I want to welcome you to the third session of the day and uh on our review here and in this session we're going to talk about what I call pre- Rapture events that's probably a misnomer because different people good Scholars have different views but these are events that I personally suspect will U uh occur could could occur before the Rapture because they're not determinant in terms of violating eminency and yet I suspect they occur prior to the 70th week of Daniel and so uh it may be the best nomenclature we use there and then we will of course explore the main thrust of the session will be the 70th week we've talked about all the rest of it but we'll get into that how it's defined and this peculiar event called the abomination of desolation what that's all about and then of course the Antichrist and realize the Antichrist is not one guy it's a couple a duet between the first Beast of Revelation 13 and the second beast of Revelation 13 and we'll talk about the mark of the beast there's so much misinformation floating around that and there may be a surprise hidden behind it all so we'll take a look at that in this session so the MOG Invasion and U most of you that have studied Ezekiel 38-39 are familiar with this and uh you wonder why the strange names MOG and all of that and that's of course our fault because we keep changing the names of things you see there was a place called petrograd for many years and they changed the name to St Petersburg and then it became lenrad and now it is St Petersburg again my friends in Russia remind me that in Russia even the past is uncertain see they redefine things Byzantium was the capital of the world for a while and then we called it Constantinople Muslims took it over and now it's it'san Bol but it's we keep changing the names of things and uh Cape Canaveral remember Cape Canaveral that came close to being called U you know it's called Cape Kennedy and came awfully close to being Cape Hillary if we weren't careful but anyway um so the Magog Invasion it's well known among B many Christians are surprised there other chapters in Ezekiel too everybody studied 38 and 39 but be that as it may it it's well known among Bible scholars for two reasons the first is it's the occasion which God himself intervenes to quell an ill-fated attempt to invade Israel by a group of people called Magog and their allies and U the Allies are listed there in the P Persia Kush put Libya gor tarma mesic and tubal and so forth and the second reason it's so well known by so many is it appears to allude to the use of nuclear weapons and we'll take a quick look at some of that but to cut to cut through a lot of the identities what happens there's a group called Magog one of the sons of japheth and his descendants and they um uh group of peoples by their ancient names are and you have a map in there that attempts to highlight some of those but they align themselves in in an attempt to invade Israel and that attempt is thwarted by hailstones of fire and all kinds of exciting things Sheba and danan are on the sidelines saying what are you guys doing they're not participants nor Defenders they're on the sidelines strange situation here and so Ezekiel 38 implies that the Israel is at peace and Without Walls well if you're really strict in your scripture you got a problem with that because they're not really at peace and they certainly have walls um we know they're major walls in history they're of course the Chinese wall which was writt was built to keep MOG out of China by the way if you get into the background um the Berlin Wall we're all familiar with in our recent history well in Israel today there's a 430 mile wall 25 ft High you can't escape that as a part of the news so how can you call it in a Land of unwalled villages it doesn't quite it gives a someone that's strict a little discomfort if you will there's certainly are Preparatory steps going on the Arab Israeli conflict of course is overlaying all this sort of thing clearly Iran is emerging as a nuclear power here shortly and that's becoming a a a dayby day source of intelligence information there were oil discoveries in the Caspian Sea between Russia and Iran but perhaps even more than that there are huge trillions of dollars of discoveries uh just off the shore of Israel today so it's it's starting to look as an attractive Target but all these are Preparatory steps perhaps in advance of what may be ultimately The Big Show but there's a question that we need to put right in front of us as we get enthusiastic about Ezekiel 38-39 there are good Scholars and I'll use how Linds as as an Exemplar here that argue that the Ezekiel 3839 is part of the armagedon scenario as is summarized in Daniel 11 that's their View and that's fine there's a group of us that suspect that Ezekiel 38 may be precedent to the 70th week of Daniel which is one reason I'm throwing it in here right now the problem is the missing Nations the Magog Invasion deals with peoples that are distant from Israel a large Outer Circle of Nations and so okay what about the immediate neighbors and uh so where are the Palestinians where are the Lebanese where are the syrians where is Iraq and where is the where are the jordanians to the east of Israel where are the Egyptians they're noticeably absent in the Magog Invasion and so and where are the Saudi Arabians in Ezekiel 38 they're on the sidelines why why why why aren't they in the picture somehow well as we look at this we have the Nations that are surrounding Israel immediately the subject of another passage and U and we have the uh the displaced Arab refugees I can call them that which we call the Palestinians and so there's another subtlety I'll put in our thoughts in Ezekiel 37 you may prior to Ezekiel 38-39 there's the famous Dry Bones vision where the where where the Israel uh is regathered as a people and it says so I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath came into them and they lived and they stood up on their feet in an exceedingly great Army that in that passage the word exceedingly is an adverb not an adjective it's an exceedingly great M which implies it becomes ultimately it isn't yet they have a great defensive Army but they're not a conquest kind of Army and yet this implies something else that may be part of the coloration here there are three steps in Ezekiel 37 they were scattered then they came together with flesh and skin and the idiom of the vision there and uh then they came to life and so forth so the exceedingly great Army is an interesting phrase there the the and of course the proud um the elite of the services in Israel are the tank Corps by the way but anyway let's get take a look at a Psalm that is widely overlooked among students of Prophecy it's coming more in the four in in the recent last couple of years and that's Psalm 83 so I want to pause and take a look at this a little more closely and I suspect that this is a scenario that's more immediate on our Horizon and may be an essential Prelude to Ezekiel 38-39 so let's take a look at it and so it's it's one of the it's the last of the Asaf Psalms the psalmist says keep not thou silence oh God hold not thy peace and be not still oh God so it's a call to God for Action if you will and the psalmist says for low thine enemies make a tumult they that hate thee have lifted up the head wow and so this is a last of the ASAP Psalms and it's a puzzling one it has a number of phrases in it that raise some issues whoever these enemies are the psalmist is calling God's attention to is they've lifted up their head what does that mean well now let's go on here they have taken crafty counsel against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones now the lingering mystery behind this Psalm that haunts me still is who are these hidden ones psalmist is calling God's attention the fact that the people of Israel are in Jeopardy and we'll get to that but he also eludes this and consulted against thy hidden ones who are are at this point God's hidden ones wouldn't be the angels for a lot of reasons who would it be one of my conjectures the word hidden ones by mean it means the Hebrew word means the hidden treasured ones they're they're they're a prize if you will sort of and uh who are the hidden ones my candidate possibility maybe there this is after the Rapture and these are the raptured Saints that are absent from the earth at that time time if that's true it has huge implications for us but let's just table that for the moment and go on and see what the psalmist says here they have said come let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance in other words the enemies of God have aligned themselves said come let us cut them off that is Israel from being a nation that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance that's the plea of the enemies of God that's going on that the psalmist is calling God's attention to this for they have consulted together with one consent they are Confederate against thee God get the picture here the enemies of Israel have aligned themselves with one objective to wipe Israel off the map not to take spoil see Ezekiel 3839 they take they go to take the assembly against uh Israel in Ezekiel 38 is take spoil cattle and goods gold and silver they're going for spoil not here they're going to wipe them out you see the difference fundamental the very commitment of Islam is to wipe Israel off the face of the map that's exactly what the psalmist is calling God's attention to are you going to let that happen is in effect what he's saying to God and he goes on here see the primary basis of the Confederation of these enemies of Israel is to wipe them off the M okay and we know about some people who articulate this rather vehemently in recent years of course Arad dad and uh and here are the people that are involved he lists them in the psalm the Tabernacles of Edom and the Israelites of Moab and the Hagin G gabal and Ammon and amalec and the Philistines with the inhabitants of Ty and Usher also is joined with them and they have hen the children of lot well the Tabernacles of Edom who are they now there's a whole another study that I really commend you to get into and that's who are the today and you'll be in for some huge surprises and I don't want to use up our time chasing that one I'm just going to Aver for our purposes today that Edom is of course among the traditional enemies of Israel and they are singled out by by the the Old Testament for special judgment and so forth we'll talk more about them as we go probably the tents of Edom I'm going to suggest are the Palestinian refugees in the southern and jordanians and let's just leave that without proof at the moment because it gets into some side studies that we'll use up our time on and but the tense of Edom I'll show you pictures of the tents of Edom today and these are traditional ones and perhaps the most astonishing one is one of 96,000 people in southern Lebanon the Palestinian refugee camps and they're not limited to but the are among them and the are a special mention by Jesus in two of the letters of the seven churches in Revelation 2:9 and Revelation 3:9 those that say they are Jews and are not but are of the synagogue of Satan are objects of Christ's comments and we'll talk about that a separate issue but let's go on here of all these guys the ishmaelites of course are pretty straightforward many people don't realize that the sons of Edom were also ishmaelites because U Genesis tells he'll be a wide man his hand shall be against every man every man's hand against him the isites are impossible having peace even among themselves if we look at the sons of Abraham under Sarah of course it's Isaac under Hagar it was Ishmael and under some others it was coutura now what's interesting of course is Isaac has two sons Esau and Jacob and they started fighting each other when they were still in the womb and Esau of course gets outsmarted by Jacob loses his Birthright and so he's really teed off for that whole chicanery and he deliberately marries into uh a um a wife of the of naboth and which is an ishmaelite in Genesis 20 he deliberately marries an ishmaelite to upset his parents and that means then his descendants are ishmaelites they are what the Press typically calls Arabs many of them have nothing to do with Arabia particularly but that's just the label the Press uses out of their illiteracy but the sons of Esau and the sons of Israel are indistinguishable because they didn't keep separate records for what it's worth and uh so there are no tribal distinctions were maintained we have then also the um moabites anyway so Moab of course is a descendant of lot and the Palestinian refugees in central Jordan would be included by that label and so we have the hagarenes sons of Hagar were Egyptians that's a way of referring to Egypt the sons of Hagar if you will and so uh they were Egyptians and so and then we have gabal which is a the northern Lebanese and then we have Ammon which is the Palestinian refugees and the northern jordanians the capital of German is Aman after Ammon if you will and so then we have U amalec if you will Arabs south of Israel if you will AAG was the king of the amalekites and you remember hmon of Esther was an amalekite and so we're familiar with those groups and then we have the Philistines and the obviously the Hamas and the Gaz the Gaza Strip is in that region and then we have the inhabits of Ty which are the Hezbollah and the southern Lebanese and we also have Asher which is joined with them and that's of course Assyria and then we have Syria and Northern Iraq and then we have have the word hen in the King James is a really means being an arm to that's a word out of not our normal English today so I I threw that in here for to edify if you will the King James and so um and then we have the children of lot which of course is Moab and Ammon so these are the circular these are the immediate neighbors of Israel here and so then the the psalmist says do unto them and then he draws a bunch of examples from the Book of Judges for four and five and what have you do unto them as unto the midianites as to Syria and as to jab and the brook of kizon and which perished at Endor and they became as dung for the Earth and so U um so why wouldn't God judge them in the future as he did in the past sort of the implied question by the psalmist here and so so God hasn't changed and so the psalmist is saying do unto these guys what you did back in the Book of Judges that's an effect to what he's saying here and so so this is impressive for a lot of reasons the midianites of course they're the tribes from the fourth son of Abram by Cura and so on and this is all he's alluding to history here so we don't have to hammer it that hard but in the Book of Judges we can read how God judged those Nations back there in judges four and five we have those histories and that's what's making illusion here I won't take the time to go through all that here and so of course Endor is a well-known spot for a variety of reasons but we'll just move on here for this purpose and make their nobles like Ora and Ze y all their princesses Zeba and Zuna and I don't have to track down each one of these for this purpose the Orab and Ze were the prince generals of Midian Zeba and Zuna were the Kings so it's their kings and their military leaders that's summary that God dealt with here who said let make ourselves houses of God in possession and of course God really he they're defeated by Gideon and the men of Ephraim intercepted the midianites and there was a big Slaughter back in Judges 7 and 8 and so these are Illusions the psalmist used to history do to our enemies today what it did back then is what he's saying in effect oh God make them like a wheel like stubble before the wind as the fire burneth the wood and the flame Seth the mountains on fire so persecute them in thy Tempest and make them afraid with thy storm this is the plea of the psalmist to God fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name oh God I think that's kind of interesting there's a name for God that they're unifying under and I suggest that might be Allah but he goes on here he says let them be confounded and troubled forever yeay let them be put to shame and perish that men may know that thou whose name alone is Jehovah as the most high over all the Earth wow I think that's rather interesting that men may know that thou whose name alone is yehovah or however you want to pronounce it art the most high over all the Earth and most of the rabbis won't pronounce the name they'll just pronounce the letters y y or in the in yehovah if you use the German J and so anyway in contrast to Allah the moon God that these people apparently are confederated under does this sound like today's news clip it's astonishing as you look at the more you look at this the more it sounds like it could happen next week the world is getting ready for it the the the there's a huge huge tension Brewing it's about to boil over the Middle East and it could be viewed as fitting Psalm 83 which if that's correct Psalm 83 implies a huge victory for Israel where those enemies are wiped out and one of my private suspicions is if if Obama that wipes out Iraq's nuclear weapon or nuclear capability Netanyahu could simultaneously take his tankor and wipe out the hezb to the North and the homas to the South and just reestablish the orders the the borders of Israel and let the world scream and shout and Rumble and ignore them up yours world and get on with it that's a possibility and if it happens and that leads to an enormous prosperity for Israel it could set the stage for e 38 where the outer ring Nations come in to take spoil and God intervenes and doesn't let them see apparently according to Psalm 83 it would seem this is the only way the world is going to know that God is God is for him to move in judgment that's the flavor of this Psalm now getting back to verse three who are these treasured ones that it makes illusion to I don't know I've gone through every conceivable conjecture none of them fit the one possibility and it's just a conjecture maybe this Psalm is a post Rapture event and the holy treasured ones are The Departed Saints in God's bosom well that puts us in a very weird position because if Psalm 83 is after the Rapture and Psalm 83 is about to happen this week next month who knows wow we may not have long between us and the Rapture if that conjecture is correct boy that makes the agenda of this weekend zero right in on session six because we want to build a chart not what happens on the earth during this the 70 weeks and all that if there's a Rapture beforehand and God brings them with him at the second coming what's going going on in heaven there are a couple of things we're going to focus on in session six and they're going to be the most important agenda that you and I are going to carry away from this weekend interestingly enough we have an opportunity to cram for the final okay so let's judgment when you get to Ezekiel there's Seven Nations listed that Jesus is going to wipe out when he comes back did you know that he's coming back as a warrior remember in Isaiah 61 verse1 and2 he he reads his mandate the at the synagogue of Nazareth but he stops at a comma closes the book and says this day is this fulfilled the part he doesn't read is deferred and the day of Vengeance of our God and we'll be looking at that here shortly but we have Ammon Moab Edom Felisa TI side these seven are clobbered by the Lord when he comes back and each of the judgments are detailed in Ezekiel there they are all Muslims very interesting they're all Muslims so there is a war going on now the enemies at the present time they're surrounded Israel is surrounded by their immediate neighbors that are committed to wiping them off the map and it's misleading to represent them as Arabs no they're Muslims the Persians resent being called Arabs but they're Muslims it would appear that a prerequisite victory for Israel will set the stage for subsequent the ill fated event of Ezekiel 3839 seeking spoils gold and silver cattle and goods and so forth the order against Israel's regathered land ancient cities are rebuilt and inhabited they meet the uh Muslim resistance they establish an army for defense adjacent Muslim nations Confederate as we saw here and the Confederacy is committed to the destruction of Israel as we've seen here war starts between the Confederacy and Israel title is regained my People Israel is reestablished after Hosea chapter 1 and all that Israel's decisively defeats the Confederacy and that scripture is full of those references Israel has become an exceedingly great Army after Ezekiel 37 Israel takes prisoners of War fascinating love in Jeremiah and Zephaniah and the region is reshaped that's where Isaiah 171 may be part of the picture who knows Israel expand its borders as that's alluded to by Obadiah Jeremiah and Isaiah and then of course Israel dwells securely in the land which is a pre condition for Ezekiel 38 and a segment of God's plan is to be fulfilled and then maybe the ill fad bog Invasion attempt will be ready and so that's that's a that's a that's a projection but in any case that having all been said now let's focus on what our real topic is and that's the 70th week we've had the precedent conditions prior to the 70th week in front of us and U so we're going to have it's defined by a covenant being enforced by a coming world leader and the last half it splits the week this event splits the week and the two halves and the Lord himself labels the second half the Great Tribulation and uh so each half is the most documented period of time in the entire Bible it's called the middle of the week half of three half of seven is three and A2 years it's labeled as 42 months each half it's labeled 1,00 60 days each half the holy spirit's done everything but put it in nanoseconds for you in other words it is cross checked so many different ways that you can't allegorize it it's half of a seven-year period it's 42 months long in the front 42 months in the second half and 30 you know uh 1,60 days in each part and so forth in some of the labels to this are a little cryptic one it said time times and half a Time splitting of time the dividing of time the word times is um a duel not a plural that's strange see in our in our in English you have a single singular and a plural plural is more than one that's unique to English Hebrew and Aramaic had a single a duel and a plural and that to me that's very interesting you want to understand this in Genesis barit barah Elohim in the beginning God God created heaven and the Earth the word for God there is Elohim now you may not realize it you know enough Hebrew already to know that that's a m that's a masculine plural noun Elohim is plural cherubim is plural for cherub sarim is plural for sarap see the I am ending is a plural for a masculine noun so you know Elohim is plural but it's always used as if it was a singular when Elohim appears in Hebrew grammar it's wrong it's a plural used as a singular noun well we smile at that because Elohim is God right there's a little fact about Hebrew grammar when I realized it blew me away in Hebrew a plural is three not two Elohim is three a trinity by grammar in the first verse and in the sh means unified is one in the sense of becoming a plurality becoming Unity so anyway but anyway times is a in the Hebrew and in Aramaic a duel the only place we have a duel in English if I told you that all my friends came over last night both of them you laugh because I'm saying there's only two of them see that both is a duel it's the only place in English I'm aware of it we have singular or plurals if you will well in in both Hebrew and Aramaic you have times a duel so if you have time times and the dividing time it say way of is saying three and A2 that's not obvious when it's translated into the English but it's obvious in the Hebrew or the Aramaic and it's so is that way in Daniel 7 and Daniel 12 and Revelation 12 and so so it's three and A2 years in Daniel 9 and 12 and it's 42 months in Revelation 11 and 13 it's 1260 days in Revelation 11:3 and in Daniel 126 in other words in both the Old and New Testament these terms are used consistently okay it's half a week in Daniel 9:27 and so on okay the Great Tribulation is defined there in Matthew 24: 20 for then shall be great tribulations such was not since the beginning of the world to this time no nor ever shall be and except those days should be shortened there should no flesh be saved but for the elect sake those days shall be shortened so this is that period that Jeremiah calls the time of Jacob's trouble it's going to climax in the day of the Lord and U so again U and Revelation 6 through from chapter 6-9 is it detailing of this period of time that's called the 70th week of Daniel 9 Jeremiah in Daniel 12 it reads and at that time shall Michael stand up the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time and at that time thy people shall be delivered everyone that it shall be found in the written of the book not all of them but the ones that are in the Book of Life obviously but it's that phrase where Jesus seems to quote it uh and uhu but then also I think it's very relevant to Hosea 5:15 I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense and seek my face in their Affliction they will seek me earnestly so this leads us to the topic itself of the Great Tribulation and the question that lurks behind our thoughts is does the church go through it that's a big debate among many and there are alternative views we've reviewed them in the past the post the mid and the prer Wrath are all deny Eminence we lean to a pre-trip position but you should be on your own alert and come to your own conclusions on that and but notice that the pre-trib position implies a interval between that Rapture and the beginning of the 70th week and with that a lot of other Mysteries get um the fog lifts and we talked about the doct Remy the next expectation we've covered this already this is a review if you will and so Believers are taught to expect the Savior from Heaven at any moment we've been through this this is by way of review and uh it also is constructive from a personal walk point of view and so Paul seemed to include himself of course among those that looked for his return and Timothy was admonished the same way and Jewish converts in in the Epistle of Hebrews uh same thing so this is really a review of what we've talked about before so there are two extremes that we've talked about rapitis and Rapture that that is the paralysis from over over dwelling on it and Rapture Mania where he tried set set dates and the 70th week is defined by the Covenant enforced by coming world leader not the Rapture the Great Tribulation is the only last half it's three and a half years not seven years and the leader cannot be revealed until after the Rapture so that tends to put everything else in focus and we took this out of Daniel chapter Excuse Me 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 the apostasy will they will come except there be a falling away an apostasy first then shall the restrainer be removed in the sense that he's the he is the cealer if you will of the of the church and so he that'll be removed he'll be taken out of the way he comes back to there'll be more people most scholars believe there'll be more people saved after the Rapture than before the holy spirit's very active but not in the sense of sealing and and dwelling and so forth that's unique to the church but in any case after he's removed then shall the wicked one be revealed the key idea here is the man of sin is revealed after the U after the Rapture it's a prerequisite condition that's why Satan has to Satan has got a plan he's got a it can't discharge it till after the Rapture so but he doesn't know where the Rapture is so he has to be ready all along and so so we've had this diagram before as I've indicated from your hermeneutics I can predict your eschatology okay well let's get at the prince that shall come that's one of 33 titles of this coming world leader he's the seed of the serpent in Genesis 3:15 there are two seeds mentioned the seed of the woman is a title of the Messiah where the woman is Israel and there's also a seed of the serpent both are mentioned there and that's one of his 33 titles in the Old Testament and Daniel 9:27 it says and he that is the prince that shall come shall enforce the Covenant with the many for one week and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice the oblation to cease and for the overspreading of Abominations he shall make it desolate even until the consummation and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate now the Covenant is enforced with the many that's an idiom for Israel he the he is the precedent the pronoun first the last mentioned noun which was the prince that shall come he shall enforce the Covenant doesn't sign a treaty he enforces a covenant he might sign a treaty or he might simply enforce the Covenant of of Israel to to to to the land could be that simple and in the midst of the week so he apparently makes the Covenant for a week he apparently grants them permission for whatever and that's why most Scholars assume that that includes among other things the rebuilding of their Temple he lets them do that but in the middle of the week he breaks his word in the middle of in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation decease that's why we think it's not limited to But it includes the temple somehow in the in the Covenant in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the they've actually restarted the animal sacrifices in a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem we don't know when it's going to be built we know it'll be in place by the middle of the week because Jesus Paul and John all make reference to it Jesus makes reference to it in Matthew 24:15 and Paul makes reference to it in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and John makes reference to it among other places in Revelation 11 first two verses he shall cause the sacrifice inel ceas and for the overspreading of Abominations he shall make it desolate the abomination of desolation that requires some definitions here the word abomination in the Bible by used by God refers to idol worship anything other than the worshiping anything other than God himself is an Abomination the Abomination that make us desolate is to not only worship an idol but to put that Idol in the most insulting Place possible which is in Jerusalem in the temple in fact in the holy of holies and the reason we so we know so much about it is it happened in P in the past it happened in 167 BC by a guy of the name of Antiochus epiphanies he'll come up in some charts here anyway so you don't have to worry about it's in your charts but the point is that that is the Jesus makes reference to a historical event that is yet future in other words it happened once before for what's going to happen again will be just like that you get the picture so that's that's why we're so comfortable in our definition of the abomination of desolation because it happened once before and we know a lot about that in detail and it's very parallel and TI epiphot he made made a deal with Jerusalem and in the middle of his cont he violated it and set himself up to be worshiped and he put a Greek Idol in the holy of holies and that precipitated the meban Revolt which they succeed Ed in throwing off the Yoke of the Greek Empire it leads to a period of time called the Haans a period of time where they were afraid to do that on so on so it's part of History a lot about it so the abomination of desolation if we are nominally at about the time of Christ so sometimes say about 32 ad roughly in the middle of in in the part of the Roman Empire prior to that was the Greek Empire and prior to that was the Persian Empire it was in the Greek Empire at 167 BC that that the Antiochus epiphanies did exactly that put an a an idol to Zeus in the holy of holies among other things he made the having the Torah against the law he slaughtered as a pig on the sacred altar everything could he deliberately did everything he could is to inflame the Jewish community and they rebelled and judeus macabus and his had five sons and they one's one was called The Hammer uh and M and and so that became the label for the revolt and they succeeded in throwing off the the Greek Empire and it took them three years to do that and cleanse the temple from all the desecration and they celebrate that to this day it's called Hanukkah set aside the colorful legends about the holiday the primary thing is they're celebrating the rededication of the temple after s after cleansing it from the RAB ravages of ant's epiphanies and so so he's an interesting character he's the eighth King of the Syrian Dynasty the infamous brother of Cleopatra the word epiphanes means illustrious the children on the street called him epines which means the madman and U so beas the had the five sons and one of them was Judas MCAS an amazing military genius and he established the rule of the hasian priest rulers for the next Century that was until the Romans conquered it and became part of the Roman Empire but they had quite a distinguished ER there antus epiphanies made the Torah reading punishable by death slaughtered AA on the altar erected Idol to Zeus and the holy of holies which is called the abomination of desolation in the past and is also yet it's going to happen again in the future and that led to the mban Revolt in three years they threw off the sald Empire and rededicated the temple which is celebrated as Hanukkah did you know that Hanukkah is alluded to in the New Testament most people don't realize it in John 10:22 there's an illusion to Hanukkah why is it in there because the Holy Spirit wants you to under even though it's not one of the feasts of Moses it is a feast that has huge implication for the Christian to understand what Hanukkah is really all about the rededication of the temple and um that's a little St side study of its own but you can dig it out pretty quickly easily on your own and U it's kind of interesting to discover that there are several times in history where a leader tried to do the same thing and was interrupted um it was um Claudius I think anyway one of the um Roman emperors ordered his General Patronus to put an image of him in the holy of holies and patrus wouldn't do it because he knew that would lead again to a maban kind of Revolt so he didn't do it and U the emperor dies and by a mixup of messages the message of his death got to Judea before the command to put the idol in the holy of holies so it became null and void because the emperor had died so he didn't do it cig cig was the guy that uh was at fault here but it fascinates me that attempts to do that were intervened by God why because there's an event that's going to be a milestone for all of us yet future when that happens the emerging world leader there are 33 different titles for him in the old Testament among the more well-known ones the seed of the serpent in Genesis 3 he's the idol Shepherd of Zechariah 11 that's the only physical description of the Antichrist in the Bible and it is there um he's the little Horn of Daniel 7 and Daniel 8 he's represent a horn is a is a ancient symbol of authority um he's the prince that shall come as I've mentioned before he's called the willful King in Daniel 11 and these are all in your notes of course and in the New Testament there's 13 titles there uh he's the Beast of of Revelation 11 and 13 he's called the false prophet in Revelation 13 the second of the two guys the word Antichrist is a strange label by the way we call that's the one that sticks that's the one we say Antichrist we all think we know what we're talking about it's a little weird because that word is only used by John and it's not used of him John uses the term in his letters to represent a spirit a spirit of antichrist it's not he's not really talking about and individual per se the word Antichrist doesn't mean against Christ technically it means in in the place of Christ a pseudo Christ is more precise anti Christos in the Greek isn't what it sounds like to us obviously is against Christ but the word really means he's in the place of Christ that's why there's all this talk about the pope and all that sort of stuff but in any case what's interesting is John who's the only guy that uses that term in a different context in the entire Book of Revelation doesn't use used the term Antichrist he uses several other terms by the way but nevertheless that's the label that has stuck if you will in modern usage so I won't fight that just be aware of the fact it's a strange inversion here he's called the Lawless one in 2 Thessalonians 2 he's called the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians 2 Jesus calls him the one who comes in his own name I come in my father's name you receive me not another comes in his own name in him you will receive that's why many of the experts believe he'll be Jewish we don't know that we know he's accepted by Israel for some weird reason but whatever okay so that's and he's called the son of predition in 2 Thessalonians 2 and is he a Jew or Gentile there are all good Scholars to take both sides some say he'll be the leader will be the son of Satan that's clearly from the scripture some believe the leader will be a Jew and there's a whole bunch of arguments for that and U uh also there's some believe he'll be a gentile and there's a whole bunch of arguments for that so you can take your pick but let's when we get into those arguments remember there's two guys we're not talking about a single guy there's a single political leader but he has a religious priest promoting his worship called the false prophet as the second title of him if you will and so coming world leader the term that I would use if I was writing in this area is I'd call him Mr Big Mouth because it's interesting in Daniel 7 and Daniel 11 in Psalm 52 in second 2 he is always shooting off his mouth he's making arrogant claims that's one of his characteristics so if you want a title for him I'd call him Mr Big Mouth six times in the scripture he's called that he will be a son of Satan in some sense and um he'll be an intellectual genius obviously a brilliant guy the guy that's coming is going to be fantastic he is going to be the most attractive guy the world has ever seen we'll know better by the Holy Spirit but the world won't see that they're going to see a guy with the answers with a plan to help the world out of its mess he'll be an oratorical genius I don't think he needs teleprompters okay he will be a political genius he'll be a commercial genius he will be a military genius he does he comes to Power by peacemaking not by military but he becomes so powerful that he will be militarily very very able he'd be a governmental genius he'll be a religious genius he se's all of these things the scripture supports every one of these and there's a bunch of other passages in your notes you can take a look at if you're trying to get up to speed on on who this guy is and so Isaiah 10 gives us some identities here thus therefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts oh my people that dwelleth in Zion be not afraid of the Assyrian that's interesting he shall Smite the with a rod and he shall lift up a staff against thee after the manner of Egypt and yet a very little while and the indignation shall cease and mine anger in their destruction is Isaiah talking Isaiah 10 look at Isaiah 15 that I will break the Assyrian in my land upon my mountains tread him underfoot then shall his yoke depart from off of them and his burden depart from off their shoulders this is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations this world leader was originally Nimrod who was an Assyrian the first world leader was a nimr was Nimrod the Assyrian the last world leader on the planet Earth will be an Assyrian it's interesting the Symmetry I think is very provocative and then will I break the Assyrian uh in my land and so forth the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard and he shall show the lightning down from his of his arm with the indignation of his anger and with the flame of the devouring fire and with scattering The Tempest and the hailstones for through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down which smoke with see I want you to see not get into the details but you see the term Assyrians all through Micah and all through Isaiah as an identity here and uh Micah 5 and this man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land and he shall tread in our palaces and we rise against him with Seven Shepherds and eight principal men and they shall waste the land of Assyria with The Sword and the land of nimrod in the entrances thereof thus shall he Deliver Us from the Assyrian when he cometh into our land when he treadeth within our borders and again we have the Assyrian the Nimrod even again and Assyrian so there's more homework to be done is he Muslim very likely but that's not his defining characteristic he's and the people of the prince prince that shall the reason there's a whole Mis misunderstanding in Daniel 9:26 it says the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city in the sanctuary they were the Roman legance but Roman Legions were not necessarily European the legions of Rome were conscripts the 10th Legion which is the one that brought the temple down were cohorts and auxiliaries from a number of cohorts that are all Assyrians so the people of the prince that shall come were the ones that destroyed this that's that that linkage is what's cause many writers to presume that somehow it's a Europe it's a western Europe player in the the uh the end times but let's shift and talk about the mark of the beast people who know nothing about the Antichrist all know about the 666 that's a very pop there are books written that totally miss the point let's go at this Revelation 13 and he causeth both he causeth all both small and great rich and poor free and bond to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads that no man might buy or sell save he that hath the Mark or the name of the Beast or the number of his name these people take a sign of allegiance to the leader and for some reason they have it in their right hand and on their foreheads and there's a couple of possibilities about that but understand the the number isn't the person's number it's his number they're taking his identity as a sign of Allegiance here is wisdom let him that hath understanding count the number of the Beast for it is the number of a man and his number is 6003 scor and six and around that books have been written they talk about barcodes and in certain inserting things and all that sort of stuff it turns out the 6003 score and six is an inference from the Greek letters there are three Greek letters there in the original text uh and these three Greek letters letters have numerical values of 660 and 6 so those three letters can be construed geometrically as a number 666 if that is correct it's the only place in the Bible that the text leans on gria the numerical value of the letters the fact that the letters have numerical value is very interesting from a number of points of view but it's not used by the Holy Spirit to communicate directly unless this is one of them now these three uh letters have names the first and last is the is the first and last letters of the word Christos but you put this little serpent thing between the two and you get a symbol that seems appropriate from the Antichrist so that's that is played upon by some writers and that's okay no problem the Antichrist or conjectures but whose number are we talking about we're not talking about our number we're talking about his number insertable chips RFID barcodes that has to do with my number if I have a credit card or something that's not the issue it's his number that I want an identity with they're different see they missed the point and it's his number and name that are critical identity issues now in Greek Alpha numerics okay those three letters have the value 666 as I've just shown you and so it is whatever it's worth people say well that's gria no wait a minute guys wait a minute when you say gria what gria you talking about there's the normal form of gria there are ones where you take the number the values plus the number of letters another one you take small values 10 there are all kinds of games you can play with gria and um this is one of those places where I suggest to you you remember that if you torture the data long enough it'll confess to anything you can fool around with these numbers to prove anything you like so I wouldn't try to prove anything with geometria there are aspects of that that are worth studying it's kind of fascinating but don't you don't put Doctrine on it that's naive there is a passage in Zechariah 11 which is the only physical description of the Antichrist I'm aware of in the Bible woe to the idol Shepherd that's not not lazy that's the false worship kind of idol woe to the idol Shepherd that leaveth the flock a sword shall be upon on his arm and up on his right eye his arm shall be clean righted up and his right eye shall be utterly darkened this leads to a conjecture that the Antichrist who apparently suffers from a head wound is thought to be dead and comes back to life but he may apparently has an impaired arm his right arm apparently um sword shall be upon his arm don't know if it's right or left and his right eye shall be utterly darken he's blind in one eye and it's not mosha Dian that was a wrong eye he was a left eye but anyway the point is um um maybe the identity of his followers reflects that by having something on their forehead and the right arm to claim an identity that's a possibility there's even a more provocative possibility we'll come to in a minute but that's one possibility I want you aware to be aware of the 666 while in was watching a movie called The U Kingdom of Heaven it's a movie about the Crusader period but they redid the research and all the tribes that are fighting there in the movie it reminded W of something he knew as a kid growing up that in Islam if you're at War it's traditional to have a headband with a law on it and on the right arm and they did that in the movie that reminded W something he had forgotten the the Shan shot atan they it's a it's a declaration of allegiance to Allah and Muhammad that's warned by millions on their forehead or their right arm and when he saw that in the movie it reminded him of that and he remembered the passage in Revelation 13 and uh the Greek it's the right arm of the right side that's an issue here and it's a badge of servitude and and so forth so now he went back and took a closer look at Revelation 13:18 here's wisdom let him that hath understanding count the number of the Beast for the it is a number of a man and his number is 63 sc6 and here is wisdom well that's pretty straightforward we know at wisdom Broad and full of intelligence and all that sort of stuff that's good uh the word count is actually the word reckon or decide by voting really not counting like numerically it's attributing and uh it is the word number is arithmos in the Greek and that word in Greek can mean one one of two things it can mean an indefinite multitude a number of people came over some number some group see it's used as an indefinite multitude or it also is used for a precise number like 13 or 17 see so it says a it is the number of a beast now it can be now the word number here occurs three times and that word in the Greek can mean an indefinite thing or a very precise thing your choice from context okay so man is pretty straightforward at anthropos Being Human a man and his number is 6003 score and6 but it turns out that's not in the text there are three letters in the text and here's where it gets pretty interesting let's take a look at this if we look at the Papi and look at it more closely and you look at this you'll discover there are three letters there that people presume are Greek if it's it's Greek it goes from left to right and you've got those three letters um and uh so this is this is a um you know fragment late third fourth century papy and uh so you have those three letters there but it's a presumption that they're in Greek in the Book of Revelation it says John wrote down what he saw all through that he wrote down what he heard and wrote down what he saw here he wrote down what he saw what did he see he saw those three things okay he's doing this by the way six centuries before Muhammad okay let's keep this in mind if we take a closer look at those things from codex VIIs 3 350 ad it turns out upon examining these things more closely there's some subtleties here that suggest maybe it's not Greek in the first place John wrote what he saw now if it's Arabic it flows from the right to the left not from the left to the right and this is of course many centuries before Muhammad and it turns out that if you know Arabic that those first two letters say in the name of Allah and it's written as an slightly upward angle the two swords that follow it are the traditional symbol of Islam that's not an X it's two swords is in the view as a conjecture we're not sure but it's a possibility but it has some very very interesting implications if that is Arabic because if you look at Arabic that word can lay on its side it can be at Angles it's on an angle on the flag every Rock Itself by the way so that's kind of fun so um that's the word Allah so this is an alternative translation of Revelation 1318 that W suggest is a possibility he's not selling it he's just highlighting from his Scholastic background in Arabic and Islam to recognize this translation is legitimate I'm going to show you here is wisdom let him that hath understanding decide who the multitude of the Beast is for it is the multitude of a man in other words Muhammad and his multitude are in the name of Allah wow it's possible he's right we don't know but it's a it is a whole another complexion especially for there's lots of other reasons that people are increasingly becoming to the realization that Islam is emerging as the primary Warfare against the god of the Bible you got to beware of all the deceit that's prevalent in the press and in our culture Allah is not the Arabic name for God that's a lie they promote Allah is a specific God when you translate the Quran into French or German or whatever that's a word you don't translate it's the name of the god they worship and it happens to be the moon God as exemplified by a lot of reasons in the history and the rest of it no it is not a a religion of Peace the Quran is a warrior code there are hundreds of commands to kill Jews and Christians throughout the Quran it is a it is the goal of Islam is to force itself on the entire world by force if necessary in Islam it's encouraged to lie if it's in the interest of Islam the the the the they celebrate an event by Muhammad he made a treaty with a his own tribe the Kesh tribe of Peace but as soon as he was strong enough he wiped them out and that's not just a point of History it's something they celebrate in Islam as a victory and when yaser Arafat would make speeches and the English had never match them the Arabic um if you had people that knew Arabic and saw the speech the English release was nothing but B no resembling and he would tell his followers don't worry about my peaceful things that's a there's a name in in for that deceit that they that Muhammad uses and Y used to brag that he was doing the same thing Muhammad did is to lie in the interest of Islam until we're strong enough to swat them see and so the point is most of what you've heard about Islam hides the real truth so one of the uh things you you're faced with is doing some homework to really understand the Sinister nature of Islam and its power and so so obviously uh W chabbat argues that the Antichrist will may prove to be a Muslim and Joel Richardson and some other very good Scholars and good articulate writers are really picking up that uh that theme it's it's very very clear that the adversary to Christian but not just Jews but Christians they teach the kids a little what we call a nursery rhyme today Friday then Saturday then Sunday what they mean today Friday is their holy day Saturday is the Jewish holy day and Sunday the Christians all day they take them in that order but their goal is the is the subjugation of the entire world under Sharia law and so it is what it is so we're not that far from our appointed time surprise surprise so let's have a closing word of prayer and then we have a little bit of Q&A if you will father we thank you for your word and we do pray father through your Holy Spirit and through your word you will give give us guidance father that we might better understand what you would have of us in the days that remain as we commit ourselves to you the Y the the god of Abra Abraham and Yakov the the the son of whom gave himself that we might have life we thank you Father for your word we thank you for your spirit we thank you for your presence here this weekend we pray father that you would indeed receive us as committed without any reservation whatsoever into your hands in the name of Yeshua our coming King indeed amen