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How Shall We Tell The Children?
By Edward Chamberlain

Table of Contents

ANTICHRIST: THE POLITICS OF HIS KINGDOM

It is most difficult to separate the various aspects of the kingdom of Antichrist from his politics, his person, his economics, and his religion into distinct scriptural references because nearly all scripture that speaks concerning any one of those Antichristian aspects will also speak of other aspects. For this reason we will often have to repeat a particular scripture with a different emphasis as we look at a different aspect.

About 603 B.C. God gave the Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar, a vision of all Gentile history that covered the times from Nebuchadnezzar's reign until the end of the age of the gentiles. So at the very beginning of the age of the gentiles, God gave us a picture of the ensuing age and told us how these Gentile Empires would flourish and be terminated at the end of the age. This vision came in a dream, and it greatly troubled Nebuchadnezzar.

In all, there are three visions and one angelic revelation in the Book of Daniel concerning these Gentile empires which will ever have existed in the ensuing years, or will come into existence before the Lord Jesus Christ returns and sets up his everlasting kingdom. The three visions are in general agreement concerning the nature of the succeeding Empires; only one differs to some extent, in that it the Babylonian Empire is omitted because it was already history at the time of that vision, and it also seem to omit the Roman Empire. That particular vision is recorded in the 8th chapter of Daniel, and it was the second vision given to Daniel concerning the succession of Gentile Civilizations or Empires.

Daniel's first vision is recorded in Chapter 7 and is very comparable to the vision of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in chapter 2 in that all gentile civilizations were represented. But in the vision recorded in the 8th chapter, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire, and the four kingdoms into which the Grecian Empire was divided upon the death of Alexander, are the only empires mentioned before the last empire of the "abomination that maketh desolate" is mentioned separately. This vision omits the Babylonian Empire which had already been defeated by the Medes, and it also leaves the Roman Empire out of the picture. But this vision came to Daniel after the vision he'd seen in Chapter 7 which did show him both the Roman Empire and the empire of the abomination that maketh desolate, and so, there must be a reason why God gave Daniel a second vision about the same subject but displayed it in a different manner.

The Book of Daniel is written in two languages, Chaldean and Hebrew. From the beginning of the book through chapter 2 verse 3, the language is Hebrew. Then from chapter 2 verse 4, to chapter 8, the original text was written in Chaldean, a Gentile language, then from chapter 8 through to the end of the book, the language of the original text returned to Hebrew once again. It seems most obvious that the chapters written in Hebrew were given for the Hebrews, and that the chapters written in The gentile language were given for the gentiles. Since Hebrew is the language of chapter 8 through the rest of the book, this vision is given for the Hebrew perspective.

From the beginning of the Book of Daniel to chapter 2 verse 4 the divine preservation of a perpetual remnant of the Hebrew nation of Israel during the age of the gentiles is being symbolically portrayed in the preservation of Daniel and his friends within the Babylonian court. Since this message is sent to all Hebrew exiles it is written in Hebrew.

Beginning with chapter 2 verse 5 the intended recipients of the message and the symbols of the Book of Daniel are gentiles. It is extremely important to note that the knowledge of the gentiles (i.e. the science of Babylon) fails to understand the visions of God, and that God has to send them understanding through revelation to his messengers. It will be so throughout the gentile age and those who would attempt understanding must seek it out from beyond the science of the gentiles and the language of the gentiles. Also note about the Jew, for he is much advantaged in every way for unto him was given the Oracles of God (Romans 3:1-2), and that also includes almost all of the New Testament with the probable exceptions of Luke and Acts, if St. Luke is assumed to have been pure Greek.)

Therefore, the revelations of chapters 2 and 7 are given to gentiles to be understood from their perspective. Then beginning with chapter 8, the language becomes Hebrew again, symbolizing the ultimate restoration of Israel as the covenanted people of God. The vision of chapter 8 is once more for the Hebrew exile, as is the angelic revelation of chapter 11 concerning the coming of the abomination of desolation into Israel.

Romans 11:25-29
"For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."

The above passage from Romans says explicitly that Israel, who is now spiritually blind, will, none the less, be divinely protected through out the gentile age, and when that age ends, God will once again restore the kingdom of Israel and keep all his promises he made to her.

Therefore the revelation of Daniel chapter 8 is portrayed differently from the revelation in chapter 2 because it is for the Hebrew perspective, and from the Hebrew perspective it does not matter that there would be a Roman Empire following the Grecian since the continuity being revealed is one of western civilization as it developed from Grecian thought, philosophy, art, politics, and culture, and the Hebrew is being warned of the abomination that will come out of that culture.

Nebuchadnezzar's vision is recorded in the 2nd Chapter of Daniel, and it both mystified and frightened the king to the point where he told his astrologers and diviners that if they could not tell him what the dream meant, he would kill them.

Since the king wanted to be certain of the meaning of the dream, he refused to tell the "magicians" about the dream, and the implication is that if they truly had supernatural powers, they could tell him about both the dream and the meaning. They could do neither, and through a series of events recorded in the 2nd chapter of Daniel, Daniel found out about what was happening, and he told the King that he likewise would not be able to do anything in his own power, but Daniel also told Nebuchadnezzar that there is a God in Heaven who can do all things. God told Daniel about the dream, and Daniel told king Nebuchadnezzar what it meant.

Nebuchadnezzar's vision is described in the passage below. Read it carefully at this time, for the entire history of the age of the gentiles is included within this vision and its interpretation. Even the democracies of western civilization are included.

Daniel 2:31-46
"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."

It is important to notice what has been given by the God of heaven to the King of Babylon. "Wheresoever mankind shall dwell" has been given to the "King of Babylon" during the gentile age. The actual kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar never extended any where near that far. God knew that it would not do so, and we know that it didn't. Therefore God either lied to us, or expected us to understand he was speaking of Nebuchadnezzar as a type. Kingdoms will come and kingdoms will go but they will all belong to the one of whom the King of Babylon is a type. The vision declares that all earthly kingdoms will proceed from the king and the kingdom of which Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon was a type, and that all such kingdoms will belong to the king of Babylon. Who, then, is the real King of Babylon? We will see shortly that he is the king of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the prince of darkness. Nebuchadnezzar was only a type of the king who is being indicated here, and this little Babylonian Empire that belonged to Nebuchadnezzar, was only a type of the Babylonian Empire to which all men have been made subject.

Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar the head of gold on the image represented his own Babylonian Kingdom, and that a lesser kingdom, represented by the breast and arms of silver, would come after the Babylonian Kingdom. The Medo-Persian Empire superseded the Babylonian empire in 539 B.C., approximately 50-60 years after Nebuchadnezzar's dream and Daniel's interpretation thereof. Next, on the image of Nebuchadnezzar's vision, there was a brazen belly and thighs. Daniel said that this represented the third kingdom in succession of Gentile Empires. This empire then was what would be the Grecian Empire of Alexander the Great, because the Grecian Empire defeated and replaced the Medo-Persian Empire around 334 B.C.

Next in the image comes two legs of iron, and two feet of a mixture of iron and potter's clay, and lastly, (ten) toes from the same mixture. The two legs of iron represented the Roman Empire which supplanted the Grecian Empire approximately 400 years after God's revelation to Daniel. The Roman legions defeated the Macedonians (Greece) in Thessaly at a place called Dog's Head in 197 B.C. Previously the Romans had driven the authority of Greece from Italy in a series of battles between 295 and 275 B.C. In 146 B.C the Romans ended all Grecian challenges to their authority by capturing Corinth and burning it to the ground. Of all that had been the Grecian Empire, only the schools and culture of Athens were saved and nurtured by the Romans, but this was exactly enough to preserve and perpetuate the Grecian Culture which had already taken hold within the Roman Empire.

In fact the Roman Empire was actually a Greco-Roman empire; it was a mixture of Grecian philosophy, architecture, art, and religion, etc. and Roman religion, politics, diplomacy, engineering, statesmanship, and military science. The philosophy, religion, customs, and culture of ancient Greece gradually enveloped and became enmeshed with the Roman customs and culture to such an extent that they replaced them almost exclusively within the aristocratic classes.

We are shown in Nebuchadnezzar's vision that the gentile empires will begin to be divided during the ascension of the 3rd, or Grecian Empire, where the brazen belly splits into two thighs. Now history has shown that the Grecian Empire was politically divided into 4 sections at the death of Alexander, and so this division shown by the two thighs cannot be those political divisions. There is not a doubt in my mind that these divisions are philosophical and represent the principals of the two opposing philosophic notions that originated in Greece and that have plagued all subsequent gentile kingdoms ever since. The two philosophies are of course those of the Stoics on one thigh and the Epicureans on the other. Since the Roman Empire is shown by way of being represented as two legs, it is shown as coming to power in an "already divided" condition, and it seems to me, that it must show that same philosophic division because the Roman Empire was not politically divided until Diocletian's reign which began in 284 A.D.

Since every downward transition of the image represents a change of some sort, the transition between the legs and the feet represent the political division of Rome, and the iron and clay mixture within the feet represents a new transition in the philosophical division. Then this politically and philosophically divided Empire will be followed by an empire of multiple nations in which the same philosophic mixture will exist. This politically and philosophically divided empire, represented by the (ten) toes of the two feet will endure until it is destroyed by the stone that is cut out of mountain by supernatural means. This stone will then itself become a mountain and fill the entire earth.

Now look at Daniel's vision described in chapter 7 and notice that the four beasts he sees are all different from one another and that all four come up from out of the sea. Verse 2 says that the four winds of Heaven were working upon the sea, and then, these four beasts come up from out of the sea where the four winds have been at work. It is pointless to resist the efforts of these four winds of Heaven, but what are they?

The word "winds" translates a Chaldean word that is also used to mean "spirit." This Chaldean word corresponds to an identical Hebrew word for spirit or mind. In the book of Daniel the word is used in every case, except one, to apply to the gentile notion of multiple gods. In the case that it is the exception, Daniel applies it to himself as the spirit of man. (See Daniel 4:8, 4:9, 4:18, 5:11, 5:12, 5:14, 6:3, and 7:15) These four winds then are spiritual forces at work upon the sea. The sea represents the same thing here that it does in the 13th Chapter of the Revelation where John saw the beast rise up out of the sea. In explaining what was meant by the sea in that vision in The revelation, the angel told John that it represented people of the earth. However, I believe that the "seed of Abraham," are not included in either of these representations of the sea, but rather the Hebrews are represented during the age of the gentiles as "the sands of the sea," (See Gen. 22:17, Gen. 32:12, Isa. 10:22, Jer. 33:22, and Hosea 1:10).

The four beasts of Daniel's vision, and the Beast of The Revelation are the results of spiritual forces working upon the minds of gentile mankind. We must never forget this. It is useless to resist spiritual forces with physical means; the pen truly is mightier than the sword. The course of prophetic history has been ordained, and those who aspire to grand philosophical, commercial, and political schemes become the unwitting agents of that destiny. If we are to have any effect upon that ordination, it will only be through spiritual warfare that it will happen. We must also remember that the Bible teaches that there are two kinds of spirits and that we are to test them to see what type we are dealing with when we get a "bright idea."

As has been previously stated, all of the visions in the Book of Daniel provide a remarkably accurate outline of world history as it has been molded by the most notable or dominant empires during the times spoken of in the Bible as the "age of the Gentiles." We will look more at these visions as we go deeper into the prophecies, but for now it is important to fix the succession of these empires in our minds. The visions start with Babylon, progress to Medo-Persia, then to Greece and Alexander the Great, then to the four divisions of the Grecian Empire which came at Alexander's death, then to Rome which became the divided Roman and Byzantine Empires. It was the Byzantine empire that was conquered and overrun by the Ottoman Empire, which was a definite type of Empire of the Antichrist. Then, at the last, these two become an empire that separately develops out of the two feet but are both of the culture of the Greco-Roman Empire. This last empire is represented in the Holy Prophetic Scriptures as horns, and as feet, and as toes. Just as surely as two feet spring from two legs and ten toes proceed from two feet, and just as surely as horns develop from heads, this empire of Antichrist is going to develop from these empires of western civilization.

If you wonder where history is at in fulfilling the prophecies of Daniel, we are still at the two feet where the remnants of the Roman Empire and Ottoman Empire vie for position but we getting very close to seeing the ten toes. Many of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire will at some point form a united confederation with many of the remnants of the Roman Empire, and a confederation of republics will emerge which will dominate the rest of the world economically, politically and religiously. When that happens, the eastern nations of the orient will also unite to counter this block and its virtual oil monopoly, and things will really begin to heat up on earth. I believe that the United States is going to be left completely out of this picture and suffers an economic collapse, or worse, about the time that Antichrist invades Israel.

Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that the fourth kingdom in his dream would be as strong as iron and that it would break in pieces and subdue all things. The Roman genius for conquest is documented in history. Basically they employed a simple and direct form of expansion: March the Roman legions into the territory to be conquered and dispatch the opposing armies; march the legions into the cities of the defeated kingdoms and ensure that the citizens saw and felt the might and brutality of those legions. Then they would reinstate the defeated kings and their satraps as provincial administrators under the watchful eye of whatever Roman was in charge of the legions. From that time on they would use the threat of the legions to exact tribute from the defeated provinces and send the wealth back to Rome, or at least some of it. There is no end to the efficiency with which an Empire can expand when it is not encumbered by any concept of eternal judgment.

The taxation of the occupied nations was the life blood by which Rome financed an increasingly debauched lifestyle. But the tax burden she placed upon her provinces became a festering sore to manage in the provinces. The cost of putting down continuous rebellions, plus a citizenry of wastrels, and a privileged class marked by avarice and dissipation exhausted her resources, and she decayed and rotted in her own fouled nest. That which succeeded Rome in the western part of her empire was what we today know as western civilization in Europe. Rome was succeeded first by the Byzantine Empire in the eastern half of her empire which was then defeated by the Ottoman Empire.

The last world dominating empire that will exist when the Lord Jesus Christ returns is represented by the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's vision. This last empire will proceed from the division of the Roman Empire which preceded it, and it will be politically, economically, and philosophically similar to the republic of Rome when Rome Defeated Greece. It can be seen that this empire which will develop from out of the two feet will endure until the return of Jesus. This is evident from Dan. 2:34-35 where it says:

"Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth."

The stone that is cut out from a mountain without hands is the Rock of Ages, the Stone that the builders rejected. When Jesus comes back, he will crush all of the kingdoms on earth and bring them under the subjection of his reign. The Bible says that he will rule them with a rod of iron. The visions of The Book of Daniel show that the Empires which the Lord Jesus Christ crushes are those that are represented by the feet and the ten toes in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and which are also represented by the fourth beast with the ten horns in Daniel's vision. Daniel says that all other preceding forms of empires will dry up and blow away. The last form of empire will remain in dominion until the return of Jesus Christ.

When Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream, he said in chapter 2, verses 41-44 that an empire will come out of the two separate empires represented by the feet, and that empire will endure until the end of the age:

"And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever."

When Jesus Christ returns all preceding forms of government that mankind has ever produced will be destroyed by him out of hand, and that includes Western Democracies and the offsprings thereof.

When God's people first complained against him concerning their desire to have a king to rule over them, the prophet Samuel was greatly disturbed by their desires; 1 Samuel 8:6-7 says: "But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them."

All forms of government, from Babel to Western Democracy are the result of, and have been made necessary by, man's rebellion from God, and when Jesus returns to rule the nations with a rod of iron, as prophesied in Revelation 19:15, there will be no other government except Christarchy. Those who will not live under His authority now surely won't find it attractive then.

It is explicit then, in the preceding passages, that what ever the political philosophy may be of these last kingdoms which are represented by the toes and the two feet which have developed from the Greco-Roman Empire, that political philosophy is going to endure through out the remainder of the age of the gentiles until The Antichrist appears and sets up his empire from within that empire that has immediately preceded him. It is this empire of Antichrist's that Jesus smashes when He returns and sets up the everlasting kingdom of His reign. Within the context of the prophecy, and as has been borne out by subsequent history, it is apparent that this political philosophy will be western style republican democracy. It is this western style of republican democracy in the remnants of the Roman and Ottoman Empire's that will eventually degenerate into a republican tyranny and that will give itself over to the reborn Imperialism of the Abomination of Desolation.

In the 7th chapter of Daniel God sends the prophet himself a vision of this same age of the gentiles that Nebuchadnezzar had seen, but this time the imagery involved the use of various animals to depict the succession of the gentile kingdoms. The Babylonian Empire was represented by a lion, and the Medo-Persian Empire was a bear which raised itself up first by one side and then the other, and the Grecian Empire was represented by a leopard which had four wings upon its back, and then a fourth beast, which Daniel did not recognize, but which he said was "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and break in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it and it had ten horns." (Dan. 7:7)

In this vision Daniel was shown the duality of the Medo-Persian Empire in that the bear raised first one side (the Medes) and then the other (the Persians). He was then shown that the Grecian Empire would rapidly conquer the world but was going to be split into four kingdoms, which happened when Alexander the Great died. But the fourth beast was an entirely new kind of "critter" to Daniel. It broke all that came before it into pieces. After this very different forth empire, there will be two separate empires which will be contemporary with each other and which will proceed from out of the fourth empire which was the Roman Empire. These separate empires are represented by the feet in both Nebuchadnezzar's dream and Daniel's vision. In Daniel's vision it is the feet that stamp upon and destroys all the residue of those pieces from the former empires. Remember, the last world dominating political administration represented by the toes will come from the separate empires, but it is the separate empires represented by the feet that are going to destroy all other forms of government before them. The form of government in these two separate empires is going to be the same as that of Rome when Rome defeated Greece.

It is said of the fourth beast in Daniel's vision that it had ten horns. The number ten is often used in the Bible to represent completeness and horns are symbolic of authority, or kings, or power. Again be sure to notice that whatever the type of government that is represented by the ten toes is going to be, it is going to destroy all the other types which came before it.

As we noted earlier, Daniel said that all of the four empires were different from one another, but here he singles out this 4th beast, or empire, as being exceptionally different (diverse) from all of the other empires that had existed before it. In what way was Rome exceptionally different from all preceding Empires at the time that she replaced Greece as the world super power?

Rome became a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC in 509 B.C. and remained one, more or less, until 82 B.C., and that is why I say that the form taken by the two separate empires will be that of democratic republicanism. Nebuchadnezzar's dream occurred around ninety years before Rome became a Republic, but God revealed the nature, and the strength, and the destiny of the Roman empire to Nebuchadnezzar through His prophet nearly a hundred years before the world first saw it even begin to take shape. I believe that it is very important to note that while Rome was a Democratic Republic at the time that she replaced Greece as the world dominating empire, she had degenerated into a Military-Aristocratic Republican Tyranny¹ by the time the world rejected the Lord Jesus Christ at his first advent. I believe this to be the single most important lesson to be learned from all of history for all peoples who love liberty and who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Ancient Grecian Democracy was overwhelmed and defeated by the Macedonian Monarchy of Philip and Alexander the Great because the Grecian belief in a degenerative parochial self interest had led them into forging a life of self serving materialism. The Roman Democratic Republic degenerated into a Military-Aristocratic Republican Tyranny because of the self centered dissipation of her citizens. Western Democracies will fair no better, for even now democracy is being dissipated into anarchy, and no one in authority can tell us the truth of why this is happening. We are all being slowly conditioned to the idea that we need to be governed by some benevolent dictatorship.

But before Rome appeared, all of the other world dominating gentile empires represented in Daniel's vision had been monarchies at the time of their ascension to power, including Greece which had earlier been a true democracy but which became an empire under the dictatorial rule of Philip and Alexander. But at the time that Rome defeated Greece in 197 B.C., Rome was still a Republic and the ultimate authority for government at that time resided with the people of Rome.

In 82 B.C. a Roman General by the name of Sula turned the legions of Rome against the authority of the citizens and invaded a debauched and dissipated Rome. He declared himself to be a perpetual dictator. In 81 B.C. he enacted laws which transferred supreme power from the people to the senate, but the senate was unable to hold this power for long because of the constant collusion and collision and intrigue within its body. (Sound familiar?)

Rome, then, was a republic, with the ultimate political power residing with the people, from 509 B.C. until 81 B.C. This was certainly a different kind of beast from any of the others which Daniel had seen, and this was why God represented it to Daniel as something he would not recognize, because in 600 B.C. democracy had not yet formed in either Greece or Rome.

How do you suppose that a Hebrew teenager, who was a slave in a gentile land, could figure out there would one day be an empire founded upon democratic republicanism that would dominate the known world, and leave the world an enduring legacy even after it had itself collapsed? How do you suppose this same teenager understood that the form of the empire which would then proceed from the collapsed rubble of that Greco-Roman Empire would endure until the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth?. How do you suppose that he knew these kinds of things about democratic republics when there had never been one on earth at the time that he "saw" one?

Democracy took shape in Athens around 500 B.C. In Rome the struggle for democracy began between the citizens and the kings about the same time, and Rome had become a republic by 509 B.C. But in 600 B.C. there had not yet been a democracy for Daniel to see; he had never seen such a form of government. But it is this republican type of democracy which the Bible says will destroy all other types of government in the last days before the empire of the Abomination of Desolation or The Antichrist appears.

Sula, the "perpetual dictator" in Rome remained in power around two years (so much for man's perpetuity). From that time onward until the Empire finally collapsed into the nations of Europe and Byzantium, she was ruled by whom ever the Roman legions declared their allegiance to as Caesar. It was the idea of an armed military deciding upon who will be the king over an unarmed population that was so repugnant to the founders of the American Republic. That is why they gave the people the right to bear arms. Those who would restrict, regulate, or otherwise diminish this right are accomplices of the spirit of tyranny either knowingly or unwittingly.

It is a fact of history that self centered humanity can not govern themselves, for they will bankrupt all resources in pursuing their own comfort, pleasure, and desires. When the system has been thus bankrupted, the segment of the population that controls the most violent physical power will determine the leadership for the rest. Constant intrigue, struggle, and warfare between armed brigands will ensue. Today it is almost academic that we still have the right to bear arms because the military and police structure with which the citizens would be opposed to in any struggle against tyranny would be so much better armed than we that the outcome would be almost foreordained. None the less, an armed population, willing to die and fight for liberty, is the only protection against tyranny in a humanistic republican democracy, and that is why we were given the right to bear arms. The only other solution to maintaining the republic is that the citizens give up their selfishness and that has never once happened completely.

The history of Rome as a Republic was one of almost constant warfare but that was not the reason she declined. If warfare had been her only concern she would not have collapsed because warfare was her life's blood. The problem which she was never able to solve, in nearly 500 years of democratic republicanism, was the steady and inevitable degeneration of the moral strength of her citizens while they simultaneously and continuously intruded themselves into every facet of the government. The republic became a government of the mob, by the mob, for the mob. And the mob steadily became more unruly and insatiable.

In the last days of the Empire there were only two classes of citizens and both were addicted to the life of ease. The poor had their "free bread and shows," or "panem et circenses," as it was called (every thing is sounding so familiar), and the wealthy had their Epicurean banquets and orgies. It was all financed by the wealth extorted from the conquered provinces which were being taxed by the legions of Rome. Rome had become a factional, fractious, and a factitious mob of unruly self interest at the time Sula brought them under control with the might of the military.

The fundamental Stoic values of the old Republic of reverence for the family, reverence for the state, and reverence for the gods were constantly eroded away and replaced by the self centered and self indulgence of the ancient Grecian Hedonistic, Epicurean philosophies, until these virtueless endeavors became the total concerns of the citizens of Rome. America and all western democracies are even now on the same spiraling slide downward and are but awaiting a Sula to forcefully reinstitute the necessary Babylonian controls and virtues in order to maintain the state.

The images of Rome in both the 2nd chapter and the 7th chapter of Daniel is that she is not conquered by another empire but that she becomes something else. In chapter two Rome starts off as two legs, and then becomes two feet which then become ten toes; in chapter 7 she evolves from a head into ten horns. Rome was first divided into two political empires by Diocletian, who also eliminated all republican freedoms and eliminated the power of the senate by reducing this once proud, but now corrupt, body to the status of a city council. When Constantine moved his capital to Byzantium the decline of old Rome was complete, and the city of Rome was left to rot in her own generated filth. Even as the power and glory of Rome was fading in the west, her culture, which was inherited from ancient Grecian philosophy, politics, art, engineering, mathematics, etc. was being preserved in the kingdoms, and monasteries, and universities of both the Byzantine Empire and the kingdoms of Europe where it awaited its destiny to be "rediscovered" by the humanistic, "enlightened scholars" of the Renaissance.

From the time of Constantine (330 A.D.) until the 11th century Christianity was the state religion of both the eastern and the western legs of the Roman Empire. In the eastern portion, Christianity was the mandated state religion; in the western empire it was the official religion of the state, and it got its power after the fall of Rome by lending its spiritual authority to authenticate the aristocracies of Europe. Both situations made for corrupt politics and materialistic churches.

In the 11th century hordes of horsemen invaded western Asia from Turkestan and established an Islamic state within the Byzantine Empire. From this state in the region of Anatolia they launched numerous and incessant invasions of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071 they defeated the army of the Byzantine Empire and took possession of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The Byzantines appealed to the Pope in Rome for help in recovering this territory and the crusades were launched. For the next two hundred years European Christians fought the Mohammedan Turks unsuccessfully.

Some time around the turn of the 14th century a fresh wave of Turkestani horsemen invaded the area again, and this time they were even better organized under the leadership of Othman the 1st. Othman founded the dynasty known as the Ottoman or Turkish Empire that reached its height under Solyman the Magnificent in the early part of the sixteenth century. By the end of that century the Ottoman Empire controlled all of the lands from Algeria on the west end of the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, on through Egypt and down both coasts of the Red Sea southeastward through Arabia and along parts of the Arabian Sea, and from there northward to the Caspian Sea, and then westward along the northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and northward to the Black Sea and into the region of modern Poland, Hungary, Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia.

Islam is fundamentally a masculine, warrior's religion, and the missionary message of its adherents was simple: "Convert or die." Because Christianity had been a "state religion" in Byzantium with little or no intellectual or spiritual conviction or foundation, Islam had little difficulty in persuading "Christians" to choose Islam over death. Much the same type of choice will once again be afforded to the church in the days just prior to Jesus' return. Islam soon replaced Christianity within the growing empire of the Ottomans.

The ethnic cleansing that is being seen today among the Croats, the Serbs, and the Bosnians has much of its origins of hatred in this Ottoman Empire that was established in these lands when these Muslim invaders took children for hostage and raised the strongest and brightest of these children in the Mohammedan Faith to be warriors, or Janizaries, for the Faith and for the Sultan. This practice was continued until a Janizarian revolt in 1826 almost overthrew the sultan. The revolt was put down and thousands of Janizarians were slain when the Sultan abolished the corps.

The Turks fought on the side of Germany in World War I, and after they and Germany were defeated, most of their vast empire came under Arab control under the influence of Europe again. A Turkish revolt led by an army officer, Mustafa Kemal, resulted in a republican government in Turkey.

But the thing to note is that in spite of all of history in the between times, dominance of the middle eastern area was once again returned to the remnants of the Roman Empire. Except for Israel, most of these areas are today independent Islamic nations whose parochial hatred for each other is only exceeded by their common hatred of the Jew. Many from this group of independent nations will one day be united into the federation of nations that the politically charismatic Antichrist will forge through lies, deceit, and supernatural persuasion. Using secret and hidden promises to these nations, he will promise them the ultimate destruction of the both the Jew and Christianity if they will join with him in his imperial ambitions. It is not necessary that these Arab Nations be republics at the time when they ally themselves with the Empire of Antichrist, but they may be. The cry for democracy within many of these nations is growing daily. However, the both Ezekiel and Daniel indicate that the Arabic nations are still independent nations who will enter into an alliance with the reborn Roman style Republican Aristocratic tyranny of Antichrist that will exist in Europe, Russia, Siberia, and north western Asia. It is this political and economic alliance that is forming even before our eyes that will become the dominate force on earth, and the oil of the middle east will be its lifeblood.

At first these nations will ally themselves to this one willingly. But soon he will have trouble with Egypt and when he invades Egypt, he will begin to have trouble with Syria. In all, three nations will soon revolt and one by one this "Emperor" of the new world order will bring the rebellious under control by his growing military strength. But the thing that must first be understood about this situation is that before any of this happens, republican democracy has to have gained dominance within the western regions of the former Roman Empire, and then it must subsequently become weak and conditioned for tyranny because of corruption of the individual.

The history of the western portion of the Latter Roman Empire and ancient Greece is familiar to most of us, and most would agree that the nations of modern Europe, the New World, and Russian Asia can trace their origins back to that Empire, and through that empire back to Ancient Greece.

Ancient Greece tried democracy and its citizens became corrupt. Rome was a democratic republic until its citizens became too corrupt to function. ¹ The fall of Rome did not signal the beginning of that darkness that is called the dark ages, and Christianity did not cause that darkness; the fall of Rome was the result of the darkness that had already crept into the empire and its institutions through a millennium of cultural adherence to the Hedonistic and Epicurean philosophies and political ideologies preached by ancient Grecian materialists. The dark ages did not come upon Europe because of the church, but it came when Rome fell because a debauched Roman aristocracy had had no interest in developing the kingdoms of the empire beyond their potential for taxation. The dark ages continued to exist because a materialistic church tolerated and supported the political and commercial institutions that had caused and perpetuated that darkness for fear that the church would die from political and financial weakness if it did not advocate and support them.

It is unreasonable to fear that the church will die when Jesus said that it would endure until his return. If Christianity is dependent upon commercial, political and philosophical support, and if their opposition can cause Christianity to die out, then Jesus was not true in the first place, and it ought to die out.

When the authority of Roman government evaporated, the church hierarchy remained in place in Europe and continued to authenticate the various monarchies that rose to replace the authority of Rome in each location, and since churchmen had already been conditioned to political and commercial alliance with Rome, they forgot where their kingdom exists and they began to make spiritual decisions based on political and economic expediency. They believed that if the church were going to survive, it had to join itself to the developing political monarchies left behind by the collapse of Rome. It was nearly fatal to the church.

We need to understand once and for all that Jesus said that HE would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. The preservation of the church is not left to depend upon our efforts, but upon His. If he cannot preserve his church, he lied; he is not supreme, and it does not make any difference what supersedes him. I am content to wait upon him to demonstrate his deliverance or die waiting because I despise the world that must exist if Jesus has not been true.

With both the Grecian and Roman Republics to study, it is not so difficult to understand why so many intelligent and learned men from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries considered democracy at its best to be riddled with unseen perils, and at its worst to be the devil's own form of government.

Before you cringe in horror at that statement, let's step aside for a moment and look at democracy from a perspective that is isolated from the self perpetuating institutions of democracy.

In 1952 Whittaker Chambers wrote in his biographical book, "Witness" that the generations then alive were living on the turning point of all civilization. He believed the destiny of all future generations, whether they would be democratic or communist would be determined within decades of 1952.

A scant four decades later, by the 1990's, it has become obvious that the struggle he predicted has been won by the forces of democracy. It is readily apparent today that the world is going to turn more and more to democracy. It is apparent that the world is going to be made safe for democracy. It is not apparent that it is going to be made safe from democracy, and the blinding speed with which the newly emerged democracies of the old Russias are being prepared for the tyranny of the new world order is alarming. The problem is that democracy was dumped almost overnight upon an unprepared population. The rate at which evangelization within this populace is truly wonderful, but much of the evangelism concerns the perpetuation of western culture instead of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and even that evangelization is almost negligible by comparison to the suddenness with which communism came apart.

Chambers truly saw that democracy and communism would engage in a global conflict to determine which force would ascend over the hearts of mankind for the ordering and structuring of society. As a former communist who had deserted the party, Chambers understood the goals of communism much better than did his critics, and when he said that communism declared, "Philosophy has explained the world; it is necessary to change the world," he knew that he was conveying to Americans the peril that those changes would entail for democracy. Chambers came to believe in the "goodness" of democracy and the "badness" of communism, just as most of the world's population have also come to believe likewise during the last forty plus years.

Saying communism is evil and democracy is good, is like saying my left hand is bad, but my right hand is good. The available facts will not support the premise. The facts are that regardless of which side had won in the struggle between communism and democracy, conditions in the world would not have been much changed. The single most enduring attribute of wealth would have remained scarcity, the single most abiding characteristics of politics would have remained deceit and guile, the greatest strength in the exercise of power would have still been clandestine lawlessness, and the most profound sentiment of religion would still be voiced in the people's demand for equality.

Democracy and Communism are but the right and left hands of a body of materialistic belief stretched, in opposite directions, toward the rational conclusions of logical extremes. They are but opposite directions of humanism proceeding from a common point of origin founded in materialism. Both sides believe that philosophy has explained the world and that it is necessary to change the world. Christians are not under a commandment to change the world but to sojourn through it fearing God, and not man, while bearing witness to, and making disciples of people, not governments. Christianity changes people, not governments.

The struggle between democracy and communism is not about deciding how, or if, to redistribute wealth. That is going to happen whichever side ultimately wins in this struggle. The struggle is about deciding for all future generations who will be the ultimate and final authority of appeal for enforcing and authenticating the manners and mechanics of civilization. Will that authority rest upon the state and the elite, or upon religion, or upon the people.

Communism is not inherently evil. One has only to read Acts 2:43-47 to see the truth of this. Democracy is not inherently good, one has only to read American newspapers to see the truth of that. The former Soviet Union had no large problems with organized crime, or drug abuse, or citizen violence while the communist regime was in power. The problems in the Soviet Union were with the officials of the state who were few in number in comparison to the multitudes of the citizens who are now becoming the problem.

When CBS newsman, Dan Rather, interviewed a communist mayor in China who was supporting the economics of capitalism, Mr. Rather asked the mayor why he still did not favor democracy politically. The mayor's answer was that when government gives up control of the people, the manners of civilization collapse.

The most democratic nation that the world has ever known is the nation whose citizens are the most violent, the most vicious, the most vehement, the vengeful, and the most vindictive and among the most vile in the earth. Yearly in America there are around 23,000 murders, 140,000 battered women, 87,600 reported rapes (who knows how many unreported ones?). 671,000 children are abused every year and the number grows daily. Pedophilia is even now being advocated as a loving and caring way to teach and show affection by a few degenerate humanists who teach in American Universities. Every day another 10,800 children drop out of American schools. Over 1600 children will die today in America because they are guilty of being too poor to live, often because their parents have no self discipline to deny themselves the pleasure of material intoxicants instead of providing the necessities of food, shelter, and clothing to their offspring.

The average child watching cable television or video will witness 32,000 murders, 40,000 attempted murders, and 250,000 acts of violence before they are 18 years old. An accumulative total of the acts of immorality committed in front of their eyes would soon rival the national debt. Americans make millionaires out of selfish, violent, aggressive men whose most obvious contribution to our manners is to teach our youth how to break bones, bats, backboards, and contracts, while we allow 40,000 children starve daily somewhere in the world.

It is by no means certain that the "good" side has won in the struggle between democracy and communism. It is more likely that there was no good side involved in this conflict.

But the battle is all but over and the victor will be democracy. Henceforth the manners of all people, whatever those manners turn out to be, will be authenticated by the majority, and right behavior will be determined by the opinion of the majority. This is not a good thing for mankind. In fact it is the most tragic fact of history, and the reasons why this is so are explained below:

The American Republic was founded upon the principles of ancient Grecian humanism which were overlaid by principles imagined by the philosophers of the materialistic enlightenment. Briefly these principles can be stated as follows:

a) If there is such a thing as God or the gods, they are beyond the capacity of man for discovery and therefore God can be disregarded concerning the explanation of manners in mankind.

b) There is no such thing as truth, but there is utility. Man can discover for himself the utility of anything and therefore man does not need any god. The application of this principle is why America is not a truly scientific nation, but is, rather, a technological nation. Technology is primarily concerned with the application of science, which is what utility is all about, while pure science is concerned with the search for the truth. One of the foundations of the enlightenment was the premise of technology which is based upon utility; therefore, utility has replaced truth in the "enlightened view." It is this fact that explains why much of science, "falsely so called," has become so overwhelmed by philosophy and is completely devoid of the search for Truth in western culture.

c) These enlightened founders also believed mankind to be fundamentally good willed, and that he could be relied upon to work for his own benefit and for that of his neighbors' anytime he was shown that such conduct was in his own self interest.

There were also some political axioms held to be self evident such as:

a) "The right to rule rests in the consent of the ruled."

b) "All men are created equal with possession of certain inalienable rights among which are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Actually the original wording of this proposition stated that all men held the right to the pursuit of property instead of happiness. I believe this was because it was property that had always been the basis of wealth. It had been the restricted rights to property ownership that had perpetuated the aristocracies of Greece, Rome, and Europe, and which had led to the feudal system. I do not know why the earlier premise came to be changed from the pursuit of property to the pursuit of happiness in America, but I suspect that the institutions of elitism and slavery had something to do with it.

That there was a double mindedness in this assimilation of principles is also evident from the premises concerning God, truth, and utility, and the other premises which invoked the authority of a creator even as the principles which deny him were likewise being invoked. We were doomed to instability from the start.

The American Revolution was a war of rebellion by Englishmen against an English Sovereign whom they believed had forfeited his right to rule because he had violated the consent of those he ruled. Such a thought would have been absurd before the 12th century, but by the 1700's it was an accepted principle of government. Slowly, but inexorably, the power to govern was being delivered into the hands of the people, not because they were the repositories of greater truth, or the mediators of better judgment, or even the better handlers of great power, but simply because men were coming to believe in an idea whose time had come. This idea was the inevitable conclusion of the union between the politics and commerce of Rome and the Christian Doctrines of freedom and equality in Christ.

This idea had been gaining in favor ever since the middle ages when Henry I (1100-1135 A.D.) officially introduced the English people to the idea that there was a legal status for their rights. When he issued "The Charter of Liberties", which would become the basis of the Magna Carta, he relaid a foundation of an ancient, Anglo-Saxon belief in political rights and liberties which had been held by these peoples since the times they had dressed in animal coats, and gathered around cave fires before recorded history, and by which they had ruled themselves until the Romans defeated them. It must be noted here that these ancient Anglo-Saxon tribal democracies worked because everyone within them subjected themselves to ancient tribal rules and beliefs about their tribal gods. The Native American system likewise worked in the same fashion and just as tribally. But all such parochial tribal rights and liberties had to be destroyed in order to fulfill the destiny of western civilization of one world community, under one world commerce, under one world religion.

When the English King, John, was forced, by all the barons, towns people, and churchmen, whom he had alienated, to sign the Magna Carta, on June 15, 1215 in the meadow of Runnymeade, the idea that a sovereign reigns by the consent of those he governs was inscribed indelibly into the hearts and minds of subject and monarch alike, and it began to replace the previously held doctrine that monarchs ruled by "Divine Right" which the church had previously supported.

There has never been any proof to validate this belief that the governed must give their consent to be governed, and it was therefore necessary to appeal to some authority as its source. At that time the source was once again given to be the Creator, today it depends upon the majority for its validation. There still remains no proof; it is just a kind of boiling over of human nature.

But make no mistake, be sure that this belief was then, and is now, ordained to sweep over the world, spreading like a flood from one generation to the next, until it culminates in a world dominating federation of democratic republics where truth, law, justice, commerce, morality, and ethics, and religion are regulated through a process of arbitration in which the guiding principles are set, not by God, but by the majority. Whoever would get in its way will be swept out of history like thistle down in a hurricane. Democracy was not then in 1952, and is not now, in permanent danger of losing out to dictatorial communism. But democracy is forever in danger of losing itself to tyranny through the dissipation of its citizenry.

The Englishmen who settled in colonial America were almost universally disciples of John Locke whether they actively confessed such or not. Locke was the first modern scholar to openly teach that the right to rule rested in the consent of those being ruled. As we noted concerning the ancient Anglo-Saxons, the principle is as old as tribal man, and in fact was seen being practiced by the American Indians. If a sovereign should lose that consent, he lost his right to rule over that people. The logic, if not the desirability, of this is readily apparent if, instead of applying it to many people, one applies it to only one person. The American Indian sometimes did just that when a single warrior would leave the tribe in a dispute over a ruling of the chief.

However, the American Indian had a place to exist when he left the tribe as long as he avoided the tribe. Today we can not do that because all places in which we may exist are claimed by some sovereign power. But if the Axiom represents Truth, it should not matter to whom, or how it is applied. The civil war would not have been fought over the secession of the southern states if the northern ones had truly believed this axiom represented some kind of truth. It would appear rather, that the Nation which founded itself upon that principle, holds to itself the right to violate it whenever its own sovereignty is in question; it is ever so with the humanistic mind.

Locke also believed and taught that good laws made a nation of good citizens, and that, if men were given just laws in which to order their lives, they would just naturally live in peace and harmony with each other. If Locke had been a baseball player, he would have been 0 for 2.

In 1783 Patrick Henry defended the people of Virginia against the established Church in a case which came to be known as the parson's cause. The historical importance of this case was not the case itself, but the platform which it provided for Henry to publicly proclaim for the record, for the first time in America, that "when a king vetoes the acts of a colonial legislature which are beneficial to the people represented by that legislature, he has degenerated into a tyrant, and has forfeited all rights to his subjects obedience." This argument could as well be used against every American President who has ever vetoed a bill that was beneficial to some segment of American society.

The public rationale for the American revolution was more the inflammatory oratory from the hearts of rebellious men than it was of any eternal substance. The simple truth is that these men rebelled because they were rebels. I do not deny the truth that a few of their causes did need some righteous remedy, and using those causes, they managed to inflame and arouse the natural rebellion in all men to convince the majority of Americans of the righteousness of their purpose. Had they not, they would not have succeeded in engaging them into a war. But let's face it, most of what they hated was not the injustice of it all but the subjugation of themselves. You will not convince me that men who truly hated injustice, and loved liberty, and believed in equality would have continued the custom of slavery. Just as you will not convince me that men who truly hate iniquity, and love righteousness, and believe in divine judgment will continue the practice of sin.

In 1774 this same Patrick Henry stood as a member of the first Continental Congress and gave his famous "give me liberty or give me death" speech. Yet in 1788 he refused to sign his name to the ratification of the constitution which he had fought so enduringly to procure. He asked who had authorized the framers of the constitution to say, "We the people," instead of "We the States." He said the language of the constitution would result in "one great consolidated, national government of the people of all the states," instead of a republic of democratic states.

Henry's objections, and those of a great many others who agreed with him such as Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, sound "plumb" strange to Americans today who are completely accustomed to that one great consolidated national government of the people of all the states of America today. What one of us does not think of himself as an American instead of as a citizen of one its states? When the civil war broke out, Robert E. Lee chose to fight with the "country" of his citizenship, Virginia. Tomorrow, our descendants will think of themselves as Earthlings or Worldlians, or Terra Firmans, or something of similar global connotations instead of as Americans. The seeds have already been planted; the vines are up and have flowered; they are beginning to bear fruit even now. Man has been on a long and steady march toward one world government, one world commerce, and one world religion since the humanistic philosophers of Ancient Greece tutored Alexander the Great.

Today we complain about the political wheeling and dealing and compromising, and closed-door, political maneuvering in Washington D.C. without ever stopping to realize that such is a necessary part that is built into the system. How else is a representative from South Dakota going to get a delegation from New York or California, for example, to vote for him to spend federal dollars on some needed project in South Dakota without first having agreed to vote for something they also want? The Federal system demands compromise, and compromise is a admirable quality only among those who know no standards. You would not buy a house built by someone who had compromised every horizontal, vertical, square, and linear measurement; why then would anyone insist on a government and a society built in that fashion? Such compromise begs corruption, and that corruption is now bearing its fruit.

Historians say that when Henry and Adams and Hancock and others opposed the ratification of the constitution, the "wiser counsel" of men like Washington and Madison and Jefferson prevailed. It is true that they prevailed. History is beginning even now to call into question their wisdom.

When the constitution was ratified as it was written, the power to rule was passed into the hands of the majority even though they were unaware of it at the time. The civil unrest of the last half of this century has been but a rather timid testing of that power, which came into their hands in 1788, but which they had neither thought about using, nor known how to use, until American Christianity had been intellectually compromised, and the general public was shown in the 1960's that they could energize this power without personal consequence.

Unless there is a change in the manners of the majority, politics in the next century will consist of reading and responding to the puerile mood swings, trendy opinions, amorphous ideology, and whimpering whims of a devilishly unstable and railing majority.

In 1831 an aristocratic young Frenchman by the name of Alexis de Tocqueville toured America and studied American Democracy up close. He wrote a book of his observations which he titled, "Democracy In America". In this book Tocqueville noted with certainty that Americans would tend to place more and more faith in the infallibility of the majority to the extent that a new type of tyranny would eventually develop if it were not continuously checked. He said that faith in the majority would become a new kind of religion in America and the majority would be its ministering prophet.2 That description of faith in the majority, is the essence of cultism which is essentially faith in the minister of faith instead of faith in the source of faith to which the minister points. American faith in the majority has, in fact today, become a cult worship.

In America today, in the social and civil arena, we are seeing such things as truth, obscenity, morality, and ethics being delivered into the hands of the majority for administration, and we are beginning to see this majority intrude itself into the administration of criminal justice as well. Take for example the Los Angles riots that followed the trial and acquittal of the four policemen who had been charged with the beating of a man named King. Because of those riots, the four Policemen, who had been acquitted, were subsequently retried on Federally sponsored charges that they had violated King's civil rights. It does not make any difference from a constitutional point of view whether the population is incensed over a jury verdict or not; to deliver a defendant into court a second time for the same crime is unconscionable and unconstitutional (If it was not the same crime, how could they use the same evidence?). The constitution forbids the second use of a fact that has previously been tried by a jury. But this law was enforced for the sole purpose of placating an unruly mob. If the violation of civil rights is the charge that the authorities wished to bring against those four policemen, then that is what they should have tried them for in the first place.

Afterwards, in a related trial, another jury, which tried two other men who had expressed their disagreement with the original verdict in the "King Trial" by dragging a truck driver from his truck and brutally beating him, was so intimidated by the threat of another round of riots that they could not function constitutionally.

I do not say that these seven men were either guilty or innocent, and the Lord will avenge all that sort of thing when he returns. I say that because the mobbish majority has begun to intrude its unruly self into the administration of all justice, we are none of us safe. Neither the law, nor the courts which administer the law, nor the constitution which protects and anchors the law, can protect us from ourselves.

The weight of public opinion intrudes itself into every aspect of life, dictating every decision from fashion to Faith, from health to history, nothing is left unaffected by the always vehement, and often violent vision and revision, of the surging, pulsating, demanding majority. This pressure, which the young have not been equipped to resist, they call peer pressure. Indeed are they not being equipped to resist; they are being pressed into compliance.

In a play he wrote called "AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE", Henrick Ibsen said that it took 50 years for the majority to be right, and then it was never right unless it did the right thing. The premise of that play was that self interest would always stand in the way of the majority doing the right thing. The problem also seems to me that even if the majority does eventually learn to do the right thing, by the time it learns what's right, its in the minority. This is because of our nature where our thirst for meaning begins small and grows as we get older, but our selfish motivations are with us in full flower when we are born. Because the young will always make up the majority of the population in every generation, I have no doubt that the efforts to continually lower the voting age within democracies is the result of Satanic inspiration, in order that he may more readily use our selfish motivations at a time when our thirst for meaning is small.

There is real and predictable danger from allowing truth to be determined by a self centered majority within a society of equals. Tocqueville saw this and rightly predicted the mind set which equality would incubate in humanity. He postulated, that since all men held themselves to be equal, none were better at judging the truth than any other, and each person would therefore eventually assign to himself the authority to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, ethical and unethical, and good manners and bad. Since each person was the authority individually, nothing could be more logical than that the majority will invariably reflect the truth at every particular time on every particular subject. Absolutes would dissolve into thousands of shades of gray depending upon the way the Majority "felt" at any particular time.

One of the problems associated with truth and the majority is that since the majority is made up from self centered individuals, truth is going to be determined by what is in the best selfish interest of the majority. Another problem is that the majority usually does not "believe" at all, but rather "feels" its way along. It is not at all uncommon to hear someone who otherwise has good sense say some thing like, "I feel this is the best thing to do." I have intentionally felt of a lot of things in this life trying to see what "best" feels like, and I cannot tell you the first thing about the feeling of "best." The notion that "feeling" is more real than knowing or believing is another result of "enlightened materialistic thought," which both the stoics and the Bible disavow, but which has gained much sway with the majority without their awareness. This notion of "feeling" instead of believing has its origin in the idea that the mind of man is nothing more than a chemistry, and it is by his environment that his emotions are stirred by this chemistry, and that he only becomes alive to himself through his feelings. By this line of "feeling," no one is responsible for their actions because we are all products of an environment that stirs our chemicals and boils our emotions and produces uncontrollable feelings within us.

Even if there is no such thing as Absolute Truth, life based on feelings is terminal both to the individual and to the whole body of man. There is no other animal that has the capacity for such brutality, as an expression of his self interest, to all other members of his kind, as does man. When feelings are what gives life meaning, the joy of the kill is how they will ultimately be expressed and experienced.

Any real dangers from such an ideology can only be appreciated if there is such a thing as an absolute truth that does not conform to this philosophy, because if there is no absolute truth there is no truth of any sort. If there is no absolute truth, then it does not matter that man's mind would be a detrimental, extraneous piece of dead weight. And it does not matter that public opinion can be, and most usually is, persuaded into the most illogical of beliefs merely by manipulating the "feelings" and soliciting the sympathy of an emotional populace through some dramatic exposition that is entirely fictional and pointedly biased. How else can you explain the juvenile sensuality that elected a president because he could play a saxophone? But if there is such a thing as absolute truth (And I confess that there is), it matters a great deal that men can be so easily persuaded to deny it to become animals of passion.

There was a reason why the framer's of the American Republic chose not to elect the President by popular vote - They did not trust the whims of the majority. There was a reason why the framer's of the constitution did not afford universal suffrage - It had something to do with having the ones who are paying the bills making the decisions. There was a reason why the founders did not give the courts the blanket authority to pass on all legislation but only allowed them to pass upon that which has been brought before it by the complaint of some citizen - It had something to do with concentrating the power of the republic in elected officials.

Since public opinion now shapes the "rightness" of all actions, and is even now beginning to intrude itself into even criminal law; it is just a matter of time until it takes unto itself the functions of the Supreme Court. Indeed, this effort is already afoot among the "righteously indignant." This appropriation will be accomplished, I believe, through a constitutional change which will bring the Supreme Court under the power of the electorate. Indeed such sentiment already exists within a great deal of the population because of the many insane interpretations the courts have placed upon the constitution. I want to warn ourselves to strenuously resist any such action, because if a few men can make a few bad choices, the multitude can make all bad choices, and having already been shown by the courts how to circumvent the constitution through interpretation; the majority will reduce this last bastion of Liberty to a mulligan stew of verbiage, the meaning of which will change from whim to whim, when it takes unto itself that power. As long as the Supreme court is aloof of the popular majority, there is always hope that it can be turned around to righteousness. When it is under the control of a self centered majority, all hope is forever lost.

The Supreme Court is powerless to act upon any law, until some individual decides for himself that his individual rights take precedent over that law. There is not a law that does not violate someone's liberty, and rebellion in the heart of man is what challenges the law. If we persist in applying public pressure on the courts, the result will be lawless anarchy. I emphasize that the Bible teaches that the law is not made for a righteous man but for the unrighteous. If we do not learn to keep the spirit of the law because we want to, there is no power on earth persuasive enough, or prevalent enough, or pervasive enough to force us to keep its letter.

But it has been decided, and I believe because it was ordained, the structure of society, the ordering of lives will be determined by the majority. The "righteousness" of all law, of all literature, all religion, all art, all science, all truth, all manners, all politics, and all culture will be determined by the majority, and they shall all dissolve into the dreary sameness of glorifying the mediocre. One need only compare the juvenile "art" and so called music of today with that of the middle ages to see the truth of this. The only virtue will be conformity, the only sin will be difference. Truth will be determined by election, and falsehood will equate to rejection. The multitude will mill majestically, but mindlessly, as it grinds all resistance exceedingly small.

It is this form of democracy which has won the earth. It is democracy unrestrained by any concept or vision of absolute truth, or of eternal judgment. It is a democracy of unmitigated materialism and selfishness with no sense of an eternal God who loves by grace and judges in wrath.

But the democracy which Tocqueville observed in 1831 was functioning splendidly, so much so that he said it should be the model of all future democratic regimes. But Tocqueville issued some stern warnings concerning the pitfalls into which America could fall if she did not stay constantly alert, and he made comments upon how to avoid them.

Tocqueville saw the single saving grace in American Democracy to be in the unquestioned faith in Jesus Christ of the individuals who made up the majority at that time. It was this element of faith in Jesus Christ and the restraints that Christianity places upon the passions of men that he saw as the rudder of the ship of state. In 1831 it made no difference what liberties the law allowed its citizens if most of them answered to a higher law that required them to defer themselves to their neighbors. There was no need for excessive and detailed laws to regulate and govern every aspect of life since most citizens and most judiciaries, and most administrators carried within their hearts the laws of Divine Justice and committed love, which demanded, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self."

That saving grace has been steadily eroded away from the conscience of the American majority, and it now exerts hardly any influence at all upon the conduct of the individual American. Individual conduct is now becoming increasingly unrestrained, unethical, unmannerly, and uncivil in its passionate pursuits. Society is daily becoming more passionate and less civil and less reasonable, and ever more rebellious and sensual in its activities.

Tocqueville wrote that he was convinced that Christianity had to be maintained at any cost within the heart of democracy, and that he believed that the only effective means by which that could happen would be if government officials would daily demonstrate to the general population the belief that all men would one day have to give an account of their actions to Almighty God. Tocqueville said that he thought that it was only by careful submission to religious morality in great affairs that government officials could hope to teach the general population to know, and to understand, and to obey such things.3

But it was Thomas Jefferson's concept of a wall of separation between the church and the state which has risen to preeminence by interpreting the first clause of the constitutions' first amendment to have primacy over its second clause. It is not the first amendment's anti-establishment clause upon which Tocqueville and Jefferson would have disagreed, for Tocqueville believed that state religions invariably resulted in dead churches even though they were of some temporal expediency to the government.4

Rather, it is at the restrictions now being placed upon the realization of the guarantees of the second clause of the first amendment, which says in part that the government may not in any way restrict the free exercise of religious liberty, where Tocqueville and Jefferson would part company. For Tocqueville saw that the only way in which democracy could survive was if the passions which it loosened in the souls of men were continually moderated by the belief in a higher and impartial Justice in which all the deeds of this life would be called into account in the next. And the only way he saw for this belief to be maintained in the minds of all persons within a democracy was if the officials of the government exercised their official duties every day in such a manner as to remind all men, great or small, that we will all one day give an account of our deeds before that Highest Court.

The utter nonsense of a wall that separates the church and state speaks volumes concerning the double-minded materialism of those who advocate it. Neither the church nor the state is a material structure which can be cordoned off into compartments. Both the state and the church are made up from individuals who simultaneously exist within the boundaries of the state and church. The boundaries of the state are geographical, political, and philosophical in nature. Of the three boundaries of the state, only one is material. The boundaries of the church are entirely spiritual. How does the state propose to divide me? Is it only my body which is subject to the state? How then shall I get my mind to the assembly of the saints on the Lord's day, and must I leave my mind at home when I vote? The Bible says that a double minded man is unstable in all his ways, and it is evident that the concept of a wall of separation between the church and the state is the product of double minded, unstable men, and instability within both the church and the state has been the result of that concept.

The constitution never mentions nor alludes to a wall separating the church and the state. In fact, neither of the words, "separation" nor "church" appears anywhere in the constitution. The term comes from a separate, informal document written by Jefferson illustrating his explanation of the First Amendment. The problem with holding such a document to be binding in our courts is that the neither the U.S. Congress nor any state congress ever ratified that document. I am not at all interested in what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the First Amendment after it had been submitted to the people for ratification. If he had wanted to talk about placing a wall between the church and the state he should have done it in the verbiage of the first amendment, and not in his private explanation of the first amendment. I believe it is obvious that the reason he did not do so was because he knew that it would have been expunged immediately by Christian opposition.

It should be evident that this "wall" interpretation is the reason that the official government now precludes all citizens being taught the doctrine of Eternal accountability of the soul. Just as that same interpretation now allows statesmen to teach the citizenry to disrespect the doctrine of the accountability of the soul through unscrupulous conduct. Indeed we not only allow it, we demand it.

In America today it is "illegal" to daily involve government with the doctrines of Christianity, or of any other religion, except those of the secular humanism of ancient Greece and western culture, and it is for this reason that the majority in American is now made up of self centered, materialistic, humanists caught up from birth in the doctrine of "self interest rightly understood." Much of what is called the church is made up of these same individuals who have neither repented of, nor come out from this doctrine.

Tocqueville said that the principle of self interest rightly understood was not a noble one, but that it was easy to understand and hold. He said that while it did not have for its target high and noble aspirations, it did easily reach all of the baser ones at which it was aimed. He said that this doctrine was easy to teach and learn and that men of any capacity could grasp and hold it because it was admirably suited to our nature and as such it was sure to gain universal dominion. 5

Tocqueville ambiguously believed that this doctrine was the best of all the philosophical theories which had ever been applied to the concerns of man because he thought that the passions it empowered would be counteracted by the disciplines it implied in regular habits, temperance, moderation, etc. It has today become evident that implied disciplines can not overrule powerful, passionate selfishness whatever it is called or named, and however it is disguised. It is evident that the "regular habits" which Tocqueville observed in 1831 were not the result of the implications of the doctrine of self interest rightly understood, but of the Christian ethic. It is also just as evident that these habits dissolved as the Christian faith lost primacy in the hearts of Americans.

As noted above, today much of the church is made up of "saved humanists" who are hedging their bets. Something tells them there has to be more to life than what they have been taught by secularism, but they are unsure of what has been left out. They have no faith in a Bible which teaches doctrines of origins, sin, death, judgment, Hell, and salvation so utterly contrary to the "learned" opinions of the majority. They come hoping to learn of some magic, or sorcery, or incantation which they can invoke which will allow them to live by their desires in this life, and then continue doing so in the next. They are filling their pulpits with preachers who will preach to their "itching ears."

An example of this type of "preaching", and of the intrusion of majority opinion into Biblical interpretation, can be found in the October 1993 report released to the Associated Press by a task force appointed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). This report argued that even though the literal meaning of passages in Leviticus and Romans condemns homosexuality, "responsible biblical interpretation" would strongly support the acceptance and the blessing of homosexual unions if such unions were made with love and commitment. This report went on to advocate the acceptance of people living together outside of the sanctity of Holy Matrimony. And while it condemned promiscuity, it urged the acceptance of premarital fornication (providing of course, that it is not promiscuous). This acceptance of unwed cohabitation included elderly couples who live together for economic reasons. It also advocated masturbation as a means of self pleasure, and teaching teenagers the use of condoms as disease prevention.

These recommendations were not (at the time of this writing) adopted by the bishops of this denomination, and similar proposals have also recently failed to be accepted by other Protestant denominations but the uproar by the gay rights advocates within those denominations have caused "new studies" to be undertaken.

The chairman of the Lutheran study advocated the acceptance of the document even though she recognized there would be many voices who would say the church was not ready for such a step. Such rhetoric of course betrayed her belief that there will come a time when the church will be ready, so why not now? She argued that the issues would not go away even if the church rejected the positions of the document.

Here then is the rationale for such arguments to the church: Sin is both persistent and popular. The world is much in favor of sin. If the church is to be popular and gain the favor of the world, she must become the advocate of sin.

There can be no compromise with sin. One of the most disbelieved lessons in scripture says, that if we go on sinning willingly after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains "no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." (Heb. 10:26-27)

It is real Christianity's refusal to compromise with the egalitarian demands of the lusting majority that will bring upon her the hate of the world and the apostate church, and which will cause many of the carnal to leave Christianity altogether in search of more permissive religions. Even now they are finding such religions in the seeds of ancient Babylonish philosophies which are beginning to flower into the neo-humanistic pantheism of the New Age.

Tocqueville thought that the principal effect that democracy would have on philosophy would be that it would foster a propensity for pantheism through its concepts of unity and equality. The pantheistic belief that "all is God and God is all" is the most natural religion for a people who are united and equal. It makes no difference that it is a twisting of a half truth.

It is not the American democracy of 1831 that is seen as the pattern for the budding democracies of the world. It is the democracy of 1990's America. It is the humanistic, rudderless democracy devoid of any sense of direction except inward. The allure of America's past material success is too great for these new nations to see her spiritual failure. Material success is almost always equated to spiritual wellness in the eyes of the carnal. Look at who the men of prominence are in any church (regardless of how fundamental) and you will seldom find custodians or garbage collectors included among their ranks. Even the Gideons do not allow non-professional men within their ranks. If the church can not readily distinguish between material success and spiritual maturity, how much more difficult will it be for the world to do so? The world lusts for America's material success, and blindly runs after her despite her growing spiritual depravity. ¹ Tim. 6:3-5 says,

"If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself."

Nations the world over are beginning to emulate America and her humanized democracy. If they do not see the danger in this, they shall be caught in the same downward spiral as America. The Scottish poet and scholar, Alexander Tyler, after studying both the Grecian Democracy and Roman Republic, came to believe that democracy could never exist as a permanent form of government. He said that the voters would soon learn how to vote their own gratuities, and the politicians would soon learn how to promise those gratuities, and the entire system would bankrupt itself.

The American voter has already learned this, and we are now bankrupt. We are a nation in an economic collapse just waiting for our creditors to find out that we have neither the resources nor the will to cover our debt. When bankers lend money, they evaluate two things, the borrower's capacity to repay and his will to do so. America no longer has the capacity to repay with anything of real and intrinsic value, and the degradation of her character has even now destroyed her will to make the sacrifices that are required to redeem her debt in any honorable fashion.

The knowledge that democracy has innate and fatal weaknesses usually comes as a surprise to a people who have been "indoctrinated" within the institutions of that democracy. The educational system in America is not at all interested in the search for truth, but is totally and blindly involved in the substantiation and advancement of the global ambitions and humanistic principles of western civilization which, as we mentioned earlier, date back to the ancient Greeks.

We have been indoctrinated to accept without question the proposition that democracy is a kind of divine expression of government (even by those who do not confess the Divine). And that faith in our fellow man is our only hope for survival. The truth is this: all governments of man proceed from corruption, instead of becoming corrupted, because man is corrupt. Democracy is merely that last form of government which has been ordained to sweep over the earth preparing the people for the tyranny of the empire of the Antichrist as the age of the gentiles comes to a close. The only hope we have as citizens for maintaining a stable republic and a safe society is for true Christianity to be revived in the hearts of all citizens.

Democracy is the remnant of the Greco-Roman Empires that will replace all other forms of government that have come before it. It will be world wide in its dominion before the appearance of the Antichrist and the subsequent return of Jesus Christ. Democratic mankind will become so corrupt that he will welcome the tyranny of the Antichrist to keep him from self destructing.

Tocqueville's mistake in his evaluation of American democracy was not in failing to see its the dissipative qualities, but rather in over estimating the regulatory effects that the doctrine of self interest rightly understood would have within it, and in his evaluation of the endurance of the Christian Faith in American institutions. He could not have known the strength of the attack which Satan would launch against that Faith in the name of freedom through an unredeemed, liberated race entirely taken captive by the "self."

Tocqueville saw very well how unrestrained democracy would lead man into a downwardly spiraling trap of self fulfillment from which there would be no escape. He said that materialism was a dangerous mental sickness within any political system in which it was found, but that it was especially dreadful within democracies because the material passions inspired by democratic principles were the very ones which democracy had no means to restrain. He said that if not checked by some means, these material passions will always lead mankind to believe that the only reality is the material reality, and that men would thus pursue these material pleasures with increasingly wanton abandon until they could no longer control their descent. This descent, of which Tocqueville spoke, we have herein seen as a downward journey that has no bottom floor.

I believe it was the contemplation of this endless descent into degradation that eventually drove Nietzsche insane, because he knew that natural man could not contain himself, and he recognized no authority external to natural man. The continual advancement of the hedonistic agenda is today accomplishing the normalization of homosexuality even as it advances its next agenda of pedophilia, and bestiality will follow. Euthanasia will follow Abortion, geriatricide will follow euthanasia, execution will become the norm for all crimes, including those that are against the environment and that are politically incorrect. There is no bottom floor upon which to land or stand unless there is an absolute truth beyond mankind that authoritatively sets some standards for his manners, and prescribes some punishment for violation of those standards. Indeed if there is no cause for such standards, there can be no reason to embrace then. That society may need or desire such standards is insufficient cause for them, because as such they are only the result of human rationalization and would have no authority beyond the opinions of some man, or group of men, and we are back with Nietzsche sliding downward into eternal, depraved insanity.

Therefore, because democracy has no means within itself to restrain these material passions, this restraint must come from some source external to, and superior to, the humanistic principles of democracy. If there is no source for that restraint, or if that restraint is not applied, democracy will "self" destruct.

People in these unrestrained circumstances become trapped by their own insatiable appetites, and gradually, humanity and society are reduced to an existence of mindless reaction to sensory perception and physical gratification. Such was the darkness that destroyed Rome. Such is the darkness sweeping across America. Such is the darkness that will soon engulf the entire earth.

None of the three things which Tocqueville believed would moderate these tendencies in American Democracy have had any permanent effect. He believed that America's isolation from Europe, her body of law, and her manners (which were, at that time, founded in the Christian Faith) would all work together to maintain a working democracy. Our isolation has been technologically and philosophically eliminated, our laws have been reinvented hundreds of times without success, and those manners which he observed have been all but destroyed through Satanically inspired psychological, philosophical, political, and educational attack.

Even though the church has failed to believe that the nature of our warfare is spiritual, Satan's secular world has not, and while the church has been out wasting its breath to the world about gambling, and drinking, and dancing, and smoking, etc., the secularists have been instilling philosophical ideas into the hearts of our youth, and they have been doing it in their church organization which is the American school system, and I have been forced by law to fund that agenda.

It should be obvious by now that good laws are not going to protect and maintain a working democracy as Tocqueville had hoped. The Lochean formula that good laws make good citizens has not worked for good reason. The Bible said it would never work. The Bible says that man can not be made righteous by the law because the law was not made for a righteous man but for the lawless. (Gal. 2:16 & 1 Tim. 1:9) Even the fact that we must have laws proves that we are not innately righteous, and as God demonstrated in Eden, simply enacting a law will never keep mankind from breaking it, but will in fact even present him with a challenge to see if he can do so with impunity.

If neither our laws, nor our customs, nor our geography can keep us from descent into darkness, what will happen? In trying to predict the characteristics of a people who would once again allow tyranny to appear, after having been free, Tocqueville wrote that any multitude of men who believed in equality rather than in liberty would eventually find themselves trapped in a mindless dependency to their government. This government would itself encourage this dependency and endeavor to procure the petty and paltry material pleasures with which they would incessantly glut their lives. This government would stand above this culture of men as its great, benevolent equalizer and teacher, and would take upon itself to be the sole provider and definer of happiness to its citizens in order to equalize their existence and provide for their material and physical gratifications. This government, he said, would watch over the fate of all its subjects and decide for them all of the uses that a man should have for his life and for his being. Tocqueville believed that this teacher/government would be like the authority of a parent except its intent would not be to train up its children for adulthood, but rather would aim to keep them perpetually and forever its dependents.

Tocqueville said that such circumstances would continually render free agency less and less useful to mankind, and would contain the will of man in smaller and smaller circle of self fulfillment until he became the witless captive of his government. Tocqueville believed that the thing which would allow men to accept and endure these circumstances, and which would even condition them to desire them, was the belief in equality. 6

This notion is alien to everything we have been taught concerning a system that has been developed to bring about and to perpetuate that very dependency about which Tocqueville spoke. This degradation and dependency has already overtaken us, as we, even now, pursue this world of self centeredness without self responsibility. Tocqueville believed that the highest passion inspired by democracy was not for liberty but for equality. The events of the last half of this century would certain bear that out. It is far more important to today's generations that their ways should be equalized than that they should be free.

It usually comes as a surprise to most Americans to hear someone say that there is a difference between equality and liberty because they have been conditioned to equate the two as either identical or at least as complementary. But the raw truth is that they are nothing alike, and that they are even antagonistic toward each other.

The difference between liberty and equality is more apparent when the dangers of each have been contrasted. The dangers of equality we have just seen. The dangers of liberty are this: When all men are completely free to make of their lives what they will, circumstances of intellect, physiology, geography, nature, and supernatural intervention (chance, to those who don't believe) will invariably be more favorable to some than others. Some will fail; some will die, but whatever his fortune, every person alone is civilly responsible for how he conducts himself within his circumstances. Plus, he is economically responsible for himself and for those who depend upon him. To most people this is an intolerable burden to bear and to risk for liberty, and so, men had rather give up some, or even all freedom, if their ways can be equalized, and the risks can at least be evenly ameliorated, if not removed altogether. For this reason, plus the fact, as Tocqueville also noted, that the dangers of equality are not as apparent as the dangers of liberty, men more readily choose equality than liberty, and the majority will inevitably gravitate toward that perpetual state of mindless, irresponsible equal dependency just described.

In the light of Tocqueville's prediction that democratic people would forever be in danger of becoming the witless captives of their government, and that the government would forever be trying to relieve us of the use of ourselves, it is interesting that the Bible predicts that just before the end of this age, men will be saying, "Peace and safety (security)" as the central points of their political philosophy. (1 Thess. 5:3)

Also, even though the desire for equality exists in all regimes, it has no proper energy except in democracies, for democracy not only feeds it, but has no means to control it.

This passion for equality is a passion older than sin, and it has Satan for its origin. Equality has been the cry of Satan since before the creation, when God judged him in this fashion, "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I WILL BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH" (Capital letters added for emphasis).

It was the passion for equality that caused Satan's fall in the Spiritual reality, and it was the passion for equality that provided the motive for disobedience to God when the serpent told the woman, "And ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." And the woman told her husband, and he ate. Mostly, men will tolerate any form of deprivation, slavery, or oppression as long as they believe everyone else is being "treated" the same. Listen to someone who is being prosecuted for breaking law that a lot other people have broken. They never think it is "fair" that they are being prosecuted, and all of those others got away clean. It seems as if they would be perfectly happy to be prosecuted if they only had some company. As long as everyone is treated alike, men will be joyfully equal slaves. This "joyful" equality in slavery to sin is what Satan had to offer in Eden and it is what he is offering today.

In the 18th chapter of Ezekiel, men accused God of not treating all people equally. They complained that the fathers had eaten "sour grapes" but that it was children's teeth that were set on edge. God answered them and said that they would never again be able to use that proverb against him because he would judge every soul individually, and the soul that sins shall die.

This then is the fair, impartial, and equal treatment of all. The soul that sins shall die. This is the immutable law of sin and death. Men can break man's laws, and men can break the regulations and ordinances within God's law, but no one can break the law of sin and death. The soul that sins will die! Just as no one who believes in the law of gravity will jump off of a tall building unless it is their intent to die, no one who believes in the unbreakable "law of sin and death" will intentionally jump into the dark abyss of sin unless their intention is to kill themselves.

It is an equality, but what a hopeless equality, for we can never be without sin. To be perfect we must have always in the past, and always in the future: "love the lord thy God with all thy heart (kardia = figuratively, the inner man), and with all thy soul (psuche or psyche = the personality), and with all thy strength and all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself" (Luke 10:25-28).

"Thyself" in the above passage is translated from an accusative pronoun, i.e. it points a finger, plus the word "auto," which is the self that Jesus said must be denied. The law, then, points its finger at the core of my sin problem, and it is my "self." I must love my neighbor (the near one, thus whoever is at this time near me) as myself. If I have ever failed, or ever do fail in this, even for one moment, to love who ever is near me all the time and to the depth that I love myself, I am done for by the law and I will die.

And that, my friend, is the easy part of the law; the hard part is that I must also forever more love God with all my inner man; I cannot allow a moment to pass when my inner being is not completely devoted to God. I must love God with all my personhood; I must never allow a second to pass by when my personality is not completely absorbed in total love for God. I must love God with all my strength (the idea of my will and my vitality in unity). I must love God with all my will and vitality in all purposes and at all times of my life. Never may I willfully use my life for any thing but the love of God. Then I must love God with all my mind (the channel of the thoughts) Every thought must be directed toward God, by the love of God, for God.

Friend, I have to tell you that I have sinned even as I wrote this. And you have sinned even as you read it. By the law we are both equally dead. But praise God, it is not the law in which we have hope, and faith, and trust, and peace. "For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." (Gal.2:16) But rather, our confidence is in the "law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit" (Rom. 8:2-4).

Equality then is the cry of the unrepentant who will not trust the Lord God to deal with us as individual sinners. Peter had this problem after Jesus had told him to feed his sheep. Peter looked up and saw John coming and asked, "What about this fellow, Lord? What does he have to do?" What parent has not heard it? The demand for equality is the source of all envy, jealousy, hatred, and emulation.

It is our passion for equality that makes the story of the woman of Canaan so unpalatable to us:

Matthew 15:22-28
"And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."

The scripture says that Jesus ignored her pleas, and volumes have been written trying to explain this away. The truth of the matter is that it is our passion for equality that is offended; it swells up within us and troubles us. It is difficult for democratically indoctrinated people to accept inequality, and unequally is how Jesus treated that woman. He treated her to his purpose and not to her's, or to our's, and we always will have a problem with that until we deny ourselves and trust Jesus completely. We really need to learn once and for all that if we confess Jesus as Lord and Master, we belong to him for him to use as it pleases him, and not that he belongs to us to use as it pleases us.

Jesus told her it was not proper to take food from the children's table and give it to the dogs. Moderate that by any rationale you can conjure and it still won't be equality. I used to trip over those verses also until I realized that with those crumbs that fall from His table I am receiving so much better than I deserve, and so much more than I had, that I will take those crumbs and be glad for His generosity. Praise God, He provided some crumbs for worms like me!

It is the passion for equality that has directed men through history from Adam until now. The passion for equality is the political imperative in man. It has not been the love of liberty, but the lust for equality that has driven men to overthrow every restraint on their way to achieving democracy, and it is now threatening the eventual suffocation of democracy. What will survive?

To answer that question we need to return to the Book of Daniel to examine the image of the "ten toes" and the "ten horns", and look at the beast with the "ten horns" from the 13th chapter of The Revelation. Daniel 2:43 says of the ten toes (see vs 42),

"And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave to one another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."

To understand what this means we need three pieces of information:

- What is represented by the iron?

- What is represented by the clay?

- What is the seed of men?

Both the iron and the clay are subsequently personified as "they" in the verse above, and "they" are both said to "mingle" themselves with the seed of men. The word translated as "mingle' means to "commingle," or in other words, both the iron and the clay are each active in mixing with the seed of men, but they are not compatible with each other and they will not "cleave" or stick to each other. This mingling of mankind into an Empire then, is a process of a fomentation that is in constant flux with the iron and the clay contending constantly with each other for the heart of each man individually, and the hearts of all men collectively.

The seed of men are the offspring or the ensuing generations of gentile mankind, and in Isaiah 64:8 clay represents the people that God is reshaping:

Isaiah 64:6-8
" But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand."

The iron is that which survives from out of the previous Greco-Roman Empire and which is to be carried over into that which will eventually evolve into the final Empire of Antichrist. Therefore, the iron must represent that Greco-Roman humanistic philosophy which when personified above, refers to the humanists who adhere to that Greco-Roman political philosophy inherited from the Roman Empire. Is it not possible to see in this image the double mindedness with which western democratic civilization has been pursued during the church age as the clay has mingled itself turbulently with the iron, not only in civilization, but in the hearts of each of us individually?

The image then of the ten toes and of the iron and the clay mingling "themselves" with the seed of men is a picture of the final democratic republics that will immediately precede and which will last until the tyranny of antichrist that will spring from these degenerate democracies. This clay and iron will be molded into a civilization that is mixed with, but not congruent with, the complete law of God, and that while they do not adhere together within either individuals or civilizations, these two are in continual flux with each other, striving for the faith, not only of individual hearts, but also the corporate faith of the multitudes.

While the seed of men in general represents the generations of men that are to exist under this civilization, I believe it also specifically designates the source of the beast which rises from the sea in The Revelation chapter 13 verses 1-2 where it says,

"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority."

John says he saw a beast rise up from among the sea. Just as Daniel saw the four spirits of heaven working in humanity to bring forth the Empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and that of subsequent Western Civilization, John now sees another Empire rise from out of the sea. As we noted earlier, we are told in the 17th chapter of The Revelation that this sea, from which the beast rises and upon which the Babylonian Whore sits, represents all of gentile humanity. This beast is not the Antichrist as many believe it to be. This beast represents a type of empire and culture. This beast is shown as having evolved from out of all of the earlier types of empires and cultures that have preceded it. In that it arises from the sea it is represented as an empire and culture that arises out of all of gentile civilizations. Can there be any doubt of what kind of civilization rises up out of all gentile cultures? This beast represents the culture of Western Democratic civilization that is even now dominating the earth, and the ten horns on this beast represent the federation of republics which will give their authority over to the antichrist when he appears.

John said that this beast overall looked like a leopard (The leopard represented Greece in Daniel's vision in 7th chapter of Dan.), and it had feet (that which it stands upon) like a bear (The bear represented the Medo-Persian Empire in Daniel's vision.), and it had a mouth (the part that devours and talks) like a lion (which represented Babylon).

Both the Grecian and the Roman Empires represented by the beasts in Daniel incorporated within themselves many of the gentile cultures and customs of the civilizations which they had conquered, and from which they had issued. This beast that rises from humanity looks like the Grecian Empire because of its philosophical and political disposition. Its foundation resembles that of the Medo-Persian Empire because the Median and the Persian Empire sprang from the peoples who subsequently peopled most of Europe. This beast that rises from the sea, has for its founders the same people as the Medo-Persians who were of the Indo-European race. But this beast rises over all of humanity after its founding. Indeed has already done so. The world dominance of the democracies of these Indo-Europeans, which was prophesied nearly 2000 years ago, is a matter of fact today.

And this last beast has a mouth like the lion of Babylon. Babylon's most enduring contribution to civilization has been her code of law. In the 1700's B.C. Hammurabi issued the code of law which was the first body of civil law known to history. It has been the model for civil law in virtually all subsequent western civilizations.

The lion-like mouth of the beast in Revelation 13:2 refers to the source of that body of Babylonian law which resembles in some respects the Law of God, but it originated with man and not with God, and the Babylonian code of law has been used as a model in all world dominating empires subsequent to Babylon. It is from the mouth of the law of that beast that the people of God are devoured and the God of Creation is blasphemed. God told us over two thousand years ago that Satan would use this law to wage spiritual warfare against all that is Godly. Today it is simply a matter of noting current events to see this prophecy being fulfilled in front of our faces.

John saw himself standing "upon the sand of the sea". As we mentioned earlier, the "sand of the sea" represents the "seed of Abraham" at the time that God's promise to Abraham is fulfilled. The sand of the sea is the place between the earth of the curse and the sea of gentile humanity. It is a line of demarcation, a place of separation. John saw himself standing upon the dividing line of all humanity, looking out upon all the vast ages of mankind. This is the same as the burden of the prophet Joel which we spoke of earlier from Joel 3:14 where it says, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision."

The dividing line of mankind is the Cross of Jesus Christ the seed of Abraham through which all of the earth will be blessed. The cross of Jesus Christ is a line drawn in eternity, a line at an apex so steep that it can not be straddled. All will fall to one side or the other or be cleaved into two parts by it. Through out history all mankind will be faced with the necessity to decide about the Cross. The generation in which Jesus Christ is rejected, not just by the heathen, but also by the apostate church, is the generation of multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, from which arises the Abomination of Desolation.

Another very important point to notice about this vision and its explanation, is that the whore is not present on the beast when the beast first rises from the sea and appears in Rev. 13, but when her judgment is revealed to the church in Rev. 17, the great whore is riding the beast that stands upon the people. I believe this indicates that democracy as a concept is not at fault, even though it is Satan's choice over all other governmental forms. Rather it is the nature of man, and the Babylonian whore of false religion that man has conjured trying to restrain the passions released by democracy, that is at fault.

We need to look now at the beast itself, because every political event in history has pointed to this "government from out of the people" which John sees rise from gentile humanity in this vision. The rise of this beast is inevitable, all that need happen is for God not to interfere, because it is driven by the same egalitarian principle that was the cause of Satan's rebellion to God. It is this principle which is now being worked out to its logical conclusion in this reality, which drove the creation of this reality in the first place. We are given the vision of this beast first in Chapter 13, then the vision is explained in chapter 17. Therefore we will look at these two chapters together.

Rev. 13:1 says that this beast that rises up from out of the sea has seven heads and ten horns. We have already shown where beasts are representative of political empires and cultures, and as we have seen this one is no exception. We are told in chapter 17, verse 9, that the seven heads are seven Mountains, and verse 10 says that there are seven kings. A mountain represents more than a king, or a kingdom or even a simple empire; a mountain is an Imperial civilization. In Daniel 2:34-35 a stone is supernaturally cut out of a mountain, and then after this stone destroys all of the Imperial civilizations that existed before it, it becomes a mountain itself and fills the earth: This means that the Imperial civilization of The Lord Jesus Christ is going to be the last civilization on earth after he wins the struggle with Satan. If you want to be a winner in eternity, you have to be on the side of Christ and look like a loser in temporality. Mountains then are used to represent the world wide ambitions for dominion of a civilization, and includes the politics, commerce, and religion or manners of that culture or civilization. The heads on this beast are said to be seven kings. Kings are normally men, but these are also said to each represent a mountain or an Imperial civilization of world conquest.

Verse 10 says that of these seven kings, five were already history at the time that John received the vision, and that one of these civilizations was in existence at that time, and that one was yet to come. It says that when this last empire comes it will endure but for a short time. In verse 7, the angel told John that he was going to show him what the mystery, represented by the vision of the woman and the beast, meant. The woman the angel was talking about is the woman described in chapter 17, verse 1 through 6. First, notice that the woman rides a scarlet colored beast which has seven heads and ten horns. This is obviously the same beast, or at least the same kind of beast, as the one that rose from out of the sea in chapter 13. But where was the woman when it rose up out of the sea? By the time of the judgment of Babylon in chapters 17 and 18 the woman has become so much a part of the political and commercial process that she is herself Identified as "BABYLON THE GREAT." In other words, she has become absolute in her authority over this system. But the woman was not riding the beast at the time that the beast developed from humanity. She must therefore, "mount up" at some later time. She does this by becoming the authority for the system of Babylon. She becomes, at some time, its authenticator by prostituting herself and her "body" to the majority of humanity for the material wealth, comfort, and power that this beast can offer.

Revelation 13:2 says that this beast gets its power, and its seat, and its authority from Satan. The power of democracy is the egalitarian principle, the seat or throne of democracy is the heart of man, and its authority is itself. Democracy gets all of these from Satan, they are each his to bestow. Democracy is the Devil's design for political power that will bring mankind to deny Jesus Christ and glorify Self, and worship his Antichrist, and bring man into eternal subjection to Satan. When the church uses her authority to promote any political regime, she is prostituting herself to the one who owns all such regimes. But when she prostitutes her self because of democracy, she becomes the instrument of Antichrist.

In case you still are doubting that this beast represents democracy, verse 8, says that this beast had existed before, but that at the time that John was given the vision it was history, (the beast that was, and is not) i.e. it was no longer in existence at the time that John saw it rise up out of the sea in the vision. Then the angel says, this beast shall ascend out of the bottomless pit (the pits of Hell itself), which is to say that this beast had exist once before John's vision, but it did not exist when John saw it in the vision, but sometime in the future from the time that he saw it in the vision, it would come into being again through demonic inspiration. And lastly, the angel said that this beast would go into "perdition." Perdition translates a word that usually means spiritual, physical or eternal, ruin. I think it is meant to convey all three senses in this context. I believe that the ordained destiny of this beast is that it will be ridden toward increasingly greater and greater physical degradation and spiritual ruin until it is ridden into the jaws of eternal Hell. If you are one of those humanists whose hope and trust is in democracy and your fellow man, you are sitting astride of a dangerous beast that is running headlong into Hell.

That same verse says that all the world will wonder when they see this beast that existed before, but that did not exist at the time of the vision, but that would exist again, or as the angel said it, "that was, and is not, and yet is." We have previously discussed the history of democracy, that government that is of the people by the people, for the people. We have seen how democracy developed in Ancient Greece and died because of self centered parochialism, and how it was ALSO Born in the Old Roman Republic and died from corruption. We have seen where the Roman Empire began as a democratic republic that incorporated many of the philosophical notions of the Ancient Greek culture it defeated. We have seen how democratic republicanism has been "born again" during the age of the material enlightenment in western civilizations. At the time of the vision of The Revelation, democracies had at one time existed, but none existed at that time. History has demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt that democracy is now going to encompass and dominate the world. We can certainly see that the form that this world dominating democracy is taking in its dominion is completely unrestrained by the necessary disciplines demanded of a Sovereign God who judges in wrath. It is the plan of Satan that democracy will so corrupt herself that men will come to his religion of tyranny for restraint. The Revelation says the beast from the abyss will be the supernaturally empowered world leader of this movement. He is called the "false prophet" in Rev. 19:20. Before the time that he is revealed completely, the whore of Babylon will have been struggling for the control of the democratic beast as it runs headlong into Hell, but when Antichrist is revealed he becomes the head of the apostate humanistic religion that is authenticating the manners of democracy, and at that time the Babylonian Whore mounts up on the back of Democracy. All of humanity who then follow them, will ride off together into war with Jesus Christ and be doomed into Hell.

The vision of the beast that rises from the sea in Rev. 13:1 says that he has upon his heads the name of Blasphemy. Democracy means "THE PEOPLE RULE." By any evaluation, from the perspective of an absolute, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, sovereign Creator, the notion that the people rule is blasphemy (insulting).

Also, in Revelation 13:3, John says that he saw that one of the heads of this beast had been wounded as unto death. One of the heads had previously died but was going to be alive again. Now the scripture says that this deadly wound was to the beast, in one of its seven heads, which represents the empires from which the ten horns of Antichrist's kingdom will develop. This deadly wound was to an Imperial Empire and not to one of the ten horns or kings of the latter days as has been popularly accepted. The scripture never says that some last day political leader (one of the ten horns) is going to get wounded to death by a head wound and then come back to life. The scripture says that this deadly wound is in one of the seven heads which represented the imperial empires from which the last confederacy develops. We have already seen where the heads were called mountains, or Imperial civilizations. The only Imperial civilization in history that has once lived, and then been dead by the sword of tyranny, and subsequently lived again, is the Greco-Roman civilization of Western culture, and when this culture is once again republicanized in the Remnants of Rome, the last head of the beast will live again. When the last head becomes tyrannized, the kingdom of Antichrist will be in existence.

The fact that the tyranny of Antichrist develops from out of all seven of these Civilizations is told to us in Revelation 17:11 where it says. "...the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven..." That is, the last beast develops from out of the previous seven heads or civilizations. The particular civilization from which the Empire of Antichrist develops has to be one that had existed before the time of The Revelation, but that did not exist at the time of Revelation, and which will come into existence again at some time after The Revelation. Western style Republican democracy that degenerates into a Republican tyranny is the only civilization that fits that description. If, for example, the old Ottoman Empire were to be reborn at some future time, the prophecies that require the empire of Antichrist to come out of western civilization would not be fulfilled.

The only "head" (empire or civilization) in history which had been wounded unto death before the Revelation, but which has come back to life, and develops as it rises up from the sea of humanity, is what we know as western civilization as it developed from Greco-Roman democracy which has "self" destructed twice before in history, but to which the world is demanding that all kings must now hand over their kingdoms.

The revitalization of this "democratic empire" will not be accomplished through evangelism of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but through the majority accepting the false religion of democratic humanism by which Democracy is authenticated to the masses. This is why Rev. 13:7 says that it is the first beast, the beast that rises from the sea (Republican Democracy), who has been given the power to make war with the saints and to overcome them: real Christianity is rejected by the majority in favor of the false humanistic religion that has the form of Christianity but denies the power of Christianity which is even now being popularized in all democracies. The truth is that all Christian leaders and nearly all Christians today are in the hands of that Democracy and proclaim the righteousness of it to all the world. The beast has already over come the saints.

It was heresy and whoredoms with Babylon in the Roman Church that eventually precipitated the Protestant reformation. It was the unholy union between the Protestant Reformers and the Grecian Humanists that taught men about such things as utility, equality, law, and self interest, instead of truth, liberty, justice, and duty. It was from Christians unwittingly compromising the truth of Biblical freedom, justice, and responsibility with these humanistic doctrines that the impetus for humanistic democracy has been given fresh, and relentless, and overwhelming energy.

One of the central ideas of the Protestant Reformation was the authority of the Bible. As soon as the Bible was translated into everyman's language, everyman became his own interpreter of authority. When the church was the sole authority of Christianity, the church became political. Since the Bible has become the sole authority for Christianity, the church has become philosophical. The only solution is to return to the time when Jesus Christ is the only authority for Christianity, which means that both the Bible and the Spirit must be relied upon with discernment. Such ideas as everyman being his own interpreter of authority are the heart and soul of Humanistic Democracy. The humanists would never have gotten Democracy off of the ground except for the enthusiastic support from the Protestant Reformation. But Protestantism became immediately tied to humanism and began another dreary trek toward apostasy. But all the time that the church has been heading into apostasy, Satan has been getting his democracy installed in all of the former Roman Empire and, in deed, in much of the world.

All that remains in the preparations for his tyranny, is for the majority within those democracies to come to hate Christianity, and for much of Christendom to reject Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. When that happens the Father will declare that irreconcilable apostasy has occurred in the church. Jesus will then send his earth shattering judgments against this system that The Revelation calls the "wrath ("Orge" = a passionate anger) of the Lamb." Then during the reconstruction of civilization, Antichrist will come to power and forge his empire of republican tyranny from remnants of the Roman Empire, and form his alliances with the remnants of the old Ottoman Empire.

An Imperial Republican tyranny is a form of government that is particularly well suited to Islam because, as we noted earlier, Islam is fundamentally a masculine warriors religion. Such a religion appeals to the natural man at his very core and gains easy acceptance among the unregenerated who perceive themselves as being oppressed. Christendom will once again be given the option to convert or die by the Islamic hordes allied to Antichrist. One only needs to look at the hatred for western culture, and for what they think is Christianity, that is being displayed by many black American converts to Islam today to see the truth of this.

When the events of the 6th seal do occur and civilization tries to dig its way out of the rubble, the whore of Babylon will once again grab the reins of the beast of western civilization and attempt to remount upon his back. But the confederated kingdoms of Antichrist's empire will hate the whore and destroy her. This will all be accomplished, not in a world of 20th century technology, but in one of 10th century darkness. When the politics and commerce of Babylon are united with the religion of Babylon with the person of Antichrist as the head of all three, the beast is ridden into Hell.

The people of this kingdom will be told to make an image of this beast which has been revitalized from this Greco-Roman head of democracy (which Rev. 17:9 says is the whole "Mountain," which is indicative of the whole civilization of Greco-Roman politics, Greco-Roman religion, and Greco-Roman commerce). The people of this empire will worship the image of this "beast" in much the same fashion as the Nazi Elite in Germany worshipped the images of the kingdoms of the ancient Teutonic Gods from which they believed their destinies sprang.

Because democracy gives the beast that rises up from the sea its form, does not have to mean that United States is involved in this final confederacy. In fact my prayer and hope is that she is not, but that real spiritual revival comes to America before or following the chaos of her "self" indulgence and the catastrophes of the 6th seal. I pray that America, because of her isolation and material collapse, will be a politically insignificant nation of backwater communities at the end. Because America has generally befriended Israel, even if she has not been so good to individual Jews at times, I believe God might just spare her the ignominy of becoming part of Antichrist's empire.

There is however, grave danger that such will not be the case: Daniel 7:8 indicates that there will be war between 3 of the original nations, which are represented by the ten horns, and a separate nation represented by a later horn that arises after the original ten horns. This latter horn will defeat the other three. This latter horn is, in fact, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit in Rev. 17:8, and is said to be the 8th kingdom and is derived from the first seven kingdoms.

There is a great deal of similarity between this latter horn and the United States. The U.S. came along after the rest of the remnants of the latter Greco-Roman Empire; the U.S. has defeated at least three of the earlier kingdoms (but more if you count their allies) England, Spain, and Germany. And the U.S. is supposedly the only remaining super power in the world today.

I am convinced by hope though, that the United States is but a "type" of "latter horn," and that around the time of the coming world wide collapse, a similar nation will emerge from somewhere to the north of Israel, and will fulfill the prophecy completely at the time of the end, and that nation will be the nation of Antichrist. The danger is not that Antichrist will actually come from American apostasy, but that Americans will ally themselves to him when appears. But there are good reasons in the scripture for the hope that America is not one of the remaining nations that gives herself over to the Antichrist. Rev. 12:14 says that the nation of Israel is protected by the wings of a "great eagle" for 42 months from the face of the serpent. The eagle is considered by most Americans to be her most recognizable symbol next to the National Ensign. The 42 month time period during which Israel is protected by this "eagle" in that verse would then be from the time of the treaty between the nation of Antichrist and Israel, until the revelation of the Antichrist, when he stands in the Holy Place. Before we get too flattered, we need to understand that Biblical Eagles are in reality actually vulture like birds feeding on dead meat.

Such a scenario would mean that the U.S. would eventually stand idly by at the time of Antichrist's emboldened execution of the two witnesses in Jerusalem and the proclamation of himself as God. Daniel 11:30 says that the ships of Chittim will come against him and he will be grieved. Chittim represents the nations of the western shores around the Mediterranean Sea, but could possibly be extended to include America. That passage indicates that he does not at that time fight against Chittim but leaves to persecute Israel. Therefore it seems to me that if the U. S. is represented by the wings of a great Eagle, she just for some reason, which is probably economic and political collapse, gives up protecting Israel when Antichrist turns to make war with Israel. I find this situation infinitely more palatable than that the nation whose motto was "In God we trust" should continue her apostasy to become partner of Antichrist.

Next, note from Revelation 17:7 that the woman Is riding upon the beast. She is borne and upheld by the Babylonian system. When the church gets involved with politics, commerce, and the philosophies of man centered false religion she makes herself to become a part of the whore of Babylon.

The remnants from seven Imperial Civilizations will carry this whore. The angel told John that at the time of his vision 5 of those Empires had already passed into history. The fallen 5 are not critical but could have numbered, for example, Babylon, Media/Persia, Greece, the divided Grecian Empire, and Rome (the Old Republic), The kingdom that existed at the time of the vision was the Rome of tyranny, the Caesars' Empire. In Nebuchadnezzar's dream the Imperial kingdom of Antichrist is the kingdom that comes from out of the two feet (Rome, the divided empire), to become the ten toes of Antichrist's western civilization. Both, in Daniel's vision, and here in The Revelation it is represented by ten horns.

The beast of Rev. 13: 11 that comes up out of the earth instead of the sea, is said to exercise all of the power of the first beast. The first beast is the beast that rises up out of the sea. Yet, Rev. 17:8 told John that the beast that was once, but did not then exist, but would exist again in the future, would rise from the bottomless pit. The beast that rises from the sea has seven heads which are seven kings. At the time of the vision, 5 were fallen, or had become history. That left only two heads, one head or king that was in existence at the time of the vision, plus a 7th head or king that would come into existence later. It is said of this 7th kingdom in Rev. 17:10, that it must continue for a short space, and that there will be an 8th head or king that will come after the 7th. We are told that this 8th Empire will be of the seven previous Empires. The 8th empire ascends, not out of the sea of humanity, but from the pits of Hell. This demonic 8th empire will be a reborn form of the Imperial Humanistic Greco-Roman Democracy, and it will be empowered by Satan, administered by Antichrist, and worshipped or feared by all of the unredeemed people of the earth.

Notice carefully from Rev. 13:5 and 17:10 that the 7th empire (which must be that of western democracy as it is restrained by Christianity) will continue only for a short while, and then there will arise a ten nation confederacy that is formed out of the first seven empires. Since the geographical region from which that ten nation confederacy is going to form is even now being born into western democracy, we are very close to the end of the 7th empire. Our choice is not whether we are going to continue as a world power, but whether we are going to revitalize ourselves in the Christian Faith, or become the subjects of Antichrist's Imperial Empire. His ten nation confederacy will make war with the Whore of Babylon and win, and they will make war with the Lamb and lose.

As we noted above, Revelation 13:7 says that it was given unto the beast that rose from the sea to make war with, and to overcome the saints, and that all who dwell upon the earth shall worship this beast of democracy from the sea of humanity whose names are not written in the Lamb's book of life. Therefore, it is being prophesied that democracy, is eventually going to win out over the Gospel in the hearts and minds of the majority of mankind in the former Roman Empire, and that the people of democracy will hate and afflict the true church. Indeed, are already coming to do so in the degenerate minds of the rebellious intelligentsia. When Rev. 13:8 says that all that dwell upon the earth will worship the first beast whose names are not written in the book of life, it is not talking about Antichrist but about western democracy. We are even now in great peril because churchmen have confused and indiscriminately mixed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the principles of democracy. When the humanistic forces of unregenerated men succeed in replacing Christianity with humanism as the restraining force within democracy, the prophecy of Revelation 13:8 will have been fulfilled. We are indeed very close to this point now. The downward spiral of iniquity within the confederation of republics formed by these humanistic forces will shortly thereafter cause all unredeemed mankind to embrace the military tyranny of Satan's Antichrist.

The earth is the place of the curse and Antichrist arises from the earth after the formation of that confederated empire represented by the ten horns. Daniel 7:19-25 (specifically vs. 24) is in agreement that he will arise after the original ten kingdoms.

In that he has 2 horns like a lamb, he looks like Jesus Christ i.e. he seems to be a good, gentle, compassionate, and caring human being, but because he speaks like a dragon, he speaks for the Devil i.e he speaks of humanism and equality with God. Verse 12 says that he exercises (Creates, poieo - primarily means to create or make) all the power of the first beast, i.e. Democracy has been empowered by Satanic forces to sweep over the earth in these last days. Once more, we are shown the source of the power for the first beast (democracy) and now we can understand how he makes all who "dwell on the earth," who are not Christians, worship the first beast (democracy). Most are already doing so even now without realizing that it is the first beast of revelation that they worship.

Rev. 13:14, says this second beast is endowed with supernatural Satanic powers which he uses to deceive all who dwell upon the earth. Daniel 8:23 says he "understands dark sentences". The understanding of dark sentences likewise means he will be supernaturally empowered. Jesus said that he would fool even the elect, if it were possible. Jesus said don't mess around with this character; if they say he is in the dessert: don't go; if they say he is in the mountains don't go. Stay away from him if at all possible and wait patiently upon the Lord to return and take care of him. His people are going to make war with the saints and kill some of us, so make them come to find us instead of us going to them.

It will also be necessary that this latter Abomination of desolation fulfill all of the prophecies from the Book of Daniel. In the fashion that the prophecies in the 11th chapter of Daniel saw a near fulfillment in Antiochus Epiphanes, it will be necessary for this latter "king" to repeat the events described in the 11th chapter of Daniel in order to fulfill all prophecy. He must also be a philosophical descendant from the "sons of Antiochus," and he must be from the remnants of the ancient Greco-Roman Empire.

In the 11th chapter of Daniel there are five separate political arenas delineated as: the king of the south, the king of the north, the eastern powers, and the ships of Chittim, which speaks of sea going powers to the west of Israel. But there is also a mysterious person identified only as "he" that is consistently and deeply involved in the political manipulation of the whole Middle Eastern Arena. This "he" is the spirit of Antichrist before his advent, and the person of Antichrist afterwards. "He" even now permeates Middle Eastern politics in the same manner as "he" clandestinely permeates the text of the 11th chapter of Daniel. The seat of his government will be in an unidentified kingdom which will be completely given over to his spirit at the time of the end, and his spirit is the force behind the Babylonian concepts of humanized civilization. This unidentified kingdom cannot be from either the Middle East or the Orient, but must be from one of the smaller areas of Russia (Gog) which are even now beginning to emerge from oblivion. The reason this must be so is because Ezekiel said that the kingdom of Antichrist will come from Gog, the land of Magog from the North of Israel, and Daniel said the Antichrist will become strong with a small people (Dan. 11:23). (This is another reason why I believe the United States to be only a type of the Beast that rises from the sea.)

I can easily imagine that every industrialized nation on earth is at present clandestinely involved in the affairs of the Middle East because of the oil supply. I believe the end time prophesies of Daniel will begin as described in verses 9-10 of the 11th chapter of Daniel where it says that the sons or descendants of a kingdom to the south of Israel will assemble a great army and attack a kingdom to the north of Israel. The hub of this political wheel will be Israel. Now notice how "he" is involved in the situation at the time of the end:

Daniel 10:40-45
"And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps. But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many. And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him."

The following verses from Dan. 11:36 to 11:40 describe this king and the things which he will accomplish in his kingdom:

36 And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.

Notice that this king is self willed, self righteous, and completely self centered. He will, by the reason of man, and the power of Satan deny the existence of any god except man himself. He will be the epitome of the humanistic existentialist. He will be the darling of the humanistic, rationalistic, apostate church and all of the false religions of Babylon.

37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. 38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. 39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.

These verses describe the things in which this king believes. This king will not honor the God of his fathers. At some point around the time of the cataclysmic events of the 6th seal, there will be a union formed between the kingdoms which now make up the Asiatic portion of the divided Grecian Empire and the peoples of democracy from the areas of Europe and Russia. This alliance will be orchestrated by a most charismatic and dynamic individual from some nation outside of the Middle East, and from a small nation within the former Russias to the north of Israel. The populations of the world will support him. Soon Egypt will threaten to break with the alliance and threaten war with him. He puts down this rebellion but he is then immediately threatened by Syria. During his march to Syria, he makes a peace treaty with Israel and obtains permission to pass through with his armies. I believe it is because of the fear of that nation represented by the two great wings of an Eagle that he does not at this time go ahead and attack Israel, but after defeating Syria and one other Islamic nation,, he will deal treacherously with all concerned. This third Islamic nation will most likely be Iraq (see the 50th Chapter of Jeremiah where Babylon is now Iraq), which explains why the U.S. did not finish the job earlier. Isa.13:17 says that it will be the Medes (Indo-Europeans) who destroy Babylon (Iraq), and leave it never again to be inhabited. This did not happen the first time these Medes conquered Babylon, therefore the first conquest was a type. After defeating Babylon, this one who is known to Daniel only as "he," or "him," over throws kingdom after kingdom in the Middle East. The purpose behind all of this is of course to take control of the world oil production which has been all but stopped since the events of the 6th seal.

I believe the whole world will be led to believe that this individual has the "purest of motives" for his campaigns into the Middle East. The world is overcrowded, under fed, and diseased. Mankind is in desperate need of energy to rebuild the framework of civilization. The oil is still buried beneath the Arabs but they are too fractious to work at getting it out of the ground. Order must be restored to the Middle East so the oil can flow and food can be produced and distributed, and garbage can be removed, and sewage can be pumped, and smelteries can be fired, and so on, and so on.

It is said of him that he will not regard the desire of women. Some take this to mean that he will be a homosexual, and he may well be, since the Bible says in Genesis that the woman's desire will be unto her husband, but I think there is also a deeper meaning intended here. This individual is going to be the humanitarian of humanitarians. World population is going to be so dense and in such disarray within habitable areas that humanity will be experiencing unbelievable pressures from the breakdown in food production and distribution, energy production, wealth distribution, capital availability, and waste disposal, etc. Since the facade of his humanitarian ideals will prevent him from openly advocating the elimination of large masses of population, and since the population has already wantonly prostituted itself on the issue of abortion, euthanasia, etc. I believe he will mandate a program of mandatory abortion and sterilization for which democratic societies are already being prepared. Violators will be executed. Motherhood will be a privilege which is regulated and handed out by a corrupt state. The policies of Hitler in Germany concerning these issues were a "type" of the policies of this Antichrist who will implement them in their completeness.

Verse 38 says that he will honor the God of forces. The word "forces" translates a Hebrew word meaning STRONGHOLDS. It is these same strongholds that the church has been empowered to tear down to free mankind from them. The word "honor" translates a Hebrew verb which literally means "to be heavy". This word, "kaw-bade," has both good and bad connotations. The good connotations include the concepts of numerous, honor, and richness; the bad connotations include the concepts of severity, burdensomeness, and dullness. In other words the sense of the word "kaw-bade" is that someone or something is "completely loaded down, or made heavy, by the object of the verb, and it depends upon the nature of the object whether this condition is a good thing or a bad thing. The nature of the God of Strongholds is absolute evil, complete rebellion to God. This individual will be completely loaded down by the God of the Babylonish system with political, commercial, and false religious strongholds. He will be inspired and indwelt by Satan himself.

I believe it to be entirely possible that this humanitarian will not at first be aware himself that he has taken Satan up on his offer to give to him all the glory of all the kingdoms of earth in exchange for his worship of Satan, but that in his idealistic humanism, he has completed Satan's promise to man that they would be as gods if they would listen to him and not God Almighty. I think it is entirely possible that both he and the rest of the world will view his supernatural powers as the end toward which the evolution of man has been "progressing."

Verse 39 says that he will do these things in the "fortified" strongholds. These fortified strongholds are those three which are revealed riding out over the entire earth under the first three seals of The Revelation which we will discuss more fully when we look at that scripture. These "most strong holds" have a hold on man which he can not break. No matter what the character is of the government to which man rebels, he will invariably reinstitute the same old strongholds under a different disguise. Man must wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to break these fortified strongholds when he returns and crushes the Babylonian system with the judgment from God, and rules earth with a rod of iron. But because the surviving men of earth who populate the millennial kingdom have not been fundamentally changed at this time, the "lives" of the old Babylonian Strongholds are preserved for a time until the world is once more turned over to Satan at the end of the millennium (See Dan.7:12 and Rev. 20:7-8).

The rest of the world stands in awe of the victor over all of these nations and all the world gives praise and glory to the leader of this nation who by this time knows himself to be Satanically empowered to bring fire down from heaven and give breath and voice to the image of the first beast, i.e. he is empowered by the same power that resurrected the dead body of democracy and gave it a new life.

He then causes his "mark" to be placed upon the hand or the head of anyone who wishes to do business within his empire. We need to understand once and for all that Antichrist is about buying and selling. Doing anything that turns a buck is the spirit of Antichrist. The system for buying and selling everything from air to humanity is what his economics is about. He holds the keys to wealth and power, and he promises them in unlimited quantities to any of mankind who will follow and obey him.

The numbers ten in the Books of Daniel and Revelation do not have to be taken literally to be exactly ten kingdoms. Ten is a Hebrew symbol of completeness, as is seven also. It is therefore possible that the numbers seven and ten could be taken to mean complete, world wide dominion. It is also possible that a literal ten nation confederacy of democratic republics that form from within the area of the old Roman Empire will come to dominate the whole world from a political, economic, and philosophical unity. I tend toward this latter position.

The ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar's vision, the ten horns and two feet of Daniel's vision, and the seven heads with ten horns and ten crowns of the beast of The Revelation all refer to the same world dominating empire of the last days before the return of Jesus Christ. It is an empire of western style, confederated democratic republics, united in common cause, common law, and common commerce, all of which is restrained and authenticated by the common (profane) religion of faith in man, and which will all come to be a part of the Republican tyranny of Antichrist.

This confederacy will be made up variously from out of all of the nations of which Ezekiel prophesied in Chapters 36 through 39. This confederacy will either be allied to, or incorporated with many of those hostile nations which now surround Israel. And it is those nations which are destroyed by Jesus Christ as he roars out of Mount Zion at the end of this age. But after destroying the armies of all of these nations which will come up against Israel, there will still be people left in each country which survive the terrible judgments of God, and these people will be the basis of the repopulation of the earth to which Israel will be a nation of priests during the Millennial Kingdom.

Ezekiel 38:8 says that this confederation of nations will be "visited" in the last years, and will be caused to come against Israel with hostile intent at some time after the Jews have been brought back together and are living peaceably in their nation.

"After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them."

Here, and in verse 11 below (the land of unwalled villages), it is indicated that Israel will be living in peace (the land bought back from the sword) and safety at a time after she has been gathered back into Israel out of all other nations on earth. At some point after that, in the latter days, she comes under attack from this confederacy.

"And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates."

In Ezekiel 38:13 below it indicates some nations called Sheba, Dedan, and Tarshish will question the motives of those nations about to attack Israel. Sheba and Dedan are of the region we now call Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, North and South Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. The word Tarshish comes from an ancient Phoenician word meaning smeltery or refinery. The Bible refers to the kings and the "ships of Tarshish" in several places and it would seem to apply most aptly, as far as end time prophecy and types are concerned, to all industrialized nations in general. The young lions are lions that are in a process of learning, the hunt and the kill are still games with them. The young lions of Tarshish would therefore seem to refer to the allies of the industrialized nations and to the emerging democracies and industrial powers of the last days. It is almost frightening to hear the impotence with which these industrialized nations and their oil supplying allies ask this confederation, "Have you come to take a spoil of Israel? Translated into modern jargon that asks, "Are you going to do a bad thing?" I can almost hear the snickers as they answer, "Trust us, we want peace, we are only here to help."

In so far as it says that the "merchants" of Tarshish and all her young lions ask about the motives of this horde of armies coming against Israel, it indicates that there exists an economic-political forum in the last days within which such questions can be framed. Such forums are even now being forged among the Asian, European, and New World Nations.

Ezekiel 38:13
"Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?"

Notice how silver and gold play a prominent part in the plans of this confederacy. There have been many reports concerning the mineral wealth that is dissolved in the dead sea, and there have been recent speculations that Israel is about to start "mining" this sea of minerals. But I believe something more spectacular than a dredging operation is going to occur in Israel. I believe unbelievably huge seams of gold and silver could be opened in Israel by one of the earthquakes mentioned in The Revelation. The 2nd verse of the 2nd chapter of Isaiah says that chapter concerns the last days, and verse 7 of that chapter says that the land of Judah and Jerusalem will be full of gold and silver at that time.

In verse 20 of Ezekiel 38, God says that these things will occur when he is "present in Israel".

"So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground."

Also note that this passage likewise indicates that the mountains and the structures of civilization are going to be thrown down at the time that the Lord is again present on earth. This means that Jesus is back on earth at time of the last world shattering earthquake in Revelation 16:18-20 where it says, "...and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great,...And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found."

Look below at Ezekiel 38:21-23 at the judgments that God says he is going to bring upon this confederation, it can be seen that they are the same as the judgments of The Revelation.

"And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD."

The phrase above that says that the Lord will be known in the eyes of many nations definitely means he will stand before them and they will see him, indicating once more that men other than Jews will survive into the Millennial kingdom.

Americans may perhaps learn, before it is too late, that democracy is entirely dependent upon man to willingly act with self denial in every aspect of life, and that, since even the redeemed cannot do that consistently, Democratic institutions must either: yield themselves to the authority of God and teach all men to answer to Him who made the heavens and the earth, or else die in degradation. Unless the passions unleashed by democracy are restrained by an authoritative source external to, and greater than itself, it can not exist without self destructing. If America and the world will learn this, then there will be a great awakening as the people begin to turn once more to look for spiritual things. Indeed, I believe this may already be beginning to occur. But if the organized church, at the time of this awakening, is still predominately the materialistic, rationalistic, humanistic organ that it is today, the outcome will still be the Apostasy. Even if the church of today repents and returns to the spiritual doctrines and separations of Christianity, unless the majority of humanists repent of the materialism that binds and blinds them, the apostate church could still be formed by this unredeemed majority who will eventually turn to the new age type pantheism fostered by egalitarianism.

In a newspaper article written by Boston Globe reporter, James L. Franklin, that appeared on Halloween 1993, it was reported that many of the Baby Boomer Generation, who had forsaken churches as young adults, were now "shopping around" to fill their spiritual needs. In the article, he quoted the Rev. William McKinney, a minister and sociologist at Hartford Seminary, as saying that this generation was displaying a "consumerist mentality" as they shopped around. Other recent articles on the same subject have reported the same attitudes of this generation. The sad part of the situation is that many churches are accommodating themselves to this politically, socially, and economically powerful generation, rather than leading them to repentance of their materialistic beliefs.

Recent polls concerning the beliefs of the "Baby Boomer" generation have pointed out that very few of this generation believe in a literal Hell, eternal damnation, or absolute judgment. Most of this generation believe that the church is irrelevant to the problems in the world today, and that church fellowship is not a vital part of being a Christian. Many describe themselves as not religious but believe in spiritual values and realities such as meditation, psychic experience, and reincarnation.

Many churches are even now accommodating themselves to the attitudes of this powerful group. When one considers that this group of individuals, plus the children that they are now raising, make up some where around 2/3 of the population of America, it is not hard to see where the apostasy will come from in America. When one considers the relative size of these two generations, coupled with the unconcern of the previous generations, it appears the apostasy is not far away.

Regardless of what the baby boomers believe about Hell, let me warn you that Hell is the same today as it was when Jesus spoke of it. It is a real place, and I believe it is in the physical reality in the core of the earth. The only way we know about Hell is by what God has told us about it, and so we either have to believe what God has said, or reject it. Hell is a place devoid of anything Godly. Those whose destiny it is to abide there for eternity, go there willingly of their own volition because they do not want to be changed by God to conform to his image, but want to change God to conform to theirs.

Hell is the exact opposite of everything heavenly and Godly. Because God is love, Hell is Hate; because God is light, Hell is darkness; because God is life, Hell is death; because God is good, Hell is evil; because God is freedom, Hell is captivity; because God is healing, Hell is suffering; because God is pleasure, Hell is pain; because God is joy, Hell is sorrow; because God is Health, Hell is sickness. Hell is all of those things and more for eternity.

Can anyone fail to see the ever enlarging tendency to determine Biblical Truth by majority opinion? If democracy is not contained within and restrained by a larger, greater truth, than that of the majority, it can not be contained, and it will not be restrained. Under these circumstances, whatever direction it takes, it will believe itself to be rightly directed, for it is of its own self the authority for its own direction. Power that is its own authority stands as God. There is no way to draw a circle except to circumscribe it with a circumference, i.e. separating the inside from the outside by a line of demarcation. If there is no line, there is no outside and that which is, is all that there can be.

Those who framed the American Republic attempted to contain it within the Divine authority, for they appealed to this authority as the source of its founding principles. They claimed the Creator, Nature, and Nature's God as their authorization for founding the Republic.

Nature can not be demonstrated to care one way or the other about the principles of democracy. If Nature is your authority, you must settle it forever in your mind that the only principle nature recognizes is that of force. The greater force dominates the lesser in every case. Nature's God is no different, for the only god which nature recognizes is the "will" to force. The most violent, self exertive force is the god of nature.

When I think of the man that the material enlightenment would create, I am reminded of a picture of a snowy owl I once saw. The owl was glorious and white and majestic as it perched on a tree branch. I thought to myself, "Why do they not ever show that beast with the blood and guts from some furry little creature smeared all over his white face and throat, while he holds the agonized, quivering body of his victim firmly in those merciless talons?"

Deny if you will the authority of Almighty God, The Creator, to place in subjection beneath his law, and himself, the democratic principles that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, but understand that when you do so, you have uncovered a multitude of violence, for where there is no understanding of a just God who enforces obedience to his Truth by right of being creator, there will be many millions of unjust ones enforcing obedience to their "truth" by right of greater force. It is then a certainty that the element of force is always present in this evil age and that our choice is between justness and unjustness, not freedom and bondage, for we will either be bound by Satan or by Jesus Christ. And our choices for Democracy are between its unrestrained worst as the devil's own form of government, or the best that man can hope for in this cursed world when "enslaved" within the boundaries of God Fearing Judeo-Christianity.

It was, and remains, the false hope of enlightened men that by returning to the failed philosophic principles of the ancient Grecian democracy and the republican principles of the Old Roman Empire, and that by overlaying them with the "modern" rationalistic principles of the material enlightenment, that they would avoid the self destructive tendency of democratic forms. It is evident that it has not worked. Democracy cannot be maintained except by a majority of people who answer to a higher authority in righteousness, and even then it can only be maintained by forceful application of law upon those who choose to rebel against the principles of that majority, unless there exists a spiritual reality which will compel the minority into submission. I maintain such a reality exists and that it operates by the kind of spiritual laws which we have previously studied. Why do you suppose that of all the places that democracy was tried in the New World, the only place it worked well was in the United States of America, and only then at the first? It was because Almighty God over ruled in the hearts of Christian men and women who made up the majority of the early American Democracy, and this spirit overflowed into the hearts of rebellious man.

The age known as the age of enlightenment saw two grand forces, that we mentioned earlier, begin to take shape at the same time in history. One force was in the rationalistic, materialism of the world of humanism. The other was in the Protestant Reformation. Such coincidence was not accidental.

In the Protestant scheme of Christianity, the Bible totally supplanted the church as the source of spiritual authority. In the materialistic scheme of humanism, utility replaced both the Bible and the church as the repository of truth. Since both the humanists and the Protestant Christians have stripped the church of any authority for truth, it is not hard to see why so many denominations have developed since the reformation, and from whence those principles that have lead to the tyranny of the majority have sprung. It is doubtful that the "dark ages" would have ended as a result of either of these two forces separately, but in the composition of the unholy alliance which they formed, their resultant force was greater than the simple sum of their individual parts. Together they formed a new ecclesiastical-political system in which each drew from the other's support. That this union has been fatal to the organized church is apparent, for no sooner had the Church joined herself to this ungodly lover than he began to rationalize every spiritual principle upon which she was founded.

Today that process is almost complete within the organized church, for every single precept of the supernatural is being called into account and made subject to the reason of man. That which can not be rationalized is being discarded. We are not far from that humanistic, apostate church of materialism and political expediency of the last days.

God did not call us out in Christ in order to authenticate the politics and commerce of materialism. God has called us out to replicate the life of Jesus Christ in our flesh while we sojourn through whatever political system we find ourselves a part, and to bear witness unto Jesus while we are cooperating in that replication process. We are to be proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ to a world that now lives under total damnation and faces the certainty of that fiery Hell which they refuse to acknowledge.

If unrestrained democracy is a fatal political theory, and the historical evidence supports that argument, then it follows that it will also be fatal to the unrepentant, unregenerated humanism of the apostate church. However, the polity revealed in the early church in the Book of Acts, when the disciples selected the first deacons, was democratic (Acts 6:1-6). Democracy will work in both politics and the church when the majority of the people have been born again, and the rest submit to the will of God as expressed in that majority; philosophy won't do it, humanistic religions won't do it, laws won't do it, the only thing that will work is a change in the heart of the entire body of mankind. That is what is going to make heaven so wonderful, every one there will have truly become a fundamental Christian fanatic.

It is inevitable that the church should run contrary to the scripture whenever its authority is vested in man, and not in Jesus Christ through the Spirit of God, and whether that authority be vested in one man or many is of no importance. Man centered authority will continually be exercised from an increasingly greater materialistic view point whether the decisions are being made by one man or many.

Jesus Christ, in The Revelation, speaks of such a man centered church as the church of the Laodiceans.

"And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." (Rev. 3:14-18)

The word translated "Laodicea" is a compound Greek word made up from the word "Laos" which means "people, or "the people," plus "dike" which means to judge or rule. Laodicea literally means, "the people rule." Jesus says that, while the church where the people rule will believe they are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, they actually have forsaken the only one in whom they have any hope. Without even realizing it, this materialistic church, where the people rule, has set aside every spiritual, miraculous, supernatural doctrine of the Bible, and worships the reason of man above the God of Creation. Their materialistic doctrines about riches, material goods, prosperity, and the marvels of their materialistic science lead them to conclude that nothing more is needed, i.e. that the kingdom of God can be built upon earth through their own enlightened "missionary" efforts and work. It is the religion of Babel reborn. Again, 2 Timothy 3:5 speaks of them in this fashion: "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."

They have complete faith in man and none in Jesus Christ. When the abomination of desolation is revealed to such a church he seems to be only an outstanding example of all that they admire and believe. He is one of their kind; he is their materialistic messiah. Jesus strongly cautions this church to buy of him the gold (i.e. the faith, see 1 Pet.1:7) which carried him through the fire when he spent three days and nights in hell preaching the gospel to the once rebellious spirits that perished in the flood (1 Pet. 3:18-20).

So the answer to the question, "What will survive?" is a world dominating federation of republics dedicated to unity and equality, authenticated by the rationalistic and adulterous doctrines of false religion and the apostate church. The majority of citizens in this confederation may have been converted from the disastrous doctrines of self interest to a doctrine of a universal pantheistic, humanistic, materialistic self-soul that is one with all nature, but whatever they believe in their humanistic religion, it is for sure that they will welcome the Antichrist as a heroic, benevolent tyrant.

The inevitable course of history is that democracy will spread across the globe dominating not only the politics, but the economics and the religion of the whole of the earth. The majority will become more materialistic and self oriented. The organized church will be forever in danger of becoming ever more materialistic and less spiritual. The true church will become more politically incorrect, and economically invisible, and come under more and more oppression.

From Aug. 27th through Sept. 4, 1993, six thousand representatives from world religions met in Chicago for the Parliament of the World's Religions. The representatives came from Protestant Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism (both Orthodox and Conservative), Islam, Mormonism, and a witches coven. There are over thirty thousand different religions in the world today so it is obvious that they left someone out. I do not know what the criteria for invitation to these parliaments is, but my best guess is that they invite groups to participate in this parliament based upon the numbers of adherents within each group and the political visibility of each group. The point is that this group is inherently looking at truth as being determined by the rule of a majority.

Whatever was the purpose of this particular meeting is not important. The Fact that all of these religions were meeting together implies common cause in common ground. They call themselves a Parliament and parliaments are for formal discussions of public affairs. The common ground then of this type meeting is public affairs and the common cause is the preservation of civilization.

To his credit, and to the glory of Jesus Christ, Chuck Colson stood before this amalgamated body and told them that Jesus Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life. My prayer is that at every meeting of this group, they will be confronted by a like prophet, equally God-fearing and evangelistic. But can a Christian also fail to see, in meetings such as this, the roots of a politically minded pantheistic ideology thriving vigorously within all of the organized religions of the World? It is this pantheistic, universalism, which has already begun to grow within Christendom, that I believe will eventually be in place to welcome the revelation of The Antichrist. When Antichrist appears to this world he will be their anointed. Jesus said that this evil one will do such marvelous works as to fool even the elect if it were possible.

At an ecumenical meeting of mostly "Christian Women" called, of all things, "RE-imagining," the question was asked by one of the speakers to that group, "How can we together re-imagine our churches so that every woman may claim her voice, her gifts, her loves, and her wholeness?" That question found many heretical answers at that conference, among which were the abandonment of the atonement of Jesus Christ for the pantheism of the natural shamanism from Native American culture, the re-imagining of God into a "she," and the acknowledgment of "Sophia," the Greek word for wisdom, as "our maker." This conference closed with an enthusiastic participation in a Sophia centered communion, the blessing of which was recited and follows in part: "Our maker Sophia, we are women in your image: With the hot blood of our wombs we give form to new life..."

"Our sweet Sophia, we are women in your image; with nectar between our thighs we invite a lover, we birth a child; with our warm body fluids remind the world of its pleasures and sensations...We celebrate the sensual life..."

The church was edified by another speaker at this conference who said that if we could not imagine Jesus as a tree, or a river, or as the wind, or as the rain, we were forever doomed. It is certainly not difficult to see the spirit of Antichrist thriving within "church" meetings such as this.

The Bible says that before the appearance of Antichrist, there will have come a time when once again the cities will be like Sodom and Gomorrah. There will not be found ten righteous citizens in them. Homosexuality will be normal, acceptable behavior, and virginity will not be regarded at all. All types of sexual conduct will be acceptable from pedophilia to bestiality. The population, young and old alike will run wild through the streets at night looking for sexual gratification. The message of salvation will sound like comedy to them. Christians will be mocked by even close family members (Luke 17:28, and Gen.19:1- 11).

At that time the world will be like it was in Noah's time. There will be universal disregard for the preaching of salvation. Man will never imagine anything except evil and he will fill the entire earth with wickedness. Humanity in general will be completely corrupt, and violence will fill the earth (Matt. 24:37, Gen. 6:1-13, and 1 Pet. 3:20). There is no best case scenario when the self is turned loose, and this is what is being systematically accomplished in ever increasing degrees in American schools, in American churches, in American homes, and in American streets. You should not be amazed that a man should now act like a wild beast when all his life you have taught him that he is an animal. You should not be indignant when the animal you have turned loose turns and devours you, for such actions are the most noble acts that a wild animal is capable of performing, and such acts are called "acts of the self."

But such random acts of violence and such sensuality are not the problems, they are the symptoms of the disease called sin and self, and the cure does not come through, from, or by, the wisdom of man, or through education. The cure does not come by way of social programs, or government assistance, or new laws, or by returning to "family oriented values" in entertainment, or by rolling back the culture clock to the 1950's. The cure comes only by way of a changed heart through the operation of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul would have continued killing Christians to his dying day if God had not changed him. Adults and children alike will continue to be willfully selfish until repentance brings them to the Cross of Jesus Christ where the mind is renewed by reason of regeneration.

But as long as any church organization refuses to divest itself of its adulterous doctrines of rationalistic and materialistic humanism, it will continue to be the ground in which such sophistries as political pantheism and orgasmic sensualism is flowered, and the world will continually slide deeper into iniquity and apostasy.

When Tocqueville looked at American Christianity, he noted that the Christian Clergy in 1832 held no political power and thought that to be a preserving factor rather than a detrimental one. He wrote that he believed it would be better to lock the clergy into cloistered cells than to let them become confused with the political powers of the material reality.

He wrote, "I am so much alive to the almost inevitable dangers which beset religious belief whenever the clergy take part in public affairs, and I am so convinced that Christianity must be maintained at any cost in the bosom of modern democracies, that I had rather shut up the priesthood within the sanctuary than allow them to step beyond it."7

It seems that Jesus also indicated this to be the case when he told us that we could not serve two masters.

The concept of government by man finds its origin in Nimrod and Babel, and while God has never looked upon the governments of man favorably, he has allowed them to exist, and even ordained their courses. Man was originally created to live in harmony with God and His creation, but when man disobeyed God and sin entered the picture, the abundance of God's provision became a resource to be exploited to the advantage of the stronger, the more cunning, the more "resourceful", and the more unscrupulous.

The concept of civilization as we know it is the result of Satanic inspirations in selfish man to control the exploitative uses of the resources over which God gave mankind dominion, but which man gave over to Satan because of sin. Satan now offers to return the control of these provisions over to individual men for the purpose of self enhancement.

The entire settlement of the New World was, and is exemplary of this type of usurpation, which is based upon an assumption of a God given right to possess something individually that God gave to all mankind. It is part and parcel of our corrupted fabric, and there can be no chance of changing the conditions until the cause of the conditions is changed, and that will not happen until Jesus returns. Men can not now even imagine a "system" of community where each individual contributes, not based upon self interest, but upon love - a system where the rewards of labor are not reckoned by personal returns, but truly in the fulfilling of love. I do not know what motivates the ant, but his sense of community is superior to man's.

I do not say that Christians should have no interest in commerce or in their government. I say that we must recognize this system for whose it is, and continually be wary of the traps that lay within it. I say that Christ taught that his kingdom was not of this world, and no matter how hard or tirelessly we labor, we will not make the Kingdom of God come on earth until the "stone cut without hands" returns and makes them his Kingdoms. Until that time, we are called to lead lives of quiet, productive, obedient, stewardship and citizenship.

For the clergy to become embroiled in commerce or politics is to confuse the population concerning the temporal nature of this physical reality and the eternal nature of the one to which we have been called. Politics is a dirty business at its best, requiring by its nature the compromising of eternal truths with temporal expediencies, and as such it should be shunned at all costs by those who have been called to the higher purpose of directing mankind's attention toward the eternal heavens and not toward the temporal earth. Commerce is a system developed out of selfishness where by each transaction involving a commodity or utility is exploited for self. It is an ordained system, but it is not an eternal one.

Commercial and political considerations will take care of themselves when Christ truly sits enthroned in the hearts of men who make up the majority of any civilization. It is not the true church, but the apostate one, that gets involved in trying to legislate the civilizing principles of Christianity into civilization. The true church will continue to sound a clear proclamation of the Gospel, calling men out of this world, while teaching them to live peaceably in it, and focusing their hopes upon the next.

Additionally, I do not say that the clergy should not point out the injustices, inconsistencies, and inhuman activities that occur in this life, and warn those who would seek glory in the next to avoid such, but I do avow that both Jesus and history teach that we should not try to legislate Christianity into the heart of man.

But there will come a time when the apostate church will be completely allied to the Babylonish system of civilization, and the events of the tribulation period will begin to occur.

We are perilously close to the final end of apostasy, but there are still some grounds for hope. In 2nd Chronicles 7:14 God gives his people his formula for revival, and it has absolutely nothing to do with professional evangelists, glamorized music programs, hyped up lectures, massive convocations, or dynamic speaking tours. God says, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive, their sin, and will heal their land."

There are four things God requires of his people before he will send revival. God says that, if the people who are called by his Name will:

a) Humble themselves: When vile Ahab humbled himself the Lord God delayed judgment. The picture of humility in the Bible is one of laying one's self out prostrate before a master in such a manner as to show one's helplessness before the master. It is the acceptance and total dependence upon the will, whether good or ill, of the master. This picture of humility in the Bible is so closely tied to that of worship as to be the same picture. The unbowed neck, the unbent knee, and the stiff, proud back of American individualism, self pride, self reliance, and self assurance, and yes, especially self esteem, are completely contrary to this picture. In nearly every case where the glory of God is made manifest to a holy man in the Bible, that man is found to crumble before Him; Moses hid his face, Daniel and John the Revelator fell prostrate, Isaiah came undone, Abraham ran from the tent, bowing toward the ground.

Before revival can occur, God's people must humble themselves, and the only way that happens is by denying self and raising Jesus Christ. A high opinion of self defeats revival before it begins because it has already precluded the necessity for repentance and change. None of the psychology and psychiatry of the self has ever pulled a single soul from Hell, but they have condemned them to remain there by the millions. Self is the materialistic, rationalistic substitute for the soul. The soul will never fly as long as the self is in the cockpit at the controls. Jesus can not give us plainer instructions concerning the self in man than that we must deny it. God can give us no greater evidence of the beauty and inestimable worth of the soul of man than that Christ died for it.

I have a vision of the events surrounding the crucifixion. Perhaps it is from some scene in my military background, I don't know; I just know it tells me a lot about what was happening on the Cross: Jesus told his disciples that God had committed all judgment to him (John 5:22), and he told Simon Peter, when Peter drew his sword in the Garden and cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant, "Thinkest thou not that I can not now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" Twelve legions of angels would have been around 72,000 angels. In my mind I see 72,000 angels in full battle regalia, snapping to attention at that moment, and slapping their weapons to the ready, all in unison. The noise of that action is precise and purposeful. The sound of it attacks the ears, snapping the head around to view 72,000 angels now intently poised, swords at the ready, silently waiting, coldly deliberate, and selflessly obedient, alert for a single word from Jesus that would have said in effect, "Father, in my judgment, selfish man is not worth this agony. Angels Advance!!!" and 72,000 angels would have descended upon earth, obliterating any record that either earth or mankind had ever existed. But Jesus did not say that. Instead Jesus, the judge of all mankind, the one to whom all authority has been delivered, said, "Father forgive them, because they don't have a clue about what is going on around them, or about what they are doing down here."

God says there will be no revival, no healing of the land unless Christians humble themselves and give up all of this enlightened nonsense about their "selfs."

b) Pray. Most Christians think that prayer is reciting a wish list at the end of which we say, "In the name of Jesus, Amen." They have never really learned or believed this about prayer: "And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood [sinful, evil, violent ways]. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil." (Isa, 1:15-16)

In the example of the prayers of the Pharisee and the Publican Jesus said the one who humbled himself was the one who was heard. We think because Jesus said we could ask of him in his name and receive, and that by saying that we are praying in Jesus' name, we have been given some magical incantation that will conjure up the desires of our hearts into reality. For a Christian to pray in Jesus' name is the same as for a policeman to act in the name of the law. We first must have been duly authorized and deputized, and commissioned and constrained within his known will to do so. Before we pray in Jesus' name, we have to have spent some time with him, humbling ourselves and learning of his will and conforming to it; then we should pray without ceasing. I do not say that this is easy. I fail in it more than most, but if America is to be turned once again toward the light, we must humble ourselves and pray.

c) Seek God's face. In Ex. 33:20 God told Moses, "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live." Moses had sought to see the glory of Almighty God. God told him in effect, "Moses, you can not look at me directly but you must look for me in the effects of where I've been." God said, "I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy," (Ex. 33:19). We can not seek God's face in the programs of man. We must look at where God has been, where the name of the Lord has been proclaimed, where grace and mercy have been bestowed upon mankind. We must seek his face faithfully from within and among an assembly of Bible believing, God fearing, broken hearted, sin hating, sinner forgiving, saint loving, gospel shouting, hallelujah singing, Lord praising, saints who are being sanctified through the Holy Ghost, who rejoice to give their testimony, and glorify God when they hear others bearing witness of Jesus Christ.

An assembly such as this does not have to be within the walls of any church building of any denomination, but it may be. It may also be in the homes of a group who just get together for the purpose of worship, praise, edification, and fellowship. If such groups could meet in the catacombs of Rome and turn the empire upside down, they can meet anywhere. All that matters is that they should be seeking the very face of God, and that can not happen apart from fellowship with regenerated believers. It cannot be done in the barrooms with the world , or on the golf courses with the world, or at the ball games with the world, or at the fishing hole with the world, or from the camp ground with the world, or at the movies with the world, or in front of the television with the world, or even in church buildings with the world.

Christians must once more regularly seek the face of God from within a Godly and holy assembly of redeemed sinner-saints where the power of the Spirit is multiplied upon the people, whether there be 2, or 20,000 present. And the ministers to their Faith must devote themselves and their time and attention to Jesus Christ and the word of God and get out of Babylon, and stop trying to make the world a better place to live through such things as civic organizations over which Jesus Christ is not Lord. If Jesus is not Lord of something he is not in it at all. And Christians in general, and ministers in particular, have no business taking a part in such things. That which ignores God is godless and ungodly. There is no such thing as neutrality. All things are either Godly or ungodly, and we must abandon those godless things such as the movie theaters, television programs, schools, and so forth, where Jesus Christ is not acknowledged as Lord.

The Church has not lost its power to proclaim, but it is losing its voices to uncertain sounds because we are living for self in Babylon while trying to make Babylon a fit place to live, instead of living for Jesus Christ. If the church will return to Jesus Christ, the problems of the world around it will dry up in a day.

d) Turn from their wicked ways: In a passage which was mentioned earlier from the 7th chapter of Jeremiah, God tells Jeremiah that his people should go to look at Shiloh where he first set his tabernacle in the promised land and see what he did to that place when his people forsook their covenant with him. Shiloh was the place where the tabernacle was situated from the time of the original occupation of the promised land through the time of the Judges. By the time of Jeremiah it had become a desolation. God allowed the ark of the covenant to be taken from Israel at Shiloh because the people had forsaken Him, and it remained in the custody of pagans for seven months. The pagan Philistines learned more of the fear of God in seven months than had the Children of Israel in 350 years. (1 Sam. 4:1-6:21)

God allowed the ark of the covenant to be taken from Shiloh because of the wickedness of his people. God allowed the temple in Jerusalem to be completely destroyed because his people had rejected him. There is no reason to assume that God has any greater obligation to America or any other nation or even to the organized church.

The reason there is so much lawlessness in the world is not because of the ungodly, but because the church has lost or forgotten the spiritual laws concerning iniquity. We have already discussed the fundamental spiritual law that Jesus gave us concerning the relationship between agape and iniquity. If the church does not turn from her wicked, materialistic, humanistic ways, the world will increasingly become more lawless. It is a spiritual law: Even though neither the unredeemed, nor the redeemed today, realize how dependent civilizations are upon the holiness of the redeemed, it is a spiritual law that the church's dedication to Jesus Christ, and her adoration of him, and the single mindedness of his people is what keeps things from falling apart.

Unless revival comes to the church very soon, the events described in the 24th chapter of Matthew will culminate in the destructive judgments of God upon both the people and the planet of Earth, and in the apocalyptic return of Jesus Christ. Now I am anxiously awaiting his return, as are all who have hope in it, but I have to say also that it will not be a pleasant time for the inhabitants of Earth, and untold millions will be doomed into Hell when the day of grace ends. Should we then not revitalize ourselves spiritually, and be the carriers of the cure and not the cause? To the generation that fails in this comes the ignominy of the apostasy, and the terrible consequences of the APOCALYPSE.

I said at the beginning that I have primarily directed this book at the coming generation and that I had done so for three reasons, two of which I mentioned at that time, and I told you that I would give you the third reason later. Well, this it: Unless your generation picks up a torch that has been in the grasp of material compromise for centuries, and turns back to New Testament Christianity, and brings the faith out of Babylon, I am convinced that apostasy will totally engulf the church, and iniquity will fill the earth, and the man of sin will be revealed, and the tribulation will begin before you die.

If you are not yet convinced of these things, I ask you to study them again, for unless there is wide spread revitalization and reunification in the divided body of Christ in your lifetime I believe that the Bible is clear that you will see these things begin to happen. Perhaps when they do begin to come to pass you will then have an opportunity to believe. I say to you now though, do not presume that you will always be given the opportunity to believe. The Bible says that we are to seek the Lord while he may be found, and that there comes a time, to every soul that does not believe, when belief will no longer be possible. The Bible says that today is the day of salvation, and those who would put off making the decision until tomorrow may never be given another chance to hear.

I do not know when the last chance will come for any person, but I know this, the Bible says that the person who continues to harden their heart after many admonitions, will suddenly be cut off with no hope for remedy. The Bible says, "Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart." But the Bible also says that the Lord is very gracious and full of compassion, and he knows your difficulty, and as long as you do not harden your heart against him, I believe he will continue to strive with you.

If I am alive to see these events start, I will be a part of the generation that will have to bear the shame of the apostasy, and that is the generation that will be responsible for God not sparing the world from these things. I hold little hope that my generation can see the dangers in time to extricate ourselves from this Babylonish filth in which we find ourselves. I am afraid we have become too accustomed to Babylon to give it up quickly. I know the consternation this realization has brought me. Our cherished beliefs and lifelong assumptions about democracy and America, and our cultural conditioning and educational indoctrination all make it difficult for us to accept that which I believe is so plainly evident from the scriptures and from our experience in life.

I say again to all who will listen, democracy is the Devil's own choice for government, and unless Jesus Christ is Lord over the lives of those who make up a democracy, they will inevitably be driven into the arms of tyranny. America is just another nation in Babylon, and unless Jesus Christ is Lord over her, she will be the instrument of Satan. Unless there is revival in the church, both America and the world are in for some hard times soon.

Unless Jesus Christ rules in the hearts of those of mankind who live within any civilization, the people of that civilization will invariably be lead into the most abject degradation of body and soul. I am not speaking of the type of Christianity that is involved with perpetuating, substantiating, and authenticating Babylon, I am talking about Christianity that calls us out from Babylon, and sets us above it as the salt that keeps it from rotting.

I want to emphasize, once again, that I am not trying to destroy democracy. It is the best we can hope for from Babylon. It is not by changing or destroying democracy that apostasy is eliminated, but by conversion of the majority within that democracy by the indwelling Spirit of God through receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. When apostasy is eliminated, any form of human government, and most especially democracy, will redound to the glory of God and to the aggravation of Satan. Look at the 29th chapter of 2nd Chronicles. When Hezekiah became King and determined to turn Judah back to God, he started with the religious leaders and told them they must first sanctify themselves, and then after that he said they had to get the filth out of the holy place.

When that happened, the rest took care of itself. The Hebrew word translated "sanctify" means to get morally and ceremonially clean. To be ceremonially clean involves a great deal more that ritualistic washing, for washing was only their way of admitting and confessing that they had become polluted through living in the world. We who have the responsibility to feed the flock of Jesus Christ must first clean up our lives from the pollutions of Babylon, and then we must all get that Babylonian filth out of the church.

The way they accomplished that in Hezekiah's day was simple. They picked up the material objects of Babylonian worship and threw them out of the doors. I believe that same thing has to happen today, only the objects of Babylonian materialism are more subtle in most cases today. Then, after they had sanctified themselves, and after they had gotten the filth out of the holy place, they gathered the rulers of the city and worshipped with them. If the leadership of the church, and the church membership will get right, the rest will follow. Look now at how they worshipped. Verses 28-30 of that passages says that they sang praises with gladness and bowed their heads and worshipped.

Worship is not a vicarious act. The act of worshiping God during any assembly is infinitely more important, and necessary than vicariously listening to some religious lecture for a half hour or so. I am not saying that preaching is not necessary. I am saying that if both the herald of the Word and the congregation are not deeply involved in the act of worshiping God by humbling themselves before Him, and by letting the Word sink down into their minds, they may be well entertained, but neither will have worshipped.

That passage in 2nd Chronicles says the musicians played, and the congregation sang praises with gladness, and that they all prayed, and that they all worshipped. What a tremendous worship service!!! If churches would begin to worship once again after their example, the people of the town would flock to them seeking the hope of their joy and peace.

Young people, I have little hope that my generation can reach yours, for you have been conditioned not to trust or believe most of what my generation believes or has to offer. I am simply asking you to fill up the measure. Yes, we have been wrong about politics, and commerce, and religion, and we have even at times been wrong about Christianity. But we have not been wrong about Jesus Christ. You cannot afford to be wrong about him either. Jesus still saves us even though we are stupid, and confused, and misguided, and ignorant, and arrogant, and wrong. That's what it is all about. God can still reach you, and he can raise up prophets from among you. God can bind you together into his fellowships and prepare you to meet what ever challenge he lays before you.

In a few short years you will take the torch of political power from the rest of us who now hold it. We will not give it to you; you will take it. Indeed, I believe you could do so by the 1996 elections if you choose. It would mean that you would have to stop living your lives by the beat of the boom box, and the video arcades, and Hollywood, and the rest of the trash of Babylon, and do some serious organizing of your selves and your lives, and decide what kind of world you want to live in, and what kind of person you want to be until Jesus comes back. And I tell you he is coming back, and that he will take vengeance upon all who have rejected him when he does.

Whether you like it or not, whether you do anything about it or not, if the Lord tarries, by the year 2050 you will be living in a world with a population of over 12 billion hungry, miserable, smelly, unwashed, degenerate, selfish, natural human beings who believe themselves to be nothing more than animals unless there is a change in their beliefs. 95 % of your grandparents, and your great grandparents were professing Christians who really believed that God had given them American democracy from which to evangelize the nations. They believed that they would build the kingdom of heaven on earth through the missionary efforts of the church. They did a great work from the basis of a bad doctrine, but souls were saved, and lives were turned around, and Jesus Christ was Glorified. Their hearts were right and sincere and it made very little difference in the overall effects of their evangelism that the world was going to get worse and worse even as they labored for those souls who were being won to Christ.

The problem was that the church got more and more materialistic and more and more political and it began to try to force Christianity upon the world. If spreading the Gospel meant a little war here, and a little political injustice there, and some racial bigotry every where to eliminate the heathen, and instill in the survivors the good old values of Caucasian American democracy and Christian Capitalism, well, that was a small price to pay when God was on their side.

I do not say all of this to criticize them, but to caution you, for I was not even born, much less a Christian for most of that time. The religious, political, and commercial hypocrisy that resulted from that doctrine that taught that the church would usher in the golden age, started to become evident to the generation of the 1950's and 60's and they forsook Christianity. They thought that was what Christianity was all about, and they rejected it at the urging of many degenerate pseudo intellectuals.

I want to be clear on this: The cost of erroneous doctrine in pain and sorrow to the believer, and to the world is enormous, and if I was not certain of the things I am teaching herein, I would have forever held my peace. But the Bible is clear and the facts of history are clear: DEMOCRATIC HUMANITY, UNRESTRAINED BY THE DISCIPLINES OF SELF DENIAL OF TRUE CHRISTIANITY, WILL CONTINUALLY BECOME MORE AND MORE DEBAUCHED AND DEBASED, AND WILL CONTINUALLY PLACE MORE AND MORE FAITH IN THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE MAJORITY, AND WILL CONTINUALLY TAKE MORE AND MORE AUTHORITY FOR SELF DETERMINATION UNTO THEMSELVES, UNTIL THEY TAKE UNTO THEMSELVES THE RIGHT TO BE GOD. THE APOSTATE CHURCH WILL FALL IN STEP WITH THEM, AND WILL DIVORCE HERSELF FROM THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. WHEN THAT HAPPENS THE ANTICHRIST WILL BE REVEALED FOR ALL OF THE APOSTATE TO WELCOME, AND THE TRUE CHURCH WILL BE DELIVERED UP TO SUFFER GREAT TRIBULATION.

Many of these things are already becoming evident, but when they all come to fulfillment, those, who now believe in Christ from the basis of their emotions only and have no intellectual commitment, and those who believe that the church is going to be raptured out of this mess before the tribulation, will all become confused. Some will loose faith, just as many of their ancestors did after two World Wars, Korea, and Viet Nam made it apparent that the increasingly filthy mess in Babylon was getting worse and not better.

The youth of the 60's, and 70's have, for the most part, rejected the things of Christ. But they have never really found anything of substance with which to replace them. Much of the behavior of their children in this current generation is a cry of desperation for something to hold on to when they have been given nothing but the material realm in which they now see their parents floundering. Their manner of dress, their manner of appearance, the tatoos with which they cover their bodies, their outlandish behavior, their insatiable hunger to belong, are just some of the many ways in which they express their need to be noticed, to be significant. Their carnal young hearts are turning savage because nothing is real for them, and they cry out for something to be real, and for something to matter, and for someone to look at them and tell them things are going to be all right, and to understand that even though they do not know who they are, they have got to be somebody.

Children, I know someone who can fix all of that in a heartbeat. Jesus Christ, my Lord, is still reaching out to you in spite of all that his church has done and can do to hinder him. He is still saving people: young people, old people, old young people, and young old people, he saves us all with out regard to age, race, creed, or national origin. Do not look at us and at what we have done with his grace; look at him, and be saved by his amazing grace.

My prayer is that neither of us will live to see any of the things we are about to discuss. I pray that the church will be revitalized in Christ, and that the world will once more become a nice place in which to marry and bring forth and raise kid's, and in which to nurture a family in the admonition of the Lord. I pray that there will be mild, helpful governments, and righteous workplaces, and righteous and God fearing people, and that we can all live in safe and happy neighborhoods, with good and caring neighbors, who worship the Lord in their hearts every day of the week, and who live in happiness, and die in peace, and go to heaven in bliss. It could happen.

I believe that if the world repents, God will show us new sources of energy, and new ways to produce food, and new ways to manage waste, and new ways to fight disease, and the population will not then be a problem. But if the world does not repent, sorrow upon sorrow is soon going to flood upon us and overwhelm the earth.

It is not that I do not want the Lord to return for I am looking forward to the kingdom as much as any person. But I also have to say that I have a hard time with those who gleefully talk about the day of the Lord and ignore the millions of lost souls that will perish into the fires of eternal hell in that day. I understand that they are doing so even now, but they still have a chance to hear now, and they will have no chance on that day. I remember how hard it was for the Lord to get my attention, and I understand their condition.

We are so confused about things even after we have seen the light, is it any wonder that they who have not seen it at all are still in darkness. It is going to be a terrible time of judgment when the Lord does come. I understand that his mercy has reached just as far as they would have it to reach, but still, they are lost, and without understanding. It makes me want to just shake them like a 'possum and wake them up.

Amos 5:18 says, "Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness and not light." Isaiah 13:9 says, "Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners out of it." Isaiah 24:1 says, "Behold the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof."

I may not be able to shake them and wake them up, but Almighty God is going to do so, and it is going to be soon unless there is revival in his church and in the world. Nearly all of the Old Testament prophecies that speak about the day of the Lord say that God is going to shake the earth until the surface is in a shambles. The Revelation says the same thing. Both the Old and The New Testaments are in complete agreement concerning the day of the Lord, it is going to be a fearful, terrible time for humanity.

We have already studied some of these passages earlier when we talked about the earthquakes that Jesus spoke of in Matt. 24:7. If you are redeemed and you see the whole earth shake, as if to fall completely apart, there is no reason for you to fear, for this world is not your home. But to those whose hope, and confidence, and work have all been centered in the things of this world, everything that they have ever dreamed of and hoped for is going to be destroyed before their very eyes, and they have no hope beyond earth. For them it will be a terrifying time of complete desolation.

The prophecies foretelling what the Lord is going to do to the earth are not in any way complicated or complex. They are, however, numerous, and as such they are difficult to hold simultaneously in the concentration of the mind. If, however, we just use the picture of those times which Jesus Christ showed to John, we will be able to keep them straight.

All prophecies concerning the return of the Lord say that he will bring judgment upon the people of earth because of rebellion to his sovereignty and the rule of his law. At the time of the Lord's return, all Old Testament prophecies concerning the Day of the Lord will be concluded and fulfilled. When these things begin to happen, the church and the Hebrew remnant will begin to fully understand the prophecies of Daniel. And when Jesus does return, the prophecies will be fulfilled that say that the Messiah is going to destroy the empire or civilization of The Antichrist. These prophecies proclaim that all of the governments of history have proceeded from the ancient Babylonish system, and that they have been successively leading man up to the point where men will welcome the tyranny of this Antichrist.

The Bible shows that the next to the last empire to develop from this system is the globally dominating realm of western democracy which we see in place today. This democracy will become more and more dominant globally, and more and more lawless and humanistic, until the tyranny of The Antichrist is the welcomed answer to the preservation of Babylonian civilization.

We noted earlier that all of the types of governments previous to Antichrist's will have their dominion taken away, but their "lives" are prolonged (Dan. 7:12). The dominion of a government is the domain or extent of its rule and it always involves both geographical and philosophical boundaries. I believe that all earthly governments will collapse because of the natural catastrophes that come upon earth which are described under the 6th seal, and which occur sometime before the start of the time of "Jacob's Trouble." But the "lives" of these governments are preserved in the hearts of the philosophical men who survive these catastrophes. To me this is the single greatest mystery of the Apocalypse, that many of these human beings who survive these great catastrophes still refuse to repent after having identified the cause of these catastrophes as the "wrath of the Lamb" (Rev. 6:16).

It must be that they have been "cut off without remedy" because of their insistent rebellion to God, and therefore, God has darkened their foolish hearts. They have become convinced that they can defeat Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. They seem to believe that today, so I suppose that I should not be so surprised that they would continue to do so. These men see an opportunity at last to build a world wide democratic civilization that is unencumbered by the superstitions of religion or belief in the Supernatural God of Creation.

I want to emphasize one more time: The times of the apocalypse are going to be terrible, and fearful, and horrible. No person in their right mind would want to experience or live through the times of the Apocalypse. But we have been made so intoxicated by the fornications of the church with the merchants and the kings of Babylon, that we hardly even think about the terror that is coming.

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