Issued: 06/12/22
PLEASE NOTE: All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity. These emendations will not be italicized. The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”
In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Only Highest God. Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.
The term neo-Christian will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.
Intricacies and Domino Effect of Human Transgressions
Always the principal focus of Scripture, human disobedience is what drives the Judeo-Christian saga. False prophets (Jeremiah 14:14); hypocritical [Jesus’ word—Matthew 23:13] priests (Malachi 2:7-8); congregations wanting to hear comforting bromides (Isaiah 30:10), doing what they wished and not what God commanded (Jeremiah 18:12)—they all continue down to this day. In the long term, divine punishments fail to correct transgressions (Nehemiah 9:26; Isaiah 1:5; Jeremiah 2:30, 5:3, 7:28): People come to their senses when the going gets rough and go back to business as usual when the heat is off (Judges 10:10-16; Nehemiah 9:28; Psalms 106:4-46; Isaiah 65:2-3).
God lamented Jewish ways: “If my people would only listen to Me, if Israel would only follow My ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!” (Psalms 81:13-14). But that does not leave Christians off the hook. In the Old Testament Israel [shadow] symbolizes God’s nation, made up of Jews as well as Christians. The covenant struck at Sinai included unborn Jews and Gentiles to be embraced into the fold (Deuteronomy 29:14-15; Acts 10:34-35); the basis for Paul’s arguments regarding Abraham as the father of all faithful Judeo-Christians (Galatians 3:7); faith and not ethnicity being the factor determining “Jewishness” (Romans 2:29-30, 3:1); the purpose of Jesus’ crucifixion validating a new, non-ethnic (Galatians 3:28) covenant superseding the Mosaic one (Matthew 26:28; Galatians 3:13-14); and the eventual gathering of Judeo-Christian “remnants” into one unified nation/religion at end-times (Ezekiel 37:22; Romans 11:5,25-26).
Also let us note the specific meaning of Scripture. In Romans 4:9-12, Paul argued that Abraham received God’s promise pre-circumcision, meaning the promise had nothing to do with Abraham’s ethnicity; so that it was not as a “Jew” that God favored him, but technically as an uncircumcised Gentile fathering, in terms of faith, Jews and Gentiles alike (Romans 4:9-12). Similarly, the prophecy regarding the redemption of Israel at end-times used Jacob’s original name, not the one given to him, Israel, as progenitor of tribal Jews (Genesis 32:28): “The deliverer [or Messiah, Jesus] will come from Zion [the Heavenly City]; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob” (Romans 11:26). Why? To follow the same pattern concerning Abraham: Jacob, though by faith partaker of Abraham’s promise, yet circumcised, became emblematic of Jews in terms of the flesh—as we can see, a flourish of ‘legalese’ on God’s part.
What calls our attention to the significance of Jacob’s name-change? Genesis 32:27: “Then the man asked him, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Jacob,’ he responded.” This “man” was no ordinary angel, but God’s Angel, Yahweh of hosts, who had the power to redeem Jacob’s soul (Genesis 32:29), unlike the rest of the angelic host who are co-servants with humans of Jesus and the Most High God (Hebrews 1:5-14; Revelation 19:10).
Why, then, did Yahweh of hosts ask Jacob his name when he must have known it? To call our attention to the implications of said name-change, but most importantly—and forgive us for repeating the same thing over and over—to reaffirm that he was not the Most High God. Jacob could hear and touch this Angel, whereas no one has seen or heard the Invisible Deity (John 1:18, 4:24, 5:37; Colossians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:17; Hebrews 11:27). Jacob himself attested to that fact: “I have seen God [Most High’s proxy God] face to face, and yet my life is preserved” (Genesis 32:30).1 And because within Yahweh of hosts/Jesus dwells the fullness of God’s nature (Colossians 2:9), Jacob’s dialogue and plea were heard and granted by both Father and Son: “Indeed, he [Jacob] struggled with the Angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication to him. He [Jacob] found him at Bethel, and there he [Jacob] spoke with us” (Hosea 12:4). Notice the mix of plural and singular pronouns: “He/him” are used for Jacob and the Angel; the speaker reporting the event is the Holy Spirit (2Peter 1:21); and “us” refers to the Most High, the Holy Spirit and Yahweh of hosts, the Angel God (Genesis 48:15-16; Exodus 3:2,4-6 [cross-reference Joshua 5:15]; Judges 13:9-11,22↔cross-reference John 18:5-6; and Acts 27:23.
The gist of the preceding paragraph is that Jesus is not the Father; they are not part of any Trinity; and by worshipping Jesus as God, the Father does not get His rightful due (Hosea 7:13, 11:7). Satan might have failed in his attempt to usurp the Most High’s position (Isaiah 14:13-14), but with Trinitarian dogma, he has most surely robbed Him of His praise.2 Will men come to their senses? No; their refusal to slaughter their sacred cows is the stuff of prophecy. As long as Judeo-Christians choose to rely on religious leaders to do their homework and gratify their expectations, they will toe sectarian lines until falling into the proverbial hole. Like the Israelites of antiquity, if they cannot see heavenly leaders, they will make do with mortal ones ready and willing to fashion new [triune] gods for them (Exodus 32:1). In Jesus’ absence, congregants will turn to the seductive artifices (Ephesians 4:14) of adulterous churches (Proverbs 7:10-23). With God out of sight, the understanding He craves from men is effectively barred out their minds (Jeremiah 9:24; Hosea 13:6).
To this day the result has been one of cause and effect. “My people are foolish, they don’t know Me. They’re stupid children, they have no understanding. They’re skilled at doing evil, but how to do good, they don’t know” (Jeremiah 4:22). Because “they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit, He became their enemy; He himself fought against them” (Isaiah 63:10), allowing Satan to inflict misery on them. Throughout it all, He shared His people’s suffering; “and the Angel of His presence [Yahweh of hosts/Jesus] saved them. He redeemed them because of his love and compassion; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of the past” (Isaiah 63.9); in order to facilitate God’s final objective: “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:11-13).
One outcome of this tug-of-war between God and men is human suffering; we talked about this in The Lowdown on Human Suffering. One of its corollaries is the necessity for atonement; contrary to pious bragging, anyone’s ‘acceptance of the Lord as his/her personal Savior’ does not mean a clean slate in terms of past transgressions; nor does it entail the boon of automatic forgiveness and forgetting. While that is the very thing God has promised to do in His new Kingdom (Isaiah 43:25; Revelation 21:4), the reality in the present one is quite different, more among the lines of Micah 7:9: “I will bear the indignation of Yahweh, because I have sinned against Him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light. I will see His righteousness.” Or as stated earlier, “I will put [the cup of My wrath] into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you, ‘Bow down, that we may walk on you’; and you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to walk on” (Isaiah 51:22-23); a bitter reality summarized in James 5:6: “You have condemned and murdered the righteous person, although he does not resist you.”
God exalts the righteous who let the unrighteous literally ‘walk’ all over them (Luke 6:27-30) in order to prove the superior spirit [a concept flagged in Daniel 6:3] of the former over the latter. In terms of sinfulness, there is no difference among men: There is no one who does good all the time (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10-12). But in the eyes of God, the sinner who does not strike back against his aggressor has the moral high ground, and is more deserving of both praise and reward (1Peter 2:20-21, 4:14). His choice of siding with God is what makes him ‘holy,’ a ‘saint (Psalms 50:5),’ as well as God’s/Jesus’ obedient ‘slave’ (Romans 1:1; 6:16; 1Corinthians 7:22).
Simply put this is the sequence of events playing out in the suffering of Judeo-Christians: Awareness of sinfulness comes with knowledge of God’s laws (Romans 3:20), which in turn must be expiated (Jeremiah 46:28). Jesus was the demo (Isaiah 53:6,10; John 18:11): He left examples to imitate (John 13:15-17). In the oven of affliction [or so-called ‘baptism of fire’ (Matthew 3:11)], the faithful are refined like metal ore smelted of impurities (Isaiah 48:10; Zechariah 13:9); during which ordeal they turn to God (Hosea 5:15) and find Him, having done so with all their hearts (Jeremiah 29:13). One cannot fault God’s logic: Men only learn after being reduced to hopelessness; and since the end result is all to their benefit, this is one system whose end wholly justifies the means (Jeremiah 29:11; Hebrews 11:16; Revelation 21:2-4).
Consequently, prophecies and teachings about the suffering of faithful Judeo-Christians extend from Jesus to end-times. Of concern to Generation Omega, two pertinent realities: A last round of persecutions for the faithful and the fall of Jerusalem.
Persecutions Bundled Up with Spiritual Legitimization
One of Christianity’s bitterest pills to swallow is the acceptance that persecutions are allowed by God while doing His will (Isaiah 45:7; Luke 22:31; John 19:11; 1Peter 3:17). Humans prefer to be rewarded for their troubles, so to be punished for doing what is right sorely tests their mettle; yet suffering is one of God’s preconditions to make His grade. Scripture’s message is minimalist: Grin and bear it; God is not interested in back talk (Job 40:2). Still there are divine assists: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Yahweh delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19);and, “God is faithful, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength. Instead, along with the temptation He will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to endure it” (1Corinthians 10:13).
While detractors may twist the above to mean that God juggles temptation with the means to escape it,3 Scripture is reaffirming an old-standard: Since God allows Satan to tempt men, He takes full responsibility for the temptation, but He personally tempts no one (James 1:13). The Bishop of Rome need not worry about emending Matthew 6:13 to do a PR job on God: The implication here is not that God leads anyone into temptation, anymore than the Holy Spirit did the same in Jesus’ case (Luke 4:1). Jesus knew better, for what he was driving at was imploring the Father to restrain those human impulses that lead to sin, since “one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it [with Satan’s prodding, which can be resisted (James 4:7)]; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin” (James 1:14-15)—whereupon Satan is permitted his sport. Why? “For I am with you, says Yahweh, to save you…but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished” (Jeremiah 30:11).
Thus quite a lot of Jesus’ and the Apostles’ teachings dealt with the inevitability of facing persecutions: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). “If they do these things in the green tree [an often-used symbol for men], what will be done in the dry” [Luke 23:31↔cross-reference Ezekiel 34:29). “We must endure many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). “All who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2Timothy 2:13). “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ…For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps” (1Peter 4:12-13, 2:21).
It is Peter who makes one crucial observation: “For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God [Judeo-Christians—Hebrews 3:6]. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who refuse to obey the gospel of God” (1Peter 4:17)? In God’s timetable, righteous Judeo-Christians atone for past sins by enduring persecutions, whereas the disobedient suffer their lot during the Great Tribulation. Not all of them will be lost: Albeit late, they will turn to Jesus and find redemption by the skin of their teeth—after being prodded in that direction (Luke 14:23; Revelation 7:13-14). Ultimately, all the unrighteous since Cain get incinerated at Armageddon, along with the un-usual culprits: Satan and his fallen angels. Righteous suffering has a fringe benefit, though: “And if [legitimized] children [after God puts them through the wringer—Hebrews 12:5-8], then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Hebrews 12:5-8). Conversely, those unwilling (Matthew 10:39) or failing to go through the entire legitimization process, forfeit their chances at immortal life (Hebrews 6:4-6, 10:38).
Despite all the horrors visited on Judeo-Christians in the past, including the Nazi Holocaust, those at end-times appear to loom worse. For starters, if men ditch God and Jesus as prophesied in Psalms 2:1-3, God will retire His protection and Satan will have the field [the world—Matthew 13:38] open to bulldoze mankind. As always, this is made possible by man’s predisposition to evil (Genesis 6:5; Ecclesiastes 9:3); and according to the Holy Spirit, Generation Omega will run the gamut from pandemic apostasy to implementing demonic teachings (1Timothy 4:1-2). Paul goes on to prophecy that “in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power” (2Timothy 3:1-5)—lo and behold, the stuff of daily newscasts!
Jesus went closer to home: “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death” (Matthew 10:21). Never one for ‘family values’ (Matthew 10:34-37; Luke 8:21, 12:51-53, 14:26), Jesus understood that when survival was at stake, blood might become thinner than water vapor. To forestall this terrible eventuality, Jesus made contempt for life a central point of his doctrine (Luke 14:26), a behavior characteristic of righteous people (Revelation 12:11). Why? Because if clinging to life was no longer a priority, one stood better chances of not betraying kinfolk to save one’s skin. Plus it was within the realm of possibility that, based on such an unselfish deed, God might see fit to reward it by sparing the souls of said kinfolk—a notion extrapolated from 1Corinthians 7:16, Hebrews 11:7 and 1Peter 3:20.4 Not only was rejection of life demanded of truly contrite souls (Isaiah 22:12-13), but it unlocked the chains by which Satan lorded it over men: The human fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). Hence the pep-talk: “In the world you’ll have trouble, but be courageous—I’ve overcome the world!” (John 16:33); and, “Where, O Death [Satan—Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 6:8], is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?” (1Corinthians 15:55).
Mothers were to have it particularly bad at end-times (Matthew 24:19; Luke 21:23); and though these prophecies are incorrectly assumed to refer only to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, remember that Scripture operates on the principle that men’s evil deeds are reenacted throughout time; and that in the Bible, Jerusalem is the specific symbol for Christendom, the “site” of God’s Temple which is the body of Christ. While Jesus was predicting events to take place in 70 CE, he was also forwarding the message to Generation Omega, who would be ‘family-valuing’ it up as if there were no end in sight (Luke 17:26-30). Deuteronomy 28:56-57 foretold the toll Satan would exact on mothers bereft of God; one bill became due in 586 BCE (Lamentations 2:17,20-21, 4:10)—a long time between Exodus and Jeremiah. Similarly, it is in Jeremiah that Generation Omega is warned against having children immediately before the Great Tribulation (Jeremiah 16:2-4), again using the doomed city as a symbol for end-times Christendom.
Profiling the Persecutors
The unrighteous never receive the Gospel gladly (John 3:20): It spoils their “fun”; it exposes their malfeasance and shenanigans; it robs them of the image they project to others for self-validation and approval. That is why they dread exposure (John 3:20); why being found out or told to their faces enrages them (Matthew 14:1-5; Acts 7:54). As payback, they deploy the nuclear option against their un-maskers; hence the persecutions and killings of the righteous oftentimes rationalized as doing ‘God’s will’ (Matthew 10:22, 24:9; Luke 23:31; John 7:7, 15:18-20; 2Corinthians 4:11; 2Timothy 3:12; 1John 3:12-13).
The Judeo-Christian tradition of varnishing evil enterprises with Mosaic-Christian veneers is a time-dishonored and on-going one. When Jesus spoke truth to power, focusing only on teachings by Sadducees and Pharisees contrary to divine will, they hated him for it and had him crucified by wile (Matthew 26:14-15) and guile (Mark 14:55-59). Whether out of envy [Mark 15:10—as Joseph’s brothers did (Genesis 37:11)], or resenting his criticisms regarding their hypocrisy (Matthew 23:1-33; Luke 12:1), they justified getting rid of him on grounds of national security [John 11:50—as Jeremiah had been (Jeremiah 38:4)] while dutifully professing to observe Mosaic Law (John 18:31).
When it was the Apostles’ turn, they were flogged for it (Acts 5-17:40). On trumped up charges by congregants bested at religious debate [as prophesied by Jesus (Luke 21:15)], Stephen was brought before a religious council that went ballistic over his litany of past Jewish offenses (Acts 6:8-14); whereupon “they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen”, rushed at him and carried him out of the city to stone him to death (Acts 6:8-14, 7:1-60). This time around no Mosaic compunction about executing one of their own, though Scripture tells us that implicit in John 18:31 was Jesus’ death by crucifixion (John 18:32), which appalled Jewish sensibilities (Deuteronomy 21:23), but which Roman soldiers were so proficient at. For Stephen’s executioners, stoning to death had Mosaic precedents that somehow blunted the brutality of reducing a human body to macerated flesh (Numbers 15:32-36; Deuteronomy 21:18-21, 22:20-21,24). One could say that stones were for Jews what guns were for score-settlers in the Old American West.
Paul also was subjected to floggings by Jews (2Corinthians 11:24). Once the poster-boy of Pharisaic orthodoxy (Acts 22:3-5; Galatians 1:14) but following his conversion, Paul became useless to Mosaic enforcers and abettors, branded a turncoat, and manhandled as such—the kind of payback perennially at play in political/religious circles. To this day Paul is reviled by Mosaic stalwarts as a traitor to his faith; and by detractors of Jesus as the inventor of Christianity. This is not simply a matter of opinion: It is a cautionary tale concerning reading and seeing but being deprived by God of understanding and spiritual discernment (Isaiah 6:9-10; Mark 4:11-12; 1Corinthians 2:14). God means business and He is OK with leaving naysayers comfy in the dark (Romans 11:22).
For all his ordeals and loving intentions, Paul is not duly recognized as the one shining example of true commitment to Jesus despite the vitriol his contemporaries—and ours—heaped on him; which graphically illustrates the ingratitude of Judeo-Christians who know more of Scripture from him than all the Apostles combined. Yet Peter, who turned his back on Jesus (Matthew 26:34) and had moments of wishy-washiness (Galatians 2:11-14) lives in contrived, Christian history as the founder of the Roman Church; and John, who did nothing particularly memorable in the course of Jesus’ ministry, has been exalted as Jesus’ ‘beloved’ disciple—an insult to Jesus, who as the intermediary of a impartial God, could/would not have played favorites among the Apostles. If John felt ‘beloved’ by Jesus—his own words, more power to him; but this was his impression. Jesus loved all men equally; even the wealthy youngster he loved on sight (Mark 10:21).
In all fairness to Peter, he would have been aghast at the idea of being anybody’s superior in rank, and even less usurping Jesus’ role teaching doctrine to the faithful (Matthew 20:25-27, 23:8). If he has been conscripted into that role, it has been to establish some spurious, spiritual lineage from Jesus to popes, irrespective of the fact that it was Paul, not Peter, who was given the commission to preach the Gospel among Gentiles, while Peter was delimited to Jews (Acts 9:15; Galatians 2:27). But since Paul had had nothing to do with Jesus during his lifetime, it became expedient to play an apostolic game of musical thrones.
Doctrinal Tit for Zealous Tat
But wait! If the Old Testament said to kill witches (Exodus 22:18), why not push the envelope and burn them? After all auto-da-fès have their roots in the trailblazing deeds of two Roman Catholic ‘saints’ who ignited the Inquisition by burning the bones of unrighteous dead. Why burn them? A dress rehearsal for what awaited them at Armageddon, or trying to monkey-wrench God’s resurrection scheme (Ezekiel 37:1-14; Daniel 12:2)? If Paul’s comment in 1Corinthians 9:27 could be twisted out of context, would it not justify torturing flesh to save souls in inquisitional dungeons? If by ‘an eye for an eye’ Yahweh suggested repaying in kind, why not persecute Jews as they persecuted Jesus? And why not diversify by bringing Mammon into the picture while serving God? Thus, from enslaving ‘soul-less’ pagans to mowing down Muslims; dispossessing Jews for crucifying Jesus; justifying slavery on grounds that Noah cursed Ham [Genesis 9:22-25, spun out to be the progenitor of blacks]—you name it, the Bible has been cherry-picked by Satan’s human minions to rationalize self-serving agendas and vent homicidal instincts under the veneer of religious zeal.
None of these atrocities would have been carried out without the unholy marriage of church and state. Consult your history books: It is all there. As far as the Bible is concerned, Ahab’s soldiers persecuted Elijah at the instigation of Jezebel for bucking the establishment, calling the prophet Israel’s troublemaker (1Kings 18:4-18). Compare this to Jeremiah 38:1-6; Mark 6:17-28; John 11:49-53, 18:12-14,31-32, 19:6-7; Acts 23:12-15, 25:2-10; Revelation 17:16-18; and the unholy synergy between church and state becomes a matter of record and repeated fulfillment of Ecclesiastes 1:9-10.
Now, Generation Omega is being told that the time will come when the “ten horns” of the beast (Revelation 13:1) will turn against harlot Babylon “bringing her to ruin and leaving her naked…eating her flesh and burning her with fire” at the fulfillment of God’s words (Revelation 17:16-17)—i.e., when the time of grace expires. Then this church, haunt of demons and unclean animals [fallen angels and complicit humans], where Satan’s throne must be (Revelation 2:13), will get her just deserts along with loyal troopers refusing to abandon her (Revelation 18:2-8). Still the “ten horns” do not get away without getting their comeuppance: They will be trounced by the sword of the Holy Spirit [the word of God↔Ephesians 6:17] issuing from Jesus’ mouth (Revelation 19:11-21) and will lie unburied throughout the Millennium providing Satan’s bed of maggots (Isaiah 14:11-17; Jeremiah 25:31-33; Ezekiel 32:31-32).5
All of these do not excuse the enablers of Satan’s trickle-down demonony: Hierarchies of enabling, complicit human beings. Wars, torture, persecutions, executions, suppression, enforced obedience, racial hatred, ethnic cleansing, environmental pollution, wholesale destruction of biomes, the dismantling of political systems protecting individual rights—no powers that be past or present, secular or religious, could function as vectors for evildoing were it not for the implementers. To bask in the praise and sundry fringe benefits their masters trickle-down to them, obedient troopers (Romans 6:16; 2Peter 2:19) geyser up torrents of compliance while doing the dirty work their masters would not lift a finger to do on their enablers’ behalf—as Jesus twitted in Matthew 23:4. Hannah Arendt talked about the banality of evil,6 but more to the point is its irrationality. Why would anyone empower somebody else to destroy them and facilitate any agenda that uses and discards them with equal expediency?
Yet these are the political and religious realities facing Generation Omega. The fact that Scripture has warned us about them; told us how to profile satanic vectors by their words and deeds (Matthew 7:16; Luke 6:45); detailed for us consequences to befall ourselves and our loved ones if we insist on alienating God—none of it will deter us for considering our plight, no matter how many millennia of betrayals and broken promises from secular and religious leaders are on record warning us more of the same is just ahead. Or as Solomon put it, “No one remembers what has happened in the past, and no one in days to come will remember what happens between now and then” (Ecclesiastes 1:11). Or even better, “the evil of man is great upon him” (Ecclesiastes 8:6).
Thus, the pandemic apostasy now eating away the last vestiges of Jesus’ Gospel; as Paul told future generations: “Do not let anyone deceive you in any way, for [the Day of the Lord] will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of sin, who is destined for destruction, is revealed” (2Thessalonians 2:3). Why then? Another, much older pointer: “I will sing for the one I love, a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard…he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit…Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed…The vineyard of Yahweh is the nation of Israel [Jews], and the people of Judah [Christians] are the vines he delighted in. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress” (Isaiah 5:1-7). To which Jesus added: “When the owner of the vineyard comes [Jesus in his second coming], what will he do to those tenants? He will utterly destroy those evil men, and will lease out the vineyard [the Kingdom of Heaven] to other tenants [the redeemed], who will give him the fruit in its season” (Matthew 21:40-41).
Jeremiah nailed it: “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and My people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it” (Jeremiah 5:31)?
The Final Sign: The Fall of Jerusalem
“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then understand that its devastation is at hand” (Luke 21:20), a prophecy that means more that meets the eye. Jesus warned this would happen following his crucifixion: Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Romans, God’s Temple eviscerated from its midst, and the Jewish nation to be scattered to the four winds. By Jesus’ time, the Old Testament had stopped tracking Israel’s and Judah’s respective trajectories: Ten tribes had disappeared from the Biblical record, a way of showing that Jews would play no role in the time allotted for Gentiles (Luke 21:24); and the spotlight had shifted to Jesus’ “tribe,” Judah (Hebrews 7:14; Revelation 5:5), symbolic of Christendom.
Contrary to the expectations of eschatological Jews, the Unseen, Unheard Most High was through with a, earthly place of worship He had never occupied nor meant to stand eternally like the one He had in mind (2Samuel 7:11-13; Hebrews 7:48): No Third Temple will be erected on Mount Moriah. Yahweh of hosts, His proxy God, had been His liaison with men (1Timothy 2:5) in the Holy of Holies in the desert Tabernacle (Exodus 40:35; Numbers 12:7-8) and in Solomon’s/Zerubabbel’s Temples (1Kings 8:6-11; Haggai 1, 2, 3). In Haggai 2:7-9, note the allusion to Jesus as the “Desired One” who will crown God’s house with unprecedented glory in a kingdom of peace; and in 2:23, Zerubabbel’s election as Architect of God’s Temple—clearly symbolizing Jesus, the son of David [through Joseph↔Matthew 1:6-16], that would erect the Church of which he was the foundation stone (Isaiah 28:16; Acts 4:11; Ephesians 2:20-22; 1Peter 2:5). Both man-made edifices were shadow to the substance of the spiritual abode chosen and created by the Most High, the body of Christ (Colossians 2:9), through whose flesh, the veil separating worshippers from the Divine Presence, became operational in Heaven (Hebrews 9:2-3,8,23-24, 10:19-22). Note too that the Haggai prophecies were conveyed by Yahweh of hosts, the pre-existent Jesus, relaying verbatim His Father’s plans.7
It is a sign of the “hardening [that has befallen Israel] until the full number of the Gentiles has come in (Romans 10:25)” that to this day Jews fail to recognize Jesus as the Yahweh of hosts interacting with them in the Old Testament, the God they profess to worship through Mosaic traditions Jesus invalidated with this crucifixion (Galatians 3:13). Though still beloved of God on account of the Patriarchs (Romans 11:7-24,28; 2Corinthians 3:14-16), Paul tells us that the “veil of Moses” obscuring Jewish understanding has been responsible for their rejection of Jesus. And so it was with Jewish priests, following Herod’s rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple, believing the God of Israel would deign to inhabit the work of a corrupt and, by descent, unclean Edomite. Let us remember that Esau, whom God abhorred (Romans 9:13), is the progenitor of Edomites; as far as God was concerned, Herod’s lavish upgrading of the Jerusalem Temple did not rank mention in Scripture like previous, bona fide efforts—which led the deity indwelling those holy of holies, Yahweh of hosts, to vacate the premises and become incarnate outside Herod’s political-pleasing ploy.
With the programmed destruction under the Romans, God’s Temple had to be relocated to a place accessible to all men, especially the poor, crippled, and vulnerable ones who could not travel yearly to Jerusalem to expiate their sins. From Jesus on everyone could access God in Heaven through prayer and their sins remitted by virtue of Jesus’ blood. Whatever our religious orientation, we have to give God credit for the simplicity, ingenuity, and pragmatism of extending a lifeline to every contrite heart throughout His creation without having to take a single step in any direction.
Nowadays Israel enjoys prosperity and relative security under the protection of nations and superpowers committed to its defense and survival—which is not to say that Jews are loathe to dish out violence similar to that inflicted upon them. But here, alas, are past miscalculations repeating themselves, the most glaring example being their diamantine recalcitrance to wait on God. Once before, when Jews were told to stay put, they reached out to regional superpowers when enemies were at the gates (Isaiah 30:1-16) and placed their hopes on human might that failed them (Isaiah 28:15-22, 30:1-16, 31:1-3). When push came to shove, allies left Jews hanging on a twig, as somehow it will again come to pass in our times. Some as yet unforeseen political exigency must unfold before Israel is cut off and abandoned to its fate amongst nations clamoring for their blood. And since the fate of Jerusalem is inextricably linked with Judeo-Christian comeuppance, what Jesus predicted in Luke 21:20 applies both to Israel’s capital and Christendom’s downfall.
It will all get exponentially worse as Jesus’ second coming approaches. Dark—and long [5+ months?(Revelation 9:5)]—will be the night when no one can work (John 9:4); before Jesus’ rainbow appears overhead and he rescues repentant Judeo-Christians from the hellish world they helped create.
1 An interesting point is being made here. When Yahweh of hosts paraded before Moses in Exodus 34:5-6, Moses was privileged to see Yahweh of hosts’ “glory” (Exodus 33:18) but not his true visage, which no man could see and live (Exodus 33:20). Both Jacob and Samson’s parents clearly knew this, which is why they marveled at surviving their respective encounters with the Angel God (Genesis 32:30; Judges 13:18-22↔cross-reference verse 13:18 with Isaiah 9:6).
We must surmise, then, that when the Angel God interacted with men in human form, as with Abraham at Mamre or with Jacob at Peniel, he was not showing his divine visage. According to Jesus, angels in Heaven constantly see the face of the Most High (Matthew 18:10); but men will only be able to do this in the Kingdom to come (Psalms 84:7; Matthew 5:8; Revelation 22:4), which reinforces the dichotomy between earthly and spiritual realities (1Corinthians 15:46-50).
2 As millions of Christian do by cutting off the last half of Matthew 6:13: “For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.”
3 The oldie-moldy argument that God plays dice with the fates of men.
4 Regarding Noah, only he found grace in the eyes of God (Genesis 6:8-9); if his wife and children were saved, it was on the merits of Noah’s righteousness that they were spared. And please let us not argue that they had to be saved in order to populate the world after the Flood. As Jesus later argued, God could have made people out of stones if He had so wished (Matthew 3:9).
5 Cross-reference Isaiah 14:9-10↔Ezekiel 32:20-21; and Ezekiel 32:31↔Ezekiel 29:5↔Revelation 20:2.
6 Ms. Arendt was making the point that some people commit the most egregious deeds for self-serving reasons disproportionate to the enormity of their crimes. As reported in the news, a Russian soldier doing battle in Ukraine texted his wife in Russia to ask how she felt about his raping a Ukrainian woman. The wife suggested he wear some protection to ward off venereal dangers. How about that for the banality of uxorious evil?
7 The reason why he is referred to as the Verb (John 1:1; Revelation 19:13), or God’s spokesperson to differentiate him from the non-speaking Father.
BIBLE FOR END TIMES 