New Page 2

As with all things that come in sevens in Scripture, I say the Seven Seals ought to first be equated with the seven millennia (as I believe they can be), but also I see a play even on the shorter scale of the 20^th century.

The man on the white horse can be equated with Jesus statement (Mat 24:5), For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. No, they were not saying, I am Jesusrather the secular philosophers of the 19^th century (Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud) were saying, ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ χριστός I am the anointed onemeaning that now, finally, having discarded the Bible and thrown off its moral shackles, I am the one anointed to tell you how it really is. The result?

Millions died, and in Russia where at that time the Bolsheviks seized power many tens of millions more died, and when Mao followed in China yet many more tens of millions. And of course WWI only set the stage for WWII.

The next two horsemen brought a worldwide economic depression, manmade starvation in Europes breadbasketthe Ukraineand even a worldwide flu epidemic that struck down its millions.

The fifth seal was stripped off (Rev 6:9-10): And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

Did the Nazis slay six million Jews for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held? Well, yes, as need it be pointed out? The very existence of the Jewwhether faithful to the word of God or notwas a testimony to the promise of survival and restoration in the latter days. Their souls cry out, as did the bloods of Abel (Gen 4:10), but the time of Jacobs trouble (Jer 30:7) has a second installment (Rev 6:11): And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. And so in the latter days the dragon persecutes the woman which brought forth the resurrected messiah, the woman representing the best elements of Jesus mother nation. Those, however, are nourished for 3 years from the face of the serpent (Rev 12:14), even as those in the first century had received such a promise of succor (Mat 24:16), Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains One house of Israel has already experienced its tribulationthe next time, as it says (Rev 12:16), And the earth [the land] helped the womansomehow this third time in the land is for keeps (first under Joshua, second under Ezra, the third time with the Zionists).

So then what does the dragon do? To me it doesnt sound like any pre-tribulation rapture for Christians or place of safety for Sabbatariansrather, as it says (Rev 12:17), And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Somehow that gets a little too close to homesomething that I havent found anyone yet willing to contemplateso lets move on to the sixth seal.

As it says (Mat 24:29), Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken

A quarter century ago when reading Allan Blooms The Closing of the American Mind I thought of Matthew 24:29. Bloom said that precisely as the death camps were being liberated, Americas intellectuals were discovering Nietzsche and Heidegger and the death of God. It was as in days of old. Balak knew he could not defeat Israel militarily, so he sought the counsel of the magi Balaam who him to provide a summer of love as a doorway to other gods which would invite the curse of God. And so it was precisely when America stood tall and victorious, the academy threw out God and the apostles of a false messianismAllen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Jack Kerouachit the road to remake the nation. Vietnam became key in stripping off this sixth seal.

What was the outcome of the sex, drugs, and rock n roll of the Sixties? When the Bible was banished the secular Left inserted its tentacles into every corner of American life, and Americas citizens were dumbed down and her moral strength weakened. For these last many decades thinking has been taboo. Instead students are asked, How does that make you feel?

And so we have focus groups where citizens are asked to rate the intensity of how they feel about various words and phrases to be employed by politicians. No one is asked to think; rather they are expected to be so in touch with their feelings that they can quickly rate them on some scale.

But shouldnt we take the sun being darkened and the moon turning to blood and the stars falling from heaven literally? Well, if we do then how can he come as a thief in the night (1Thes 5:2)?

Do a study and you will see that the sun and moon and starsfeatures of the fourth day in Genesis which equates with the fourth millenniumrefer to the Divine Presence in Jerusalem, the Davidic throne, and the scepters of the 12 tribes. Some verses:

Genesis 37:9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.

Numbers 24:17 there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel...

Psalms 72:7 In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.

Matthew 2:2 Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

Revelation 12:1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars

Revelation 22:16 I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

All of these lightsthe Bible and its God and Messiahloomed large in the development of Western Civilization, however imperfect that might have been, and in the founding of the United States, the British Empire and the English speaking nations where the Bible was paramount. All of that was washed away in the aftermath of WWII. Britain was first to surrender to atheism, socialism, and multiculturalism, whereas the largest body of resistance remained among those rebellious bitter clingers in the United States. And nowthough the old anti-Semitism is reasserting itselfequally hated of all right thinking members of the international community are those gun totin, right wing American Christians. Only they, as Dennis Praeger says, comprise a large enough body to thwart the agenda of the international Left which is now completely aligned with Muslim radicalism. The spirits of Esau and Ishmael are now joined against the spirit of Israel as embodied in those who yet respect the Scripturessee David Horowitz (2006).

Perhaps the Canadian Mark Steyn says it best in his book titles: America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It (2008); After America: Get Ready for Armageddon (2011). I highly recommend the movie 2016 (http://2016themovie.com/).

Interesting that the six seals should begin with deception and end with deception. Then comes the seventh seal (Rev 8:1), And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And then at the seventh shofar it all becomes clear (Rev 10:7), But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

I have written before that the Adventist interpretation of the second beast in Revelation 13 just might be right. Always this seemed rather ridiculous to me, but after reading Nachmanides interpretation of the beast brought forth on the sixth day (Gen 1:25), And God made the beast of the earth after his kind Writing at the beginning of the 6th millennium, Nachmanides interprets Genesis millennially:

And thus the second beast in Revelation 13:11-12And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

Two great beasts arose in the fifth millennium: the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Empire, Russia being heir to the first and current developments in the Mid-East to the second. So far the prophecy seems eerily prescient. Its as if the heavenly court convened and the adversary came also, and God asked him, Have you considered the United States, that there is no nation like it in the earth, one that upholds civilization and supports my covenant nation Israel?

And then the adversary answered and said, Does the United States do all this for nought? Have you not made a hedge about her and blessed the work of her hands? Simply prepare a politically correct messiah, one schooled in Marxism, inhered to Islam, and steeped in hatred of the West yet likeable and untouchable due to his race. Do this and the nation will curse you to your face.

And God said to the adversary, Behold, all this is in your poweronly put not forth your hand and destroy the Jewish state.

And so we behold a man who looks as harmless as a lamb yet speaks as a dragon, inciting ethnic strife and class warfare, and is doing everything in his power to cause the nations and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He cannot be touched, no matter what he says, because he appears as harmless as a lamb. And he is the embodiment of political correctness.

Let us begin counting with Nebuchadnezzar to whom Daniel said (Dan 2:38), Thou art this head of gold. Consider that the first head. Persia is second, Greece third, and Rome fourth. But before Rome fell in 476 ad, Constantine had moved his capital to Constantinoplemake that the fifth head. Then as the Muslim Turks advanced on that city there arose the doctrine of the Third RomeMoscow which had been Christianized from Constantinople would be the thirdthe new Jerusalembut in our counting Moscow is the sixth head. And it was that sixth head that received an unprecedented deadly wound. When was that?

That was one of the greatest events in history. There had been a continuity of despotic power in the beast all the way back to Byzantium and thence back to Babylon. Now America alone stood as the worlds sole superpower. For the first time in world history one nation exercised power globally. Britain shared power with the Russian Empire, the Hapsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire, etc. America now stood alone! The sixth head had received its deadly wound.

But now the President of the United States is doing everything he can to resurrect that beast. He was caught telling Dmitri Medvedev that he would have more flexibility to negotiate after the November election. He has been carefully crafting a new Islamic empire, refusing to support Americas friends, refusing the plea of Iranian dissidents for supporteven verbal support. A new radicalized Caliphate is rising, and this President is making it happen.

13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, 14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

Perhaps whatever is referred to here has not happened yet. Perhaps some of it is symbolic. Is this lamb who speaks like a dragon a kind of counterfeit Elijah? And what might an image to the beast refer to? If the Beast claims to be god, then even as God made Adam/Messiah in his image, does the beast then fashion a messiah in his image? How? None of this is clear to me. Perhaps all of this will blow away. Perhaps our remnant will die natural deaths in the wilderness of another forty years.

But we are becoming vastly more wicked than we realize. Some years back when Ruth Graham, wife of evangelist Billy Graham, appalled at the moral descent our nation had taken, said, If God doesnt punish America, Hell have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Blinder, Rabbi Yaakov, in collaberation with Rabbi Yoseph Kamenetsky. 2004. The Torah: With Rambans Commentary Translated, Annotated, and Elucidated. New York: Mesorah Publications, Ltd.

Bloom, Allan. 1987. Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Todays Students. New York: Simon & Schuster.

DSouza, Dinesh. 2010. The Roots of Obamas Rage. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.

DSouza, Dinesh. 2012. Obamas America: Unmaking the American Dream. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.

Horowitz, David. 2006. Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.

Prager, Dennis. 2012. Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. New York: Broadside Books.

Steyn, Mark. 2008. America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.

Steyn, Mark. 2011. After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.

[1] The allusion is to Daniel 7:7.

[2] Blinder et al (2004:1:90, note 39): Though fiercer, these rulers would recognize more of the truth of God than did their predecessors, just as the beasts of the land are closer to man in their natures than the fish and fowl are.

וְנִרְאֶה	And it would appear
מִשִּׁנּוּי הַיָּמִים	from the changing of the days [the 5^th to the 6^th],
מִשֶּׁרֶץ הַמַּיִם וְהָעוֹף	from the moving creature of the waters and the birds
לְחַיַּת הָאָרֶץ	to the beast of the land,
כִּי בִּתְחִלַּת הָאֶלֶף הַשִּׁשִּׁי	that at the beginning of the sixth millennium
תִּתְחַדֵּשׁ מַלְכוּת	there will arise a new kingdom
אֻמָּה שַׁלֶּטֶת	of a people of dominance,
וְאֵימְתָנִי וְתַקִּיפָא יַתִּירָא	dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly,^{^[1]}
וּמִתְקָרֶבֶת אֶל הָאֱמֶת יוֹתֵר	and it will draw itself nearer to the truth^{^[2]}
מִן הָרִאשׁוֹנוֹת	than the first ones [kingdoms of the 5^th millennium].