INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE ANTICHRIST & HIS KINGDOM! ET #41 DO 2167 4/85
NEW SERIES ON THE AC & HIS KINGDOM!
1. THIS NEW SERIES WE'RE BEGINNING THIS MORNING IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT THAT WE HAVE EVER STUDIED, one of the most complicated, & will require your utmost attention and concentration, the series on the Antichrist and his kingdom. You say, "Dad, why should we study the Antichrist and his kingdom, aren't we supposed to think upon good things and more positive things and not dwell on evil things like that?"
2. WELL, THERE WAS A DAY WHEN IT WASN'T REALLY IMPORTANT because the generations before were not even going to be alive at the time of his kingdom, & they didn't have to know anything about it. It was predicted & it was there so that they would know that it was going to happen some day, but it didn't really concern them because they weren't even going to be alive then.--But you are!
3. THIS IS YOUR DAY & HE IS ALIVE NOW!--AND YOU'LL HAVE TO LIVE UNDER THAT KINGDOM FOR SOME YEARS, the last years of your lives. So I think it's very important that you understand who the Anti christ is, what he's like, what his kingdom is like, how it's going to arise & what the conditions are going to be, & most of all, because we're now living just before it's beginning, how to recognise it & him! We've studied this enough that I don't think there's going to be any misunderstanding, I don't think anyone here is not going to recognise the Antichrist & his kingdom as he arises. But you are going to have to know the details.
4. IN JESUS' NAME, LORD, GIVE US WISDOM, GIVE US CLARITY! Help us to lead Thy children aright! Rebuke every evil spirit, every thought from the Enemy, Lord, from beclouded minds! Deliver! Clarify! Rebuke the Enemy that is the author of confusion to try to befuddle & confuse & becloud minds in this very difficult subject, this very complicated subject, but one which is mentioned so many times in Thy Word, Lord, many many times, & gone over time & time again by Prophet after Prophet, describing again & again in a different way this same time, this same king & this same kingdom at the Time of the End. Help every mind, every one of us, Lord, to understand Thy Word as You open it to us by Thy Spirit, in Jesus' name. Amen!
5. I KNOW YOU'VE ALL STUDIED ALL OF THESE PASSAGES BEFORE & YOU KNOW THEM ALMOST BY HEART, AT LEAST YOU SHOULD, I HOPE SO! I know the children do, because I've put'm through quizzes on it & they know just about all the answers! However, there are a few very mysterious predictions here in His Word, particularly when we get to the Book of Revelation, which have always been a mystery to Biblical interpreters, even well-versed prophetic interpreters, which just have been very difficult to understand.
6. BUT I BELIEVE THE LORD IS BEGINNING TO OPEN OUR MINDS & OPEN OUR AREAS OF UNDERSTANDING IN THESE THINGS. I know I have received some clarification just recently on some of these things that were revelations from the Lord that I never saw before, & begin to help me to understand these things.
7. NOW TO COVER THE SUBJECT THOROUGHLY WE HAVE TO BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING OF WHERE IT IS DEALT WITH & go on from there in the several different places where it is dealt with in detail. And where is the most specific prediction regarding the Endtime Kingdom of the Antichrist to be found? Where is the first place in the Bible that it's found? (Fam: Daniel 2.)--Daniel 2! So open your Bibles & let's get right down to work! I know you practically know it by heart, but there may be a few of you who need your minds refreshed & there may be a few points on which you're not clear.
DANIEL 2!
8. HERE IN DANIEL 2 WE HAVE THE IMAGE, WHICH IS USUALLY SPOKEN OF AS "DANIEL'S IMAGE." Well, maybe he had more claim to it than Nebuchadnezzar, but Daniel was merely the interpreter of the Image, in fact the Lord interpreted it to him. Who had it first? (Fam: Nebuchadnezzar.)--He's the one who had the dream, but he couldn't even remember it. Daniel, by the revelation of the Lord did remember it, or he was shown it, & he explained it by the power of the Spirit. So I suppose you could say it really belonged more to Daniel than it did to Nebuchadnezzar.--But it was actually from God!
9. IT WAS GIVEN TO NEBUCHADNEZZAR & EVEN GIVEN MORE TO DANIEL FOR THE SAKE OF WHOM? (Fam: Us!)--Us, right! It really didn't even concern Nebuchadnezzar very much, nor even Daniel's time very much, except that the head of gold was Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, & in this vision it begins with him. And in Daniel's other visions also regarding the beasts, each time it begins with the time in which he was living. The king was...? (Fam: The head of gold.) Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold. Actually his Babylonian Kingdom was the head of gold, but he did say, "Thou, O King, art this head of gold"--meaning he & his kingdom. (Dan.2:38)
10. WE'RE NOT SO MUCH INTERESTED IN THE WHOLE VISION NOW, EXCEPT THAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE VERY FAMILIAR WITH IT, as we're going to specialise in the time of the Antichrist & his kingdom. You already know who the head of gold was, I'm not even going to read it all. Why should we read all these other things that don't bear on our lesson? I might get sidetracked going off on little paths of daisies hither, thither & yon on some of the other aspects which do not deal directly with the time period of which we want to become familiar & which we want to study.
11. BUT JUST TO REFRESH YOUR MEMORY, the head of gold was...(Fam: Babylon.) The arms & breast were... (Fam: Medo-Persia.)--One being stronger than the other. If I get on to that & explain all that, then I'll talk too much again, so I've gotta stop! Lord help me to control my tongue & not try to explain everything! It's been explained to you a thousand times! The bowels of brass, it looks like gold but is an imitation, was what? (Fam: Greece.) Greece, the bowels, was beautiful & very "bowely," by the way, a very gutsy kingdom, very sexy, very strong on the physical & the sensual & all of that sort of thing, art & beauty & philosophy. Then after the bowels of brass came the legs of... (Fam: Iron!)--Which symbolised what great World power? (Fam: Rome.) So in this Image are symbolised how many great World powers? Name them again! First! (Fam: Babylon.) Second! (Fam: Medo-Persia.) Third! (Fam: Greece.) Fourth! (Fam: Rome.)
12. BUT ROME IS NOT THE LAST ONE HERE. ROME DEGENERATED INTO A MIXTURE OF A WHOLE LOT OF LITTLE COUNTRIES & nations predominated by Europe, & a mixture of different types of government. What two primary kinds of government did the Roman Empire finally collapse into? (Fam: Democracies & dictatorships.)--Both begin with "D".
13. I NOTICE LATELY IN MODERN LITERATURE & NEWSPAPERS THAT TERM "DICTATORSHIP" IS NOT QUITE AS POPULAR AS IT USED TO BE during the days of pre-World War 2 & World War 2. You know, people get tired of the same terms, they become out of date or out of taste & they have to develop new ones. First came "totalitarianism." What's the most popular term for dictatorships, totalitarian governments today? (Fam: Imperialist.)--Very good, imperialistic types of governments. Aren't the Communists always talking about Western imperialism? And aren't the Capitalists always talking about Communist imperialism, etc.?
14. THAT'S GETTING RIGHT BACK TO THE ORIGINAL TERMS USED FOR PARTICULARLY ROME. It was called Imperial Rome, because it had an Emperor who was an absolute monarch, an absolute dictator, an absolute tyrant & an absolutely totalitarian government! His word was law! He could kill people, he could do anything he wanted to do, & nobody told him what to do! He told them what to do. That was Rome!--Pictured in Daniel 7 as a horrible beast without even a name, a nondescript beast. He is described, we can't say he's totally nondescript, but he's not symbolised by any beast we know. In fact, he is composed of all the other beasts, really, in this vision. The other beasts all become part of his kingdom.
15. AND WE FIND IN REVELATION 13:2 THAT THE ANTICHRIST BEAST WHICH ARISES OUT OF THE SEA IN THE LAST DAY, inspired by the Devil, by the Dragon, has the characteristics of all of the four beasts of the Beast Vision of Daniel 7! I don't know whether you ever noticed that or not. We won't get into that, but we're sort of giving an overall picture real fast of what we're going to be studying. Those kingdoms are pictured first in Daniel 2, let's finish that & then I'll go on to the other.
16. BUT THE VISION DOES NOT END WITH THE LEGS OF IRON, IMPERIAL ROME, IT ENDS WITH THOSE FEET which are symbolised by a mixture of iron & clay, the iron symbolising what? (Fam: Dictatorships.)--Yes, imperial types of absolute rulers. The clay symbolises what? (Fam: Democracies.)--Ruled by the people or republics or ruled by law rather than single individuals.
17. THE LARGEST PART OF THE FEET IS THE FOOT PROPER, NOT THE TOES, BUT THESE TOES ARE VERY IMPORTANT. But the feet, lasting from Imperial Rome down to today, were composed of what? (Fam: Iron & clay.)--All of it. At the end of the days of Imperial Rome began all these little monarchies & finally republics & eventually democracies & all that sort of thing.
GOVERNMENTS--U.S. HISTORY!
18. DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A REPUBLIC & A DEMOCRACY? Oh, here I go again! --But you need to know! If you read history, the original founders of the United States, the founding fathers, intended for it to be a Republic, founded, in other words, on a government governed entirely by law, written laws! And what was the major written law of the United States? (Fam: The Constitution.) In other words, that no man, not necessarily even any people, could be dictatorial, but they would be governed by a set of laws which were supposed to be above reproach & have no partial personality or any one man or group of people to rule over others. But they would all be ruled by a set of fair irreproachable laws, upon which they would all agree.
19. FORMING THE CONSTITUTION WAS THE FIRST JOB THE NEW NATION OF YOUNG AMERICA HAD. It took them several years to do it until they were able to settle on the Constitution, & a few more years for all of the colonies to agree to it. There was a great controversy at that time as to whether it should be a Federal Republic or it should be what other kind of Republic? (Fam: Socialism?)--No, Socialism was unheard of in those days. Come on, what was the very first war, the civil war, that that country had, between what two powers? (Fam: The Federals on one side & the Confederates on the other side.)--Federals on one side & Confederals on the other side!--Known as the Confederates, but to make you see the similarity of the terms, the Federals & the Confederals.
20. THE PREFIX "CON" USUALLY MEANS "TOGETHER WITH," BUT THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER CALLED "ANTIFEDERALS!" But they chose a term Confederacy which simply meant a free association of states, independent states, freely, voluntarily associated together, each one of whom was free & independent & sovereign & could just as freely & willingly leave the confederacy as to join it. But the Federal Republic, the Federalists--there was even a party by that name--were for a strong centralised government in which the states were bound together. Once they joined, once in forever in, they had no right or freedom to leave. There began your Federal Dictatorship!
21. THE ORIGINAL STATES JOINED TOGETHER THINKING THEY WERE JUST AS FREE TO LEAVE AS THEY WERE TO JOIN, & they had the more Confederate idea, particularly the Southern States. But the Northern States, that's where the stronghold was of the Federacy or the Federal Government, literally a strong central government which would rule dictatorially over the rest of the country. Isn't that exactly how the United States finally developed? Now you have to understand something about government to even understand the Antichrist Government, & to even understand the Image & the iron & the clay, etc., maybe it's something you need to know.
22. THEY PASSED THE CONSTITUTION & THEY ALL AGREED ON THIS SET OF VERY GOOD LAWS. They were very good laws the way they were originally interpreted & what they were originally intended to mean. Of course, since that time there's been a great deal of difference in interpretation & application. Then each State ratified the Constitution, in other words, agreed to it by a vote of that State or its own Congress or Assembly, whatever they called them, different ones called them different names.
23. ACTUALLY AT THAT TIME, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THERE WAS NO GENUINE DEMOCRACY, in other words, no direct rule by the people, no rule by direct vote. The people merely selected representatives which they sent to Congress, & then the Congress did the voting, selected the officers, even the President of the United States, & it was voting by representation rather than by direct democracy.
24. IN THOSE EARLY DAYS YOU'LL FIND MANY OF THE LEADERS OF THE UNITED STATES DIDN'T EVEN TRUST THE COMMON PEOPLE TO VOTE. They were uneducated, they were uninformed, news was slow, people were pretty confused on not even knowing what kind of a government they did want or who they wanted or what they wanted. So the educated intelligentsia, the gentry of the day, actually were the rulers & the ones who formed the government & the ones who wrote those laws for the sake of the common people.
REVOLUTIONS LED BY MIDDLE & UPPER CLASSES!
25. NOW BELIEVE IT OR NOT, THIS IS THE WAY EVERY REVOLUTION TRANSPIRES. Revolutions are not led by the common people, believe it or not! Not one revolution this World has ever known was led by the common people. From the earliest, from the American Revolution right down to the Russian Revolution, what class of people has always led every revolution, supposedly in favour of the common labouring people & uneducated & ignorant & poor? What class of people have always led the revolutions? (Fam: The middle & upper class.)--And another word for that is the bourgeoisie, a term now actually hated by the Communists. To be bourgeois is to be middle class, somewhat rich. Bourgeois became very distasteful after they finally took over. Then everybody was supposed to be the same, a one-class nation.
26. BUT ANOTHER NAME FOR THOSE PEOPLE IS THE INTELLIGENTSIA, THE WELL-EDUCATED, the students in universities etc., the philosophers, the teachers, the educators!--Mostly from the wealthy classes because nobody else could afford an education or go to university or to school. In those days they were all private institutions with high tuitions & no such thing as public schools, so that education was not free. It was only for the rich who could afford it & pay for it, for their children. It was the children of the rich who led the Russian Revolution!
OUR REVOLUTION!
27. COME ON NOW, FOLKS, WHAT ABOUT OUR REVOLUTION? Our Revolution was born in the richest per capita city, Huntington Beach, of the richest county, Orange County, of the richest State, California, of the richest country, the U.S.A., in the whole World! Think it over!
28. WHAT WE THOUGHT AT FIRST WERE JUST A BUNCH OF DIRTY HIPPIE BUMS TURNED OUT TO BE THE WELL-EDUCATED, INTELLIGENTSIA, daughters & sons of the rich & the upper middle class who were getting saved & on-fire for the Lord!--Why? (Fam: Because they'd had it all.) They had had it all--everything the common people were supposed to be striving for--they had had everything! They had had riches, things, & now they were experimenting with sex & drugs & everything else trying to find satisfaction.--Even experimenting with political philosophies, Communism & Socialism & blah blah, trying to find some answers, trying to find some satisfaction.
29. THEY HAD HAD IT ALL & FOUND OUT IT DIDN'T SATISFY!--That nothing that they tried satisfied! Everything was a disappointment! Everything wound up in disaster or dissatisfaction & sickened them, including their parents, who were sponsors of the System. They developed a hatred for the System! They turned on the very System that spawned them & the very parents that fathered them!--Why? How did you feel towards your parents? Who did most of those hippies blame for their plight? (Fam: The older generation.) The older generation who composed the what?--That horrible word that we always use for the whole works, System!--Which the Bible calls the World, because it's not just America, it's worldwide. It's the entire World System of the World. When God speaks of the World, He's usually talking about the worldly, who are full of worldliness & love this World & its things.
30. ISN'T THAT WHAT MOST OF YOUR PARENTS WERE LIKE? Isn't that what most of them were living for, material things?--No matter what kind of a job they had, though most of them were professionals & upper-middle-class & rich, believe it or not. Maybe you didn't think so, but when you look around & see the rest of the World & the poor countries, then you realise how rich you were!
31. AND MOST OF THEM HAD HAD A GOOD EDUCATION & WERE TRYING TO GIVE YOU AN EVEN BETTER EDUCATION, paying for you to go to colleges & universities. Some of you were still in high school, but you were getting the best that money could buy in the way of education, home, cars, television, things, clothes, food, luxuries!--Right?
32. I WOULD SAY THE VAST MAJORITY OF AT LEAST OUR EARLY FAMILY MEMBERS, coming from the richest city in the richest county in the richest state in the richest country in the World were either children of the rich or the upper middle class, or at the very least, the middle class.
WORLD & CHURCH CHRISTIANS LIVE ONLY FOR TODAY!
33. I REMEMBER EVEN IN MY CHILDHOOD HEAVEN WAS SOMETHING AFAR OFF, THE ENDTIME WAS SOMETHING AFAR OFF, Jesus' Coming was something afar off & you didn't have to really worry about it yet. Like the lady who came up after my father preached on the Second Coming & said, "Oh brother, can't you preach on some more pleasant subject?"--One of the leading church women! It didn't sound pleasant to her that she was going to have to face the Lord & give an account of her deeds done in the body!
34. AND I WOULD SAY MOST CHURCH CHRISTIANS TODAY ARE NOT REALLY ANXIOUSLY, EAGERLY AWAITING THE COMING OF THE LORD! They're not in any hurry for the Lord to come--if they were they would be building for the Kingdom of God like they're building for their own lives & their own children! Amen?
35. BUT AS I'VE OFTEN SAID, PEOPLE OF TODAY, BOTH WORLDLY & CHRISTIANS, BUILD FOR TODAY, HERE & NOW, AS THOUGH THEY WERE GOING TO LIVE HERE FOREVER! And what little they do for God is so minimal you'd think they pretty well thought that it was never going to come! "Why worry about tomorrow, why worry about the Kingdom of God, why worry about Heaven? We've got a lot more to be worried about here & now & we live for today!" Isn't that the average attitude of most of the World?--As well as most of the Church Christians?
36. OTHERWISE WHY WOULD THEY BUILD THOSE BIG COSTLY MULTI-MILLION-DOLLAR TEMPLES, SUPPOSEDLY TO GOD? That's not to God! That's not building the Kingdom of God! That's building for themselves, memorials to themselves, great monuments to their own accomplishments & their own wealth & their own self-satisfaction & their own pride! Why do most churches build those big huge fancy buildings?--Is it humility? Is it concern for souls? Is it concern for the mission field? Is that why they build those buildings? Is it because they love Jesus so much? What is it? (Fam: Pride!)--Pride!
37. I'LL TELL YOU ONE THING THAT HELPS DENOMINATIONS WORK & BUILD BUILDINGS IS THE WAY THEY FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER, anything to do something bigger & better than the other church or the other denomination!--Like that story I told you about my great Aunt Amanda who taught Sunday School for my Grandfather & finally retired because she said she was getting too old. He kept saying, "Those boys of yours, that boys' class, those teenagers, they're going to Hell, Amanda!" She said, "I'm sorry, I'm too old, I can't work any more, I've had enough of those rascals! I can't do it!" Until one day he said, "Amanda, I saw some of your boys going over to the Methodist Church!" "Get my hat, I'm coming down there right now!" She didn't give a damn if they went to Hell, but she sure as Hell didn't want them going to the Methodist Church!
38. THAT'S ABSOLUTELY WHAT KEEPS DENOMINATIONS GOING TODAY, COMPETITION WITH EACH OTHER! They don't give a damn about Hell or Heaven, all they care about is keeping up with the Joneses or getting ahead of the Joneses in the other denomination. That's your churches of today, believe it or not! If you want to dig down & find out the real genuine motivation for most of their church-going & their church-building & their churchianity religion, it's competition & trying to keep up or get ahead of the Joneses & the other denominations. They couldn't care less for God or lost souls or anything like that! So it's strictly pride!
39. WHAT CAUSES THAT KIND OF COMPETITION?--PRIDE! I'd say most of them don't even know what their church really believes or teaches, don't even know all their doctrines! They don't care, they just like the building. It's a pretty building down on the corner & it's not far from home, easy to get to. What difference does it make what they believe? They're just about all the same--don't they all look pretty much the same outside & inside & the way they conduct services? They have all the chairs or seats or benches facing one direction & one man is the dictator & gets up front & does all the talking & collects all the money & runs the place. Some churches are a little more democratic than others, but in most churches the pastor is pretty much of a dictator. He really runs things, & the poor people have very little to say or very little chance to say it!
EASIER TO GET THE UNCHURCHED SAVED!
40. IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S EASIER TO GET THE UNCHURCHED SAVED THAN THE CHURCHED! See, the church people are satisfied, they've got it all. Your parents were more or less satisfied with their churchianity & their religion & they felt it was enough, & that yours was too much! Isn't that the attitude? "Why can't you just be a church Christian? Why do you have to be a fanatical cultist? Why do you have to be a radical & a fanatic?" Isn't that pretty much the general attitude of your parents? "Oh, we're so glad you're a Christian & we're so glad that you love Jesus & you're doing some good, but why do you have to be a disciple of that maniac? Why do you have to be such a radical & fanatic & why do you have to live like that!" Isn't that their attitude?--Why?--Because they are either rich or nearly rich or upper middle class, pretty well off!
41. HOW MANY FEEL YOUR PARENTS WERE NOT ACTUALLY POOR?--EVERY ONE HERE! So if they weren't poor, they must have been what we call middle class or above. How many of you were actually from parents that you consider upper middle class or rich?--Look at that!--Nearly half of us! So half of you were from actually what were rich or near rich parents.
REVOLUTIONS LED BY THE RICH!
42. IT IS THE DISSATISFIED, DISCONTENTED, FED-UP, HAD-IT-ALL-UP-TO-HERE CHILDREN OF THE RICH OR NEAR-RICH & MIDDLE CLASS WHO HAVE LED EVERY SINGLE REVOLUTION this World has ever known! They have furnished the leadership! They have furnished the education needed, the training needed! You say, "Well, we don't think much of education!"--But most of you had some. You had enough to be fairly well-informed & fairly intelligent. We would call most of you of the intelligentsia.
43. EVERYONE HERE TODAY AT LEAST FINISHED HIGH SCHOOL!--THAT'S MORE THAN YOU COULD SAY EVEN FOR FAITHY & HO!--They never actually graduated from Senior High, but they graduated from Junior High & they had a good education. I saw to that!--A very good education!
44. HOW MANY OF YOU FINALLY MANAGED TO GET TO COLLEGE AT ALL?--LOOK AT THAT! NEARLY EVERYBODY HERE EXCEPT THE CHILDREN! Isn't that amazing? So you see, you are of the intelligentsia! You are of the middle class or rich! You are what the Communists hate now, the bourgeoisie!
45. WHY IS EVERY REVOLUTION LED, TO PUT IT REAL SIMPLY, BY THE RICH OR THEIR CHILDREN? (Fam: Because they've had it all & it doesn't satisfy.)--Exactly. Also, what else is the motivation? (Fam: They have the time to think about it.)--Yes, they have the time or the education to think & theorise & contemplate the World situation or the national situation & governments, politics, economies, etc., & the time to try to figure out plans!
46. WHAT DOES EVERY REVOLUTION WANT TO DO? (FAM: TO CHANGE THINGS.)--Right, to change things! Every Revolution thinks it's changing things for the better. They want to make things better, to change things for the better.--Political & economic revolutions particularly. Here are the rich leading the Revolution, they suppose in favour of the many many multitudes of poor who can't speak for themselves, have no education, no intelligence to speak of, no leadership, no way to express themselves in most places where Revolutions are necessary. It is the children of the rich & educated intelligentsia who lead the poor in the Revolution. They lead the masses. They lead the poor. Do you understand?
47. I DIDN'T INTEND TO GET INTO GOVERNMENT, BUT IT'S SOMETHING YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND, & we've had a revelation here this morning about ourselves that proves it! You're the proof, the living proof that revolutions are led by the children of the rich & the educated & the intelligentsia, believe it or not. Even if you never went to college, if you get a high school education in the United States, that is if you studied & learned anything, you get a pretty good education!
AMERICAN REVOLUTION & GOVERNMENT!
48. SO IT WAS THE RICH & THE CHILDREN OF THE RICH & THE EDUCATED & THE LANDED GENTRY WHO LED THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION! There were virtually no poor, uneducated, unintelligent men in the first Congress!--In fact, in the early days one of the tests of the right to vote was largely judged by how much land you owned! And the landless, in the early elections in the new American state, were not even allowed to vote. They were considered too ignorant, uneducated, poor & unknowledgeable to know how to vote, the right way to vote or who to vote for. So it was only the rich & the middle class who led the government & who could vote & choose laws & choose leaders.
49. SO THE EARLIEST AMERICAN GOVERNMENT WAS ANYTHING BUT A DIRECT DEMOCRACY BY DIRECT VOTE! Most of these men were chosen because of their intelligence, education, their knowledge of politics & economics & the size of their pocketbook, & the size of their lands, believe it or not. So they were conducting a Revolution to try to help, not only themselves to be more generous & share with others, but to help the people they were trying to share with, believe it or not--sort of like what the Communists claim to do today. They claim they're trying to make everybody share & force everybody to share. And the early American idealists really thought they were bettering the estate of the poor & going to give them a better education so they would have the knowledge & intelligence to know how to vote in the future--but they couldn't trust them with the vote at first.
50. THEY FELT FIRST OF ALL THEY HAD TO FORM A SYSTEM OF LAWS WHICH WERE FAIR & UNDER WHICH THE COUNTRY COULD BE RULED. And the early founders of the American Republic, as it was called at first, meant for a land & a nation & a people to be ruled by law!--Impersonal, impartial, fair laws, not a personality or a man or a dictator or a king. They'd had enough of that, that's what they were trying to get away from. Neither did they feel that the common people were ready yet for direct democracy. So they adopted a system of government which was literally in-between.--Not to be ruled by a king, nor by the common man, but by laws considered fair & equitable & just, literally made by the middle classes, but with tolerance & consideration of the poor.
51. SUCH IS THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. It began as a Republic & a Republic was supposed to be the step from absolute monarchies toward absolute democracy, & they were headed that way. But along came the Civil War.
THE REAL REASON FOR THE CIVIL WAR!
52. FIRST OF ALL THERE WAS THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE STATES AS TO HOW FREE THEY REALLY WERE, & IF THEY JOINED THIS ASSOCIATION VOLUNTARILY--which all of them supposedly did--then couldn't they leave it just as voluntarily? The Federalists said, "Once in, forever in! If you try to leave it, we'll shoot you!" Does that sound fair? Does that sound like democracy? Does it even sound like a Republic?--No!
53. THE SOUTHERNERS CONTENDED THAT IT WAS A CONFEDERACY & THEY HAD THE RIGHT TO LEAVE IT JUST AS MUCH AS THEY HAD THE RIGHT TO JOIN IT! And frankly, if you want to call me by some name, I'm a Confederate! I believe that the early states felt that they wanted to be free & had just as much right to leave the association of states as they had to join it!
54. BUT THE NORTHERNERS, WHO WERE LARGELY A POORER CLASS OF PEOPLE, AN INDUSTRIAL CULTURE & ECONOMY, SAW THAT THE SOUTH WAS GOING TO OUTWIT THEM, outplay them, out-politic them, out-economy them, because the South was so much richer! They were genuine landed gentry with great estates called plantations & slaves to work them, because they couldn't get enough labour. There weren't enough poor people in the South to work the plantations, so they had to import labour!
55. THE NORTH HAD SCADS OF POOR, IMMIGRANTS FROM EUROPE & ALL OVER WHO WERE JUST POOR LABOURERS IN THE FACTORIES & the sweatshops & with not nearly the agriculture that the South had. The South was feeding the North! But the South needed machinery from the North to work its agriculture--implements & tools, etc. And the North wanted to sell its goods to them. But the North couldn't produce them as cheaply as could England & Europe, & all that England & Europe had to do was put'm on a boat, which didn't cost much, & sail it clear across the ocean & land it in the South. I'm building up now to the real reason for the Civil War. It was not to free the slaves, that's a joke! That was the excuse. The economic reason, the money reason, that's where the buck lands!
56. THE SOUTHERNERS WERE EDUCATED, MOST OF THEIR CHILDREN WERE EVEN EDUCATED IN ENGLAND. They spoke with an accent which is more similar to the British accent than it is to the North. The Southern "drawl," as they call it, is an English accent! I'm not talking about the common accent of the South today, which has become the Negro accent, injected by the Negro population. I'm not talking about that kind of an accent & lingo that the modern music is almost all in today, that of the Negroes. I'm talking about the rich, educated intelligentsia of the South who were more closely related to the English than they were even to the North.
57. THE NORTH WAS LARGELY A BUNCH OF FOREIGNERS, IGNORANT IMMIGRANTS, IMPORTED CHEAP LABOUR, & although white labour, still more or less slave labour that the North had imported from Europe! But the South found out they didn't have enough labourers by any means & not too many labourers are willing to do that tough labour in the fields, like the rice paddies of the East. So they finally got desperate & had to import their labour anywhere they could get it, so they bought it.
58. SLAVERY WAS NOT ILLEGAL IN THOSE DAYS, IT'S NOT EVEN ILLEGAL IN THE BIBLE! I've shocked you with that before!--In fact we're all slaves! We're all slaves of the Lord, voluntary Love Slaves, amen? In fact, the whole World is in slavery! They're all slaves too! As the fellow who wore the signboard down the street spelled out: "I'm a Slave of Jesus Christ!"--And on the back side it said: "Whose slave are you?" Out there they're all slaves of the System!--The System pretty well originated & ruled by the Devil, the king of this World. Isn't that what the Lord called him?--The ruler of this World. He's called the prince of this World, the prince of the powers of the air, the prince of darkness! (2Cor.4:4; Eph.2:2)
59. SATAN RULES THE WORLD TODAY IN OPPOSITION TO GOD! God owns it, but Satan has stolen it & now he runs it. Of course, God is still the most powerful, He's just letting it happen because He's letting man have his way & man chose Satan instead of God to be his king & his ruler. Therefore man has given his kingdoms over to the Devil!
60. SO THE NORTHERN STATES OBJECTED TO THE FACT THAT THE SOUTH TRADED THEIR COTTON & THEIR CROPS & THEIR FOOD & ALL THE THINGS THE NORTH NEEDED, FOR THE MACHINERY OF EUROPE.--Because it was better, better-made, by more experienced craftsmen, & because it was produced in such quantity & could just be easily shipped across in boats cheaper. So why should the South sell its produce to the North when they've got shoddy machinery, not near the choice & selection that they could get from Europe?
61. SO THE SOUTH SOLD ITS GOODS TO EUROPE & EUROPE CHEERFULLY, GLADLY BOUGHT'M & exchanged them for good European machinery!--A lot like what's going on in the World today, but I'd better not get into that!--Ha! These economic wars are all the same, they're all for money, they're all for somebody wanting to get the advantage.
62. AND NOT ONLY THAT, THE SOUTHERN GENTRY, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, WERE THE ONES WHO LITERALLY FOUNDED THE COUNTRY. Weren't they Virginians, Marylanders, Georgians, Carolinans? You take all the famous great names of the men who were the leaders & founders of America & nearly every single one of them was a Southerner! And most of them, believe it or not, had large plantations & estates on which they employed slaves! And there wasn't thought to be anything wrong with it at the time at all.
63. MOST OF THEM WERE GOOD SLAVE MASTERS, they built good quarters for them, treated them well, fed them well, took care of them from the cradle to the grave! If you want to talk about real genuine 100% social socialism, that was it, slavery!--Because you can't have pure socialism of the World's kind without slavery. If you have socialism you have totally controlled government, politics, economy, & that is slavery!--Absolute total control of the individual. And the thing that is worshipped is the government & you're a slave of the government under complete socialism, of which Communism has proven the prime example.
64. SO THESE LANDED GENTRY OF THE SOUTH WHO HAD ORGANISED THE GOVERNMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE, who had fought its Revolutionary War & established that government, formed that government, formed its Constitution, formed the whole idea of the American state, they rebelled against the North & its idea that it should dictate what the States should do, & that the Federal Government should be stronger than the State Government & it should tell the States what to do & not the States or the people telling the Government what to do!--Isn't that exactly what's happened now in modern America?
65. MODERN AMERICA, THEREFORE, FROM THE TIME OF LINCOLN & HIS CIVIL WAR, DEVELOPED INTO AN ABSOLUTE DICTATORIAL DICTATORSHIP & LITERAL MONARCHY! The only difference between the monarchs of the former olden days of Europe etc. is that America elects its monarchs, but they live like monarchs in a palace, & they rule like monarchs! The only difference is that they can't give the inheritance of the monarchy to their children. They can't even perpetuate themselves. That's the only bridle that they have, that they are subject to the votes & whims of the people.
THE WAR TO ENSLAVE THE FREE!
66. BUT THE LANDED INTELLIGENTSIA--WELL-EDUCATED, WELL-MEANING, EVEN GENEROUS & SHARING--WANTED TO SHARE THEIR KNOWLEDGE & POWER WITH THE POOR, the uneducated, & so they tried to make a government that gave everybody a chance. Some of those people whom they gave a chance worked their way to the top where they were in power & influence, like Abraham Lincoln.
67. HE WAS NOTHING BUT A POOR LITTLE IGNORANT BOY WHO LIVED IN A LOG CABIN & STUDIED BY FIRELIGHT, now he's been made a hero, a god!--He's one of the gods of America! He worked his way up by smart talking, became a lawyer, worked his way to the top! He was on the side of the Federalists & said, "We ought to bring these Southern colonies to toe the line & let them know that the Federal Government rules this country!" And he decided on rule by force!
68. ABRAHAM LINCOLN STARTED THE CIVIL WAR, BELIEVE IT OR NOT! He sent the forces & the ships that started the war. He made that monumental decision to throw that whole nation into chaos in which more American men were killed than in any other war that country has ever fought! Think of that! It was a slaughter!--Families against families, brothers against brothers, fathers against sons, horrible! It was one of the worst slaughters the World has ever known, one of the worst civil wars, the Federal government, the North, endeavouring to take over the South & force it to be their slaves!
69. HOW MANY OF YOU WERE REARED IN THE SOUTH? IF ANY OF YOU KNOW, MOST SOUTHERNERS AGREE TODAY THAT THEY'RE LITERALLY THE SLAVES OF THE NORTH, RIGHT?--The slaves of the Federal Government. The Federal Government has imposed every kind of thing on them that they didn't want. I won't take time to go into detail on it, but the Civil War which they say was the "war to free the slaves," was literally the war, as I've often told you, that enslaved the free & made every American a slave, both white & black!
70. EVERY AMERICAN TODAY NOT ONLY HAS TO OBEY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN EVERY WAY, BUT IS OWNED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, lock, stock & barrel, body & soul! They finally got absolute total control over their bodies through the draft laws, conscription. And they eventually got total control over their possessions, their money & their property, through the Income Tax laws! So they can now not just control, but own their bodies & own their income & can tell them what to do with it!
71. PROPERTY WAS EVEN FURTHER CONFISCATED BY THE GOVERNMENT, LARGELY BY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS THROUGH WHAT ARE KNOWN AS "BUILDING CODES" & "ZONING LAWS," so that you can no longer do one single thing. You can't change one stick from another in your house without a permit from the government. You can't drive your car without a permit from the government. The government literally owns your car. Your name is on the title but they tell you what to do with it! They own your house! Your name is on the title but the government tells you what to do with it! Who owns you & your property?--You with your own name on you & your property & car with the name on the titles?--Or the power that controls it & tells you what to do with it? Who owns it?--The government, the power!
72. SO TODAY NOW ALL AMERICANS ARE SLAVES, THEY'RE ALL SLAVES TO THE GOVERNMENT! They're just as much slaves to the government as the Russians or the Chinese Communists or whoever you want to say!
MORE DICTATORSHIPS TODAY THAN A CENTURY AGO!
73. SO THAT TODAY, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, IF YOU WILL INCLUDE THOSE GOVERNMENTS SUCH AS THE UNITED STATES WHICH IS AN ABSOLUTE MONARCHY, totalitarian, a dictatorship, where the people are really ruled by the government, plus a few others like them & all the absolute unabashed, unashamed dictatorships & countries where they've got an iron man in control, today by actual count there are now more dictatorships--or in the ancient terms, absolute monarchies--than there were a century ago before the abolition of monarchies! There are far more today! I think the last number was something like 3 times as many as there were absolute monarchies in the pre-World War 1 World, the World of the last century when they still had kings & monarchs.
74. DO YOU KNOW WHAT A MONARCH IS? (David: A dictator?) Yes, he's a dictator, but usually the old name for those monarchs or dictators in the old days was what? It's a simple little word, so easy you're going to be surprised! (Techi: Kings!) That's right! Kings were called monarchs. Mon-arch means one ruler, just one person to rule.
75. SO THE WHOLE WORLD IS NOW MUCH WORSE OFF THAN IT WAS BEFORE. The World of today is less democratic than it ever was, believe it or not! Because there are now more monarchies, so to speak. They don't call them monarchies, they don't even call them kings any more, but they are just as much absolute rulers, totalitarian dictators as ever! And some of them even more so! So the World as far as government is concerned is worse off today!
DEMOCRACIES & DICTATORSHIPS!
76. BUT BACK TO THE TOES, THEY ARE A MIXTURE OF THE TWO! But year by year the iron is getting stronger & the clay is getting weaker & more brittle. And they don't cleave to each other, do they? In fact, most of the democracies of today are pitted against most of the dictators. Monarchy means absolute government by one man. A monarch is a Dictator. The autocracies & monarchies ruled by the one person, in other words, the dictatorships, most of them are pitted against the countries where the people supposedly rule by vote, democracies.
77. SO WE'RE NOW IN THE TOES! Rome is fallen. The legs of iron are gone, both Eastern & Western Empires. We're now in the toes, this mixture of democracy & dictatorship, except that the dictatorships are growing stronger & the democracies are growing weaker. In fact, even the democracies are turning into dictatorships, like the United States.
78. THIS IS ALWAYS THE WAY, THE GRAVITATION, THE FLOW OF HUMANITY. The strong tide is authoritarian rule, even one-man rule. Whereas democracy ruled by the people is something entirely new, a new idea thought up by man, & has been bucking the tide & is now succumbing to the tide again, back to the same state the World was in & has been in for thousands of years.
79. THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS DEMOCRACY THROUGHOUT ANCIENT HISTORY. They try to claim that there was a little sample of it in Greece & some later in Rome, blah blah. Well, it was the rarest exception rather than the rule! The rule was the ruler! In other words, the thing that was the most common was an absolute dictator, authoritarian monarch, absolute ruler!
80. SO DEMOCRACY IS A VERY NEW THING, A VERY NEW EXPERIMENT, & SO FAR, AS FAR I & MANY OTHERS ARE CONCERNED, THE EXPERIMENT HAS NOT WORKED! Virtually all democracies either have already turned back into monarchies, dictatorships, or they're on their way! Because democracy is not of God! Rulers may be bad sometimes, but an absolute dictator, an absolute ruler, an absolute monarch, a king, is much more effective, efficient, & if a good king, a better government by far than any democracy ever yet formed!
81. TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT THE UNITED STATES & PRESENT-DAY DEMOCRACIES & THE MESS THEY'RE IN! Look at all the countries that were going pretty well until they were forced to be more democratic & less dictatorial, & now they're falling apart! Democracy is slow, cumbersome, confusing, full of competition & confusion! Whereas a dictator, a king, an absolute monarch can rule by decree, & rule of his laws & his word is law, & that is fast, effective, efficient & not as wasteful as democracy!
82. WHICH KIND OF RULE DOES GOD PREFER? WHAT KIND OF RULE IS GOING TO BE IN THE MILLENNIUM?--ABSOLUTE TOTAL DICTATORSHIP by God Himself & by the Lord Jesus Christ His Son! And the people over whom we rule, are they going to have some kind of vote or some say-so in the government? How could they? They don't know how to rule themselves! We alone know how they ought to be ruled! God alone knows how they ought to be ruled! So God's favourite form of government is dictatorship, & a more technical word for it is theocracy, rule by God! "Theo" means God & "cracy" means rule. It literally means rule by God, direct rule by God! Theocracy is God's way of governing.
83. GOD DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO HAVE KINGS! GOD WANTED TO BE THE KING HIMSELF, He said so, & He merely ruled through His mouthpieces, who were the Prophets! They spoke the laws! They gave the laws that God dictated like He did to Moses! You don't believe the Kingdom of God is a dictatorship? What do you think the early Mosaic Laws were? They were dictated to Moses! Moses was not the one who gave the law, he was not the lawgiver, he was the mere scribe who wrote down what God told him to say!
84. GOD'S FAVOURITE KIND OF GOVERNMENT IS ABSOLUTE, TOTAL DICTATORSHIP!--Because only God knows what's best! And you only know what's best if you know God & follow Him absolutely as His Love Slave! So that is the kind of government that God favours.
AC GOVERNMENT AN IMITATION!
85. SO WHAT IS THE KIND OF GOVERNMENT THE ANTICHRIST IS GOING TO IMITATE?--Knowing it is the most effective, efficient & the most controlling? He's going to form a dictatorship, not of God but of the Devil!--The dictatorship of the Devil, that's what his rule will be. Absolute control by Satan!--Absolute monarchy of the king, the Antichrist. In fact, it will be an imitation of God's kind of government.
86. "ANTICHRIST" IN ONE OF THE MEANINGS OF THE WORD DOES NOT EVEN MEAN AGAINST CHRIST, AS WE USUALLY TAKE IT, but do you know what one of the meanings of "anti" is?--In the place of, a substitution of, an imitation of Christ. He is going to be the false messiah, the imitation Christ, & his government the substitutionary Millennium! It's not going to last that long, God isn't going to let it. But he's supposedly bringing in peace on Earth, good will to men, equality for all, blah blah blah.
87. HE'S GOING TO OFFER THEM EVERYTHING THAT GOD IS ACTUALLY GOING TO GIVE THEM IN THE MILLENNIUM! But being a liar, an impostor, an imitation, a usurper, he is going to mimic the Government of God. Only it is going to be Satan at the head instead of God, & his son the Antichrist instead of Jesus Christ!
CAUGHT BETWEEN THE DEVIL & DEEP BLUE SEA!
88. NOW MAYBE THIS LITTLE INTRODUCTION WILL GIVE YOU THE GROUNDWORK & THE OVERALL PICTURE OF JUST WHAT THE ANTICHRIST SYSTEM IS GOING TO BE LIKE! We have plenty of samples of it in the World today, in the totally Godless, anti-Christ dictatorships of Communism. But we also have plenty of examples of it in the World today in the totally Godless, anti-Christ, anti-Bible, anti-prayer, totally irreligious, totally secular governments of Capitalism!--Such as exemplified most of all by the U.S.A.
89. AMERICA IS JUST AS IRRELIGIOUS TECHNICALLY & LEGALLY AS ANY COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT ON EARTH, in this over-exaggeration & over-emphasis on the separation of church & state. When you separate the church from the state, when you separate God from government, then you have a government run by the Devil!--And it's just as godless & anti-Christ & anti-Bible & anti-God as Russia ever could be!--And that's exactly what the U.S. is today! Only it's more hypocritical with a false front, pretending to be Christian, pretending to be free, pretending to be religious! That's even worse!
90. THE U.S. IS A HYPOCRITICAL, SELF-RIGHTEOUS COUNTRY, PRETENDING TO BE GOOD & pretending to be righteous, pretending to be religious, pretending even to be pro-God & pro-church & pro-Christ!--When it's just as anti-Christ, anti-Bible & anti-church as any Communist government on Earth!
91. SO YOU SEE, WE'RE CAUGHT BETWEEN THE DEVIL ON THE ONE HAND, & THE DEEP BLUE SEA OF THE LORD ON THE OTHER! Because the World en masse is virtually all anti-God & anti-Christ, whether Capitalist or Communist. Whether it's so-called democratic or dictatorial, it is anti-God, anti-Christ! It is not under the absolute monarchy & sole rulership of Jesus Christ. Therefore it is against Him, therefore it is of the Devil, therefore it makes not a God-damned bit of difference whether it's Communist or atheist or American or Capitalist, it's all anti-God! Do you understand?
"IF YOU CONTINUE IN MY WORD!"
92. I HAVE TO GET PRETTY ANGRY WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT, BECAUSE THE ONLY TRULY FREE PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE "WHOM THE SON HATH SET FREE IS FREE INDEED!" (Jn.8:36) And what does He say about the Word making you free? (Fam: "And ye shall know the Truth, & the Truth shall make you free.") Wait a minute! Don't ever leave out the Verse before that! Oh, colleges have that up over their doorway, "Ye shall know the Truth, & the Truth shall make you free!" Only if what?! (David: "If you continue in My Word.") (Jn.8:31-32)
93. "IF YOU CONTINUE IN MY WORD, THEN YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH, & THEN THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE!"--Only if you continue in God's Word! There's no other freedom on Earth! There's no other Truth on Earth! There's no other way of being free! This is what gives us the Truth & this is what makes us free, nothing else! So if they don't have this, if they don't believe this, if they don't believe God's Word, they don't have the Truth & they have no freedom, they're slaves of the Devil!--Which means most of the World!
THE WHORE RIDES ON THE BACK OF THE BEAST!
94. HOW MANY GROUPS OF PEOPLE ARE THERE LIKE US? EVEN THE CHURCHES OF AMERICA ARE SLAVES OF THE SYSTEM, slaves of their own religious churchy system, which is all anti-God, anti-Bible, anti-Christ, the whole thing!--All those churches who pretend to be in the Name of Jesus Christ! Because they're totally against God's Will & against God's Plan & against God's Work & have become our bitterest enemies, then they are anti-God! Right?
95. THE CHURCHIANITY SYSTEM IS ANTI-CHRIST! So they will cooperate freely at first with the Antichrist. For one thing, they want to continue their power, & they have to cooperate with the government to get it & keep it. The Whore has to ride on the back of the Beast or she loses her power. She's used to controlling the Beast, in fact. All forms of religion, including materialism, money & business, they all ride on the back of the Beast, & church is a part of it, part of the Whore! I'm talking about the visible churchianity church, the denominational church, everything from Protestants to Catholics.
96. BUT OF COURSE AS I POINTED OUT BEFORE, THE GREATEST RELIGION ON EARTH OF BOTH AMERICA & THE COMMUNISTS IS MATERIALISM, secularism, & that is always opposed to God, opposed to the Lord. And the visible, powerful church organisations of today with all their churches & temples & cathedrals & all the rest are all a part of that System. They are all a part of that Whore that rides on the back of the Beast.--Including the biggest temples of all, those skyscrapers in New York & temples of Mammon. The biggest temples in the World are big office buildings, built to worship money & business. Materialism, that's the biggest religion in the World, it even outranks churchianity!
97. BUT CHURCHIANITY WORKS HAND-IN-GLOVE WITH THE BUSINESS WORLD, it's built on the business World, it's pampered by the business World. Its temples are built with their money, its pastors are hired with their money, its worldwide organisations are sponsored with their money! It is an integral part of the System! Get that through your thick heads, churchianity is a part of the World System!--The anti-God, anti-Christ, materialistic World System, whether it be Communist or Capitalist! I hope you get that!
98. I'M SORT OF LAYING THE GROUNDWORK OF THE STUDY OF THE WORST SYSTEM OF ALL, THE FINAL HEAD OF THIS SYSTEM THAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. I've given you a few very dandy bad examples of even those who claim they're not like that, like the U.S.A., but it's the same as all the rest of them, there's no difference, they're all the same. "None righteous, no not one!" They're all striving to save themselves by their own works.
99. AND THE FINAL, THE ULTIMATE, THE MOST PERFECT, THE GREATEST SYSTEM OF ALL, WITH THE GREATEST SUPERMAN KING OF ALL, IS GOING TO BE THE ANTICHRIST WORLD GOVERNMENT! Now do you get the picture? Sorry if I spent too much time on this, but maybe it was important to give you the overall picture, the entire bird's-eye view of the whole System, of what it's composed of, of all the World. Capitalist or Communist, dictatorship or democracy, it's all the same to God, it's all anti-Christ, all anti-God, & will all willingly cooperate with the Antichrist & his great Antichrist government in the end!--Both the iron & the clay! The toes are composed of both iron & clay & they will all gladly cooperate with the Beast, God's Word says so!
A-ACs & THE AC!
100. SO WE'RE GOING TO READ THE VERSES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THE KINGDOM OF THE ANTICHRIST. This is going to be our major study now. What were we studying? (Fam: The Anti-Antichrists!) That seems to have caught on, the A-ACs! It's simple & easy to remember. Everything nowadays has to be alphabet soup composed of initials. The A-ACs, the Anti-Antichrists!--In other words, those who are going to be the ones to escape & survive the Tribulation, Wrath of God, Battle of Armageddon & live on into the Millennium! In other words, the question was, who are we really going to be ruling over? It's not going to be the Antichrist's people, they'll all be dead, those that had the Mark of the Beast, his actual adherents, his actual branded followers.--They'll be in Hell!
101. NEARLY EVERYBODY'S GOING TO FOLLOW HIM AT FIRST--WE MAY EVEN COOPERATE WITH HIM! The Lord has said things that sounded like that, don't you think?--Because we're supposed to cooperate with the power, God's Word says so, right? (Rom.13)--Until it tries to push us over the edge & says we cannot worship Christ any more, we cannot witness for Christ any more, & tries to force us to deny our faith & worship the Antichrist, the Devil, then we can no longer cooperate. As long as it is, you might say, the legitimate power, ordained of God, we can cooperate.
102. DID YOU KNOW THAT THE ANTICHRIST & HIS GOVERNMENT ARE ORDAINED OF GOD? He is ordained, literally to save the World! The World would probably destroy itself too early if the Antichrist didn't come along! Isn't he going to save it? First of all he's going to have to save the economy, the World money situation. Then, in order to have any economy or even any countries he's got to save it from war that would absolutely annihilate the Earth!
103. SO THE ANTICHRIST DOES COME--SENT BY GOD, OR AT LEAST ALLOWED BY GOD--TO SAVE THE WORLD! If it weren't for the Antichrist the economy would go crash & the World would land in the worst war it has ever known & probably annihilate all humanity!
104. SO THE ANTICHRIST WILL GENUINELY, LITERALLY BE THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD AT FIRST--UNTIL HE BECOMES THE DEVIL who is nothing but the Destroyer! And from the time of the Abomination being set up in the holy place, he has nothing but destruction & war & the greatest Tribulation, the greatest horrors in the history of the Earth! He turns from the saviour of the Earth to its destroyer. Because his name, the name of the one who possesses him in that last 3-1/2 years, is the Destroyer! (1Cor.10:10)
105. HE COMES IN LIKE A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING UNDER THE GUISE OF BEING THE MESSIAH, THE SAVIOUR OF THE EARTH! Everything seems to be wonderful, the answer to all the World's problems, the Superman with a super government & a super economy & a super prevention of war! But all of a sudden he turns! When he's got the World in the palm of his hands through his deceit, his lies, his signs, his wonders, his salvation, the imitation salvation, then he shows his true character & we come to the revelation of the Antichrist as the Devil in person, claiming to be God & demanding compulsory worship & destroying everyone & anyone & any nation that refuses to worship him! But will there be people who will not worship him? (Fam: Yes!) First of all whom? (Fam: Us!)--Not only us, but the genuine children of God, true Christians throughout the World.
PROFESSING BUT NOT POSSESSING CHRISTIANS!
106. YOU KNOW, OUR ENEMIES ARE ALWAYS ACCUSING US OF CLAIMING TO BE THE ONLY ONES THAT ARE SAVED, THAT'S SUCH A LIE! How many times have I told you there are millions of Christians in the World who I believe really love Jesus & are born again, no matter what denomination or church they belong to. Thank God, I think that's the only reason God has preserved the church or the churches at all, even the Catholics, because there are millions of sincere genuine Christians who love Jesus there.
107. AND THEN THERE ARE A LOT MORE WHO ARE NOT SAVED & BORN AGAIN BUT WHO ARE NOMINAL CHRISTIANS, THEY'RE CHRISTIANS IN NAME ONLY, ONLY CALLED CHRISTIANS. Don't you know of lots of sincere Catholics? Don't you know of a lot of sincere Baptists?--Ha!--Who aren't saved?--But who are sincere Christians the best they know how, who go to church faithfully, believe in Jesus & the Bible & God & try to supposedly keep His laws, which they think are the Ten Commandments, & who try to be good & call themselves & count themselves & really believe they're Christians!--But aren't sure they're saved & certainly aren't born again!
108. I WOULD CALL THEM THE NOMINAL CHRISTIANS, THE PROFESSING CHRISTIANS, NOT THE POSSESSING CHRISTIANS. They don't have Jesus, but they worship Jesus afar off. There are many sincere Catholics, priests, monks & nuns who have sacrificed their lives even for God & the Church & supposedly Jesus --although they worship Mary more, as you find out in the most fanatical Catholic countries, Mary is far more exalted than Jesus. Jesus is still a little baby or just a little boy, the Enfant, the Nino.
109. TO THEM, MARY IS THE BIG SHOT! SHE'S THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN & THE ONE THEY WORSHIP, they give all the glory to Mary. Did you know that in the City of Rome itself, out of 500-&-some churches, 400-&-some of them are named after Mary & the Saints & less than a hundred after Jesus! How about that!--If you don't believe they exalt Mary & the Saints more than Jesus, just think of that!
110. YET THERE ARE MANY OF THEM WHO ARE SINCERE & MANY OF THEM WHO WOULD NOT THINK OF WORSHIPPING A HEATHEN IDOL IMAGE OR AN ANTI-CHRIST MAN. So that I think probably in the long run when he reveals his true nature, what he's really like, in the middle of his seven-year reign, at the beginning of the terrible period of the Tribulation when he claims that he is God & he sets up his Image in the holy place, the Abomination of Desolation, & he "sitteth in the Temple of God, as God, claiming that he is God" (2Th.2:4), that the vast millions of even Catholics are going to suddenly be awakened to the fact that he is not right, that he is the wrong man.
111. EVEN CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, THANK GOD, TEACHES THAT THE CHURCH IS GOING THROUGH THE TRIBULATION & TEACHES ALL ABOUT THE ANTICHRIST! Didn't you Catholics ever hear about the Antichrist & the Tribulation? Oh boy, Catholics are getting pretty ignorant now! Maybe you were just ignorant! My goodness, it's right in your Bibles! (Fam: We didn't read our Bibles!) It's right there in all those explanatory footnotes. It's got one of the best explanations of the Antichrist & the Tribulation of almost any Bible!--All about how the Church is going to have to go through the Tribulation & be opposed & fought by the Antichrist.
112. IT'S RIGHT THERE IN THAT MOST POPULAR VERSION OF THE CATHOLIC BIBLE, THE DOUAY. Confraternity is the modern one, & it's even better! It almost preaches the Gospel & is less fanatically Catholic. It's a much more reformed version of the Bible, much closer to Protestant doctrine, believe it or not. It was first a New Testament & then an Old Testament by a group of Catholic scholars known as "The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine." I think the Paulist Fathers had a lot to do with that, who were very Evangelical.
113. RIGHT THERE IT TEACHES ALL ABOUT HOW THE CHURCH IS GOING TO BE PERSECUTED BY THIS DEVIL-MAN, THE ANTICHRIST, & suffer & go through this period of Tribulation & then Jesus is going to come! The Catholic Church, in its Biblical doctrine, in its interpretation & explanation right in its Bible, when it comes to the Coming of the Lord, teaches a Post-Tribulation Rapture! Only the Protestants were led astray. Of course, the Episcopalians follow more the Catholic doctrine, & even the Presbyterians come close to that.
114. BUT THE REST OF THE MORE RADICAL PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS HAVE FOLLOWED SCOFIELD & HIS DOCTRINE. They didn't have any doctrine until Scofield came along, they didn't know hardly anything about the Second Coming or the Rapture or the Tribulation or anything! First along came William Miller in the middle of the last century, about the 1830s or '40s, & he was known as an Adventist because he believed in the Advent or the Coming of Christ. Ellen White then took over, & because she started stressing the seventh day worship, they were called Seventh-day Adventists after that. They were strong on the Second Coming! They didn't know much about the Antichrist or the Tribulation, but they did teach the Coming of Christ!
115. AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT, FOR YEARS THAT TEACHING HAD BEEN NEGLECTED BY THE CHURCHES & THE CHURCH, but it's not only in our Bible but it's in the Catholic Bible, very clearly, so is the Tribulation, so is the Antichrist! And in the Catholic Bible they teach clearly that the Church is going to have to go through the Tribulation of the Antichrist before Jesus comes.
MANY WILL TURN AGAINST THE AC!
116. THEREFORE MANY CATHOLICS ARE GOING TO START READING THEIR BIBLES & WAKE UP & RECOGNISE THAT THIS IS IT! "This is what the Bible has been teaching us, although we didn't read it! This is the Antichrist! This is the Antichrist Kingdom! And he is not our man! We will have nothing to do with him from now on!"--And they are going to rebel against him!
117. I BELIEVE THE CATHOLICS ARE GOING TO REBEL AGAINST HIM--EVENTUALLY, NOT AT FIRST. I believe the sincere Orthodox Jews are going to rebel against him & recognise he's not the Messiah! And certainly the vast hordes of Islam are going to eventually rebel against him, because if there's anything they are against it's idolatry, idol-worship! And when this guy puts up an idol of himself & commands that the World worship it & him, they are going to rebel against him!
118. HE HAS GOT ONE HELL OF A WORLD ON HIS HANDS! He's almost going to make more enemies than he has friends! The preachers didn't bring that out, did they? They made it sound like the Antichrist is going to be an absolute dictator over the World & everybody was going to worship him except the born-again, saved Christians. But that's not so! We've made a whole study of that in the Bible. Here again I'm giving you the general picture from beginning to end, sort of an introduction to the Antichrist & his Kingdom.
119. FROM THE SOUND OF THE WARS & ALL THE REST THAT'S GOING ON, IT ALMOST SOUNDS AS THOUGH THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD TURN AGAINST HIM! At first all the World wonders after the Antichrist! "Who is able to make war with him? Who is able to do these signs & wonders? Who is like unto him?" (Rev.13:4)--Probably even the churches, formal Christians, professing Christians, nominal Christians, Moslems, Catholics, Buddhists, the whole World thinks he's a great guy! "He solved our problems, he saved the economy & he saved the World from the destruction of war! Isn't he great!"--And the whole World seems to wonder after him.
120. BUT ONCE HE DECLARES HIMSELF TO BE GOD & SETS UP HIS IDOL, THAT IS A DIFFERENT STORY. That's why the World turns into Hell on Earth, a reign of terror, & Great Tribulation, more than the World has ever seen before! Because there is nothing but almost perpetual war from then on!--War between the sects!--War between the forces of Antichrist & Anti-Antichrist! That's what makes it so horrible!
121. HE DOES BECOME THE WORLD DICTATOR! HE DOES RULE THE WORLD WITH HIS WORLD SYSTEM! He gets in the saddle & jockeys to absolute power in the beginning! But from the time he demands Worldwide worship of himself & his idol, his power begins to deteriorate & his empire begins to crumble & fall apart!--Because he has almost more enemies than friends.
122. THAT SOUNDS LIKE A TERRIBLE PICTURE, BUT IT'S A BETTER PICTURE THAN MOST PREACHERS GAVE ME WHEN I WAS A KID! They pictured him as being an absolute dictator & everybody received the Mark of the Beast except just us very Fundamentalist, Evangelical, died-in-the-wool, born-again, Spirit-filled Christians!--And they're a mere handful compared to the rest of the World!--In fact, even compared to the rest of the Christian World. We're the rare exception rather than the rule!
123. BUT THE RELIGIONISTS OF THE WORLD & PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW VARIOUS RELIGIONS ARE NUMBERED IN THE MILLIONS!--Six or seven hundred million Catholics alone. If you count the Buddhists & the various religions of the Orient, there are hundreds of millions of them as well! Moslems, hundreds of millions! Buddhists & Shintoists & the various Oriental religions of Japan & China, you can almost go into the billions!
124. WELL, A LOT OF THEM MAY BE IRRELIGIOUS ENOUGH & NOT REALLY SINCERELY RELIGIOUS ENOUGH AT HEART TO CARE WHO THEY WORSHIP or what they worship as long as they've got something to eat & security & no war & the economy is okay & they've got a job. "We'll follow anybody! We don't care if we follow the Devil himself!" In fact, the former head of NATO said, "We will follow anybody, even the Devil himself, if he will solve our economic problems!"--A public statement!
SOUTH AMERICA MORE PAGAN THAN CHRISTIAN, PERON'S CONVERSION, THE NAVY!
125. AND I'M SURE THERE ARE LOTS OF CHURCH PEOPLE & LOTS OF THE VARIOUS RELIGIONS WHO ARE MERELY NOMINALLY PROFESSING CHURCH PEOPLE, like they say about South America. Nearly everybody you meet in South America, you ask them what their religion is & they'll say they're Catholic.--Whereas by actual estimate, they say that about 60% of South Americans are more influenced by voodooism & witchcraft & follow shamans & witches etc. much more than they do the Catholic church!--Zombies & all that junk! They're much more ready to go & consult a magician or a witch or a warlock or a wizard or some kind of a voodoo priest. They're the first ones they think of to consult & to give them an answer to their problem & help them defeat their enemies or win their sweetheart rather than going to the Catholic priest!
126. SO THEREFORE SOUTH AMERICA IS MORE HEATHEN & PAGAN & INVOLVED MORE IN DEVILTRY THAN IT IS IN CHRISTIANITY! 500 years of Christianity has not made the South Americans real Christians. They claim to be Catholics, because you just almost have to be a Catholic to be a member of society, you have to claim to be a Catholic even if you never go to church! Because the governments are officially Catholic, the presidents are officially Catholic. They can't even be president unless they're Catholics!
127. THAT'S THE EXCUSE THEY USED TO KICK OUT PERON FROM ARGENTINA. That's the excuse they used when that hickey Evangelical preacher went down there & had crowds of hundreds of thousands of people & thousands of healings. It's in my time, since I was married! He also went to Peron's office & he had Peron kneeling on his knees accepting Jesus Christ as his Saviour! His name was Tommy Hicks! He was a real hick, he murdered the King's English, but he had the power of God & he waged the greatest Christian warfare South America's ever known!--Won thousands & thousands of souls to the Lord!
128. AND RIGHT AFTER THIS INCIDENT WHERE PERON KNELT BY HIS DESK IN HIS OFFICE & RECEIVED CHRIST AS HIS PERSONAL SAVIOUR, praying with Tommy Hicks, this famous evangelist, just a simple little hickey country boy, the Navy said, "He's no longer a Catholic!" They'd been trying to get rid of him for some time because he was a very popular dictator, very socialistic by the way. And Eva Peron was a friend of the poor people & did a lot of things to help the poor. He favoured the Labour Unions. And because he was a friend of the poor & labour, they kept him in power for years. But the aristocracy hated him! The rich hated him! And the rich predominated in the Navy.
129. YOU'LL FIND THE SAME THING IS TRUE IN THE U.S., THE SELECT GROUP TO JOIN DURING THE WAR WAS THE NAVY: "Join the Navy, see the World!"--And supposedly stay out of the war. You don't have to have any of the hand-to-hand trench warfare if you're gliding around on a nice ship eating good food & fairly well protected, you only have to scrub decks once in awhile! The Navy was for the aristocracy, right?
130. THAT'S WHAT MY BROTHER WENT INTO. Because he was a college graduate & had degrees, he got a commission! He didn't know anything about the military, he'd never been in it in his life, but he got a commission to be a Lieutenant in the Navy!--And worked his way up to Lieutenant Commander, the Chief Officer on every ship he was on, head of what was called the Naval Armed Guard on these big troop transports. They were the naval officers in control of the troop transport & he was captain of three different ships, every one of them shot out from under him in the days when the submarine warfare of the Japanese was actually licking the U.S., in the days shortly after Pearl Harbour, when he said the slogan of the Armed Guard was: "Sighted sub, blub, blub!"
131. SO THE ARGENTINIAN NAVY, THE ARISTOCRACY, THE SONS OF THE RICH, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID THEN? They started bombing the presidential palace & demanded that Peron resign. And he had to resign & was exiled at that time for accepting Jesus!
HOMEWORK & CLOSING PRAYER!
132. SO THAT'S THE BACKGROUND, THAT'S THE KIND OF GOVERNMENT THERE IS IN THE WORLD TODAY! I've sort of given you the bird's-eye view, the overall picture of how it has developed, now we're going to study the details, Lord willing. You can study for your homework Daniel 2 with special emphasis on the toes, as well as Daniel 7 with special emphasis on the horns. And I'd better not give you any more than that because we still have to cover them. We'll get around to Revelation later, amen? PTL! GBY!
133. (CHILDREN GATHER AROUND GRANDPA FOR PRAYER:) HAVEN'T WE GOT THE BEST CHILDREN IN THE WORLD?--The most wonderful, most intelligent, the goodest, those that love the Lord & know His Word the best! PTL! TYL! Hallelujah! GBY all! Thank you for your patience, I hope you learned something! As we pray together: (Prays the Lord's Prayer) PTL! Hallelujah! TYJ!
134. REBUKE ALL THE WORKS OF EVIL, LORD, ALL THE POWERS OF THE EVIL ONE! Protect this, Thy Family, this day, all day long! Give them sweet fellowship, rest, study, prayer & all that they need, Lord, as they enjoy this Sunday resting in Thee. Some have tasks that must be done, but which glorify Thee, Lord. Bless & keep us all safely in Thy care & make us a blessing to the whole World, in Jesus' name, amen! GBY!
--ARE YOU A BLESSING?--IT WON'T BE LONG NOW!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family