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Picking up where we left off last time… I have been speaking in general terms up to this point concerning the glorious Stone Kingdom. So here, virtually at the outset of our studies of Mystery Babylon, I want to give you more than just the vague and general assurance that we are going to be delivered. I want to tell you about some of the details of how we are going to be delivered from this Babylonian captivity.
We will not present an exhaustive analysis of these passages at this time; we will do that downstream in this series, but we can at least begin to show you from the very words of God why I have hope (certainty) of deliverance through these approaching dark days.
We are going to be dealing with some dark and disturbing information in the blogs ahead and so I want you to remember these promises as we proceed. The first passage dealing with our deliverance begins in verse 24 of Isaiah 10.
Isaiah 10:24 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD [YHWH] of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt.
25 For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.
26 And the LORD of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
27 And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.
Perhaps some one will say: But this prophecy is by Isaiah back in the eighth century B.C. and it was fulfilled already by the Assyrian invasion of Israel circa 745-721 B.C. True enough. But as many long-time students of the word of God come to realize, many prophecies have an initial fulfillment, then a later fulfillment and yet another even later fulfillment.
That would make this yet another one of the many trinal features found in Scripture, e.g: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles; justification, sanctification, glorification; Outer Court, Holy Place, Most Holy Place; and concerning many prophecies, there is initial fulfillment, secondary fulfillment, and ultimate fulfillment.
So it is with this passage, and I will explicate it to you in detail in a later blog in this series. But for now, there is only one key fact we need to understand, and that is that our deliverance at the end of this age is likened unto two previous deliverances in Israel’s national history.
Number one: the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and number two, Israel’s deliverance from bondage at the time of Gideon. Therefore, does it not make sense that if we want to understand how we, modern Israel, will be delivered from our own captivity, then we should study Israel’s history, and see how it happened at the time of Moses and at the time of Gideon? Let’s look at it in the story of Gideon first.
Judges 6:1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.
2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.
3 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them;
4 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.
5 For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.
6 And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the LORD.
7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD because of the Midianites,
8 That the LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage;
9 And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land;
10 And I said unto you, I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.
11 And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.
If we stop right there, we realize that with verse 11, we have merely been introduced to Gideon in the story. The rest of chapter six concerns the call of Gideon, putting out the fleeces and so on.
Chapter seven tells how his army is recruited, how it is pared down to size by God, and then finally comes the battle, culminating in that which was referred to in here in Isaiah, the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb.
But for now, the first 11 verses are all we need. I will make only a few very brief comments about these verses at this time, just to show you that it applies to modern Israel as well as it did to our ancient forefathers.
Verse 1 tells us that the Israel people did evil. That means disobedience to the laws of God. Are we today a nation that generally heeds and obeys the laws of God, or are we as a nation in gross disobedience? think it is clear that it is the latter.
We have rejected God or allowed God to be rejected from just about every area of society: from the halls of government, to the courts, to the schools, and even to the public square at Christmas time—ignoring for now when Christ was actually born. The point is, Christ is everywhere rejected while at the same time antichrist humanism has been infiltrated and injected everywhere, into every fabric and institution of our society.
And because we are the Israel, God told us very clearly in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 that if we will not obey, then we will reap the curses therein listed. And one of those curses is that foreigners would consume our wealth and we would thereby be in bondage. Here are just a couple of the verses, in the exact words of God Almighty.
Deuteronomy 28:33 The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway:
47 Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;
48 Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee.
That is what happened at the time of Gideon. The Midianites, the Amalekites and the children of the east came into the land of Israel and Israel came under bondage to them. Today, the modern Midianites, Amalekites and children of the east are here in the USA and Canada, and we are being taxed and oppressed more and more with each successive administration in Washington… until the arrival of Donald Trump. Will his programs make lasting changes? It remains to be seen.
In verse 5, it tells how non-Israelites flooded the land with massive waves of illegal immigration! Does that sound familiar? Therefore, do you see why it is pointless and futile to join an anti-immigration organization? Father is giving us a national spanking and that would be like trying to push the whipping rod away, wouldn’t it?
So in verse 6, as the Israel people began to see their once great wealth being drained away because of the actions of the non-Israelites, they began to cry out—not to each other in patriot gatherings—but they began to cry out to God!
We could debate about whether or not we are at that point yet in America. Forty years ago, as I left my job with the John Birch Society, we most assuredly were not there. Today, I see the winds shifting. The election of Obama in 2008, and his promise to “fundamentally change America,” has caused more stirring among average Americans. Many began to realize his “changes” would truly result in further impoverishment and the concomitant loss of our liberties.
Presently (March 2020), with the election of Trump in 2016, many more Americans are seeing the vast contrast between the two visions for America; the first towards tyranny, the latter back towards freedom.
True, the vast majority of our people have not yet awakened to who they/we are, biblically speaking—that we are Israel—but they are beginning to awaken to the same realization I had 40-some years ago; namely, that patriotic, educational and political activity alone was not going to reverse America’s slide into tyranny and dictatorship.
People are beginning to realize that it is going to take a spiritual awakening as well. How do I know that we are at that point where we are crying out to God? Because of the next two verses:
7 And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD because of the Midianites,
8 That the LORD sent a deliverer prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them…
We will stop there. I hope that you always follow along in your Bible, because, for one reason, the more of your five senses that you can get involved in learning, the better will be your retention of what is being taught.
Plus—you can tell when your minister is either making an unintentional slip of the tongue—as all of us do from time to time—or, more importantly, when perhaps he is trying to mislead you by misquoting the Scriptures.
Obviously, I deliberately misquoted verse 8 here as a device of emphasis (leaving in the original word, but struck though). I emphasize this because this is the first key point of this story which we need to understand in the context of our deliverance. It is this: that when finally we begin to cry out to God for deliverance, the first thing God does in answer to our prayers is not to send a deliverer, but first He sends what?
A prophet! First comes a prophet and then comes a deliverer (or deliverers). It is equally important to notice what kind of prophet was sent. Was this prophet a man who got up and predicted the future?
It does not say so, and we cannot prove a negative, so we will allow that this prophet may have foretold the future. We know that the deliverer was named Gideon, but does God tell us who the prophet was? No. It simply says God sent a prophet.
Soon, probably in the next blog, I am going to reveal to you one or more individuals whom I believe are prophets whom God has sent in our era to precede the deliverers. Yes, I am going to name names.
You will notice that I just used the plural: prophets and deliverers. That is because I recall another Scripture dealing with our end time deliverance and it speaks in the plural.
Obadiah, verse 21 And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’S.
Now, if you have been taught Bible prophecy in fundamentalist or evangelical circles—as I was back in the 1970s—then you were taught to look at the old land of Israel over there in the Middle East, to look there for the fulfillment of this verse at the literal mount Zion, which is part of the modern city of Jerusalem, and to look at the area of Petra, south of there, which was the ancient habitation of the descendants of Esau.
I am asserting, however, that most of our evangelical and fundamentalist brethren have been victims of a great deception regarding the true identity of Israel in the world today. I mentioned in a previous blog that, in prophecy regarding the latter days of this age, that the terms, “Zion,” and, “the daughter of Zion,” refer to the lands of re-gathered Israel here in North America.
Furthermore, mountains and hills in Bible prophecy represent nations or people groups. Hills are small nations and mountains are larger, or more powerful nations. Esau is not a large nation today, numerically speaking, but it is very powerful, and therefore it is described here in Obadiah 21 as “the mount of Esau.” And by the way, from whom were the Amalekites descended? Esau!
Therefore, God is telling us that saviors or deliverers will arise here on this continent to set things aright as regarding the people of Esau and Amalek. So that when I tell you I am going to name names, you understand now why it is plural.
There is one more observation we want to make in the passage in Judges 6 because it is critical to our understanding of both, how our deliverance will occur, and as a segue into showing you that the prophets are here today. This last critical observation is what the prophet was doing. We left off in the middle of verse 8, so let’s begin at the beginning there.
8 That the LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage;
9 And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land;
10 And I said unto you, I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.
In a phrase, the prophet was a teacher!… And what he was teaching to the ancient Israelites was their own history. So we can infer that either they had forgotten it, or they had never been taught their history, going back at least a couple hundred years by the time Gideon came on the scene.
Further, the prophet taught them that their current problems were because they had forgotten God, i.e., they had become disobedient to His commandments, statutes and judgments.
And so, fast forward to today. Is it any different? No! Leave out the fact that we don’t know who we are, that we are Israel. But we also now have several generations of Americans who do not understand our own history, going back at least for the past several hundred years.
And so before God sends deliverers, He first sends prophets to teach the people their history. That is where we are right now. More on this topic in the next blog!