The world in which you and I live is a God-rejecting, God-defying world. It is a world of hundreds of “religions,” yet a world of chaos, violence, disease and war.

Paradoxically, some of those nations whose religions permeate all facets of life seem to be among the most impoverished, millions of their citizens living in squalor beyond comprehension. Some humans still worship cows, just as rebellious Israel made a golden calf in Sinai, believing, from their experience in Egypt, that God looked like a cow.

The world is not “at one” with God. It does not acknowledge the one true God, nor His Son who died for the sins of all mankind, Jesus Christ.

In the so-called “Christian” world, millions profess the name of Jesus Christ, yet refuse to follow His example, or to do what He plainly commanded. “Why call ye me, ‘Lord, Lord,”‘ cried Jesus, “and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

“In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9). Millions profess to worship Jesus Christ. They call Him “Lord,” and claim to have “accepted” Him as their Savior. Yet, they refuse to obey Him! They will not follow His example. Peter wrote……. Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: Who did no sin [He kept His Father’s laws perfectly], neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:21,22).

Paul described our world as being filled with those who are “…Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those who are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of Godliness [man-made religions; religious creeds, rituals, ceremonies], but denying the power thereof'” (2 Timothy 3:3-5).

Mankind does not accept God as RULER. They refuse to surrender to God in abject repentance for sin, which is the transgression of God’s perfect law (1 John 3:4).

The nations of this world are far from being “at one” with God. Instead, they are in opposition!

This is Satan’s world, not God’s.

The governments of this world are neither of God’s choice, nor of His design. God is not the Author of this world’s commerce and industry, of its science or education, of its institutions or its religions.

Can anyone doubt this?

This world’s governments are not capable of bringing peace and prosperity to their citizens. Instead, the teeming billions of human beings in all their hundreds of countries are in the grip of poverty, squalor, disease, malnutrition. Chaos, confusion, anarchy, rampant crime reign supreme.

Your news tells you of massacres–wholesale murder all over the world. In Brazil, lustful would-be gold miners brutally massacred virtually an entire tribe of “stone-age” Indians–covetous of their land, and corrupt police “death squads” massacred unarmed civilians, including children, in a slum in Rio De Janiero. In former Yugoslavia, so-called “Christians,” either Roman Catholics or Greek Orthodox, slaughter Muslims. In Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, and many other Arab countries, more than a dozen Arab terrorist groups of varying sizes continually plot the overthrow of their own governments, or plot how to launch terrorist attacks against Israelis and Americans all over the world. As the PLO and Israel search for peace and Palestinian autonomy, rival Palestinian terrorist groups murder, riot, and threaten assassinations. Israel launches attacks into Lebanon in what amounts to full-scale war in retaliation for the most recent wave of terrorist murders of its citizens. If these events fade quickly in the past by the time you read this booklet, rest assured they will be replaced by equally vicious crimes.

Look at your own local news, no matter where you live. Continually, you read of violence, mayhem, drugs, child abuse, kidnappings, robbery and murder. Today, many European tourists are becoming fearful of visiting Florida because of vicious murders there; youths targeting tourists because they believe they are carrying large amounts of money. The murderers are usually teenagers, out on parole. One had a list of arrests several pages long.

Earlier, I had wanted to visit our brethren in the Philippines during 1993. However, because of several kidnappings of Americans by communist terrorist groups, I was advised against going. From Britain, where Mr. Ronald Dart described hearing an IRA bomb exploding nearby, to Germany, where “skinheads” in a Neo-Nazi group are murdering Turks and other foreigners, it is the same. Violence and murder reign. Chaos and confusion prevail. There is no fear of God in our lands, no respect for human rights and decency, and no remorse.

Suddenly, following the end of the cold war, the whole world seems to have erupted in a satanic frenzy of ethnic and racial hatreds, in political strife and confusion, in economic duress.

As if to match this turbulence among nations, world-wide weather has been convulsing in violent cataclysms. Destructive hurricanes have smashed into south Florida, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Japan, and other countries. Massive earthquakes have taken terrible tolls in life and property from San Francisco to northern Japan. Record-breaking floods have cost countless billions in America’s heartland. Drought grips part of America, while massive floods soak other parts.

Need I go on? All you need do is to watch morning news on CNN, or one of the other news stations.

What is going on? Will we look back some day and surmise that the prophesied GREAT TRIBULATION (Matthew 24:21,22) really began to gradually come upon us in the mid 1990s?

Are we living in the time prophesied in God’s Word when “…the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:12)?

Satan is the “God” of This World

God says Satan the devil is that arch-demon who “deceiveth the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). That deception began with the beginning of human history, in the Garden of Eden, and the first lie, spoken to our first parents.

God had said Adam and Eve would suffer the penalty of death if they disobeyed God, and partook of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan said, in effect, “God knows better than that. Why, that fruit is to be desired to make you wise like He is. You will not surely die.” (See Genesis 3:4,5). He hinted that man has an “immortal soul,” that there is something eternal within man.

The Bible is replete with examples of how Satan has continually conducted his campaign of attempting to overthrow God. Study Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, which give insights into Satan’s earliest origins, his expulsion from heaven to this earth.

From the beginning, Satan has appeared at the most crucial moments in man’s history. He was present in Eden, to deceive our first parents through Eve, bringing about original sin. He was allowed to appear before God to chide Him about Job (Job. 2:1-7). He was present at the birth of Christ to inspire Herod to kill thousands of innocent children (Matthew 2:16). He was present to tempt Jesus Christ shortly after His baptism (Matthew 4:1-11). He entered personally into Judas Iscariot to betray Christ to be murdered (John 13:27). He continually attempted to influence Peter, and it was only through Christ’s own prayers his hand was stayed (Luke 22:31,32).

Peter wrote, “Be sober [notice! Combating Satan requires sobriety; solemnity, not rejoicing], be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

“Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world” (1 Peter 5:8,9).

Satan is described as “the god of this world.” Listen! “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world [this age, this time, this society] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3,4).

He is also the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). God actually allowed Satan limited power over the weather in the case of Job, when Satan caused a tornado to destroy Job’s house and family.

From Genesis to Revelation, Satan the devil appears continually as the “accuser of the brethren,” as the “adversary,” as a “roaring lion,” as “the tempter,” as a “serpent,” or whispering enchanter, as a rebel against God, as a dragon. He is called Abaddon, and Apollyon in the Greek.

Throughout the seasonal pattern of God’s plan as revealed in His annual holy days, Satan’s evil dimension is noted.

In the typology of the Passover, for example, Pharaoh is a type of Satan, while Egypt is a type of sin, under Satan’s domain. The name of the wilderness (a type of trial and testing during the Christian life) was “Sin.”

Leaven, which is not to be eaten for seven days during the Days of Unleavened Bread, is a type of sin, of which Satan is the author. He is the first sinner in the history of the creation.

Satan, the present evil world ruler, has held sway over the minds and hearts of men for thousands of years. Here and there, God has called a few men and women to receive the gift of repentance. He has opened the minds of a few rare individuals who have chosen to obey God; to surrender to God in heartbroken repentance, be baptized, and receive God’s Holy Spirit.

But those who have answered God’s call are in a tiny, insignificant minority. Never did God’s Word prophesy that the church Jesus built (Matthew 16:18) would become a large, visible, politically active, wealthy religious organization which would be a part of this world; involved in various community, county, state, or national causes; trying to make this evil world a better place!

Nor would Christ’s church attempt to win the favor of those lost in Satan’s world. “Woe be unto you when men speak well of you,” He warned. Never would God’s church seek approval from the world, or from its religious organizations. Never would it compromise God’s truth in order to win favor with man and their worldly churches and organizations. Never would it compromise God’s Word in order to avoid persecution!

Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock, it is my Father’s pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Everywhere in prophecy, the true church is described as a persecuted few; a small, scattered, weak church, consisting of those individuals who “have not denied [Christ’s] name,” and who “…keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 3:8; 12:17).

God is Not Intervening in This World Today

This world is completely opposed to God. Its governments, institutions, societies and its religions are not of God, but are, instead, influenced by Satan.

Do you fully realize what you have been reading? Do you know that advancing this very truth nearly resulted in Christ’s murder at the very beginning of His public ministry? Satan’s religious leaders were VIOLENTLY OUTRAGED when Jesus told them this obvious truth, and immediately attempted to murder Him!

Notice it, in your own Bible.

Jesus Christ was invited to read from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth, where He had spent His youth……. and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

“And there was delivered unto Him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when He had opened the book [scroll], He found the place where it was written:

“’The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

“To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.’

“And He closed the book, and He gave again to the minister, and sat down.

“And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him.

“And He began to say unto them, ‘This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.’

“And all bare Him witness [listened intently], and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?”‘ (Luke 4:16-22).

Put yourself into the picture. Try to understand what was happening here. The Pharisees (“Apartists,” or “Separatists”) and the Sadducees (a more “liberal” religious sect, which had charge of the temple in Jerusalem) were the “spiritual” leaders. Their proud history stretched back to the days of the Maccabees–to the time just following the Jewish return from Babylonian captivity during the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zerubbabel, and the rebuilding of the temple.

To the Pharisees, just as in the case of millions of Americans, Britons, Australians, South Africans, and Canadians, they lived in “God’s country.” Theirs was the “true religion,” they thought. Whatever God was doing, He was doing it there!

Just like many an American “evangelist,” they no doubt claimed, “God is moving mightily among us just now!” They pointed to acts of charity, or demons cast out, or real or imagined hearings, and spoke of how “God is working miracles” here among us!

Their proud history was all GOD-CENTERED, so far as they were concerned. From their clothing styles to their fastings; from their alms-givings and tithing to their many meetings and special “love feasts” for the poor–they were involved deeply in doing God’s work, so far as they were concerned. They were “God’s people” doing “God’s will,” and having “God’s authority.”

It was the pagan world around them that was in darkness. They dwelt in the light! They were the “chosen ones,” dwelling in “God’s country.” All around was Gentile heathenism. In their synagogues, and in their streets; in their private meetings and public assemblies; in their banquets and feasts, and in their temple was GOD, and HIS TRUE RELIGION! They were GOD’S OWN MINISTERS!

Or so they believed.

But here was Jesus Christ, saying to them He had been sent to preach the gospel to the “poor.” He had been sent to “heal the brokenhearted” who were right there, seated in that synagogue, under the “spiritual” leadership of those rabbis, in that city, Nazareth, on that day! He had been sent to set spiritual captives free–captives who were seated there, in that synagogue, in that city, right then!

He had been sent to give the spiritually blind the ability to see; to set at liberty those who were being “bruised,” and exploited! He boldly proclaimed that this prophecy was being fulfilled right there and then in that synagogue.

Immediately, the Jewish leaders were furious!

This was preposterous to them! “Spiritual captives” THERE, in their own synagogue? Ridiculous! Were they not the spiritual leaders of their docile, obedient congregation? How dare this young upstart say such outrageous things? He might as well have accused them of being under Satan’s influence, deceiving their people, placing grievous burdens upon them, exploiting them!

As is always the case, when a carnal human mind is confronted with the Word of God, which is sharp, like a two-edged sword, and whichcuts and stings when it is wielded; when the carnal mind refuses to look into that spiritual looking glass and repent, it instead resorts to personal denigration, personal attack!

They scathingly said, “Wait a minute! Isn’t this just a local boy? Isn’t this old Joseph’s son?”

This ridiculous charge bears studious contemplation. As Christ Himself said, a prophet has no honor in his own country, or among his own kin. Familiarity breeds contempt. This is a Satanic emotion, not a Godly one.

The greatest respect, the greatest love displayed in all the universe, is the love between God the Father and Christ the Son of God. No contempt here, in spite of countless billions of years through endless eternity of familiarity.

But the carnal mind, influenced by Satan, is a mind of vanity, jealousy, lust and greed. It is a mind which is also afflicted with a sizable case of inferiority.

Those who accuse, “He is one of us,” as if such a statement discredits a person, do not realize how they are indicting themselves with their ridiculous accusations.

Many years ago, I read some cheap religious tracts which accused my father, Herbert W. Armstrong, of having been “one of us,” meaning the denomination which published the tract. To these vain, accusative religious bigots, the worst thing they could say about my father was that he had supposedly once been one of their own number. He never was. He had never darkened the door of one of their churches, to my certain knowledge. He had never met with their ministry, never attended a single one of their meetings.

These religious zealots, in their eagerness to attack and ridicule, were either deliberately lying, or simply didn’t know what they were saying. Think about it. What was it about them which was so discrediting, so evil, so utterly contemptuous, that association with them automatically discredited anyone who had once fellowshipped with them?

Human nature seems to say, “If I know him, he can’t be anybody worthwhile, or important. “What is unsaid is, “If I know him, since Iam of no worth or importance, he must really be a no-account.”

The Pharisees likewise didn’t understand what they were accusing. To them, it would have been impossible for anyone of any importance to have come from their town of Nazareth. They didn’t realize their accusations were actually directed at themselves; that they were saying, “We can’t be of any importance or account.”

Their anger deepened to murderous rage when Jesus said, “Ye will surely say unto me this proverb: ‘Physician, heal thyself: Whatsoever we have heard done in Capemaum, do also here in thy country.’

“And He said, ‘Verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.

“But I tell you of a truth, [note this well!] many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon [this was in modem-day Lebanon, a city then populated by Gentiles, not Jews], unto a woman that was a widow.

“And many lepers were in Israel in the days of Eliseus [Elishal the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman, the Syrian” (Luke 4:23-27).

Do you understand what Jesus was saying?

He was telling them that God was not working among the nation of Israel or Judah to heal, or to perform miracles, during the powerful ministry of witness and warning of Elijah or Elisha! Instead, God did not intervene in the case of destitute widows, or those starving due todrought sent as a national punishment. He intervened only in the case of the Gentile widow in Sidon, and a Syrian king!

This was historically true, and they knew it!

Yet, because it stung them and plainly showed how God had rejected their forefathers because of their sins, they were outraged! Jesus used these examples to back up His bold statement that, at last, God had sent His Son to release spiritual captives right there, in Nazareth–that God had not been working there previously!

Jesus was shattering all their carefully-arranged hierarchical pomp and religious pretense! He was plainly telling them God has not been among you! He has not been working here until NOW, THIS DAY, THROUGH ME!”

Notice: “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath.

“And rose up, and thrust Him out of the city, and led Him unto the brow of the hill whereupon their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong.

“But He, passing through the midst of them went His way,

“And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days” (Luke 4:28-3 1).

Imagine this! From the middle of a religious service on the Sabbath day to a raging, hate-filled mob in only moments of time, this group of venomous, pompous, vain, self-righteous religious bigots sought to do murder, with no hearing, no trial, no appeal! They were rendered so insanely furious with the indictment Jesus Christ had hurled at them they wanted to kill Him right then and there!

Jesus Christ looked very average. No doubt, in the melee, some of His disciples managed to gather around Him. He could have pulled his hooded cloak around him, and, as those in the front ranks milled about, pushing and shoving, shouting, throwing dust in the air, and falling down, He made good his escape, not being recognized in the confusion.

Fascinating piece of history, isn’t it?

Ironically, there are thousands of professing “Christian” ministers who would be rendered just as furiously angry TODAY if a true servant of God told them plainly that GOD HAS NOT BEEN WORKING AMONG YOU!

To be told this is not God’s world seems so strange to so many! To be informed that this is a world under the sway of Satan seems preposterous!

Yet, this is precisely what your Bible says!

The nations are deceived! Millions, who profess Christ, refuse to surrender to Him, refuse to obey Him!

Christ said, “Why call ye me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

He said, “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, ‘This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

“But IN VAIN THEY DO WORSHIP ME, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:7-9).

Paul wrote, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Obviously, there are those who are involved in a “form of godliness,” in “organized religion,” but who possess all the evil attributes of Satan so thoroughly described in the preceding verses!

Strangely, one sees more of the abominable, hateful, Satanic attitudes of vengeance and hedonism among “religious” organizations than in the public at large!

This is not God’s world! It is AT-ODDS with God, contrary to God, in rebellion against God.

It is a world lost in a Babylon of religious, political and ethnic hatred and confusion!

God says, “Come out of her [spiritual Babylon!], my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4).

Now, perhaps we can see more clearly WHY God revealed to His people Israel all the important typology of the somber, holy Day of Atonement. “Atonement” means “at-one-ment.” It pictures the human condition, under Satan’s influence, as being lost in sin; being in opposition to God, desperately needing reconciliation and forgiveness. More, it pictures the ultimate cause of sin, the first sinner, and the “father of liars,” being put away to never more influence mankind!

Rejection and Betrayal

Have you ever experienced rejection from someone you loved? Have you ever been deserted by dear friends? Have you experienced the trauma of divorce, or abandonment? As I write, it is now more than twenty long years since I was completely rejected and abandoned by some I counted among the very closest friends I ever had. Friends with whom I shared hundreds of thousands of miles of travel, hundreds of dinners, hunting expeditions, fishing, sports-countless hours of close contact. Furthermore, some of these former “friends” were ordained into the ministry! Not only dear friends, but my own human father!

To this very moment, I have never received a letter or a telephone call from them.

If you have been divorced, you know how horribly painful such an experience truly is, most especially if you were the one who was rejected.

Your Father in Heaven, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth, know the feelings of rejection and betrayal!

In the very beginning of our physical universe, the divine creating Family, Elohim, (which we refer to as “God”) created a fabulously beautiful, perfect universe, a perfect world. Millions do not know that there is a completely misleading mistranslation in the second verse of Genesis 1.

Notice: “In the beginning God [Elohim, a plural noun] created the heaven and the earth.

“And the earth was without form, and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:1,2). As you read the remainder of the chapter, you are left with the impression that God created the world in blackness, with tossing waves completely covering the land surface; that all was chaotic, and in confusion.

The Hebrew words for “without form, and void” are tohu and bohu. Here is what Dr. Builinger says in his notes on Genesis 1:2: “Without form = waste. Heb. tohu va bohu. Fig. Paronomasia. Ap. 6. Not created tohu (Isa. 45:18), but became tohu (Gen. 1:2. 2 Pet. 3:5,6). “An enemy hath done this” (Matt. 13:25,28,39. Cp. 1 Cor. 14:33). See Ap. 8″

Isaiah 45:18 plainly says, “For thus saith the Eternal that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain [Heb. tohu], He formed it to be inhabited: ‘I am the Eternal.”‘

The Companion Bible note on this phrase: “In vain = tohu. The same word as in Gen. 1.2 (“without form”). Therefore it must have become tohu: which is exactly what Gen. 1:2 declares.”

Now, HOW did God’s original, beautiful, flawlessly PERFECT creation become a chaotic scene of death and destruction; of stygian blackness covering a raging sea; of continents submerged beneath the water?

To read of the original condition of earth, turn to Ezekiel 28:12, where the “king of Tyrus” is used as a type of Satan, the devil (see Bullinger’s marginal notes, or any commentary): “…thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets [drums] and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

“Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou was upon the holy mountain of God: thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

“Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity [sin; lawlessness] was found in thee.

“By the multitude of thy merchandise [your trafficking, or going about from here to there; your “busyness,” which means “calumniator, or slanderer,” as one who slanders and gossips in a moral sense] they [these many occasions of sin] have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, 0 covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

“Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness [splendor]…” (Ezekiel 28:12-17).

Lucifer was breathtakingly beautiful. His name meant “Shining Star of the Dawn,” or “Lightbringer.” This description of Lucifer’s original condition bears very careful inspection; careful meditation.

For comparison, and a few additional details, notice Isaiah’s description: “How art thou fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

“For thou hast said in thine heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides [recesses] of the north:

“‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the MOST HIGH [Hebrew: Elyon, which is from El, and Elohim, as the “Possessor of heaven and earth.”]”‘ (Isaiah 14:12-14).

Here was a splendid, bright, shining, beautiful creature, an archangel, whose very name connoted his shining countenance. He was given command of this earth. He walked up and down in a land called “Eden” which existed perhaps billions of years ago, not the “Eden” of the recreation of earth long after its destruction, but the original “holymountain of God,” probably located somewhere in what is today the “Middle East.” This was a land of fabulous jewels; sparkling emeralds, topaz, diamonds, were everywhere about. Gold was common.

We are not told how long Lucifer ruled over the earth, nor how much power God allowed him during that period. One thousand years is to God like only one day to you and me. How long did God enjoy the beauty, the charm, the magnetism, the friendship, loyalty, and easy-going camaraderie of Lucifer?

God says he was a perfect creature in all aspects. Could not God have enjoyed His association with Lucifer, originally?

We are told, however, that Lucifer began “merchandising.” That is, he began to talk to the countless angels under his control, and perhaps to others who were under Gabriel or Michael. He began to allow jealousy of God’s supreme position of authority to eat on him. He began to see God in an unfavorable comparison with himself.

His reasoning is extant in billions of humans. “I am better than you are,” reason many. Vanity consumed Lucifer. Like most vain people, he suffered from a deep-seated inferiority complex, for he knew, deep within himself, that he was inferior to God; that God was more powerful. As Lucifer contemplated all that God controlled, envy and covetousness crept in. Lucifer began to become dissatisfied with his fabulously beautiful portion of God’s realm. Now, the jewels and gold seemed commonplace. The earth, down here under the clouds, was truly ,’mundane.”

He began to exacerbate the situation, continually gossiping, talking, excusing and justifying himself, dropping innuendoes and hints that God was somehow not fair. The more he engaged in this “trafficking,” the more corrupt he became, morally and spiritually.

Finally, he betrayed God, and, taking his angels (all of whom had been completely subverted by his charm, and his charismatic personality), he attempted to attack God on His throne and overthrow Him! He attempted the very first palace coup in all the history of the universe.

We cannot even begin to imagine the titanic struggle that took place. It was the original, primeval, “star wars” that ensued; planets and stars collided, were hurled out of their orbits. The earth’s surface was wrecked, utterly destroyed.

Today, when we gaze into space, we can see the results of this titanic struggle for control of the universe. The lifeless, pock-marked hulks that are the moon, or Mars and many other planets with their ugly, misshapen moons; the poisonous Venusian atmosphere; billions of meteorites, which are just so much space debris from explosions; all present mute testimony to us of vast events in the ancient past which caused all this wreckage.

Evolutionists speak of their pet theory about the “big bang,” as if it were a mindless act of “nature,” which was the original creation. It was not. The debris they see is the result of the destruction of an earlier, perfect creation.

Did Lucifer’s betrayal and attack upon God affect God’s attitude at all? God is love, according to His Word. He is gentle, kind, good, giving, merciful, longsuffering, and forgiving. Since God’s very nature is love, and since God desires man’s love in return, was it not painful and deeply disappointing to God to see the most beautiful creature of His handiwork, Lucifer, turn into a vicious, hating, lying, spiteful rebel, trying to overthrow his own Creator?

Do you see? The very first estrangement, the first time there was OPPOSITION, the first time there was betrayal, rejection, and war against God came perhaps billions of years before Adam!

The Rejection and Betrayal of Christ

Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He was God in the flesh, the original “Spokesman” of the Godhead, who did the creating!

“In the beginning was the Word [Greek: Logos, meaning “Spokesman”], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

“The same was in the beginning with God.

“All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.

“In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it

not.

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

“The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

“He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

“He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world

knew Him not.

“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not…” (John 1:1-11). Here is irrefutable proof that the One who became our Savior, the Member of the Godhead who was born Jesus of Nazareth, is the Divine Member of the Godhead who did the creating! He is the One who said, “Let US make man in OUR image” (Genesis 2:26), who dealt with Abraham, who parted the Red Sea, who gave Moses the law at Sinai.

Notice that He was with God, the Father, and yet “was God.” Our English word “God” is often taken to mean “God, the Father,” though it actually comes from any number of divine titles, and must be understood from the original languages, such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Jesus Christ plainly spoke of His “Father” in heaven. He said He had come to reveal the Father. He prayed to His Father, talked to Him, and said He spoke not of and by Himself, but that “The Father hath given me a commandment; what I should say and what I should speak.”

Those who espouse the nonsensical “Jesus Only” theory ignorantly deny dozens of plain scriptures which proves the duality of the Divine Family.

Notice that the Creator, now in the human form of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, “came unto His OWN.” He was born into the Jewish race.

Paul wrote, “For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood” (Hebrews 7:12). The Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well asked, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, asked drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? (for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans)” (John 4:9).

In both Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies, Jesus’ legal human ancestry is plainly traced back to His eponymous ancestor, Judah, whose name “Judahite,” or “Yehudi,” became shortened to “Jew.” Those antisemitic bigots who refuse to accept Jesus Christ’s Jewish ancestry show themselves to be exactly what they are-racist, hate-filled, prejudiced, arrogant, and completely ignorant of the Scriptures.

Christ came unto His own people, His own race, His own tribe! He was to say, on various occasions, “A prophet hath no honor in His own country, or among His own kin.”

Notice Isaiah’s inspired prophecy: “For He shall grow up before Him [Jehovah is implied] as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness: and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised and we esteemed Him not” (Isaiah 53:2,3).

Jesus Christ knew rejection. Though He was perfect, though He preached love and forgiveness, He was hated by the Jewish religious leaders, rejected by His own family and near kindred.

Satan, the original traitor, appeared immediately at Jesus’ birth, and, through Herod’s pogrom against thousands of innocent little babies, sought to destroy Him. Satan appeared to Jesus at His testing in the wilderness, during a forty day fast, attempting to overthrow His faith; attempting to charm, enchant, persuade, influence–trying his best to get Christ to worship Satan.

Christ passed each grueling test, finally commanding the devil to leave, and then, exhausted, received succor from angels (Matthew 4:11).

All during Christ’s ministry, Satan was present. He attempted to deceive Peter (Luke 22:3 1). He did deceive, heavily influence, and finally enter personally into Judas Iscariot. Satan, through Judas, continually attempted to influence the other disciples against Christ, just as Lucifer had originally become corrupted by his “trafficking,” or his “merchandising”–talking, accusing, influencing, justifying, attempting to persuade other beings against God and His authority (see John 12:4 with Mark 14:5 and Matthew 26:8,9).

Finally, Satan entered into Judas at the last supper (John 13:27) and betrayed Christ to the Sanhedrin, leading to His murder.

Satan, the great traitor toward God, was continually present at every great and momentous event concerning God’s plan of redemption and salvation, attempting to wreck God’s works; derail the plan of salvation.

Notice that Christ was a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Do you know what it is to have beloved friends, even close family members, “hide their faces” from you, cut you off, refuse to see you, or even talk, or write? I do. If you have, you know there is no physical pain which is equal to this decades-long mental and emotional pain of rejection–knowing others despise you!

The estrangement of this world against God is a total alienation. It is complete.

As they rejected Christ, so did the world reject His disciples, as He prophesied: “They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God a service.

“And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor me” (John 16:2,3).

Now do you understand how complete, how total is the spiritual darkness and Satanic confusion that grips this world–yes, including the world of religion?

There is need for the world and the very solar system itself to be restored to a condition of being “AT ONE” WITH GOD!

Because the process of alienation has been so painful, the holy day which pictures the reconciliation and final removal of all the sources of hostility, rejection, and hatred also features something painful: an”affliction” of our lives, through fasting!

A “Feast” of Fasting

Now, let’s come to understand the symbolism and typology of the somber Day of Atonement.

“And the Eternal spake unto Moses, saying, ‘Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation [a commanded assembly] unto you; and ye shallafflict your souls … and ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Eternal your God.

“For whatsoever soul [person] it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among His people” (Leviticus 23:27-29).

That “afflicting your souls” means fasting; abstaining from food and water during that entire twenty-four hour day, is crystal clear from the Scriptures.

For example, fasting for the wrong reasons is depicted by the prophet Isaiah: “‘Wherefore have we fasted?’ say they, ‘and Thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul and Thou takest no knowledge?’ Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labors.

“Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high…” (Isaiah 58:2-4).

Fasting for the wrong reason is merely going hungry. Christ showed how the spiritually proud Pharisees did this: “Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure [contort; twist] their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.

“But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head [wash and comb your hair-this is not a “spiritual” ritual, but instructions to appear properly groomed], and wash thine face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:16-18).

Fasting means completely abstaining from food and drink for the period of the fast. Notice how the Assyrian king of ancient Nineveh, at the warning from Jonah, proclaimed a fast: “…and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

“And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, ‘Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

“‘But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

“‘Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?’

“And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did it not” (Jonah 3:6 -1 0).

Notice it was not the fasting which moved God to change His mind. The fasting moved the people of Nineveh to change THEIR EVIL WAYS. It was the fact that they repented, that they turned from their evil way of life, from violence and crime, that moved God.

Fasting is not for the purpose of “getting God’s attention.” It is, instead, for getting our attention on God.

Fasting is temporary rejection of, and control over, our human, physical appetites. Hunger is a powerful feeling.

Millions of people, especially in the Western world of affluence, are terribly overweight. Millions are accustomed to satisfying every whim of appetite; greasy, fat-laden, poor quality quick foods; candies, ice cream, desserts. Millions “snack” at the first little twinge of hunger, devouring grease-laden potato chips, Fritos, “snacks” of all kinds, laden with chemicals, artificial flavorings and colorings, sodium and salt. Go to any good book store, and purchase a good book on nutrition, and learn of the incredibly debilitating eating and drinking habits of millions of our people. Then, you will come to understand much more about such terrible diseases as cancer, heart disease, emphysema, diabetes, and so many more, and why it is that “health care” is such a major economic and political issue in our time!

Millions are eating themselves to death without realizing it! Millions never allow themselves to experience hunger, while, in the “third world,” hundreds of thousands are dying of starvation.

The Christian life of overcoming is one of controlling our physical appetites! Solomon wrote, “Be not among winebibbers [excessive drinkers]; among riotous eaters of flesh [selfish, gluttonous eaters]:

“For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty” (Proverbs 23:20,21).

Jesus Christ said “…when ye fast” not, “if” ye fast. When the disciples of John, the Baptist, complained about Jesus’ disciples ignoring weekly, ritualistic “fasts” like those of the Pharisees, they asked, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?

“And Jesus said unto them, ‘Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast”‘ (Matthew 9:14,15).

He was referring to his being killed, resurrected, and assumed into heaven, saying after His departure His true disciples would fast.

Fasting, controlling the human physical appetites, and drawing close to God in prayer is part of the Christian life. Are there those who fast only one day in the year? Probably.

Strangely, there are those “spiritual liberals” who like to deceive themselves into rationalizing away the requirement to fast on the Day of Atonement! Others, completely captive to their own stomachs and physical appetites, like to argue that they can “fast” but merely drink water during the Day of Atonement.

Such people are plainly carnal, “of the flesh,” concerned with physical, fleshly appetites! To them, it is “unfair” that they should go as much as a single day of their lives without food and water! They want to “argue” and “reason” their way around God’s commands, allowing their stomachs to rule their minds, instead of the other way around. Like Esau, many are willing to miss out on the Kingdom of God for a mess of pottage!

But God says that those who do not fast shall be cut off from God, and His people!

No so-called “Christian” can argue that Jesus did not enjoin fasting upon His church! The Bible is replete with examples. Christ chided His disciples on one occasion when they attempted to cast out a demon, and could not. Christ told them that “this kind cometh not out, but by prayer and fasting!” (Matthew 17:21).

Since every converted member of God’s church is commanded to fastfrom time to time, WHAT BETTER DAY TO DO IT–TOGETHER, AS A CHURCH–THAN ON THE HOLY DAY OF ATONEMENT?

Luke, the historian, notes how the “fast,” which is the Day of Atonement, was so prominent in their seasonal reckoning that it was commonly used as the point in the Autumn when the winter storms would begin in the Mediterranean.

He wrote, “Now when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was already past, Paul admonished them…” (Acts 27:9). The Companion Bible accompanying note says, “i.e., the tenth day of the seventh month, the day of Atonement, about Oct. 1st.”

Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance explains the Greek word used for “fast,” which is nesteia, to mean, “abstinence (from lack of food or voluntary and religious); spec. the fast of the Day of Atonement.”

Luke wrote between 59 and 61 A.D., or about thirty years after the resurrection of Christ! Everything that had supposedly been “nailed to the cross” had disappeared thirty years before. Yet, here was Luke, one of Christ’s close confidants and a writer of the account detailing the events in the life of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, and casually using one of God’s annual holy days as an important point in the seasons!

Notice how God’s prophet Joel said the time would come when, during the Great Tribulation, just before the terrible Day of the Lord, the leaders of the nation should call fasts for His people: “Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Eternal your God, and cry unto the Eternal,

“Alas for the day! for the day of the Eternal is at hand, and as a destruction from the ALMIGHTY [El Shaddai] shall it come…” (Joel 1:14,15). In the next chapter, Joel wrote, “Therefore also now, saith the Eternal, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mouming:

“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Eternal your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil.

“Who knoweth if He will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Eternal your God?

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly…” (Joel 2:12-15).

Since God’s Word commands us not to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more as ye see the day approaching,” (Hebrews 10:25), it behooves God’s church to obey God in observing His holy days; to obey Him in fasting and prayers, as He commands, on the solemn, meaningful, somber, most holy DAY OF ATONEMENT.

Notice carefully how God has arranged His holy days so they reveal, progressively, His great PLAN of redemption and salvation.

The Day of Atonement falls between the Feast of Trumpets and the Feast of Tabernacles. Just as the book of Revelation reveals, Satan is bound and hurled away from the earth after the Second Coming of Christ (which Trumpets foreshadows), and before the beginning of Christ’s 1,000 year reign, foreshadowed by the Feast of Tabernacles.

Very briefly, the Passover depicts the first step in the plan of redemption; the slaying of the lamb pictures Christ’s sacrifice and our acceptance of it. The Feast of Unleavened Bread pictures Christ becoming part of us, through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Christ said He was that “Bread of Life” that was come down from heaven, and said, “He that eateth of me shall never die.” Not only does eating unleavened bread show we are partaking of a sinless life, but the unleavened bread pictures Christ.

Next comes Pentecost, or the “Feast of Weeks,” or “Feast of the Firstfruits.” The word Pentecost is from the Greek, which merely means “fiftieth.” God told His Levites to count from the morrow after the Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread seven weeks (seven meaning perfection, completion). On the morrow after the seventh Sabbath was the “Feast of Sabbaths,” or “Firstfruits.”

On this day, Christ sent the Holy Spirit upon His apostles (Acts 2). This is the “birthday” of the church–the first time in all history when God made His Holy Spirit available, freely, to all who would repent. Christ is the FIRST of the “firstfruits” of mankind. He is called “…the Firstborn among many brethren,” and “…the Firstfruits of them that slept” (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:20). This important holy day shows the incredible truth we have been discussing previously; how only a very rare, tiny minority are being called now; that God is NOT TRYING TO “SAVE” THIS WORLD NOW; that only a small firstfruits for God’s kingdom has been converted, and called into God’s true church.

Next comes The Feast of Trumpets, which pictures the announcement from heaven of God’s intervention in human affairs. Not only does it look forward to the great final trumpet (Matthew 24:31; 1 Corinthians 15:50-52; Revelation 11:15), but it represents all of God’s continual witness and warning down through the centuries. Isaiah said, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Isaiah 58:1). The ultimate meaning of the Feast of Trumpets is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to this earth, after God has caused the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, which is the good news of Christ’s soon coming to RULE this world, to be preached among all nations.

The method of mass communication used in ancient Israel was the trumpet call, or the blowing on the horn of a ram, called the “shofar.” There were various sounds for the calling of assemblies, for marching orders, for the announcement of holy days, and for warning of approaching enemies.

God promised He would not leave this world without a witness; thatthe world would be warned of impending punishments for sin; of disease, economic collapse, and war. Throughout history, God has sent His special messengers; first, the prophets, then Jesus Christ, then His apostles, and finally His church, to blow the trumpet of witness and warning, as watchmen (Ezekiel 33) to inform people of what was to come!

Eventually, the whole world will hear the blast of the trumpet of God (Matthew 24:3 1), announcing Christ’s return.

But when Christ comes back to this earth, the world will not immediately accept Him. Peace will not immediately prevail. Instead, Christ will administer, personally, the immediate punishment for sin upon the “beast” and “false prophet,” and then God will send a powerful angel to hurl Satan away from this earth and BIND him for one thousand years so he can no longer influence mankind.

Notice one of the very first acts to be accomplished by Jesus Christ when He returns to this earth in power and glory: “And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war.

“His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written; that no man knew, but He himself.

“And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God.

“And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

“And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall RULE them with a rod of iron [see Revelation 2:26]: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

“And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS … and I saw the beast [the coming military leader of the “beast power,” a ten-nation combine which will fight Christ at His coming (see Revelation 17:12-14)], and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army.

“And the beast was taken [captured; arrested], and with him the false prophet [see 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10 with Revelation 13:11-18] that wrought miracles before him, with which he had deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

“And the remnant were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit [abyss, a metaphor for “the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 13)] and a great chain in his hand.

“And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.

“And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season” (Revelation 19:11-21; 20:1-3).

Men divided the manuscripts into chapters. The original scrolls had no such divisions. Here, the thought flow continues, uninterrupted, from the Second Coming of Christ to the binding of Satan.

First, then, Christ administers the death penalty–death by fire to the vicious, mass-murderers, the beast and his religious cohort, the false prophet. The very next event is the binding of Satan, and removal of him from the earth into some far off “black hole” in the universe pictured as an “abyss,” where he is to remain alive, yet completely powerless to influence the world, for the entire millennial reign of Christ with His saints.

With this information in mind, turn to and study Leviticus, the 16th chapter, and come to understand the interesting typology.

Types and Shadows of Things to Come

Only once each year was the high priest to come into the “holy of holies” inside the tabernacle (later, the temple). Read carefully through Hebrews 8 and 9 for a fuller understanding.

“And the Eternal said unto Moses, ‘Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the veil before the mercy seat [a type of the throne of God], which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.

“Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering” (Leviticus 16:2,3). Verse six explains that the young bullock for a sin offering is for Aaron and his family to make an “atonement” for himself and them. The ram for the burnt offering was on behalf of the congregation of Israel (verse 15).

“And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and for his house. And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Eternal at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

“And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Eternal, and the other lot for the scapegoat” (Leviticus 16:6-8).

Notice that the first lot is “FOR THE ETERNAL.” It follows that the second lot, the goat which is called an “azazel” in Hebrew, falsely translated “scapegoat” into the English, is NOT FOR THE ETERNAL, but for some other representation.

Hastings says, “The living goat was then brought near; and the high priest, having placed both hands upon its head, confessed over it all the sins and offences of the Israelites; after which the goat was led away by a man standing in readiness, into the wilderness for ‘Azazel,’ that it might bear the iniquities to a land ‘cut off,’ i.e., to one remote from human habitations, from which there was no chance of its bringing back its burden of guilt” (Dictionary of the Bible, James Hastings, Vol. 1, p. 199).

Here, the sins are not forgiven, not expiated by the shedding of blood, but instead are still alive, the guilt still remaining upon the head of the live goat, which is led by a man specially selected for the task into a remote wilderness, from which it will never return.

This is a perfect type of what you read in Revelation 20:1-3: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit [metaphor for an “abyss,” or an empty void, without human habitation] and a great chain in his hand.

“And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

“And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that that he should deceive the nations no more…”

When does the binding of Satan occur?

Immediately after the Second Coming of Christ and following Christ having thrown the beast and false prophet into a lake of fire!

Note this sequence of events well! Satan is bound after Christ’s coming, which is pictured by the Feast of Trumpets, yet before the beginning of the Millennium, which is foreshadowed, in part, by the Feast of Tabernacles. Which holy day comes between Trumpets and Tabernacles? The Day of Atonement.

The forgiveness of sin requires the shedding of blood.”…. without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). The Passover lamb, the daily and special sacrifices; the slaying of the bullock for Aaron and his family, and the slaying of the goat “for the Eternal” all picture CHRIST’S SHED BLOOD for the sins of mankind. But the second goat, the “Azazel,” is NOT FOR THE ETERNAL, but is for the purpose of remaining alive to bear the sins and guilt of Israel far, far away into a distant, uninhabited wilderness.

This does not picture forgiveness of sin, for no blood is shed. Therefore, the theory that the live goat, or “Azazel,” which is sent into a desolate, uninhabited wilderness pictures “forgiveness of sins” is utterly impossible. Instead, it pictures how Satan, who will remain alive for eternity, will be burdened with memories of his iniquities and sins for ever and ever.

Think of it! Laying upon the head of the live goat, like virulent bacteria and viruses, all the sins of the world, the goat is sent into a remote, desolate wilderness. The wilderness, or “Arabah” was always used as a type of sin.

While God will forgive and forget our sins, Satan the Devil has no capacity for remorse or forgiveness and will NEVER FORGET. He will remain alive, REMEMBERING!

Therefore, though God, our Creator, completely forgives and forgets your sins and mine, our “partner in sin,” the original sinner, the one who influenced us to sin, will remain alive, continually remembering! He will be alone. There will be no light to see. There will be no companionship. He will remain alone with his torturous thoughts, his bitter memories, for all eternity.

Many of the major religious beliefs of this world have been subtly implanted by Satan–doctrines that picture him, his state of being, and his future, rather than the plan of God.

Satan has deceived the world into believing God is part of a great spiritual triumvirate, while Satan, himself, is one of only three archangels mentioned in the Bible. The Divine Family of God consists of Father and Son. DUALITY is seen throughout nature: two magnetic poles, two sexes; man has two eyes, two hands, two arms, two feet, two ears, two legs. There is the “first man Adam” and the “second man Adam” (referring to our first parent and our spiritual Savior–1 Corinthians 15:45-49). The Bible has the Old Testament and the New Testament. There is the physical and the spiritual. Everywhere, God has placed duality throughout creation. Electricity has a positive and a negative charge, and there are many other examples in the physical creation to illustrate duality. Yet, millions believe in the false doctrine that God consists of a “Trinity” of Persons.

Satan has also deceived mankind into believing man has an “immortal soul.” But Satan has been created as an immortal spirit, who will live forever. Satan has convinced mankind that sin is punished by eternal punishing, not eternal punishment. Yet, Satan will be punished for all eternity in the “blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 13).

Thus, the live goat, with all the sins of Israel laid upon him, represents Satan, remaining alive, with the bitter memories of his betrayal, his rebellion, his unceasing sins.

Betrayal, Estrangement, and Atonement

Previously, I asked if you had ever been rejected, perhaps divorced–whether you had ever been despised by someone you loved. Now, think of that person. How painful would it be if, even at this late state, a complete reconciliation could occur?

It is much easier to ask forgiveness than it is to give it! The penitent one is emotionally moved; ashamed, disgusted with himself. When true repentance occurs, it is a natural desire to ask to be forgiven, to shed the painful feelings of guilt that weigh like a terrible burden on the mind.

The one who is wronged, however, experiences far different feelings. Because it is so difficult to forgive; much more difficult than to ask for forgiveness, Jesus instructed His disciples about forgiveness. Peter had asked, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? ‘Till seven times?

“Jesus saith unto him, ‘I say not unto thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21,22). Then Christ instructed them about the parable of the unjust servant, who, when forgiven a huge debt, turned about and had a man who owed him but little thrown into jail.

The landowner who had originally forgiven his servant the large debt heard of it, had him arrested, and thrown into prison.

Jesus said, “So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses” (Matthew 18:35).

Continually, Jesus Christ stressed forgiveness as a part of the character of a Christian! Why? Because it is contrary to human nature to forgive! Instead, the one wronged is prone to demand far more display of contrition; far more restitution than the repentant one is able to give.

How many times have we heard the terms, “I will never forgive him for that”? Or, “That is absolutely unforgivable”? Jesus said……. if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

“But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14,15).

It is part of God’s nature to be a FORGIVING God. He had said, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12).

As we have seen, God was betrayed by one of the most beautiful creatures in all the universe, Lucifer, who became twisted and perverted into the embodiment of hatred, spite, contempt, bitterness, sin and evil!

Does God have no feelings? Did not this grieve our Heavenly Father, and the “Logos,” or the One who became our Savior? Of course it did!

Did it not grieve Christ to see all His disciples forsake Him as He suffered on the stake? God commands us: “…grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30).

It is because both parties feel affliction when a reconciliation occurs; because BOTH parties have been grieved–especially the one who was wronged–that removing the wrong, assuaging the guilt, becoming “at-ONE” again is so painful!

Joyous at the end, the process of repentance, and being forgiven is painful while it occurs.

Perhaps now we can see, as never before, why our Heavenly Father commands us “…ye shall afflict your souls” during the somber Day of At-One-Ment!

David cried out, “Before I was afflicted I went astray: But now have I kept thy word” (Psalm 119:67).

When we abstain from food and drink from sunset to sunset during the holy Day of Atonement, we should not think about how pitiful we are, how hungry we are, how we desire food! This defeats the purpose of Atonement.

Rather, we should get our minds off physical things, and think only of spiritual things. We should think, again, of how much God has suffered for mankind! How God was betrayed by Lucifer; how Satan destroyed the original creation; how Satan deceived our first parents; how he attacked Job; how he influenced Herod to kill thousands of innocent babies; how he tempted Christ; how he influenced Judas to betray Christ; and how he is our adversary, “accusing” us before God, day and night!

We should realize that we have had an evil partner in sin! We should soberly contemplate how GREAT is God’s mercy toward us, that He should say He will “remove our sins from us as far as the East is removed from the West,” realizing how Satan, laden with his share of our guilt, will be hurled into the “blackness of darkness for all eternity”!

Only when all this is accomplished will this world, under the righteous reign of Jesus Christ, become once again truly “at one” with God!

How fervently we should pray, “Thy Kingdom Come…”

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Does the Bible contradict itself? Skeptics say yes, many times. Does the Bible present us with wholly impossible scenarios; unbelievable historical accounts, and unscientific claims? Scoffers and doubters say yes. Evolutionists, agnostics, skeptics of every sort are quick to challenge the Bible on many fronts.

A favorite attack against scripture is the age-old question, “Where did Cain get his wife?”

Another is why the fifth commandment says “Thou shalt not Kill,” and yet, God commanded the Israelites to kill thousands of their enemies: “Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

“But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

“But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee” (Deuteronomy 20:15-17).

“You see?” challenge the scoffers, this “God” you say inspired the Bible says “Thou shalt not kill,” and then turns right around and says, “kill them all, even their little babies!”

Several times a year, I receive angry, challenging letters from such doubters, who are trying to convince themselves there is no God, or, if there is, He did not inspire the Bible to be written.

How about you? Are you equipped to answer challenges from those who point out alleged Bible contradictions, or who say the Bible is uninspired?

The Claims Of Scripture Itself

The Bible claims to be inspired. Jesus Christ said, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). Therefore, Christ plainly said the Hebrew Old Testament was inspired, and that it contains information which, if accepted, points the way to eternal life. He said, as recorded only a few verses later, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.

“For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me [in the first five books of the Bible].

“But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:45-47). Christ therefore placed His stamp of approval on the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. If one accuses Christ of being either ignorant, deceived, or deliberately lying, then one is obviously rejecting Jesus Christ as the Son of God; the Savior of the world; the soon-coming world ruler, and one is perilously close to a blasphemy which will not be forgiven.

After His resurrection, Jesus Christ reminded His disciples of His many Bible-based statements during His Messiahship: “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:44, 45). Here, Jesus Christ lists the three divisions of the Hebrew Old Testament, commonly called the “Torah” (the first five books of the Bible), or the “law,” the Prophets, including all the major and minor prophets, and the “Psalms,” or “the Writings,” which includes all the other books.

The Bible itself claims to be the inspired word of God. Peter wrote, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

“For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

“And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:16-21).

John the apostle wrote, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

“Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.

“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Revelation 1:1-3).

Paul used the Old Testament scriptures to preach Christ, and salvation. “Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:

“And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,

“Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ” (Acts 17:1-3).

Luke wrote that Apollos, a gifted and noted speaker, “…mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures[the Old Testament — the only “scriptures” extant then] that God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him” (Acts 28:23-31). Thus ends the book of Acts, with Luke’s testimony that Paul continually taught from the Hebrew Old Testament; “out of the law [Torah] of Moses, and out of the prophets,” all day long, day after day, week after week, month after month for two years.

One thing is sure. Jesus Christ Himself plainly said the Old Testament scriptures are the word of God. All the disciples believed the scriptures were inspired. Paul believed the Old Testament was inspired. What about the writers of the Old Testament? Did they believe they were writing God’s own words?

Scoffers Were Predicted

Today, evolution is taken for granted by the vast majority. Evolution is the basis of all formal education; inculcated into the minds of youths in western societies from their early childhood. Evolution is palpably evident throughout the “nature” shows which children love; television documentaries about fish, dolphins, whales, lions, elephants, birds, insects — all continually reinforce the concept that there is no God; that all life “evolved” over vast aeons of time.

To evolutionists, the natural forces in place today provide evidence that the earth has always continued as it is, with “resident forces” acting upon the earth, and “natural selection” bringing about the “survival of the fittest” as all forms of life gradually “evolved” from one life form to another.

Thus, man is said to have begun as a “chance strike of lightning in a primal soup of methane and ammonia,” or as a “spark of life in an ancient sea,” or as “green slime,” or “brown scum,” or “cracks in rocks,” or from either supreme heat, or supreme cold. Each of the above postulates can be found in erudite texts and articles written by science writers. The “big bang” theory; that all matter was once contained in one gargantuan “atom” which exploded is commonly accepted today by evolutionists.

All of which says “There is no God worthy of mention.” Evolution directly contradicts the Bible, which says “In the beginning God created…” Evolution says, instead, “In the beginning was the hydrogen atom.”

To evolutionists, any catastrophism is anathema. While many have come to believe that a meteor once struck the earth, which is largely accepted as the reason for the “sudden die out of dinosaurs,” the concept of catastrophes interrupting the gradually changing “resident forces” is generally rejected. For example, the great flood of Noah’s time, mentioned by Christ and the apostles, and set forth in Genesis chapters six through nine, is rejected as pure myth.

Peter wrote, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

“And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation [everything is cyclical, they say; there have always been droughts, famines, and storms].

“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

“Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

“But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:3-7).

In a later section we will deal with the flood of Noah, and various challenges against it by scientists and religionists alike. The point is, Peter’s prophecy has come true! Millions deny the flood of Noah’s time. Yet, Jesus Christ Himself said, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

“For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

“And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Jesus was Christ” (Acts 18:28). When Paul was under house arrest in Rome, knowing that he was in peril of his life, he nevertheless continued to faithfully preach the gospel of the coming Kingdom of God, using the Old Testament scriptures! Luke wrote, “And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.

“And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not….And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of man be” (Matthew 24:37-39). Evolutionists accuse Christ, therefore, of being either ignorant or deceived, because Christ clearly believed in a universal deluge.

Paul wrote that evolutionists have no excuse for denying what their own eyes tell them:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them [is evident to them]; for God hath showed it unto them.

“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made [the material universe; all creation], even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:18-20).

Today, many theologians attempt to reconcile anti-God evolution with “theistic evolution,” saying there might have been a “First Cause” or a “God” of some sort who used evolution as His creating method. But this is nothing short of gratuitous; an attempt to give in to evolutionists, and still maintain there is a God.

Such people claim that the “days” of creation were actually thousand, or even million-year periods, and not literal days. The Bible says otherwise: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

“And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening [darkness] and the morning [daylight] were the first day” (Genesis 1:3-5).

There has never been a time when the Bible was under such attack as today! From evolutionary classrooms to the pulpits of churches, men scathingly ridicule the Bible as myth.

Peter’s prophecy has come to pass. For several in-depth articles which DEMOLISH the “theory of evolution” be sure to look into our web site at “https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/,” go to the literature page, and type in “evolution” or “creation.” There, you will find the existence of God absolutely and scientifically PROVED!

Is the Bible a deliberate attempt by dozens of collaborators over centuries to create a myth about a “God,” and form a monotheistic religion? Were the prophets coconspirators in an elaborate scheme to deceive you and me?

Reluctant Prophets

God’s prophets were not arrogant “wannabes” who arrogated to themselves some high “spiritual” office. Instead, they were humble men who felt inadequate for the task appointed them. Isaiah wrote of having seen a vision of the throne of God; of seraphim crying “Holy, holy, holy, is the Eternal of Hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:1-3). Isaiah then said, “Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Eternal of Hosts” (Isaiah 6:5).

Then occurred, in Isaiah’s vision, a seraphim who flew from the altar with a coal from beneath and, laying it upon Isaiah’s mouth, said, “Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Isaiah 6:7). Isaiah was now a vessel sanctified for God’s work. Yet, he was told that the people would not understand or heed his message; that they would be “dull of hearing” until the time of the Tribulation and the Day of the Lord, when God will visibly manifest Himself.

God said to Isaiah, “Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.

“Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

“Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,

“And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land” (Isaiah 6:9-12). Jesus Christ emphasized the fact that the vast majority of mankind would be blinded; unable to comprehend spiritual things. He quoted Isaiah, thus giving this prophet his stamp of approval and divine authority, when His disciples asked Him why He spoke to the masses in puzzles, or parables. Christ answered, “Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

“And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:

“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:13-15).

Millions believe Jesus Christ came to save everyone He could! Nothing could be farther from the truth! Instead He plainly said most were BLIND to the truth, and said this was in God’s intent, “LEST” they should be converted; should understand with their heart.

Bear this in mind as you continue through this booklet! It was not then, and it is not now God’s intention to reveal His truth to every human being! Jesus Christ said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). Remember this basic principle, and never forget it! It takes a miracle from God to open a human mind to His truth! Mere reading of the Bible by a carnal mind (Romans 8:7) will never bring any person to repentance and salvation. Those who read the Bible with a skeptical attitude will remain skeptics. Why? Because they do not TREMBLE before God’s Word. Isaiah wrote, “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

“For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word” (Isaiah 66:1, 2).

Isaiah trembled before God. He knew he was unworthy of conveying God’s message. He was a reluctant prophet, not one who vainly arrogated to himself any authority. Notice how Jeremiah likewise felt unworthy: “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

“Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.

“But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.

“Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.

“Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.

“See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:4-10). Jeremiah said he was too young for the job; that he would have no credibility! Yet God sent him as one of his prophets.

Amos wrote, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit:

“And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel” (Amos 7:14,15).

Daniel fainted when he saw an archangel who came to commission him as God’s prophet: “And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel;

“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz:

“His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

“And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves.

“Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength.

“Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground.

“And, behold, an hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands.

“And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling.

“Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words” (Daniel 10:4-12). Like so many other prophets, Daniel’s experience with a great archangel so traumatized him that he was left weak and trembling. This was no pompous individual who assayed to become a “faith healer” or “evangelist” parading around in a white suit, claiming to “heal” people! Instead, Daniel was a meek and humble man who was stultified at the calling of God. He was not a volunteer.

It is important to know that each of God’s prophets related that God, no doubt through angelic messengers, spoke to them directly! They did not seek it. They were not volunteers. Instead, they were chosen. Paul wrote, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

“Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds[compare with John 1];

“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3).

The New Testament writers absolutely believed that the Old Testament scriptures were inspired! They believed that God Himself had inspired the prophets! In most cases, they gave their lives, often in the most horrible fashion, for that conviction. This was not mere “belief,” but deep conviction; a knowing brought about by their personal experiences with Jesus Christ during His sojourn in human flesh, and His many miraculous appearances to them following His resurrection!

Reluctant Disciples; Unwilling Witnesses

The Bible is hard on its heroes. Every human being save Jesus Christ is presented to us as eminently human; with human failings, foibles, silly mistakes, false assumptions and sins. David’s sin with Bathsheba; Abraham’s lie to save his wife from Abimelech; Peter’s brazen rebuke of Jesus; Paul’s participation in the martyrdom of Steven and earlier persecution of Christians; Jeremiah’s lamentations — all are obviously humans, subject to normal human emotions.

Did the disciples concoct a “new religion” and foist it off upon unsuspecting masses?

Many sensational books have made just such a charge. Write a book which debunks Jesus Christ as a fraud, and you have an instant best-seller. Write the truth about the Bible, and about Christ, and only a precious few are interested. Many years ago, a book entitled The Passover Plot alleged that Jesus’ “death” was just that; a part of a conspiratorial plot to stage a death, when in fact Christ was not really dead at all.

But consider the record of the disciples themselves. For one thing, as Christ was being led away by the armed guards of the High Priest, having been betrayed by Judas, every one of His disciples forsook Him!

If you have not read my booklet, “The Young Revolutionaries,” it is available on our web site at https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/. You can print it and read it in hard copy. If you do not have a PC, they are available in most local libraries, and for a small fee you can be given access to the web site, and the librarian will print out any literature you require. I urge you to read this fascinating book.

Consider the case of Peter, the disciple. Bombastic, zealous, rough around the edges, Peter was often abrasive and impetuous. For years, he and the other disciples had assumed Jesus Christ was a revolutionary who would overthrow the Sanhedrin, topple the Herods, and then kick out the occupying Romans. Notice what the disciples thought was the one most important question they could ask Jesus on His final appearance before them: “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). They did not speak of the “Kingdom of God,” nor did they envision a globe-girdling millennial rule of Christ. Rather, they asked if NOW, at long last, after what had been to them many, many abortive attempts, was He FINALLY ready to “restore the kingdom TO ISRAEL!”

What that meant was they expected Christ to establish a newGOVERNMENT on the throne which was being usurped by the Herods; to restore a greater Davidian or Solomonic Kingdom, from the headwaters of the Tigris-Euphrates in modern-day northern Iraq to the seven streams of the Nile in the Egyptian delta. They did not ask Him anything whatsoever about “religious services,” or about the myriad things which have led to major disputes and divisions among the denominations in “churchianity.” They asked nothing about hair styles or length; about dresses or robes for the clergy; about candles, bells, chants, or holy water. They asked nothing about celibacy, or “orders” for women; they asked nothing about “praise worship” or religious postures.

Instead, they asked, in essence, a POLITICAL question. Would Christ FINALLY, now that He had all power, ascend to David’s throne and RULE ISRAEL right then and there?

Christ answered, “And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

“And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

“And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;

“Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:7-11). This miraculous phenomenon was the final anchor for their unbounding faith. They SAW Him ascend. They watched until He was a tiny speck, fading from sight into the clouds!

After a period of a month and ten days, during which He had appeared and disappeared many times, these unwilling witnesses; these men who had forsaken Him in bitter disappointment and anger, were deeply convicted!

Space does not permit me to retell the entire story here (please read the “Young Revolutionaries” book), but remember that Peter tried to trigger the revolution when he attempted to kill Malcolm, the servant of the high priest. “And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear.

“Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matthew 26:51, 52; compare with Luke 22:49-62).

All the disciples shrank back into the darkness. Peter followed at a distance, afraid of being discovered. Later, he cursed and denied that he ever knew Jesus.

When the disciples were told that Christ’s tomb was empty, they were doubtful. “It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.

“And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

“Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass” (Luke 24:10-12).

Christ would suddenly materialize before their startled eyes, as they were discussing all the stupendous events of the past four days. “And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

“But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

“And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

“And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet” (Luke 24:36-40).

Christ Himself chastised the disciples for their unbelief. When Mary Magdalene had seen Him first, and related her experience to the disciples, “…she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.

“And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

“After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.

“And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.

“Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen” (Mark 16:10-14).This was no plot to deceive the world, and begin a false religion based on fraudulent claims. Remember, “doubting” Thomas said he would never believe unless he personally saw Christ’s wounds: “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

“The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

“And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

“Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

“And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed[does that include you?].

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book” (John 20:24-30).

Many allegations of fraud have been presented. Some say Jesus’ enemies stole His body. But if so, they would have publicly displayed it, for the entire issue was whether or not He was truly the Messiah, the Son of God. Had the Jews “stolen the body,” they would have openly rejoiced, paraded the body through the streets. Instead, the Jews accused the disciples of having stolen Jesus’ body!

But do men DIE, being crucified upside down, sawn asunder, impaled, burnt alive, or stoned to death, for what they KNOW TO BE A LIE?

Some have said Jesus Christ was only in a “swoon,” that He revived, and removed the stone, and disappeared, in order to keep the myth alive. But I have been inside the tomb where Jesus Christ was buried for three days and three nights. The “door” was formed of a huge slab of rock, shaped like a wheel. There was a channel carved uphill from the opening into the tomb, and the stone was positioned above it, so, when the restraining chocks were taken away, the stone would roll downward into an ever narrowing rock-hewn channel, wedging itself solidly in front of the opening.

It would have required dozens of powerful men, with pick axes and crow bars, laboring for many hours, to remove that huge stone! It was disc-shaped, and much taller than a man. It must have weighed several tons! Could Jesus, after being beaten within an inch of His life, in some alleged “swoon,” have revived, and removed that stone by Himself? Nonsense.

Such allegations mean that those who make them are calling every one of the New Testament writers liars and frauds. They have to explain to themselves how it is that men who were unwillingwitnesses would go to the stake and give their lives in excruciating suffering for what they knew was a fraud!

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is historic FACT, not some kind of hallucination or fantasy. The FACT of the resurrection is not some later invention to justify the “Christian” religion, but the very reason for its beginning. It is the CORNERSTONE of Christian faith; that Christ is alive; that He was resurrected from the tomb, as He said. Paul told the Corinthian church, “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

“And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third dayaccording to the scriptures:

“And that he was seen of Cephas [Peter], then of the twelve:

“After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

“After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.

“And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). This is a powerful witness, for Paul states to his readers that they can ask nearly FIVE HUNDRED living witnesses, or ask any of the apostles about having SEEN Jesus Christ alive after His death and burial. The Christian religion BEGAN on the fundamental belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Where Did The Bible Come From? How Did We Get it?

Believe it or not, there are more ancient manuscripts available from the Old Testament than there are from the New! It was in 1844 that a German scholar named Tischendorf visited the St. Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai. The monks were cleaning up the place, and had stuffed a waste basket full of pages of vellum, or written pages from sheep’s skin, which they were going to burn. The monks were secretive people, and not very good housekeepers. Tischendorf noticed that the vellum pages were in Greek. When he looked at them closely, he found they were parts of an ancient “Septuagint” version of the Old Testament. The “Septuagint” is so called because there were seventy copyists in Alexandria, Egypt, assigned to translate the entire Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. This was allegedly commanded by the High Priest in Jerusalem at the behest of Emperor Ptolemy II, since so many Jews spoke only Greek, and could no longer read the Old Testament in Hebrew.

Tischendorf managed to salvage 43 such leaves, but an additional search turned up no more. He visited the same monastery again in 1853, and again searched for any more such vellum pages without success. Then, in 1859, he returned again, and this time a steward told Tischendorf he had an ancient copy of the Septuagint. When he brought it out, Tischendorf found it was the remaining pages of the manuscript he had found fifteen years earlier. It contained 347 vellum leaves in all, beautifully written by hand on fine vellum; measured 15 x 13 1/3 inches for each page, and included the entire New Testament. He eventually secured the entire manuscript for the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg, where it remained until 1933. That year, it was sold to the British Museum for half a million dollars.

I have seen this original manuscript, and Ambassador College obtained a very expensive photo copy of many pages, actually reproduced on heavy parchment, which were on display in the library for many years.

The other most ancient manuscripts of the Old Testament are the “Vaticanus,” produced in the 4th century; has been in the Vatican library since 1481, but some fragments of the New Testament are missing; the “Alexandrinus” made in the 5th century in Alexandria, Egypt, which has been in the British museum since 1627. Some fragments are missing, but it contains the entire Bible. Another is the “Ephraem” manuscript, containing about half of the New Testament in Greek. There are, altogether, about 4,000 known manuscripts of the Bible or parts of the Bible, all of which were produced from the 2nd to the 12th centuries. No manuscripts exist prior to that time.

The original letters of Paul, which were kept by the churches to which they were addressed for many years, have all been lost. But copies of these writings were made for other churches, and sent there from the earliest times. As older copies wore out, newer ones were made.

In contrast, there is no known complete copy of Homer dating earlier than AD 1300, and no known copy of Herodotus, the Egyptian historian, prior to 1,000 AD. There are vastly more manuscripts available for the Bible than these ancient writers, but no one challenges either Homer or Herodotus!

For further study into the origin, preservation, transmission and translation of the ancient texts of the Bible, one can obtain vast information from various libraries in the world over the Internet. The many Bible handbooks are instructive. A good layman’s Bible Handbook is “Halley’s,” and a collegiate-grade book is The Angus Bible Handbook, which I have used for many years. It is particularly good for alleged biblical contradictions. I challenge any skeptic to STUDY the Angus Bible Handbook, and to meticulously, carefully attempt to dismantle it, prove it wrong! It is a daunting, and ultimately impossible, task!

Angus includes many, many examples of scriptural anomalies and alleged contradictions, and satisfactorily explains each one.

Biblical Enigmas

Still, there are many thousands who, while they believe the Bible is the word of God, are nevertheless perplexed by seemingly irreconcilable difficulties in scripture.

As mentioned earlier, many demand, “Since Adam and Eve had Cain, and the Bible says Cain had a wife, where did Cain get his wife?” The truth is that Adam and Eve had many, many children — perhaps as many as twenty five or even many more, over a span of a phenomenal nine hundred and thirty years. This is not to suggest that Eve bore children all during such a life span, or that Adam remained virile until his death. However, the great age of the patriarchs is stated again and again in Genesis, and no doubt was due to several factors:

(1) Prior to the Noachian Deluge, or world-wide flood, the Bible states there was a different weather pattern on earth; that the atmosphere contained much, much more moisture then than now.

(2) The earth was very likely protected to a much greater degree from ultraviolet rays from the sun from the time of the creation of Adam until the flood, when the “waters which were above the firmament” (Genesis 1:7) were unleashed.

(3) The intake of Carbon 12 from the sun would have been almost nil, accounting for the errors in assigning vast ages to wood samples from preflood times through radiocarbon dating.

Questions about Cain’s wife stem from people reading Genesis 4:17 prior to reading subsequent chapters. The problem verse says, “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he [Cain] builded a city, after the name of his son, Enoch.” Notice, however, Genesis 5:1-5, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

“Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

“And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

“And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.” When Cain was born, the exclamation from the parents was, simply, “It’s a boy.” The Bible says Eve remarked, “I have gotten a man from the Eternal.” The name: “Cain” means “acquired.”

It is remarkable that after Cain killed his brother Abel, probably at the time when both men were in their 30s or 40s, the next son born elicited a far different response from Adam. Now, he had a son “in his own likeness, after his image.”

Notice that Seth, the third son, was one hundred and five before Enos was born, and that “Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years and begat sons and daughters” (Genesis 5:7).

The simple answer is that Cain married one of his own sisters. As the human family expanded, more and more children of both sexes were born. Each of the patriarchal families may have had fifteen, twenty, thirty or more children, for they were fertile for literally hundreds of years. All the possible color variations of the human race were contained in the body of mother Eve from her creation. God is the Author of the races of mankind, and no race of people exists which are “Satan’s seed.”

The “Loose Brick” Approach To Scripture

There are many who believe the Bible is shot through with errors; with direct contradictions and discrepancies. To many, if they can find just one passage which seems, on its face contradictory, they believe they can dismiss the Bible — especially its moral and spiritual requirements.

One such alleged discrepancy is found in 2 Samuel 24:9, which says, “And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.” Yet, as some point out, 1 Chronicles 21:5 says, “And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.” But this is a discrepancy of 270,000 men!

Or is it? Samuel says the “valiant” men numbered 800,000! But 1 Chronicles says that ALL of Israel’s army numbered 1,100,000 “men.” The simple answer is that there is a difference in soldiers, even as in any army today. “Crack troops” such as Rangers, Special Forces, or Navy “Seals” are reckoned as tougher, better trained and more battle-ready than average soldiers.

So it was in ancient Israel. The “valiant men that drew the sword” numbered 800,000, while there were 300,000 other men, who, while part of the army, were not “elite troops.”

There is an alleged discrepancy between the numbers of the “Men of Judah” (Samuel says 500,000 men, while Chronicles says 470,000 men “that drew sword.” But any army has a large number of noncombatants, such as porters, cooks, clerks, medics, and even members of the band! The simple answer is that there were 30,000 men who were noncombatants, OR that, while they are not included as men who “drew sword” and were expert swordsmen, they may have been spearmen, or bowmen.

Some point out that Matthew made a mistake when he wrote, “And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.

“Wherefore that field was called, the field of blood, unto this day.

“Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

“And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me” (Matthew 27:7-10).

But, say the detractors, Zechariah said, “And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.

“And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD” (Zechariah 11:12, 13). The problem is solved when it is realized that some of the earliest and best manuscripts do not include the name “Jeremy” at all, but merely say “spoken by the prophet.” In any event, it is immaterial, for the account in Matthew says it was “spoken” by the prophet, not written.

Now, what about Paul’s alleged “mistake” when he said, “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand” (1 Corinthians 10:8). But, critics point out, Numbers 25:9 says, “And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.” But the plague lasted for some time! Paul says all but one thousand of the victims fell in one day.There is no contradiction, therefore. The total number of deaths was 24,000, but 23,000 died in the same day!

Did Peter make a mistake about the horrible end of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ? He said, “Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.

“And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, the field of blood” (Acts 1:18,19).

But they say Matthew wrote, “Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

“Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

“And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself” Matthew 27:3-5).

So which was it? Did Judas hang himself, or did he fall headlong, and all his bowels gush out? The answer is BOTH occurred. No headlong fall causes a human’s bowels to “gush out.”

But when a corpse has hung for a long time, the body bloats to unimaginable proportions, as putrefaction sets in. Ultimately, the rope broke, and Judas’ body did indeed fall headlong, and his bowels gushed out! There is no contradiction here.

But what about the story of “Jonah in the whale’s belly”? How could ANY fish actually swallow a man? And, once the man was swallowed, how could he breathe? Many doubt the account of Jonah.

Jonah wrote, “Now the LORD had prepared a great fish [note this well!] to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

“Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly [Jonah no doubt prayed IMMEDIATELY. There is no need to assume he waited for hours, or days, to cry out to God, for such is unthinkable, and illogical],

“And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

“For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

“Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.

“The waters compassed me about, even to the soul [Hebrew: Nephesh, meaning life]: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.

“I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.

“When my soul [life] fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee,

“They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

“But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.

“And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

“And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

“Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee” (Jonah 1:17; 2:1-10; 3:1, 2).

Most so-called modern “critics” are virtually unanimous in their dismissal of the book of Jonah as a “combination of allegory and myth.” Yet, Jesus Christ Himself said, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

“The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.

“The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:40-42). Thus, Jesus Christ places the historical fact of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon’s capital alongside the book of Jonah. Did Jesus Christ believe in myths? No, He was the One of Divine Elohim who hadPREPARED the great fish; the One who very likely resurrected Jonah, and who commanded him to preach to Nineveh!

The Century Bible says: “…apart from the fact that the Lord referred to the Queen of Sheba in the very next sentence, and thus places Jonah on the same level of ‘literal validity,’ the question [of Jonah’s authenticity] is placed beyond all controversy by the further fact that seven times in John’s Gospel the Lord declared that every one of His words that He uttered was given Him to speak by the Father. Those who strike at these words of Christ are striking at God Himself, and are making the whole of divine revelation of none effect. All the puerile and fanciful assumptions used for arguments are swept away with one stroke, and are overwhelmed by this decisive and conclusive fact.”

The simple facts are these: There is no proof that Jonah remained alive for three days and three nights! There are other instances of resurrections from the dead in the Old Testament. Further, Jonah is a type of Christ’s DEATH AND BURIAL, not a type intended to imply that Christ remained alive in the tomb! The type is more thorough, and is complete, if Jonah actually died, and was revived when vomited up.

Notice his soulful prayer! These may well be the words of a man who knew he was about to die! It is a prayer of repentance; of chagrin; of self-abasement; of the observation that they which “observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.”

When Jonah cried out “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me forever,” he was probably referring to the fact that the sailors had BOUND Jonah, very probably with iron chains or bars! There is no evidence that he was not bound.

In any event, the entire matter is resolved when one accepts the fact that God Almighty, who has ALL POWER, plainly said He had “prepared” a great fish (the type is irrelevant, though it may have been a gigantic grouper which weighed several hundred pounds) to swallow Jonah.

One need not argue about the size of the throat of a whale, or how Jonah breathed, with these facts in mind.

The Bible was never intended to be a book about science. Instead, it is the handbook from the Creator of man to tell us what we are, why we are here, and what is our fabulous human potential! As one once said, “A home without a Bible is a ship without a compass.”

Did Angels Marry Women Before the Flood?

Those who espouse the “Satan’s seed” doctrine, alleging that the Devil himself had sexual relations with Eve, are motivated by deep-seated racist prejudices. There is no scriptural basis for angelic beings having intercourse with humans.

Jesus Christ is the final arbiter. When confronted with a trick question concerning marriage in the kingdom, He told the Pharisees “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

“For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:29, 30). Satan is a fallen archangel. Christ said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18). This not only reaffirms Christ’s pre-human existence as the Logos of the Divine Family Elohim, or Theos (God), but also confirms that Satan was once a “Cherubim that covereth” (Ezekiel 28:14); an archangel next to the throne of God.

The false belief that angels cohabited with women stems from a misunderstanding of Genesis 6:1-4 which says, “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

“That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

“And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” The assumption is that “sons of God” can only mean angels. But Adam himself is called “the son of God” (Luke 3:39). The obvious inference from the emphasis on men taking wives of “all which THEY chose,” shows men were departing from God’s direction, and from their patriarchal parent’s direction. Men began to incorporate references to God in their names at this time. Names such as Enoch (the “E” from “El”ohim),

Jared (the “JA” from JAH, or YAH), and, later “Elijah” (meaning, God, He is God), and “Daniel,” (meaning, God will judge), illustrate this point. Modern names like “Godwin, Goodson, Godoy and Goodpastor show how the same tradition is carried on.

A common error is in assuming these illicit (ill advised) marriages were the CAUSE of gigantism! Not so! Notice that the scripture says “And there were giants in the earth in those days, and also AFTERthat…” So the giants were NOT the result of illicit marriages at all, but came BEFORE the improper marriages.

The giants were men of huge stature, and are found in the fossil record in the form of the Neanderthal skeletons discovered in many parts of Europe; huge, massive bones which indicated human beings of 7, 8, 9 and more feet tall, or men with very thick, wide torsos, very large feet and hands, who must have been extremely well-muscled, and powerful.

Even during David’s time the Bible speaks of giants such as Goliath, who may have measured 10 feet tall, and who carried armor weighing 180 pounds, as well as a spear whose head alone weighed 21 pounds. Goliath had several children who are mentioned in 2 Samuel 21, who were later slain by Abashai and Elhanan. Goliath’s brother had a “spear which was like the staff of a weaver’s beam,” and one of his sons “was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number” (2 Samuel 21:20).

It was AFTER the occurrence of gigantism that the illicit marriages were said to have taken place! Angels do not produce semen. The reproductive organs of humankind are passed down from generation to generation, having commenced with Adam and Eve. Christ plainly said angels neither marry, nor are given in marriage.

When in college, I did extensive research into the skeletons of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man. Many skulls showed plain evidence of having been opened by chisel-type instruments; having obvious tool marks around the hole in the skull. Had the hole in the skull been caused by a dull instrument, such as a stone axe or bludgeon, it would have been broken and splintered, and crushed inward. But the skulls I saw pictured were intact except for a fairly neat, round hole. This presented proof of cannibalism, where severed heads were thrown into a fire, and a hole cut into the skull to access the cooked brain inside. Many such skulls, along with other large bones of the human body, were found in the remains of ancient fire circles.

Immediately following the statements concerning illicit marriages and gigantism, God said, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

“And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

“And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them” (Genesis 6:5-8). This was not merely “sin” in some abstract form, such as being “alienated from God.” This was wickedness and evil on such a scale that it caused God to decide to utterly obliterate the entire human race!

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Eternal” (Genesis 6:8). It was only ONE MAN who had remained righteous before God; only ONE MAN who had carried on the traditions of God’s righteous patriarchs!

Later, God said, “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

“And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

“And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Genesis 6:11-13.

Noah’s Ark And The Flood — Fact Or Fiction?

Some of the most disdainful of modern-day scoffers leap on the dimensions of the ark, and then bring up many (to them) insurmountable difficulties in an attempt to prove there never was an ark, and never was a universal deluge.

Strangely, thousands of theologians, willing to compromise with misled evolutionary geologists, debunk the Bible account of a universal flood, and insist it was merely local. Was it only a local flood, which “grew with the telling” until a “myth” of a great global flood occurred?

Interestingly enough, there is a UNIVERSAL FLOOD TRADITIONamong dozens of primitive societies. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia lists many of them.

In pagan Babylonian tradition, an ancient king named “Xisuthros,” warned of “one of the gods” of an impending disastrous flood, built a ship, took into it his friends and relatives and all different kinds of animals. The ship was eventually stranded in Armenia, where, upon subsidence of the water, he sent out birds. The third time, they failed to return, whereupon he emerged, built an altar, and sacrificed.

In Greek tradition, a hero named Deucalion was “warned by the gods” that a great flood was coming on the earth due to man’s wickedness. He built an ark, which rested on Mt. Parnassus, and twice sent out a dove.

The Hindus claim that Manu, being warned, built a ship and survived a global flood which destroyed all other creatures.

The ancient Chinese claimed “Fa-He” who to them was the founder of Chinese civilization, survived a flood sent from heaven in punishment for man’s rebellion, and that he escaped with three sons and three daughters.

The islanders of Polynesia have a tradition of a flood in which eight people were saved alive.

Various of the American Indian tribes had a flood tradition in which eight, or three persons were saved in a boat above the waters on a high mountain.

The ancient Druids of Ireland, Scotland and England believed in a destruction of all mankind for its wickedness in which a righteous patriarch escaped and repopulated the earth.

In Mexico, there is a flood tradition in which one man, his wife and children, were saved when a flood overwhelmed the earth. The Peruvians’ tradition said that one man and one woman were saved in a box that floated upon flood waters. Thus, every part of the human race, in all parts of the earth, maintain an ancient flood tradition. Greeks, Druids, Peruvians, Fiji Islanders, Eskimos, Babylonians, Indians, Chinese; every color of the basic human racial strains possess an ancient flood tradition.

How? Why? When God scattered the races following the attempt to build the tower of Babel, the three main divisions of human kind began overflowing the earth in different directions. Ham and hundreds of thousands of his progeny drifted southward and southeastward; Japheth drifted eastward, and Shem drifted into the Mediterranean and northwestwards. Today, the “yellow races” are essentially in Asia, and Japan. The black races are basically found in Africa and India, as well as the central and South Pacific Islands. The so-called “white” races (Caucasians, so called), are found in Europe and the west.

The further these early families, clans, tribes and nations migrated away from original centers of population and knowledge, the more they lost the original truths their forebears had understood. Thus, in the thousands of years following the flood, as the human family repopulated the world, various garbled versions of an original truth which had been handed down from Shem, Ham and Japheth survived in the form of seemingly mythological tradition.

The closer to the original seat of knowledge, the more precise the tradition. For example, in the ruins of ancient Nineveh was found an epic impressed in stone. Obviously, polytheism and myth had colored the tradition by the fifth dynasty after the flood. In brief, the epic said, “The assembly of the gods decided to send a deluge. They said, ‘On the sinner let his sin rest,’ O Shuruppak, build a ship, save your life. Construct it with six stories, each with seven parts. Smear it with bitumen, inside and outside. Launch it upon the ocean. Take into the ship seed of life of every kind. I built it. With all that I had I loaded it, with silver, gold, and all living things that I had. I embarked upon the ship with my family and kindred. I closed the door. The appointed time arrived. I observed the appearance of the day. It was terrible. All light was turned to darkness. The rains poured down. The storm raged, like a battle charge on mankind. The boat trembled. The gods wept. I looked out upon the sea. All mankind was turned to clay, like logs floating about. The tempest ceased. The flood was over. The ship grounded on Mt. Zazir. On the seventh day I sent out a dove. It returned. I sent out a swallow. It returned. I sent out a raven, it alighted. It waded about; it croaked; it did not return. I disembarked. I appointed a sacrifice. The gods smelled the sweet savor. They said, ‘Let it be done no more.’”

As recently as 1929, Dr. C. L. Woolley, conducting a joint expedition on behalf of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, found, at Ur, the site of Abraham’s early life, beneath layers of relics of human habitation, a thick bed of solid water-laid clay. It was a full eight feet thick, and contained no fossils to indicate human habitation. Yet, beneath it was the ruins of another city! Woolley deduced that no ordinary overflow of a river could have piled up sediment to such a depth, but that he had found evidence of a flood such as that detailed in Genesis. Woolley wrote of his experiences in his book, Ur of the Chaldees.

Was there really a worldwide flood? The Bible says yes! Notice, “And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

“But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.

“And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

“Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

“And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.

“Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he” (Genesis 6:17-22).

Noah, together with his sons and no doubt many hired laborers, began construction of an ark. For a long one hundred and twenty years, Noah continually preached against the extreme wickedness and sin all around him; proclaimed that a great flood would come in retribution!

Noah, A Preacher Of Righteousness

Noah was prophesied to do what he did. Notice what was said of him by his father, Lamech. It is contained in the lengthy genealogy of Genesis 5, the “Book of the Generations of Adam:” “And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech:

“And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters:

“And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.

“And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:

“And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.

“And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:

“And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.

“And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (Genesis 5:25-32).

What was the “WORK” to which Lamech referred? Was there a work of God being performed among sinning mankind even prior to the flood? Jude, the brother of Jesus Christ, wrote a brief letter which was accepted as canonical, along with Paul’s epistles, as the New Testament was forming in the centuries following Christ’s resurrection. He wrote, “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam[take careful note!], prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

“To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him” (Jude 14, 15). This is nothing less than the proclaiming of the good news of Christ’s coming world-ruling kingdom! This was not merely the promise of a Messiah, but a prediction of His SECOND coming; His invasion of earth to conquer the Beast, and establish His world-ruling kingdom (Revelation 19:11-21).

Was Enoch, one of the ancient patriarchs, the seventh first-born son from Adam?

Note: Adam had Cain, then Abel, who was slain, then Seth. But the genealogical table in Genesis 5 says, “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:

“And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

“And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

“And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos” (Genesis 5:3-6).

So it was SETH, and neither Cain nor Abel, who was reckoned as Adam’s successor in the biblical genealogical tables! Then the genealogy does NOT deal with the first born son, but with some other criterion.

The truth is found in Lamech’s prophecy about Noah, above. Noah would comfort “us,” meaning the patriarchs who were previously named, “concerning our [their] WORK…” Since the “toil of their hands” is mentioned later, and since such a statement could hardly refer to the saving of homes or crops, since all was destroyed by the flood, it is obvious, both from Enoch’s prophecy and Jude’s repeating of it, that a WORK of PREACHING THE GOSPEL of a coming Kingdom of God on this earth was being carried on PRIOR TO THE FLOOD!

Notice what happened to Enoch! “And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch:

“And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

“And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.

“And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah:

“And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

“And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:

“And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:18-24).

Twice, it is emphasized that “Enoch walked with God.” This could have been both literal and figurative, for the “Spokesman” of Divine Elohim (meaning more than one; see John 1 and Hebrews 1) walked and talked with Adam, and much later with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There could have been manifestations of the deity, either through an archangel, or by appearances in human form, any number of times prior to the flood.

Where did Enoch go, and why? Where did God “take” him? Paul wrote, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5).

Enoch was taken away to a place of protection; concealed by God, because there was a plot to kill him!

For a thorough study of the question: “Are Enoch and Elijah in Heaven?” look into our web site at “https://www.garnertedarmstrong.org/,” and download the booklet on that subject. Briefly, Enoch was not found because people were looking for him, no doubt with intent to do murder! Enoch was a “preacher of righteousness,” as was Noah. Enoch wrote a book which is referred to in scripture.

Later, Lamech was to speak of “our work” and that Noah would “comfort” them concerning that work.

Jesus Christ said Enoch was NOT taken to “heaven”! Notice, “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3:13). David, though prophesied to be in the first resurrection, and to sit upon his throne over all twelve tribes of Israel (Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23, 24), is not in heaven. Peter, speaking under inspira-tion of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, said, “Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day…For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,

“Until I make thy foes thy footstool” (Acts 2:29-35). The word “translated” means the same thing as transmitted, or trans-located. Notice that Enoch is included in Paul’s statement “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). Therefore, Enoch eventually DIED, just like all the other patriarchs. He is not in heaven!

Noah was not the seventh from Adam genealogically, but was the seventh faithful patriarch, for there was only ONE man in each generation who remained faithful to God, and who carried on the “work” of proclaiming the coming retribution for sin, and the possibility of salvation.

Noah was one of the most unsuccessful preachers of all time! For one hundred and twenty long years, he proclaimed the penalties for sin, and the rewards of righteousness. Yet, in all that time, Noah did not have a single convert! Not even his wife, or his sons, truly believed his preaching.

Not only was Noah a “preacher of righteousness,” he was a builderwho was backing up his work of witness and warning by building an ark which would insure his, and his families’ survival.

Note that it was SETH, and not Cain nor Abel, who is reckoned as Adam’s successor. Look at Genesis 5 again. Cain was the firstborn, hence:

Therefore, as you read through the “Book of the Generations of Adam” in Genesis five, you are not being given the names of the firstborn, but the names of the righteous successors to each patriarch who continued the “work” being done in that wicked pre-flood generation.

Was The Flood Merely “Local” In Nature?

Peter said scoffers would deny that there had been a global deluge. There are such scoffers, just as Peter predicted. That includes many who stand in pulpits, claiming to be the ministers of Christ, who do not believe the Bible is inspired, and who claim the flood was only “local.”

But the Bible says the flood would cover the whole earth, and that all of the high mountains were covered: “And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

“And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.

“And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.

“Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

“And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:

“All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died” (Genesis 7:17-22). The “fifteen cubits upward” implied that the tops of the highest mountains were covered by that depth.

It is important to realize that the mountains in the pre-flood period might not have been anywhere near so high as they are today. The flood was not only accomplished by waters from the heavens, but by the gradual subsidence of the land masses, allowing flood waters to cover the land from the oceans. The continents may not have been in their present location prior to the flood. The tectonic plates which form the uppermost part of the earth’s crust may have moved considerable distances as the flood waters covered the earth.

Remember, the flood came on over a period of 150 days! While it rained for 40 days, the water “prevailed” for a much longer time. There was a period of mountain building due to tectonic plate shifts, intrusion of subterranean magma (just as continually occurs around the Hawaiian Islands and Iceland, as well as other areas of the earth, today) occurred both during and after the flood.

The gravitational pull of the moon was not suspended during the rising of the waters, nor during their subsidence, which required many, many years. The present topography of the earth proves there were vast inland basins which contained huge amounts of water. The present “Great Salt Lake” is but a tiny saline puddle at the bottom of what was once “Lake Bonneville,” that once covered much of Utah.

Actual strand lines (ancient shore lines) prove that Lake Bonneville was once 1,000 feet higher than the shore line of the present lake.

The same thing is true of the ancient “Lake Lahontan,” which covered some 8,400 square miles of Nevada and the surrounding area.

I have written before of how I have stood on rocky precipices high in the western Colorado Rockies with millions of little fossil snails and other seabed shells beneath my boots at the nine to 11,000 foot level. The highest mountains on earth contain fossils which were once dwellers in shallow seabeds!

During the incursion of the waters and their subsidence, huge basins, river courses, bays, estuaries, valleys and canyons were scoured out. Massive “islands” of floating vegetation, consisting of thousands of uprooted trees, shrubs, fronts, ferns, grasses and the like were deposited on the shores which began to appear as imagination-defying tidal bores swept across the rising continents.

As turgid tides, bearing billions of tons of mud and sand swept over them, they were buried deep beneath. In Pennsylvania, one finds thick beds of coal, then a bed of shale or sandstone, then another coal bed, then another bed of rock, then another coal bed, and so-on, like so many pages of a book, stacked conformably atop one another. This “cross bedding” or “inter-bedding” of sedimentary strata is a fact of geology. It would have required a floating “raft” of vegetation about forty feet thick to be compressed into a one-foot thick seam of anthracite coal.

As all know, coal is nothing more than ancient plant life, compressed by the weight of the succeeding rock layers. Many coal deposits contain perfectly preserved imprints of ancient kinds of foliage; palms and ferns unknown today.

That the entire face of the globe displays massive and imagination-defying mountain building, faulting, upthrusts, synclines, geo-synclines, hogbacks, huge canyons (such as the Grand Canyon of Arizona), inland seas and lakes (such as the Caspian sea, and the Great Lakes of the U.S.), granitic upthrusts (such as McKinley in Alaska and Whitney in California) and volcanic intrusions (such as “Aconcagua” in the Andes) is well known to geologists.

The rocks of the earth; from the Aleutians to Tierra del Fuego; from the Atlas Mountains to the Andes; and from the Himalayas to the Alps, show massive catastrophes of the past. The rocks cry out “a huge FLOOD did this!”

The “White Cliffs of Dover” of England (and of World War II fame from the song) consist of huge cliffs of solid seashells. Such a massive deposit could not have been accomplished over a vast period of time, for the action of tides and waves gradually tumbles, breaks, polishes, and eventually disintegrates the shells, turning them into sand. The huge cliffs represent a massive deposit which was accomplished in a very short period of time.

Any serious student of the Bible who has sincere questions about the flood should obtain a copy of The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb, Jr., and Henry M. Morris. It is published by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan. I recently found that it is available from “Amazon.com” on the Internet.

Any doubting scoffer will be turned into a humble BELIEVER by reading carefully this collegiate-grade book of 518 pages which answers ALL the various objections and difficulties concerning Noah’s ark and the flood.

Also completely demolished is the “local” flood theory.

First, why a “local” flood when all the sinning men and women had to do was to move?

Why not tell Noah and his family to simply move? Noah preached, and built the huge ark over a period of 120 years. Men could have moved to any part of the earth in such a span of time; about five generations! A local flood would never have required the building of an ark, nor the collection of animals.

The book also deals with the size and carrying capability of the ark. The sheer size of the ark baffles many. God commanded Noah to make the length of the ark “three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.” A “cubit” was either a “long cubit” of 20.4 inches, or a “common cubit” of 17.5 inches in Hebrew measurements.

Using the smaller of the two, the ark would have been 437.5 feet long, 72.92 feet wide, and 43.75 feet high. God told Noah to build it with three decks (Genesis 6:16). Thus, the ark when completed, would have had a total deck area of 95,700 square feet, or about the square footage of 20 standard basketball courts! Its carrying capacity would have been that of 522 standard railway stock cars! That carrying capacity represents eight, freight trains of 65 cars each, plus two extra cars!

It was not until 1884, when the Cunard Ocean Liner “Eturia” was launched, that man had built a ship as large as the ark.

One major objection is: “How did Noah get all those animals into the ark?”

Some have proposed that Noah would have had to place a total of one million animals in the ark, supposing that the number of speciestoday represents the number of species then! But some doubters insist that Noah would have had to take into the ark 18,000 FISH, 1,700 tunicates, 88,000 mollusks, 25,000 worms, 10,000 coelenterates, 5,000 sponges, 15,000 protozoans, 4,700 echinoderms (like starfish and sea urchins) and the like!

Many and incredibly stupid are some of the “requirements” doubters place on the carrying capacity of the ark! But not a ONE of such creatures would have been required to be aboard, for an adequate number, representing each species, could easily have survived the flood.

Instead, Noah took aboard the GENESIS KINDS of animals and birds. Today, there are HUNDREDS of varieties of dogs, from tiny Pekingese to Irish wolfhounds; from Rat Terriers to Collies. All came from an original “Genesis KIND,” like the wild dogs of Africa or Australia.

If all species of dogs were allowed to intermix, the eventual outcome would be a reverting to one Genesis “kind” of dog. It is man’s selective breeding which has resulted in all the incredible variety.

At the outside, Whitcomb and Morris prove there would have been no need for more than 35,000 individual vertebrate animals on the ark. Remember, the AVERAGE size of animals is that of a sheep! There are comparatively FEW larger animals, such as elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotami, giraffes, and Cape Buffalos and Eland antelope. For every very large animal, there are dozens of much smaller ones, down to the tiny shrew.

Remember, there was no specific command that Noah needed to take old adults, such as huge bull and cow elephants, into the ark. He could have easily taken very young ones.

Since it is proved there was no need to accommodate more than 35,000 animals in the ark, and since the average number of meat animals per railroad stock car (sheep) is about 75 in a single deck, this proves that about 240 animals could be accommodated in a standard two-decked railroad car. Two trains hauling 73 such cars could carry up to 35,000 animals.

But the ark had a capacity up to 522 stock cars of such size.

Whitcomb and Morris explain in intricate detail about the caring for the animals in the ark (including hibernation and estivation), as well as the question of fodder.

God said Noah was to take on board “all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them [the animals]” (Genesis 6:21). It is quite possible that carnivorous animals subsisted on the same kind of vegetation, such as roots, tubers, fruits, nuts, grains, grasses (hay), vegetables, and the like which sustained Noah and his family for the period of the flood.

The reason Noah was commanded to take seven pairs (or, as some insist, three pairs and one supernumerary, making seven), of clean animals into the ark may be for one primary purpose: that of food, and for sacrifice. Remember, Elephants, Giraffes, Hippos, buffalos, or oxen are all herbivorous. Only a comparatively few pairs of “unclean” animals, such as the cat kind, the dog kind (dogs can and do subsist for some time on grasses and vegetation), and a few others. Furthermore, there is reason to suspect, since Christ says He is coming to effect the “restitution of all things,” that the disappearance of carnivorous traits in the millennium among present-day meat eaters may in fact be a “return” to a pre-flood state in which modern-day carnivores, such as lions and cheetahs, will once again become vegetarians. See Isaiah 11:1-9.

One objection to the universal flood and the ark being borne upon its waters until it rested atop Ararat is almost hilariously funny! A man named “Custance,” who wrote in opposition to the flood, mused that the “rarified atmosphere” at elevations above Mount Everest (which he assumes existed at the time of the flood) would “render all but a few creatures insensible in a very few moments for lack of oxygen.” He opined that Noah and his sons would have been terribly taxed to climb up and down three flights of stairs at such a high altitude!

The gentleman forgot that the atmosphere is measured from sea level, and that, as the level of the sea rose, so the pressure remained constant!

Such are the kinds of arguments proposed by those who are of shallow minds, and just a bit in over their heads (pun intended).

The earth was covered with water, not once, but perhaps many times! When you and I are ushered upon the scene in Genesis 1, we learn that the earth was covered with water; that “…the earth was without form, and void;[Hebrew: tohu and bohu] and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

The Hebrew terms mean “void, empty, vain, waste.”

But God says “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain [tohu], he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:18). There was an earlier, pre-Adamic creation which was destroyed!

Lucifer’s World And His War Against God

Billions of years ago this earth was a fabulously beautiful place. It had been created as the master jewel of the universe, and placed upon it to rule over the creatures which were created was a great archangel named “Lucifer.” Lucifer means “Shining Star of the Dawn,” or “light-bringer.” Notice what God’s word says of Lucifer and his reign in that long ago pre-Adamic time: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

“Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

“Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

“By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire” (Ezekiel 28:13-16).

Here, the Prince of Tyre is typical of Lucifer, who became Satan, the Devil. None of the descriptions of Lucifer could ever be applied to a mere human.

The “precious stones” listed are minerals, found on this earth. The chemical formula for all such minerals is interesting, for it proves an earth in that far distant past which contained the same elements as our earth, today.

Notice that Lucifer is a created being; that he was one of the “anointed cherubs” who was depicted by the two cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat in the tabernacle—later, in the temple. The mercy seat pictured the throne of God.

This description of Lucifer shows him as perfect in his ways UNTILiniquity, which means “lawlessness,” or sin, was found in him. The expression “multitude of thy merchandise” means “by the abundance of your trafficking; your merchandising,” and refers to Satan’s countless years of influencing his angelic followers with his poison jealousy, enmity, vanity and greed; his desire to overthrow God!

Satan went about as the original “traveling salesman,” murmuring, griping, complaining, influencing his angelic followers until they were fully infected with his vitriol; fully committed to his evil agenda against God. They have remained so to this day.

Now, notice a parallel account in Isaiah’s prophecy: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars [angels] of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds [proving a watery planet, with an atmosphere]; I will be like the most High.

“Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell [Hebrew: Sheol, as a pit or grave, not implying fiery regions], to the sides of the pit” (Isaiah 14:12-15).

Jesus Christ said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

Christ, in His prehuman state, was THERE when the original “star wars” occurred. Notice what Christ showed John in vision: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” [a picture of the “Church in the wilderness,” Israel with twelve tribes, and a figure of the New Testament church with twelve apostles at its beginning]:

“And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered [a figure for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ],

“And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads [a picture of Satan, and the earthly kingdoms he has controlled, plus the final “ten horns” which are the BEAST(Revelation 17:12-14) which will assay to fight Christ at His second coming],

“And his tail [as if the tail of a comet] drew the third part of the stars of heaven [a third of the angels], and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born [Satan influenced Herod, who massacred thousands of babies in an attempt to kill Christ],

“And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne [Christ’s ascension to the Father]

“And the woman [the church during the Middle ages, suffering horrible martyrdom and persecution] fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

“And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:1-9).

Space is filled with debris. When you look at the lifeless face of the moon, you see countless impact craters which were made when huge meteors and asteroids smashed into its surface. The lifeless face of Mars; the poisonous gases surrounding Jupiter, the thick, poisonous atmospheres of other planets and the misshapen moons in their orbits testify to a cataclysm so huge, so gargantuan as to defy human imagination.

Because of such phenomena, the average astronomer today accepts the “big bang” theory for the origin of the universe. After all, he can see vast clouds of dust, huge “belts” of asteroids and meteors; he can detect how tiny grains of rock, hurling through space at speeds far, far in excess of the speed of sound, can impact small rocks, creating perfectly shaped, tiny impact craters.

I have seen lunar rocks through a microscope. I was astonished to see such little impact craters, perfectly shaped, as if a boy had shot a “bb” gun into hardening clay, yet so tiny as to be virtually invisible to the human eye.

On any given clear, dark night, one may see any number of meteorites streaking across the sky, burning up into dust as they are drawn into the earth’s atmosphere by gravity. Yearly, the earth passes through various “belts” of millions of such pieces of rock, most of which burn up, but a few, now and then, impact the ground.

“Meteor Crater” in Arizona is one mile wide. Scientists have never found the meteor remains, which plunged so deep into the earth’s crust as to be inaccessible even through deep drilling.

Our solar system and our galaxy, as well as the entire visible universe, shows WRECKAGE on a scale to defy imagination! The EARTH ALONE shines forth in blue and white beauty; our “spaceship” earth, like a jewel of LIFE amid an endless region of lifeless hulks!

This earth has been covered with water several times, as proved by the topographical features of the entire planet. The “atolls” of the Pacific represent the gradual accumulation of coral polyps over thousands of years, which have created roughly circular or semi-circular rings of islands atop what was once a huge volcanic cinder cone, which, like Krakatoa, once exploded, or was inundated with encroaching waters. The deep lagoons inside many such atolls, such as Ulithi, where an entire fleet sheltered during the final months of World War II, may be the deep remains of ancient cinder cones.

Scientists know the process of “island building” is still going on in places like Hawaii.

For perhaps billions of years, Satan and his demons wandered about over the surface of this lifeless, destroyed planet. Thick clouds and vapors, like a Venusian atmosphere, obscured the sun. Not a bit of light penetrated to the surface of raging, foaming, endless seas, stygian black, with no living creatures.

Christ gives us a clue as to the nature and desire of demons who were THERE during all that time, chained by God’s power to this earth. When He had cast out a dumb demon, and a child, freed from possession, then spoke, the Pharisees accused Him of casting out demons in collusion with “Beelzebub,” or Satan. Christ said they were perilously close to committing the unpardonable sin! He then said, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out” (Luke 11:24).

But this is only part of the fascinating story. Believe it or not, during the flood of Noah, the One who became Christ testified to Satan and the demonic spirits who are “chained” to this earth that the flood was a TYPE of an impending destruction of the whole earth BY FIRE!

In the beginning of this book, you read Peter’s prophecy; how “…the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7).

Now, notice a much-misunderstood part of your Bible: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Greek: Tartaroo, meaning a “place of restraint,” or “incarceration”], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

“And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

“And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly…The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Peter 2:4-9).

Here Peter writes of the ancient “star wars” to which Christ referred, when Satan and his demons were cast out of heaven, and forced by the power of God to remain ON THIS EARTH.

But the result of their rebellion destroyed the earth, and all pre-Adamic life upon it! It was this vast, global destruction which entombed billions of creatures, and billions of tons of vegetation beneath the rocks which were formed atop them, which provides mankind with his “fossil fuels” today!

Crude oil and coal are the result of living matter being buried deep beneath the surface.

Genesis the first chapter shows a world covered with thick clouds, no light penetrating, with nothing save storm-tossed seas! For some vast, indeterminate period, Satan and his rebellious angels, now demons, could only wander endlessly over lifeless oceans, with not a single pinprick of light to be seen!

This is a clue as to their ultimate fate, which is pictured by Jude to be like “…Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).

Now read how Christ was active DURING THE FLOOD OF NOAH in witnessing to these rebellious angels: “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness [both literal and figurative, in the sense of spiritual darkness] unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).

Peter, encouraging the faithful that God will avenge every wrong, and reward every good, wrote, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

“By which [by means of the power of the Spirit] also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison [Satan and his demons inTartaroo or chained to this earth by God’s command];

“Which sometime were disobedient [this tells us WHICH spirits; those who were disobedient!] , when [now we learn WHEN Christ preached to them] once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water” (1 Peter 3:18-20).

Instead of seeing this fascinating truth, the major churches teach that Christ was NOT REALLY DEAD when He was in the tomb, but that He was IN HELL!! They teach that Christ descended to hell to preach to the lost! What abysmal IGNORANCE of God’s Word!

The plain truth is, Christ used the time of the flood, which was a powerful reminder of the AEONS the demons had spent wandering over stygian black seas, as a time to witness to the evil spirits of their coming punishment, which will be to become like “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” He did this DURING THE FLOOD OF NOAH!

Any geologist who is truly observant knows that this earth was submerged in water, not once, but at LEAST twice, and very probably many more times!

The Grand Canyon of Arizona is a poignant testimony to that fact. All along the Kaibab plateau are huge, thick layers of various rocks, mostly sandstone. They show a consistency of material as if one had mixed them in a blender. Thick seams of rock, with tiny grains of sand now hardened, not infused with large boulders or jagged debris, but smoothly blended, and laid down in succession.

What this displays is tidal action in very shallow seas or inland basins, overflowing the region with monstrous amounts of effluvia, then receding, allowing the mud to harden. Then, another tidal overflow from yet another direction, carrying somewhat different materials, with different colors and characteristics, until, over thousands of years, there was a level plain with stacked strata almost like the pages of a book. The bulk of the rocks on earth are sedimentary, or water-deposited.

Then, at some time, a massive FLOOD scoured the plain, attacking the lowest and softest areas of the rocks, gouging out what is today the Grand Canyon. Along the Colorado River shores are mixed, jumbled rocks, conglomerates and chaotic deposits, featuring huge, house-sized stones, which show evidence of having been rolled and tumbled, interbedded with much smaller rocks, and the whole infused with gravels and sands! This is nothing less than testimony to what happened to all the rocks which once formed a level plain on the Kaibab, where today a gigantic, one mile deep canyon remains!

The rocks of the earth loudly proclaim that they were inundated with waters, not once, but AT LEAST twice! The Bible says the same thing. The continents were completely submerged at the time just before Adam’s creation, and completely submerged again at the time of Noah.

Fulfilled Prophecies, A Proof Of God, And Proof Of The Bible!

There are DOZENS of instances of fulfilled prophecies in the Bible. Many of them relate to Christ Himself, where the Old Testament writers prophesied of specific events surrounding His birth, His ministry, His betrayal, arrest, death, burial, and resurrection.

Here are a few of them: It was prophesied that Christ would be of David’s lineage (Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 1:69, 70; 20:42-44; John 7:42; 2 Samuel 7:12-16; Psalms 89:3, 4; Isaiah 9:6, 7; 11:1).

He would be born of a virgin: Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 7:14. He would be born in Bethlehem: Matthew 2:6; John 7:42; Micah 5:2. He would sojourn in Egypt: Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1.

He would grow up in Galilee (Matthew 4:15; Isaiah 9:1, 2. And at Nazareth: Matthew 2:23; Isaiah 11:1. An Elijah-like forerunner would announce His coming: Matthew 3:3; 11:10-14; Mark 1:2, 3; Luke 3:4-6; 7:27; John 1:23; Isaiah 40:3-5; Malachi 3:1; 4:5.

His appearance would result in the massacre of children: Matthew 2:18; Genesis 35:19, 20; 48:7; Jeremiah 31:15. He would perform a healing ministry: Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:4. He would teach using puzzles, or parables: Matthew 13:14, 15, 35; Isaiah 6:9, 10; Psalms 78:2. He would be despised, disbelieved, and rejected by the religious leaders and rulers: Matthew 15:8, 9; 21:42; Mark 7:6, 7; 12:10, 11; Luke 20:17; John 12:38-40; 15:25; Psalms 69:4; 118:22; Isaiah 6:10; 29:13; 53:1.

He would make a triumphal entry into Jerusalem: Matthew 21:5; John 12:13-15; Isaiah 62:11; Zechariah 9:9; Psalms 118:26. He would be like a shepherd which had been smitten: Matthew 26:31; Mark 14:27; Zechariah 13:7. He would be betrayed by a friend for exactly 30 pieces of silver: Matthew 27:9, 10; John 13:18; Zechariah 11:12, 13; Psalms 41:9.

He would die alongside criminals: Luke 22:37; Isaiah 53:9, 12. He would be buried by a rich man: Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:57-60. They would torment Him by giving Him vinegar and gall, as a pretense of giving him water: Matthew 27:34; John 19:29; Psalms 69:21;

They would beat Him until He could see His ribs through the flesh: Psalms 22:17. They would pierce His hands and feet: Psalms 22:16. They would pierce His side: John 19:37; Zechariah 12:10. They would gamble over His garments; Psalms 22:18; They would laugh at Him as He died: Psalms 22:7.

He would rise from the dead the third day: Matthew 12:40; Luke 24:46; Johah 1:17.

That a great destruction of Jerusalem would follow His death: Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20; Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:1, 2.

His birth, youth, place of dwelling, baptism, and His message were foretold. Dozens of Old Testament prophecies pointed toward Christ, and Jesus Himself KNEW he was fulfilling them as they occurred. Because the prophecy said he would be “numbered among the transgressors,” He told the disciples only two swords were “enough” (Luke 22:38), meaning enough to fulfill the prophecy, and certainly not enough to fight off a large group of armed men.

His betrayal, death, burial and resurrection were foretold. In fact, as seen in the types and shadows of God’s annual Holy Days, the entire Old Testament points toward the need for a Redeemer; a Savior, who would atone for the sins of the world, and become the future world ruler!

Not only do the Old Testament prophecies abound with specific, detailed prophecies of Christ, they also sketch the entirety of world history from the most ancient empires to the present, and the future just ahead of us now!

Daniel prophesied of the rise and fall of the four world-ruling kingdoms which prevailed from his time until the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire! He also foretold a future RESURRECTION of the same system in the end time! His prophecies, particularly in Daniel 4, 7, and 11, depict an end-time revival of the so-called “Holy Roman Empire” which will embody ten nations called the “Beast” by both Daniel and the Revelation, which system will assay to FIGHT CHRIST at His second coming!

Several times in Daniel’s 7th chapter, he begins with the various ancient world-ruling kingdoms, and concludes with the second coming of Christ, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth! Notice them: “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

“I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.

“I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened” (Daniel 7:7-10). The “little horn” was an ecclesiastical system with succeeded in overthrowing the Vandals, Ostrogoths and Heruli who had successively occupied Rome.

The fourth beast depicts Rome, which succeeded the Greco-Macedonian Kingdom of Alexander the Great. The Romish kingdom, then, is prophesied to become once more extant until earthly kingdoms are destroyed, and the “Ancient of days,” Jesus Christ, sits on his throne, and the final judgement begins!

Notice further: “As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.

“I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

“And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:12-14). Again, the earthly kingdoms are to be taken away, and Christ is to return and set up His kingdom.

Notice the third time in the same prophecy that the final ten-horned beast power is to prevail UNTIL the time of the second coming of Christ: “I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things.

“These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth [they did; Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome].

“But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.

“Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet;

“And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.

“I beheld, and the same horn [the “little horn” which is a great false church, which: “thinks to change times and laws”] made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;

“Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom” (Daniel 7:16-22).

Daniel began predicting these four world-ruling empires in about 605 BC, during the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, the King of Judah, when he was captured by Nebudchadnezzar.

Daniel lived through four successive kings’ reigns in Babylon. He was a contemporary of Ezekiel, who was in “Khabour” (probably a refugee camp named “Heber”).

Daniel was for seven years the actual vice-regent of Babylon, while Nebudchadnezzar was a raving maniac, rooting around in the palace grounds, completely insane (Daniel 4). For seventy years, Daniel occupied a very high office in Babylon, until it was overthrown by the Medes and Persians, just as he had foretold.

After Daniel’s death, just as he predicted, the Medo-Persian empire became the dominant world power. He had predicted that Alexander the Great would overthrow Medo-Persia, and that Greco-Macedonia would become the next world-ruling empire. Then, he predicted that Alexander, depicted as the “rough goat” of Daniel 8, would be succeeded by FOUR kingdoms. This occurred! Even before Alexander was buried, his kingdom was “broken” (Daniel 8:22). Rawlinson says of Alexander: “Cut off unexpectedly in the vigor of early manhood, he left no inheritor, either of his power or of his projects…” (Daniel 8:22 says, “Now that [the king of Grecia] being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power”), Rawlinson continues, “…The Empire which he [Alexander] had constructed broke into fragments soon after his death; and his plans, whatever they were, perished with him” (Rawlinson’s A Manual of Ancient History From the Earliest Times, p. 237).

Thus, Daniel, who died somewhere near 534 BC, laid out future world history for the entire period of time from the overthrow of Babylon until the second coming of Christ, yet ahead of you and me in this “end time.”

Babylon, Persia, Greco-Macedonia and Rome; all came and went, exactly as Daniel predicted!

The four divisions of Alexander’s kingdom were those of Syria (called “The Kings of the North”), Egypt (the Ptolemies; called “The King of the South”), Greece, and Asia Minor.

Daniel’s prophecies about the kings of the North and South were delivered 200 years before the Greek empire arose, and 400 years before the kings of the North and South existed!

In Daniel’s 2nd chapter, contained in the interpretation of Nebudchadnezzar’s dream, is a sweeping preview of world history from the time of ancient Babylon until the time of the end, when Christ is to set up His kingdom. Each world-dominant empire came and went exactly as Daniel predicted; Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome.

But the most detailed, and the lengthiest prophecy in all the Bible is Daniel’s 11th chapter. In it, the minutest machinations of scheming men and women are foretold. They were accomplished during the period of the “Seleucidae” of Syria and the lesser line of Pharoahs in Egypt, called the “Ptolemies.”

These two powers represented two of the four governments which succeeded Alexander’s kingdom. Notice how detailed are the prophecies, and the incredible proofs from history of how they came to pass exactly as Daniel had written, so many hundreds of years earlier:

“And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will.

“And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity[Alexander left no heir], nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those” (Daniel 11:3, 4). The “mighty king” is Alexander, and the four generals who carved up his kingdom are as listed above, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.

“And the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his dominion shall be a great dominion” (Daniel 11:5). This was Ptolemy I of Egypt.

“And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king’s daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times” (Daniel 11:6).

Eventually, Berenice, the daughter of Ptolemy II, was given in marriage to Antiochus II in an attempt to form a political alliance, and was subsequently murdered.

“But out of a branch of her roots shall one stand up in his estate, which shall come with an army, and shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and shall deal against them, and shall prevail:

“And shall also carry captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with their precious vessels of silver and of gold; and he shall continue more years than the king of the north (Daniel 11:7, 8). Rawlinson says, “Ptolemy Euergetes invades Syria, B.C. 245, to avenge the murder of his sister, Berenice, and her infant son, who had been put to death by Laodice, with the consent of Callinicus [the surname of Seleucus II]. In the war which follows, he carried everything before him” (ibid. P. 252).

Next, notice Daniel 11:10-13: “But his sons shall be stirred up [the two sons were Seleucus III and Antiochus III], and shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and one shall certainly come, and overflow, and pass through: then shall he return, and be stirred up, even to his fortress.

“And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north [Ptolemy IV defeated Antiochus III with great loss in the battle of Raphia, 217 BC.]: and he shall set forth a great multitude; but the multitude shall be given into his hand.

“And when he hath taken away the multitude, his heart shall be lifted up; and he shall cast down many ten thousands: but he shall not be strengthened by it.

“For the king of the north shall return, and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former, and shall certainly come after certain years with a great army and with much riches.” In almost incredible detail, verse after verse of Daniel 11, which was given to Daniel by the archangel Gabriel (See Daniel 10:4-11, with 10:21), the individuals identified played out the scenarios exactly as prophesied!

Of this period Rawlinson says, “On the death of Seleucus III., Antiochus III. [his brother], surnamed “the Great” ascended the throne. His long reign, which exceeded thirty-six years, constitutes the most eventful period of Syrian history…at first, the cruel and crafty Carian, Hermeias, is all-powerful with the young prince. At his instigation Antiochus makes war upon Egypt, BC 223, while he sends his generals to put down the revolt of Molo. When his generals, however, are defeated, he proceeds in person against the rebels, defeats and crushes them, BC 220, makes a successful expedition into Atropatene, and, having caused Hermeias to be put to death, returns in triumph to Syria. Achaeus during his absence has assumed the diadem and title of king. Antiochus remonstrates, but does not march against his rebellious relation, preferring to resume his schemes against Egypt. An important war follows with Ptolemy Philopator, BC 219, in which Antiochus is at first completely successful; but the battle of Raphia, BC 217, deprives him of all his conquests, except the maritime Seleuceia, which he retains. Antiochus, having made peace with Egypt, turns his arms next against Achaeus, BC 216, and, assisted by Attalus, defeats him, besieges him in Sardis, and finally obtains possession of his person by treachery, BC 214″ (ibid. P. 253).

Now, notice verse 17: “He shall also set his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom, and upright ones with him; thus shall he do: and he shall give him the daughter of women, corrupting her: but she shall not stand on his side, neither be for him.” Antiochus gave his daughter Cleopatra to Ptolemy V in a treacherous marriage alliance, hoping to get control of Egypt. But (Daniel 11:18, 19) she remained loyal to her husband instead!

Antiochus then invaded Asia Minor and Greece, but was defeated by the Roman Army at Magnesia in 190 BC. He returned to his own land, and was slain (verse 19).

Now comes a fascinating example of the DUALITY of Bible prophecy; how an earlier, “typical” fulfillment can presage a later, literal fulfillment. In this interesting case, there may yet remain an end-time repetition of the same chain of events!

The final King of the North who is mentioned in the archangel’s lengthy prophecy, set down by Daniel, is Antiochus “Ephiphanes” whose name brought forth a cynical aspersion, “Epimanes,” or a play on the name which meant “crazy.” Apparently he was just that.

Seleucus was murdered by a man named Heliodorus, who was a “treasurer,” or “tax-collector.” This occurred in 176 BC. Heliodorus seized the throne from Seleucus. But, as Rawlinson records, “…it was not long before Antiochus, the brother of the late king, with the help of the Pergamene monarch, Eumenes, recovered it. This prince, who is known in history as Antiochus IV, or, more commonly, as Antiochus Epiphanes, was a man of courage and energy. He engaged in important wars with Armenia and Egypt; and would beyond a doubt have conquered the latter country, had it not been for the interposition of the Romans. Still, the energy of Epiphanes was of little benefit to his country…his religious intolerance raised him up an enemy in the heart of his empire, whose bitter hostility proved under his successors a prolific source of weakness. the Jews [in Palestine], favored by the former kings of Syria, were driven to desperation by the mad project of the self-willed monarch, who, not content with plundering the Temple to satisfy his necessities [gold and silver], profaned it by setting up in the Holy of Holies the image of Jupiter Olympius” (ibid. P. 255 emphasis mine).

Thus came to pass of Daniel 11:31 and the first previous type of the “Abomination of [that causes] desolation” prophesied by Christ (Matthew 24:15). 2 Thessalonians 2 is also a prediction of a yet future abomination of desolation in the “Temple of God.”

Antiochus was an evil genius. Rawlinson says, “He astonished his subjects by an affectation of Roman manners — his good-natured profuseness.”

His predecessor was a “tax collector.” Antiochus was predicted to be a “vile person” “…to whom they shall not give the honor of his kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably [in a time of peace], and obtain the kingdom by flatteries” (Daniel 11:21).

The Kaiser [German for Caesar] of Germany, Wilhelm, was of the “Hohenzollern” family. The name means “tax collector.” The word “Zoll” means “Customs” and was common at border crossings in Europe prior to the creation of a United Europe, and the virtual dismantling of national border checkpoints. Adolf Hitler came to power by “flatteries.” He told the German people they were destined by God to be the leaders of Europe, and the leaders of the world. He hated the Jews, and initiated pogroms against them, murdering them in their millions.

He was a “vile person,” who was not given the “honor of the kingdom.” Bismarck did not trust him. The Prussian General Staff considered him an “upstart corporal,” and the old German aristocracy disdained him. But, true to the prophecy, Hitler, as well as Antiochus, “…shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people” (Daniel 11:23).

Once Antiochus Epiphanes is introduced as the “King of the North” in Daniel 11, no other leading personality is introduced.

The prophecy then concludes with predictions of a future desecration of the temple; of an attack into Palestine, which results in its occupation [read my booklet, Mideast Strife — Will It Lead To Armageddon?].

Thus, from profane history, we learn that the longest prophecy in the Bible, Daniel the 11th chapter, not only knew intricately detailed fulfillment in the past, HUNDREDS of years after Daniel wrote it, but that it is YET to be fulfilled in its literal meaning in the future!

The booklet mentioned above details what will occur as prophesied in Daniel 11:40-45.

History corroborates the Bible! The spade of the archaeologist corroborates the biblical record! Bible prophecy is history, written in advance! In the case of Daniel 11, a great archangel appeared to Daniel, gave him a very detailed prophecy, which Daniel wrote. Over the hundreds of years and even thousands of years, those prophecies came to pass, just as they were written.

No mere human could have foreseen the rise and fall of the great empires. No mere human could have predicted the four-fold breakup of Alexander’s kingdom, or the detailed machinations of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae in their many wars.

Fulfilled Bible prophecy is great PROOF of the veracity of the Word of God! God says, “Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him?

“With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding?

“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.

“And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.

“All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

“To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?

“The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.

“He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved.

“Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

“It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

“That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.

“Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

“To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

“Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth [See Romans 1:18-32].

“Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

“He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:12-31).

Those who approach the Bible with suspicion will never understand it. Those who demand of God in haughty disdain that each part of the Bible measure up to their carnal human expectations WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND it! They are blinded, spiritually, and are in rebellion against God. Paul wrote, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).

He also said, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

“In whom the god of this world [Satan!] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3, 4).

What is your attitude toward the holy, inspired word of God? God says, “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

‘For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word” (Isaiah 66:1, 2). Remember, we must adjust ourselves to the Bible, not the Bible to ourselves!

Don’t criticize the Bible! Let it criticize YOU!

May God lead you to approach His word with humility and awe!

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This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know it is not wise to take any man’s word for anything, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible.

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Here is the truth about Satan; his origin, his present evil work, and his ultimate fate.

“I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,” said Jesus Christ (Luke 10:18). Did He really? Was there a time when Satan was in heaven, but “fell” from his position of power? Was Jesus Christ there to see it?

He said so. Either He was there when Satan was cast down from heaven, or you cannot believe Christ, or your Bible! Like so many other enigmatic scriptures, this statement of Jesus Christ stands or falls depending on the veracity of the Bible itself. Since the Bible IS the divinely-inspired word of God, and since Christ Himself is called the “Word” of God, or the “Spokesman” who did the creating (John 1:1-14), this means that the One of the Divine Family called Elohim who became Jesus Christ was THERE, in person, at the moment when Satan was hurled down to this earth from heaven! Not only does this prove the pre-human existence of Jesus Christ, but it also proves there is a devil, called “Satan,” which means “adversary” alive on this earth!

People revel in all things devilish! Hallowe’en, with its demons, witches, goblins, jack-o’-lanterns, black cats, skeletons, and themes of demon possession and death are a yearly reminder of how millions of otherwise nominal “Christians” love to pretend that things connected to the devil are “cute,” or “funny,” or “scary, but fun!”

Hundreds of television shows and motion pictures glorify evil. Films like “The Exorcist” and many more of the same kind are huge box office successes. Let Hollywood produce films showing chain saw murders or blood-dripping vampires, and the millions flock to pay their money. But movies about solid family values, or about conversion and baptism? Such are not only virtually non-existent, but would be a horrible flop financially.

Everyone knows there is a devil. Always the great masquerader; the great pretender, Satan has managed to deceive people into believing he is merely a capricious imp dressed in a red body stocking, with a barbed tail, little horns and a trident — not, instead, an evil spirit who seeks the death and destruction of the human race and the overthrow of God Himself!

Repeatedly, your Bible warns about Satan the devil. Peter wrote, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

“Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world” (1 Peter 5:8, 9). God’s people are not to joke, party, cavort, and pretend that the devil is merely “fun.” If you were in the deepest part of the Serengeti wilderness in Africa, alone at night, and heard a stalking, hungry lion roaring nearby, you would hardly think it funny!

So thorough are Satan’s deceits he has hoodwinked millions of those who THINK they are Christians, but who are, instead, very much a part of this present world. Paul wrote, “…if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

“In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:4). How shocking! Your Bible says the GOD OF THIS WORLD is NOT the true God, but a false god who is Satan the devil!

It would be astonishing to hundreds of millions of believers in hundreds of different religions to discover they were not worshiping the true God at all, but a counterfeit religion, inspired by Satan! The most astonished among them all would be millions of professing Christians who THINK they believe what is written in the Bible, but who have been deceived into believing, in many cases, the exact opposite of what the Bible actually says.

Not only did Paul call the devil “the god of this world,” he also said he is “…the prince of the power of the air, the spiritthat now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). Satan is called the “accuser of the brethren”; the deceiverof all nations; the tempter; and is characterized by a serpent, a dragon, and the very embodiment of all evil.

But if God is LOVE, and if God wants all men to be saved, then WHY does God allow the devil to deceive the world? WHY does God allow the devil to tempt mankind? Did God place the devil here on earth?

The Perfect Original Creation

In order to understand where the devil came from, when he had originally been a brilliant, beautiful archangel, you must understand what your Bible says about the time long before Adam; the time which the Bible calls “the beginning.” Most believe the place to read about the “beginning” is found in Genesis, which means “beginning.” Open your Bible to its first page.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Genesis 1:1-3).

Remember, the Bible was not written in English. All the modern languages of Europe; including French, German, Italian, Spanish, and the languages of Scandinavia and of the United States and Britain gradually developed over many centuries, long after the time of Christ.

The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew. The original Hebrew word for “God” is Elohim. Elohim is a PLURAL word, meaning more than one. It is like the words “family,” “group,” or “assembly.” Notice the proof in Genesis: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after ourlikeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:26, 27).

Notice that when Elohim came down to view the earth, they saw that it was “without form, and void,” or, “vain, waste, chaotic.” The Hebrew words are tohu va bohu, which mean vain, empty, and in confusion. The word “was” in the original Hebrew should read became.

The same word is used in Genesis 2:7; 4:3; 9:15, and in Exodus 32:1. It is rendered became or “has become.” The expression “And the earth was without form, and void,” should read “And the earth BECAME without form, and void.” Notice the proof in your own Bible: “For thus saith the LORD [JHVH, “The Eternal” in covenant relationship with Israel] that created the heavens; God [Elohim, meaning more than one] himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain [Hebrew: tohu], he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:18). Since He created it NOT tohu and yet the creation account says it was tohu when God looked down upon it, that means it BECAME tohu or empty, chaotic and waste prior to the time of the recreation of the surface of the earth, and the creation of life, revealed in Genesis 1.

There was a much earlier, PERFECT creation! When you and I are ushered upon the scene by the book of Genesis, we see a planet totally covered with water; stygian blackness hid heaving seas. There were no continents visible; no living creatures whatsoever. How did the earth come to be in such confusion? Why was it empty of life, chaotic, covered with thick clouds, with no light penetrating to the surface? The Bible itself proves that God, called Elohim, began the REcreation of the earth; commanding that the clouds be parted so that sunlight could penetrate; commanding the continental land masses to rise above the seas; the tectonic plates heaving and groaning, mammoth forces gouging out great river gorges, creating bays and estuaries, forming huge rivers, and creating thousands of islands. Some have assumed that the earth is only about 6,000 years old. Ignorant men, many hundreds of years ago, even assumed God had “tricked” geologists by “planting” fake “evidence” of fossil life in the rocks. Not knowing the truth revealed in the Bible about a much earlier perfect creation, and ignorant of how the devil came to be, they falsely assumed the earth to be much younger than it really is.

One religious denomination accepted this folly, alleging that the fossils (there are billions of them, of thousands of species) were “created” AS FOSSILS, and did not truly represent an earlier creation. This has been rendered foolish by modern geology, and by radio carbon dating. This earth could easily be four or five billion years old, or even older.

The account in Genesis of the creation of the great whales, all green trees and herbs, and man himself, is an account of the reforming of the earth after a much earlier perfect creation, and a subsequent massive destruction! It is very possible that the age of the dinosaurs actually predated mankind by millions or even billions of years! Contrary to some opinions, the earth as we know it, with its vast coal beds and oil deposits; its continents and oceans, was not created by divine fiat only a mere six thousand years ago, but was created many billions of years earlier.

Now, notice an even earlier account of creation than Genesis, which can be found in your Bible: “In the beginning was the Word [Greek: Logos, meaning “Spokesman”], and the Word was with God [Greek: Theos a plural word, synonymous with Elohim in the Hebrew], and the Word was God [the Logos was Theos].

“The same was in the beginning with God.

“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

“The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

“He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

“He came unto his own [the Jewish race], and his own received him not.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:1-12).

This obvious reference to Jesus Christ of Nazareth proves that the One who became Christ was the CREATOR of all that is. Not that He was SOLE creator, but He was the Divine SPOKESMAN who said, “Let there be light — let the dry land appear — let US make man in OUR image!” Notice further proof: “God [Theos, meaning more than one], who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

“Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3). The creating AGENT was the Logos of Theos who became Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary!

If the churches of this world of nominal Christianity would admit just this one wonderful truth, they would have to abandon many of their most cherished doctrines! For an example, since Jesus Christ is the Logos who WROTE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, and since He says “I change not,” and since the Bible says, “Jesus Christ the SAME yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), then obviously Christ did not come to do away with His laws!

As you read in Isaiah 45:18, the original creation was NOT tohu and bohu, or empty, chaotic, and vain! Instead, it was created to be inhabited! And it WAS inhabited! But by WHOM?

Lucifer’s Beautiful Kingdom

There are only three archangels named in the Bible; Lucifer, Michael, and Gabriel.

Each one was given authority over one third of all the countless millions of angels which have been created by God.

When the earth was first created, perhaps five billion years ago, the archangel Lucifer was given sole government over the earth. His name meant “light bringer,” or “shining star of the dawn.” The meaning of the name carries no connotation of evil, or of fire. Yet, in the American frontier, matches were commonly called “Lucifers,” because the name of Lucifer was connected to the fanciful (and pagan) doctrine of an “ever-burning hell fire.”

Notice the description of Lucifer’s kingdom: “…Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

“Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

“Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity [sin! lawlessness!] was found in thee.

“By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

“Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness…” (Ezekiel 28:12-17). Here, the King of Tyre is a type of Satan the devil. The expression “by the multitude of thy merchandise” means “by the abundance of your merchandising, or trafficking,” or going about as a “salesman,” with a spiel of sedition and rebellion. In the beginning, Lucifer was perfect in beauty; brilliant of mind, a bright, shining, powerful archangel, with access to the very throne of God.

When the mercy seat of the ancient Ark of the Covenant was built, it was to be overshadowed by two cherubim; powerful angelic creatures who stand by the throne of God. Lucifer was called one of the “covering cherubs” in Ezekiel’s account.

Over perhaps millions of years, Lucifer went about as a “salesman,” trafficking in his arguments against God. As he wallowed in narcissistic self-pity, lusting for all power; lusting after God’s own throne, and dissatisfied with his lesser, yet great role as world ruler, Lucifer convinced all the millions of angels under his charge to follow him in rebellion against God!

In this passage is contained the KEY to understanding where the devil came from! Obviously, God created this great archangel with FREE MORAL AGENCY! He was not an “automaton,” going about zombie-like in mindless obedience to God. Instead, he was able to think, reason, and plan. He had the power of volution; of conscience. He could make daily choices, just as we can.

Notice Isaiah’s account of Lucifer’s rebellion: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

“For thou hast said in thine heart [his innermost being — his private thoughts], I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars [other angels] of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

“Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit” (Isaiah 14:12-15). Here, the thoughts of Lucifer’s mind are revealed. He had a secret agenda! He coveted God’s throne! He became bitter, angry, jealous; he desired it all! He began resenting God’s position! He told himself he was more beautiful, more gifted, more talented, more deserving than God! Who knows how many thousands, or even millions of years passed as Lucifer wheedled, whined, argued, reasoned, talked, and sought to influence the minds of all the angels under him?

This whole world was like a beautiful Garden of Eden! Most likely, it was populated with billions of creatures — a pre-Adamic world of original beauty, but one which became wholly corrupted!

Geologists know there were mammoth catastrophes in the past; gargantuan upheavals of the rocks, huge floods, glaciers, earthquakes, volcanic explosions, and even meteors, impacting the earth. A current theory for the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs is that a huge meteor smashed into the earth, so enshrouding it with dust and debris that the sun was blotted out, and all life died suddenly.

For centuries, geologists have puzzled over the “sudden die out” of the dinosaurs and other creatures who walked this earth perhaps billions of years ago. Our coal and oil deposits are “fossil fuel,” proof of a lush, verdant, richly-inhabited world of long ago which was BURIED by sudden catastrophes of unimaginable proportion!

Since Lucifer was corrupting his angelic companions, did he also corrupt the animals of the earth? Could he have caused the earth to become overrun with huge carnivores, who were preying on other species? Why, since Lucifer is pictured as a “serpent,” and a “dragon” in the Bible, were so many of the dinosaurs possessed of serpentine heads, and dragon-like bodies?

Did God endow Lucifer with limited creative powers? Probably not, but yet, IF Lucifer’s angels possessed animals, and if such possession caused not only “selective breeding” among the dinosaurs, but the increasing tendency for death and destruction (i.e., becoming flesh eaters rather than herbivores), such a scenario would perhaps answer a few questions.

Probably, the answers to these and other like questions will not be given until the Kingdom of God is established on this earth, and God reveals to human minds the mysteries of the billions of years prior to Adam’s creation. However, certain clues give indications. For one thing, God IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF CONFUSION (1 Corinthians 14:33). Yet, the world was in total confusion; the continents sunken beneath raging seas; thick, impenetrable clouds blotting out the sun, when the creation week, which was the REforming, the REcreation of the earth, took place.

It is futile to attempt to know the unknowable, so exactly how the dinosaurs died, and, more importantly, WHY, may remain a mystery. One thing is sure, that pre-Adamic creation, which may have existed on earth for billions of years, was destroyed; BURIED, in some cases suddenly, and forms the huge reservoirs of crude oil, and the vast coal deposits which lie beneath the rocks today. For centuries, mankind has utilized these fossil fuels for his machines.

The Original “STAR WARS”

Finally, after a vast period of time, Lucifer was ready. Having now completely convinced his angels that they should follow him in his war against God, he attempted to mount up a huge angelic army, and overthrow God!

Probably, he convinced himself that Michael and Gabriel would also follow him. He was doomed to bitter disappointment.

Notice, “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

“And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:7-9). Actually, this prophecy concerns a yet FUTURE attempt by Satan and his demons to conquer God! The time setting is after the birth of Christ (Revelation 12:4), and at the time of the “Great Tribulation” to come upon God’s people, the House of Israel and the House of Judah.

Remember, Jesus Christ said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven!” (Luke 10:18). Christ was THERE, in His pre-human state, even as He said to the Pharisees, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Remember what you read in Isaiah 14:13, Satan’s innermost plan was, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars [angels] of God.”

In an earlier “star wars,” Lucifer attempted just that!

What IS a “war in heaven”? Merely an exchanging of words? A clash of wills? Look at the EVIDENCE in our universe, and in our own galaxy and solar system. What do you see?

Look at the lifeless, pockmarked, airless, waterless face of our moon. Even a 10 power pair of binoculars shows many of the huge meteor craters, some of them over one hundred miles across! Look at the poisonous atmosphere of Jupiter, or the thick clouds obscuring Venus, or the rings around Saturn. Look at the lifeless, rocky, empty face of Mars.

Then, consider the billions of pieces of space junk and debris. Every day, thousands of these pieces come hurtling into the earth’s atmosphere, the vast majority of them burning up and turning to dust as friction destroys them, others landing on earth as meteorites.

Consider the many comets, including several which have been discovered in fairly recent times, which are in a vast orbit around our small dwarf star we call the sun.

Except for our beautiful blue-green planet, the solar neighborhood testifies to gigantic explosions, hurtling meteors, misshapen moons (as are many of the moons around other planets), and shattered shards of metallic remnants, sometimes blazing in light as they perish in the thick mantle of air protecting our earth. We see wreckage — debris — the evidence of titanic explosions and collisions in space!

Our earth presents proof of such massive, destructive forces acting upon it in the past.

The Bible itself begins with the earth completely covered by a global flood! One must not assume tidal action was suspended all during the indeterminate period when all the continents were covered with water. Geologic evidence of island and mountain building, both from coral polyps and from volcanic action, tend to indicate that there may have been any number of emergences and submergences of the tectonic plates over a vast period of time.

Consider the Alps, the Rocky Mountains, the towering Andes — all contain fossil shells which prove such lofty heights were once shallow sea beds.

Once God had recreated the surface of the planet, and created Adam and Eve, what happened next? Where was Lucifer during all the interminable years following his rebellion, and his abortive attempt to overthrow God? He was here on this earth, together with his fallen angels (demons), seeing not a single mountain top nor a single continent. When Jesus cast out a demon, he warned that if the person thus relieved of possession did not become converted, and become filled with God’s Holy Spirit, the demon, who would wander in “dry places, seeking rest,” would take seven more evil than himself, and, finding the original person’s mind “cleaned and swept,” enter in to him again, so that the man’s last state would be worse then his first.

During the period from the destruction of the solar system, and the destruction of all pre-Adamic life on earth by the flood which is revealed in Genesis 1, Satan and his demons could see a harbinger of their ultimate fate. Peter’s second letter explains this, as we shall see later.

Satan, The “Whispering Enchanter”

From the beginning of the Bible, God’s word tells us of a devil who was here on this earth; an “adversary” who attempted to destroy mankind, and cause his death.

Here is the biblical account: “Now the serpent [Hebrew: Nachash]was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

“And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

“But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

“And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

“And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

“And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

“And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

“And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

“And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent [Nachash] beguiled me, and I did eat.

“And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:1-15).

The Hebrew word nachash does not connote a snake. Translators assumed, since God said that the nashash was cursed to go upon his belly from that day forth, that it was a snake which appeared to Eve. Traditional pictures and myths show a serpent entwined around a tree with the two progenitors of mankind standing there with an apple.

But the larynx of a man’s throat is not really his “Adam’s apple;” there is no proof the forbidden fruit was an apple or any known fruit today, and the “beast of the field” the nachashwhich appeared to Eve was not a snake.

Remember, Satan is called a “cherub”; a fallen archangel, who was right next to God’s throne! What is a cherub? How do they appear?

Traditional church art displays little naked babies with tiny wings, like the mythological “Cupid,” as cherubic. A baby is said to have “cherubic” cheeks and visage. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Read the entire first and tenth chapters of Ezekiel for a complete description of cherubim. Here are the essential verses: “Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.

“And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.

“And their feet were straight feet [as hoofs]; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.

“And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.

“Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.

“As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle” (Ezekiel 1:5-10).

Eve was not startled or terrified when a creature looking like this — standing upright, with four faces and four wings — spoke to her. She had no previous frame of reference.

When God drove Adam and Eve from the garden, He placed cherubim with flaming swords to “keep the way to the tree of life.” In the ensuing years prior to the flood, there were no doubt any number of human encounters with these creatures, who were tasked with frightening away any who would assay to enter into the Garden of Eden. The Bible says, “So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).

One-sixth of all human history passed prior to the flood of Noah’s time; one thousand years. Ancient civilizations are replete with various monuments, sculptures and icons which represent the ancient’s knowledge of the different aspects of cherubim. The famous Sphinx of Egypt, guarding the pyramids, features the head of a man and the body of a lion. The “winged bulls of Bashan” as well as the huge man-headed, winged oxen of Babylon’s gates attest to the fact that ancient man worshiped “the host of heaven.”

A “winged flying serpent” was universally worshiped, and was the principal “god” of the Aztecs, who called him Quetzalcoatl, Quetzal meaning bird, and coatl meaning serpent. The serpent head festoons dozens of the major monuments of the Aztecs in Mexico and central America.

It was a large, awesome creature which approached Eve, not a little serpent entwined around a tree. Nachash does not connote aspect, but character. True to his “trafficking” in self-pity, jealousy and resentment toward God, the “whispering enchanter” who was more “subtle” than the other creatures, told Eve the first great lie, which he has perpetuated ever since.

He told her she would NOT “surely die,” implying that she would live forever! The doctrine of the “immortality of the soul” finds its roots in this first big lie.

Prior to Satan’s lies, Adam and Eve were perfectly innocent. They were unaware of any evil; anything “dirty” or “nasty” about the human procreative organs, or nakedness. But since Satan enticed them to know “good and evil” they now felt guilty and ashamed! Suddenly, that which had been accepted as natural, normal, and good, carried “evil” connotations!

They covered themselves, and, ashamed, guilty and afraid, hid themselves from God!

For centuries, man has wondered why God “hides Himself;” why God is invisible; why we cannot see Him! But when Moses went up into the mount to receive the law, the people said, “Let not God speak to us,” and fled far away! It is man who hides from God, just as did Adam and Eve, not the other way around. Isaiah says, “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

“But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1, 2).

Human nature is described as automatically rebellious against God’s law. Paul wrote, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7). Sin is the “transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). Adam and Eve broke FOUR of the Ten Commandments when they sinned. James, Christ’s brother, said if we break one point, we have broken them all! (James 2:10). Adam and Eve lusted after the forbidden fruit, which is coveting, thus they broke the tenth Commandment. They dishonored their only Parent, who was God. They stole that which was not theirs! Your Bible says “covetousness is idolatry,” so they broke the second Commandment, as well!

Adam and Eve had the power of decision-making. They could choose either to obey God, or to disobey. They had volition; free moral agency!

So did Lucifer! As we read, Lucifer was perfect in his ways until INIQUITY (lawlessness; rebellion against God) was “found in him.” We are not told how long it took for Lucifer to become embittered, and to “traffic” among his cohorts; the angels under his care, in order to corrupt them.

But eventually he did so, and attempted to mount up and displace God! But Lucifer and his angels were cast back down to this earth in the midst of a mind-boggling, gargantuan “war in space” which resulted in the wreckage we see in the heavens, and the destruction of this earth described in Genesis 1.

How Christ Witnessed To The Fallen Angels

Believe it or not, there are any number of the nominal Christian churches which believe Jesus Christ was not really dead during His three days and three nights in the tomb. They believe He was ALIVE, but in “HELL” witnessing to; taunting, “departed souls!”

Their terrible error is based upon Peter’s statement: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

“By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

“Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

“The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

“Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him” (1 Peter 3:18-23). Who were these “spirits in prison”?

Where were they? WHEN did Christ witness to them, and about what?

Read the passage carefully. Christ, “by the Spirit” preached, witnessed, testified to SPIRITS, who were fallen angels, kept “in prison” on this earth.

WHEN did Christ do this? “WHEN once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing!”

As we have read, Satan and his demons were hurled down to this earth — their “place found no more in heaven.” There is a Greek word, Tartarus, used only once in the Bible, found in 2 Peter 2:4, which means “prison, or place of restraint.” It is used in the same context. Notice,

“For if God spared not the angels that sinned [Lucifer’s angels, who followed him in his rebellion], but cast them down to hell [Greek: Tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

“And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

“And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

“And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

“(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Peter 2:4-9).

Peter was saying to the church that they should take heart, and have faith that every misdeed would be repaid. He said “IF God spared not even sinning angels, then surely, since he delivered Lot, He is able to deliver the godly out of temptations!”

The word “hell” in the New Testament is nearly always from the Greek word hades, which means, simply, “the grave.” Hades connotes no infernal regions; carried no remote connotation of fire, or eternity, but means a grave, or a hole in the ground! The second most common word translated “hell” comes from “Gehenna,” which derives from “Hinnom,” the name of a family who owned a parcel of land in a deep valley adjacent to Jerusalem. In ancient times, a perpetual fire burned there, like the unsanitary garbage dumps of many smaller cities, into which refuse, and even the bodies of criminals or animals were thrown.

Because of this practice, the valley of Hinnom, or Geena, called Gehenna came to be used metaphorically for a BURNING “hell fire” which would DESTROY the bodies of the wicked who were thrown into it. Your Bible says, “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

“But unto you that fear my name shall the Son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

“And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts” (Malachi 4:1-3). Of course! When bodies were thrown into Gehenna, they were burnt up; they were reduced to ashes, just as in a crematorium! Your Bible does not reveal an ever-burning “hell fire” into which living “souls” are cast, and which burns, and burns, and burns forever! Instead, Christ said the wicked are to be DESTROYED in Gehenna fire — burnt up — reduced to ashes!

As you have read, the primordial battle between Lucifer and his angels resulted in them being hurled back down to this earth! From that time on, they have been forced, by the power of God, to remain in this earth’s atmosphere; in a condition of restraint! The Greek word Tartarus indicates this restraining, and is rendered “spirits in prison.”

But a judgement day is coming, even for Satan and his angels!

As Paul wrote, “Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? (1 Corinthians 6:3).

Now, think over what you have read. Since Christ witnessed to Satan and his demons DURING THE TIME OF THE FLOOD, He must have chosen to do so for a very important reason! That reason is revealed by Peter! Notice, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

“And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation [they argue that things continue in “cycles,” without God’s intervention],

“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

“Whereby the world that then was [populated by perhaps billions of human beings and animals], being overflowed with water, perished [the Noachian deluge destroyed the entire earth and all life upon it with water]:

“But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved [by GEHENNA FIRE!], what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

“Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” (2 Peter 3:3-12).

The flood of Noah’s time was a TYPE of the coming destruction of earth by fire! Then, the tectonic plates of the earth were compressed just enough to permit the waters of the oceans and subterranean rocks (the “fountains of the deep”) to overflow the continents, drowning all of mankind save eight people, safe in the ark.

But in the coming destruction by fire, God will not only utilize heavenly fire, just as He did in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but will very likely cause vast magmatic extrusions to overflow the continents — the molten, super-hot layer of melted rock beneath the continents and oceans — thus completely destroying the seas, and all land masses!

Even as Lucifer and his angels were there when God brought the flood upon a sinning, beastly, predatory, evil world, and even as Christ Himself witnessed to them about an impending future destruction by fire, so will Satan and his demons be present here on this earth to see all they have labored, planned and fought for burnt to ashes!

Now, notice the truth about Satan’s ultimate fate:

Satan’s Fate

When Jesus Christ comes back to this earth, the fires of Gehenna will be reignited! They will begin to burn then, and will continue to burn throughout the millennium! Notice the proof: “And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

“And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Revelation 19:19-20).

What HAPPENS to them when they are cast alive into a lake of fire? They are BURNT UP! So says your Bible, and so says science, common sense, and logic.

In the types and antitypes of Satan found in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, further light is shed on the fate of the modern “King of Babylon,” who is the BEAST, in collusion with the great False Prophet, who attempt to fight Christ (Revelation 17:12-14), and are cast into Gehenna fire. Notice, “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell [Hebrew: Sheol the grave], to the sides of the pit.

“They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

“That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

“All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.

“But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.

“Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned” (Isaiah 14:15-20).

Remember what happened to the strutting, proud, arrogant dictator of Italy, Mussolini?

When partisans shot him, his body was hung from the parapet of a gas station in public, where thousands of his former worshipers spat on it, stoned it, pummeled it until hardly a bone in the body remained intact!

In like fashion, the prophecies indicate that, like the bodies of criminals in the past, the bodies of the Beast and the False Prophet may repose for a time in the “sides of the pit” (Isaiah 14:15), breeding maggots, before being finally consumed by the flames. Now, look at Ezekiel 28 once more: “By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

“Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: [here the type of the Prince of Tyre reverts from Satan to the human prince which is a type of the Beast] I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

“Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

“All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more” (Ezekiel 28:16-19).

WHEN are the Beast and the false prophet thrown into Gehenna; the valley next to Jerusalem, which will be ignited? By Christ Himself, at His second coming!

As we read: “And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Revelation 19:20).

Now, notice what happens to Satan and his demons during the one thousand year reign of Christ on earth: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

“And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

“And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season” (Revelation 20:1-3).

Now, notice what occurs when the devil is loosed following the thousand years: “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

“And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

“And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are [this word is not in the original. The italicized word is added, and should read “were cast”], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revelation 20:8-10).

“Gog and Magog” can read “Jaj and Majaj,” and, while some scholars believe Gog to be Russia, and Magog to be Mongolia and China, it is more likely the names are used to describe the incorrigibly wicked; human beings all over the earth, who, even after one thousand years of Christ’s rule, will follow Satan’s deceptions, and attempt once more to overthrow God.

Now, remember WHEN the Beast and false prophet were cast into Gehenna fire! They are to be cast in at the time of the second coming of Christ (Revelation 19:11-21). And what HAPPENS to human beings who are cast into a pit filled with fire? They are burned UP (Malachi 4:1-3). They are reduced to ashes!

Now, remember what you have learned about the ultimate fate of this planet! “…the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10).

Following his final abortive attempt to conquer God, Satan and his demons are to be cast into a lake of fire — the same Gehenna fire where the Beast and the false prophet WERE CAST, one thousand years earlier! But this time, following the Great White Throne Judgement day, the earth itself will be consumed! “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books [Greek: Biblos, meaning the books of the Bible], according to their works.

“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell [Hades, the grave] delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

“And death and hell [hades, the grave] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:12-15). Read the entire twentieth chapter of Revelation, and continue on through the final two chapters of the Bible. This destruction of the earth by fire occurs AFTER the millennial reign of Christ; AFTER the Great White Throne Judgement day, which ensues for an additional one hundred years (Isaiah 65:20, 21).

Following the very melting of the “elements with fervent heat”; the probable extrusion of the molten layer of magma beneath the mantle of the earth, God says, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1). Our oceans are vitally important for the existence of human and animal life on earth. Without them, no fleshly life; no fishes, no insects, no air-breathing, food-eating, water-drinking creatures can live.

The NEW earth will now become the headquarters of Christ AND God the Father! Notice, “And 1 John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

“And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

“And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:2-5).

Thus will conclude the FIRST GREAT PHASE of God’s plan, announced by the Logos who became Christ, at the creation of Adam! They said, “Let US make MAN IN OUR IMAGE!”

But creation was not completed in the Garden of Eden — it was only begun!

First, God made man in God’s physical image. God is revealed as having the form and shape of human kind! Moses was allowed to see His hind parts (Exodus 33:18-23). Christ said “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” God is described as having eyes, arms and legs. Christ is described in Revelation 1:12-16 from head to foot.

Next, through His wondrous plan of salvation, God planned to REDEEM man from sin; save him from the clutches of Satan and his powerful temptations, and through the process of spiritual growth and overcoming, create in God’s own image, SPIRITUALLY!

Man was but a human, physical prototype. The “new Creature in Christ” is to become a NEW SPIRIT BEING (1 Corinthians 15:35-52).

The god of this present God-rejecting, commandment-breaking evil world is Satan the devil (2 Corinthians 4:4). He is called the “Prince of the power of the air” who works in rebellious, disobedient people (Ephesians 2:2). When Christ was fasting for 40 days and nights, Satan continually tempted him, trying to cause Christ to fail in His mission. But finally, Christ gave a command, “GET THEE HENCE, SATAN!” and the devil had to obey!

Satan is pictured as the “Lord of the Dead,” in Hallowe’en mythology; Samhain, or the “Shaman” of the Druids and many other religious cults. As the first great sinner; the first great liar (John 8:44), Satan was the first cause of DEATH on this earth.

Christ came for many reasons, among them to conquer the present evil world ruler, thus conquering DEATH as well as conquering SIN! Christ “condemned sin in the flesh” by proving that a human being, with God’s Holy Spirit, can OVERCOME SIN!

Presently, Satan has been DISQUALIFIED, but not yet removed!

As Paul wrote, “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

“For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:24-26).

This is why “death and the grave” are pictured as being “cast into the lake of fire,” metaphorically abolishing death and the grave forever!

Since Christ conquered Satan, He commands His people to “RESIST the devil, and he will flee from you!” (James 4:7). John wrote, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you [Christ!], than he that is in the world [Satan].

What, then, is Satan’s ultimate fate? First, Satan will see Christ’s prophecies delivered during the flood — that the flood was a type of a yet future destruction of the world by fire — come true! Following his final futile attempt to conquer God, the great Gehenna fire of the last day will envelope the whole world!

The “world and the works therein” shall be BURNT UP!

But Satan is impervious to fire. He and his demons are spiritbeings; a fallen archangel and fallen angels under his sway, who will see everything they have worked for; every evil, twisted, perverted, plan utterly destroyed!

Now, notice carefully the wording of God’s statement concerning Satan’s final fate: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [were cast].., and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

This verse is describing TWO THINGS happening. One: the devil is cast into the same Gehenna fire where the Beast and the False Prophet were cast over one thousand years earlier:

Two: Satan will be “tormented day and night for ever and ever!”

Obviously he is not tormented IN THE FIRE for ever, for the fire finally ceases to burn when the surface of the earth has been changed; when there “is no more sea,” and when the “new heavens and new earth” are created!

A powerful clue to Satan’s ultimate fate is contained in Jude’s short letter, as he describes the demon-influenced men who deliberately infiltrate God’s church; evil men of no conscience, who have the very nature of Satan. Here is much of that short book, with commentary: “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

“For there are certain men crept in unawares [they do so deliberately!], who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness [“license,” permissiveness], and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

“I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation [the demons who followed Satan in his rebellion], he hath reserved in everlasting chains [Tartaroo, or “the place of restraint”] under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire [fire from God: however, the fires are not still burning. When Sodom and Gomorrha were destroyed, the fires having consumed all combustible materials, they died out, as all fires do].

“Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

“Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

“But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

“Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

“These are spots in your feasts of charity [“love feasts,” usually for the poor, but including God’s Feasts] , when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

“Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 3-13).

Satan has deceived the Christian-professing world into believing mankind possesses an “immortal soul” which can never die, but which must go either to heaven or an ever burning hell fire upon death! Yet, Satan himself is an immortal spirit, who TRIED and will yet try, to get to heaven, and who will, instead, be consigned to ETERNAL PUNISHING!

The Bible frequently uses stars as symbols for angels (Revelation 1:20). “Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever,” without doubt refers to Satan and his demons, whose false doctrines will come to pass upon themselves!

Satan is keenly, brilliantly intelligent! Yet, his intelligence is perverted by rebellion against God! He has a keen MEMORY!

Satan and his evil demons are to be cast far, far away into the universe — perhaps in a “black hole” somewhere, without the possibility of seeing even the tiniest pinprick of light — the light given off by a distant star! There, they will “wander in the blackness of darkness forever,” bitterly accusing one another, arguing, blaming, hating!

The HORROR of such unrelenting mental torment is Satan’s ultimate fate!

God Did Not Create A Devil

God did not create a devil. Instead, He created a beautiful, powerful archangel, Lucifer, and placed him upon this earth. Lucifer was WORLD RULER long, long prior to the destruction of this earth before Adam’s time.

But he became corrupted with a sense of personal beauty (narcissism) and power, and began to envy God! He attempted to overthrow God, and was himself overthrown, hurled back down to this earth!

He destroyed the earth, and the solar neighborhood, if not more of the universe, in the original “star wars,” the evidence of which is there to see today.

He was THERE in the Garden of Eden to cause the first sin. He tried to overthrow righteous Job, murdering his family and his servants. He was there at the birth of Christ, causing Herod to murder thousands of babies up to two years of age. He was there to try to overthrow Christ in the temptation on the mount. He entered personally into Judas, causing Christ to be killed. He has persecuted God’s church, and is called “the accuser of the brethren” who “accuses them day and night” before God!

He will personally enter into the great false prophet, who will murder tens of thousands of God’s people in the tribulation.

Like you and I, Lucifer was created with FREE MORAL AGENCY! He was able to CHOOSE which way he would go. He BECAME a devil; an adversary; an opponent who is “ANTI-Christ” by continually making wrong choices!

The devil is self-made! He created himself!

By CHOOSING to rebel against God and His government, Lucifer became, instead of the beautiful “cherub that covereth,” a hideous “dragon,” as a perpetual adversary against God!

All who CHOOSE to follow Satan and his ways — the ways of this evil world — will be burnt up in Gehenna fire, as the devil himself and his demons watch! Even as Satan left Judas once he had used him for his evil purposes, and Judas, overcome with fear and self revulsion committed suicide, so will all those who allow Satan to use them find themselves betrayed by their evil mentor, and left to suffer their own terrible fate!

Your only protection from the present evil world ruler is by the power and Spirit of God! Jesus cries out today, as He did when He first came to our earth, “REPENT ye, and believe the good news.” If you have not yet read it, please write or call immediately for my free booklet, “The GOSPEL, A Message For The Next Millennium!”

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This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know it is not wise to take any man’s word for anything, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible.

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When did you first learn about the impish, frivolous, quixotic fellow in the red body suit; with small horns, a spade beard, thin mustache, a long pointed tail, and carrying a trident? From your earliest childhood, you probably recall being told about the devil. Today, at Halloween, children by the thousands dress up like this imaginary “devil” and go out in their neighborhoods to promise mayhem and property damage if they are not “treated” with candy and food.

In ancient Ireland, Druids believed that “Shaman” or ‘Sam-hain,” the “lord of the dead” (the devil) was abroad on the evening of “All Hallows” (All Saints Day). They believed they could cajole this evil spirit into releasing the departed spirits of loved ones from the bodies of animals or wherever they were otherwise held captive.

Bonfires, offerings of food, putting out an extra serving at their own table for a supposed invisible guest; lighting of a candle and placing it in a “jack-o’-lantern” in the window to frighten away evil spirits – these were common practices in ancient Ireland.

It was supposed Sam-hain, the lord of the dead, or his impish demons, would come to partake of the food. This practice comes to us directly as “trick or treating” on Halloween.

Where did we get this traditional view of Satan? Who was the original “jack” of the lantern; the imp or demonic trickster in his funny looking costume?

If you ask one thousand church-going, professing Christians to describe for you the devil, would not all of them describe him in the fashion portrayed above? Would they not tell you that he appears with horns and tail, evil laughter and spade beard, a pitchfork or a trident held in his hand? Or, would they describe him to you as a snake? Ancient tradition portrays the devil as a snake wound around a tree in the Garden of Eden!

Believe it or not, the concept of the devil as a “snake” is a myth!

It is a complete perversion of the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. Pictures from dim antiquity show a naked man and woman – probably already covered decorously with the proverbial fig leaves, standing by a tree loaded with apples. Wound around the trunk of the tree is a serpent. Some pictures or woodcuts show the woman plucking the fruit, and handing it to the man.

Anciently, they said that when you swallow it is your “Adam’s apple” that moves up and down. This quaint myth, concocted from pure applesauce, comes down to us from ancient people who thought it funny to refer to the human vocal apparatus as a portion of the renowned (and nonexistent) “apple” which they said stuck in Adam’s throat when he ate it.

But is that really what happened? Was it an apple tree? Did a portion stick in Adam’s throat? Did a snake or a serpent talk them into it?

Has Anyone Ever Seen The Devil?

Turn to the Genesis account, and read of the true history of man’s first encounter with the devil with your own eyes. Remember, the Bible was not written in English, but Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic.

It is to the ancient Hebrew words we will refer, to glean the truth from this passage.

First, read it as it appears in the King James Version:

“Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Eternal God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

“But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”

From a casual view of these words comes the ancient myth of a snake wound around a tree. However, the Hebrew word translated “serpent” is nachash. The word nachash means “to hiss, mutter, whisper; as do enchanters.” Secondary meanings are to “divine,” “enchant.” It Is because of these expressions that the noun “serpent” appears.

An allied Chaldean word means brass, copper, from a root word “meaning to be bright.” Dr. Bullinger, in the Companion Bible, says “the Hebrew term probably includes the sense of fascinate, enchant (see Deuteronomy 18:10, etc.). This element of fascination connects with the later use of nachash as ‘serpent.'”

Interestingly enough, there is another Hebrew term that is used in two ways to describe a celestial created being.

It is the term saraph (plural seraphim). It means (1) to burn, (2) to be elevated. In Numbers 21:8 you read of a “fiery serpent” and the Hebrew word is saraph. Yet, in the following verse you read of a “serpent” and the Hebrew word is nachash. Read Numbers 21:6! In that verse, both words are translated “fiery serpents”! Now turn to and read the description of seraphim in Isaiah 6, verses 2 and 6! Here, exalted spirit beings right around God’s throne are described! You will see, a little later, that the use of the Hebrew word saraph (also translated “fiery serpent”) may be interchangeable with the word cherub! The seraphim of Isaiah 6 seems to appear with six wings, and are displaying only one aspect, or one facial appearance at a time.

Who Was Satan Before He Became “The Devil”?

There are only three archangels mentioned in the Bible by name. One is Michael, another is Gabriel, and the third is Lucifer.

Turn to and read the two biblical accounts which are both prophecy and history of Lucifer, one of the three archangels who were close to God’s own throne long before the world began!

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

“Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

“They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?” (Isaiah 14:12-16).

Here, in the midst of a proverb against the king of Babylon, we are given an obvious type, or description of Satan’s original state. He is called “Lucifer, son of the morning!” The name Lucifer means “morning star” or “bright shining star of the dawn.” He was said in Isaiah’s prophecy to “weaken the nations!” Compare this with Revelation 12:9, where the devil is said to “deceive all nations!”

In verse 13, where Lucifer said he would “exalt his throne” above the stars of God, we have another reference to angels around God’s throne, irrespective of rank or beauty. The Bible frequently uses stars as a type of angels.

The type of Satan the devil fades quickly to the antitype, the king of Babylon, with verse 15 and 16.

A parallel scripture is found in Ezekiel 28. “Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

“Thou art the anointed CHERUB that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. “By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee” (Ezekiel 28:12-17).

There can be no mistaking the reference to the devil in this passage, for he is said to have been in “Eden the garden of God.”

Notice verse 14! He is called “the anointed cherub that covereth.” Again, in verse 16: “I will destroy thee, 0 covering cherub!”

What is a cherub? Next, turn to the first chapter of Ezekiel and read the entire chapter. We will quote here only a few select verses which give you a description of cherubim! “Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. “And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings. “And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass. “And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.

‘Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. “As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the faces of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle. “Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies” (Ezekiel 1:5-l1).

Notice that each one of these creatures had four faces; four wings, and their bodies seemingly included the aspects of all four of the chief creatures of the whole earth. Man reigns as supreme; the most intelligent, at the very top of the food chain, having been placed over all the creatures of the field, the sky and the sea. The domestic ox is the largest and most useful of all animals. It can draw wagons, plow, be milked, and give meat The eagle reigns supreme in the air; is the symbol of many nations, including the United States of America. The lion is revered as the “king of beasts”; the most powerful and majestic of all the big cats, and has no natural enemy, save man. In each of these spheres, the creatures spoken of as “cherubim” are representative. Strangely, a cherub appears in each of these four manifestations. When the Levites were given directions for the decorations inside the ancient tabernacle, they were told to decorate it with “cherubs.” Yet, no descriptions are extant in any of the first five books of the Bible which would tell these artisans what “cherubs” looked like!

Satan was called the “the cherub that covereth.” What did this mean? In the ancient ark of the covenant, there appeared two cherubim, over the mercy seat, wings outstretched, almost touching, as if hovering over the ark.

The famed “ark of the covenant” contained the original (the second set, written with the finger of God after Moses broke the first two in anger) ten commandments; a stone jar or pot in which a sampling of the original manna was contained, and Aaron’s rod, or staff, which was used in the miracles to send plagues upon Egypt.

Outside the ark were the scrolls of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, or the “Book of the Law”!

The ark was carried about by handles, borne upon the backs of specially-selected Levites, It was obviously a representation of God’s throne.

Now, why was it not necessary for God to reveal to those ancient artisans what cherubim looked like?

Because they already knew!

Now turn to Genesis 3:24. ”So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way, of the tree of life.”

How long did the garden of Eden survive? We have no further information, except that by the very fact that God placed guardian cherubim at the entrance to the garden, it is obvious the garden remained for a considerable period of time – that God intended that Adam and/or his future progeny would be denied access to the garden of Eden – called the “garden of God.”

There is every reason to assume that the garden of Eden was obliterated at the time of the Noachian deluge! In other words, it’s quite likely that the cherubim (the Bible does not state how many were so assigned) were stationed at the entries of the garden of Eden, perhaps one-sixth of all human history until now.

Think about it. Adam and Methuselah were contemporaries. Men lived to great age during the pre-flood period. For all of these hundreds of years, approximately ONE THOUSAND YEARS, these great creatures were stationed at the entrance to the garden of Eden, refusing entry to any humans who assayed to enter into the garden!

Now, think about the incredible collection of fables extant in many, many cultures around the earth!

Flood Fables

History and archaeology prove that practically every civilization on the face of the earth had a deluge tradition.

From the famous flood epic of Babylon to traditions among

American and Central-American Indians; from ancient Chinese to the South American Mayans, from Indo-Europeans to Alaskans, ancient tradition said that the whole world was destroyed by a flood!

Some fables portray wretched human survivors on a floating log. Others say they escaped in a boat. Still others claim that an egg was borne upright on the waters and that men emerged from the egg after the flood.

But for all the grotesque, or strikingly accurate portrayals among different races around the earth, there is a “universal flood tradition” extant. A few examples: In ancient Babylon, in the temple of Marduk, is a story that reads as follows: Xisuthros, a king, was warned by one of the gods to build a ship, and take into it his friends and relatives and all different kinds of animals, with all necessary food. Whereupon he built an immense ship, which was stranded in Armenia. Upon subsidence of the flood, he sent out birds; the third time, they returned not. He came out, builded an altar, and sacrificed.”

Among the ancient natives of Peru was a tradition that only one man and one woman were saved in a box that floated on flood waters. American Indians had various legends in which one or several persons (though never more than eight!) were saved in a boat above the waters on a high mountain! Even in ancient Polynesia, there were stories of a flood from which only eight escaped! In Hindu tradition, “Manu” the name of the hero of the Hindu flood, was somehow mysteriously warned, built a ship, and he alone escaped from a deluge which destroyed all other creatures.

Few have realized that it is axiomatic that, the farther human tribes wandered from the original centers of civilization, the more perverted and grotesque became their knowledge. However, other fables may give us a clue as to the real appearance of the creature which spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden!

Jack and the Beanstalk

Every child in our culture is told the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” In this fable, with its dozens of variations among Europeans and English-speaking cultures, the impish boy, Jack, carelessly tosses away some magic beans (perhaps outside his window). He is startled to watch a gigantic beanstalk growing, growing, growing until it reaches into the sky. Assaying to climb the beanstalk on one occasion, he reaches a land high above, where at the end of a craggy precipice is a gorgeous, and gigantic castle.

According to various tales, the castle is guarded by a dragon; but in any event, it is inhabited by a giant, who possesses a “goose that lays the golden egg.”

Dozens of varieties of this, and other mythological tales all portray similar scenes:

(1) That a fabulous, treasure-filled, idyllic castle, subterranean world, lost continent, or city is in existence somewhere.

(2) That such a castle or great-gilded city is guarded by a DRAGON. (Saint George and the dragon is but a derivative of this original myth.)

(3) The hero always encounters a huge, serpentine-appearing creature with wings, probably featuring FIRE coming out of his mouth!

(4) If the hero of the myth can somehow conquer the dragon, behold, the gates to the continent, city, or castle lay open before him, wherein are treasures unimaginable!

What is the origin of these and other myths?

How many times, prior to the flood of Noah, did human travelers either accidentally stumble across one of the cherubim God had placed to guard the way to the garden of Eden? And what does a cherubim look like? Refer again to the chapters you have read; Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 10, Isaiah 6, and the true meaning of the Hebrew words nachash and “cherub.”

A cherub appears, at various times, with the body of an oxen or a lion; with the wings of an eagle, the head of a man, or any mixture of any of the four creatures already mentioned!

The body of some of these mythological creatures appear serpentine. However, wings are usually present, or feathers on the body of the serpent!

That God placed cherubim to guard the way to the garden of Eden, plus a “flaming sword,” possibly wielded by the cherubim, is a direct statement of Scripture!

When these chance wayfarers, or deliberately-intent human beings came upon the cherubim, what happened? In ancient, pre-flood times, did a startled group of human beings see a roaring creature coming toward them which looked for all the world like a gigantic oxen, with huge wings, lion claws and tail, and the head of a man? Beneath the wings were there arms, wielding a fiery sword?

“The Host of Heaven”

Repeatedly, God warned the Israelites not to worship the “host of the heaven” as did the ancient Zidonians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Philistines, and many others.

When God says “the host of heaven,” He means, literally, what He says. God’s throne is revealed, in the book of Revelation, to be surrounded by twelve elders; to have cherubim and seraphim in association with it; to be overshadowed by brilliant rainbows, and to be surrounded by countless angels!

The representation of cherubim over the mercy seat of the ancient ark is nothing more than a physical representation of the close association Lucifer, the “cherub that covereth” once enjoyed at the very throne of God!

But Lucifer became corrupted by reason of his brightness and his vanity! He decided to overthrow God! He wanted to replace God at the very seat of power in all the universe! Because he was assigned leadership over one third of the angels, and because of his magnetic, charming, subtle personality, he was able to influence all of these angelic beings, who were lesser in luster, power and authority, to follow him in his rebellion!

The original “star wars” resulted in the wreckage of our solar system; our immediate neighborhood in the universe! When we are ushered upon the scene in the first few chapters of Genesis, we see a wrecked world; the Spirit of God brooding upon the face of “the deep.” All the continents are submerged beneath roaring waves! An earlier creation, perhaps replete with billions of creatures (not man!) has been buried beneath the muds and oozes of that ancient pre-Adamic world.

Satan was cast down from heaven, and has been “bound” by God’s spiritual power to his present habitation, this world!

He is called “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), and is called “the god of this world!” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Archaeology has revealed literally thousands of representations of “the host of heaven” throughout the pagan cultures and societies of ancient times.

In ancient Babylon and Assyria, kings frequently used cherubim, believe it or not, to decorate palace walls; especially the entrances into king’s chambers!

Asher-bannipal had such huge creatures on his palace, as did Sargon, of ancient Assyria.

These creatures may be seen today in the museums of the Middle East, the British Museum, or the Louvre.

Usually, they are huge, ox-like creatures, with the bearded head of a man, the tail of a lion, and the wings of an eagle.

In ancient Egypt, eagle-headed man-like creatures appear on the monuments.

Hundreds of replicas of the famous “sphinx” of the great pyramid existed in the palaces of some of the kings in Memphis.

These great man-headed, lion-like creatures were also adopted by the Greeks, who sometimes showed the heads of the creatures as womanlike.

In many cases, the lion’s bodies had wings, the heads of men (with a pharaoh’s headdress) and a serpentine tail!

The chief “god” of many of the cultures of Central America, North and South America and Mexico was “Quetzalcoatl.”

Today, if you journey to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, you will see that the national currency is the “quetzal.” The “quetzal” is a beautifully-plumed bird of the Central American jungles. Its picture appears on the money, and it is the national bird of Honduras.

“Coatl” in the ancient Aztec and Incan language meant serpent or snake.

So, “the bird-serpent” was worshipped by Central and South American cultures.

Festooning the pyramids and temples of the ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans were the grotesque heads of serpents, appearing like a blunt-snouted rattlesnake.

This was the representation of “Quetzalcoatl,” the “winged flying serpent” which was one of the major “gods” of those races!

To Quetzalcoatl and in his name were sacrificed countless thousands of human victims.

When I first visited Mexico City, in 1954, long before the present museum of natural history was built, Professor Benjamin Rea and I visited the museum, then located in a central part of Mexico City. In it, I saw an ancient baptismal font, used by some of the early Catholics in Mexico. The base of the font was formed by a coiled serpent, the coils narrowing, then gradually fanning out to form a bowl-shaped receptacle for the water which would be used by Catholic priests in baptizing infants among the heathen natives.

Strangely, the serpentine form had feathers instead of scales!

It was nothing more than a clever method of adapting a pagan symbol, “Quetzalcoatl,” a winged, flying serpent (and therefore a representation of Satan the devil!) into a “religious object”; a baptismal font!

No wonder the heathen savages cheerfully gathered by the droves before such baptismal fonts, presenting their infants before a symbol of Quetzalcoatl, allowing a priest to dip his fingers in water, sprinkling it on the face of the infant, pronouncing some sort of “mumbo-jumbo” in a strange tongue!

Savage tribes all over the world have worshipped the “host of heaven.” Their perverted chief is Lucifer who was cast down from God’s throne, who became a devil, instead of a “bright shining star of the dawn”!

Did Satan Really Appear as a Serpent?

Remember, the Bible uses similes, analogies, metaphors, and various figures of speech.

A few examples are when the tribe Dan, renowned for renaming various conquered or discovered areas is called a “serpent’s trail” (Genesis 49:17). Nero is referred to as a “lion” (2 Timothy 4:17), and Herod is referred to as a “fox” (Luke 13:32). But the tribe of Dan was not a snake or a serpent; Nero was a man, and not a lion, and Herod was crafty, wily, perhaps more like a skulking coyote than a fox – but nevertheless the metaphor is used to connote the character of the individual.

Judah is referred to as a “lion’s whelp.”

For example, in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew Jesus uses “leaven” as a type for the kingdom of God, while in Matthew 16:6 He uses it as a type of sin (as it is used during the days of unleavened bread). Here, we have an example of biblical type or analogy used in two opposites.

Many times, self-professed biblical “scholars” fail to realize how often the Bible uses “figures of speech.” Notice how many figures of speech there are in the Genesis account of Adam and Eve in the garden; of their encounter with some great being which was “more subtle than all the other beasts of the field,” and with the prophecies concerning this encounter. For example, the Bible says “thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:13). This does not mean that the literal heel of flesh, cartilage and bone would be bruised or damaged, but means something far more! We can only derive its ultimate meaning by looking at the attempt of Satan the devil to kill Jesus Christ when He was yet a newborn Babe; to realize that Satan must have hovered around the child, attempting to break through His angelic defenses and attack Him any number of times during His young life; to read carefully the account of how Satan tempted Him in the wilderness, trying to break His will and resolve; to understand that Satan entered personally into Judas and brought about the sufferings and death of Christ!

Therefore, the “bruising of His heel” connoted a wounding of spirit; a trying of character, a testing of will – like a nettlesome, bothersome, plaguesome problem – NOT a literal “bruise” on the fleshy heel of Jesus Christ!

Notice verse fifteen again. “He shall crush thy head” is likewise a figure of speech.

It did not mean, literally, that Adam or anyone else would step on the serpent’s head (though there is symbolism in the fact that the head of the serpent is the dangerous part, and is usually crushed when one tries to kill a snake), nor that Jesus Christ would somehow crush the head of the being who appeared to Him.

It means, rather, that every scheme, purpose, plan, policy, plot and invention of Satan will be totally and finally crushed! The apostle Paul said Satan will be eventually “bruised under our feet” (Romans 16:20).

But even this does not mean our literal feet, but something which is actually more real!

Now, notice Genesis 3:14 where God says “on thy belly shalt thou go.” He also says, “dust shalt thou eat.” But do serpents literally eat dust? Turn to Psalm 72:9 where it refers to David’s enemies as “licking the dust.” Is this to be taken literally? Of course not! Men do not eat dirt, or “lick dust.” It is a figure of speech connoting total defeat, being cast down, prostrate on the ground, utterly weary and subjected to despair.

When God says the great, bright, shining, subtle creature (in whatever guise he appeared to Adam and Eve) will “go on his belly” from thenceforth, it is no more to be taken literally to imply the belly of flesh, blood (or scales?) than the words “head” and “heel” are to be taken literally.

Rather, it shows utter subjection, prostration, wriggling or writhing low to the ground, in humiliation and defeat.

Remember, Satan himself quoted scripture to Jesus Christ! The flaw in his reasoning the subtlety in his attempted deception is evident when he continually cited to Jesus Christ various scriptures saying “It is written!”

Satan was referring to the literal text – just as it was written! Notice how he takes this literal text and craftily applies it, as if it is to be taken LITERALLY!

You will read the entire account in Matthew 4.

Jesus rebukes Satan, showing the MEANING of the text, showing there are certain figures of speech, allegories, parables, similes and analogies used in the Bible.

It is precisely this subtle twisting of scripture which Satan has used to deceive the whole world about his appearance, about his encounter with Adam and Eve in the garden, and about his character and appearance today!

A serpent has no organs of speech! Was it really a snake or a serpent that appeared to Adam and Eve?

No! It was a being of incredible brightness and luster; it may have appeared as one of the cherubim, perhaps with the head of a man, the body of a huge ox, a lion’s tail, and eagle’s wings. No matter which of the four, or whether the “cherub that covereth” appeared to Adam and Eve portraying all four of the characteristics of the cherubim, the being that appeared to them stood upright, glowed with magnetic and attractive luster, spoke with dynamic, subtle, engaging and reasoning tone, and appealed greatly to them!

The creature would have appeared superior to all the other animals with which they were rapidly becoming familiar.

Satan as an “Angel of Light”

Turn to and read what the apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

Notice the apostle Paul says the “pseudo-apostles” are transformed into the apostles of Christ. The Ephesian church is commended (Revelation 2:2) for trying those who “say they are apostles.” How did they do this? Doubtlessly by comparing carefully all that was taught or said with their knowledge of the Word of God! Paul then says that it is no marvel that deceitful men can call themselves “apostles” while they are NOT apostles of Jesus Christ, since Satan himself is TRANSFORMED into “an angel of light”!

In my nearly thirty years in the ministry of Jesus Christ I have heard many individuals tell me of “spiritual experiences.” A number have told me they actually heard and saw angelic-like beings. One tried to tell me he had seen Jesus Christ! When I carefully questioned him, the traditional picture of “Jesus” emerged. The man told me he saw someone in white standing at the foot of his bed, and proceeded to describe the traditional, proverbial long, brown locks softly cascading over the shoulders; the faraway gaze, the thin, narrow nose and petulant lips. The halo and the aura of the “Jesus Christ” that is commonly seen in the favorite pictures of ”Jesus” being sold in Bible book stores.

Further, when the man awoke he claimed to have had the imprint of a cross on his forehead! I did not know if the man was lying, or not. Perhaps, he actually saw some figure or other But that figure was NOT Jesus Christ!

How did I know? Simple! I know, through the scriptures, that Jesus did not look like that! Also, I know that Jesus was crucified on a pale (the Greek word is stauroo) and not a cross. (See the Companion Bible, in the Appendix on “The Cross.”)

Others have told me of various encounters, and in every case that I recall, none met the test of the Scriptures!

Think what you have learned. Is Satan the devil concerned about the world in general; the world of government, big business, industry and science; the world of the military, of culture, art, literature, music, language, of education?

Why? The Bible clearly shows he is the “god” of that world –this, present, evil world all around you!

No. Satan was always at the primary focus of God’s attention on this earth! Wherever God was working, doing important things, Satan was to be found!

He appeared immediately in Eden, the “garden of God,” at the creation of Adam and Eve, and attempted to wreck and destroy God’s creation. Satan was right there at the birth of Jesus Christ, tried to overthrow Him during the temptation in the wilderness, and entered personally into Judas, causing Christ’s death.

Where is Satan working today? Would he not try to work as closely as possible to God’s own church? Would he not be trying to deceive God’s people?

Satan’s Greatest Deception

If you were to equip one thousand church-going professing Christians with drawing materials (assuming they had reasonable drawing talent) and ask them to portray two of the most famous characters of the Bible for you; Jesus Christ, and Satan the devil, what would they portray? No doubt, they would draw a picture of the “imp” of history; a “Satan” with little horns, spade beard, thin, pencil mustache, sardonic, glowering, hateful expression, red body-stocking, long tail with a fork or spear-like shape to the end of it, carrying a trident or pitchfork in his hands. No doubt, emitting from beneath or behind him would be vaporous smoke, connoting eternal fires!

Ask them to draw a picture of “Jesus,” and they would portray the figure I described above. He would appear with a long, flowing robe; open-toed sandals, long hair, pointed, neat beard, far-away gaze in perhaps soft brown eyes, with a halo!

Put it another way. If you had a perfectly-done artist’s representation of these two “characters” as defined and you showed them to literally millions of church-going professing Christians; to teenagers and young children as well, would there be even ONE MISTAKE out of MILLIONS if you gave them a multiple choice as to who these personalities were?

Would there be one out of one million who would say that the figure in the white robe with the halo was SATAN!?

Yet, believe it or not, your Bible says that Satan the devil has managed to pawn himself off as the “god of this world”; as the ”prince of the power of the air,” as a “minister of righteousness,” and as “an angel of LIGHT”!

The apostle Paul warned people of ”another Jesus,” and “another gospel.”

Consider: (1) Satan the devil is an immortal created being. (2) Satan is a member of a triumvirate; a three-part exalted rank of angelic beings, a member of a trinity. (3) Satan knows that his suffering will be eternal, for the simple reason that he will not be destroyed, but continue in conscious life. (A clue is found in the book of Jude which refers to demonic spirits as “wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”) (4) Satan tried to GET TO HEAVEN. to overthrow God from His throne, to leave this earth, ascend “above the stars of God.”

Now, consider: (1) One of the most fundamental doctrines assumed and carelessly taken for granted by the so-called Christian world is the doctrine of the “immortality of the soul,” which says that we human beings live forever – that there is something immortal inside of us!   (2) Millions believe they go to heaven when they die! Satan tried to get to heaven and was cast back down to this earth! But is HEAVEN the reward of the saved? (3) Satan has the whole world believing in “a trinity,” yet the Bible shows duality throughout. There is the Old Testament and the New Testament. God the Father and Christ the Son. The first man Adam and the second man Adam, Jesus Christ. There are two sexes, two magnetic poles, two parts to the day! God’s creation shows duality; two sexes, reproduction possible only through those two, not three!

God’s Holy Spirit is said to be “poured out”; it is likened unto wind, water, fire, and a roaring, rushing wind! 1 John 5:7 did not find its way into the later Latin texts until after the invention of printing! It is completely spurious, was deliberately added by lying, cheating copyists, and is found in NONE of the dozens and dozens of earlier manuscripts; does not appear in the Codex Sinaiticus, Vaticanus or Alexandrinus!

Thus, Satan the devil has taken various characteristics pertaining to himself and has foisted them on a deceived, unsuspecting world as the mainstay of, so-called, “Christian” doctrines!

Millions believe in the immortality of the soul; getting into heaven; a triune godhead; and eternal torture or torment as the reward of the wicked!

The truth is far different!

Thus, Satan’s greatest deception seems complete! He has palmed himself off as “the devil, “and millions believe they would recognize him instantly! Instead, he comes to them as an “angel of light” in whom they believe!

He has managed to foist off upon the world a fake, false “Jesus” whom they worship as “the Lord.” Millions do not know the REAL Jesus Christ, which is precisely why I entitled my first book The Real Jesus!

Are you one who is willing to dust out the cobwebs of your mind; blow the dust off your own Bible, look into it and see what it says? Are you willing to become UNdeceived? Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!” You have seen and read biblical truth in this article. May God help you to prove it to yourself, and to accept what you see proved!

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This publication is intended to be used as a personal study tool. Please know it is not wise to take any man’s word for anything, so prove all things for yourself from the pages of your own Bible.

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