Rereading Prophecy Revisited - The Argument- Homer Kizer Ministries

January 24, 2014 ©Homer Kizer

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Rereading Prophecy Revisited

The Argument:

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“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev 19:10)

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Fishing in fished out waters—that’s how a treatise explicating biblical prophecy will be received by most Christians even though a Seventh Day Adventist prophecy seminar will fill a meeting hall and bring about another baptism or two … Herbert W. Armstrong based his eighty million a year corporation [the Worldwide Church of God] on marketing biblical prophecy, not that he understood prophecy and not that he even thought he did after the Treaty of Rome was signed with only six nations being signatories. In fact, by autumn 1961 as a then mature prophecy pundit, he realized he didn’t correctly understand biblical prophecy and he scheduled an Advanced Prophecy Seminar for spring semester at Ambassador College, Pasadena. He required all of his senior men at Pasadena to attend the seminar, and in the first session, he told these men that he had prophecy wrong, that the Church had to get prophecy right, that all ideas would be explored, that no idea was off limits. I have a list of the so-called evangelists who attended this Advanced Prophecy Seminar. Most are now dead. A couple remain alive, one of whom confirmed that, indeed, Garner Ted Armstrong who taught the second session of this Advanced Prophecy Seminar and every session thereafter had begun the second session by saying that there would be no new revelation, that his dad had prophecy right, that his dad was just experiencing doubts because world events were not happening as his dad, Herbert Armstrong, believed they should happen. Ray Dick gave me the list of men attending the seminar, men who sat on their hands, not daring to challenge Garner Ted. And over the spring and summer of 2002, I wrote Garner Ted three times to ask if what was reported to me was true. He graciously responded to each letter, but he never answered my question. Confirmation came in a letter from Roderick Meredith who strongly urged me to return to the senior Armstrong’s prophetic teachings about Rome and the Roman Empire, teachings that Armstrong seemed to have borrowed from Ellen G. White.

The prophet Daniel was told to shut up the words [of his vision] and seal the book until the time of the end (cf. Dan 12:4, 9; 10:14; 8:17; 2:28) … if the visions of Daniel, especially the long vision of chapter 11, were shut up and divinely sealed until the time of the end—the latter days—then no mortal person could unseal these visions and understand what Daniel understood (Dan 10:1).

If the generic time of the end had not begun when Ellen G. White explicated biblical prophecies in the 19^th-Century; if the time of the end had not begun when Herbert Armstrong was explicating biblical prophecies in the 20^th-Century, then the prophecies of Daniel were still sealed and kept secret and not understandable by anyone during the ministries of these two wannabe prophecy pundits. And without the unsealing of Daniel’s visions, John’s vision [the book of Revelation] cannot be understood.

But a sealed and kept secret prophecy is of no value to anyone if the prophecy is not unsealed at a specific moment in time.

At the heart of understanding biblical prophecy is living in the time of the end, the latter days, that period shortly before the visions of Daniel pertain to a spiritual reality that has begun. And for the time of the end to have meaning, the time of the end couldn’t have begun in the 1^st-Century CE, nor in the 16^th-Century, nor even in the 20^th-Century.

How long can be considered the time of the end, especially in light of Paul writing,

For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor 10:1–12 emphasis added)

Elsewhere, Paul wrote,

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thess 4:13–18 emphasis added)

We who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air—didn’t happen. Paul died without Christ Jesus returning in his lifetime. Paul didn’t understand that he wasn’t living at the end of the ages …

If a disciple thinks about what Paul wrote, the disciple will NOT be encouraged by Paul’s words; for Paul sincerely believed that Christ Jesus would return while he remained alive—and Christ didn’t return; hasn’t yet returned; and will not return next year or the year after, or in five years. These things we can know with absolute certainty, just as we can know with certainty that Rome, the Roman Church, the Roman See are not mentioned in the visions of Daniel and have no part in his visions. We can know with certainty that the great whore riding the dragon and drunk on the blood of saints is not the Roman Church. The Pope is not the Antichrist although he is a lower-case <a> antichrist; for he does not today (nor in the past) teach Christians to walk in this world as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6); to imitate Paul as he imitated Jesus (1 Cor 11:1); to imitate the Churches of God in 1^st-Century Judea (1 Thess 2:14), these churches filled with Commandment keepers. He does, however, encourage Catholics to practice good works in this world. He does stand against the needless murder of the unborn, perhaps not realizing that in doing so he comes close to the testimony of Jesus.

Paul was not alone in believing that Jesus would return during the person’s lifetime. Paul was not alone in believing that the end of the age was at hand. What is it that Matthew’s Jesus tells His disciples to declare:

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. (Matt 10:5–10 emphasis added)

The kingdom of the heavens [plural] was at hand, but not in the way the declaration would seem to indicate: in Himself, Jesus represented the kingdom of the heavens. Jesus’ presence in this world represented the kingdom of the heavens’ presence in this world. And Jesus’ absence from this world represents the movement of the kingdom of the heavens from here on earth to heaven.

Jesus’ continued absence from here on earth represents the continued absence of the kingdom of the heavens from here on earth.

All authority in heaven and on earth has NOT yet been given to Christ Jesus (see Matt 28:18), and will not be given to Christ until dominion over the single kingdom of the world is taken from the Adversary and given to the Son of Man, Head and Body, halfway through seven endtime years of tribulation, these seven years divided into the Affliction and Kingdom and Endurance of Jesus (Rev 1:9), with the Affliction and Endurance forming mirror images of each other, with each being 1260 days long and with the Kingdom of this world being taken from the Adversary, the spiritual king of Babylon (see Isa 14:4), and given to the Son of Man on the doubled day 1260 that begins with the Adversary still having dominion of this world and concludes forty-eight hours later with Christ Jesus having dominion over this world and with the Adversary being cast into space-time and given the mind of a man as Nebuchadnezzar was given the mind of an ox for seven years … for the Adversary, his seven years will be the three and a half years of the Endurance plus the short while (another three and a half years) when he is released after the thousand years (Rev 20:7), with the Endurance and the short while forming enantiomorphs in a similar manner to how the Affliction and the Endurance are enantiomorphs.

Removal of the Adversary from his present position as prince of this world—prince of the power of the air—is a one time occurrence that is seen in Daniel’s vision and seen in John’s vision: cf. Daniel 7:9–14; Revelation 11:15–19. This one-time transference of authority to rule brings Daniel’s visions into alignment with John’s vision as a witness mark or timing marks align a rifle barrel to a receiver or cam and cam shaft gears.

The argument that will be made in this treatise is that the time, times, and half a time of Daniel 7:25 equates to the 1260-day-long ministry of the two witnesses, with this one twice-described forty-two month period being identified in John’s vision as the Affliction that will be followed by the Kingdom [the transference of the kingdom] and that followed by the Endurance of Jesus, another 1260 day long period that will see Christ Jesus as the prince of the power of the air and all of the world baptized in spirit so that the endtime gospel—all that endure to the end shall be saved (Matt 10:22; 24:13)—becomes an undeniable reality.

Rome, the Roman Empire, the Roman Church, the Roman See—none of these entities appear in Daniel’s visions, nor belong in Daniel’s visions that were sealed through seemingly being fulfilled by the earthly Babylonian Empire, the earthly empire of Media and Persia, the earthly Greek Empire that divided to become the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires, the gold, silver, bronze, and iron of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision. But Daniel’s visions were never about earthly kingdoms: they were about demonic kingdoms and demonic kings, with again the Adversary being the spiritual king of Babylon, the head of gold that ruled/rules men and beasts wherever they dwell, something that Nebuchadnezzar never did.

At no time did Nebuchadnezzar or Darius or Alexander rule the children of men in China, let alone in Chile; so what Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar when interpreting his vision simply wasn’t true:

This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand He has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all—you are the head of gold. (Dan 2:36–38)

But what Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar was/is true of the Adversary, the still reigning prince of the power of the air.

A Christian is not the fleshly body of a human person, but the resurrected-from-death inner self of the person, resurrected through receiving a second breath of life, the breath of God [pneuma Theou] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christou]. Israel is no longer the nation circumcised in the flesh, but is the new nation that is circumcised of heart by the soft breath of Christ. The Law no longer pertains to the outer self—to what hands and bodies do—but pertains to the inner self as expressed in the thoughts of the mind and the desires of the heart. Thus, it is only logical that biblical prophecies are about what affects the inner self, not what affects the outer self.

The four beasts/kings of Daniel’s vision in the first year of Belshazzar are also the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, with the third horseman being Sin and the fourth horseman being Death that are still together as the spiritual king of the South and of the North in Daniel’s long vision (Dan 11:5). The Second Passover liberation of Israel frees all Christians from indwelling sin and death, thereby separating Sin from Death. By being filled with spirit [pneuma], there will be no place inside of a Christian for sin; yet the Christian will remain mortal and remain subject to Death, but only from outside causes such as martyrdom.

But more of this in the ensuing chapters: the time of the end began with the second Passover in 2001, with my calling to reread prophecy coming in January 2002, exactly forty years after Garner Ted, on behalf of his father, rejected divine revelation.

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