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CHAPTER 1
This people draw near me
with their mouth,
and with their lips do honour me,
but have removed their heart far from me,
and their fear toward me is taught
by the precept of men.ISAIAH 29:13
ALL of us have read a mystery. We find clues along the way and
part of the fun in reading a mystery is in trying to solve it. None
of us is ever smart enough to do so, of course, so in the final
chapter a brilliant detective solves the crime, calls in the police,
and the miserable felon is carted off to the slammer.
1 Corinthians 2:7
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the
world.
Hummm ... the Greek word for mystery, musterion, appears 27
times in the New Testament, so part of the Bible is a mystery. Now
much of God's mystery has been explained in the first 65 books of
the Bible, but not all. The mere fact that there are so many
confusing doctrines around is proof that we really haven't got it all
figured out. So where can we find a detective that can solve the
rest of God's mystery for us?
20 The False Prophet
Revelation 1:1
The Revelation1 of Jesus Christ, which God gave
unto him, to show unto his servants things which must
shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his
angel unto his servant John.For 2000 years, we have been trying to solve God's mystery on
our own. We have poured over Scriptures, finding this clue and
that, and with magnifying glass in hand have gone to Revelation
to see if we could figure out that book as well, as if Revelation was
part of the mystery. But from the above verse, it is apparent that
Revelation isn't part of the mystery. It's Jesus' solution! God gave
us a Great Detective in the person of His Son.
Revelation 22:10
And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the
prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.Folks, have we been looking at Revelation through the wrong
end of the telescope? Have we been going to Revelation with our
doctrines in hand, trying to interpret that book through the filter
of what we already believe? What if we stand behind Revelation
and look back at the rest of Scripture through the grid of what
Jesus might reveal to us in that book? If so, might Revelation
emerge as Jesus' unraveling of the mystery of God's dealings with
man throughout the ages? Might we be able to see the Jews, the
church, the tribulation, and the Middle Eastern terrorists in a
whole new light? Let's find out.
A SHORT HISTORYAt the end of the Middle Ages, the Church had fallen into a
dead formalism that ushered in the Great Reformation. Many
Roman Catholic Priests, some long forgotten, Eckhart, Tauler,
Rokycana, Briconnet, Huss and the rest, were used of God to
begin a great spiritual revival. At the time, every one of those early
evangelists was considered a radical cultist by the established
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1 PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Occasionally the author has boldfaced a few words or a
phrase in a Bible quote to draw your attention to a central subject. Such bold-
facing does not appear in the original Bible texts.
_____________________
The Great Detective 21
church. Those excommunicate priests taught fanatically
"heretical" doctrinal systems like salvation "by grace through
faith," believer baptism and communion of both bread and cup for
all believers. New converts followed those "left wing extremist"
elder brethren, supporting their "heretical" positions, and almost
before you knew it, those reformation groups became new
denominations.
Five hundred years have passed, and those extremists have
become us: the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the Free
Methodists - the whole Protestant evangelical world. The worthy
elders of our denominations passed their views on down to us,
and most of them are still taught today. And their views were
generally sound, until ... until it came to Bible prophecy.
Among other unlikely concepts, the Leopard-Bear-Lion beast,
the Beast with Two Horns, and the Scarlet Beast of Revelation
were thought to be real live animals that would roam the earth.
When those prophetic doctrines were in style, England was the
great world power that spanned the globe and the sun never set
on the British flag. Europe was the cultural center of the universe
and the United States was but a minor nation full of woodsmen
and farmers. In their wildest dreams, theologians of horse-and-
buggy days couldn't have imagined two 110 story glass covered
buildings standing on an island for which the Dutch paid $24,
much less, that those buildings would be destroyed by ten Islamic
terrorists using commercial airplanes as flying bombs.
If we are honest with ourselves, we can see that the end-time
scenarios those venerable theologians proposed just don't fit what
is happening in the world today. It is evident to all that we are at
the end of the Christian Era, but as yet, there is no visible one-
world government, no antichrist, and no Seven-Year Tribulation
in sight. Is it possible that the Lord's plan for the end-times is
totally different from the traditions we learned in Sunday school?
It surely could be, because the Lord appears to have opened His
prophetic Word in a new way through two almost unbelievable
22 The False Prophet
fulfillments of prophecy that have taken place in the Holy Land
during the last 50 years:
In 1948AD, the new nation of Israel was established and in
1967, Jerusalem again came under Jewish control for the
first time in 2573 years!Though they were dispersed from their land for two millennia
and persecuted beyond measure, the Jews again control the Holy
Land and Jerusalem is again the capital of a sovereign nation
called Israel. In the following chapters, we will show that these
two events fulfill more prophecy than any other events since the
crucifixion and these events allow us to understand Scriptures that
were previously a mystery to us. Scriptures that change our view
of God's overall plan and of how He intends to bring this age to a
close. It is apparent that a rocky road lies ahead for Christians
everywhere before Jesus stands on Zion. Spiritual storm clouds
already loom on the horizon and there are questions that need to
be answered ...
Will a worldwide holocaust against Jews and Christians soon
take place and if so, can we escape it? How long will it last?
Where would the Lord have us be while it is here and how will
that time of trouble come to an end?
