Mystery Babylon and the Stone Kingdom, part 82—The Reds and Greens of Christ-mass!
As I was once again reading through Acts, chapter 1, in preparation for discussing the mount of olives, something jumped out at me and I believe it’s worth sharing.
Along with other Bible teachers, I have asserted that the apostles, with the exception of Judas, were from the tribe of Benjamin. But let’s look at that again, beginning with the exception first. Judas, by his first name, is linked, at least symbolically, with the tribe and House of Judah. But his surname tells more of the story.
Luke 22:3 Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.
Iscariot is the Greek form for a word which derives from Hebrew and means a “man” or “men from Kerioth.” Kerioth was a town in the south of the territory of Judah. You can verify that by looking it up in the Bible maps section of many Bibles.
At the time of Christ, Kerioth was inhabited by a great many Edomites, and many of them had intermarried with Judahites, and they all became known as “Jews” in our modern parlance. So we can speculate that perhaps Judas, like King Herod, was of mixed ancestry, of both Judah and Esau, but we do not know that for certain about Judas.
But moving on to the other eleven apostles now, and back to Acts 1, we can see that they were not from the territory of Judah or the Roman sub-province of Judea. And let’s just read through this whole passage beginning in Acts 1, verse 1: And we are only looking to make one point here, so that I will only stop to comment on what is pertinent to that singular point.
Acts 1:1 The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
2 Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
Pause there for a minute. Note that Luke is inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak of the apostles here, which now consisted of only the eleven, Judas having committed suicide and Matthias not having been chosen yet to take his place.
So the context so far shows that the eleven apostles are being spoken of here, not the larger group referred to as our Lord’s disciples. Let us go on.
3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
Ah, our well-worn verse in these studies, but this time I pause only to point out that the pronoun “they,” by all the pertinent rules of grammar, must refer to the eleven apostles only because they are the only ones mentioned so far in this entire passage.
7 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.
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost 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.
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 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.
At the time of Christ, Judea was in the south. Samaria was just north of Judea and the northernmost portion was the territory called Galilee, and again you can verify on Bible maps that Galilee was the land of the tribe of Benjamin. Hence, the apostles, ye men of Galilee, were Benjamites.
That seems to be a correct statement, but may I put a fine point on it? Obviously, the human ancestry of Jesus Himself was through the tribe of Judah, not Benjamin. But his parents, Joseph and Mary, had made their home in Nazareth in the land of Benjamin.
We know from the gospels that Jesus had at least four (half-) brothers: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas (Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3). And we know that James the Less has at least one brother named Joseph (Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40). Scholars debate about whether James and/or Simon and or Jude were among the apostles.
But if any of them were among the eleven, then they, too, would have been descended from the tribe of Judah not Benjamin. They would have been Judahites by ancestry. However, they also would have been Galileans/Benjamites by geography, just as their parents were. Either way, the angel was correct when speaking to the eleven as, “ye men of Galilee.”
And regardless of who was and who was not among the eleven, it fulfills a prophecy that goes back nearly a thousand years before Christ when the twelve tribes had split into the ten and the two after the death of King Solomon. At that time, God promised that Judah would always have one tribe with him to give him light. It says this in...
1 Kings 11:36 And unto his son [Solomon’s son, Rehoboam] will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.
That is confirmed in 2 Kings 8.
2 Kings 8:19 Yet the LORD [Yahweh] would not destroy Judah for David his servant's sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light, and to his children.
That one tribe, which was to be a light to Judah, was Benjamin, of course. And so a thousand years later, we find that the tribe of Judah officially rejects Jesus as king, but after Pentecost the apostles—all (or nearly all) Benjamites—begin preaching the light of the gospel, first to their brethren—the Judahites and Levites—among those living in Judea, then to those living in Samaria, and then by 70 A.D., leaving the area altogether to preach elsewhere.
What is even more astounding is that that prophecy of Benjamin, bearing the light for Judah is still going on three thousand years after the prophecy. We will come back to that thread later, time permitting.
All the preceding provides enough of a basic understanding so that the serious Bible student can see that there is another way to look at this prophecy concerning the mount of olives which does not have Jesus returning to a nation which actually represents Esau-Edom more than it represents the House of Judah.
In my view, the present Israeli state represents Judah almost entirely in a symbolic and legal sense; not in a real sense because true Jews, and by that I mean true Judahites, are part of the sheep, who according to the words of Jesus Himself, follow Him; that is, they become Christians!
Yet today there is an entire people group masquerading as someone else. And one has to wonder, do all Jewish people know about this great deception? We have no way of knowing for sure, but my guess is that the average Jewish person does not know it.
Certainly some of their scholars and rabbis are well aware of it. (For example, the book, The Thirteenth Tribe, by the Jewish historian, Arthur Koestler. It is still available on the internet.) Moreover, I would suspect that the Jewish families at the highest levels of finance and power in modern Mystery Babylon are aware of this great deception for the simple reason that they financed and controlled it.
The fact which will astonish many Christians, however, is that God designed and planned this masquerade—this great deception—from the beginning. The plan began to be carried out unwittingly by our forefather Jacob, way back in the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings.
Since we are now transitioning into a substantial new subsection of the Mystery Babylon series, we are going to read a passage which is foundational to understanding this new subsection. We shall not be able to do more than lay some foundation in this lecture, but then we will get into much more detail in the succeeding lectures.
This new subsection will deal with Mystery Babylon and world communism. History books tell us that communism began with Karl Marx in the mid-1800s. Many believe that with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, that communism is passé and no longer a threat.
I do not subscribe to that view. Rather, what we have here is more deception—on several levels. We will get into the details on that later, but for now I just want to tell you about one level of deception. This deception concerns a change of color.
What is the color that has historically been associated with international communism? Yes, the color red, of course. But I am here to tell you that in the so-called free and democratic nations in the West, that the Reds have become the Greens.
Lest someone be confused, let me qualify that: Am I saying that everyone who believes in having clean air, clean water and unpolluted land is a communist in disguise? Heavens, no! In fact, we would be hard pressed to find any rational human being who is not in favor of having clean air, water and land. In other words, everybody is in favor of clean air, water and unpolluted land.
What I am suggesting is that those at the very top and those behind the Greenies are really Reds. They have switched colors for purposes of deception and gaining ever more control over all the world’s resources—the land, air and water—and with that, ever tighter tyrannical control over all people.
At this juncture, in an attempt to lighten up what can be a very dark subject, let me preface my next remark by informing you that I am not merely making a little play on words, but I am also serious when I say this:
So we have people and organizations identifying themselves as red and/or green, and what holiday do we associate with red and green? Yes, Christmas! Therefore, and this is my opinion, that prophetically speaking, if it’s Christmas time, that means that Jesus is coming real soon... (And yes, I know that He was not actually born on December 25th, but that’s another story. For the sake of this illustration, let’s set that fact aside just for the moment, okay?)
Christ is the light of the world. He is all-powerful. Power can also be defined as energy. Therefore, we have the three elements of the fundamental equation E = mc2. Or energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Or... “Christ-mas” means “Christ becomes mass”; that is to say: Christ (Light-energy-power) enters the realm of matter (mass)! And that, He actually did because He was conceived, not born, on the night of December 25/25th!
In part 3 of this chapter, we shall go back to the book of beginnings, and set the stage for our upcoming indepth study of the communists and how it relates to Bible, specifically to Mystery Babylon the Great. Stay tuned!
(To be continued.)
