• Later, when the French overthrew Amin Husseini, the whole "Southern Syria" idea collapsed, so they decided to name themselves "Palestinians".
• Prior to 1920, no one was going around calling themselves "Palestinians"
• When in 1920 the British carved out "Palestine" as a home for the Jews, the Arabs were wary, incensed,
• LAND: The Jews in the area of "Palestine" were given .5% of the entire Middle East, to the hatred, dismay, disgust of the Muslims surrounding them.
• After World War I, the name "Palestine" was applied to the territory that was placed under British Mandate; this area included not only present-day Israel but also present-day Jordan.

Picture of the Official Flag of Palestine in 1939 Larousse-French Dictionary:

• PEOPLE: Even though Arabic gradually became the language of most of the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine.
• The Philistines were conquered over 3,000 years ago, so there was no connection to that.
• They were Aegean and more closely related to the Greeks culturally, etc. than the Arabians
• Under the Ottoman Empire (1517-1917), the term Palestine was used as a general term to describe the land south of Syria; it was not an official designation. In fact, many Ottomans and Arabs who lived in Palestine during this time period referred to the area as "Southern Syria" and not as "Palestine."
• Leading up to Israel's independence in 1948, it was common for the international press to label Jews, not Arabs, living in the mandate as Palestinians. It was not until years after Israeli independence that the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were called Palestinians. In fact, Arabs cannot even correctly pronounce the word Palestine in their native tongue, referring to area rather as“Filastin.”
• When the United Nations "carved" out "Palestine" in the 1920s, the Muslims were wary of it, protesting it, knowing it was a purely Jewish (Zionist) designation
• "Palestinians" today are nothing more than Arabs, Syrians, Egyptian, Jordanians.

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

• Two sorts of judgments; one from God directly with no human agency, one from God through man

• God is Sovereign over everything, created Israel, is over Israel, can judge her, and keep a remnant, wipe out her enemies, protect Israel
• NOTHING stops God's plans-nothing