REVELATION

CHART OUTLINE OF BOOK OF REVELATION

Chapter 1 of the book is the prologue, and not diagrammed on the following chart. Chapters 6 thru 19 detail the contest between Christ's race of Israel and Satan's race of Edomites. SEALS are forces which influence entire age of Pisces concurrently. TRUMPETS announce injustices which Edom perpetrates against Israel during the entire age of Pisces. BOWLS of wrath are the natural consequences of Jewish evils, upon themselves.

PATMOS VISION

7 Churches ARE AGES TO COME

BEGIN HEAVEN

VISION

SEALS

INFLUENCE

TRUMPETS

RESULT of

TRUMPS

FOR

ISRAEL

INFLUENCE

BOWLS

RESULT of

BOWLS

FOR

EDOM

KINGDOM

GOD

CHAP 2 & 3

CHAP 6 - 7

CHAP 8 - 11

12 - 14

CHAP 15 - 16

17 - 19

CH 20 - 22

2:1-7

EPHESUS

2040-3788ad

INTRO

GOD'S

THRONE

(1) 6:1-2

0 to 2000 ad

LEO

White Horse

Lion/Physical/

Earth

8:6-7

LION

TO EARTH

_ Israel killed

(Inquisitions,

Stalin, WWII)

12:1-6

WOMAN

w/12 stars =

Israel. Flee dragon.

12:7-18

Michael vs.

Dragon

13:1-10

1^st Beast

Rom. Cath.

war against

saints.

15:1-8

7 Angels prepare

16:1-2

Pour on Earth

(Edom ailments)

17:1-5 Great

Harlot (R.C.)

on scarlet

beast of Edom/ Jews

17:6-13

Mystery:

Babylon,

Mother of

Harlots &

Abominatns.

17:14-18

Edom makes war against

Lamb

20:1-6

Ephesus

Satan Bound

20:7-15

1^st Resurrect.

2:8-11

SMYRNA

3788-5538ad

(2) 6:3-4

0 to 2000 ad

TAURUS

Red Horse

Calf/Emotions/

Sea

8:8-9

CALF

TO SEA

_ destroyed

16:3

Pour onto Sea

Edom suffers

Smyrna

Satan cast in

fire.

Great white

Throne.

2:12-17

PERGAMOS

5538-7287ad

(3) 6:5-6

0 to 2000 ad

AQUAR.

Black Horse

Man/Spiritual/

Rivers

8:10-11

MAN

TO RIVERS

(Drugs)

16:4-7

Pour on Rivers

Torment Jews

21:1-27

Pergamos

New heaven,

earth, and Jerusalem

2:18-19

THYATIRA

7287-9037ad

(4) 6:7-8

0 to 2000 ad

SCORPIO

Pale Grn Horse

Eagle/Mental/

Sun

8:12-13

EAGLE

TO SUN

_ dark.

Church strife.

16:8-9

Pour onto Sun

Jew mental

ailments

22:1-21

Thyatira

Heaven Scene -

Crystal Riv.

Tree of Life.

3:1-6

SARDIS

9037-10,786

(5) 6:9-11

1848 - 2000 AD

Saints under altar, waiting.

9:1-12

1848-2000 AD

WOE 1

Abyss/Locusts

5mo = 150 yrs

13:11-18

1848-2000

2^nd Beast

Jews bring mark/beast

14:1-5

About 2000

Lamb/144k

14:6-13

3 Angels announce.

14:14-20

Harvest

Judgment

16:10-11

1848-2000 AD

Pour on throne of Beast = pain &

blasphemy

18:1-24

Babylon is

Fallen.

Earth mourns,

Heaven

rejoices.

19:1-10

ALLELUIA

Lamb

marriage

supper.

19:11-21

Christ come.

Beast and F.Prophet in

Lake of fire

Then comes another Fall and another cycle of history. See the sine-wave diagram.

3:7-13

PHILADEL.

until 12,536

(6) 6:12 - 7:17

About 2000 AD

Earthquake. Day of wrath.

9:13 - 11:14

About 2000 AD

WOE 2

Armageddon

16:12-16

About 2000 AD

Pour on River Euphrates

Dragon/Beast/

F.Prophet gather

for Armageddon

3:14-22

LAODICEA

until 14,285

(7) 8:1-5

Christ Reign Begins.

11:15-19

WOE 3

WORLD

DISASTER

Then Christ.

16:17-21

Pour onto Air

"It is done"

World crash

While this diagram depicts only the twelve zodiac ages, you can draw onto your printed copy the church ages which will be described following this picture. Each church age is about 1715 years or so, consequently they do not coincide with the zodiac ages which are about 2,000 years each. All these dates are APPROXIMATE. The general concept is what I am attempting to illustrate, so that each person can interpret the book of Revelation for himself.

THE BIG PICTURE

2008 note: It has been nearly ten years since I received the insights for the project of interpreting this revelation of God. Since John wrote it down, as he had received it, no person has solved its mysteries. Perhaps every theologian and preacher has made attempts to do so, but eventually abandoned the effort in frustration. For me, it was the fall of 1998 when Lisa and I were living in a tiny log cabin at Eagle, Alaska, a small bush village in the arctic on the Yukon River near the Canada border. For our home water supply, I hauled it in barrels from nearby American Creek on a small trailer behind my three-wheeler in summer and behind my snow machine in winter. We had no indoor plumbing, but we did have electricity from the town's diesel generator. The cabin was heated with a small fuel-oil pot burner, so we were cozy warm even when fifty or sixty degrees below zero outside. I had plenty of time to ponder the eternal verities since life was so simple and easy there. Lisa had her harp, so with that in my background, I felt like I was in heaven. The book of John's Revelation always felt like a warmth to me, but the symbology was beyond me; I never got caught up in any compulsion to interpret symbols which so many others had already done, and had done so differently from each other. As winter set in, I began to think about this mysterious book again; finally I prayed that if God would let me see what it meant that I would not share it with anyone else, at least until I became convinced such sharing was His will. Then the flow began; I wasn't hearing words, but merely felt guided. I started translating it from the Greek into English because the existing English versions all mistranslated certain Greek words consistently, thereby misleading readers. Beside the corrected translations, it was clear that several important keys were necessary to its interpretation. These keys were the secrets which would unlock the mystery and make the book a coherent and understandable revelation. But, some of the keys were so politically unacceptable that tradition-bound theologians, preachers, and Christians would likely reject them outright. Nevertheless, they were the very keys to unlock the book. For the next few months, I awoke early each morning, turned on the computer, and began to work. Lisa served me food occasionally, but I felt little interest in it. I worked until late each evening, finally going to bed where my mind continued to process wondrous insights. I felt all kinds of emotions: I was overwhelmed that God might grant me such breakthrough insights; I felt scared that my weak academic skills might cause me to miss the mark; I felt glorious as I watched the big picture develop in front of me; I trembled that my vanity or my theological education might prevent me from seeing aright. I was ecstatic, elated, and frightened; I was "beside myself." It seemed no time at all, and the work was done! Was I the only one in the world who knew the simplicity and the grandeur of God's divine plan? Was I not sitting on a treasure of more value than all this world's wealth? Me? The lifelong drifter who never made his mark in this life? Okay, sit back Roger, and let the dust settle while you ponder this more objectively. Were you just handed a real treasure or did you just make it up as you went along? Come on, get real here! Now, as I write these thoughts in 2008, I don't know if I'll ever understand just what happened there. As I reach for the notebook which holds this work, I still tremble because I feel that I am touching something far beyond me, something that I shouldn't touch without asking permission first. I feel so strongly that it shouldn't be limited to my possession alone; what if my house burns down? It needs to be in the hands of others, so it will be secure. It doesn't belong to me, and I don't want the responsibility anymore. For nearly ten years I have yearned for some sign from God which would permit me to release this book to others. I've pleaded, only to get silence in return. Now my world is crashing; the end is near; devastation looms threateningly on the near horizon; world leaders deliberately plan a worldwide destruction! God's signs in the sky tell us unmistakably that the kingdom of World is ending and the kingdom of Heaven is beginning. May I release it now, Father? So, this February of 2008 I sit down to review it carefully and to finetune it where necessary, in hopes that permission will be granted soon for me to publish it on my website of www.divinepageant.com . It doesn't belong to me; it belongs to those who would express the Father through their own lives, to those who were conceived with His Spirit indwelling, to those of His own family for which Jesus serves as the Head. And finally, I tell you that this commentary merely outlines the foundation of God's Revelation; there is so much more work to be done, of which this book just hints. I pray that others will consider some of these insights and take the ball which I carried so few steps of a long journey. I'm tired now, and I don't want to carry the ball anymore. I'm tired of this world, and yearn to leave it. I want to follow my Lord up that via dolorosa, to the altar of sacrifice where I can hand my Spirit back to Him from Whom it came. If you are reading this, then I will have published it, and I pray you consider it yours. The Holy Spirit will lead you from this point toward your own destiny. Walk confidently with His Presence.

1999 PostScript: It has been a few months since I completed this commentary on the book of Revelation. I set it aside for a few weeks, and then returned to it afresh to edit it to make it more readable and understandable. When I was working on it, everything seemed so simple! Now I am impressed at how difficult it will be for someone who doesn't already have the big picture in his mind.

This morning, while pondering this, it came to me that religions are built as compilations of many bits and pieces. Bits and pieces of doctrines are systematized by collecting together all passages which pertain to a specific topic, such as baptism, and then formulating a statement of belief which honors both the letter and the spirit of the passages. The resulting statement is a doctrine. The academic business of theology is of scholars who examine doctrines in greater detail, amplifying them. A collection of doctrines results in a religion, which then seeks to separate itself from all others to the degree that it can find nit-picking details to argue about. Preachers then pontificate from pulpits with great passion, just as though the details are foundations for salvation. What sits clearly in my mind at this moment is how shallow and unfulfilling religions are, by their very nature.

Seekers-of-truth who come to a Christian religion without any prior religious schooling, come with an innocence which must be like a perfume to God. The newly awakened seekers are not yet confused by countless details, but they are sincerely looking for answers to the same questions which have challenged philosophers forever. They want to know if there really is a God; what is the purpose of life; is there life after death; who am I; do I have a personal destiny that was designed by God; and so on. They want to know the big picture! From their naïveté they think that if they can just get some overall picture in their mind of what God's real plan might be, then they can fit the detail-pieces of the puzzle in place for their own walks toward God.

So, the Seeker looks to pulpit preachers who claim to have the only true answers while berating every other sect. The innocent and sincere child of God meets preachers who boldly tell him that unless he comes to that particular church and tithes there, he is in danger of going to hell. Not easily discouraged by such negative gospel, the naïve Seeker thinks that if he listens and learns, perhaps understanding will come to him and he will also attain such supreme confidence in having God's absolute truth. Then, because he is still naïve, the Seeker actually dares to THINK about spiritual matters, and begins to ask questions which trouble his mind, perhaps questions that came to him while reading the Bible and noticing passages which seem to be contradicting the preacher. The innocent Seeker wants to share his discoveries with his preacher, thinking he will be received with delight because he is genuinely searching and doing some real thinking. He is quite unprepared for preacher's indignation! Rather than finding a preacher who says, "yes, that seems to be a problem; let's study this and see what we can find," he meets preachers who threaten him with hell if he doesn't accept by faith whatever the preacher says, even if it does contradict scripture. Most preachers have so much experience in vomiting forth such an endless gush of babble that the Seeker leaves feeling like he has been assaulted. After a few experiences like that, the innocent Seeker-of-God is likely to turn away disappointed and angry. Religion has in this way betrayed our God and has done damage beyond measure. Preachers work so effectively against Christ that Satan need not concern himself with the Christian church. Rarely does a preacher dare to think for himself, trusting the Holy Spirit for insights; he merely preaches what he was taught. A genius critic, named John Jay Chapman (1862-1933) said, "Give a professor a false thesis in early life, and he will teach it till he dies. He has no way of correcting it." Theologians merely teach what they've been taught. It takes an independent thinker to see new visions. Institutional theology is stalled!

What is the crux of this problem? I think it is this; theologians do not have the big picture! They have doctorate degrees in details, but they don't know how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, nor do they know what that big picture might look like when finished. In the minds and hearts of God's innocent children, the Holy Spirit works a powerful urge to walk toward their Father by the process of seeking Truth. These newly awakened Seekers are filled with the Holy Spirit, and in their innocence they recognize errors to which theologians are inured. They are actually experiencing the New Covenant of Hebrews 8:10-12! Here is the Covenant which has applied to God's children since the time of Jesus, yet hardly a Christian has ever heard of it, and certainly not from a pulpit! Take a look at this New Covenant, and you will suddenly leap ahead of all those preachers who seem to be totally ignorant of it. It reads, ¹⁰"This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be to them God and they will be to me a people. ¹¹By no means shall they teach his fellow citizen and each one his brother saying 'know the Lord,' because all will know me, from the small to the great of them, ¹²because I will be merciful with their wrongdoings and of their sins, which I will by no means remember any longer." (literal translation from Greek text) I hear God saying in this contract which Jesus secured: "Preachers and teachers, stand aside; these are my children; I'll take over from here. I live in their hearts and minds now, and woe to any of you who burden us with sin which I no longer remember!" It is my personal opinion that no flower is as beautiful as a newly awakened Seeker, who hungers for God so desperately that he will forsake this whole world for the sake of his quest. When such a person comes to me with questions, I tremble, for I know the danger of trying to teach him anything. I explain that I have my opinions, but no absolute answers. I am convinced of many truths which I personally would die for, but I cannot guarantee that my truth, as I would explain it, is valid for him. That is not to say that I think Truth is relative, for it is not. But, each person is responsible for his own search, and I will not step between him and the Holy Spirit to take that responsibility upon myself. Especially after God has said so clearly there should be no more teachers!

I want to get back to the issue addressed at the beginning of this chapter; religious doctrines and details versus the big picture. It is this big picture which St. John presents in this Revelation. He presents it as clearly as he saw it, and even defines many of the symbols, but for two thousand years men have failed to put these symbol-pieces of the puzzle together to make the big picture.

Understanding this book of the Bible is kind of a catch-22 situation: unless you know some of the details you can't see the big-picture, and unless you see the big-picture you won't understand the details. I realize after I have finished this commentary that I wrote the book from my perspective of big-picture which I have in my mind, thinking that the details could be easily understood by anyone who reads this. Now, upon review, I see that it will not be quite so easy. I wish that I could outline the big-picture in a few sentences, but I cannot. Undertaking the study of the book of John's Revelations is a big task, but if you undertake it seriously and slowly and try to keep the whole developing picture in your mind, somewhere along the way the picture will appear to you and you will wonder at its simplicity.

INTRODUCTION

SUBJECT: "Revelation" is the English word for the Greek Απoκάλυψις/Apokalypsis (to uncover or unveil, to reveal), which is the very first word in the book. John introduces the writing as a revelation "of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him, to show His servants things which are necessary to occur in time soon as He signified by sending through his angel to His servant, John." The Son is revealing that which His Father gave Him, as a prophecy for the benefit of His "servants." It will be done in symbols, as the Greek word for "signified" indicates. Then, Jesus transmits the message through His messenger/angel, to this author, John.

AUTHOR: While some scholars debate which John might be the author, since he is not clearly defined, I will not debate that, but will assume this is the same John who was Jesus' disciple. Certainly this John and the author of the Gospel share the same belief that the Edomite Jews are children of the devil (John 8:44), the "synagogue (assembly, corporate body) of Satan." (Rev. 2:9 & 3:9), being the polar counterpart to the body of Christ. Ultimately, it doesn't matter which John is author, because the contents are the important matter. And once one sees the big picture through these two revelations, it is beyond dispute that his work was genuinely inspired by God. It is a coherent whole, whose message is absolutely awesome in meaning and in scope, far beyond what any other sacred writing has ever addressed. No student of this book will ever doubt the authenticity of its True Source!

OUTLINE OF REVELATION: The first three chapters describe a vision different from the vision which begins in chapter four. The first vision takes place ON the island of Patmos. The first six verses fulfill the common practice of introducing a writing. Verse 7 begins with "Behold, He comes," as John introduces Jesus as the One Who begins speaking in verse 8. In v. 11 John is instructed to write what he sees, and to send the message to the seven churches. John describes the striking appearance of Jesus, the source of the voice. Then John is instructed in v. 19 to write of things seen, and which are, and things to come, namely things past, present, and future. We will see that this is an important clue for interpreting the symbols.

Chapters 2 & 3 contain messages to the "seven churches," which according to this introduction are intended to serve as symbols. While the seven cities can be located on a map, being real cities, we must resist the temptation to interpret this revelation as a message to just those seven churches. Certainly, there were Christian groups which gathered for worship in those seven cities (one of them being John's hometown), but neither these groups nor cities were among the most prominent for the apostles work. It would be too strange to think that such a great and general revelation from Jesus Himself would be addressed to these few tiny groups while neglecting to mention any others! If the author was making this up, like a sermon, for the sake of a few groups in his local area, we could accept the seven churches as literal churches. But, if the revelator is Jesus, the head of the body of Christ, then we must accept the hint in the first verse that these are symbols, and the message will be to all His servants, meaningful in past-tense, present, and to the distant future, too.

Chapters 4 & 5 describe another vision, separate from the first one. Here John is called "aloft" to see the very throne of God.

Chapters 6 through 19 describe seven seals, with their corresponding seven trumpets and seven bowls. See the chart outline of the book to see how these events relate to each other.

Chapters 20 - 22 describe the events which transition us from Kingdom of "World" to Kingdom of "Heaven," with the binding of Satan and the first resurrection.

DATE OF WRITING: There are two chief theories of dating this book, one called "Neronic," which dates the book soon after Nero's death in 68 AD. Nero ruled from 54 to 68. The other theory dates the book during the reign of Domitian (81-96 AD). Most scholars have settled for the later dating, saying "about 90 AD." The reason scholars date the writing with Nero or Domitian is an attempt to match John's descriptions of persecution to a political reign of his time. If we accept the idea that Jesus is foretelling future events, then the political or historical events of the first century become secondary, and we must accept the writing for its prophetic and spiritual value without concern for whatever date it was written. Laodicea (3:17) is described as rich, but it was destroyed by earthquake in 61 AD, although quickly rebuilt. The church at Smyrna wasn't organized until 64 AD, so it must have been written after that, and after Laodicea had rebuilt. So, perhaps, any time after about 70 AD. But, again, these seven churches merely serve as models for a much greater prophetic message.

Interestingly, a couple of early writings, the Muratorian Fragment and the Monarchian Prologues, claim that Paul wrote to seven churches following the pattern of John's example in Revelation. This would date the Revelation prior to Paul's epistles of the early fifties. Of course, the Smyrna church didn't exist yet, but that would only be meaningful if we consider John to be the engineer of this writing; if Jesus is the engineer, then it could have been written long before Paul's epistles. Ultimately, we just don't know the date.

THEORIES OF INTERPRETATION: There are many theories. Until the present end-times period arrived, when God has finally permitted us the keys to the mystery of this book, all prior interpreters have been wildly speculating. They held in their hands a strangely shaped puzzle, all alone, by itself, and without seeing a picture on the box cover, they never could solve the puzzle.

Idealists see the revelations as being poetical or spiritual in nature, unrelated to actual historical events. This would permit any person's interpretation to be as valid as any other's, as long as there is no connection with reality.

Historicists interpret the revealed-events in a historical framework. This theory was promoted by Joachim of Floris (d. 1202), a monk who claimed to have a vision on Easter night which revealed God's plan for the ages. After his death, the Franciscans claimed themselves the true Christians of Joachim's vision, and interpreted Babylon not only as pagan Rome but also as papal Rome! Yes, the Franciscans did that! Identification of Babylon and Antichrist with the Roman Papacy was later also a conviction of Luther, Calvin, and ALL Protestant Reformers. It was this view, repugnant to the Roman Catholic Church, which prompted a very different interpretation in order to exempt the Papal office. Thus, the Futurist interpretation was contrived.

Futurists claim that all events, excepting the first three chapters of Rev. will happen during a three and a half year period at the end of the age. The Roman church objects to prophecies which call the papacy the anti-Christ. II Thessalonians 2 says the return of Christ cannot occur until AFTER the apostasy/rebellion comes and the "lawless one" is revealed. If that lawless one was the papacy, then all the historical events of Revelation could have happened over the past two thousand years. But, if that lawless one does not arrive until just prior to the end, then the papacy could not have been the anti-Christ and the events of Revelation have not yet begun to happen. A Jesuit priest, Francisco Ribera (1537-1591), attempted to solve this dilemma by a unique interpretation of Daniel Chapter 9. In the book of Daniel, Daniel was praying for the sins of Israel when Gabriel appeared to him, saying in 9:22 "Daniel, I am now come to teach you knowledge. ²³At the beginning of your prayer a word went forth, and I am come to tell you; for you are a man greatly beloved. Be instructed therefore by the decree, and understand by the vision. ²⁴Seventy weeks are set apart for your people and for the holy city; for sin to be ended and to seal up transgressions, to blot out iniquities, to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal the vision and the Prophet, and to anoint the Most Holy.

²⁵"Therefore, you are to know and understand, that from the going forth of the command for the answer for rebuilding Jerusalem until Christ the Prince are seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. They shall indeed return and a street and a wall shall be built, and these times will be completed, ²⁶and after the sixty-two weeks, the anointed One shall be cut off, though there is no crime in Him; and He with the ruler who is coming, will destroy the city and the sanctuary. They shall be cut off with a flood, and to the end of the war which is rapidly completed he shall appoint the city to desolations.²⁷And one week shall establish the covenant with many; and in the midst of the week my sacrifice and drink offering shall be taken away; and upon the temple shall be an abomination of desolations; and at the end of a time, an end shall be put to the desolation."

Ribera proposed that the 69 weeks ended with the baptism of Jesus; the 70th week to be postponed until the end of the age when the anti-Christ would appear and rule, destroy the temple in Jerusalem, abolish the Christian religion, and conquer the world.

Certainly the Bible is sometimes confusing with its symbolism and metaphors, but never does God put upon us any such nonsense as making the seventieth week some distant future time which would not be the "seventieth" at all! That is as irrational as if I borrowed some money, promising to pay it back in 30 days, without telling my creditor that there will be a 20 year interval between the 29th and 30th day. But, the Roman Church desperately needed a straw to grasp, and this solution would have to serve. In the early 1800's this Jesuit thesis of Ribera was picked up by a Protestant, J.N. Darby, eventually getting into the Scofield Bible where it still serves to support a rapture fantasy.

"Rapture" is a belief among people who claim to be members of Christ's body, that they will be lifted off the earth for a time-out while Jesus, the Head of their body, defeats Satan without any help from His members. These so-called Christians appear to be simple escapists who fear dying for their Lord. Lacking any scriptural support, the rapture doctrine has a strong appeal among those who want peace rather than the war to which Christ calls us. "Don't think that I came to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword." (Matthew 10:34). Modern preachers don't point to that verse! Men like David ("one after God's own heart") and the early Martyrs are rare in our modern effeminate era.

Paradigms and Patterns

By using the hints given in the first chapter of past, present, and future, we will find that we are looking at paradigms which apply to all three periods. This method of interpretation recognizes the micro as a model or pattern for the macro, and past historical events as prophecies of future historical events. There is real order to God's design, and the study of one important Biblical event will help us to recognize later events of the same pattern. For instance, the 400 year Egypt sojourn, followed by liberation, a 40 yr. wilderness period, then the promised land — was a paradigm of 400 years in America, then liberation somewhere about 2000 AD or so, a subsequent wilderness period, and then the promised Kingdom of God age begins.

John's visions are described in symbols. Such symbols serve as descriptions of patterns which apply to different times and places.

NOTE: In the following translation and commentary, I have chosen to use the Greek names of Old Testament persons according to the Greek Septuagint of 285 BC rather than the 1,000 AD masoretic "Hebrew" translation which is commonly used for English Bibles. The Greek Septuagint was the Old Testament Bible used by Jesus, His disciples, along with everyone else at the time of Jesus and during the first century. Even the Jewish historians Philo of Alexandria and Josephus and Aristeas the Exegete, used the Greek Septuagint, for the simple reason that no "Hebrew" Old Testament existed yet. Consequently, I prefer the names of our beloved Patriarchs as they were known prior to Christ and during the first few centuries of the Christian church. Many of the Patriarch's names later had the letter "h" added to them by Jewish Masoretes, making them Aramaic in character rather than Greek. Noah should be "Noe." Abraham is properly "Abraam." Isaiah is properly "Esaias," and so forth. Wherever I think a name might not be easily recognized, I will provide the so-called "Hebrew" name in parentheses.

SACRIFICE

Sacrifice is the primary lesson of the Old Testament, and also the primary lesson of Jesus. That makes it the central theme of the Bible, and certainly should make it the central issue for Christians! Essentially, one must sacrifice his worldly life and values by dying to them, in order to transition to the kingdom of God.

Have you ever pondered the idea of "sacrifice"? What does it really mean? Why would God want anything sacrificed? Why should quality animals or food be burned up? Isn't that a strange thing? If we examine the subject of sacrifice, will we find anything really meaningful? There certainly is not much literature available about the subject, so perhaps others who studied it finally contented themselves to let it be an unsolved mystery.

Anyone who thinks about it sympathetically would probably come up with the idea that God wants us to give up the firstfruits of our work to Him in grateful thanks for the rain and sunshine that made the crops grow, for the blessing of healthy increase of the herd, or for some other blessing. Of course, it is proper appreciation toward God that we offer to Him the first and best part of that which we have. That is a simple understanding of sacrifice, and can easily apply to us as we tithe the top ten percent of our income.

Such giving is one thing, but what about that sacrificial killing of living things, which was practiced by our Hebrew ancestors. They killed sheep, cows, goats, and birds for the sacrificial altar. They drained blood from the animals and handled it specially. That seems to be more than a mere offering of thanks for His providence. One of the sacrifices was an atonement for sin. The people believed that death was the penalty for sin. Of course, if every person who sinned got killed, then every single descendant from Adam would have been killed, and our genetic line would have ended thousands of years ago. So, animals were killed as substitutes for men who sinned. Everyone understood that animals served as a symbol.

But the question still hangs: why is a death necessary? Philosophically, we might reason that this indicates something about God, that He demands perfection. If His child fails to be perfect or violates God's rules, then he has missed the mark and must die. The Greek word for sin is αμαρτια (hamartia) and was used throughout ancient history to mean "missing the mark," like an archer missing the bullseye of a target. So, the general definition of sin is simply that of falling short of perfection.

Where does the Bible first mention such sacrificial offering? We can understand the fact that a death penalty resulted from breaking that Old Covenant between God and man, from Sinai. After the ten commandments were made explicit, and the contract was signed by all Israel in unanimous acclamation, then it became clear that Israel must pay any breach-of-contract with its own death. For fourteen centuries between Moses and Jesus, animals were then substituted for individuals or groups of Israelites. But, it is actually true that sacrificial offerings were made long before Moses and the Sinai contract.

The first Biblical record of a sacrifice is that of Cain and Abel, where Cain offered agricultural produce and Abel offered the best from his animals. Isn't it interesting that such a religious ritual was being done from the very beginning of God's spiritual race? Obviously, they knew something about their relationship with God and performed actual rituals as part of that relationship. Unfortunately, we know extremely little about the religious beliefs and practices of our ancestors for that four thousand year period between Adam and Moses. I'm assuming Adam's birth at 5508 BC according to the Septuagint record, and Moses' exodus about 1456 BC. Because we know so little about religious practices prior to Moses, we tend to not ponder the subject. We are content to turn our attention to something more knowable, like the O.T. Law given by Moses. It is easy to make a religion from laws. But, let's put this into perspective. The Old Covenant of Moses was a contract for only about fifteen hundred years, until it was completed by Jesus, and replaced by a New Covenant which is not a contract of laws. So, if the contractual law of Moses existed for only that fifteen hundred year period, what was the basis of religious practice during the previous four thousand years? Right now, in 2000 AD, we are about 7500 years from Adam, so contract law has only applied during 1500 of those years, or twenty percent of our history. For four fifths of our Adamic history, we have not been held to any law contract with God. What did our ancient ancestors really know about God, and how did they relate to Him in their daily lives? This question is intensely interesting to me, with frustratingly few answers.

I think about those ancient times, and study the records available. One factor which seems relevant is the earth's magnetic-field strength, which has dropped to near-zero strength at our present day, according to scientific measurements. The peak of the magnetic-field strength was six thousand years ago, about the time of Noe's flood, when men lived many centuries. I speculate that with a decrease in that magnetic energy, not only physical health deteriorated but also mental capabilities and spiritual awareness. Several thousand years ago, we, as God's genetic lineage from Adam, knew God's will as the REAL essence of our lives. We knew His Spirit as that which empowered our minds. We memorized the historical record of our family and could recite it perfectly, word for word. Our communities were comprised ONLY of Adamic members who could meet the requirement of reciting their lineage back to our Grandfather, Adam. We had a spiritual relationship with our Father in ways unimaginable today, for we have become ever more ignorant with the weakening magnetic-field. As we became more spiritually ignorant, the devil's children became more dominant over us. Their instincts led them to create an earthly kingdom with physical materials and technological wonders. The modern society of wondrous inventions is the ultimate achievement by the devil of his kingdom of World. It is in conflict with any spiritual presence of God, and seduces men to devote themselves to it in idolatrous worship.

Now, for the past 150 years, God's children have suffered an increasing oppression. Our spiritual awareness is less than ever before, and the material enticements greater than ever before. Our Christian religions have become little more than social-gospel. The most gaudy, ostentatious, entertaining, and flourishing churches are today preaching methods of attaining "prosperity," just as though that was God's will for us, brazenly contradicting Jesus' example and teachings. Compared to this modern world of technological wonders, God's spiritual kingdom is a desert. Egypt and the Sinai are known to be symbols of world and spiritual-life respectively. God calls us out of World to the desert, just as He called our ancestors from Egypt to the Sinai. Jesus made this lesson clear with advice that we must die to this world, really reject it, along with that Matthew 6 passage about not worrying about food, drink, and shelter. And then there is His wonderful call: "foxes have holes, birds have nests; I have no place to lay my head, follow Me." (paraphrased) Obviously, we have lost our way, and our spiritual strength is so weak that rare few ever rise above this world to know a spiritual relationship with the Father, and with the Head of our body, Jesus.

I began this chapter with the question of sacrifice, what it might be, and it's possible meaning for us. Now, I'm going to state my ideas about this subject as forthrightly as I can. Sacrifice is the very essential purpose of God's anointed Son (His offspring, a genetic line of members of whom Jesus is the Head). We live in the kingdom of World, which is not our home. We are spirit-beings whose home is a spiritual kingdom, not this material/physical kingdom. We once lived in that spiritual kingdom, in Oneness with our Father, but we left it thousands of years ago, because we were attracted to the sensual experiences available in a kingdom of material limitations. It is the limitation of ignorance (darkness) that makes sensual thrills possible. The "apple" of the Fall was the forbidden-fruit of sex, an act contrary to God's will, that we found exciting, then and now. It was also that temptation to become gods by the intellectual activity of knowing good from evil. Rather than continue as Spirit-beings who were part of the Almighty God, we chose to become little gods of a limited World. So, we left our spiritual home for the sake of physical-sense gratifications, emotional pleasures, and finite powers. Now, in order to return to our Father, we must recognize the low-level of our estate and reject it. We must REALLY reject it, in ways that are meaningful rather than just shallow-ritual. We must DIE to this world! We must offer up to the flames whatever is most valuable, the most perfect of our herd or flock, the most precious of our treasures of gold, gems, and money. We express our contempt toward World treasures by offering them up to flames or by giving them away as worthless. Jesus said one must hate this world in order to be His disciple. While prosperity-cults want to make this pig-pen into their heaven, the truly spiritual person wants to reject this entire world in order to go back home. This is the lesson which Jesus demonstrated and clearly stated. Jesus is the Head of the body of Christ which is comprised of 144,000 Elect plus all the descendants of Israel who "overcome" the world. Jesus' letters to the seven churches encourage "overcomers" with promises of heavenly rewards.

So, I believe that Adam's son, Abel, understood why he was offering the prized animals of his flock, that he was expressing contempt for such worldly possessions, that he was a prodigal turning from the pig-pen toward the long walk back home. Abel's offering expressed the idea of division, dividing his value of God's spiritual kingdom from the despised kingdom of world; he loved the spiritual and hated the world. His values were being proven by offering-up his most prized worldly treasures to the flames. Cain, as a child of the devil, probably made his offering as an attempt to appease God and win His favor, but did not feel genuine contempt for his earthly possessions. He did not see the difference between spiritual and worldly values. The Greek Septuagint reads differently from the Edomite's Masoretic Hebrew text in Genesis 4:6,7 where God says to Cain, "Why are you sorrowful and why is your countenance fallen? Have you not sinned if you brought it rightly, but did not divide it rightly? Be still, to you shall be his submission, and you shall rule over him." Cain brought the offering properly, but failed to make the division in his values. [Sidenote: here we also see the first promise of dominion given to Satan's racial offspring, the Cain race which was later renewed with Esau, to whom Abraam also renewed the promise of dominion over God's children. Esau's progeny became the Edomites who took over Judea, Jerusalem, the Temple, and the racial term of "Jews."]

That is what "sacrifice" is all about! It is offering up to the flames our worldly values and possessions, an offering which serves also as a prophecy of the end-time disaster. Six-thousand years ago, the world of Adam's family was destroyed by water, and soon it will be destroyed by fire. Fire from natural gas, petroleum fuels, burning plastics, wood, and volcanic eruptions will consume most everything of our present world, the final sacrifice necessary before we can have the spiritual kingdom of heaven. God's Elect should be willing and eager to present this sacrifice to our Father, laying our homes and belongings and all worldly treasures on the altar for destruction. Even more than that, we should present ourselves to God's altar for sacrifice, for we are members of the Christ, God's anointed Son, who must DIE to this world before we can live again in God's "heaven." Jesus demonstrated the way, and told us that we would experience the same things as we follow Him. "These things shall happen to you." If we want heaven, we must reject world, even consigning it to the flames of destruction. That includes earthly possessions which we hold dear and every earthly goal which we might desire for ourselves or our children, and our own lives, too. All must go! Just as the Israelites left their homes behind to cross the Red Sea, being liberated from Egypt (World) into the DESERT of Sinai (the spiritual kingdom), so must we welcome the coming conflagration and rejoice to watch our world go up in flames in our final sacrifice.

SYMBOLOGY IN REVELATION

7 LAMPS OF FIRE = the seven Spirits at God's throne = God's Holy Spirit

BABYLON =The materialistic society ideal of the Edomite race, Papacy, Communists.

BEAST = Edomite/Jewish dominion over money, commerce, culture.

CALF =Emotional Mind

DIADEMS = rulers, lords, princes, individuals of great authority

DRAGON = China.

DRAGON or SERPENT = Satan, acting through Edom

EAGLE = Mental or Rational Mind

EARTHQUAKE = either a political upheaval, or a geophysical seismic event

FALSE PROPHET = Islam and Mormons

FINE LINEN = righteous deeds of the saints (Rev. 19:8)

GREAT HARLOT = Roman Catholic Church. (Rev. 17)

HEADS = various faces thru which Satan acts (Edomites as Judeans, Roman Catholic, Hapsburgs, Rothschilds, U.N.)

HORNS = kingships, positions of authority (cf. Daniel 8:21)

JERUSALEM = the "City" of God, being the corpus of His own people

LAMPSTAND = church. namely the seven churches. Rev. 1:20

LION = Physical Mind

LIVING BEINGS = The Four Minds

MAN = Spiritual Mind

OVERCOMER = One who overcomes the beast, its image & the number of its name. Rev. 15:2

STAR = force or supernatural influence, often the function of an angel. Rev. 1:20

TEMPLE = the body of Christ in whom God lives

WATER or SEA = multitudes of people (sometimes the emotional mind dark races)

WHEELS = living power, with Ezekiel the cycles of Time

WIND = Spirit

WINGS = like "arms," the extension of one's performance, modes or qualities

KEYS TO THE MYSTERY OF THE BOOK

The book of Revelation has always been a riddle, which has not been solved since St. John wrote it. After you know the solution, it will be clear why it hasn't been solved. God has hidden information for the end-times, which, if understood during past centuries, might have thwarted His great plan. Prophecy serves the purpose of hiding information from nearly everyone, while setting information forth publicly in symbols where it is available to those who have spiritual minds. This permits God to reveal information to individuals at His pleasure, while keeping it hidden from all others. When Jesus' friends asked why He spoke in riddles, He answered that He could not speak clearly to the masses "lest they understand . . ." I would preface this work by telling you that I made a deal with God, that if He would reveal His truths to me I would refrain from telling it publicly, perhaps even telling no one. The contents which follow are perhaps meant for no one else, perhaps for one of a thousand or two of ten thousand. I share this work with some hesitation, and if I share this copy with you, I ask that you protect it with equal concern, lest you arouse God's displeasure unwittingly.

The Revelation of John is a difficult work because there are several keys needed to unlock its mysteries. Until these end-times some keys were not available. I want to present the Keys here.

KEY 1: The diagram of history is plotted along a SINE-WAVE CURVE. This curve is an electronics diagram of cycles, showing frequency, which is the time span of the cycle, and amplitude: the amount of energy above & below the zero line.

The frequency of one cycle of history is about 25,000 years. Scientists don't know the exact length of one Precession-of-Equinoxes, but calculate it to be between 24,000 and 26,000 years. The amplitude of the cycle is the strength of the earth's magnetic field. It's strength has decreased to nearly zero right now, and sometime after it reaches zero there will be a reversal of the earth's magnetic-field polarity which will trigger end-time cataclysmic disasters of earthquakes, volcanoes, land subsidence, tidal waves, and electro-magnetic "nature" reversal, followed by plagues. This results in a sort of "dimensional" shift, whereby "matter" no longer appears quite so solid to the Elect. I am assuming the magnetic field reversal will happen somewhere about year 2,000 (2012?) or so, to begin a "wilderness" period (like the Moses' Exodus model). I'm confident of the theme of this grand pageant, but not of the exact dates for end-time events. I'm speculating about them.

See the diagram of "God's Divine Paradigm" as history is plotted on a sine-wave curve, in which half the cycle is negative and half positive. The negative period of history, now ending, was manifested as a kingdom of "World." The intelligence (design/purpose/mind) which rules that negative period is called the "devil." During this half cycle of negative energy, we experience a physical/material world in which decay and death define the parameters of what we call "life." During the positive half cycle, Christ reigns over the Kingdom of God, and the nature of "Life" is quite different. Until one understands these cyclic patterns, much of the Bible is a mystery, and the secrets of John's Revelation are completely hidden.

KEY 2: John's Revelation describes SEVEN PROGRAMS, five of which run simultaneously. Some theologians have recognized similarities in Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls, but didn't know what to do with that insight because they didn't understand the cyclic patterns of history. See the Chart: CHART OUTLINE OF BOOK OF REVELATION on page one, for the layout of seven periods of history and the seven paradigms of the book.

Column "1" lists the seven churches, each represented by its star, which is an angel (force) that represents a TIME period. These seven periods define the future kingdom of Heaven, from the time of Christ's Second Coming, for the next 12,000 or so years until rulership changes from Christ to the Devil again.

Columns "2" through "6" outline the Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls, as they define the time from Christ's birth until the end of the age of Pisces when the great "earthquake" disaster of Matthew 24 brings this age to close. The first four Seals, Trumps, and Bowls represent influences that are active THROUGHOUT the entire age of Pisces. The fifth of each pertains to the 150 year period between 1862 and 2012. The sixth & seventh pertain to "End-Time" events, which mostly occur within one year's time, perhaps around 2,000A.D. or so.

Column "7" indicates events for the future, during the first half of Christ's reign, from the time of His Second Coming until we reach the apex of spiritual perfection, in the age of Thyatira.

KEY 3: The seven lampstands represent the seven churches of chapters 2 & 3, and the seven Stars in Jesus' right hand are the angels of those seven churches. The Star/angels represent PERIODS OF TIME during future Ages. Certainly, one cannot dismiss the fact that God is speaking useful messages to the seven existing churches of Asia and to churches in general, and that is good material for sermons, but it is a radically different notion to consider these messages as descriptions of periods of time. Stars are angels, or forces, of God. There are many types of forces, some which scientists haven't yet identified. Time is a force which scientists struggle to understand better, and it becomes more elusive as it is studied. It is now known to particle physicists and quantum-mechanic physics that time is relative to the perceiver, and that it goes backwards as well as forwards. Time is not an absolute, but is a projection from the mind of God, within which we live and experience life. It is through "time" and through His Elect that God functions and experiences life. Time and the Elect are ultimately the same thing, as John tries to describe in this vision.

It is not enough to say that God expresses Himself "through" time; there is something far greater to this subject, and I hardly know how to say it. But, here it is: John considers time to be God. The first verse of Revelation speaks of "time," and three verses later God is identified as "the one who (that which) is and who was and who is to come." God IS the past, the present, and the future. In this commentary on Revelation, we will diagram patterns of history as cyclic patterns, or models which are repeated cycle after cycle according to a definite plan. What is being revealed to us is the identity of the path of time, which is God. The seven "stars" in Jesus' right hand are symbols of separate pieces of God: time periods!

Now, I want to propose a new idea for you. As God lives through His Elect, these Elect express and reveal God. We are all symbols of characteristics of God. Seven stars are symbols of "time periods." The 144,000 Elect are symbols of time periods (of God's expression) made up of the twelve sons of Jacob. The highest level of "time" symbol is that of twelve Zodiac signs which underlie the entire Bible. Each of the Zodiac periods, of 2,100± years, directly corresponds to a "Tribe" period, each of which can then be sub-divided into twelve shorter cycles of 170± years, and each short-cycle period can be divided into twelve shorter segments of ca. 14 years, and these can all be diagrammed on sine-wave curves, whereupon the historical patterns become obvious. We are getting a look at God, but understanding what we see is yet another matter. The number "12" represents the historical course of the 12 tribes of Israelites, while the number "7" represents their spiritual course. The Time-line half-cycle can be divided by 12 and by 7 to define the physical and spiritual paradigms of the process, which comprise God's expression of Himself.

Without understanding the long term cyclic patterns of history, one might never guess that the Stars of the churches are symbols of time periods. One precedent for this interpretation is found in the Old Testament where Joseph interpreted cows and corn-stalks (of the Pharao's dream) as time periods.

John's visions, in this book of Revelation, are far more complex than most other visions, permitting interpretation of symbols on several different levels. We can easily see some literal value in the messages to these seven churches, relative to their own specific situations. As allegory, we can apply those messages to all churches in general. As symbols for time-periods, those churches represent periods of time in the future Kingdom of God during the coming ages of Christ's reign, during the half cycle from ca. 2019 AD until ca. 14,000 AD. The model of seven time-periods is also applicable to seven specific divisions of the Kingdom of World, of the past 12,000 years. So, the seven are a model, a paradigm, describing the natural process of civilization's ascent and descent.

Daniel 4 contains a wonderful illustration of the seven "heaven" ages versus the seven "world" ages. Nabuchodonosar had a dream, which Daniel interpreted, of a lush, bountiful tree that provided for all the creatures of the earth. That tree represents the seven kingdom of "heaven" ages during the reign of Christ. The tree is cut down, and for seven ages only the stump exists, with iron and brass bands (symbols of tools and material reality). The stump represents the kingdom of World for seven divisions of time, during which man's heart is changed to that of a beast. Then Nabuchodonosar fulfilled that dream in the role of an animal which feeds on grass, for seven years which symbolized the seven times or ages. The purpose for this lesson is that man must experience the beastly kingdom of world UNTIL he realizes that the Most High God rules over all men and that He can give the kingdom to whomever He will. There is a powerful message here for those who deny Jesus' words that He came only for His Israel and for none others. Now, at this end-time, many are awakening to the Truth, that the Potter creates different pots (races) for different destinies according to His own will, and not the will of the liberal political agenda.

KEY 4: Biblical EVENTS ARE SYMBOLS. A literal interpretation of an event may be historically accurate, but that event can also serve as a symbol of future events on one or more levels. Sometimes Jesus would say, "Is it not written, . . .?" and then quote a passage which originally pertained to a historical event, applying it anew as though it had been a prophecy.

Rather than limit our understanding of the Bible to a simple Sunday-School level, we must begin to understand that ALL events are parts of patterns, which manifest at different frequencies.

The Passover is a good example of this. When the angel of death passed over the children of Israel in Egypt, that event served as a prophecy of future events. "And keep this as an ordinance for yourself and for your children until ages (eως αiwvoς)" (Ex. 12:24). It would serve as a model for coming "ages." The Israelites of Palestine saw the Passover repeated again at Christ's death, when Christ's blood served as a symbol for salvation from death for the lost sheep of Israel. And very soon will be another Passover, when Israelites are protected from world-destruction of end-times.

We might consider ALL Biblical events to be prophecies, models, or paradigms. Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-50 AD), an Israelite historian of the Levi Tribe, considered ALL Scripture to be allegory, as he attempted to interpret it in his writings. Professor Harry Wolfson, Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1979) points out that such non-literal interpretation was also used by St. Paul, in a "kind of interpretation which we have described as predictive. Then also, in addition to his use of the term 'allegory', Paul uses, like Philo, the terms 'type' and 'shadow'. It is on the basis of his use of the term 'type' that students of Christianity refer to Paul's predictive kind of interpretation as typological allegory..."

Another Biblical event that serves as a relevant prophecy is the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As He, the "head" of the "body of Christ" suffered and died, so must all the body of Christ experience the same. From the time of Jesus, until the end of this "world," the body of Christ suffers a similar passion and death. Jesus warned His disciples that they would experience the same. Now, at this end-time, we are seeing the persecution and destruction of Israel (European white-race) by the same race of Edomites/Jews that killed Jesus. We are going to slaughter like speechless lambs, just as He did. I think such events are not always total and complete just because scripture says they will happen. Besides using metaphor, it was common to all ancient writers to "generalize," and to exaggerate, expecting listeners to understand it that way. So, ALL Israelites will not be killed in this end-time "crucifixion." Many individuals will be covered by God's wings just as promised in Psalm 91.

KEY 5: A critical key is knowing the RACIAL THEME. One does not even know for whom Jesus gave this revelation until one understands the subjective nature of the contest between good and evil as it plays out racially. The Bible is the story of God's expression of GOOD through a specific genetic lineage (race/tribe). The physical world has long existed, perhaps even for billions of years. Animals, creatures, and dark skin races have long lived here, most of which are already extinct. But, the very first creation was Christ, the Word, the Light, and the Truth. The Christ is a special race of Men, made in His image (having creative minds), who would serve as influences to lead the world through its cycles. This race from Adam would express God-the-Good, and lead the world upward from depravity toward holiness. An illegitimate counterpart race, from Cain, expresses Satan-the-evil as it leads the world downward from holiness toward wickedness. The ideal model Son of God who expresses God-the-Good is Jesus, the Head of the body of Christ. The evil one who expresses the negative energy opposite of good, is Satan, illegitimate father of Cain through Eve.

Each of these: Christ the positive, and Satan the negative, exercise lordship over a line of descendants. Israelites are the body of Christ. The descendants of Edom (Jacob's brother, Esau) are the children of the devil, just as Christ stated in John 8, where He defined the nature of the negative ones. The Edomite race calls itself "Jews" in our world today.

Briefly, it happened like this. Somewhere about 1850 BC, Edom left home to marry women of Satan's Cain race, and then settled in the area south of the Dead Sea, to be called Edom. About 312 BC, the Nabateans ran the Edomites off from that land, so they migrated into Judea. By 132 BC the Edomites were causing so much problem for Jerusalem (the Israelite-Aramean mongrel mix of Babylon returnees), that John Hyrcanus forced the Edomites to convert to his Babylonian Talmudic Phariseeism (Judaism) religion, which they did enthusiastically. Within a short time, the Edomites had taken over Jerusalem, the temple, and the religion, and their own Herod was appointed governor of Judea. The Edomites pushed the Israelites off into outlying towns of poverty like Bethany and Bethlehem. By the time of Jesus, the local government and the temple was run by Edomites who became known as "Jews, the English word for "Judeans" or "Judahites." Jesus arrived and called His Israelites away from Jerusalem, leaving the Edomites with everything. Edomites revolted against Rome in 66-70 AD and again in 132 AD, so that they, as "Jews," were evicted from Palestine, some migrating to Spain to become known as Sephardim; many went to southern-Italy, where Rome already had, for a century or so, a large community of about 50,000 Jews; others went to eastern Russia where they became known as Khazars. In the 8th C. AD, King Bulan of the Khazars, made his people "Jews" again, and these are the very same who migrated into European countries during the middle ages, being evicted time and time again because of their exploitive practices, their cheating and lying, and usurious money-changing. The Jewish scholar, Arthur Koestler, in his book, The Thirteenth Tribe (Omni Publ., 1976) claims that more than ninety percent of so-called "Jews" living today descend from the Khazars; the balance of Jews being from the Spain branch of Sephardim; most Italian Edomites are Roman Catholics. You might find it interesting that the so-called "Italian Mafia" has a lot of Jewish names, such as Mickey Cohen, Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, et al.

It is God's great plan that the performance of His Word is a play of two opposing energies who act against each other, cycle after cycle, oscillating between rulerships under Satan and under Christ. Like any word spoken into an oscilloscope, the sine-wave diagram represents the energies which make up that word. We, as individuals, play roles in the enunciation of God's Word, with the ultimate purpose of expressing God through our lives. We players are the activities of God being expressed as His word/script. The script is His, but we've been given free will to deviate from it as we wish, even to reject Him as Lord, and to be culled from the family. It is a serious performance for each of us! It is our task to learn how to overcome our base natures and to yield to His direction.

Keep in mind that the Positive represents God and GOOD (Christ), while the negative represents the absence of those qualities. The Negative is ruled by Satan, being merely an absence of good; we players can choose either good or evil, of our own free wills at any time. It is not Satan's fault if we choose to serve him with our lives in order to satisfy our lustful desires; it is our own fault. The consequences of choosing earthly satisfactions puts us in bondage to that which we have chosen to serve. That we choose evil, and persist in bondage, is called sin. If we did not do sin we would not experience this misery we mistakenly call life.

The book of Revelation tells the story of the struggle between these two divine races. Refer to the sine-wave curve, and get it clear in your mind how the rulerships alternate between Satan and Christ. As we interpret the book, you will see how this contest plays out.

Yes, I said two divine races; that's no typo error. Satan was a heavenly angel, one of God's forces, who rebelled to become the negative force. The children of that anti-godly-being also have some divine powers, mimicking the image of God. Since they express the Negative, they do not have natural instincts to do Good. Their instincts are natural compulsions to lie (see John 8:44), to cheat, to exploit, to manipulate, to steal, to grasp earthly wealth and power by any means possible, to pervert all Godly values and morals and ethics, and to destroy the descendants of Jacob. Very simply, Esau still hates Jacob, and seeks to kill him in order to reclaim the birthright. Since his natural instincts are the opposite of all goodness, we find Esau promoting the black slave trade of past centuries, promoting wars whenever possible, promoting an entertainment industry that trashes Christian morality and values, promoting a banking industry that milks Israelite workers mercilessly, promoting a money-changer business that destroys victims through usurious and unethical credit practices, along with deliberate promotion of race-mixing. Few Jews ever serve as warriors, and in their individual business practices, they rarely retail fixed-price items; rather, they specialize in merchandising where they can deal unscrupulously.

The Jews have admitted the above in their own writings, in more blunt terms than I have just used. They know exactly who they are and what they are doing, and they believe they are so superior to the stupid white race that we are nothing but cattle (goyim) for them to exploit. They don't need to be taught how to cheat and lie; those are their natural instincts, just like the Israelite white European race has natural instincts of love, compassion, generosity, kindness, and benevolence. We don't need to be taught these things; they are natural to us. Because we do not understand the shrewd, conniving minds of the Cain race, we are at a disadvantage; we are innocent and easy to cheat. We are sheep and they are wolves in our midst; most of us choose to be blind to this. They can think of ten ways to cheat us before we can think of one way to defend ourselves; that is their instinctive talent as children of Satan.

Having said all the above, I must state that I hold no anger toward them. They are part of God's great play, and they are fulfilling their roles on this stage just as God planned. They serve God's program unwittingly by testing His children. They offer us countless enticements of this World. Those of us who grasp for those sensual gratifications and pleasures have abandoned our Godly purpose and our own Spirits, so we guilty ones get culled from God's family. Those of us who resist evil and hate this World, and who follow our Lord, Jesus, get strengthened for a destiny in the coming Kingdom. Regarding Jews, we should not be ignorant of them, nor sacrifice ourselves stupidly to them. They have their rightful period of dominion, and we Israelites cannot expect to defeat them until their time is completed. Then, all their injustice will bring the wrath of God down on their heads, and our patience and innocence will gain us the inheritance of the vineyard God has prepared for us. We might also consider this point: that Chaleb, the spy who gave a good report along with Joshua, was an Edomite, [of the line of Kenaz (Kennizite) who represented the tribe of Juda (the King tribe doesn't do menial tasks except thru representatives, like God being represented by Christ; history shows that Edomites have always been around our kings, princes, politicians, & presidents) see Joshua 14: 6, 13; Numbers 13:16] who was given a special portion of the Promised Land because he had done well. Even today, there are Edomites who proclaim Christ (I'm not referring to the Edomite televangelists who do Satan's work), and we should honor such men like brothers, and know that God will provide a place for them also in the coming kingdom of Heaven. The Edomite race will always exist alongside the true Israelite race because God's pageant is a contest between the two, who represent good versus evil.

The book of Revelation speaks directly to these racial issues.

However, other races, creatures, animals, and birds of the world are not the subject or object of this Revelation, nor of the Bible, nor of the struggle between good and evil, nor do they have afterlife. They are like flowers of the field, designed to glorify the Creator; they are also symbols of God, but do not have divine spirits which live forever. They are part of the Great Play in the same way that pawns are part of a chess game. What we must remember is that pawns have value; we care for them and we use them, but we do not value them equal to royal pieces, nor do we sacrifice royal pieces for their sake. Creatures of all species have abilities, qualities, and value, both to themselves and to the world if they do well. They can live happy and fulfilled lives if they live according to God's laws. Finally, when the devil, as tenant manager of the vineyard is cast out, and God's heirs take over the management, then the other races can come to their God-designed fulfillment and live to God's glory. Then, they too will be heard singing praises to their Creator and God.

KEY 6: As I worked with the previous keys and diagrammed the Book of Revelation, and put the pieces of the puzzle together, it became clear that the book is a coherent whole, a diagram of events which are manifested as EMANATIONS from the THRONE OF GOD.

To understand that the Throne is the underlying theme and structure of this Revelation is extremely important. It is at the Throne that all the pieces come together to complete the picture, and reveal to us not just some prophecies, but reveal the very God of All-That-Is, and to explain how He expresses Himself by manifesting His substance and His nature into all His creation. Here we learn the steps of God's breakdown into "creation."

God, at the very source, the Supreme "I AM" is pure, uncreated, clear. Mystics call this clearness "the Void," for nothing is visible or definable there, nor can any statement be made about it without somehow limiting it. All hyperbole falls short, and no thing appears there. So, it is called "the Void."

Well, from this clear pureness, there appears an offspring, a "son," first appearing as Light, then as a spectrum of colors, a Rainbow, separating elements of Light into something we can behold. Light is composed of separate colors;

The Son, Christ, is the EXPRESSION of the Father, being expressed as a BODY comprised of several different parts. One can hardly understand this Revelation without knowing the Genesis Creation account: Six days defined the Design by the Father; the Seventh day was Rest; and then Adam (the Man-of-God race) was created; it was that "Man" who brought God's Design into perceptible manifestation by naming (Wording) it into being. From the clear pureness of the Void comes the EXPRESSION of the Father: His Offspring, in a broad sense called Christ because there is no manifestation at all without a perceiver, and in a narrow sense called Christ because it is only individuals who perceive. So, it is the entire Design of God which is His Offspring EXPRESSION, while it is the individual Man race who perceives the Design as a reality. God's EXPRESSION of Himself (in Design phase), His Offspring, begins as the Light (visual perception). The stepdown process, as we will see illustrated at the Throne of God, continues next as seven Spirit forces of God, which are Wisdom, Fear, Understanding, Godliness, Knowledge, Power, and Will. These are the mental characteristics which empower all creation, and which Satan's children seek to pervert. These seven forces empower the four Living Beings which represent the four natures or Minds of God's EXPRESSION: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, and Mental. Each of the four natures is then expressed in six different parts, described by John as wings. Each of the 24 wings is then manifested as a modality (an Elder), an instinctive attribute, which helps define God's creatures.

Then, the 24 Elders, are further manifested as 144,000 Elect individuals of the Adamic Race. These 144,000 Elect then have many offspring Israelites to number as the "sand of the seashore."

This special Race of Adam/Abram/Israel Offspring, results from the expression of emanations which began at the Source, the Father. During the Kingdom of God periods, we Offspring participate in a pageant that is spiritual in nature. But during the Kingdom of World periods, we are born into a dark (delusion/deception/lie of material and physical limitations) world in order to struggle our way back to the light of Truth, to which Jesus calls us. Our Light is called "Truth." Light is in contest against darkness; the purpose of Truth is to expose the lie. The real darkness and Light of the Genesis creation story symbolize deception and Truth. So-called REAL things of our material world are mirror-image (reversed) symbols of aspects of God. Light is a symbol for Truth. The words "Let there be Light" means "Let Christ the Truth be born into the darkness. The Creation story of Genesis is symbolic rather than literal. We Offspring are representatives of Truth.

The great lie is that deception which comes to us from Christ's counterpart, the Devil. The Devil expresses himself, and his kingdom of darkness, through lies. He deceives us with shallow evidence that his material world is real, and that our highest purpose is to serve it and sustain it with our creative powers, while it feeds insatiably on our products. We become the goose which lays the golden eggs, and it is a deep instinctive compulsion of the Devil's race of offspring to kill the goose. We children of Light are, of our own fault, captured by the World, and then we cling to it as though it was our true parent. We enslave ourselves to serve the creature rather than the Creator, and we forget our true Source. We own and defend the lie, instead.

Further, this is a cyclic pattern, wherein the Light reigns for half a cycle, and darkness for the other half. The result is that our REALITY is a dance between two opposing forces, between good and evil, between Christ and Devil, between positive and negative, and these two dancing partners take turns leading.

If you want to understand the throne of the Devil, look about you at this world, for you live in it and serve it and worship it by merely believing it is real.

If you want to understand the throne of God, look into the book of Revelation, for it will provide you a guide for your path back home, as you climb toward the Light again.

KEY 7: Perhaps the most important key to understanding this vision is that you approach the study unhurriedly. Proceed ever so SLOWLY, meditating on it verse by verse. The mystery of its message has been unsolved for nearly two thousand years, even though countless men have devoted their lives to it. Surely you can afford a few weeks to learning its secrets. Take your time, have your Bible open, perhaps with some study aids at hand, and then focus on understanding one or two verses at a time, reading the comments, and pondering how that fits into the whole picture. The outline chart will help greatly. Study the charts which I've prepared; get familiar with the outline of this book. In the quietness of your study, you have all the time in the world to dwell on these things, look up references, and think about them. This revelation can become yours if you pause to open yourself to the insights which the Holy Spirit can work in you. If you try to scan this material, you will miss the spiritual understanding that comes subtly and quietly through meditation. What you are about to confront in the following commentary are ideas which no one has expressed before. To my knowledge, no one except St. John has seen the great big picture of God's divine plan, and until one knows that plan, many strange pieces of the puzzle just don't make sense. Knowing the long term divine plan makes it possible to place the pieces. John's vision will make sense ONLY to a mind that is spiritually discerning. God will blind all others to it, and it is not possible for me to explain it clearly enough for everyone, nor should anyone do so. The Holy Spirit reveals the hidden to those who are born from above and who seek diligently.

It is not easy to read another's work and put yourself into his mental-state and see the picture through his eyes. Evidently, no one has ever been able to see what John saw by reading his description of it; consequently no one has understood him. Symbols are open to many interpretations, and the book of Revelation has probably seen more variant interpretations than any other literature in history. I tell you in advance that if you want to understand this book, you cannot do it by scanning. You must take the time and the interest to get involved with it, using this commentary as a mere aid to help you. If you were writing this commentary, you would use different words than I use. You understand things differently than I do. So, you must make the book of Revelation your own project; read the text; ponder it for yourself; refer to my words merely as helps while you work out in sketches and notes your own picture of the puzzle. Then, you will reach the heart of this matter, and your understanding will be YOUR possession rather than something you got from me. This project is not a small one, and you must resign yourself to patience and determination in order to make John's Revelation your own.

How you achieve your own success is up to you, but I can tell you this: you will be ecstatically happy that you did so, and your life will be different in your future. You will have a connection with God that few have ever had. The cost of this will be your very life. Yes, you will lose the earthly life you've known, and will live differently forevermore. "The kingdom of heaven is within you." Be skeptical, but quiet so God's Spirit can speak to your inner being. He whispers to your soul, so you must be quiet, patient, determined, and persevering.

The dance continues, and we live at a time in history when the half-brothers change "lead." The Devil has reigned over his world for over 12,000 years, and now his rule is ending. The Christ is about to take lead in the dance, to bring forth a kingdom of Light (Truth), dispel the darkness (the lie), and defeat the children of Satan who reign over us in the Devil's world of delusion. Christ's children: we 144,000 Elect, 24 elders, 4 Living Beings, and seven Spirit powers, as the very BODY of the Anointed Son of Light, will inherit the Vineyard, and create a kingdom of happiness in the Light, to replace the kingdom of darkness/misery.

It is our task to live our lives toward this end; we have no other value or purpose or destiny. To the extent that we do this, we glorify our Father, and express His Light. To the extent that we fail to do this, we aid the enemy, and may even be culled from the family.

The Bible is the story of this special race of Men, as God selects a specific strain out of each generation to serve His purpose, and culls the rest. The Bible has no interest in any people other than His chosen ones. The other races are mere props on the stage which we anointed ones can use as we wish. That we should find ourselves in the elite group of such special chosen ones is a great honor and lays upon us a responsibility to step forth like David to perform our individual roles in God's great play. Roger Hathaway, 11/98

NOTE REGARDING DATES: I have diagrammed the great plan of history for a one cycle period; being one precession-of-equinoxes, for which an accurate length is not known. Some calculate it to be more than 25,000 years, and some less. I have arbitrarily chosen 24,000 years, being twelve ages equal to the Pisces period from Jesus' birth in 5BC until 2019BC. However, I think Zodiac ages probably vary in length, and perhaps the accurate age length should be 25,000 years if the Pyramid's Sacred Cubit of exactly 25 inches is a valid clue. Let the reader keep in mind that these DATES ARE NOT ABSOLUTE!

CHAPTER 1

JOHN'S FIRST VISION IS ON PATMOS

CHAPTERS 1-3 are John's vision on the island of Patmos, wherein he describes the lampstands, the Son of Man, and the seven Stars. The lampstands symbolize the seven churches and the Stars symbolize the angels of those churches. This vision is distinct from the later vision in chapters 4 and 5 which is his vision of God's Throne.

1:1 A revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to show his servants things which are necessary to occur with quickness, and he signified it, having sent it through his angel to his servant, John,

1:2 who witnessed the Word of God and whatever he saw of the witness of Jesus Christ.

1:3 Blessed is the one reading and the ones hearing the words of the prophecy and keeping the things in it which have been written, for the time is near.

The revelation was first given to Jesus Christ, by the Father. Jesus then sent the information through an angel to John. The revelation is an expression from God's mind, through a sort of transformer/angel which made it visible to John. Already in the first verse, we see a model of the creation process which this revelation will spell out in detail. The Revelation, or Word, came first from the Father, through the Christ, through a messenger force, to one of the Elect, and thence to the rest of Israel. How was the revelation given? The word here is "signified," (σήμαvεv: 3rd pers. sg. aor. act. indic. from σημαίvω) which means "to show by a sign, give a sign." A sign is a symbol of something, NOT the thing itself. John was not seeing the real, but was seeing symbols. One cannot interpret his visions literally; they are information given through symbols. John was shown some signs, which, like any signs, signify something by symbols. Alphabet letters, numerals, and street signs are all symbols which merely signify something.

Symbols are extremely important to every one of us us. Written material is made up of symbols. The word, "tree," is not a tree, but merely a symbol which represents a tree. Ultimately, we will someday understand that ALL things which we see with our eyes, in everyday life, are symbols of higher truths. The fact is: our daily perceptions are very similar to this revelation; full of visions which signify to us information that represents higher truth. Most people believe that they are seeing something real, so, they seldom get insights into that which is symbolized by things they see.

The author of Hebrews addresses this very concept:

Hebrews 11:1 " Now, belief is the substance of things being hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ²For by this the elders obtained witness. ³By belief we understand the ages to have been put in order by a word of God, so the things we see are not made out of things which appear."

This verse supports the thesis that reality only exists in the perception of him who believes it to be real. In other words, there is NO objective material reality, NO such thing as matter; there is only a subjective perception in one's mind. So, nothing really exists; one just thinks that something exists; one's belief is the very substance of the matter which he sees! There is NOTHING but belief/faith; this is a mind-game of God, in which we are players.

Heb. 11:3 confirms the concept. What you see is not made from any material which appears real. Two things exist: perceiver and perception. The perceiver is mind: the Mental action of believing that something exists (= faith/belief). Perception is merely the appearance (witness) of the belief, a figment of one's imagination, a SYMBOL OF THAT WHICH THE PERCEIVER BELIEVES. "Perceiver" is Schopenhauer's "Will," and "perception" is his "idea" or "representation." This esoteric notion, just described, is not new stuff; great philosophers, like Schopenhauer and Kant have addressed it. When one understands this, it is like the opening of a curtain on a window to God.

Note the phrase in Heb. 11:3, "the ages to have been put in order by a word of God, so the things we see are not made out of things which appear." Here is an esoteric concept: time is related to form. These words are saying that BECAUSE the ages have been put in order as a Word, the reality which appears is not material substance. I cannot help but wonder if any reader can comprehend this by merely having it stated here in words. In some unexplainable way, I see (?) this in my mind as though time and form are not different, but are merely the mental constructs which I utilize to perceive, which means to dream the dream. Such concepts are almost impossible to grasp from another person's explanation, but must develop in one's own mind as his own insight. Perhaps after reading my words, one can digest the idea in his subconscious, whereupon the insight might come like an unexpected light, and he won't remember what initiated it in the first place. That is the way it is supposed to work; then each person really owns his own insight for himself. The Holy Spirit works in us by such a method. We must merely yearn for this process of God!

Rev. 1:2 uses the word "witness." This word is an important spiritual concept. It means expression. God expresses Himself by extending or emanating Himself through His Son. His Son, thereby, is the expression or "witness" of the Father. He who sees the Son sees the Father. He who knows the Son knows the Father. The Greek word for "witness" is μαρτuρ-- (martyr). Visualize the act of your own witnessing as an act of performing-God's-expression perfectly. Then, we can get a more meaningful concept of what "sin" means. The Greek word for "sin" is aμαρτ--(hamart -ia or -ano): the prefix "a" indicates privation or negative. So, the word, aμαρτ- /"sin" really means not being a perfect witness of God. The Greeks used the word to mean missing the mark. So, sin is a very general term which means failing to be a perfect witness or expression of God, falling short of one's goal to be perfect. Sin, then, is a general thing, of which we all are undeniably guilty.

On this subject of sin, I feel compelled to point this out, that the old contract of law, which is no longer our contractual obligation, is not God's criteria by which he judges our sins. Since the contract is no longer in force as a condemning power, then we do not incur its penalty by our sins. In the New Covenant of Hebrews 8, God says He remembers our sins no longer. Sin, is now nothing more than a general failure to express God perfectly through our lives, and God does not hold any penalty over our heads for this failure. The Old Covenant served its purpose; we learned how seriously God deals with His children, His witnesses. God's Law is not absent or gone or changed, but the penalty for violating it is gone. Now, as we will see in this Revelation, we move on to new chapters as we climb the long ladder toward perfection and our source.

Rev. 1:3 is a blessing upon those who contemplate and own this revelation. This blessing is a spiritual gift with spiritual qualities. It is for those who go into their inner selves and imagine these visions somewhat as we might dream a dream, for that is the way John describes these strange symbols. We must let these symbols become sort of a dreamy, fluid reality, pondering dreamily what they might mean. It is through that sort of contemplation that the Holy Spirit can work within us to permit us the insights into the truth of the message.

Keep in mind that these first three chapters describe a vision of earthly churches, while chapters 4 & 5 will describe a vision of the Throne of God "above." They are two different visions.

These three levels by which we might interpret symbolic models (events) are described also as Past, Present, & Future: as that which was, that which is, and that which is to come. In verse 4 of this first chapter, John is indicating these three facets of God's life (God is time, with Whom a perceiver participates, by believing in it, relative to any moment) with the introduction of God as "the One who Is and who Was and who is To Come." And beyond hinting at three levels of interpretation, this description of God presents Him as TIME itself, which manifests as ACTIVITY. God is not a passive mind, but an ACTIVE, DYNAMIC PROCESS, expressing Himself AS Time at different levels of understanding. The radical evidence from Quantum physics alludes to the nature of God as something different from the limited, finite, material kingdom of classical physics.

The description of Christ in verse 5 is wonderful: "Jesus Christ, the witness/expression, the belief, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth." I've already described how Christ is the witness or expression of the Father. The word "belief" indicates that the Christ exists because the Father believes Him/Us into existence. Then, that same creative power was granted to us who make up the Offspring body of Christ, so that we then believe this dimension of reality into existence. The phrase "firstborn of the dead" is puzzling at first, for we understand Christ to have existed from the very beginning, even before the World. How can He have been dead? But, we might think of Jesus' resurrection after He had been killed. In that sense Jesus was the first member of the body of Christ to be reborn, to be followed by all the rest of us over the following 2,000 years before the very end. In Rev. 6:9-11 we see an intentional program by God of having all members of Christ killed at some time during Pisces before the end comes. It reads: "I saw underneath the altar the souls of those slain because of the word of God and because of the witness which they had. ¹⁰And they cried with a loud voice, saying: 'Until when, O master, holy and true, do you judge and avenge our blood of the ones dwelling on earth?' ¹¹And to each one of them was given a white robe, and it was said to them that they should rest a little time, until it should be fulfilled that their fellow-slaves and their brothers be killed as they were." I, personally, think that the Spirits of those who were martyred are not off in the ethers, but live as individuals time and again, present on the earth-stage, but are prevented from influencing the course of the pageant. It is as though one can live and watch the events unfold, but he cannot rewrite the script of the play or influence the course of events. As he watches, he feels anguish and outrage at the injustice being done against his fellow Christians, but he can do nothing to alter it. The important thing he can contribute to God's plan is to pray intensely for justice and mercy, thereby adding his fervent spiritual energy to the sound of trumpets which shall bring down the walls of Babylon.

These seven churches are presented to us by John by describing their works: both their good achievements and their weaknesses. The messages were not sent individually to each church, but all the messages were sent to all the churches. So, it is clear that all churches are intended to benefit from all the different messages.

The greetings in verse 4 are from God and the seven Spirits before His throne. Who are the "seven Spirits?" In 4:5 we see they are 7 LAMPS OF FIRE burning before the throne. In 5:6 the 7 Spirits are defined as 7 eyes of the Lamb. In Isaiah 11:2 this same Lamb, the "root of Jesse," has 7 Spirits: "and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom, and understanding, the spirit of will and power, the spirit of knowledge and godliness shall fill him; the spirit of the fear of God." These seven Spirits are the Spirit-of-God being expressed as a dynamic mind-play in which we participate! Perhaps Isaiah is revealing to us the seven facets of that power of God which we call the Holy Spirit.

Let's not get those "lamps of fire" of chapter 4, confused with the "lampstands" which John sees (in 1:12) right after this greeting, when he turns around to look. In 1:4 we have actual greetings from the Father and from the seven Spirits (lamps of fire) at the Throne. But the "lampstands" are something different which are not AT the Throne, but are seen on earth at Patmos, as representing seven churches. Those churches make up Christ's body, and also define the seven ages of the Kingdom of Heaven, as will be discussed later.

1:6 While most translations say "made us kings and priests," the Greek word here is "kingdom" (βασιλείαv - acc. singular. from βασιλεία). Christ makes us, as members of His body, His KINGDOM while He is our King. We are a kingdom of Man, not of land. It is through performance of seven functions that the Holy Spirit of God works through us to empower our beliefs and to promote our spiritual growth and understanding. The lost-sheep of Israel, the only ones for whom Christ came and the only ones who needed redemption from a failed covenant, function as the instruments through which He will perfect our beliefs, thereby perfecting that which we perceive. Through us, evil will be overcome, and His design of Genesis 1 restored to perfection. All this is to be accomplished through OUR BELIEFS. As we grow in wisdom and understanding, will and strength, knowledge and Godliness, and fear-of-God, then we are growing in belief. So, by believing differently, we create differently, and thereby we can perfect our/His creation, effectively blossoming into the Kingdom of Heaven.

1:7 Behold, He comes with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him will wail over Him: all the races of the earth. Yes. Amen.

1:8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

It is Christ who "comes with the clouds," but what does that mean? We know that Christ is manifested through the members of His body/church/elect/lost-sheep/Christians. Rather than interpreting this verse literally, imagining that Jesus is going to appear in the clouds of the sky as a person, we might consider the symbolism that these "clouds" may consist of the members of His body who come to fulfillment as "heirs of the vineyard." In this way, Christ returns to govern the Kingdom of God through His "body," for the purpose of transforming this earth into the kingdom of God. But we are also told that "this same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11) We can only ponder how a single person might be seen by every eye at the same time at His return.

John says that, "every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him will wail over Him: all the races..." Well, it is certainly true that during the past centuries all the world has been introduced to the Christ of the Bible. Most of the world has yet to wail over Him, but they will. It is here promised. The word for "races" here is φυλαί (phylai is nom. pl. of φυλή = race, tribe). Phylai is a word used in general for "races," and even in these incidental cases, emphasizes God's interest in race. Christ makes it clear that He came only for one specific racial group, and none others. From the beginning of the Bible to the very end, it is one racial family that God created for a special purpose, never making a contract with any other racial group.

In verse 8 we have another of those passages in which Christ is equated with the Father, as being the same One. Often in this book of St. John, we see the Father described as Him "who was, and is, and is to come." Now, we here have this Father identified with "Alpha and Omega," a name for Christ. Truly, this stretches one's spiritual understanding. In John 17, Jesus prays that we may become One with Him just like He is One with the Father. Oh, how far we have yet to go in our understanding of our own identities, and how we relate to, or share oneness with, Christ AND the Father, "the Almighty"!

1:9 I, John, your brother and co-sharer in the affliction and kingdom and endurance in Jesus, came to be in the island called Patmos because of the Word of God and witness of Jesus.

1:10 I came to be in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great sound like a trumpet,

1:11 saying: What you see write in a book and send to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

In v.9 John is a co-sharer in the "kingdom," a direct reference to his statement in verse 6. We Israelite Christians are a kingdom!

Patmos is a small island off the southwest coast of Asia Minor, now called Turkey. The seven churches are all in the western portion of Asia Minor; if John were to go to the mainland, Ephesus would be to the northeast, the first city of the seven that he would reach. Ephesus was John's home before and after his exile on Patmos, where he had stayed for only a year or two.

To be "in spirit on the Lord's day" must be that state of contemplation in which one yields to an unknown God, not able to prove whether or if He exists in any reality. This is a mystical experience, in which nothing is asked and prayer is not verbal and one is not waiting for anything, but is merely yielding his life and soul and mind to the care of the God who created it, not caring if one is going to be lifted to heaven in the next moment, or cast to hell, or ignored, or loved. One just yields, asking nothing. Often, one gets what seems to be nothing but a moment of quietness, but afterwards he might realize that his prayer was not pure, that he had brought some baggage to the prayer, and that baggage got in the way. It is only in the purest prayer, in the yielding, that one realizes the Spirit, and that realization is usually quite subtle. In John's case, it wasn't subtle, but burst forth into his quietness like a trumpet. In this kind of experience, one doesn't need a paper and pencil at hand; everything will be so vividly clear afterward that it can be transcribed word for word! John had a conscious contact with the Divine that, when we read of it, holds us spellbound, awestruck, and envious.

The "Lord's day" was a Sunday. It was immediately after Jesus' ascension that the disciples abandoned Saturday as their Sabbath and adopted His Resurrection day as their Lord's Day.

1:12 And I turned to see the voice which spoke with me; and having turned I saw seven golden lampstands,

1:13 and in the midst of the lampstands, one like a Son of Man, clothed to the feet and girt around the chest with a golden sash,

1:14 his head and hairs were white like white-wool, like snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire,

1:15 and his feet like burnished-bronze, as having been made to glow in a furnace, and his voice as a sound of many waters,

1:16 and having in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword, and his face like the sun shining in its power.

1:12 The seven lampstands are defined in v. 20 as the seven churches, to whom John is to relate these messages. As he turns to look, there they are!

In the midst of the lampstands/churches/ages, stands the very one who is their head, their Lord, their King, actually who is the very substance of the churches/ages themselves, the Christ. We should never try to paint a picture of this Lord, for that would violate the commandment against making graven images, but we might try to envision what John is describing. What we envision is of course, SYMBOLISM of the Lord who presents Himself to a man of limited earthly senses.

The "stars" of verse 16 are defined in v. 20 as the angels of the seven churches. Each church/age/lampstand has a special angel, which is a kind of force; in other words, each time-period/age is under the influence of a different force. We will look at these churches in two different manners. First, we will look at the lampstands as churches, considering lessons for us as members of Christ's body. Secondly, we will look at the Stars as they represent future ages for Christ's body. Each Star symbolizes a period-of-time during the coming Kingdom of God, in which Christ reigns through His body, His church, His elect members. Refer, please, to the Sine-Wave layout of history; you will see that the coming kingdom of Heaven is divided into seven church-ages, paralleling six of the zodiac ages. Each of these future church-ages will be experienced/performed according to different influences as described in chapters 2 & 3 of this book. We are His living Church, and here we will see a sort of preview of our performances during the coming ages, namely during the 12,000 year Kingdom of Heaven which follows the overthrow of Satan at somewhere around the year 2000AD or perhaps 2012AD or 2019AD.

1:17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead; and He placed His right hand on me saying: "Fear not, I am the First and the Last

1:18 and the Living One, and I became dead, but behold I am living unto the ages of the ages, and I have the keys of death and of hades.

1:19 Write, therefore, the things which you saw, and the things which are, and the things which are about to occur after these things.

1:20 The mystery of the seven stars which you saw on my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are angels/forces of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are seven churches.

TO HIM WHO OVERCOMES

God gives His revelation to Jesus, who then sends it to John, sometimes using a messenger/angel. Jesus stands in the midst of the lampstands (churches/ages), and holds in His hand the seven stars (angels/forces) of the seven churches. Each star (angel) represents not just an awesome power but also a time period, the pattern or model of which we might discern through the descriptions of each of the churches.

The Christian Church (body of Christ) on earth has many different faces, appearing as separate institutions. But, it is not to institutions or denominations that God here speaks, rather it is to individuals. This is an important point, and should be kept in mind. God is speaking to INDIVIDUALS in the churches. At the end of each church message are the words: "To him who overcomes." Only individuals can "overcome" the trials of this worldly life.

Throughout the long period of recorded history, God has nurtured and protected and guided one special family: that from Adam, down through Noe, Sem, Abraam, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, and the descendants called "Israelites." The Bible is the story of this one genetic strain of descendants, with no apparent concern for any others. After Sem was chosen, his brothers aren't spoken of again. Those descending from Ham and Japhet went somewhere and developed into large numbers, but the Bible doesn't mention them again. Why? Aren't they also sons of Adam? Don't they also have spiritual natures with a divine spark, like the chosen strain? Are they doomed or damned just because God did not select them? Of all the millions and millions of Adamic-race peoples on earth, has God damned all except 144,000? It is our very human and natural instinct that we want to live forever in heaven. We also feel compassion for other world races, wanting the same for them! But, we are childishly immature, looking at God's plan solely from the viewpoint of pots, wanting all pots to be of equal value and concern to the Potter. Really, if we all exist in the mind of God, then we have no actual permanence of our own. As ones which He brought into existence, our purpose is to fulfill the destiny for which the Potter created us, as individuals. Whether some never exist, or exist only temporarily, or have their existence terminated — this is not our concern. Those who do not exist are not suffering. Those who cease to exist are not suffering. It is only those who exist right now, and who deny their purpose and their creator who are suffering. If we feel compelled to interfere in someone else's life, our only proper function is to urge them to practice righteousness in order to please their creator. Each pot is designed for a specific purpose, and should find fulfillment and happiness in serving that function. Anything else is "missing the mark," αμαρτια--(hamartia) = sin. To dedicate one's life to saving other races is a waste of one's life because one is failing to fulfill the purpose for which he was created. Evangelism is NOT the high calling of every sincere Christian. The good-news was delivered to the lost-sheep of Israel by the apostles, to all the regions where the diasporan Israelites had gone, namely Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Spain, Britain, and Europe. Henceforth, it is our Godly function to serve our Father by living the lives which He designed us to live as perfectly as we can. As for all the other people of the world, including our own Adamic brothers, the New Covenant advises that they belong to their Almighty Potter, and that He will work His will in their hearts and minds, and He doesn't need any of us as teachers. There is a real message here for a Christianity which thinks its primary function is to evangelize the world. They ought to give some thought to what other purposes God designs "pots!"

All we can really know about this is that the Bible is NOT the story of all those other millions. But, we also are not given any reason to think that all those descendants from God's holy family are LOST just because they aren't followed in the Bible story. We need to be objective, and just accept that we only have a story of one genetic line. A reasonable assumption might be that God has a special purpose for this one strain, but that doesn't mean all others should despair. We know that God does describe a special purpose for Israel. To prepare for that task requires some tough training. It is a difficult path, a program of disciplines and punishments. We are being prepared/trained for a special function in the coming Kingdom of God, and the training is very demanding, without much leniency. God doesn't hesitate to cull individuals who fall short of His demands. We might compare this training program to that of an elite military program for "special operations," a program for which thousands apply, many undergo training, but at the end only a select few actually get used. "Many are called, but few are chosen."

Each church message ends with "To him who overcomes, I will give..." To the individual who achieves the skill of walking the razor's edge goes the victory and the reward. What an awesome and fearful program we are looking at! Who can walk this difficult path? Can anyone? "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling!" The task of OVERCOMING takes great intensive effort; the reward is not simply handed out to everyone who tries to live a good life, as the church teaches. Rather, Overcomers are few!

Most people feel despair at such thoughts, knowing they have fallen short. The truth is that we have all fallen short, just as God points out to the seven churches. St. Paul saw himself as the chief of sinners. But, to each church He gives encouragement and warning to change direction, to repent, and to continue the struggle. The important point is not that we have fallen short, but that some will rise up again and again in spite of agony, and with aching limbs, claw the upward path. It is these individuals whom God rewards. Their lives, like that of Job, are more difficult than lives of other people; they get very little respite from their struggle, while friends and neighbors don't understand why they persist when their lives could be so much easier if they would just follow the crowd.

These are the "special ones" I've written about so often. A solitaire is one who knows he walks alone, and after years of frustration, finally gives up the yearning to find another who shares his path. I believe God keeps His solitaires alone so that each can move forward step by step fully of his own accord and without guidance or encouragement from any other. Bleeding and bruised by the world, he persists to claw his way upward. Content at last to go to his own cross alone, he releases his life to his unknowable God, hoping for another chance to do it all over again so he can do better next time. What no longer troubles him is the question whether his struggle was worth it. He and his path became one, and he knows no other value comparable to it. Rather than just resigning himself to his path, he clutches it with such fierce focus that he leaves nothing of his old identity. He becomes the path. Worldly tribulations become stepping-stones, and in this way the devil provides the challenges without which his crown could not be won.

So, what happens to all the other people of God's Israelite race? To those who fall by the side of the path weeping and giving up the solitary quest, who content themselves with being part of the social group? In the Great Pyramid these masses are represented as those who take the level path to the Queen's chamber. While a few solitaires make the spiritual leap upward, in order to climb the upward path through the grand-gallery to the King's chamber, most settle for the level, easier path. They are content to be part of a large mass; they still worship the same God, and go to church, and do the best they can; they look to God's commandments for guidance, and find some happiness in the so-called "good life." The pyramid doesn't make clear that they are damned or lost. And the Bible doesn't follow them, for it is not their story.

Regarding the masses of people, for whom misguided Evangelicals want to sacrifice their own lives, we might consider a couple interesting references. The first is from the Nag Hammadi collection of Scriptures, buried by Gnostic Christians in the very early Christian movement, from The Book of Thomas the Contender, which purports to be, "secret words that the savior spoke to Judas Thomas which I, Mathaias, wrote down." Thomas says to Jesus: "What have we to say in the face of these things: What shall we say to blind men: What doctrine should we express to these miserable mortals who say, 'We came to do good and not to curse,' and yet claim, 'Had we not been begotten in the flesh, we would not have known iniquity'?

The Savior said, 'Truly, as for those, do not esteem them as men, but regard them as beasts, for just as beasts devour one another, so also men of this sort devour one another. On the contrary, they are deprived of the kingdom since they love the sweetness of the fire and are servants of death and rush to the works of corruption." Take notice that Jesus is speaking about those who lived good lives, doing the best they could. Christian churches of full of such people.

The second reference regarding this topic is in that delightful book of II Esdras, Chapter 7. Ezra laments the captivity of Israel, arguing on behalf of all who are cast aside by God; he defends their failings. He genuinely grieves over all the people of Israel. The angel, Uriel, grants Ezra many visions, in which many of God's mysteries are addressed, in answer to Ezra's questions. In verse 7:60; God says, "...I will rejoice over the few who shall be saved, because it is they who have made my glory to prevail now, and through them my name has now been honored. And I will not grieve over the great number of those who perish, for they are the ones who are now like a mist, and are similar to a flame and smoke— they are set on fire and burn hotly, and are extinguished." (O.T. Pseudepigrapha; Charlesworth, Vol 1; p. 539)

Also see Rev. 22:11, "Let the one acting unjustly continue to act unjustly, and the filthy one be still filthy, and let the righteous one do righteousness still, and let the holy one be holy still." It should be of interest that by 90AD when John wrote his Revelations, the Great Commission of taking the Good News to God's diasporan children had been fulfilled.

It appears that while all the descendants of Adam are "born from above," not all will share in the coming kingdom of God. The Elect are the solitaires whom God favors as He then asks the rest to do his will, and just forgets those who don't. The Cain/Edom descendants are also a kind of divine children, but their destiny is to perish at the end of the age, though not all will perish; this will be discussed in detail later. The other primitive races of the world are not eligible for an after-life because they do not have the indwelling Spirit of God. They will continue to breed children, and their successive offspring will be present in the new kingdom of Heaven, just as other animals (theria) will be present. The primitive races are like the flowers of the field, and that's just the way it is. There is nothing to get emotional about as we survey the pots the potter has made, and note the differences. We are all His creation, but we each have different purposes and different destinies. Amen.

1:18 Jesus has the "keys of death and Hades." The Bible gives no definition for "Hades," but it is my theory that Hades is the opposite of Heaven, being the half-cycle of history on the lower side of the sine-wave curve, namely, the kingdom of this World, the dominion of Satan and his children of Cain and Edom.

THE OTHER RACES

For the past several years I have been excited with research into the history of diasporan Israelites. From the time of Juda's son Zara, and his son Daradus who migrated to the Aegean, Israelites have been emigrating northwestward toward Europe with their language and tribal emblems which are still used on the flags there. The European white race is composed of the actual twelve tribes of Israel. The historical evidence for this is abundant, but the western Christian church has been duped by the Edomites into ignoring it. Understanding who we really are has made the Bible a more exciting book, finding that its subject is ONLY this one racial strain from Adam, Noe, Abraam, and Jacob. The Edomite/Jew race is secondary as it serves as Jacob's opponent in the contest between good and evil.

The other races of the world are mentioned rarely and only incidentally, for the Bible is not about them. They do not have divine natures nor immortal spirits; they do not live more than one lifetime. They are like the flowers of the field which simply cease to exist at death.

The question of how we Christians should view and treat these other races is politically sensitive, even though it is clearly addressed in the Bible. I want to address this issue here because we cannot understand our own unique relationship with our Father until we understand the racial distinctions.

GENTILE: The Greek word which is translated as "gentile" is eθvoς/ethnos which means ethnic group, tribe, or clan. It never meant "all who are not Jews," which is the politically correct definition promoted by Edomite Jews today. For the disciples and Paul, this singular word most often referred to their own racial family of Israelites. When used as plural, it often meant their own tribes, or sometimes it meant other ethnic groups or races, and then is properly translated as "nations." While there is a major effort by the left-wing of today's world to prohibit any racial distinction, the ancients referred unabashedly to race in every context. They referred to their own people simply as "the race," or "the tribes" using the word "eθvoς /ethnos." They saw themselves first as a Race, and secondly as a tribal-group such as "Israelite" or "Judahite." The corrupted definition of "gentile" has been promoted during the past few centuries. When the word "gentile" was used in the 1611 KJV, it actually meant "tribe," or "clan." (See Skeat's Etymology.) Refer to my book, Christ's New Covenant, for a detailed analysis of this word.

ALLOGENÈS: aλλoγεveς /allogenès is the Greek word which literally means "other race." Allo means "other," and genes means "race," being the root word for "genetics." This word was used when Bible writers referred to races OTHER than Israel. It is usually translated into English versions as "stranger," but literally says "other race." Bible translators intentionally weakened any racial terms.

ALLOTRIOS: aλλότριoς/allotrios is another Greek racial word which means "belonging to another, not one's own," often translated as "stranger" or "alien," meaning one of a different race. It is translated in I Kings 8:41 as "stranger." ⁴¹"And with regard to the stranger who is not of Thy people Israel,⁴²when they shall come and pray toward this place; ⁴³Thou wilt indeed hearken from heaven—from Thy settled habitation, and do according to all for which the stranger may call upon Thee, that all nations may know Thy name and fear Thee as Thy people Israel do, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by Thy name." (part of a prayer by Solomon) Other races can enjoy the blessings and rewards of our God if they honor Him, thereby making their lives happy and fulfilled. But, that does not mean they can become Israelites or be born-from-above or have afterlife.

BEASTS: θηρία/théria is a Greek word generally used for animals. However, in the Genesis creation account, Gen. 1:24, quadrupeds and reptiles are listed separately from theria. It is my opinion that theria are the dark races who possess only the physical and emotional Minds of God, lacking the spiritual and rational Minds. They were created on the first part of the sixth day, not in God's image. In Gen. 2:19, Adam names/Words (brings into being) the "theria of the field," to be helpers. In Greek that is theria tou agrou. The "agr" is the root for our English word, agriculture. The purpose for the dark race in God's pageant is to be field-workers. They are not Man with a capital "M." They are a different genus from the Adamic race. Theria is usually mis-translated into English Bibles as "beasts." See below-Esaias 56:9 for an instance of such use, where the context makes quite clear that four-legged animals are not being referenced, but rather other races. In this commentary on Revelations, we will discuss the four Minds in detail.

SERVANTS: Other races do have a Godly function in God's kingdom. Just as Israel serves the Father, so the earth races can serve Israel, being similarly blessed for their service as servants and handmaids.

The following quotation from Esaias (Isaiah) addresses the issue of Israel's relationship with the earth-races who are not, nor can ever become members of Christ's body. Yet, they are not to be despised nor maltreated. On the contrary, although we are not commissioned to SAVE them, we are to welcome any who come to our God to serve. Race-mixing with them is most strongly forbidden because they are not part of the body of Christ, nor do we share purpose or destiny as heirs of the kingdom. Yet, whoever they are, they will be wonderfully blessed and treated with honor just like God's own children of Israel. They can live their lives wonderfully and happily as they were designed by our Creator to do. Woe betide any Israelite Christian who despises one of another race who wishes to worship the true God.

EPHESUS

2019 — 3734 ad

SMYRNA

3734 — 5449 ad

PERGAMOS

5449 — 7164 ad

THYATIRA

7164 — 8879 ad

SARDIS

8879 - 10,594 ad

PHILADELPHIA

10,594 - 12,309 ad

LAODICEA

12,309-14,024 ad

HE: holds 7 stars rt.hand

walks mid. lampstands

HE: First & Last

was dead, alive

HE:mouth a sharp two-edge sword

HE:eyes like flame of fire,

feet like fine brass

HE: has 7 spirits

& 7 stars

HE:who is holy, true

has key of David

opens / shuts

HE: Amen, Faithful &

true witness.

POS:

works, labor, patience

can't bear evil

tested liars,

persevered,

not weary,

POS:

tribul., poverty

but you are rich

Jews / Satan

POS:

works; hold fast name,

not deny faith

POS:

works, love, service, faith, patience; last works more than first

POS:

name of being alive,

POS:

works.

give open door

Jews / Satan

POS:

NEG:

left 1st love, fallen

NEG:

Balaam,

idol food

NEG:

Permits Jezabel,

sex, &

idol food

NEG:

but are dead

works not perfect

NEG:

not hot or cold

say "rich, need nothing." poor, blind, naked

WARNING:

repent, do 1st works

WARNING:

don't fear,

devil put you in prison,

tested ten days

WARNING:

repent

WARNING:

Be watchful

repent

WARNING:

hold fast to your crown

WARNING:

buy refined gold

&white-garments to hide shame

Repent

PENALTY:

else I remove lampstand

REWARD:

crown of life

PENALTY: else I come & fight w/ sword of mouth

PENALTY:

I will cast her to sickbed

kill her children

PENALTY:

else I come as thief in night

REWARD:

Jews worship you.

protect you fm. trials

PENALTY:

I will spit you out

OVERCOMER:

eat from tree of life in midst of Paradise

OVERCOMER:

not hurt by 2nd death

OVERCOMER:

get hidden manna,

white stone w/new name

OVERCOMER:

power over nations, to rule w/iron rod,

get morning star

OVERCOMER:

clothe in white

name in book of life,

confess before Father

OVERCOMER:

make pillar in temple, write on him name of God, & Jerusalem, &

my new name.

OVERCOMER:

sit w/me on throne

CHARACTER

enduring

CHARACTER

suffering

CHARACTER

faithful

CHARACTER

love

CHARACTER

watching

CHARACTER

ministering

CHARACTER

"dynamis"

INTRODUCTION TO THE SEVEN CHURCHES

CHAPTERS 2 & 3

The messages to these seven churches are little sermonettes at first glance; after all they indicate things which please God and things which anger Him, along with promises of rewards for those who Overcome.

We will look at these church messages from two different angles. We will first interpret them (1) as MESSAGES for churches which reveal God's will, looking briefly at each church and considering the message to it. (2) Then we will look at each of them as symbols of PERIODS OF TIME, in their proper historical frames.

The first verse of the book says this revelation to John would be in SIGNS. Signs are symbols. Secondly, the images described in his vision are too strange to be taken literally; they are more like images we see in some dreams, always symbols of something else. Thirdly, Jesus indicates that they are not going to be easy to understand, by using the phrase "he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says..." He is suggesting an interpretation which will come only to one who listens to the Spirit of God, that subtle, whispering insight which comes to those who contemplate. Clearly, the symbols are not for literal interpretation. St. John's revelation has this kind of dream-state, symbolic nature, and centuries of study have failed to make it clear.

It came to me that the seven churches might symbolize seven periods of history. At first I pushed that idea aside because it seemed a little too radical. But the idea kept taunting me. Since I had already diagrammed long-term history on a sine-wave curve, showing that cyclic patterns of history are meaningful, I naturally wondered if these seven churches (periods) could fit onto that diagram. Surprisingly, when I looked at a map of the geographical locations of the seven churches in western Asia Minor, the order in which John lists them describes a path which looks like an arch. The first and last churches are on nearly the same latitude line, making the arch look somewhat like the positive (upper) half of a sine wave curve. If we diagram these seven church-ages along that arching upper half of the sine wave diagram, we notice that the island of Patmos sits in a location approximately equivalent to the birth of Christ on that diagram. Could it be that John is looking far into the future, beginning with the moment when the devil is vanquished and Christ begins to reign? The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 5, p. 1143, mentions that some scholars have already suggested these "churches" might be "sequential periods of church history." But the puzzle could not be solved until someone diagrammed a cycle of history on a linear scale, in the format of a sine-wave curve. We needed the electronics age in order to understand how all-that-exists pulses in cyclic rhythms.

Okay, in order to consider this theory, you should have a printout of the SINE WAVE DIAGRAM at hand. If you also have a map of western Asia Minor (Turkey) which shows the seven cities, you will see that the island of Patmos lies off the southwest coast. You would take a boat northeastward from Patmos to get to the coast near the city of Ephesus. The last city of the seven is Laodicea, and you will find it on nearly the same latitude as Ephesus, about ninety miles to the east. The seven churches somewhat loosely define an arch.

So, we will look at the seven churches as seven periods of history. We might start by letting the location of Patmos suggest a plan. If the map is overlaid onto the sine-wave curve, Patmos matches the approximate time of Christ. From Patmos to Ephesus the area is water. Then, on land, from Ephesus to Laodicea, the churches depict seven ages of heaven on the sine-wave diagram.

In Rev. 1:18, Jesus says He has keys to Hades and Death. Hades may be the negative half of the sine wave curve, a period which Jesus brings to a close as He vanquishes its ruler, Death.

In Rev. 1:19, Jesus tells John to write the things he has seen, the things which are, and the things to take place after this. Well, he "has seen" Jesus, and knows Him. "The things which are" might mean the period of history which Jesus has already described in Matthew 24 and elsewhere which lasts to the end of the age of Pisces, about 2000 AD or so. In John's later revelation, the events of this age of Pisces will be described as Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls. "The things which will take place after this" would indicate the period of Christ's rulership, from around the year 2,000 AD± for the next 12,000± years, during the positive half-cycle, called the "Kingdom of God."

THE CHURCHES:

CHAPTERS 2 & 3

The word "church" is used in Scripture with two meanings: to refer to an individual house-church, and to the universal Church which is the Israelite-race body of Christ on earth. The Greek word for "church" is eκκλησία (ekklesia) which means "an assembly duly called." The word was used in secular literature prior to Christ's era, and throughout the Greek Septuagint O.T. and Apocrypha. It denotes a group of people specially called together into an assembly or body. John uses the word to denote the body of Christ.

Each lampstand symbolizes one church, so one lampstand represents the Church of Ephesus.

Each Star in Jesus' hand symbolizes an angel-force, being the influential force which expresses itself as a church-age. A Star represents a time-period. There are three levels of time periods which John is directed to write about: that which WAS, that which IS, and that which is TO COME. These three tenses represent God Himself, Who is the past, present, and future. That which "WAS" would be the time that WAS, namely the entire 12,000 year period of World during which these seven church-time periods had also influenced that course of history -- the lower half of the sine wave curve. That 12,000 years, divided into seven eras, makes each church period about 1700 years. That which "IS" would be the age of Pisces, from Jesus' birth until the end of this age, somewhere about 2,000 AD± (2012?), within which each church period lasts about 286 years, which the Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls describe. That which is "TO COME" will be the future Kingdom of Heaven, where the age of Ephesus lasts from about 2,019 AD until 3,734 AD, each age being described by the messages to the church which symbolizes that particular age. [Note: The year 2019 is just an arbitrary date in order to leave a few years between the end-time liberation and the crossing over "Jordan" into the Kingdom of Heaven. All my dates are approximate because we don't know the exact length of one full cycle of precession of equinoxes. The dates are not so important as the general concept being illustrated.]

It is Jesus who speaks here, holding in his right hand the seven Stars of the seven churches. These Stars are the time periods which have special historic influence and character. They are angel-forces which Jesus holds; they act to guide and nurture and empower the church body of Christ according to the great design model which is merely hinted at in the church description.

John was exiled to the island of Patmos, off the southwestern coast of Asia Minor (Turkey). All seven churches of chapters 2 and 3 to whom these messages are being sent, are located in the far western area of Asia Minor. If John were to go ashore from Patmos, John's hometown of Ephesus would be across the water to the northeast, the first of the seven towns to which he would come. His route through the seven towns would take him from Ephesus northward to Smyrna, northeastward to Pergamos, eastward to Thyatira, southeastward to Sardis, Philadelphia, and finally to Laodicea which is at nearly the same latitude as Ephesus. So, the route describes an arch. We might ponder it as an arch through which initiates pass as they accomplish all the requisite quests. We might also see it as the upper half of a sine-wave curve.

At the earthly level, these letters are addressed to the aγγέλw (angel/messenger) of each church. Certainly, God would not need John to carry a letter to angels in heaven, so the aγγέλw/messenger might be the local person that sort of heads the group. The early churches did not have ministers or priests who stood between the anointed Elect members of Christ and their Father, God! That aberration would develop a couple centuries after John had lived. Rather, this address to the angel of each church is more likely a foretelling of the angel/force influence which will define the character of each of the seven church ages during the period in which it applies. The verbiage of each address contains hints of the theme for each age.

THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF REVELATION 2 & 3

We will study the message to each Church by considering its message to be a description of the characteristics of its particular age in history. We will introduce the city itself, as it was at the time of John. Then we will consider the message as it might apply to each church at John's time. Next, for the Church that WAS, we will apply the message to the specific church-age during the kingdom of World (Ephesus age was approx. 10,125BC to 8,390BC). Next, for the Church that IS, we apply the message to the 286 year period (church-age) during our own age of Pisces (Ephesus was 5BC to 281AD). Lastly, for the Church that is to COME, we apply the message to its church-age in the coming kingdom of Heaven (Ephesus: 2019AD to 3734AD). It is in such cyclic patterns that God expresses His power/dynamus through history.

LEGEND: FOR EACH CHURCH OR TIME PERIOD IT REPRESENTS.

THE CITY: Brief introduction to each city.

CHURCH AT JOHN'S TIME: Discussion of the message to each Church in Asia Minor that John knew personally.

THE CHURCH THAT WAS: Applying the message to the specific 2,000 year age during Kingdom of World.

THE CHURCH THAT IS: Applying the message to the specific 286 year period during Pisces.

THE CHURCH THAT IS TO COME: Applying the message to the 2,000 year age during Kingdom of Heaven.

TO THE CHURCH AT EPHESUS

Key Word: "Endurance"

2:1 To the angel of the church in EPHESUS, write: The one holding the seven stars in his right hand, the one walking in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, says,

2:2 I know your works and labor and your endurance, and that you cannot bear evil, and did try those calling themselves apostles, who are not, and did find them liars.

2:3 and you have endured, and did bear my name, and have not grown weary.

2:4 But I have against you that you have left your first love.

2:5 Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first works; and if not, I am coming to you and will move your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.

2:6 But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

2:7 Let the one having an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one overcoming, I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

THE CITY IN ASIA MINOR:

Ephesus was a crossroads of civilization, population of about 250,000, wealthy and cosmopolitan. One of the seven-wonders-of-the-world was here: the temple of Artemis, who was the Madonna of Greek Paganism, the same great mother-goddess of ancient Babylonia (Semiramis in Babylon, Isis in Egypt, Diana in Roman Empire, and finally Mary in Roman Catholicism). The temple was huge, the size of two football fields, containing 100 marble columns, each 55 feet high. The Roman governor resided in Ephesus. It was a free city; self-governed. Three great highways converged there, from the south, east, and north. I am reminded of the three passages in the great pyramid. Pyramid-dating places this time of John's revelation, 90 AD, at a junction, called the "messianic triangle, where paths go downward (south = down), or level (east) to the Queen's chamber, or upward (up = north) toward the King's chamber.

EPHESUS: THE CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR AT JOHN'S TIME (60 — 90 AD)

Ephesus has the longest list of items for which any church is commended, yet verse 5 warns them that if they don't repent, their lampstand will be removed. Look at this list of virtues, which are still not enough: works, labor, endurance, hate evil, test apostles, bear Christ's name, and not grow weary. "though I have all faith, so I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing."

It is assumed that the first love of these new churches would be their love of Christ. Here is a group that seems to be doing every thing right; obedient to the letter of the law, but without the Christ-love they are nothing. Here is legalism (letter of the law) without Christ-love (spirit of the law). There are many law-focused churches today, which express a self-righteous hatred toward everyone outside their clique, demanding law-obedience of everyone, and forgetting love.

Remember the love and the humility which you first felt when you became a Christian? It was a simple, non-arrogant thing; you were filled with gratefulness to God, like a lost-sheep being found by its Shepherd, or like a prodigal son being welcomed home. Any group or clique of members must avoid the danger of becoming elitist, typically arrogant and hateful. For a Christian church to suffer this fate, regardless of how perfectly it satisfies all the law, is doom. Such a member will be amputated! Only Laodicea will get a comparably stern warning to this one given to Ephesus.

Pondering this message as it might pertain to that time period which "WAS" prior to the time of Christ, in Aries, gives one a simple look into the nature of God's children who practice all the laws and ordinances, practicing their religion very legalistically, as though such obedience earns a reward of future life. But, our God of the Old Testament wasn't satisfied with such simple obedience; He demands hearts and souls and spirits.

EPHESUS: AGE THAT "WAS" IN KINGDOM OF WORLD (ca. 10,125 — 8,390 BC)

Refer to the SINE WAVE DIAGRAM OF LONG TERM HISTORY. Look to the far left end of the curve. Ephesus represents the first church-age (about 1,700 years) of kingdom of World, during the age of Leo, after transitioning from the prior kingdom of God. Ephesus matches up with the first four-fifths of the Zodiac age of Leo (which means physical earth-mastery). During the previous ages, prior to Leo, above the horizontal line, we had the Heaven kingdom in which Christ was the Sovereign Lord. At the end of that positive energy period of history, Christ's reign was terminated as He was entombed in the Great Pyramid. About 10,125 BC (or thereabouts) the planet experienced a magnetic field reversal, whereupon the nature of our reality changed. The children of God HAD BEEN spiritual in nature, and suddenly they became physical/material, along with being bound by the natural physical laws of this finite reality. The children of God LOST their heavenly power and their rulership, as the devil assumed the lordship, giving his own race of children the power of rulership over a material world. The message to the Church at Ephesus describes that, first commending the children of God for their efforts and their honesty and their endurance. They had owned Christ's name (nature) but after the transition it was gone from them. They had "left their first love." While the cyclic transfer of power did not appear to be their fault, it really was, and they must bear responsibility for it. They, as the creative-power Body of Christ, failed to maintain the spiritual perfection that had been achieved in the previous age of Thyatira, about 16,000 BC (corresponding to the same moment coming in our future Heaven kingdom at the apex, about 8000 AD). Their FALL, in Scorpio, had been catastrophic, committing them to another decline from Kingdom of God into Kingdom of World, another cycle.

Let me explain the essence of that FALL. Men wanted to be gods who could direct their own lives and design their own achievements, thus enjoying the thrill and satisfaction of personal power and success. Still today, we esteem most highly those individuals who achieve awesome goals; we applaud them and reward them and honor them unto future generations. Why? Because they, as individuals set their own goals, designed their own works, and as the song says, "did it MY way!" We nearly worship those individuals, pointing to their work as examples of what man can do if he puts his mind to it. What is the converse to that? Simply this: Godly achievements flow from the throne of the Father, through those who are willing to yield to that flow in humility and for no other satisfaction than to participate in God's Life. Jesus exemplified that ideal, saying that He did and said only what the Father told Him to do or say. He sought no applause or even recognition. He was simply expressing the will of the Father through His life. The devil's offers of wealth and power didn't tempt Him at all. So, what drives you to engineer the course of your own life?

Jesus' words to this church-age of Ephesus are quite stern and severe. He reminded them to remember from where they had fallen, to repent, and to do those first works that had made them perfect. Unfortunately, what happened is that they did not adequately repent and return to their perfection, so their lampstand was removed, and the children of God CEASED to live in God's Spirit. As a race, they continued to live, but without a relationship to God, without the Spirit empowering them, and without the Head of their body, Jesus.

During that ancient age of Ephesus, the first age in the Kingdom of World, Christ was entombed and absent from them as their leader, so the members of His body became spiritually dead/dormant. Now, look at the coming age of Ephesus at the first age in the Kingdom of God, from abut 2,000 AD until 3700 AD. During this coming period, Jesus counterpart, the devil will be likewise absent from the scene, having been defeated by Christ. So, the paradigm is that right after a transfer of power, the previous Lord is absent from the stage for a period of time. Each church message speaks to a corresponding time in both kingdoms of World and Heaven.

Regarding the Great Pyramid, a few words are in order. It was probably built in the age of Philadelphia, from 14,000 BC to 12,000 BC, since it is in the message to Philadelphia that Jesus speaks about making one a "pillar in the temple of my God." If the Great Pyramid is the temple to which He refers, then we might also call it the "Temple of Christ." It appears that God's Son was the sole occupant of the sarcophagus in it.

When that Temple was first penetrated in the ninth century, AD, by Caliph Al Mamoun, he had to tunnel around the granite plug, through the softer limestone in order to gain entry into the ascending passage. That granite plug had so effectively sealed the ascending passage from the descending path that no one had ever entered it from the time it was built, or even known of its existence. That Great Pyramid, built over 12,000 years ago, served as a model in far later centuries for the other pyramids which were built by pharoas during the age of Taurus, 4,000 to 2,000 BC. When the pharoas copied the construction, on smaller scales and with poorer construction methods, they replicated the descending passage but made no ascending passage because they did not know of its existence. It is my speculation that the Great Temple was built by God's children, to serve as Jesus' tomb, rather than by the devil's race of men.

Just a note here regarding that great Pyramid at Giza. Some of the following may not become known to scholars in our lifetimes. My theory about it is as follows. What a tomb it was, built to more exact standards than men are capable of building today! The flat surfaces of the many-ton granite or limestone cubes are flat to optical standards, with only one-fiftieth of an inch between them, cemented with a fine and permanent cement which is still in place. While an optician can create a curved lens perfectly, it is far more difficult to create a perfectly flat surface, and many times more difficult to do it on such a large object as these huge cubes, and even more difficult to maintain the overall dimensions of the cubes while doing it! Clearly, the abilities of those builders were far advanced beyond anything we know today. Most of the blocks are limestone, a material soft in comparison with the granite blocks which were placed throughout the structure in a design plan that has not yet been discovered. The granite blocks are capable of electrical properties known as "piezo," whereby the crushing pressures of weight create in the granite crystals a static electrical charge. The granite blocks are oriented through the entire structure as giant "V" patterns, which generate electrical fields for the purpose of making magnetic field planes, the foci of which are the ultimate purpose. It is these magnetic plane foci which give the pyramid its phenomenal properties of food preservation, along with other unexplainable qualities. I have built a model pyramid with copper wires so arranged that effective magnetic fields resulted. Hint: the magnetic planes serve as shields to block out normal planet energies. I speculate that it was God's children who built the pyramid because it is so marvelously done, with such great precision, and to such exact measurements — all of which provide for us today a library of knowledge that will hopefully help us to solve the many strange problems we will have after the magnetic field reversal soon to come. I am trying to include in one paragraph a little information about the Great Temple, but there are many bits of information I wish to mention. Note that the only passage known to ancient Egyptians was the descending passage, a passage which illustrates descent into the earth, or hell. The Sphinx was built by the same children of God about the same time in order to tell us when this all happened. The upper half of the Sphinx represents a Royal Lady with long hair, symbolic of the age of Virgo (12,000 to 10,000 BC), the last Zodiac age of the Kingdom of God. The lower half of the Sphinx is a lion, a symbol of the age of Leo which was the first Zodiac age of the Kingdom of World. Long hair on a woman is God's design to dress her beauty, serving as a symbolic veil between her and the Father, for she was formed from Man. Men are not supposed to have long hair covering their heads because there should be no such curtain between them and their heavenly Father, Who formed them directly. More recent centuries have seen men copying the Sphinx's long-hair-dress as a symbol of royal or judicial authority, but they are doing exactly opposite from God's design. Note also, in the New Testament, that after Jesus was born, He was taken to Egypt for a few years, perhaps even to that Temple of God, verily His own Temple. It is from Egypt (symbol of Kingdom of World) that Jesus came up to Jerusalem to the Temple of His Israel, in spite of the fact that it had gotten terribly corrupted since the Babylonian Captivity of 586 BC. Nevertheless, we saw Jesus continuing His eternal path by coming to the Jerusalem Temple, at 12 years of age (12,000 years after He had been entombed in the Egypt Temple) at the start of our Piscean age - from His Egypt Temple of the ancient age of Virgo where He last held rulership. So, on the diagram of God's long-term cyclic program, Jesus ended His previous Kingship at the beginning of Ephesus, about 10,000 BC, and He will reclaim His Kingship at the beginning of Ephesus, somewhere about 2,000 AD. The message to the Church of Ephesus might have many more clues that I have not yet seen; my work is but a scant introduction to work of future Seekers-of-Truth.

EPHESUS: AGE THAT "IS" IN PISCES(5 BC - 281 AD)

Here is the first time-period/church-age during our own age of Pisces, being the first one-seventh of it. According to the paradigm, this first Ephesus age always indicates an absence of power by one of the two contestants, either Christ or Satan. During this first part of the Christian era (5BC - 281AD), Jesus was killed and His followers were persecuted terribly, seeming quite powerless. The devil's children of Edom (Jews) were already in control of Jerusalem and the temple of Judaism. So, the devil's lordship was firmly entrenched, and there was even an attempt by the devil's representative, Herod, to destroy the Godly Lord at His birth. This was an extremely difficult circumstance for the appearance of Jesus as the devil's counterpart, to be born right in the midst of the devil's important scene on the stage of God's great pageant. The Edomites had just taken control of Judea, Jerusalem, and the temple of Judaism — in other words, they thought they had successfully reclaimed Esau's birthright, and they were in the process of evicting true Israelites and Judahites out of Judea, pushing them out of Jerusalem, oppressing them economically so that most of the true Israelites were living in poverty. Herod, the Edomite King of the Jews, was not about to permit the true Israelite Savior to live! For him, this was the worst possible moment for Jacob (Christ) to reappear, and interfere with his/Esau's claim to Isaac's blessing. Christians would subsequently suffer persecution and martyrdoms for about three centuries, until Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion and helped to organize it politically into what later became the Roman Catholic Church.

Unless the Holy Spirit had appeared at Pentecost, the struggling new religion might have failed. The apostles and early churches struggled, not just against the Edomite and Roman oppression, but they struggled seriously with the questions of how to practice this new religion. Some tended to be legalistic, especially the Jerusalem faction under Jesus' brother, James, holding onto the old letter-of-law, while those under Paul's influence rejected the legalism. Beside theological disputes, political troubles of the Palestine region and the Roman Empire brought the Christians terrible persecutions and martyrdoms. We can easily see God's hand in this, pushing His children away from the middle-east region, whence they migrated northward into Europe carrying the good news to fellow Israelites of ancient diasporas. English historians say that St. Paul visited England.

John wrote this Revelation during late first century, and we can see that his description quite accurately matches the details of history during that early-church period. Jesus indicated the theological disputes, commending the Christians for "cannot bear evil, and did try those calling themselves apostles, who are not, and did find them liars." The new church, of the first century anyway, struggled seriously in their sincere devotion to truth, and they are commended for their efforts in advance, by Jesus. They are then warned severely about leaving the "first love." It does seem that the business of religion always sets aside the first-love for the sake of practical matters and ecclesiastical politics! Jesus threatens that unless they change course, and "repent," their lampstand will be removed. Well, in our early Christian era they failed to recover that first love, and by the time of Constantine, (early 300s) politics took over the developing church, an organizing process which was never suggested by Jesus. It is difficult for us to imagine the actual struggles of the early Christians; there were no defined doctrines or rituals. During the first century, small groups of friends would gather to discuss Jesus and would read whatever information they could obtain, which was precious little. The New Testament writings are assumed by scholars to be written later in the first century, but it is likely that the Gospels of Matthew and John, and perhaps Mark, were written much earlier in order to provide a summary of Jesus' life for Judean and Israelite Christians of Galilee, Asia Minor, Greece, and even Britain which had the very first Christian Church of all, at Glastonbury, in early first century. English historians claim that Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus' uncle, brought Jesus there on one of his merchant trips.

This 286 year period of Ephesus, at the beginning of Pisces, lasted from Jesus' birth until the split-up of the Roman Empire in 283 AD. It was a difficult period for Christians, being persecuted by the Edomite Herods and occasionally by Roman Emperors such as Nero (54-68), Domitian (81-96), Commodus (180-193) who began Gladiator games at the Flavian Colosseum, and a few other tyrants from 249-311 AD. In 283 AD the Roman Empire was ruled by two emperors and was then divided into four empires. A new era of history began at that time.

This 286 year Ephesus-time in Pisces was defined by this letter to Ephesus in Rev. 2:1-7. Jesus commended the early Christians for their valiant effort, but finally they would fall and Jesus warns them to repent. They had left their first love. Truly, the Christians were no longer the simple followers-of-Jesus of the first century. They became religious and theological, factious and sometimes bitter in their relationships. A pagan type of priesthood structure began to develop, and bishops ruled over congregations.

Jesus ends every message with the phrase, "let him who has ear to hear," hinting that there is a deeper message behind the simple words spoken. The criticisms and commendations by Jesus to the seven churches are quite simple to understand at a superficial level. But He hints that one must go deeper into spiritual understanding. Always, we must keep in mind that John's revelation is described in symbols, not literal. Note the words: "what the Spirit says." This might remind us of the New Covenant which says that God will teach us what we need to know; here Jesus advises those solitaires who can listen to God, to listen for that whisper of His Spirit. I believe that some of my interpretations of the churches' good and bad points are probably too simplistic; I hope here to step only a small step on the path toward their more full and true symbolic meanings.

EPHESUS: AGE THAT "IS TO COME" IN KINGDOM OF GOD (ca.2,000 — ca.3,750 AD)

Refer to the Sine-Wave diagram to place the following information in its proper FUTURE time-frame.

While each Zodiac-age is about 2,000 years long, each church-Star-age is about 1,700 years. Zodiac-ages are each one-twelfth of the full cycle of 24,000 year Precession of Equinoxes. Church-Star ages are each one-seventh of a 12,000 year half-cycle, thus about 1,700 years each. I have used slightly different dates in my various articles, so keep in mind these are not absolute.

Each half-cycle is ruled by a different energy. Satan rules the Negative period which is now coming to an end, called the World; Christ rules the Positive period of 12,000 year, called the Heaven or Kingdom of God. The division by twelve and also by seven is somewhat analogous to a year which is divided into twelve months, while also being divided into non-correlating weeks of seven days each.

The period of time represented by Ephesus is located at the very beginning of the positive energy curve line as we cross from negative earth energy to positive, about year 2,000 AD or so (perhaps 2012 or 2019?) That is the moment when evil has been vanquished and when the Jews who today pretend to be Israel ("calling themselves apostles") are exposed as liars, and is the time of Christ's return, when He begins His reign.

Rev. 20:1-6 corresponds to this period, saying the devil is bound for a thousand years. The term "thousand years" is a symbolic number, referring to one church-age, which in this case is the 1700 years of the Church of Ephesus. So, the devil, and his Jew children, will be without their wicked power while the kingdom of God/Heaven is being founded by Jesus and His Elect ones during Ephesus. We will not have opposition while we establish a new civilization, based on the New Covenant, with God's laws written in our hearts and minds, and having Jesus at our center. This period, while Satan's influence is absent, corresponds to a reciprocal period about 12,000 years ago, in the zodiac age of Leo, when Christ was entombed in the Great Pyramid, and the children of God lost their power to oppose evil; the devil and his race then had a period of time with no opposition from the positive Christ-energy. All events during the Positive half of a cycle have counterparts in the Negative half, at reciprocal positions on the curve.

According to the Moses/Egypt liberation paradigm, there will be a wilderness/desert period following our supernatural liberation (magnetic polarity reversal 2012?) Then, the body of Christ, will have completed the difficult period of transition from kingdom of World to kingdom of God. The devil will have been defeated, and Christ's reign can build without opposition. It looks like God's Elect of true Israel (not those of Rev. 2:9 who call themselves Jews) will do quite well during the coming age of Ephesus.

As we look at the long list of commendations for Ephesus, longer than listed for any other church, we should be impressed that they seem to have gotten everything right; they are real fundamentalists in their zeal to do God's will. The danger in this is always legalism. Those who demand obedience to the letter of law, rather than spirit-of-law, will incur God's wrath as quickly in the Kingdom of God as they did in the Old Testament when God came to hate their rituals. He wants our hearts and souls and minds, not just physical obedience. Legalists demand perfect physical obedience, but they lack love, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. They have left their first love!

Ancient records do not tell us what the Nicolaitans were. Some speculate that Nicolaitans of 2:15 might promote the sin of Balak (v.14), which is race-mixing. But, we are left without certainty about them.

Jesus ends His message to each church with these words: "let him who has an ear hear," hinting that there is a deeper message behind the simple words spoken. Note how the messages to the churches are really addressed to individuals, not to a group. In every message the words are, "let the one," and "to the one." Clearly, the Church is not some group whose members get punished or rewarded together, but it is to individuals that Jesus speaks. Here, Church represents a period of time in which individuals continue to climb the path back to their Father as prodigals who came from a far country of debauchery and wickedness, namely the kingdom of World.

The criticisms and commendations by Jesus to the seven churches are quite simple to understand at a superficial level. But, one must go deeper into spiritual understanding, and the reward is there. Always, we must keep in mind that John's revelation is described in symbols, not literal. Note the words: "what the Spirit says." This might remind us of the New Covenant which promises that God will teach us what we need to know, without other teachers; here Jesus advises those solitaires who can listen to God, to listen for the whisper of His Spirit.

It is my opinion that only a rare few individuals really know how to contemplate a matter with help of God's divine Spirit. When reading someone else's work, we tend to read over it at normal speed, hoping to learn what is there. All we ever get is an overview, but we fail to get any depth of understanding. To get a full comprehension, one must focus on one particular matter, for example: the Ephesus Church. You can get my single viewpoint by reading my work, but if you want to understand Jesus' message, you must look at the greater context for yourself, then look at the details. Look at some reference books, commentaries, translations, etc. and get a good feel for the subject. Make notes for yourself. What I'm trying to say is that you must settle down to really study one issue, and be content to stay on that subject for as long as necessary, until your own notes and your own thoughts are as complete as you can make them. Then, and only then, will you feel that YOU understand the matter, and what you have learned is YOUR material, not that of someone else whom you've read. I strongly encourage any person to study with some skepticism, and pursue whatever information you can obtain, and come to your own conclusions. If you find agreement with something I've written, I'm glad, but your conclusion is your own and not of my doing! It would not please me at all for a reader to accept my opinions without examining them thoroughly and revising or amplifying them for himself. I'm only suggesting some radical notions for spirited seekers to consider!

TO THE CHURCH AT SMYRNA

Key word:"Suffering"

2:8 And to the angel of the church in SMYRNA, write: These things, says the first and the last, who became dead and lived again:

2:9 I know of your affliction and poverty, but you are rich, and I know the railing of those who call themselves Jews and are not, but they are a synagogue of Satan.

2:10 Do not fear things which you are about to suffer. Look, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison in order that you may be tried, and you will have affliction ten days. Become faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

2:11 The one having an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one overcoming will by no means be hurt by the second death.

THE CITY IN ASIA MINOR

About 35 miles north of Ephesus is Smyrna (modern: Izmir) at the foot of Mt. Pagros, at the mouth of Melas river on the S. shore of Gulf of Izmir. First populated by Aeolian Greeks in 10th C. BC. Smyrna was Homer's birthplace. Almost 300 years prior to St. John, Smyrna had the first temple dedicated to the goddess Roma. On the sine-wave diagram, the future Smyrna Age is part way up the ascending path toward perfection. The early Christians of this city suffered severe persecution. One of the best known martyrs was Polycarp, whom John himself had ordained as pastor here. Polycarp died a martyr in February, 156 AD.

SMYRNA: THE CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR (60 - 90 AD)

Those who lie about being "Jews," as though having lineage from Juda, were a problem then, and still are today. In 132 BC, the Edomite descendants from Esau were brought into the Temple religion of Jerusalem. Soon, they had taken over the Temple and Jerusalem, and pushed most true Israelites out of the city. God's hand is evident here in a major way; the ancient religion of the O.T. wasn't being practiced in Jerusalem anyway, since the Babylon returnees had brought a new religion back from their captivity, namely Babylonian Talmudic Phariseeism. So, during these first years of Christ, we see God using Jacob's enemy race (perfidiously calling themselves Jews) to drive the true Israelites away from that corrupted temple and its wicked religion.

The Edomites accepted and held the name, "Jews," (slang for Judean) because they had taken Judea away from the Israelites who had come back from Babylon about 510BC, even though they were from Jacob's brother and mortal enemy, Esau, and had no lineage from Jacob. The Edomites have retained the name, "Jew," to this day, but the true Israelites and Judahites of Jesus' day recognized Jesus as their Shepherd and came to be called by a new name, "Christian." Regarding the lying Jews, read John 8 again, and see how clearly Jesus describes them as being children of the devil and liars and murderers by their very nature. His description fits them perfectly yet today. And even if those calling themselves "Jews" today were actually from the tribe of Judah, the northern kingdom of Israel had already migrated from Palestine to Europe seven centuries prior to Christ! Even the "Jews" of Jesus' day could not claim to be that northern kingdom of "Israel." So, even if the "Jews" were legitimate today, it was blatant fraud to name their new nation "Israel" in 1948, a fact which simple Christians could have seen through, had they been willing, and not so determinedly ignorant. The book of Revelation will expose, just as Jesus did, that the so-called "Jews" of today make up the body of Satan, just like the Christians make up the body of Christ. The word, "Jew," is for John's Gospel, and for Jesus, a pejorative reference to that race of people who descended from Esau and who by their natures express Satan's wickedness in the world. Today, a great percentage of people of that race no longer knows their origin, believing they are white-race and are mixed among us as tares in the wheat, but if we observe, they do still stand conspicuously clear from God's children by the kind of lives they lead, practicing fraud, lying, cheating, deceiving, and murder of Israelites, always focusing on money, power, and perversion. "By their fruits you shall know them."

SMYRNA: AGE THAT "WAS" IN KINGDOM OF WORLD (ca. 8390 — 6655 BC)

Refer to the sine-wave Paradigm. The ancient age of Smyrna found civilization well into its worldly decline under Satan's rulership. The Smyrna age began near the end of Leo and coincided mostly with the Zodiac age of Cancer which represents passions and lusts for worldly wealth. The key-word for Smyrna is "suffering," which, at that time, applied to the children of God whose very leader, Jesus, had been entombed nearly 2,000 years prior and they had been without God's loving care, protection, or guidance. Jesus introduces Himself, in this letter to Smyrnans, as the One who "became dead and lived again." After His entombment at the beginning of Ephesus, He had been absent from the world scene throughout that whole Ephesus period. Now, at the beginning of Smyrna He returned from the dead, pushing the sarcophagus lid aside (in the King's Chamber) and spiritually exiting the great mass of stone-tomb of the Great Pyramid Temple of God. So, the Spirit of Christ began again to participate in the great pageant, at that time in the age of Smyrna. Note the reciprocal age of Smyrna, in the Kingdom of God, beginning about 3750 AD, where Satan is released "a little" from his exile. Just as Satan reappears on the scene to plague the children of God about 4,000 years AD, so in this ancient age of Smyrna did the Spirit of Christ reappear to influence the course of God's design. In Rev. 2:9 Jesus reassures His body-members that in spite of the affliction and poverty they've suffered, they are really rich. They would need some reminding of whom they really are, for they haven't felt very rich or powerful at all! Jesus goes on to tell them not to fear, even though they will be held in prison by Satan for "ten days," meaning ten-thousand more years. A day is as a thousand years. Those ten thousand years last from about 8,000 BC until about 2,000 AD. It is from Satan's prison that we anxiously await release, today. The crown of life, which Jesus promises to those who are faithful unto death, is that crown of royal authority we children of God will receive when we inherit this great vineyard in order to rule over it and make it into the Kingdom of Heaven. If that great reward results from being "faithful unto death," then we children of Christ should be rejoicing and boldly practicing such faithfulness along with the death that results from it. Such a small price to pay, for such great reward!

Then, at the end of ancient the Smyrna age, the Spirit of Christ left the stage again, just as will happen about 5500 AD that Satan will leave the stage. God's children have been given a promise from their Lord, Jesus, and encouraged to endure in faith. Then, Jesus will be absent from them for the age of Pergamos while they are once again on their own, "forsaken," left to suffer with nothing but the promise. Why? Because each member of God's Elect body of His anointed Son is created in the image of God, and really does have the ability to withstand the tribulations and to still represent his Father in a foreign and hostile kingdom. It is not an easy Ambassadorship, but it is this great contest between good and evil that makes the pageant! Death is as nothing more than a night's sleep, after which we Elect live another day, again and again and again. A day is as a thousand years, and this earthly life that we experience is but a micro-plan of God's great macro-plan. We can learn from examining this world program which gives great clues to our divine program. We've each been on stage many times before and will be many times again. We, the members of the body of Christ, have existed since the very beginning of time, and will exist until the very end, along with Jesus, our Head, the Alpha and Omega. We don't have to adopt the pagan religious doctrine of re-incarnation to understand the truth about ourselves. But, we might find some hints of God's truths in the practices of Satan, and even in his religion of Paganism, for Satan does know the truth and is always attempting to DUPLICATE God's Truth in his kingdom of World. We might learn something there if we are willing to look.

SMYRNA: AGE THAT "IS" IN PISCES (282 — 568 AD)

The period of history between 282 and 586 AD represents the Smyrna period within the age of Pisces. The new Christian centers, of Byzantium and Rome, were becoming powerful.. At the beginning of this period, in 312 AD, Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the state religion for the Roman Empire. Then he called an Ecumenical Council to be held at Nicaea in 325 AD where church leaders defined some basic doctrines, like Trinity and Christ's Divine Nature, along with establishing the Church as a powerful organization, calling it "catholic" which means "universal." Of course, the body of Christ was never intended to be universal; Jesus came for "none except the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But pagan politics changed all that, and a political-powerhouse was established, under the name of "Christian Church." But, the Smyrna message speaks of "affliction and poverty," and of being cast into prison. This message hardly applies to the organizing church of the Byzantine and Roman empires!

No, it doesn't apply, because God's model pertains only to His special genetic lineage of Israel. And that Mediterranean movement of Rome and Byzantium was no longer under God's nurturing care and direction. He had already transferred His attention to His children where He had planted them long ago, in the "isles afar off," namely the British Isles. The prophet, Jeremia had been His planter, carrying the pillow of Jacob (the throne of David) to Ulster about 580 BC, along with David's harp which is still a flag symbol for Ireland, along with Princess Tea Tephi (of Phares Juda line - daughter of Zedekia) whom he married to King Eochaidh of Ulster (of the Zara Juda royal lineage) reuniting the two Juda lines on the Throne of David. Jeremia started a college in Ireland (then known as Scotia) named "Tara" which educated men in the old Hebrew religion of the Patriarchs (NOT Talmudic Judaism). That religion was called in Gaelic, "der wydd." Those true Hebrew Israelites of Ireland and Britain awaited a Savior who would be named "Yesu." When Iesu (Jesus) was brought to them in early first century by Joseph of Arimathea, the tin-trader, they welcomed Him without hesitation. That "Druid" religion has since been badly corrupted and we know almost nothing about its ancient practices except the few things that Caesar wrote, and the lies that the Roman Catholic Church wrote in their attempts to destroy it. Of course, the Druidism we hear about now is a totally different and corrupt pagan religion which has NO connection to that which Jeremia established in the Isles.

The Roman emperors had conquered the Isles and ruled Britain until 409 AD, finally abandoning their stronghold because the Roman empire was itself collapsing. The Roman Catholic Church, however, did apply pressures upon British Christianity to bow to its authority, which Britain largely refused to do. The Roman emphasis on rulership, power, and papal dictatorship is the opposite from Jesus' instructions. So, why was the new Christian organization of Rome so tyrannical? Here is what happened. After Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion for the empire, it became politically advantageous for the Edomite Jews to become Christian. The Edomites were a large community in Rome from the time of the first Herods. At the time of Christ they were about 50,000 in Rome, and were powerfully connected with the long line of corrupt Roman emperors, having special exemptions and political favors, never suffering persecutions like the Christians, and influencing policies and manipulating financial enterprises to the maximum they could without offending the emperor. After Constantine, the Edomites jumped over to the Christian fold, where they became clerics and even Popes, and where they influenced the new religion to be tyrannical and financially exploitive. The Roman church became wealthy and powerful because the Edomite race has a natural instinct for this kind of enterprise. Britain could be a lucrative source of wealth if they could control her, so they did try, with some success. But the British were a motley lot of Israelites who defied Rome and the Roman Catholic religion. Never was all Britain under the Papal thumb. By this time of Smyrna period, ending 568AD, the stone of Jacob (Throne of David) had already moved from Ulster (in N. Ireland) to Scotland, so the Scots believed themselves to be the rightful occupants of David's Throne. In 1296 AD that stone was taken by Edward I and placed in Westminster Abbey, but this is jumping too far ahead of the story.

Speaking of thrones, this Smyrna period was the age of King Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon. Arthur died in 542 AD, after achieving unity and peace in Britain. Arthur, as a Christ-type, represents the return of Christ to the pageant, after God's royal children had suffered many centuries of God's absence. But the devil was active and effective, for this World was still his kingdom. Arthur's kind of Christ-like justice is impossible to maintain as long as human nature is so easily influenced by the devil. Anyway, Cameliard had given the world a glimpse of hope, that if it happened once, perhaps it can happen again. Legends of Arthur present him as an innocent who appeared in the midst of suffering and terrible chaos, and who died, being carried off on a mystic ship to Avalon (Glastonbury), from where he is to arise once again to rule over a Godly kingdom. Note the corresponding time of 5538 AD, when Satan was banished again from the stage. So it is in Camelot that Arthur dies and the land returns to chaos for a while.

Verse 2:10 says, "the devil is about to cast some of you into prison in order that you may be tried, and you will have affliction ten days." In this segment of history, a perod of about 285 years of Smyrna, in Pisces, the "ten days" is not ten thousand years but a thousand years. As we know, the period of approximately 500 AD until the Renaissance about 1500 AD became the Dark Ages, a period of terrible persecution against the European white race Christians by the Roman Catholic Church. Their inquisitions are estimated to have killed about fifty million Christians by torture and burning-at-the-stake. Look at the verse again and notice who it was that Jesus said would cast His children into prison for that period. And note that verse 10 follows right after verse 9 which referenced the fraudulent Jews as the "synagogue of Satan." By understanding these patterns and sub-patterns of history, we can observe how God's divine pageant has proceeded exactly as necessary in order to accomplish God's expression.

There is so much rich and dynamic history of the true Israelites which we need to learn in order to understand the big-picture of God's pageant. Unfortunately, the Edomite owners of print-media have prevented our history from being known for many centuries. Now, we white-race Israelites must scratch to find historical records which have not been destroyed. The Roman Catholic Church pillaged England and destroyed every scrap of historical and religious material they could find, killing non-Catholic clerics and burning their churches. The prophecy of Jesus to the Smyrna church about prison and affliction was fulfilled by the Roman Church in England. This is OUR history here, the story of God relating to OUR ancestors.

It is easy to be terribly angry at the Edomite oppression of our race of Israel, but we shouldn't do that. Christ told us to hate evil, but He never told us to hate the devil, his Jews, or to war against him. The devil is the proper, God-designated, ruler of this world during the negative half of each cycle, and cannot be overthrown by Christians, or even by Christ until the time comes for the transfer of rulership to Christ. The devil is able to offer every one of us an enticing path, an opportunity to desires, lusts, material wealth, and life of ease. He can offer this because this world is his to give. The devil also serves God by tempting us, and by making our lives difficult, thereby strengthening some of us, while culling out the weak who follow him. God is interested in nurturing and strengthening one specific family strain, and the devil provides lessons which accomplish that, thereby helping to cull the weak. What we need to learn is that the devil's easy path leads to doom, but Christ's narrow way leads to victory. Those who endure with Christ will receive the crown of life, which Jesus promises to the Smyrnans in Rev. 2:10. The devil never makes anyone do anything; when one chooses to walk his direction, that is one's own choice, and so are the consequences. Jesus says, "Become faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life."

SMYRNA: AGE THAT "IS TO COME" IN KINGDOM OF GOD (3,750 — 5,500 AD )

On the sine-wave diagram, note that the age of Ephesus is completed about 3,750 AD. Only the 144,000 elect lived during the age of Ephesus, in order to develop a new civilization in the kingdom of God. Then, at the beginning of Smyrna, all the rest of Israel are born again into this heavenly kingdom.

The devil's race was not any problem during the prior age of Ephesus, but at the beginning of Smyrna, according to verse 9, they arise again in their true nature, as frauds and exploiters, causing war, challenging the new landlords of the vineyard, trying to claim it again for themselves. Israel needs to recognize them for who they really are. According to Rev. 20:7-9 Satan is released after having been bound during the age of Ephesus, so the Jew-pretenders will again harrass and entice the innocent sheep of Christ.

It appears that the two opponent races, the children of Christ, and the children of Satan, NEVER do completely disappear from the world stage. But the energy which empowers them changes. Satan's negative power is absent for a period, then returns, attempts once again to start a great war (Rev. 20:8ff), is cast into the fire (Rev. 20:10), then reappears again in the middle of Sagittarius. Just prior to achieving our spiritual apex at the end of Sagittarius, Satan's race is empowered again. This corresponds with the time exactly opposite (reciprocal), in the cycle, in Gemini, when Christ's race was re-empowered in the birth of Adam to begin the work of climbing the long climb toward God again. It is really necessary for you, the reader, to use the sine-wave diagram if you would follow these events being described.

Even in the kingdom of God (Heaven), there is still opportunity to turn away from God, and to have weak faith. The devil, however, is God's valuable tool, through whom consequences are administered for such apostasy. This is ALWAYS the case, forever, and for those who need a lesson, the devil is a teacher standing nearby, ready to provide it. Satan is identified with the planet Saturn in astrology. Saturn is "the tough teacher" which never lets a mis-step get by without consequences. It is this tough teacher which is absolutely necessary, a gift from God, that forces His children to learn their lessons or perish. Once we come to understand how important Satan is to the progress of God's children, we can learn to appreciate him for the taskmaster that he is, and thereby avoid his temptations. It is when we appeal to him as "lord" by praying for earthly blessings that we get into trouble. Being the "Beast," the devil offers rewards to all who will serve him. Sometimes, perhaps often, it is a blessing that our merciful Father steps in to limit our lessons, and save us from such rewards, lest we fail completely. Rather than fear the devil, we should learn to appreciate his lessons; accept God's discipline and learn something; and hold on to our faith, no matter what. Let's stop blaming the devil for our trials, and learn that we bring them upon ourselves. The devil never made anyone do anything!

2:10 Here we have the devil "casting some into prison." This relates to the great war he will try to start, as described in Rev. 20:8, 9, just before his power is again destroyed. The devil's children, the Jews, are war-starters, as they openly boast in their own writings. They are right now (2000+) working toward the initiation of Armageddon, after which they will be destroyed. Their evil patterns play over and over again.

Again, it is to individuals that rewards are promised. It is individuals, rather than group, who can hear the Spirit speak. The second death is mentioned in 20:14, and I think this is the same incident described in Rev. 20:10 where the devil is cast into the fire, at the end of the Smyrna period.

TO THE CHURCH AT PERGAMOS

Key Word: "Faithful"

2:12 And to the angel of the church in PERGAMOS, write: These things says the one having the two-edged sharp sword:

2:13 I know where you dwell; where Satan's throne is, and that you hold my name, and did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.

2:14 But I have a few things against you, because you have some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, to eat idol sacrifices, and to commit fornication.

2:15 So, you also have some holding the teaching of the Nicolaitans likewise.

2:16 Repent, therefore, otherwise, I am coming to you quickly and will fight with them with the sword of my mouth.

2:17 Let the one with an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one overcoming I will give to him of the manna which has been hidden, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone has been written a new name, which no man knows except the one receiving it.

THE CITY IN ASIA MINOR

About 50 miles north of Smyrna is Pergamos, the capitol of that Roman Province of Asia. It was the center of the most important kingdom in W. Asia Minor in 3rd C. BC, continuing as a cultural and political center until 4th C. AD. The oldest part of the city is the Acropolis, nearly 1,300 feet above the Caicus river. An Acropolis was a fort, on a high place, around which a town would develop. In Pergamos there were temples to Demeter, Athena, Aphrodite, the Magna Mater, and Asclepius. It was famous for its library which rivaled the one in Alexandria. On a hill behind the city was an immense altar to Zeus which burned animal sacrifices 24 hours a day. Since Asclepius was the god of healing, many sick were brought here to lie on cots in hope that a sacred snake would touch them and heal them. The snake was Asclepius' symbol, and is still today depicted on the caduceus, the insignia of modern medical doctors. A Christian presence developed there in the 1st century, but it was very slow growing because the cult of Asclepius was so important to the city.

PERGAMOS CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR (60 — 90 AD)

Most likely the Temple of Asclepius was being referred to as "Satan's throne." In Greeky mythology, Asclepius was the god of medicine, a son of Apollo, to whom the people looked for healing. Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt, for fear that men might be set free from death through medicines.

I could make a strong argument today that medical science is a Satanic art, because it promises external cures for spiritual ailments, whereas men should instead turn to God alone, either learning their necessary lesson, or dying. Any other intervention between God and His children is from Satan! In our world today, many spend money on Insurance, as though they can prevent consequences for their beliefs or their actions, in spite of God's natural laws, by which consequences for actions are unavoidable. We spend our lives paying for such things as insurance, medical treatments, and other items which we believe we need in order to survive. Really, we spend our lives serving idols which have Satan behind them. Satan has the power to effect miraculous results for those who turn to his medical angels, but just consequences will still be unavoidable ultimately. After all, those who seek Satan's cures have rejected God's lesson, and the consequences, though seemingly delayed, will be inescapable. I would remind anyone, that seeking external-providence is the opposite of faith. Perfect faith, which can move mountains, requires no external forces or provisions or cures or magic-bullets. Perfect faith doesn't pray for miracles, but is rewarded naturally! True God-given miracles are undeserved interventions from God, and very rare. Most miracles are provided by the lord-of-this-world because the person claiming faith in the miracle has already turned away from a genuine yielding-faith in God, wanting the magic. These two things are easily confused by those who desire miracles so strongly. Many chase the phenomena, and Satan obliges. The Satanic art of faith-healing is practiced by supposed spirit-filled Christians whoare thrilled to zap a cripple and heal him. As you will learn later in this book of Revelation, the word "faith" has a much deeper meaning than just trusting in God to perform miracles. Faith is the actual BELIEF by which we create the reality that we perceive. In the kingdom of God, we will learn to BELIEVE properly, and then we will get genuine Godly results. Until one can move mountains by faith, his miracle healings are gifts from Satan as rewards for trusting in external causes. Since this powerful desire for health and happiness and protection from consequences is so ruinous to true faith, this is a powerful throne for Satan to occupy, and from which he attracts many weak souls toward his own fold. He appears to be a shepherd, and many sheep go to him, but he is a wolf.

V. 14 While most commentaries associate Balaam and Balak with sexual licentiousness, that is falling short of the truth. Balak, king of Moabites, feared the Israelites, and wanted to destroy them, but couldn't do it with warriors. So, he called Balaam, a pagan prophet, who advised him that the Israelites could never be defeated while their God was with them. He said the only way to turn their God against them would be through race-mixing. So Balak sent young Moabite women to the fringes of the camp, where young Israelite men were enticed by them, and took them for wives. This story is told in fuller detail by Josephus: Antiquities 4:6. See also Numbers 25:6-13 and Psalm 106:29-31. The "stumblingblock" of v.14 is race-mixing, the very same sin as that of the commandment against adultery, which regarded the adulteration of God's racial family! Most theologians and preachers dare not teach how important our racial purity is to our God, but the Bible is full of God's warnings from beginning to end. Most preachers would lose their flocks and incomes if they taught God's truth about race. Although, true prophets of God would proclaim this truth, even knowing it might cost their lives.

PERGAMOS: AGE THAT "WAS" IN KINGDOM OF WORLD (ca. 6650 — 4900 BC)

Refer to the sine-wave Paradigm. The period begins in the age of Cancer and lasts until the middle of Gemini. Adam & Eve appeared during this period, about 5,508 BC. This Pergamos time-period is still a time of declining civilization, getting near to the most depraved and most powerful time of Satan's rulership. Consider how degenerate the world must have been, following the Zodiac age of Cancer, which represents degeneration and wicked passions (anger & hate can be fatal). The presence of God's care, as functioning through His anointed Son, Jesus, had disappeared again from the stage at the beginning of Pergamos, so God's race of children nearly disappear again as a result of terrible oppression and persecution from the world. The Genesis story of Adam's appearance represents the act of God when He reinstalled His Spirit into the remnant of His race, which had been driven to the remotest part of the planet, the Pamir Plateau, just north of modern Pakistan, a high elevation plateau, not easily accessible, a region from which four rivers flow toward the four cardinal directions. God re-empowered His children by renewing the seven Spirit powers (the Holy Spirit) within them, whereby they would begin to influence the World slowing its decline and thereby begin to turn the course upward again toward the God of good.

Rev. 2:13 speaks of Satan's throne, which is the kingdom of World, where he sits and exercises his negative powers. While God's children were driven nearly to extinction, and to remote isolation, the few that are left are commended for "not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you where Satan dwells." The word "anti" in Greek, means "one who stands in place of." The word "pas" means "all, the whole, every." Well, God is the Whole, the All in All. So, apparently someone of God's representative children was still being faithful unto death. Again, in Jesus' message to Pergamos, we see another emphasis on God's concern about race-mixing, the "teaching of Balaam," and the broader admonition against our human attraction toward the idols of the world, and toward immorality. What was the "teaching of the Nicolaitans?" Nowhere in the Bible are we given any hint. Since the teachings were in vogue at that time, we might consider the probable circumstances of the current worldly civilization, to perhaps get a hint. Let's first ponder the reciprocal spiritual situation at the very apex of the sine-wave, during the Zodiac age of Sagittarius. It is at that age where the Elect will achieve spiritual perfection, walking with God in person and in Spirit. The material, physical dimension will not be real, and we will experience a spiritual dimension of reality. So, now, down near the bottom of the curve, in Satan's kingdom of World, we might suspect that the earth-spirits of Satan's kingdom are very prevalent. Wicked and evil demonic spirits are fully present, perhaps even in physical view. They have demonic powers and the wicked race of Satan is exercising its peak of dominion and power. Anyone who might reject or deny the proper obeisance to the demonic spirits would suffer terrible consequences. I suspect that the word "Nicolaitans" represents the worship or service to demonic spirits, just as many new-age people are practicing today, through deep-trance-mediums. Another possibility for "Nicolaitans" might be homosexuality. It is part of the instinctive nature of Satan's race that they want to pervert every Godly moral, principal, or teaching. Their instinct is, at its deepest level, to LIE, that is to be fraudulent or deceitful or in some way dishonest. Honest, natural, God-designed sexuality is that male and female genders complement each other. Dishonest sexuality would be the perverted practice of same-gender sex. We might note that this time-period also corresponds with the tribal age of Benjamin, a tribe that was nearly exterminated once because of homosexuality. So, perhaps the Nicolaitan teaching was sexual perversion, something which seems to reach its full power at those times when the devil is exercising his full demonic power, such as 6,000 to 8,000 years ago when negative energy was approaching its nadir, and also during our present end-times, right now, just prior to his defeat and the transfer of power from him to Christ. One connection I might make regarding the deep-trance mediums, who channel demonic spirits, and sexual perversion is this: that ALL deep-trance mediums and genuine psychics are homosexual. ALL true deep-trance mediums have large bellies, wherein the emotional psychic/plasmic forces function to enable communications and apparitional phenomena between the spirit-world and our-world.

In Rev. 2:16, Jesus says He will fight them, the wicked ones, "with the sword of my mouth." We certainly know what that is, for the very WORD is the instrument of all creation. And it is through this Word that God's children, Adam, were re-empowered to act once more as expressions of God's Word on earth. The "manna" is probably that spiritual empowerment that fuels God's anointed children. The "stone" on which has been written a new name, may be that law of God which He writes in the hearts and minds of His children, being an instinct that no other person can know except He who has been born from above as a member of the stone-kingdom, and as a child of the covenant-God. These couple interpretations are speculations, merely because they seem fairly obvious in context.

PERGAMOS: AGE THAT "IS" IN PISCES (568 — 854 AD)

We are looking here at the Christian movement which is mostly in Britain at this time, but also on the European continent where the diasporan Israelites had settled from their emigration about 700 BC. Most of the northern European nations still today fly flags which have the emblems of the twelve tribes of Israel. This alone should stimulate western Christian scholars to take a look at that history, but it doesn't seem likely that they ever will. In Britain, King Arthur had died in 542, and the land did not know much peace after that. In 597 St. Augustine visited Britain as ambassador from the Pope, to help establish a Roman Catholic power base which would collect funds for the harlot, Rome.

Rev. 2:13 has Jesus saying that He knows about the presence of Satan's throne there, and commending the British for keeping the faith, even through those difficult days when "Antipas" (King Arthur in this case, representing God) was killed. The person, Antipas, is unknown to available historical record. Whoever he was, in old Pergamos, he has earned a name and a reputation forever by being Christ's "faithful witness." Jesus indicates in v. 14 that the Brits would be having some problems with race-mixing, which was the Balak/Balaam lesson in the Old Testament. Certainly there were many different nations attempting to migrate into Britain during this period; there were Gaels, Picts, Kelts, Saxons, Norsemen, Belgae, and others. Most of these were white-race Israelites, except perhaps for the Picts and unknown others. The warlike times are reflected in this letter to Pergamos. Jesus introduces Himself as the one having the two-edged sword (like Excalibur) and in v. 16 says He will come and fight with the Sword of His mouth. Verse 17 speaks of a "stone," which is interesting because this British land held many impressive stone structures, megaliths, and ancient stone-altars, probably from the Hebrew teachings brought there by Jeremia a thousand years prior to Arthur. Remember that our Old Testament emphasizes stones as monuments and altars. We have been known by some in the past as the "stone-people" or "stone-kingdom."

PERGAMOS: AGE THAT "IS TO COME" IN KINGDOM OF GOD (5500 — 7250 AD)

Refer to Sine-Wave Diagram in front of book.

On the diagram of history, the age of Pergamos will be from about 5500 to 7250 AD. Satan is cast into the fire (20:10) at the beginning of that age, and God's children will attain a near perfect level of perfection in the kingdom of God.

In the paragraphs above, I discussed the Temple of Asclepius as Satan's throne, and the IDEA of external causes being idolatry. In the future age of Pergamos, it looks like the IDEA of external-causes will still attract the worship of some people.

The spiritual lesson is that faith is the opposite from dependence on external-providence. Perfect faith, which can move mountains, requires no external forces or provisions or cures or magic-bullets. It is in this future Pergamos period that the Godly ones, the 144,000 Elect, who are destined for spiritual perfection, realize their own creative power, that they actually move mountains by their faith. Their lesson is to realize that they themselves are the creators of their own reality, and they perceive only what they create. This is a high spiritual level, available to those initiates who did not get culled out in the 2nd Death. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is recognized, and they learn to discriminate between their own creative powers and the lie of external causes.

At this future time in our history, when our creative powers are realized and there is no more death, the perfect ones are immortal and no longer die. When there is no more death, there also are no more births. And no more marriage, just as Jesus said; no more sex; no more struggle between opposites (male vs. female). Some symbols of conflict disappear into Union. So, it may be that this reference to Balaam indicates for the future Pergamos that there will be no more sexual activity or procreation. Also, there may be a change in eating for it is mentioned in vv. 14 and 17; perhaps with no more death there is no more need to serve a body of flesh with daily offerings. Interesting thought!

2:16 The weapon of God is Creative Word, the same which brought forth our universe. What can ever withstand that? We, as the body of Christ, wield this sword already, but we are ignorant of it. Then we will do it consciously, and Godly.

2:17 Manna indicates a provision from God, but here in the future kingdom, it may indicate a new kind of sustenance, different from the ingesting of earth's produce.

TO THE CHURCH AT THYATIRA

Key Word: "Love"

2:18 And to the angel of the church in THYATIRA, write: These things say the Son of God, the one having His eyes as a flame of fire, and His feet like polished brass:

2:19 I know of your works and love and faith and ministry and your endurance, and that your last works are more than the first.

2:20 But I have against you that you permit the woman Jezabel, the one calling herself a prophetess, and she teaches and deceives my servants to commit fornication, and to eat idol sacrifices;

2:21 and I gave her time in order that she might repent, and she wishes not to repent of her fornication.

2:22 Look, I am casting her into a bed, into great affliction, along with those committing adultery with her, unless they shall repent of her works;

2:23 and her children I will kill with death; and all the churches will know that I am the one searching kidneys and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your works.

2:24 But I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, as many as have not this teaching, who knew not the deep things of Satan, as they tell: I am not casting on you another burden;

2:25 but that which you have, hold until I shall come.

2:26 And the one overcoming and keeping my works until the end, I will give him authority over my people,

2:27 and he will shepherd them with an iron staff, breaking them like vessels of clay,

2:28 as I also have received from my Father, and I will give him the morning star.

2:29 The one having an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

THE CITY IN ASIA MINOR

About 45 miles east of Pergamos is Thyatira. To this church, the physical appearance of "Son of God" who speaks, is described. To the other churches He is described by mentioning one of His functions or titles. In this one instance His very appearance is His described, still in symbols, of course. The city of Thyatira existed from 2nd C. BC till 3rd C. AD, being an important commercial trading center with many artisans and guilds such as clothing makers, tanners, leatherworkers, potters, bakers, slave dealers, and bronzesmiths. It was a wool trade-center.

THYATIRA: THE CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR (60 — 90AD)

This is the only church of the seven which receives no warning like "repent." The church is greatly praised. There is one criticism: that a "Jezabel" is permitted to exist among them. And then God declares His wrath against Jezabel and her children.

2:27 God's creations are considered to be "vessels of clay," which the Shepherd breaks with a rod of iron if they don't meet His standard. The Bible is the story of selecting only the best from each generation, and the others are never spoken of again. God is a very discriminating Potter, and it is liberal nonsense to think good vessels should be sacrificed for the sake of the weak, the defective, the perverted, the parasite, the immoral, the dishonest, and the anti-God people of the world. Rather, our racial progress is one long process of genetic strengthening through selecting the strong and culling the weak.

THYATIRA: AGE THAT "WAS" IN KINGDOM OF WORLD (ca.4900 — 3200 BC)

On the diagram of God's Divine Paradigm, this age is at the very nadir of the negative half of the cycle. Somewhere just after the midpoint of this age, God flooded the region of the world where His children lived, and where they had gone badly astray by mixing their divine race with earth races. They had been evicted from Eden, the Pamir Plateau, and were living in the Tarim Pendi region of western China, along the southern edge of the Tien Shan mountains. It is in that very region that mummies have been discovered during the past century. The mummies are Caucasian with blond hair, blue eyes, tall, slender, good looking, and with sophisticated woolen clothing (with tartan plaid! patterns) and felt shoes. The mummies are many thousands of years old! Anyway, most of the Adamic race was killed in the flood of that basin, saving only Noah and his family because he was pure in his genetic lineage. It has always been of primary importance that God preserve a pure genetic lineage for His Elect children, called Adam and Israel. "Jezabel" represents that influence which promotes fornication and adultery (breeding across race lines) and human-nature attraction to worldly materials.

We can see that here God is not going to be nearly so lenient as He was with the previous three ages, when His Spirit was not so dynamically active among His children. Now, his special lineage needs to pointedly focus upon its special destiny to influence the world upward toward the positive, Godly nature. For the rest of the Thyatirans, who aren't involved in race-mixing or worldly enticements, God places no other burden.

After the flood, we see God promising to the one overcoming (it would be Sem, of Noah's 3 sons) authority over the Adamic race, which becomes the "Semitic" race. God's design will be promoted through His selected leaders who will have power to break the dissidents like they were vessels of clay. We see a new program initiated with this, where special leaders will exercise great authority. During the years between Adam and Noah, there is no indication of any established religion or Godly leaders. The Adamic families lived long long lifespans and handled their own problems and earthly matters as their wisdom and experience permitted them. With shorter lifespans, following Noah, men would not accumulate centuries of personal wisdom and experience, so there would be shepherds appointed to watch over the flock. "The Morning Star" might refer to the fact that midnight has just past, and the morning light of God's new program is beginning. A "morning star" would be some specially appointed representative of God who guides the flock across uncharted centuries of darkness/night, toward an undefined destiny. Abram could certainly be considered a "morning star," but it would be more than a thousand years before he steps onto the stage.

THYATIRA: AGE THAT "IS" IN PISCES (855 — 1141 AD)

Here begins a period of Roman Catholic terror, oppression, crusades, and inquisitions against the white-race Israelites of Europe and Britain. Some estimate that the Roman church killed as many as fifty million Christians during the next few medieval dark-age centuries, extending from this time until the Reformation. The Papal office was many times bought and sold, one prostitute even buying it for her son. One jealous husband killed a Pope who was in bed with his wife. The priests across the land were notoriously wicked, oppressing and cruelly abusing their own lay people, extorting impossible financial payments, and practicing every kind of wickedness. Some say local populations were radically increased by priest adulteries. The gargoyles on their cathedrals probably best illustrate the level of misery to which the Roman Catholic Church brought Europe. And that was just the beginning. To this day, the Roman Catholic Church has never expressed any remorse or criticism of its wickedness during those terrible centuries, and that should not surprise us considering the wicked perversions it still practices in the darkness of its black sepulchres. Horror filled tombs! During the middle ages, the worst thing which could be said of a person was that he was as "wicked as a priest."

Jesus' letter to His body, Israel, tells that He knows of their endurance, and does not castigate them for anything except permitting that Roman "prophetess Jezabel" in their midst. For those who are innocent of the wickedness and tyranny of the Jezebel, Jesus says, "I am not casting on you another burden." This note of mercy is so needed by those millions who suffered the devil's unrestrained hatred of Israel.

In 1066 William of Normandy, supposedly an Israelite, conquered England and united the land under his merciless rule. He gave the choicest English lands to his aids, who built castles from which to defend themselves. He declared a large forest his private royal hunting preserve — the legend of Robin Hood comes from this. Importing French feudalism to England, he reduced the entire populace to abject serfdom, and inventoried every last animal, building, and piece of land in the kingdom in the Domesday Book. The Norman Roman Catholic clergy shared in the spoil, but we won't understand the culture if we think of clergy as religious leaders; they were nothing more than scheming and plundering opportunists, expressing the Edomite nature. William became so fat that at death could not be forced into the extra large coffin prepared for him. Edomite Jewish moneylenders came in with William, stimulating a social culture oriented to business and capital, which would make it impossible for serfs to ever rise above virtual enslavement. It seems that Esau had found God's Jacob in those afar-off-isles where God had protected him for a time. The Jews had become prominent antagonists on the stage again.

THYATIRA: AGE THAT "IS TO COME" IN KINGDOM OF GOD (ca. 7250 — 9000 AD)

Refer to Sine-Wave Diagram. Thyatira is the fourth city of seven, and on the curve sits at the very top, representing the highest level of spirituality possible. The age of Thyatira is at the very apex of the positive half-cycle. The apex occurs about 8125 AD, which is exactly mid-way in the age of Thyatira.

At this apex of spiritual perfection, we have the beginning of a new era, with a Fall, then degeneration unto destruction. This point really represents the starting point of each spiritual cycle in God's historical program. While the Genesis story of creation indicates a beginning of Adam and Eve in the age of Gemini, about 5,508BC, that story is an allegory which tells of a re-empowerment of God's divine children. The Creation story of Genesis One also describes this Fall in Scorpio (the serpent). A spiritual cycle begins at the time of perfection and union with our Father, followed by a Fall, a degeneration, a reintroduction of God's children, and a long struggle upward toward union again with our Source.

Here, in Thyatira, at the apex, Perfection has been achieved, and is then lost by the act of Division through the yielding to temptations of sexual and intellectual desires. This great event is part of the Great Paradigm, the model of all that exists. That Paradigm reveals the basic essence/nature/substance of our dimension of reality! Numerals represent God's dynamic process of Creation. The numbers are described by St. Paul, in Acts 17, where he tells the Athenian philosophers the story of God's creation through the symbols of numbers. Those seven numbers are again represented by symbols in this message to the Thyatira church.

If you refer to the chapter, THE THRONE SCENE, and get familiar with the idea of numbers as symbols of creation, then you can recognize them in this Thyatira message. The number Zero is a symbol for God, the Supreme All & Void. The number Zero represents history's Apex, here in Thyatira, as Perfection and union with our source, the eternal Father. The number One symbolizes the Son of God, the Christ, and is denoted here in Rev. 2:18, as "the Son of God." As we go through the next few verses, I will point out the Number Symbols, which equate to the Great Paradigm you will read about later in THE THRONE SCENE chapter.

2:19 I know of your works and love and faith and ministry and your endurance, and that your last works are more than the first.

The children of God have attained the highest spiritual perfection possible, and they are commended for it. They lack nothing in their attainment. Their works increase rather than wane; they do not weary.

We must understand that this apex is exactly half a cycle from the nadir, about 12,000 years prior, when the devil's success was turned, and the path turned upward. At this apex, the spiritually perfected are in danger, because the negative energy begins again to pull civilization downward, in the age of Scorpio (the serpent of the fall). The Genesis story is an allegory which describes this fall, which occurs between Sagittarius and Scorpio.

The Fall is a return to sexual activity, something forbidden to immortals. They are attracted to it by the devil, who seduces a perfected feminine gender. She then entices the perfect male to her lovemaking, and the Fall is complete. They have partaken of the forbidden fruit. The next verses describe this. This couple becomes the Adam & Eve for another cycle of Satan's progeny to contest against Godly progeny.

2:20 But I have against you that you permit the woman Jezabel, the one calling herself a prophetess, and she teaches and deceives my servants to commit fornication, and to eat idol sacrifices;

The criticism is that a prophetess is permitted to live among them, whereby she is doing the temptation recorded in the fall of Adam and Eve; she is eliciting sexual intercourse. The guilt is not placed on the tempter, but on those who permit her to live among them. If the sheep permit the wolf to live among them, the consequences are the fault of the sheep themselves, not the wolf!

The Number symbol Two represents division of the perfect One into parts, the separation of a unit into multiple parts, of two types: male & female, and intellectual knowledge of good & evil; thus making them gods who engineer their own destinies rather than yielding to the flow of their Supreme Father. This symbol is described by John in this verse as the sexual activity wherein immortal Man procreates. He thereby violates the rule against procreation, and terminates his immortality, which means that he can no longer walk in the garden of perfection in union with our Source.

2:21 and I gave her time in order that she might repent, and she wishes not to repent of her fornication.

The Number symbol Three represents time. Time is the linear expression of existence so that sequence-of-events is possible. Once man experiences the temporal reality, with its struggle between good and bad, he has eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and does not want to return to the eternal bliss which he knew prior to this. He doesn't want to repent of his division, or separation, from the Father.

2:22 Look, I am casting her into a bed, into great affliction, along with those committing adultery with her, unless they shall repent of her works;

The Number symbol Four represents form. Form is the substance of our dimension of reality, within space. John symbolizes this form/substance of our world, by saying "casting her into a bed, into great affliction." The bed symbolizes the supporting foundation of world. Repentance may still be an option, but once man has fallen, he persists in degeneration until he reaches the very nadir at the bottom of the Sine-Wave curve. Only then, with the re-empowerment of God's spiritual children, who have creative powers, can true repentance occur, and Man begins his long climb upward again toward his source.

2:23 and her children I will kill with death; and all the churches will know that I am the one searching kidneys and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your works.

The Number symbol Five represents CHANGE, WHICH IS THE SUBSTANCE OF APPEARANCE. It is in this that our reality becomes dynamic. "Five" is symbolized by John in the change that brings "death," to Man again. Death is only an apparent phenomenon, a result of dysfunctional children, within God's Mind (image/imagination/dream).

The Number symbol Six represents "experience" which is symbolized by John in "according to your works." "Six" is the number of Man, who is the actual experience of God. It is through the activities (works) of Man that the Supreme source of All-That-Is lives and experiences the cyclic patterns of temporal life struggles. You will see that the number Six is important at the Throne of God.

2:24 But I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, as many as have not this teaching, who knew not the deep things of Satan, as they tell: I am not casting on you another burden;

2:25 but that which you have, hold until I shall come.

The Number symbol Seven represents Perfection, which becomes the extended family of God's children, with all that they create through their "belief." This number really depicts EVERYTHING which exists, everything which we can perceive, or imagine. It is the final result of God's process of creation. Here is the sum result of the previous six numbers. While Man is the perfect Creation of the Father, being the Christ and all the Elect who make up that body, this number "seven" symbolizes all which the Elect create through their creative powers. Here we see the fulfillment of the creative process, and here is where the dynamic struggle of opposites (good vs evil) takes place; here is where the grand play of God is performed! The contest is between "as many as have not this teaching" and those negative energy powers of Satan.

This number, "seven," is symbolized by John as he commends the perfection of those who did not FALL victim to Satan's temptation of sexual activity and procreation. These perfect ones have no further obligation, and by holding themselves perfect, they perhaps have an end different from the ones who fell. What their reward might be is only speculation right now. But, think about this for a moment. At this moment of temptation, in which some perfected ones do fall, there may be some who do NOT fall! What happens to them? It wouldn't make sense to think that they suffer the consequences of the fall if they did not fall. They would not share the punishment of another cycle of degeneration, downward, but perhaps they continue upward! It might be something like this: at the middle of Scorpio, the perfected ones transfer to a different upward curve, entering it at the point in the middle of Gemini, as new Adams and Eves, in another dimension.

Or might the next verse hint at an even more astounding scenario? Does only one Perfect One resist the fall and overcome the temptation? If so, does he then become the Anointed Shepherd for the next cycle of ages? Are we being shown things in John's Revelation far beyond what anyone has yet imagined?

BUT, let me present this for you to consider. I can clearly imagine that I, personally, might not be able to resist the temptation to do another round of World. From the position in Heaven, where all is Perfect, Holy, and Glorious, and where I can create whatever reality I wish by merely thinking it; from that position I would know that another cycle of World is about to begin and I might want to be a part of it, to "do it one more time," to step forth into it as a challenger of the great Deceiver, confident that I can succeed against him, and can thereby assist and encourage my brothers and sisters. Consider that when one is separate from God, he is free to use his own will, and thereby he is a god, too, even though a small one in a big universe. I can well imagine that I would step forth to say, "yes, blind me, have me born in ignorance into the nightmare, for it is that challenge which I cannot resist!" Such egoic arrogance is a most powerful and terrible compulsion which I should never feel confident that I have conquered.

2:26 And the one overcoming and keeping my works until the end, I will give him authority over my people,

2:27 and he will shepherd them with an iron staff, breaking them like vessels of clay,

If He, the one overcomer, becomes the new Shepherd, the Anointed One (a Jesus) for the next cycle. He will, as God's Son, shepherd them with an iron staff, breaking the children of God like clay pottery. This describes the culling process, whereby those who turn to Satan's world for their gratifications and sensual delights are culled out and abandoned. They are on the downhill slide, with "enmity" toward their Father, and they get eliminated from being children of God. If one reads the New Testament objectively, he will clearly see that our Shepherd is NOT forgiving of all apostasy, but is a tough taskmaster, demanding perfection, and slamming the door on those who delay in preparing for Him. The Potter has the right to break any vessels which are not up to His standards!

2:28 as I also have received from my Father, and I will give him the morning star.

Jesus is indicating the transfer of the baton, whereby the new Shepherd becomes the new "morning star."

2:29 The one having an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

If this speculation is valid, then we are getting a glimpse of God's plan as it begins all over again, with another Fall and a new Anointed One.

TO THE CHURCH AT SARDIS

Key Word: "Watching"

3:1 And to the angel of the church in SARDIS, write: These things says the one having the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: I know of your works, that you have a name that you live, and yet you are dead.

3:2 Be watching, and set fast those who remain which were about to die; for I have not found your works fulfilled before my God;

3:3 remember therefore how you have received and did hear, and keep watch, and repent. If therefore you do not watch, I will come like a thief, and you will by no means know at what hour I will come on you.

3:4 But you have a few names in Sardis which did not defile their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy.

3:5 The one overcoming, thusly, shall be clothed in white garments, and I will by no means blot his name out of the scroll of life, and I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels.

3:6 The one having an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

THE CITY IN ASIA MINOR

About thirty miles south of Thyatira is Sardis. It is an ancient city, being the capitol of the Lydian empire from about 680 BC, later serving importantly for the Persians, the Seleucids, and a leading city of the Roman province of Asia. Sardis is only mentioned this one time in the N.T. The one having seven Spirits of God is the Lamb. See 1:4 for discussion of this. The seven stars are defined in 1:20 as the seven angels of the churches, held in Christ's hand. In 17 AD Sardis suffered a catastrophic earthquake.

SARDIS: THE CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR (60 — 90AD)

Sardis is in serious trouble, having only a reputation of being alive, but really being dead. This church is a painted-sepulchre, looking good on the outside but dead inside. We don't know what the problems were beyond the general criticisms listed in the passage. But we can surely appreciate and grasp the warm love God grants to the individuals who do not defile themselves!

This is a passage to bless the solitaires across the land who feel so alone and rejected in their genuine search for truth and spiritual life. They go to a church because the church promises answers for spiritual seekers. Then, when they probe for answers to the most elementary questions, preachers turn against them as though slapping them. For so very many churches, the façade is a lie; inside, the corpses actively try to quench the Holy Spirit which prompts spiritual seekers, making new members as dead as themselves. Woe to them; John's revelation foretells their terrible doom!

SARDIS: AGE THAT "WAS" IN KINGDOM OF WORLD (ca. 3200 — 1450 BC)

See the sine-wave diagram, and find this period, from the near middle of Taurus until part-way into Aries. This age of Sardis finds God's children starting the upward path, as they are being established with large families just after the great flood. Noe's family might be few, but Cain's descendants were already occupying the Babylon region. The Pagan religion was being established by Cain's descendants to become dominant in the Middle East. The religion of Paganism began with Nimrod, who became the Tammuz of ancient Chaldea and Babylon. Nimrod's wife was Semiramis, who became the "Queen of Heaven," the "mother of God," also known later as Artemis or Diana. Nimrod's father was BEL, often spelled "Baal." It is believed that Bel-Marduk was descended from Cush the son of Ham. So, the Pagan trinity consisted of Bel as father, Semiramis as mother-goddess, and Tammuz the son. The Egyptian trinity is the very same three, being named Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Many centuries later, the early Christian Church would be persecuted and not tolerated by the Mediterranean Pagans until it adopted their religion of Paganism with mere changes of names to God the Father, Mary the mother-goddess and Queen of Heaven, and Jesus, her Son. The statuary that was already popular in Roman marketplaces was that of the Pagan Madonna and her son, along with the Pietá which was Semiramis holding her son Tammuz. The same statues were adopted by the Roman Catholic religion, along with the old Pagan rituals, and the Christian religion became set for the future: Paganism under the name of Christianity!

Always, through the course of history, God's program and the devil's program run parallel. Satan knows God's program and attempts to duplicate it in his kingdom of world. The religion of Paganism was founded by Satan, prior to Abraam or Christianity in order to be there first, making it appear that God's program is copying Satan's. This makes the pageant all the more interesting! How shall God's true Elect children keep themselves separate and distinct from the world if the world's lie appears very similar to the Truth? Most people of the world will turn to that which promises the most tangible reward, and Satan definitely has the advantage because he can provide the material rewards and even many spiritual phenomena that God's children are not recognizing as Satanic. It is only by the instinct with which God empowers His Elect children that they can reject the false and own the Truth, even though it lacks the appeal of theater and the impressive phenomena of Paganism.

About half way through this age of Sardis, Abram appears on stage to institute a new religion which predicts the coming of a Savior, to be called God's Lamb because Abraam is at the beginning of the Zodiac age of Aries (Lamb) and the idea of sacrificial Lamb is meaningful to the people. He predicts that at the end of the age of Aries God will provide His own Lamb as the final sacrifice. With this basic beginning for the Hebrew religion, Abraam's grandson, Jacob, would emigrate to Egypt with his twelve sons, and there propagate to establish the families of Israel, who will BE God's anointed family forevermore.

In Revelation 3:1-6, Jesus speaks of the Hebrew lineage having a name that they are alive, but really they are dead. Prior to Abram, and the introduction of the Hebrew religion, the ancestors did not have a living religion, but passed information about their ancestors down through generations by the process of oral-tradition, meaning memorization and recitation. They knew of the true God in this way, but following Abraam, they would then have some defined religious practices, and would be more dynamically alive in their faith. According to verse 2, they had not been doing very well in fulfilling their duties toward their God. So, these people get a warning! Always, even in the worst of circumstances, there are some who maintain their faith, perhaps only a few individuals. It seems that God always maintains a few champions, sometimes perhaps very few. The book of life is mentioned, and so it is that God maintains a lasting record of those who do well. We need to keep this fact in the front of our minds, as an encouragement which means to give us courage that we might stand as solitaires before a hostile world.

SARDIS: AGE THAT "IS" IN PISCES (ca. 1141 — 1427AD)

The body of Christ, Israel, in Europe and Britain is almost dead at this time. The darkness is so overwhelming that few sparks of light (truth) ever become even a tiny flame. Like the letter says, the church (Christ's Israel, being ruled by the Roman Catholic Church) has a façade of being alive, but it is not. The darkness has spread over Britain also, and things look pretty bleak. Note, though, there are a few names undefiled, who will walk with Christ in white. The English theologian, John Wycliffe (1324-1384) was the first major reformation influence. He countered many of the false doctrines of R.C. and called the Pope "anti-Christ." Wycliffe is known as the "Morning Star" of the reformation. After his death the Roman Catholics dug up his bones and burned them. John Huss (1371 - 1415: burned at the stake) preached against the vices of the clergy. These men stepped forward for Christ, standing all alone, and died without realizing that their courage began a movement which would free God's children from the great whore of Babylon, who in Rev. 17 was "drunk from the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus." The movement began with a few singular solitaire voices, just lone individuals who dared speak the truth at the cost of their lives. Rev. 3:5 speaks to such solitairy souls, "The one overcoming shall be clothed in white garments... and I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels." Note that the key word for Sardis is "watching," which is appropriate for that reawakening which historians look back upon as the Renaissance.

SARDIS: AGE THAT "IS TO COME" IN KINGDOM OF GOD (8950 — 10,700 AD)

Refer to Sine Wave Curve Diagram. Sardis is the period right after the Scorpio FALL; the perfected ones are still enjoying a high estate of wisdom and knowledge and powers beyond anything we can imagine. But with the increasing negative energy attraction, the spirits of pride, vanity, lust, and avarice begin to play active roles again. Remember that the primary characteristic of negative energy is to lie, just as Jesus explained in John 8:44. Deception is an influence by which we delude ourselves into believing something that is not true. In this case, the fallen ones maintain a reputation of being alive, but they had pretty much lost that after they were evicted from the garden (left the age of Thyatira). Henceforth, they can only mimic that former estate, and in the depths of their soul-memories longingly yearn for it.

3:2 The things being lost would be perfect wisdom and knowledge. From our point of view today, we can look back about 12,000 years or so when these things were "set fast" in the building of a Sphinx and the great Pyramid, which are just now being discovered, just as God promised that these things would be revealed in the end-times. Those great stone monuments were store-houses of information: memories of ages past. Throughout the O.T. and other archaeological records, we see that stone monuments were very important to our ancestors, to "set fast" the memory of some important incident. It is innate to our genetic memory that our Adamic race values stone monuments so highly. Just look at our ancient Greek and our European history at the great monuments, buildings, and castles which testify that we were there.

This period of Sardis corresponds to its reciprocal moment in the cycle, the time of Abraam in Aries. Abraam was establishing a religion for God's children, setting stone altars for worship. In the age of Sardis, we can assume the devil will be establishing his own children as his power base.

3:3 remember, therefore, how you have received and did hear, and keep guard and repent. If therefore you do not watch, I will come as a thief, and by no means will you know at what hour I will come upon you.

"Remember" and "set fast." The pyramid would be built between this age of Sardis and the end of the age of Laodicea as a storehouse of spiritual information. The Great Pyramid at Giza should be called The Temple of Christ, for that is exactly what it is. It might also be called the Temple of the Open Tomb!

Keep watch against what? The devil's influence, of course. Keep in mind that the devil never made anyone do anything; negative energy is just an influence. If we yield to that influence and turn away from God, the consequences we reap are a matter of justice. Such justice is God's design, and we should not be surprised at our due reward.

And here we have an end-time warning, that God will come as a "thief." Those who rebelled against their Heaven Estate probably have the wisdom to know their future course, that the reign of Christ will come to an end, along with a cataclysmic polarity reversal of the earth's magnetic field. But that moment is still three or four thousand years ahead for these people who have chosen the descending passage.

TO THE CHURCH AT PHILADELPHIA

Key Word: "Ministering"

3:7 And to the angel of the church in PHILADELPHIA, write: These things says the holy and true One, the One having the key of David, the One opening and no one shall shut, and shutting and no one opens:

3:8 I know of you and your works; behold, I have given before you a door opened, which no one can shut; because you have a little power, and did keep my word, and did not deny my name.

3:9 Behold, I give some of the synagogue of Satan, those calling themselves Jews, and they are not, but lie; behold I will make them come and they shall worship before your feet, and they shall know that I loved you.

3:10 Because you did keep the word of my endurance, I also will keep you from the hour of trial about to come on all the inhabited earth, to try those dwelling on the earth.

3:11 I am coming quickly; hold what you have, so that no one takes your crown.

3:12 I will make him who overcomes a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will by no means go forth any longer, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, of the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven from my God, and my new name.

3:13 Let him who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

THE CITY IN ASIA MINOR

About 35 miles southeast of Sardis is Philadelphia, which means brotherly love in Greek. The city was founded in 2nd C. BC. It is a prosperous agriculture region, and has always been subject to earthquakes. An earthquake destroyed the city in 17 AD. People lived in the outskirts for many years after, since the building structures were so unstable. Verse 12 would be very meaningful to these people as it promises to make the Overcomer "a pillar in the temple..." who needs not "go forth any longer."

PHILADELPHIA: THE CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR (60 — 90AD)

Residents of this city were severely tested by the edict from the emperor Domitian in 92 AD, nearly simultaneous to the writing of this revelation by John. Yet, these people are praised most highly. Jesus gives them "an open door, which no one can shut;" and they are given no criticism or warning.

3:9 Like in so many cities, from Jerusalem to Rome, those who called themselves "Jews" made life difficult for the true Israelite Christians, the sheep who recognized and followed their Shepherd. The Edomite "Jews" had persecuted the Israelites during the prior two centuries, taking over the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, and they were continuing to cause problems for the new Christian churches. Rome evicted the Edomite Jews from Palestine in 70 AD, so they emigrated to many places where Christians churches were just beginning. Such "Jews" still today exploit and rob and murder the "goyim" (Hebrew for "cattle") Christians. It is the instinct of Edom to harrass, exploit, and attempt to destroy Israel through all the evil talents of Satan, until we are finally overthrown, and destroyed. It is the battle between the two brothers, Jacob and Esau, that is the Bible story. It is the contest between the two, with one making up the body of Christ and the other the body of the devil, which the prophets spoke about. It is the course of this contest which the book of Revelation defines. The seven churches represent the time periods of past and future, describing through symbols the struggles of good versus evil. Both Jesus and John used the word "Jew" as a symbol for the devil's race from Cain because the word exposes them as frauds, for they have no lineage from Juda at all.

PHILADELPHIA: AGE THAT "WAS" IN KINGDOM OF WORLD (1450BC — 250AD)

This time period begins about the time of Moses' Exodus (1486BC) from Egypt with the Israelites, where they paused to spend 40 years in the Sinai wilderness before crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. In the wilderness, at Mount Sinai, they became signers of a great Covenant between them and God. God outlined ten rules, which if not kept perfectly would result in a death penalty. Then they were led to their "promised land," and instructed to kill all the inhabitants who are already there, namely the Canaanites who were from the cursed race of Cain, and under the curse from Ham's incest with his mother. They crossed the Jordan, but failed to cleanse that land which they inherited, thus inheriting problems and practices of their enemy race, and they also began to despise their Theocracy, in which judges ruled them according to God's laws. The people wanted an earthly king, like their neighbors had, so God reluctantly granted them their wish after advising them that they wouldn't like it. After Saul, King David was the greatest King, a man greatly loved by God. David's son, Solomon followed, and gave himself to unimaginable excesses in spite of his gift of great wisdom. After Solomon, the kingdom of Israel was divided into two parts, the southern two tribes of Juda and Benjamin being called the kingdom of Juda, while the northern ten tribes were called the kingdom of Israel. The list of kings which followed contained few good ones, but most of them were decadent and idolatrous and scornful of their God. Finally, about 750 BC, God divorced the northern kingdom of Israel from Himself, scattering them to Greece, Europe, and Britain where they would forget their origin and who they really awere. The southern kingdom of Juda was never divorced from God, but in 586 BC was conquered by Babylon, which ended the true ancient Hebrew people and religion in the Palestine region, forever.

After about 70 years captivity in Babylon, a mostly corrupted remnant of the kingdom of Juda returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and institute a new religion called Babylonian Talmudic Phariseeism, based largely on the Chaldean Mystery Schools. They also brought with them a new mongrel language called "Hebrew," which had resulted from mixing their native Phoenician language with the Aramaic language of their Assyrian and Babylonian captors. Their new language had no alphabet or script yet, but there was some attempt to write a little of it by using the Phoenician alphabet. Scholars call that "Proto-Hebrew." Later, during the century just prior to Christ, they created the square letter "Hebrew" alphabet known as "Herodian Script." It would be another thousand years before they presented a so-called "Hebrew" text of the Old Testament to the world as the so-called original Bible of the ancient Hebrews. The Roman Church accepted it without question, but the Eastern Orthodox half of Christianity knew better, and has never yet accepted that fraudulent text as the genuine original.

The royal tribe of Juda had already been transplanted into Britain by the prophet Jeremia about 580 BC, when he carried one of King Zedekia's daughters, Princess Tea Tephi of the Phares Juda lineage, to Ulster, northern Ireland, where she married King Eochaid who was from the Zara Juda line, thus reuniting the royal Juda line in the British Isles. Jeremia also carried the Stone of Jacob to Ulster, which he took from the Jerusalem Temple. This square piece of stone, that had served Jacob for a pillow, represented the Throne of David which God promised would never be vacant. And it never has been! The throne ("stone" — remember, we are the stone kingdom) was in northern Ireland (then called Scotia) for a few centuries, then transferred to Scotland by the same Scotia people where it stayed in Scone for many centuries. In 1296 AD it was taken by Edward I to London, to Westminster Abbey to serve as the Coronation Throne for all English Royalty to this very day. Our Queen Elizabeth II was crowned while sitting on that Throne of David! In September of 1996, exactly 700 years after it was taken from Scotland to London, it was returned to Edinburgh, Scotland, where it is on display today. As God promised, the Throne of David would never be vacant, as his royal tribe of Juda has occupied it continuously since the time of David. On a wall in Westminster Abbey there hangs a genealogy chart which shows the family tree of England's Queen, tracing her ancestry all the way back to King David. So, some of us know who we are, even if most of western Christendom is not willing to examine this evidence.

Meanwhile, God's pageant was being played in the Levant. Jacob/Israel's family lived four hundred years in Egypt, then in the Promised Land, then were scattered toward Europe where they would eventually be reclaimed by their true Shepherd. Israel's brother and everlasting enemy, Esau/Edom was progenitor of a mongrel race called Edomites after he married into some Cain-race neighbors, to the consternation of his parents, Isaak and Rebekka. The Edomites settled an area south of the Dead Sea, known as Edom. About 312 BC, they were evicted from Edom by the Nabateans, migrating into Judea where they settled among God's royal tribe of Judahites. By 132 BC the Edomites were causing so much trouble that the leader of Jerusalem, John Hyrcanus, forced them to convert to the Jerusalem temple religion of Talmudic Phariseeism (Judaism). In a few short years, the Edomites had taken over the Temple, the City of Jerusalem, and all Judea, with an Edomite named Herod appointed as their King.

Well, it was during this age of Philadelphia that Jesus was born, the One "having the key of David, the One opening and no one shall shut, and shutting and no one opens." With Jesus' appearance, the die was cast; the Morning Star heralded the coming of the new day, and the devil's kingdom of darkness (lie) would be flooded with light (truth). The door to the future is "opened, which no one can shut." The members of Christ can rejoice after many centuries of persecution from their natural enemy, the race of Cain and Edom, who became called "Judeans" (Jews) because they resided in and governed the southern kingdom of Juda. Echoes of John 8:44 are in verse 3:9 as Jesus points His finger at those Edomites who call themselves Jews, but are lying. Jesus says they are the "synagogue of Satan." He said that also in 2:9. Sadly, the Christian Church today is deliberately blind to the nature of this contest between good and evil, and they are trying to evangelize the Edomite Jews, agreeing with the lie that the Edomites are God's chosen race of Israel! This level of deliberate blindness is difficult to comprehend! I fail to do so.

The coming "hour of trial" that Jesus points to in verse 10 is most likely the thousand year reign of terror against God's European Israelites by the Roman Catholic Church in the horrific "dark age" which it instituted. In verse 3:12, the promise of reward to those who endure the terrible tribulation of those centuries will be rewarded with the greatest statement of reward in the Bible.

PHILADELPHIA: AGE THAT "IS" IN PISCES (1427-1713 AD)

Here is the greatest church of the seven. This is the period of the Protestant Reformation. The key word of this age is "ministering." To get this in perspective, we must keep in mind that the devil is lord of this kingdom of World, and will be until defeated by Christ at the beginning of kingdom of God. So, while the Reformation was a victory, it was a small one, correcting only a few of the most egregious doctrinal errors, but it did free Israel from the murdering genocide being performed by the Roman Catholic Church.

To this time of Reformation, named "Philadelphia," Jesus gives an open door which no one will ever shut. 3:9 points the finger straight at the Jews, who claim to be descendants of Juda but are not. They are the "synagogue of Satan." Well, the tyrant church which had been persecuting the body of Christ was called "Roman Catholic," but these words of Jesus make it one with the lying Edomites who wish to destroy Jacob. Until one really understands the program of this great pageant of God, he cannot understand the events that he sees, nor tell the good guys from the bad ones. For the ignorant theologian this pageant is one long confusing play which seems to make no sense or have a purpose. Today, we have so-called "Christian" churches attempting to evangelize the Edomites into their family. That is what John Hyrcanus did in 132 BC, and within a few short years the Edomites had taken over the temple, the city, and the regional politics, with an Edomite Herod as their King! Today, we have so-called "Christian" churches attempting to conciliate with the Roman Catholics, with some even trading pulpits. That is outrageous, sacriligeous, and will bring God's wrath upon their heads. The Bible is nothing if not one powerful lesson about keeping the Israel body of Christ pure, for we are that body of which Jesus is the Head. We shall NOT commit adultery, nor deny His name (nature)! The Philadelphians are praised in verse 8 because they did not deny Christ's name. The Reformers of this time period of Philadelphia dared to stand up for His true Name, an act which cost many of them their lives.

Read the history of these brave men, and many others, too, who died while being tortured on a wide variety of terrible devilish devices. One reads a few details of what the Roman Catholics were doing, and then one cannot sleep at night. Our nightmares do not even approach the horror or the reality of what that evil church was doing. She was getting drunk on the blood of the saints! I am utterly incapable of describing the terrors and the hell which she was practicing. In southern France there were many communities of Albigensi (Cathars) which practiced a simple Christianity, wanting to emulate Jesus. They had turned away from the papacy to just lead simple Christian lives. Pope Innocent III declared a Crusade against them, to destroy them. When asked how to tell which ones were guilty, the Pope said, "kill them all and let God pick out His own." Tens of thousands were massacred by crusaders who were promised heavenly rewards for their work. In every city throughout Europe the priests and bishops held the ultimate political power, with the secular rulers obeying them without question. Citizens of towns and cities became accustomed to the daily slaughter of Christians being burned at the stake, garroted, guillotined, or tortured to death. It is estimated that the Roman Church killed about fifty million European white-race Christians during these centuries. Finally, the Reformation brought that killing to a halt.

3:10 "Because you did keep the word of my endurance, I will also keep you from the hour of trial about to come on all the inhabited earth, to try those dwelling on the earth." Jesus is offering WHAT to individuals who kept His word and died for it? He is offering to keep them from a coming hour of trial? after they have already died torturous deaths? Doesn't this make you scratch your head and wonder? For one who has never had to suffer persecution in Jesus' name, one who has never been physically tortured, the unknown and unspeakable pain conjures terror in his mind. But, there is something far worse than the pain of such physical trial, and that is the trial of the soul. We have physical mechanisms which make us unconscious when pain gets too great, and then perhaps we even die. But that is a momentary anguish of limited time. Losing one's soul is far worse, and lasts for an unlimited time! We can only speculate what Jesus meant by the "hour of trial about to come on all the inhabited earth." Perhaps he meant the terrible Roman Catholic inquisitions, or perhaps He refers to the end-time catastrophe of earthquakes and the following years of "wilderness," or perhaps He meant the industrial revolution with all the technological conveniences and luxuries and quick-cures and awesome temptations which attract ones adoration, devotion, money, and service (equates to "worship"). It is this latter worldly idolatry which offers temporal pleasure at the cost of one's soul. If I shall pray to not be led into temptation, it will pertain to the temptation of serving mammon rather than God. Physical pain comes to an end, but the loss of one's soul is irreparable.

Now, look at verse 12! "I will make him who overcomes a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will by no means go forth any longer, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, of the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven from my God, and my new name." The word, "WOW," just seems an inadequate response to that verse, doesn't it! Each of the letters to the churches mentions "overcomers," thereby giving a high value to the act of overcoming this World. What does it mean to overcome this world? I think that Jesus spoke much about this subject. He said to die to this world, to not labor for food, to not worry about food, drink, shelter, or tomorrow. He said that foxes have holes and birds have nests but He has no place to lay His head, and for us to follow Him. Do we do that? Don't we worry about food for tomorrow, and shelter? Don't we take on the responsibility for every detail of our daily lives, thinking this is the righteous thing to do? Yes, we do exactly that! We want nice homes for our families, nice clothes, a nice car, and a nice way of life, for that is the so-called "Christian" good life which preachers claim God wants us all to have. That is prosperity gospel! We get educated and work hard to supply the good-life for our family, so we can look good and feel good about ourselves, rationalizing that we are presenting a good Christian example for others. But, did Jesus do that? He was a radical, an outcast from society. He didn't look good; He looked like another crazy claiming to be a messiah. He and His friends would glean a little food that harvesters had left, even on the Sabbath. He didn't have a home, or a "place to lay my head." And this is the guy saying "Follow me!" Obviously, the way to overcome this world is not the way that preachers teach, is it? But, for one who does dare to be so radical, look at the verse 12 rewards!!!!! I don't need to reiterate them, Read them again for yourself.

That little homily on verse 12 was just a sermonette that most people can understand. There is more to this verse, much more. What does it mean to be a pillar in the temple of my God? What does it mean to go forth no longer? Get out the sine-wave curve diagram again. As we progress toward spiritual perfection and Godliness from this moment of transition from World to Heaven, we will live through the ages of Aquarius and Capricorn and Sagittarius to reach the apex about 8100 AD. By that time we are immortal and walk with God, realizing our Oneness with Him. If we can endure for that long, and refrain from temptations to seek World satisfactions, then we shall not "go forth any longer" and we will become a pillar in the temple of God. That means we will not experience another FALL in Scorpio, doomed to another cycle of the whole samskara pageant. We, whatever it is that we really are, we will continue with God, whatever that means.

We really don't know very much, do we? We don't know who we are as members of Christ; nor even our genetic lineage; nor what tribe of Israel we are; nor what it means to be saved, nor what heaven really is, nor what the Holy Spirit really is, nor who the Elect really are, nor the 4 Living Beings, nor the 24 Elders, etc. etc. But, what we do know is that we have the promise and the hope that God will give the Truth to whomever seeks it. The Revelation of Jesus Christ gives us more Truth than all the other scriptures together, if we are willing to hear it. Verse 13 says, "Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit says!" If you think there is anything more important to seek than Truth, then you lose. If you don't have Truth you don't have Christ! Claiming Christ doesn't mean you suddenly have the Truth, but seeking Truth above all else will result in Oneness with Christ.

PHILADELPHIA: AGE THAT "IS TO COME" IN KINGDOM OF GOD (10,700 — 12,400 AD)

This message relates to the Great Pyramid at Giza. "The key of David" points to something Royal which cannot be opened without the proper key. It is Christ who controls the opening or closing of the Pyramid, which He called the "temple of my God" in 3:12.

3:8 There is emphasis on the opening and shutting of a door, the key to that door, and that someone is given an open door that no one else can shut. This puts us in mind of the Pyramid with its secret entrance, its immovable door blocking the ascending passage, and its sarcophagus which was found with lid removed. I believe that Christ, the anointed Head of this body of God's children, was entombed in that sarcophagus at the end of the last Laodicea period, an event which signalled the transfer of power from Christ to Satan for the coming negative half-cycle of history that began about 12,000 years ago. That sarcophagus could not hold Christ, which was modelled for us again when the stone was rolled away from Jesus' tomb near Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. Christ is the Royal King who has the key to life and death.

The Pyramid at Giza, along with the Sphinx, are thought to have been built about 10,000 BC, on the basis of scientific dating tests. That would make its construction near the cusp between Virgo (Royal lady) and Leo (Lion), to which the Sphinx testifies.

Perhaps the construction of the Pyramid was begun during the age of Philadelphia, while the body of Christ still has "a little power" to achieve it by physical methods which we don't yet understand.

3:9 Jesus uses the term "Jews" as a symbol being falsely used by the children of Satan, descendants of Cain and of Esau. He mentions the church of Satan, indicating that there is some kind of contest here, and perhaps hinting that they could not prevent the construction of the Pyramid and were even awed by it, confirming God's love for His own children and His anointed Son.

3:10 The "hour of trial" is, of course, the coming half-cycle of negative energy, in which the devil reigns as lord of the world. It will be the Kingdom of WORLD, lasting for about 12,000 years, which begins at the end of Laodicea.

3:12 This message to Philadelphia emphasizes the Royal nature of the Temple of God. Again, here, we have the mention of "crown." And now we have the metaphor of making the Overcomer a "pillar in the temple of my God." Might this pillar (Gk: στLλov / stylon) be another reference to that capstone which Jesus called the "chief cornerstone," with which He identified Himself?

All these things which John sees in this revelation are symbols, and we can hardly duplicate his vision. We are left with the task of placing tiny pieces (words) of the puzzle in different arrangements, hoping to make a picture which is understandable. To interpret this dream is similar to that challenge of Joseph who explained the seven fat cows with seven gaunt cows, and the seven stalks of corn with seven empty stalks. He interpreted those "sevens" as matters of time, of years.

This reminds me of when I flew small airplanes, and passengers would ask, "how can you understand what they're saying on the radio?" I would answer, "you have to know what they are saying in order to understand them." And so it is with interpreting this dream; until I knew the long term plan, I could not properly place the pieces of this puzzle to make sense.

TO THE CHURCH AT LAODICEA

Key Word: "dynamis"

3:14 And to the angel of the church in LAODICEA, write: These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the chief of God's creation:

3:15 I know of your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot.

3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

3:17 Because you say, "I have become rich and have no need, and know not that you are the one wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked,

3:18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, in order that you may be rich, and white garments in order that you may be clothed and may not expose the shame of your nakedness, and ointment to anoint your eyes in order that you may see

3:19 As many as I love I rebuke and chasten; therefore, become hot and repent.

3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter to him and I will dine with him and he with me.

3:21 He who overcomes I will give him to sit with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat with my Father in His throne.

3:22 Let him who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

THE CITY IN ASIA MINOR

Laodicea is the final church of the seven, about 40 miles southeast of Philadelphia, and about 100 miles east of Ephesus. In Greek it is Laodikea; founded about 250 BC. It was one of the richest commercial centers in Asia Minor. It suffered a devastating earthquake in 61 AD, but rebuilt without accepting aid from Rome. Laodiceans worshiped both Zeus and Apollo. Human nature is easily attracted to the gods who deliver the most good life, and it is the devil who reigns over the kingdom of world who can reward his followers with such good life.

LAODICEA THE CHURCH IN ASIA MINOR (60 — 90AD)

3:14 "Amen" means "so be it!" It proclaims the end of something. Whatever the actual ailment was in Laodicea at the time of John, it was terminal. The people were not being offered options. Yet, even though the situation was terminal, the promises are restated that for anyone who comes to Christ, he will be received. I wonder what did happen at that church back then.

LAODICEA: AGE THAT "WAS" IN KINGDOM OF WORLD (ca. 250AD — ca. 2,000 AD)

3:14 "Amen", "so be it!" Here is the last time period of the devil's kingdom of World. Except for the first two centuries when Jesus' followers were true witnesses (martyrs) for Him, this entire age of Laodicea has seen a lukewarm church, claiming to be Christian, but political in character or just plain bland. The key word to Laodicea is dynamis which means dynamic, active, expressive, powerful, energized, accomplishing. The sheep of Christ have been none of those, except for a rare few, many of whom the Roman church called "heretics" and tortured to death. Why didn't the Germanic race of northern Russia stand up against their Jewish/Stalinist murderers? Why didn't the European Christians being killed by the Roman Inquisition defend themselves? And why doesn't the Christian Church of America, today, stand up — even to speak on Christ's behalf when our political leaders say we Christians are enemies of the government? Why don't the Christian theologians do any more spiritual thinking, so that the Holy Spirit can advance the body members of Christ? The only answer seems to be that they were always lukewarm and unwilling to stand for or against anything at all, even at the cost of their lives. It's an amazing thing, this lukewarmness; even the Spirit of God cannot break through the wall of apathy. There is no other remedy for this terminal malaise than to spit it out. It has no value anymore. I regret that there is not a lot more to write about the body of Christ during these lukewarm years, but there was not enough life in the body to warrant mention. I must not neglect the few who did stand up alive and dynamic, such as the Reformers who boldly identified the Roman papacy as the anti-Christ, which it clearly is. And there were other individual martyrs who courageously expressed Christ in their lives in holy activities which cost most of them their lives. Our so-called "Christian era" has seen such a lukewarm faith that it is difficult to describe, except in contrast to those few exceptions. Here I want to mention a few of those exceptions who earned God's commendation of "well done thou good and faithful servant."

John Wycliff (1324-1384) was the "Morning Star" of the Reformation. English theologian who first translated Bible into English. After his death, the Roman Catholics excommunicated him, dug up his bones and burned them, threw his ashes in the river.

John Hus (1371-1415) Czech.: a priest who denounced priest immorality and sale of indulgences. The Pope ordered his books burned. After a lying-promise of safe-conduct he was imprisoned, condemned and burned at the stake.

William Tyndale (1485-1536): Presented the Bible in English to the English people. Burned at the stake.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) German: the Giant of the Reformation, wrote voluminously, excommunicated from the Roman Church, translated Bible into German, exposed the Papacy as the anti-Christ. Forced to hide for years. Died of natural causes February 22, 1546.

Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) Swiss. priest: said Gospel alone should be the rule for faith, not the Pope. Founded Swiss Reformed Church. Was killed in battle fighting against the Roman Catholics

John Knox (1505-1572) Scotland: Founded Presbyterian Church. Was captured and served as a Galley Slave for 19 months. Chaplain to Edward VI. Minister of the great parish church at Edinburgh. Died at Edinburgh.

John Calvin (1509-1564) French: Wrote his great INSTITUTES in 1540. In later life became religious tyrant.

Gottschalk the German Monk (800-869AD): As child, inherited a fortune. Church took it, made him a monk. Later, he said one should experience God directly, without priest mediaries. Was beaten till nearly dead. Imprisoned in dungeon, died there.

Cathars (died 1208-1244): in southern France towns, emulated Jesus, held Pope to be Antichrist, lived simple ascetic lives, despised world & looked to heaven. Pope Innocent III ordered a Crusade against them, killing hundreds of thousands of them. Told crusaders to kill them all and let God pick out his own.

Europeans, up to fifty million, killed by the Roman Inquisition, torturing Christians to death with many tools, such as the Thumbscrew, Iron torture Chair of sharp nails heated from below, Shin-crushing boot clamps, the Rack or Wheel which dislocated limbs, Flaying the skin off, crushing of bones, Scourging with sticks, and burning at the stake.

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) German Dominican Monk -Mystic. exhorted men to strip selves of self and all things. Detachment & Purity! "You are gods." The divine is revealed in daily life. Condemned by the Pope. Died naturally.

Arnold of Brescia (d. 1155) Augustinian Abbot. Cried for clergy to renounce power & wealth.. Said Pope was a man of blood and torturer of the church, concerned only with filling his own coffers. Executed by hanging, then burned.

Thomas Muntzer (1490-1525) Said such things as "God directly relates to men. Christ came to set a fire upon earth. Don't make a paper Pope out of the Bible. Only the abandoned can truly feel God's mercy." Was stretched on wheel & hanged. He appealed from the scaffold to the princes that they "be not harsh to the poor people."

Hans Denck (1495-1527) Said: ceremonies are superficial; Imitation of Christ is what counts, Inner baptism more important than outer baptism; Love is supreme attitude for a Christian. God & man are not separate. Banished Dec. 24, 1526. Died of plague.

Michael Servetus (1511-1553) Said: "forget Christ of dogma, return to Christ of the Bible. Questioned Nicean doctrine of Trinity." Burned at stake, with green slow-burn wood & sulphur wreath on his head.

Sebastian Franck (1499-1542) Promoted governance by invisible eternal Word without outward mediators. He said, "As soon as people attempt to frame Christianity within rules and fit it into a prescribed law and order, it stops being Christianity. There is a general failure to understand that Christians are handed over to the Holy Spirit. The New Testament is not a book, doctrine, or law, but the Holy Spirit. Where God's Spirit is, there freedom must be; there Moses must keep silent, all laws withdraw, and let no one be so bold as to prescribe law, rules, order, goals, and measures to the Holy Spirit, nor attempt to reach, govern, and lead those who belong to Him." He was banished and persecuted by Protestants who had become nearly as intolerant and unmerciful as the Roman church had been, and that even while Luther was still alive!

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) Dominican monk. Threw away his images of saints. Attacked academics for making a trade of philosophy. Questioned trinity. Captured by the Inquisition, imprisoned many years. Burned at stake Feb. 17, 1600.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) He saw God's "Man" as the ideal goal. Was intensely spiritual, but rebellious against the ignorant church. An unheralded spiritual Giant, a solitaire, one without peers! The World and sectarian Christianity despised him and destroyed him.

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) Wrote books about the battle between flesh and spirit in man's dual nature. Sought the meaning of existence with great insight and spiritual intensity. Valued freedom above all other things. A God-driven giant. Modern Christianity despises him without understanding him.

Herman Hesse (1877-1962) Novelist who struggled with the battle of opposing forces of light & dark, good & evil, death & regeneration. This world is a dream, a magic theater, in which we are not victims but free-will participants, responsible for our selves. Modern Christianity scorns him without even glimpsing his powerful expression of God.

While such "heretics" are not burned at the stake in modern times, an act which makes martyrs of them, apathy has proven a more effective method of silencing the their Spirits. The World need not be concerned with God's representatives because the Christian church muffles their voices while limiting Christ's sheep to trivial prattle and social gospel.

Since the genocidal pogrom against God's Spirit-filled representatives by the Church during the dark ages, the past few centuries have been that part of a subcycle which is discussed next, Laodicea within the age of Pisces.

LAODICEA: AGE THAT "IS" IN PISCES (1713 - 2000 AD)

Refer to the sine-wave diagram. We are now about to cross the horizontal, neutral line from World to Heaven. Here is a real prophecy for our own time, indicating the end of the devil's reign, the end of a 12,000 year period when the negative energy of Satan's wickedness ruled the earth in the kingdom of World. That kingdom comes to an end, and the kingdom of God will begin, under rulership of the devil's counterpart: Christ. If the age of Pisces is divided into seven segments, the last segment of 286 years or so is Laodicea.

3:15 As the negative half-cycle of history is completed, we approach the horizontal neutral line of the sine-wave diagram. The negative energy has weakened so there is hardly any "dynamis" at all. The magnetic field of the earth has reached near zero strength at this time, bringing us to an imminent reversal of the magnetic poles of the planet, reversing the type of energy field to an opposite kind. There will be no negotiation here, like, "unless you change, God will act." No, it's "because of that, God will DO this!" That God would "vomit you out of my mouth" indicates God's rejection of an apathetic Christian church.

3:17 During the past three centuries, the Christian movement has been more apathetic than ever. Each sectarian faction protects its little empire by strict control of what its preachers do and say. They are bound to a theology that was formulated during the Reformation, and any theologian who dares re-examine those beliefs will be ostracized and kicked-out if he doesn't fall back in line. Preachers offer nothing but baby food, and many even get emotional about that, just as though they were doing something good! The English Bible translations have been neutered to make them politically correct, and the church limits itself to social gospel rather than stirring the souls of Christian warriors. Spiritual seekers are not tolerated. Theologians see new insights through a filter of stained-glass windows from inside their dark sepulchres, admitting no Light that doesn't fit their closed-minded religion. The church is dead, and is therewith content; it is lukewarm. As a result of such spiritual malaise, prosperity cults have sprung up like weeds across our nation because they offer something meaningful; wealth and abundance. Satan has freedom to work openly because Christians fail to stand for anything meaningful.

God would rather have them thinking and discussing and searching, even if coming to wrong conclusions. IF they are alive in such a way, then the Spirit of God can work in them, and He will protect them from serious errors. The old adage is true, that only those who do something can do something wrong. It appears that most are so afraid of being wrong that they do nothing, hiding their talents under a lid, rather than participating in the dynamis of life. Remember that God didn't appreciate the person who hid the talent, and showed him no mercy at all. And, so it will be with this church that has betrayed our God. In order to progress to the next step in our future, going into the kingdom of God, the existing religious organizations will have to fall aside. This generation of apathy must pass away, leaving a rebellious but living generation to cross the river into the promised land. God will take the talent from those who buried it, and give it to those who will risk it and use it for His sake. What the apathetic church doesn't realize is that God watches over not only His children but also THEIR TALENTS, that it is okay to risk the talent because that gives the Spirit opportunity to work miraculous things. Our most important talent is the mind, that we use it to question God, to challenge Him, to quest for His secrets, to pry at the windows and doors of His Throne, to test Him, and make our lives DYNAMICALLY a part of His life. That is the purpose for which we exist! Amazingly, the apathetic church of today is so lacking in faith that it won't permit any questioning of God at all, except to sit passively in pews with eyes downcast, fearful.

In my own life, I have approached many church-going Christians, thinking, hoping, that we have something in common, that we can perhaps enjoy the spiritual quest as friends. I have approached them with words which confirm their faith, supportive of their beliefs, and not criticizing. No matter; they instinctively recoil from me as though I were an enemy. They will not look, and quickly put their heads under the dark basket where they feel secure. It may be possible for God to reach some of these apathetic ones, but it has not been possible for me. I can only feel sorrow for them as I read the fate of such Laodiceans.

Jesus isn't waffling or even offering conditions to this church here. He simply tells what He is about to do to them. However, in the following verses, He does tell them what they would have to do to save themselves from the doom they've earned. But it doesn't look promising for them!

"Gold refined by fire" is a popular analogy for the process of working out one's salvation by confronting the tribulations which Satan directs toward the truly spiritual followers of Jesus. It is a difficult refining process to search for truth, digesting, separating, experimenting, rejecting, owning, and challenging. But, it is in this refining process that the Spirit works, and one learns to love the challenging quest.

Even this church, which has not one single positive commendation, still gets some helpful instruction, along with the promise that the Christ is there for those who seek. 3:21 says "He who overcomes I will give him to sit with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat with my Father in His throne." We discussed Overcoming in the church of Philadelphia. Here Christ says He was an Overcomer, and thereby gained the position at His Father's throne. Certainly, Jesus was an Overcomer regarding his crucifixion and resurrection, but it was even prior to that that He had Oneness with the Father - even from before the world began! So, it wasn't this death and resurrection He speaks about, but something long prior to it. At any rate, he indicates how the paradigm works, that we might obtain a position at His throne by the same process that gained Him a place at His Father's throne.

LAODICEA: AGE THAT "IS TO COME" IN KINGDOM OF GOD (12,500 — 14,000 AD)

3:14 "Amen" means "so be it!" It proclaims the end of something. In this case it is the end of Christ's reign, the end of 12,000 years in which the positive energy of God's goodness had ruled the earth in the Kingdom of God. The kingdom of Heaven comes to an end, and the kingdom of World begins, under rulership of Christ's counterpart, the devil.

3:15 As the positive half-cycle of history is completed, we again approach the horizontal neutral line of the sine-wave diagram. The positive energy has weakened so there is hardly any "dynamis" at all. The magnetic field of the earth reaches zero strength, at which time there is a reversal of the magnetic poles of the planet, reversing the type of energy field to an opposite kind. There is no negotiation here, like "unless you change, God will act." No, it's "because of this, God will DO that!" That God would "vomit you out of my mouth" indicates Christ's release of the reins of rulership. The alternating energy fields of the process of God's Word continues, and there is no intervention to stop the process.

3:17 The decline in spiritual life and values is a turning away from God's will in order to have Mastery of worldly material things according to ones own sensual desires. The age of purity (Virgo, the virgin) is being exchanged for the age of Leo (Lion, earth mastery). While spiritual-forces were the essential nature of the positive kingdom, it is earth-forces which become the nature of the negative (world) kingdom. Spiritual forces are described as "angels" of God; being real forces which aid the spiritual process in God's children. Earth-forces are the fallen angels, working the reverse side of spiritual forces, working to promote the lusts of sensual gratifications and the evil desire for power over others.

As the children of God turn away from their spiritual values, and develop an earthly mastery, they become drunk with their power, and filled with an insatiable craving to satisfy their lusts and their avarice. They feel rich and free from all of God's laws. They are on their way into a drugged stupor, in which they will live for the next few thousand years, until the age of Gemini, when God re-enters them. Then the Adamic race of God's children will again begin another struggle upward toward the true God.

3:18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may be clothed, and the shame of your nakedness not be exposed, and eyesalve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

In the long-term process of God's expression of His Word which defines our reality, there is a purpose behind the cycling hells and heavens, and it is stated in this letter. The negative period of history, wherein God's children are oppressed and killed and robbed and exploited and tempted into wickedness and seduced by evil, is for the purpose of strengthening. It is by struggling through successive trials that God's own children learn to be Godly! We learn the consequences of being ungodly, and we serve the purpose of repeatedly influencing the world to climb the ladder toward the true God.

3:19 This process of rebuke and chastening is discipline from a loving Father. Ours is the task of becoming righteous, so that we no longer bring bad consequences to ourselves by wicked actions. Human nature is the worldly nature which opposes our divine spiritual nature. Until we die to this world, and achieve the perfection of our God-natures, we will ever and again suffer the chastisement of more periods of hades, earned by our own actions.

3:20 Every moment is for us a fork in the road. One path leads to Christ, the other to the devil's world. Christ offers a spiritual perfection and the ecstasy of reunion with our God. The devil offers immediate sensual gratifications, worldly wealth and pleasures, and a drugged intellectual stupor which overwhelms our minds and which promotes a lust for earthly mastery so we can satisfy our insatiable cravings for worldly pleasures.

THE THRONE SCENE OF ST. JOHN'S VISION

The scene John describes in chapters 4 and 5 is different from the scene in chapter 1. Chapter 1 describes a scene which he saw on the island of Patmos when he was addressed in a loud voice like a trumpet and he turned to look (1:12). The vision there on Patmos included the seven lampstands (the churches to whom the messages are sent), and the Son of Man (Christ, who sends) who was holding seven stars (angels of time periods) in his right hand and who had a sword coming from his mouth. Christ introduced Himself and directed John to write down what he saw.

Now, in chapter 4, John is invited aloft for more visions, where he sees GOD'S THRONE and the One sitting on it. He sees a rainbow around the throne, along with twenty four thrones with Elders sitting on them. He sees seven lamps of fire before the throne which are the seven Spirits of God. Also there are four Living Beings, having faces of Lion, Calf, Man, and Eagle, and having six wings each. These Beings live to praise God continuously. As we will discover, we are extensions of these Beings, and our purpose is to praise and glorify God. Our lives ARE the praise which these Beings offer, and for this glory we were designed! God's throne is the activity by which He expresses Himself through this stepdown transformer-type of process, ultimately through His children of Israel. Here is the method by which God Lives. In the end, it is the people of Israel who are God's Temple, His City, His dwelling place, His Jerusalem. God does not live in a place, but in a people. Israel is not a place, but a people. From the One Supreme Father (4:2) to the rainbow of Light (4:3) to the flashes of power (4:5) to the seven Spirits of God (4:5) to the Lamb (5:6) to the four Living Beings (4:6) to twenty-four Elders (4:4), and finally to the thousands of God's children who perform individual lives on this Earth-stage. It is within Him that we live and move and have our being. As individuals we are each a unique experience of God, and we should see ourselves that way, yielding to His will in our daily activities rather than trying to satisfy our own desires.

In chapter 5, John sees the Sitting One holding a scroll, which none can open except the Lamb who is the Lion of Juda. And John mentions seeing angels in great number, ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands.

Okay, there are the members of God's throne scene. Let's keep in mind that this is the Supreme, Almighty, God of All-That-Is, the One whose Mind fashions All-That-Is. And now we are looking at SYMBOLS of His Being. These symbols are important beyond what men have yet discovered, for they represent the PROCESS OF CREATION. Here, we get to glimpse how our God extends Himself into the experience of this created world.

How this Supreme Mind extends Himself into the world reveals to us how He thinks of Himself. I suggest that Jesus provided an important clue when He referred to Himself as the Son of Man, and to God as His Father. It must be that this Supreme Mind, the Source of All That Is, is visualizing Himself as Man with a capital "M." Therefore, we might visualize Jesus' Father as the ultimate, ideal, perfect Man. That is not to say that God has a physical body or shape like the old-man sitting somewhere up in the ethers where He looks down upon His toys. Rather, Man is the absolute perfection of all the qualities which we find in ourselves. Rather than being a physical Being, Man is an IDEAL. What kind of ideal? Remember that this is all a mind-game in which God visualizes Himself as something perfect, then expresses that image into a sort of dream, whereby His offspring represent His own Being. Thus, as He expresses Himself into this dimension of reality, Christ is His firstborn offspring. The person of Jesus is the Head of the body of Christ; He is the vine while we Israelites are the branches. The anointed Offspring of God isn't just one person, but is the entire Family of Israelites. The body of Christ doesn't just represent the Father, and is not just a son of a father, but is an EXPRESSION of the Father Himself. Simply, the Father thinks Himself into an existence of physical nature. The next couple chapters of this book explains how He does that. Jesus, as Head of the body, tells us that to see Him is to see the Father! Analagous to this would be your own dreams, where the figments that you produce are born from your mind, and are actual manifestations of your mind. Your figments act, dynamically ACT, as extensions of your own mind. Psychologists understand that dream-characters symbolize the dreamer. Each figment that you dream is really an expression of your own self, having no independent existence. You live and experience something through each figment that you imagine in your dream. You are the father of your dream-characters. So, beside Jesus as God's anointed expression, you might also look at fellow Israelite European white race Christians as His expressions, too. Truly, we branches are not always perfect representations of Him, for we sometimes wither and some of us get pruned off and we don't always bear quality fruit. Nevertheless, we are individual experiences of our Father, in Whom we live and move and have our being.

If you've got that much clear in your mind, let's go on to the next step. Jesus, with the entire body of

Christ, is the Son of Man, and He has a very special quality; He, the entire body, has the ability to create an extended reality for Himself. That He is created in the image of His Father doesn't refer to appearance only, but to powers. Theologians like to speak of this world-creation as being accomplished through Jesus as the tool or instrument. Good, so we now have the Father manifesting as Jesus who then creates the world by the same method which created Him: by thought.

So, Jesus, the Christ, is actually the Creator of our reality. It is a little confusing to try to think of Jesus and the Father as separate Beings, while keeping in mind that the Father is manifesting Himself into being as Jesus, and is expressing Himself (living) through Jesus. We speak of them as separate beings, but they are one, just as Jesus stated explicitly in His High Priestly Prayer of John 17.

The throne-scene which John describes for us, as seen in his vision, is a detailed breakdown of just who and what is Jesus. We will look at this in great detail in the following pages. Ultimately, we will conclude that the 144,000 Elect make up the body of Christ on earth. We are His body. We, the children of Israel, are the anointed body (expression) through whom God lives and experiences life. Each of His Elect is an extension of Himself, symbolizing some aspect of Himself, playing out the experience of some unique role as a child of God. And we are created in His image, meaning that we have the POWER TO CREATE this world as we think it in our minds. We are the BODY of Christ, and our Reality results from our own thoughts; it is whatever we BELIEVE it to be. It is within Christ that we believe; we BELIEVE in Christ. Our creative power is very simply that whatever we, as a group, believe is what we then perceive as real. See, it's all a mind-game!

What we will further discover is that we Elect are responsible for creating a wicked, physical, material world because we have let ourselves be deceived by our counterpart, Satan. Since we are the ones who create the world through our act of BELIEF, Satan must deceive us in order to get us to believe the world is physical, material, and wicked. Since we are the living expression of innocence, like lambs, we are easily deceived, and have given Satan a world of his design.

At the final end-time, at the approaching historical moment when the devil's power is vanquished, and the Elect go on to found the kingdom of Heaven, then this physical world will be transformed into something quite different in nature. All the creatures and earth-races and physical things which we have conjured up into being as this world will be dramatically changed, perhaps many will disappear. Dark races exist because they represent the dark side of our human nature. They mirror the darkness and ignorance within our body of Christ, Israel. They serve as lessons, by which we might better understand our rebellious emotional nature, which is one of the four minds. The end-time catastrophic event is not a tragic one at all, but one which John describes in this vision as a moment when all the angels of heaven rejoice. It is like awakening from a bad dream, awakening to truth and to a spiritual kingdom which is our real home. Esau was promised his period of dominion, and after it ends (about 2,000AD or so), then Israel (body of Christ) will reign and will create a new kingdom.

The listing of all men who ever got a look at God's throne is very short - only three: Ezekiel, Isaiah, and St. John. And it is only John who got an extensive look, and who shares the details in writing. John can only describe his awesome vision in symbols, leaving readers with a riddle which has been unsolvable since he wrote it down. Now, in the end times, God is making all things known, and we are able to solve this riddle. It is quite complex, but after the pieces of the puzzle are put into place, it doesn't seem so complex. The clues are given and we must wonder why we didn't see it so clearly before. I think God has kept this secret hidden by blinding our eyes, and only now is letting us see Him at Work. John is going to describe the sequential steps of creation as a process which emanates from God's Mind.

It will become clear when you understand this vision that not all men can understand it, but only the race of God's chosen children. The race from Adam, later from Jacob/Israel is the only race which possesses the gift of spiritual understanding, which is the spiritual nature or mind, another of the four minds we will be discussing below. And, we have more than just the gift of spiritual understanding; we have a powerful instinctive motivation to seek such knowledge of God. This instinct is that gift of "love of Truth" of II Thess. 2:10, which if rejected will get one a gift from God of a "powerful delusion" causing him to believe falsehood. From the beginning, we have had a personal relationship with the God of all creation which is different from that described in any other scripture in the world. As we consider this Revelation of God, in this book which John wrote, we need to maintain a perspective of who we are, as a special people.

THE NUMERAL SYMBOLS OF CREATION

Let's keep in mind that our people have a special history because of their relationship with God. Our history is rich and our people have always led the world in cultural advances. About 2,000 BC, Abraam left Chaldea with a large number of people, migrating northwestward. While Abraam went to the Palestine region, many others of his group went further northwest to settle, around the Aegean with their Phoenician language, which later evolved into the Greek language. Another couple generations would see more of Abraam's descendants migrating to the Aegean, grandchildren of Israel himself. God was establishing His race there, which became the great Hellene culture, from which the western European culture has derived. We are the natural descendants of those Greeks, who became so great because they were gifted with a spiritual instinct of REVERENCE (fear of God) to seek the true God. The great Greek civilization later became the basis for the Roman society which built upon that foundation of such men as Plato and Aristotle. St. Paul went to Greece, to the city of Athens which was the center of all wisdom in the ancient world. He went there to reveal to the philosophers, men still gathering on Mars Hill to discuss the wisdoms, information which would permit them another step upward in their quest for God. Paul's speech to them is in Acts 17, but it is a strange speech for us today; we cannot recognize what Paul is saying unless we know what to look for. But it is likely that those Greek philosophers did understand some of it, for they were accustomed to such symbolism. Let's take a moment to look more closely at these philosophers of Athens.

Many of the Greek philosophers could claim as ancestors true Israelites of the 721 BC diaspora, and even more ancient Israelites who came to the Aegean as descendants of Zara Juda (Phares' brother), whose son was Darada (or Dardanus — cf. "Dardanelles"), whose son was Erichthonius (whom Homer describes as very wealthy), whose son was Tros (after whom Troy was named), whose son was Ilos (renaming Troy to Ilium), whose son was Assarachus, whose son was Capys, whose son was Anchises, whose son was Aeneas, the subject of Vergil's THE AENEID, whose son was Brutus who settled Britain in 1103 BC, after whom Britain is named. Many of the heroes of Homer in THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY were undoubtedly from the ancient line of Israelites from Zara Juda or his close relatives. Succeeding centuries would see many more Israelites migrating to the Hellenes. A large migration went there about 721 BC when the northern tribes of Israel were purged from the Palestine area by Assyrians. It was those great Spiritual minds of God's children that made Greece the greatest culture of ancient history. And there they continued to exercise those great minds until centuries later when the Apostle, Paul, found them still gathering on Mars Hill to discuss philosophy and religion. They had erected a statue in Athens, engraved: To The Unknown God.

While we arrogants and ignorants like to lift our noses and deride ancient Greeks as stupid idolators, the truth is that their wise men had a far better understanding of symbols and of the quest for God than we do today. They considered every aspect of their lives as pertinent to their religious beliefs. They lived a dynamic spirituality, beyond anything today's shallow Christians can imagine. St. Paul went to speak with them. Look it up in Acts 17. I refer you to this, not because I can explain all that Paul said, but because I see a direct relationship between Paul's speech and God's throne scene, and this information will be helpful toward understanding John's revelation. Paul was describing to philosophers the nature of reality in symbols they might understand. He wasn't speaking to uneducated oafs, but to fellow wise men, whom he knew to be diasporan Israelites, to whom he was sent with the Gospel message.

Before I explain Paul's speech in detail, it is necessary to understand the value of numerals, so I will explain this first. Numerals are symbols for philosophical concepts. Briefly, it goes something like this. God is Someone who cannot be described, nor who has any finite body, being unlimited in every aspect, omni-natured, and undefinable. God cannot be quantified or named by any designator without limiting Him. God can only be imagined as the Great Void (a term used by mystics for that Being who contains All-That-Is), and is represented by the numeral ZERO because to limit him with a finite number would be incorrect. HE may be thought of as that which existed prior to any alleged big-bang.

When this Supreme Void wishes to express Himself into some manifestation, that which emanates from Him is a Unit, a single item, ONE, which expresses God's perfection in a way that is more limited than He Himself, yet it is a complete perfect Unit. A single thing is no longer omni, or no thing. From the nothing is born One, a Unit. The One is His Offspring, His Son.

Thus, being an expression of something from God's Mind, we can call that first single thought a word. That One word can only exist if its nature consists of two polar energies of Positive and Negative because no thing can exist except as equal parts of two polarities. This expression of division into more than one part is symbolized by the numeral TWO, which makes up the very substance of the One, being expressed (manifesting) in an even more limited reality. While Two represents two opposing energies, there is no dance or oscillating struggle between them yet because there is no such thing yet as time.

THREE represents linear-expression, which is experienced by us as relative Time. Movement, or sequence-of-events, is impossible unless one event can occur after another. So, Time is essential to this pageant. We must keep in mind that these numerical elements are born from thought, and it is only in our minds that we perceive the passage of time, therefore, Time is relative to the perceiver. This means that Time is not an absolute, but varies according to one's perception of it.

FOUR represents Form, which is the idea of space in which matter can appear to be physical form. Unless a person uses his spiritual mind, this appearance of physical form is the only reality he can perceive; thus being deluded into believing that Form is an absolute. This delusion attracts some people to stand in awe before the creation, and even worship it, without realizing it is nothing but a figment of the Creator's imagination. The universe of space and time are only figments of God's dream; they have no real physical reality because there is no such thing as a particle of matter. So, space can be as infinite as the mind can imagine, and can always be greater than what has been discovered so far.

FIVE represents change, which is the very SUBSTANCE of appearance. In order for us to perceive any reality at all, we must participate in the dynamic process of change, a concept depicted in a math formula of E=Mc². Here, we could go on at length, for we get into the mystery of perceiver vs. perception (like chicken & egg). Hebrews 11:1-3 states it like this: "BELIEF IS THE SUBSTANCE of things being hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by this the elders obtained testimony. By BELIEF we understand the ages to have been put in order by a word of God, so THE THINGS WE SEE ARE NOT MADE OUT OF THINGS WHICH APPEAR."

Jumping ahead here, we are going to arrive at the realization that we, the Elect children of God, the 144,000, actually create this dimension of reality by our thoughts, by what we BELIEVE! The substance of our reality is dynamic in nature, ever changing, and has no absolute in it; ALL is relative to the creator/perceiver.

SIX is the next step in creation, resulting in the active experience of the above elements of reality, as perceived through our senses. It is here that God's perfect children appear, just as He designed them, functioning as an expression of His own being.

"SEVEN" represents completion and perfection, and is the number which is the very theme of the book of Revelation. In this book, we get a glimpse of God's perfect Design.

NUMBER SYMBOLS — ZERO THROUGH SEVEN

THE NUMBERS	PAUL TO ATHENS ACTS 17:23-29	GOD TO THYATIRA REV. 2:18-25	GOD'S THRONE REV. Chapters 4 & 5

ZERO (Supreme God, the Void, the All-That-Is, the clear LIGHT, the Source, from which emanates all "reality.")	17.24 "God, who made the world and all things in it . . . does not dwell in temples made by human hands"	symbolized by the perfection of God's elect, at the Apex of history, when all have reunited with God, the undifferentiated Beingness.	4:3 The "One" on the throne is described like CLEAR gem stones.

ONE (the UNIT: the appearance of something born out of nothing, the Son of the Source, the Christ.	17:26 "out of one"	2:18 "the Son of God,"	5:6 "stood a Lamb"

TWO (DIVISION: the separation of the Unit into parts)	17:26 "a whole ethnic group of men" (πav eθvoς)	2:20 "commit fornication" co-habitation, coupling	4:3 "a rainbow" indicates the dividing of the Light