LEAVE YOURSELF OPEN! DO 1934 5/85 ET# 53
1. (FAMILY PRAYS.) AMEN, PTL! TYJ! YOU WERE PEEKIN'! That's okay, you don't have to pray with your eyes shut anyhow, but it helps you concentrate & think about the Lord. Have you sung & praised the Lord? (Fam: Yes!) TYL! PTL! Everybody happy? (Fam: Yes, Sir!) Healthy? (Fam: Yes, Sir!) PTL! What book are we studying? (Fam: Daniel.) And what Chapter? (Fam: 11.) And what Verse? (Fam: 24,25.) There seems to be a difference of opinion! Well, you're both right. We ended with the 24th Verse & we're beginning with the 25th Verse.
2. NOW IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU DON'T WANT TO DO IN THE STUDY OF BIBLE PROPHECY, IT'S TO GET ANY SET, HARD, CONCRETE, DOGMATIC VIEWS & INTERPRETATIONS THAT CANNOT SUFFER CHANGE, that cannot stand modification, that cannot bear the Lord revealing something new to you that you hadn't thought of before, or slightly changing the order of events or giving you a little more light on things that makes things a lot clearer than they were before. A wise man is much wiser tomorrow than he was yesterday, so don't get too dogmatic about any of these interpretations.
3. WE'RE GETTING INTO SUCH DETAILS HERE NOW THAT NOBODY CAN GET DOGMATIC! Even if you think you can support your views by actual explicit Scriptures & even if you've had a revelation directly from the Lord, you'd better always give Him room to clarify or modify things as time goes on. The better you know the Scriptures, the more chance your interpretations have of being accurate & generally accepted by people who really know the Bible. As the Apostle says, "That no prophecy (should be) of any private interpretation." (2Pet.1:20)--The very thing on which the Scofield Bible & a lot of other Bible Prophecy students have based their interpretations: Perfectly private revelations, only theirs & nobody else's, different from the prophetic interpretations of Christians for hundreds of years previously!
4. THE ONLY KIND OF INTERPRETATIONS YOU CAN PRETTY WELL COUNT ON ARE THOSE WHICH HAVE BEEN GENERALLY ACCEPTED FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS BY A FAIRLY LARGE SCHOOL OF PROPHETIC INTERPRETERS, BIBLE STUDENTS & PEOPLE WHO REALLY KNOW THE BIBLE! I can't say too much for theologians because the higher they get in theology it seems the higher they get in what they call "higher criticism," which means higher & higher & more & more unbelief in the Bible. Those who pretend to know the most very often are those who actually know the least, & how they expect to know anything without knowing the Lord is ridiculous! I call them theological cemeteries, not seminaries!
5. SEMINARIES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A COLLECTION OF THE SEEDS OF TRUTH & DISSEMINATING TRUTH LIKE SOWERS OF SEEDS. It sounds like something else you know about, right?--Semen. ...A seminary is a place where they keep semen, & the word "semen" means seeds.--In other words, the seeds of the Word. Seminarians are supposed to be dispensers of the seeds of the Word, sowers of the seed. They should be evangelising the World, right?--Instead of that they're more like piling up all the seeds in the barn & keeping it mostly to themselves! And if there's anything you don't want to do, it's to get as dogmatic as they are, even in what you & I believe, to where the Lord can't change your mind & can't show you something a little clearer than you saw it before, even show you that you were wrong.
6. MOSTLY THE THINGS ON WHICH WE HAVE CHANGED POSITION OURSELVES AS A FAMILY & AS A GROUP--largely due to my leadership--have been on things which I was set in before by previous teachers & doctrinaires & preachers, the generally accepted theories of my particular denomination or my kind of denominations & what they generally believed in, what I had been taught, what I'd always heard. Like any little child I just accepted it, that that's the fact, that's the God's honest Truth, that's the Gospel, that's gotta be it!
7. WELL, IF I HAD NOT BEEN OPEN TO CHANGE & REVELATION DIRECTLY FROM GOD, YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE THIS MORNING! So you'd better thank God that He was able to change my mind, & thank the Lord that He was able to turn me around in some cases & start me in exactly the opposite direction! So don't go making fun of me, as some have, saying that, "Dad's always changing his mind about things. We no sooner learn one thing than he's changed his position in another. Once it was the war about to happen, now it's the Crash, once it was that & now it's this" etc.
8. WELL, I'D CERTAINLY LOTS RATHER CHANGE WHEN GOD SHOWS ME SOMETHING & BE RIGHT, THAN THROUGH PRIDE & ARROGANCE & INFLATED EGO & FEAR OF EMBARRASSMENT REFUSE TO CHANGE & REFUSE TO BE CHANGED BY GOD HIMSELF in the matter of some point of doctrine or some point of prophetic interpretation or some point of theological affirmation of some kind or other. I would rather suffer the blow to my ego & the embarrassment of my pride & be right, than stiffen my resistance against anything new & close my mind like most Christians & churches who say, "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts!" I would rather suffer the embarrassment & the blow to my pride & my ego & be right, than to insist & go on in the way I've always thought & always told & always taught to try to save my reputation & my ego & my pride to try to get out from the embarrassment of being accused of always changing my mind! I would rather change my mind & suffer the consequences & be right, than to refuse to change my mind & be wrong!
9. NOW YOU HAD BETTER REMEMBER THAT AS YOU STUDY BIBLE PROPHECY! Because as we get closer to the End & we need to know exactly what is happening & exactly what is going to happen so we can be prepared for it, you had better be prepared to change your mind about any set doctrines which we've had, former Charts which we've had, even former Letters you've had in which I expressed my theories & my guesses & my guesstimates etc. Because the closer you get to the End, the clearer God's going to make it to you & the better you're going to see it & the more easily it's going to come to you in the translation of the facts & in the interpretation of the various mysteries of God's prophecies.
10. IF THERE WAS EVER A TIME THAT YOU HAD BETTER BE OPEN TO CHANGE, IT IS RIGHT NOW!--Because if there was ever a time when the things are going to start happening, it's now! Then you'll know, won't you?--And you may really have to change your mind then when you say, "Oh, well that's what He meant! Oh, this is what was going to happen! I recognise now what He meant by what He said because now it's happening!" So if you want to learn anything, if you want to be open to revelation & for God to translate or interpret anything to you, you'd better leave your mind open & not close it on the things that you have already learned & be absolutely inflexible, adamant, hard as nails & iron, refusing to change just because you held that view for a good many years, or just because you were taught that before, or just because you even heard it from me before!
11. MANY OF THE INTERPRETATIONS THAT I HAVE GIVEN YOU OF BIBLE PROPHECY & EVENTS, ETC., MUCH OF IT HAS BEEN BUILT ON LOGICAL DEDUCTION & COMPARING SCRIPTURE WITH SCRIPTURE. I couldn't absolutely prove that a particular Scripture meant such-&-such, & say, "You can see there's no way it can be any other way"! But a great deal of it had to be based upon what I felt that the Lord had showed me from revelations & Scriptures, which, in a few cases I may not have gotten completely clear, but which usually turn out to be right. But the basic principles that I have taught you have been generally accepted by the church for centuries, even by the Catholic Church, & you can prove them because Scripture after Scripture after Scripture confirms it, & event after event after event confirms it until you can say you know that's the Truth!
12. AND IF THE MEANING IS CLEAR & IT'S LITERAL & IT'S OBVIOUS SO THAT YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO INTERPRET IT, THEN ACCEPT IT EXACTLY FOR WHAT IT SAYS! Take it exactly as it says. Don't try to twist it or interpret it or make it mean something else than what it says! If it's at all reasonable & believable that it means exactly what it says, then that's what it means! It's only when you're reading these cryptic words & mysterious code that's so often used in Bible Prophecy that you really need help, you really need divine inspiration. You need Godly revelation to give you the interpretation of things that to the ordinary reader don't make sense, in fact weren't intended to make sense to the ordinary reader because they were not intended to be understood by the ordinary reader or it would have been a security hazard for the Prophet himself!
13. BUT WHEN WE START INTERPRETING THINGS THAT DON'T HAVE A GENERALLY ACCEPTED INTERPRETATION BECAUSE MOST OF THE CHURCH HASN'T EVEN TRIED TO UNDERSTAND SOME OF THESE THINGS, WE HAVE TO SOMETIMES THEORISE A BIT OR MAKE SOME ESTIMATES & GUESSTIMATES. I've told you time & again, "That's my opinion, that's my estimate, that's my guesstimate, that's my theory! You don't have to believe it, I can't necessarily prove it by the Bible. There are verses in the Bible that convince me that it's true, but you don't have to believe it!" How many times have I told you that?
14. THERE ARE GOING TO BE PEOPLE WHO CRITICISE OUR SHAPE OF THE HOLY CITY! I'm sure there are already. There are going to be those who criticise the Crystal Sea surrounding it & say, "That's not in the Bible!" No, but I saw it though in one vision & that's the way it was! I had never thought of such a thing before, but it was beautiful, that beautiful golden City in that gorgeous crystal blue ball coming through space!--Marvellous! Now that's where I can say I know because I have seen it! When I talk about the Heavenly City, the few little places I did visit & the few things I saw, I can say I know it was that way because I saw it! You say, "Ah, you were dreaming!"--I wasn't dreaming! I got both of those in direct daytime visions, first was "Space City" & then later "Spaceship." (Nos.75A & 624)
15. SO I CAN SAY I KNOW!--AND IF YOU BELIEVE ME & BELIEVE IN ME, YOU CAN SAY YOU KNOW! But you don't have to. Some people just go by the law book alone, & if it's not in the Bible they don't believe it. My Grandfather had a rule of his old Church of the Brethren: "Where the Book speaks, we speak! Where the Book is silent, we are silent!" The whole religion was confined just to the Bible & some of the narrowest ideas of the Bible you could possibly imagine!--Typically Jewish, hard, cold, formal, legalist laws, no leeway, no flexibility, no room to expand or change! They had set it down & that was it!
16. WHEN MY MOTHER STOOD UP IN THAT PULPIT ON SUNDAY MORNING AFTER THE MARVELLOUS SATURDAY NIGHT WHEN SHE HAD BEEN MIRACULOUSLY & SUPERNATURALLY HEALED...what can I say? It was stupendous, colossal what had happened! The day before, she was dying in bed, 78 pounds of skin stretched over a skeleton with everything wrong with her from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, more dead than alive! The doctors couldn't even understand why she was still alive at all, she had everything wrong with her! I don't have to go into that, you've read it. But she got up that night, ate a dinner without any problems that caused my Father, a good healthy man, indigestion, & walked to the church the next morning! She hadn't been out of bed, or at least a wheelchair for five years! You'll notice my Mother always said "bed & a wheelchair," because there was a little time when she was a little better for awhile & she could be pushed around in a wheelchair.
17. FOR ONE FULL YEAR AT THE BEGINNING OF HER SICKNESS SHE WAS IN A PLASTER OF PARIS CAST FROM HERE TO HERE, FLAT ON HER BACK IN BED!--One full year in bed. And the last part of her years she was two full years in bed. There was only about one year in which she was able to get up--she didn't get up because her legs were paralysed--but they were able to put her into a wheelchair. But Deborah tries to use in her book as proof that my Mother was not an invalid after my brother was born, a picture of my Mother standing there with my Father & with my big brother when he was about 3- or 4-years-old--my sister & I hadn't been born yet--within the five-year period when she was supposed to be an invalid. Well, you'll notice in the picture she's holding on to a chair. She had to be helped or carried in & out of the bed & into the wheelchair & could only stand up for brief moments when required, such as for this very important family photo. But she used this to try to prove that my Mother was not an invalid.
18. MY MOTHER NEVER SAID THAT SHE WAS FLAT ON HER BACK IN BED FOR FIVE YEARS! I've heard her testimony thousands of times & she's always said, "In bed & a wheelchair for five years." The first year or two, I don't know exactly all the details, but she was absolutely flat on her back in bed. There was only one time toward the middle of the period when she was a little bit better for awhile, which I think was probably due to my Father's faith & his encouragement & his love & trying to encourage her. But then she got worse, & for the last two years she was flat on her back. She couldn't even be turned on her side or rolled over or her heart would stop beating, her heart was so weak. Both lungs were shot with TB from being in bed so long, one lung completely gone, blind, almost deaf, couldn't eat, she was fed liquids through a tube through a hole in her throat, stomach salivated, both legs paralysed & finally the paralysis was creeping & paralysed her whole left side & left arm & the only thing she could use was her right hand. They tied this string around her finger to a bell on a hook on the ceiling so that all she had to do was wiggle her finger to ring that bell.--Probably one of my Father's ingenious ideas. I think I'm a little like him on that, he was quite a handyman!
19. BUT BY THE POWER OF GOD & THE HEALING MIRACULOUS POWER OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST & HIS NAME, SHE ROSE FROM THAT BED & WALKED THAT NIGHT, & slept sound as a baby all night long for the first time in years without drugs! She was a morphine addict, the doctors just gave it to her. They figured, "Why let her suffer?" So they just gave it to her.--Till finally she said even when she wasn't in pain she'd pretend to be in pain to get it, like any drug addict.
20. SHE ROSE & WALKED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS! Have you ever been in bed a long time sick? What happened when you first got up? You were dizzy & your legs were so weak you couldn't even stand up on them. You'd just be in bed for a few weeks & you could hardly even get out of bed! But she had been in bed, bed!--Don't let anyone lie to you--bed for years!--And she got up & walked without my Father even touching her! She refused to let him touch her & said, "No! God's doing this thing!"
21. I HAVE SEEN SOME OF THESE HEALING MEETINGS OF SOME OF THESE HEALING EVANGELISTS, & SOME OF THEM ARE REAL CROOKS! Some of them really are racketeers, where they have practically pulled these poor people out of their wheelchairs & held them up & made them stand up & made them bend over & all this stuff, & you could tell that there was no miracle there at all. They were just forcing them to do the thing, & it could have even done them injury. I've seen other healing evangelists where they were really healed, but a lot of these quacks, racketeers & crooks have faked the healings & probably done'm more damage than good.
22. BUT MY MOTHER STOOD UP BY HERSELF & GOT TO HER FEET OUT OF THAT BED WITHOUT A HAND TOUCHING HER EXCEPT THE LORD!--And she ate solid food for the first time in two years, imagine, pork chops fried in pork grease & sauerkraut! She ate it, chewed it up & swallowed it!--Which is better than I can do sometimes now. And she got up & walked to the church the next morning! She didn't ride, she wasn't even pushed in a wheelchair!
23. YOU'VE HEARD THE STORY OF HOW HER FRIEND CAME RUNNING DOWN TOWARD THE PARSONAGE PUSHING THIS WHEELCHAIR, RUNNING WITH IT, THINKING MOTHER WAS GOING TO NEED IT! Then she met my Mother on the sidewalk coming to the church. How many have heard that story? Wasn't that in her book? I've forgotten the girl's name, but it was a young woman of the church. She heard that my Mother was coming to the church that morning & she thought, "Well, she'll certainly need her old wheelchair. I'll push it down there real quick & pick her up & wheel her to the church!" And when she met her on the sidewalk, she was already on her way to church, the girl nearly fainted because she saw my Mother walking! And my Mother said to her, "Honey, why don't you get in & I'll push you to church!"--Ha!
24. SHE STOOD IN THAT PULPIT THAT MORNING & GAVE THAT TESTIMONY & TOLD HOW SHE'D BEEN MIRACULOUSLY VIRTUALLY RAISED FROM THE DEAD & MARVELLOUSLY HEALED, & it was the testimony of several doctors & there were men there who knew it & the doctors that knew it, how totally more dead than alive she was! I'm telling you this long story as an illustration. Nevertheless, the old watchdog of the faith, the Elder of the church, Chairman of the Board of that Christian Church, Disciples of Christ--about as narrow-minded as you can get, a new name for the Jewish Brethren--walked down & said, "Nina Virginia, I would rather have seen you dead & in your coffin here this morning & had them preach your funeral than have you get up here this morning like this & teach something that is not in the annals & the laws & the doctrine of our church!" "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts!" There she was, a living testimony to what had happened but he said, "I'd rather see you dead than to teach something that our church doesn't teach!"
25. AND THERE ARE A LOT OF CHRISTIANS LIKE THAT, THERE ARE POLITICIANS LIKE THAT, THERE ARE JUST NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS LIKE THAT. They'd rather you'd just go away & shut up than try to tell them something new that they never thought of before or they didn't believe before or that sounds wrong to them. Did you ever have anybody treat you that way when you tried to witness to them? "Ah, go away! You're crazy! You're dreaming! You're a nut! There ain't no such thing! It ain't necessarily so!" They don't even qualify it by "necessarily," they just say, "It ain't so! I don't believe it!"
26. ONE DAY WE WERE RIDING ALONG IN THE CAR WITH MY FATHER-IN-LAW, MR. MILLER, EVE'S FATHER, & I WAS TRYING TO TEACH HIM SOMETHING ABOUT WITNESSING & about the things the Lord had shown us about Bible Prophecy, etc. But he said, "Hush, Dave, don't talk to me any more! Just shut up, I don't want to hear any more of it!" And he quoted this famous saying, "I'm like the man who said, 'My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts!' I'm a Baptist! I will live a Baptist, I've always lived a Baptist & I will die a Baptist!"--And he did. His wife said that too once she had heard our witness & heard what we believed, & she died not long afterward.
27. WE DIDN'T HAVE TO GO VERY FAR TO FIND THINGS SHE DIDN'T BELIEVE--Holy Spirit, healing, Baptism of the Spirit, gifts. We hadn't gone very far ourselves in those days, about all we knew was about the Holy Spirit & healing & gifts of the Spirit & witnessing & a little about Bible Prophecy. What we believed about Bible Prophecy was more or less the same as almost everybody else believed, Christians, Evangelicals, etc., because I still believed the Jews were the chosen people & Israel was the chosen land & Jerusalem was the glorious city & blah blah! Look how God had to turn me around!
28. LET ME TELL YOU, IF YOU DON'T LEAVE YOURSELF OPEN FOR NEW TRUTH & EVEN NEW INTERPRETATIONS--especially when the one you had before was merely somebody's guess or theory or even your own opinion--you are going to be stuck in a rut & resistant to any new idea or thought that God gives to you or tries to give to you!--He can't get through to crack that hard nut & shell of yours to pound in a little new idea contrary to what you've always believed or always thought or always been taught.
29. MOST CHRISTIANS NEVER STUDIED IT FOR THEMSELVES ANYHOW, they never dug it out for themselves, they never prayed for an answer from God regarding the Truths of the Bible. All they know is what they heard in church & what they heard the preacher preach, & that was what they just swallowed hook, line & sinker as accepted fact whether it was right or not. They didn't know whether it was according to the Bible or not, & a lot of it wasn't. I'd almost say nowadays most of it wasn't in most churches! How many churches were you ever in where they really got up & read the Bible & taught Bible right out of the Bible? Usually the preacher would take one verse & jump off from there--like I do!--Ha! But I'm telling you the Truth, believe it or not!
30. IF YOU'RE NOT OPEN-MINDED & OPEN-HEARTED, WILLING TO RECEIVE NEW TRUTHS, NEW INTERPRETATIONS & NEW IDEAS, THIS IS NOT THE DAY FOR YOU! Because things are happening too fast & changing too fast & we're learning so fast, all kinds of new things. As science even says, man has learned more things & discovered more things in the past hundred years than they did in the past thousands! That's a fact!
31. TRANSPORTATION HADN'T CHANGED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS UNTIL THE RAIL LOCOMOTIVES WERE INVENTED. The train was the first major change in man's transportation, & it's less than a couple of hundred years old now. My goodness, time flies! Just think, we used to be able to say it was only a little over a hundred years old, now it's almost two hundred years old, back in the 1800s, think of that! They built the first train track out to the wild-&-woolly West across the plains & deserts of the United States back when?--You don't even know! You think they've been in existence forever! It was 1869 when they had that famous celebration where the two tracks joined & they drove the golden spike that joined the East & West coasts of America for the first time!--I think partly as a result of the 49er's California Goldrush etc. They wanted to get out there in a hurry, they weren't satisfied with getting out there in covered wagons.
32. UP TO THAT TIME THE ONLY TRANSPORTATION THERE WAS WAS EITHER BY HORSEBACK OR BY COVERED WAGON OR BY A SAILBOAT CLEAR DOWN AROUND THE TIP OF SOUTH AMERICA & BACK UP TO CALIFORNIA, THOUSANDS OF MILES! But there were a few clipper ships. Somebody looked that up for me the other day, & I was close. I said it was 80-some days & I think they said it took 89 days from the East Coast to the West Coast. That's about three months. But that was fast! In the early days it took six months to go by covered wagon from coast to coast. With fairly good wagons & fast horses they finally got it cut down to three months that they could cross the United States, three months to go 3,000 miles, 1,000 miles a month. How much is that a day? Can anybody divide 30 into a thousand? (Fam: Between 30 & 35 miles a day.)--Yes. Boy, I'll tell you, that was going fast!
33. SOME OF YOU ARE THINKING, "OH, 30 TO 35 MILES AN HOUR, THAT'S PRETTY GOOD!" HE DIDN'T SAY 30 TO 35 MILES AN HOUR, HE SAID 30 TO 35 MILES A DAY! I can remember when I was a little boy your age, Honey dear, sitting on a typewriter with a pillow on top of it between my Mother & Daddy in our old Model-T Ford when we thought we were really flying at 25 miles an hour! These kids don't ride in cars very much so they don't really get the difference, but nowadays, cars on an average go 50 to 60 miles an hour on open highways, & where they don't have any speed limits like in England on the big freeways, they go 100 to 125 miles an hour, endangering life & limb of course. And on the race tracks how fast do they go, does anybody know? No racers here, huh?--No car enthusiasts. (Fam: Over 200 miles an hour.)--Over 200 miles an hour on most of those auto races, just think of that! That's almost ten times as fast as we could travel when I was a boy.
34. SO THINGS ARE CHANGING SO FAST, TIMES ARE CHANGING, EVENTS ARE CHANGING & THINGS ARE HAPPENING SO FAST, SIGNS OF THE TIMES ARE HAPPENING SO FAST! You'd better look out about getting your head so set & being so set in your ways & so set in your interpretations that when it actually happens you say, "No, go away, I don't want to believe it, I don't want to see it, because it proves that something is true that I never saw before." Or "It disproves one of my old set doctrines & opinions, it can't be! Go away! I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it! My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts! I've had this doctrine, this little set shibboleth, this little set idea for years, Daddy told me this, so I can't believe anything different!"
35. WELL, I'VE ALWAYS TRIED TO TELL YOU THE DIFFERENCE, HAVEN'T I? I've said, "That's my opinion, you don't have to believe it. I can't necessarily prove it by the Bible, but that's what I believe!" Well, in some cases I can say I know because I've seen it, or I know God said so-&-so because I've heard it! That's the nice advantage a Prophet has, he knows because he's heard & he's seen. But you have quite a distinct advantage over a lot of other people too, because you know the Prophet & you know he's honest & you know he's telling you the Truth & you know if he found out he was wrong he'd change it.
36. BUT MOST OF ALL, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT ALL THOSE PROPHECIES GOD GAVE ME IN THOSE EARLY DAYS WERE TRUE WHEN WE WERE NOTHING & NOBODY & A HANDFUL?--When He gave those amazing prophecies about all the marvellous things we were going to do & spread Worldwide into all countries & everywhere & thousands of us & all that sort of thing! The first ones that He gave, that we were going to spread all over the United States, I was afraid to even tell it, because I was afraid people wouldn't believe it, they'd think I was a false prophet for sure & that it was ridiculous!--A little handful of hippies in that dirty old Club, you guys were going to spread like a forest fire across the country setting all the trees on fire? You're like trees on fire! We had that vision where the trees were just like a forest fire sweeping under the wind & would sweep across the nation! How do you know that was true? (Fam: It's been fulfilled.)--It happened! How about all these other prophecies, how do you know they're true? Now you can believe them, it's not hard for me to believe them now, I've seen it happen! But I'll tell you, it took a lot of faith & sometimes I was even scared to tell'm when I first got'm!
37. YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE A LOT OF FAITH TO BE A PROPHET, IT'S NOT THAT EASY A JOB! Don't necessarily desire to be a prophet.--Besides, there aren't that many of them that do what this prophet has had to do! There can be lots of prophets, everybody can be a prophet, you're all prophets in a way, you tell the Truth. The literal meaning of the word prophet is forthtelling the Truth, not always foretelling, but forthtelling. But sometimes, if God reveals it to you, you can foretell, you can predict ahead of time.--You can't, but God can through you, & that's what He did, & it's happened. Peter & Maria & some of you who've lived with me know that there are a lot of little things that God has shown me & warned us of & told us to do or not to do. We obeyed even though it looked ridiculous, though I almost made a fool of myself to even tell them about certain things & what to do. But it happened or it didn't happen or whatever it was. Thank God that they had the faith to believe what I told them. I thank God that I had the faith to believe what God showed me, then sometimes it was hard to tell them, but I told them anyhow.
38. I ALWAYS THINK ABOUT THAT TIME IN PORTUGAL WHEN WE WERE ALL PACKED & READY & HAD THE APPOINTMENT MADE FOR THE TAXI TO COME PICK US UP & TAKE US TO THE AIRPORT TO GO TO MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY, OF ALL PLACES! We were leaving the next day, tickets bought, reservations made, packed, everything, we'd already given notice we were going to vacate the house & the whole works. But I was awake nearly all night with the Lord showing me things, answering questions, just like conversation. It was amazing!--Answering my every objection! I was objecting to God changing my mind, I didn't like it!
39. WE HAD THE ARRANGEMENTS MADE, THE HOUSE WAS ALREADY RENTED IN MONTEVIDEO & JUAN & ALF WERE THERE!--Right? (Alf: I'd come back.) Well, you'd been there! Didn't you help him pick it out? (Alf: Yes Sir!) Well speak up! You were there & rented the house! You had been there but you'd come back by that time to help us go back & find it. Imagine that, we paid for his plane fare all the way from Portugal to South America to make sure Juan, who didn't know us too well at that time, had picked out the right kind of house with the kind of security we needed & room we needed & all that. We picked out the house, paid three or six month's rent & the owner had taken off & gone God knows where & you guys had the keys & we were ready to move in! Can you imagine how I felt?
40. SO I ARGUED WITH THE LORD! I SAID, "LORD, I CAN'T TELL PETER THAT! HE IS GOING TO THINK I AM ABSOLUTELY CRAZY! He's going to know that I'm crazy now, that this crazy prophet is absolutely crazy!" Here we had gone to all this trouble & expense, sent a man clear to South America & back again to rent us a house, & another man, flew him clear down from Peru to help him find it & rent it & pay for it, & we were all packed & the taxi was going to be here at ten o'clock in the morning to get us to the airport in time to catch a plane to take us all the way to South America! And here the Lord was telling me & showing me in the middle of the night that we shouldn't go that way, saying as plain as day, "It's the wrong way, don't go, you're going the wrong way!" I mean, it was so strong I could almost hear it out loud!
41. I KEPT SAYING, "WELL WHY, LORD? HOW COME?" HE SAID, "THAT'S NOW THE OLD WORLD, THE LAND OF THE SETTING SUN." IT WAS WEST, WHERE THE SUN SETS. HE SAID, "YOU NEED TO GO TO THE NEW WORLD, THE LANDS OF THE RISING SUN!" (Tongues:) Hallelujah! TYJ! PYL! "Hear ye the Words of David thy Father & believe ye Me!"--Jesus! TYJ! PYL! It's no credit to me! In fact, I argued with the Lord, I fought with the Lord about it, because I was going to have to make an absolute fool of myself to go to Peter the next morning & tell him to quick cancel the taxi!
42. I HAD TO TELL THEM, "CANCEL THE TAXI, CANCEL THE RESERVATIONS, GO EXCHANGE THE TICKETS, WE'RE NOT EVEN GOING THAT WAY!" "What do you mean, Dad? We've already got a house rented & everything!" Well, I've gotta give Peter & Maria the credit, they accepted it, they didn't even really question it, he didn't even ask me that question. He probably was thinking it though!--Ha! I don't want to give you the big head now. You probably were thinking, "He is crazy! We've already got the tickets & everything & we're on our way this morning!--House rented, Juan waiting for us, & now he tells me we're going the opposite direction!"
43. I'LL TELL YOU, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE READY TO BELIEVE GOD NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, AGAINST ALL NATURAL EXPECTATION, AGAINST ALL VISIBLE SIGNS IN SOME CASES! Usually God is quite reasonable & He'll go according to reason & logic & sensibleness. We go out & shop for a house & we look hard & we do it in the flesh & physically. God didn't just pull this house out of the hat & give us a picture of it or something--I'm sure He could have if He had to--but usually when we shop for things we go out & look for them. The Lord says, "Seek & ye shall find! Knock & it shall be opened unto you! Ask & ye shall receive!" You've got to do your part. "Roll ye away the stone! I'll raise the dead but you roll away the stone." (Mat.7:7; John 11:39)
44. BUT SOMETIMES WHEN IT IS AN EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE & EMERGENCY & TOTALLY CONTRARY TO EVERY VISIBLE SIGN OR NATURAL EXPECTATION & God has to absolutely turn you clear around & send you the other direction, He has got to do it supernaturally, miraculously & extraordinarily! He has got to change your mind at a moment's notice if necessary. And let me tell you, you had better be open to that kind of change or you can go so far afield & so wrong you fall off the deep end! Do you know what it is to "fall off the deep end"? That expression comes from a swimming pool. If you're a little child & you don't know how to swim, you don't want to fall off into the deep end, do you? Thank God you all know how to swim. But a lot of people fall into the deep end & don't know how to swim & can't survive because they go the wrong way instead of the way God told them to go.
45. YOU HAD BETTER LEAVE YOUR MIND OPEN, BELOVED, TO WHATEVER GOD TELLS YOU TO DO & WHATEVER HE WANTS YOU TO DO, even if it seems contrary to all reason & expectation. As I say, normally, ordinarily it's something that is reasonable & logical & just common sense, wisdom, but sometimes God acts completely contrary to natural expectation. It's such an unusual circumstance that He has got to change your mind in a hurry & change your direction in a hurry & you've got to obey just like a little child. When you say, "Why?" He just says, "Because I said so!" He doesn't have time to explain.
46. I MUST CERTAINLY GIVE GOD THE THANKS THAT THAT NIGHT HE DID SPEND A LOT OF TIME EXPLAINING. Every question I asked He had the answer, everything! I said, "But Lord, I speak Spanish, the language of most of South America, I don't speak those languages out there in the Orient, the Far East." The Lord in His tender gentle Voice, just like a parent soothing a ruffled child's upset feelings said, "But they speak yours!"
47. MOST OF THE EASTERN NATIONS, THEIR SECOND LANGUAGE IS ENGLISH! Thanks to the dear British who spread their Empire around the World & taught English & sent missionaries to all these people, most of those countries speak at least some English. In some of the countries the new language they learned from the British is the only national language they have, because prior to that they were a conglomeration of a bunch of little counties & a whole bunch of little languages. They had no language to unite them until the British came along & taught them English. Can't you see the wisdom of God? Isn't that wonderful?--And they were willing to learn it. And as a result God really has blessed them, He blessed them with the Gospel, He blessed a lot of them with Salvation, He blessed them with civilisation because they were willing & open-minded to learn & change from their old language, their old ways, their old religions & even many of them to become Christians. Isn't that wonderful?
48. LET ME TELL YOU, IF YOU'RE NOT OPEN TO CHANGE YOU'LL NEVER GET ANYWHERE! If you're not open to change you'll never make any progress. If you're not open to change you'll certainly never be a revolutionary, because that's what revolution's all about, a complete round-about-face, going another direction, a revolution, to revolve, turn around & go the other away against all natural expectation. You have to be willing to change, you have to be willing to accept new ideas & new concepts.
49. EVERYBODY HERE, EXCEPT PERHAPS THE CHILDREN, HAVE HAD TO GO THROUGH THAT CHANGE. Aren't you living an entirely different kind of life than you lived when you were a child & that you were brought up in? (Fam: Amen!) Well, you're still human, you still eat, you still sleep, you still work & play, etc., but you're living under an entirely different set of morals & mores & rules & beliefs & even religion! You had to be willing to change, right? If you hadn't been willing to change, you wouldn't be here today! If I hadn't been willing to change you wouldn't be here today, & neither would I!
50. MY FIRST WIFE THOUGHT I WAS A LITTLE SCREWY & TOO RADICAL, TOO EXTREME, TOO FANATICAL! She said, "Well, David, that's all right for some people & maybe all right for you to believe it, but can't you keep your mouth shut in church? You know the only way to serve God is in church, there's nothing else. The church system is all there is. Where else are you going to serve God? If you get yourself in dutch with every church & every denomination & every preacher & argue with people all the time & try to change things, where are you going to go? There's no place to go but the church!"--Ha! Can you imagine me still being back there in the church somewhere having shut my mouth & hidden my convictions & stopped talking about it, stopped trying to change people, stopped trying to influence preachers & church people? I did finally give up on them though because they're a hard bunch! If there are any bunch of people who live up to that criterion, "Go away, don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up", it's church people! They are in a rut!
51. YOU'VE GOT TO BE WILLING TO CHANGE IF YOU'RE GOING TO SURVIVE! You've got to be willing to move, change, go, come, whatever, if you're going to survive, because things are constantly changing & if you don't change with them you're going to be in trouble!
52. YOU SAY, "WELL, DAD, WHY ARE YOU SAYING ALL THIS? YOU MUST HAVE SOMETHING UP YOUR SLEEVE!" I couldn't have anything up my sleeve, I haven't got any sleeves! I'm an open book this morning! I hope you didn't mind my calling Class on Sunday since we didn't have one yesterday, I'm sorry, but I've got a burden about this. We're getting into some tough Scriptures now.
53. I HAD TO GIVE SOMEBODY A LITTLE LECTURE YESTERDAY WHO WAS SAYING, "WELL, DAD, THAT'S WRONG, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO CHANGE THIS CHART! It's not right that all this is going to happen at the end of the 70th Week & bring in everlasting righteousness & all these wonderful things, that's the Millennium! That's 75 days later!" I said, "Come on now, don't split hairs over a few days. The 70th Week is seven years, so why argue about a few days more or less here at the end of the seven years?" To the Prophet Daniel looking at it from afar, what was 75 days? Well, it meant something to the Lord, He counted them out! Isn't the Lord merciful? Isn't He good to us? He even gives us days! But when you see a slight little difference or variation & say, "Well, here He says seven years & yet over here we figure out it's seven years & 75 days, so that's not seven years, we've got to change the Chart!"
54. I SAID, "LISTEN, BUDDY, YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO BE A LITTLE FLEXIBLE & BEND A LITTLE BIT ONE WAY OR THE OTHER!" As far as our interpretation & theory is, it's 75 days later that the actual Millennium begins, but it doesn't actually say that there. It says days, but it doesn't say that's when the Millennium begins. That's our interpretation, that's our belief, because it says then they're blessed. "Blessed is he that survives till that time." (Dan.12:12) So we have just taken it for granted & interpreted it logically, sensibly, common sense, that they're not going to feel very blessed till the Battle of Armageddon is over. Obviously He says blessed is he that comes to that point, comes to that many days, because then it will all be over. But for goodness sake, don't go saying we've got to change the Chart now & say that's not all going to happen now, that it should say at the end of the 70th Week plus 75 days. Well, you know that, & you know that little difference & addition of a few days, but 75 days later is virtually the same year or a little bit of the next year & it's not going to make that much difference.
55. THAT'S WHAT I DON'T LIKE ABOUT GETTING INTO SO MANY OF THESE DETAILS & SPLITTING THEOLOGICAL HAIRS THREE DIFFERENT WAYS of how many angels can stand on the head of a pin & all that kind of stuff! The church spent centuries arguing over those things & building buildings instead of evangelising the World! Now I can think of a lot more profitable things you might be doing than sitting here in this Class if you didn't need to know this, so I don't want to teach & argue about things you don't need to know! But I want you to be so well-versed & so knowledgeable about Bible Prophecy that even if we don't know what it really means right now, we could find out maybe tomorrow or know next year, because then it will have happened & then we will know, won't we?
56. RIGHT NOW WE ARE THEORISING ABOUT THE 30 DAYS & THE 45 DAYS & THE 75 DAYS, WE CAN'T PROVE IT. (See Nos.1900:17-19; 2188.) That's just our opinion, we're theorising. We know the days are there & we know that those days extend beyond the end of the Tribulation & the Coming of the Lord, which is only 1260 days from the setting up of the Abomination of Desolation until the Lord comes, the last 3-1/2 years. But don't go splitting hairs over years there, because depending on how you figure your years & your months & your days & blah blah, you're safer to stick to the most exact figures God has given, & that is in days. You can't misinterpret days. Day & night, day & night, day & night! A day is a day!
57. BUT LET ME SHOCK YOU! DEPENDING ON YOUR CALENDAR & HOW YOU MARK TIME, A YEAR IS NOT NECESSARILY A YEAR! "Aha! Oh Dad, now you're saying the same thing, no absolutes! A year is not necessarily a year!" It depends on whose years you're going by, what kind of years, whose months you're going by, what kind of months, lunar months, present Roman calendar months, the Roman days or the Jewish days or the old Gregorian days! There are all different kinds of years & ways of figuring time. The Jews go by an entirely different calendar, they're in the year 5746, & the Chinese go by a whole different calendar, they're some other kinds of thousands of years. I mean, there are all kinds of different calendars in the World & people figure time all kinds of different ways. But there's one thing they can't change, & that's the days, & if you want to be sure you're right, you'd better stick to the days.
58. NOW WE KNOW WHEN HE SAYS "SEVEN" IT MEANS SEVEN, & WHEN HE SAYS THAT LAST WEEK OR SEVENS, WE KNOW THAT THAT MEANS SEVEN YEARS, EXACT.--But what kind of years? Whose years? You can come out a lot of different ways. So why do you think the Lord gave the days? (Fam: So we'd know exactly.) Don't go splitting hairs & having theological & astronomical arguments over the length of years & times & blah blah! "A time & times & a half-a-time," is an old Jewish way of expressing it, a "time" meaning a year, "times" meaning two years, "half-a-time" meaning half-a-year, 3-1/2 years. If that was the only time we ever heard of that 3-1/2 years, we might doubt that that was the right interpretation. But when He says seven years exactly & in the middle of it is a break leaving another 3-1/2 years, then we get another proof that it's 3-1/2 years. "Oh, then we can figure out, well, it's going to be in the month of so-&-so."
59. WELL, THE JEWS EVEN HAD DIFFERENT NAMES FOR THE MONTHS & EVEN THE FIRST MONTH OF THE YEAR WAS A DIFFERENT MONTH, IT WAS ABIB OR APRIL, NOT JANUARY. They began the year in what I would say was a logical time to begin the year, when everything comes to life & begins a new year, a new day, a new wonderful time of life!--Spring! April! Who ever got the idea of starting the year in the middle of Winter, January? That must have been the Romans' idea! The Jews also had a pretty simple way of telling time. They had hours of the day & they called them "watches." The first watch of the day was when the sun came up in the morning, which was usually six o'clock. It's usually about six o'clock in places where there's not too much variation in the day. So from six to seven was called the first watch of the day, the first hour of the day. Seven to eight was called the second watch, on down till the sun set about six o'clock, that was the last watch, the 12th hour of the day from five to six according to the Jewish way of telling time.
60. LEAVE IT TO THE ROMANS TO START TIME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, AT MIDNIGHT, OF ALL THINGS!--Ha! It's really kind of screwy, don't you think? Where did they get the idea that the day began at midnight, 12:01 a.m.? That's not day time, that's night time! But that's your Romans. Talk about changing times & seasons, the Romans were good at it! They became professionals at it. They changed the calendars, they changed the times, but they couldn't change the seasons, though they tried to. They changed a lot of things that they shouldn't have changed. What's the old saying, the guy's prayer? (Fam: "Lord help me to change the things I can change & accept the things I cannot change.") "Lord help me not to change the things I shouldn't change, but God help me to change the things I should change, & for God's sake, help me to know the difference!" That's my quote. Yours may be the original, but that's mine.
61. WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW HERE THIS MORNING & EVERY MORNING WE STUDY THIS WORD OF GOD, IS TO KNOW THE THINGS THAT ARE UNCHANGEABLE, like God & Jesus His Son & His Salvation & His precious Holy Spirit & His Word & His Creation & all the things we know are absolutes & are static, unchangeable, non-variable facts & figures! You have to know these first before you can know what might be changed or could possibly be changed, like some of our theories or guesstimates or personal opinions.
62. IN THE STUDY OF BIBLE PROPHECY, DON'T BECOME AN EXTREMIST! Don't become an extremist one way or the other, extremely conservative & totally unchangeable, or don't go to the opposite extreme where you're changing your doctrine & your interpretation every day! Try to hit a good median, a flexible middle of the road. Be flexible!
63. SEE, ALL THESE NICE GOOD SYSTEMS DON'T ALWAYS NECESSARILY WORK! All your nice good system of prophetic interpretation, though the bulk of it, the mass of it, the majority of it may be perfectly all right & Bible-based & sound doctrine & unchangeable--like as I say, God, Jesus & Salvation & the course of history in general that we've already studied. You know those prophecies were true because they already happened, those Empires have already come & gone. It's not hard to teach that kind of Bible Prophecy, fulfilled Bible Prophecy, it's already happened & you know it's true, but you're getting on touchy ground when you're getting into the future that hasn't happened yet. And if you're too dogmatic & too rigid & too set in your beliefs & you're in too much of a rut that not even God Himself can change your mind, you're in a fix, a real fix! You are fixed with a fixation for your particular little shibboleths & doctrines & interpretations.
64. LEAVE YOURSELF OPEN! I spent almost two hours just on this introduction to prepare you for some possible changes!--To prepare you for some things that I believe the Lord has been showing me lately. In teaching this very difficult Chapter which we've been over many times before & I've explained it to you, all done, didn't have to go over it again, I said, "Well, Lord, since we've got to go over this again, let me attack it fresh like I never read it before, & let me just read it right straight through."
65. THAT'S WHAT THE LORD SHOWED ME ABOUT REVELATION! I HAD TO LAY MY MIND OPEN, DISCARD ALL MY THEORIES, ALL MY PREVIOUS TEACHINGS & EVERYTHING I'D HEARD & TAUGHT & READ. I just said, "Lord, I'm so confused about this Book of Revelation I don't know what it means! I've heard this, I've heard that, I've heard this interpretation & that interpretation."
66. WHEN IT COMES TO BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION, DON'T BE TOO DOGMATIC ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE NOT VERY CLEAR & ARE NOT EXACT. I was trying to use that as an illustration: You can be dogmatic about the days, but don't be dogmatic about the years! Do you understand what I mean? We know it's seven years, but what kind of years? Whose years?--But you can count on the days. And that's why the Lord gave you the days, so you wouldn't be deceived by stretching or shrinking a year by somebody else's calendar, but you would know the exact number of days to the very day! And don't let those church people confuse you by saying, "But the Lord Himself said, 'Ye know not the day nor the hour, not even the Angels of Heaven know it, only My Heavenly Father.'" (Mat.24:36) Well, of course then they didn't know, even the Angels didn't know. I doubt if even the Angels understood these prophecies then. Certainly Daniel didn't know, he didn't understand.
67. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER, WHEN DANIEL'S TALKING, THAT HE WAS A JEW, & TO HIM THE JEWS WERE THE HOLIEST PEOPLE! They were the holy & the mighty people, Jerusalem was the glorious city, Israel the glorious land, Mt. Moriah was the holy mount & anything that had to do with the Jews was holy & glorious & wonderful, marvellous! He couldn't even think any other way. That's what he'd been taught all his life, that's the way he'd lived, that's what he'd heard & that's much the way God was dealing with the Jews in those days. Even when Daniel thinks in directions, he thinks in directions from Jerusalem & from Israel. As far as they were concerned, Jerusalem was the center of the World, Israel was really the only nation on Earth & the others were a big bunch of trouble.
68. YOU'VE GOT TO THINK ABOUT WHO THE MAN IS, THE PROPHET HIMSELF, WHO CAN SOMETIMES COLOUR HIS PROPHECIES & HIS WORDS WITH HIS OWN THOUGHTS & PERSONALITY & THINK OF IT FROM HIS STANDPOINT. Don't forget that. Daniel was a Jew & throughout this whole Book he's more interested in the Jews & what's going to happen to them than anybody else. So he's telling you the history of the Jews. That's what he wanted to know, that's what he prayed days on end for, that's what he fasted for: "Lord, what's going to happen to us, our people?" Then God in His mercy & His leniency came & told him. A lot of good it did him, he didn't even understand it anyhow! But God knew the time would come when you'd be coming & there would be time for it to happen & you'd begin to understand it. But you don't know it all yet!--Neither do I!
69. I SPENT TWO HOURS JUST TRYING TO PREPARE YOU FOR SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING I GOT OUT OF THIS CHAPTER THIS MORNING THAT I NEVER SAW BEFORE! That's just my wee word of introduction. Do you want to know what it was?--I'll tell you next Class! I think that's lesson enough, don't you? Be open-minded, open-hearted! (Sings:) "Open up the windows of your heart!" You have a little song like that, don't you? Keep your heart open, keep your mind open for something new from the Lord, otherwise you'll be in a rut, in a ditch, in a hole, stuck, a stick-in-the-mud & never change & never get out & never learn anything new! Thank God you folks are revolutionary, you've been willing to change, to learn, to be open-minded, to find out new things!
70. DON'T GET TOO SCARED, IT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE YOUR ENTIRE DOCTRINE & YOUR WHOLE INTERPRETATION OR ANYTHING, BUT HE JUST REVEALED TO ME SOME NEW THINGS THAT I NEVER REALISED BEFORE. Because I opened this Bible this morning with this prayer on my heart, "Lord, I don't want to be set in my ways, I don't want to just go by a rigid interpretation I've always heard & that most of the Bible teachers teach on this Chapter & the books I've read on it & the footnotes & even Scofield & Douay Catholic Bible & all the rest! What do You want to show me from this Chapter? What can I see in this Chapter I haven't seen before?"
71. DON'T BE SO DOGMATIC YOU CAN'T CHANGE! Don't open your Bible & say, "It's this way, it's gotta be this way, that's what I read there!" I said, "Lord, I just want You to let me read this Book this morning like I never read it before & not have any dogmas & dogmatic opinions & set ideas about it." Well, don't get excited, don't get scared! I haven't changed my idea about the Antichrist at all or about what he's like & what he does & the seven years & the 3-1/2 years & the so many days & the Abomination of Desolation in the middle & the last half of the Tribulation. These are basic fundamentals that almost all Bible teachers & Bible scholars agree on, & the one reason they agree on them is because they're right there! How can they deny it? You can read it yourself, you can agree on it, right? But it's these little fine hairs about which king is this, North King, South King, which war is this, who's he fighting with, what is he doing, when etc. like that.
72. SOME OF THESE GREAT BIBLE SCHOLARS OF THE FAMILY HAVE SOMETIMES WRITTEN ME & CORRECTED ME ON SOME THINGS, SOMETIMES THEY WERE RIGHT, SOMETIMES THEY WERE WRONG. A lot of times they've given me new ideas & new interpretations! They're real diggers in the Word! They're real miners of the jewels, digging out Truths, jewels, gems, "treasures old & new" as God's Word says. (Mat.13:52) The old ones are the ones you already knew, the new ones are the ones that God just recently revealed to you. I gave you one when we started this passage here. I think it was Hart who wrote in & said, "Well, if this is the Antichrist, then the guy just before him, this great raiser of taxes, certainly sounds like the U.S. to me, the other Superpower."
73. SO FOR YOUR HOMEWORK I WANT YOU TO READ THAT CHAPTER THAT WAY, BEGINNING WITH THE 20TH VERSE WHERE WE STARTED THE OTHER DAY, TAKING THAT AS BEING THE UNITED STATES. I hope I don't give away the secret now, because I want you to dig it out for yourself! I want you to read it with an open mind, knowing, of course, that the Antichrist is the King of the North, the King of Russia, in other words the leader of the Communist World, wherever he comes from, & that these represent the two Superpowers, the United States & Russia. Obviously there can't be any more after this, because he's the last. Right? And the U.S. obviously is the last contender.
74. READ THIS PASSAGE AS YOU'VE NEVER READ IT BEFORE, WITH AN OPEN MIND, not trying to even go by what you've heard before, former interpretations, although most of them are right. I might say that even perhaps all of them were right, except just a shade here or there which I got greater clarity on as I read it this morning & it suddenly dawned on me, new Truth, greater clarity. It wasn't completely new Truth, because it was based on everything that we already know. You just can't change the Truth.
75. BUT FOR YOUR HOMEWORK, READ IT THIS TIME AS THOUGH YOU NEVER SAW IT BEFORE! Read it again & I want you to particularly remember two principles: First of all, it was Daniel speaking. Well, it was God speaking to Daniel but Daniel recorded it, & God was speaking in terms Daniel understood, he being a Jew, he being from Jerusalem, he being naturally prejudiced & favourable toward the Jews & thinking they were God's only holy people & Jerusalem was the only chosen city etc. Remember, God Himself flavoured it a little bit to make Daniel happy. Can you look at it like that? He had to speak in terms that Daniel understood & would believe & would accept. But my Lord, this prophecy is not just for the Jews! There were only a few thousand Jews in those days & this one little prophet!
76. GOD WAS SPEAKING ABOUT THE FUTURE OF A WORLD OF BILLIONS OF PEOPLE & MILLIONS OF CHRISTIANS THAT DANIEL NEVER EVEN HEARD OF BEFORE!--A lot holier people than the [DELETED] Jews who were going to reject their Messiah!--Something that probably would have been hard for Daniel to believe because he was so fond of the Jews & prayed so hard for the Jews. He probably couldn't have believed that a Messiah could come & his Jews, his leading Jews, the heads of his religion, would actually crucify Jesus, kill Him! [EDITED: "See Isa.53:8; 1Thes.2:14,15."]--In the very city that Daniel worshipped & loved as the holy city! Later on the Lord said, "In which the Lord Himself was crucified" & said it was like Sodom & Gomorrah! (Rev.11:8) He said some horrible things about Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation! [DELETED]
77. SO KEEP THAT IN MIND AS YOU READ IT & DON'T LET YOURSELF BE BOUND BY DANIEL'S SMALL MIND & DIMENSIONS. I'm not demeaning Daniel, he's a marvellous prophet & a man dearly beloved by the Lord, but he didn't have a big enough mind & enough lack of prejudice in his day to really comprehend this tremendous World-scope prophecy! Do you get it? He never dreamed about nations like Russia or the United States, he couldn't even comprehend what the Lord was saying about the Antichrist, he never heard of one. But it's all here, & it's still here.
78. [DELETED] They hate the name Jew so bad themselves they don't even foster anti-Jewish, they say "anti-Semitic." They even pronounce it wrong. It's anti-Shemitic, anti-Shemite. The funny part about it is, if you're an anti-Shemite, you're against both the Jews & the Arabs because they're all Shemites, even a lot of [EDITED: "American"] Indians are Shemites, most of the Asians are Shemites. My Lord, if you're an anti-Shemite, anti-Semitic, you're against almost everything that's East of Jerusalem!--Including the whole land of Israel too!
79. DON'T GET SO SET IN YOUR WAYS THAT YOU CAN'T SEE SOMETHING NEW! Don't even be as narrow-minded as Daniel. He's a great prophet, don't misunderstand me, greatly beloved of the Lord, & God gave him some of the greatest prophecies in this Book that you & I hold to, hold fast to & know are true, & we see them happen or know by history & we know the rest of them are going to happen too. But don't be limited merely to Daniel's perspective, or even his directions, necessarily.--Although that is an indication & is a clue about who & what & where. And just remember, he didn't know anything about the United States & Russia, & even though the Lord was telling him all about the Antichrist, he still didn't know much about that either.
80. I WANT YOU TO READ THIS CHAPTER IN THE LIGHT OF TODAY'S EVENTS & HISTORY, knowing what you now know is true & what you know about the Antichrist who is about to come, or already is here for that matter, & what you know about the two remaining Superpowers of the World who are here right now, obviously the last Superpowers, because there's not time for any more, the one is going to blow the other one up & nearly blow up the World. These are things you know! You don't have to worry about changing your mind or opinion. The Antichrist is the last Superpower that's going to exist in this World, meaning Russia & Russian Communism, & the take-over of the World by Communism.--Whether it's Communism or Russia or whatever you want to call it, a final anti-Christ World government! This we know, it's all here.
81. AND WE ALSO KNOW THE PRIMARY CONTENDER & OPPONENT & ANTAGONIST & ENEMY OF THAT SUPERPOWER IS WHOM? (FAM: AMERICA.)--THE UNITED STATES! Try to stay away from saying America. I know I use that word "American" a lot because the Americans think they're the only Americans, but a lot of South Americans don't like that! Don't include them, it's not their fault. Say the United States, North America. It's not even Canada's fault, the United States is the biggest culprit, that's the worst! That's the Superpower that threatens Russia.--Not Canada, not South America, but the U.S.A. is the great opposing Superpower!
82. NOW READ THIS PASSAGE WITH THAT IN MIND, WITH YOUR MIND OPEN, THAT IN THIS ENDTIME NOW THESE ARE THE LAST SUPERPOWERS, there are not going to be any more big enough to contend with the Antichrist or his System, not going to be any more big ones to fight each other but these two! I'm giving you some big hints! So remember this business about Daniel being Jewish & that there are only two Superpowers left & there's no room in history for another one, or in Bible Prophecy either.
83. REMEMBER WHAT I'VE OFTEN TOLD YOU ABOUT HOW THE PROPHETS SEE THE FUTURE? It's often like looking over a range of mountains. We used to drive out in Arizona & you'd look far across & you'd see this range here & this range here & another range here & another range here, just the tops of them. And in the haze of the distance, about all you could see was the skyline then & it looked like all one range of mountains. As you kept driving closer & closer all you could see was the range in front & you thought that was it, but when you climbed up that mountain & you got to the top, some of those mountains you thought were the same range were another 20 or 30 miles away!
84. THE PROPHETS SOMETIMES SEE THINGS LIKE THAT FROM A DISTANCE, THOUSANDS OF YEARS AWAY, & IT ALL LOOKS LIKE ONE EVENT TO THEM. It all looks like one time, one period, one thing, one event or whatever it is. But now through our Bible studies & in these Last Days we've gotten up closer & we can see that there are so many days to this event & so many days to that, so many days to this other & we begin to count out the days & separate the periods & we've got them pretty well classified now, haven't we?
85. A LOT OF THE CHURCHES THINK WHEN JESUS COMES, THAT'S GOING TO BE ARMAGEDDON, that He's going to come with the Saints & white horses & we're going to rise up & meet Him in the sky. I guess they think He's bringing along a few extra saddle horses for us & we're going to jump on & turn right around & come back & fight the Battle of Armageddon! They lump the Rapture & the Revelation all in one & the same event, it looks like the same thing to them, & a lot of the prophets looked at it almost the same way too. They just leap from one to the other just like it was the same event, like there was no time period in-between, like it was all one & the same. And if you don't study all Bible Prophecy you can get really confused, because some of them make it sound like it all happens at the same time. Even in Revelation I've warned you about that, that it's not all in exactly consecutive order, but He's constantly flashing back & sometimes flashing forward & it's not always exactly what it appears to be.
86. I SPENT THIS WHOLE TWO HOURS TELLING YOU NOT TO BE SO NARROW-MINDED & SO STUCK IN A RUT THAT YOU CAN'T SEE SOMETHING NEW!--All that to prepare you for the next lesson! Remember as you read that those verses are not all necessarily in consecutive order chronologically, & I think I'm going to prove it to you. Just like in Revelation, they run right through the whole course of time & come to the end at the end of the 6th Chapter, then they do it again & again & again when it's all talking about the same time period & the same events & the same End! It's repeated & repeated & repeated several times, so watch out!
87. WHY WE DIDN'T SEE IT BEFORE I DON'T KNOW! IT JUST AS GOOD AS SAYS IT! It only talks about two kings, doesn't it?--Two powers, two kingdoms, the King of the North & the King of the South! Now read this Chapter & keep that in mind.--Daniel's prejudice, his slant about Israel & his ignorance of the final World powers. He didn't even understand this prophecy after it was explained to him, poor fellow, & I can't blame him, I wouldn't have either!--In fact, most people, the first time they ever read it, they didn't know anything about it.
88. I SPENT MY LIFE COMPARING SCRIPTURE WITH SCRIPTURE & teacher with teacher & writer with writer & preacher with preacher & Bible with Bible & footnotes with footnotes & theories & all the rest, but I never got the explanation to Revelation until I just threw the whole thing away & said, "Lord, You show me! What does Revelation really mean?" And then it was so clear & so consecutive & so beautiful, marvellous! It is in chronological order except it keeps going back like a movie, flashes back & gives you the whole story over again to the End, & goes back & tells it from another standpoint & another reason to the End, & then goes back again & tells you greater details on each of these events & each of these things till finally you've got the whole picture. First it just gives you a whiz-bang shot of the whole thing & then each time it goes into greater detail telling the same things over & over again.
89. READ THIS CHAPTER THAT WAY! Do you get the hint? Do you get the tip? This prophecy, this revelation, was given & written the same way as the Book of Revelation! There are only two powers involved here, & all of these events are happening to those same two powers! You say, "Well, that's clear, Dad, it says King of the North & King of the South. But there could have been a lot of Kings of the North & a lot of Kings of the South, blah blah!" No, there aren't today, there are just two Superpowers, that's all, that's all Time has left. So keep that in mind as you read it & you're going to get a few little surprises & shocks! And if you don't catch on, God willing, I'll tell you next time!
90. BUT NOW YOU'VE GOT YOUR HOMEWORK: READ IT AGAIN LIKE I HAD NEVER READ IT TO YOU BEFORE & YOU'D NEVER READ IT & YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANT! Just keep those rules in mind. I'm trying to get you to dig out some of this for yourself, do you understand? I want you to learn how to find things & dig up treasures new & old in God's Word, to learn how to mine the jewels! I want you to learn, I want you to find out how to do it, how to study. Just pray real hard, "Now Lord, why can't You reveal to me what You revealed to Dad?" I got it without all the hints I've given you! I've given you so many hints that I've almost told you already! I gave you the main ground rules for the game, now you go to it & play it!--Okay? PTL! GBY! It's quite interesting & it's thrilling & it makes not only the prophecy come to life, but it makes the present really come to life! It's thrilling when you know that that is what is happening right now & that's it, it's already here! The future is here! Praise God!
91. THANK YOU LORD FOR THY WORD! THANK YOU JESUS FOR THE NEW TRUTHS!--Yet they're old Truths & always been there all the time, sometimes we just don't see'm. Help these folks to open their minds & hearts as they read this passage this week & really pray that You'll show them what I'm talking about so they can learn themselves to read Thy Word & understand it & trust & expect Thy Holy Spirit to interpret it to them & open their minds & show them great Truths!--That I'm not the only one, Lord, that can dig these things out & find these things out & be shown these things.
92. YOU ARE THEIR GOD TOO, LORD! YOU ARE THEIR LORD ALSO! You're their Revelator also & You can reveal to them just as much as You can to me! Help them, Lord!--Because one of these days I'm going to be gone, Lord, & they're going to have to figure it out & recognise it when it happens. Help them, Lord! We're trying to make them real Bible students that really learn from You, Jesus, & learn to be open to Thy Holy Spirit to show them & even change them if necessary. PTL! GBY! ILY!--Please ask the Lord to help you to know the difference between the things that are unchangeable & those that are not!--GBAKY open to changes!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family