Daniel 8:1-12 - A ram and a goat

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Four winds of heaven have a deeper spiritual meaning

Daniel saw two visions in Chapters 7 and 8 that interlinked with Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Chapter 2.

DANIEL 7:1    In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.

:2   Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.

:3     And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

A lion with wings, a bear eating 3 ribs, a leopard with four wings, and finally a hybrid monster.  The monster combined the spirit of the physical pagan Roman empire that took over people's lands with the spiritual empire of the Roman Catholic church that took over people's minds.

Rome had a policy of divide and conquer. They got tribes within a country to separate and fight each other as Rome slowly conquered each tribe and forced them to be submissive to Rome.

Rome's influence in the church got the ministers to separate and divide from the congregation as a spiritually elite priesthood.

Then the priesthood was conquered as they developed some unscriptural beliefs. The priests then conquered the people to make them passively submissive to the priests. The congregation were just to sit, and listen, and obey.

Thus the people or laity were forced to believe man-made doctrines that were made up by the elevated preachers who formed a hierarchy in the organization.

Protestants copied the Roman Catholic power structure.

The five-fold ministry assumed power and suppressed the people into submission to the will of the preachers. A woman represents a church. This spirit encourages women in the churches to wear make up. The appearance of the women reveals the spiritual state of the church. Much of the outward beauty of women and church doctrines is not real, church leaders just make up their doctrines from human opinions and bias.

"The four winds of heaven" mean we are looking at the spiritual effects of four pagan kingdoms.

How certain aspects of their thinking and beliefs would finally be absorbed into the future church.

From the outside, all seemed well with these four powerful Gentile kingdoms. The outwardly impressive Gentile image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel Chapter 2 was a man-made of four different metals. The feet of the image represented the 2000 years of the church ages.

But there was no salvation in the strong metal image. Salvation belonged to the Jews until the cross.

Then salvation crossed over into the Gentile image.

Calvary was thus the most crucial and life-changing event in human history.

The feet were of strong iron and weak clay. This represented the iron-like strong binding control and rule of Roman Catholicism, that was influenced by the four previous kingdoms. 

Scientists say that the strongest binding forces in nature are found in iron.

Rome is the mother of denominational Christianity which strongly binds people to the church, not to the Bible. The wet clay was weak but was the only part of the image in which the seeds of life could grow. This represented the true Bride of Christ who stayed with Scripture. Only clay could absorb the water of the Word. Metals are hard and reject water. These kingdoms all rejected God's Word.

EPHESIANS 5:26   That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

LUKE 8:11   Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

The Word of God could only grow in the wet or miry clay.

DANIEL 2:43    And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

Two types of churches would develop. One governed by human opinion and church traditions and one trying to be strictly Scriptural.

Strong denominations would arise, binding their people with beliefs that are partly Scriptural and partly man-made doctrines and opinions. Is the word "Christmas" and the date 25 December in the Bible? Where do Christmas trees come from? Were we ever asked to celebrate Christ's birth? This all comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Partly true (Jesus was born) but partly false with traditions that have no Scriptural backing.

MATTHEW 15:9   But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Believing anything that is unscriptural makes our worship in vain.

JOHN 4:24   God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Worshipping God in the Spirit means little to God unless we also believe the truth of Scripture.

The main reason for the Holy Ghost baptism is to teach us the truth

so that we can find our proper predestined place in the plan of God.

JOHN 16:13   Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come,

he will guide you into all truth:

Searching for Truth would inspire another type of church. A weaker-looking clay-church that was free from human prejudice and bias. Their goal was to search the Scriptures and accept the unfolding revelation of the Bible as God makes it known. This Bride would insist on joining Bible verses together to make sure that their beliefs were fully Scriptural. They would carefully check that no Scriptures contradicted their beliefs.

The outer show of metal was riveting and majestic. That dominated the dream.

The clay was hardly noticed as it was a humble minority.

Daniel called it "miry clay". Wet clay is weak but it can be moulded by the Potter.

Hybrid Gentile religion will pollute the church

But these four murderous beasts of Daniel Chapter 7 revealed the inner spirits of the four Gentile kingdoms that looked so great and dominant when represented by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a Gentile image. The four kingdoms were Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.

The first beast or power was Babylon. A lion with eagle’s wings.

This imitates the first and the last beasts around the throne of God. Satan is not original, he imitates.

REVELATION 4:6   And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.

:7   And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

Why did Babylon's symbol copy the first and last beasts?

Babylon developed a spiritual priesthood with some fascinatingly wrong beliefs. Satan always seeks to be a little Scriptural to entice people and then he guides people away from the Bible. This mixture of truth and error deceives the multitudes and would eventually infiltrate the church.

Deceptive Babylonian errors that are partly Scriptural and partly man-made would be the biggest enemy of the future church.

So Daniel tracks down the path of these spiritual wrongdoings as demonic error mutated on its path from Babylon to Rome. Demonology has one goal and that is to get people to disbelieve some parts of the Bible. Having some truth that is mixed up with some error makes believers lukewarm in God's eyes. That makes God sick.

REVELATION 3:14   And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write;
REVELATION 3:16   So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

When God vomits the seventh or last church out of His mouth (where His Word is) then Satan and his demons have achieved their goal in our age.

The above Scripture is a prophecy.

If we are at the end time then this prophecy must be coming to pass. Or maybe it has already come to pass, and we were too blind to notice.

REVELATION 3:17   Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Dazzled by wealth and material prosperity, we are blinded and cannot see our miserable ignorance of Scripture.

Churches change Bible verses, ignore Bible verses, and claim that Scriptures contradict each other.

"And knowest not" that we are in a dismal spiritual condition as we sit complacently in our churches. Forgetting that there are 45000 different types of churches. All different, all claiming to be right. We simply ignore the fact that something is seriously wrong with our church world, and thus with ourselves.

The spiritual evils of the first Gentile kingdom of Babylon will reappear at the end during the last Gentile kingdoms. The Roman empire would crumble and the Roman Catholic church would rise with difficulty but iron-like determination to rule the world at the end. The brilliance of Babylonian thought would survive the centuries to undermine the true church and then raise up the partly Scriptural and partly unscriptural fake church that would be the enemy of God and His Word.

The Lion of Judah speaks of Jesus the King. But Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon thought that he was the greatest king. Man seeking to be elevated up to the level of God. Merciless repression was the way a Babylonian king ruled. This later became the binding rule of denominational churches. Agree or get out. Submit or else.

Wings on a lion is a hybrid. Not something that is genuine, but something false that imitates truth.

Wings speak of rising up to heaven and becoming a god.

Nimrod, the first great pagan rebel against God, had claimed to have done that with his tower of Babel. Babel means the gate of god.

Nebuchadnezzar imagined that his Babylon was the stairway to Heaven. As the head of gold in the Gentile image, he thought he was on earth in the place of god.

But Babel just became a source of confusion. Like today's 45000 different types of churches and the more than a hundred versions of the English Bible. Endless human opinions, just pick what suits you.

JUDGES 17:6   ...  but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

The Jews sunk low in the days of the judges. Each man just doing what he thought was fine.

Today we just choose a church and a Bible version that suits us, then we think we are fine.

A woman represents a church. A virgin is a clean woman representing saved Christians.

In the parable of the ten virgins, some were wise and some foolish. But the sad fact is that in the end they were all fast asleep. These 10 virgins represent all the saved Christians at the end time.

MATTHEW 25:5   While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

:6   And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

When the bridegroom (representing Jesus) finally comes, He finds them all in the wrong place as they have to go out from where they were comfortably asleep in order to meet Him.

Who keeps the churches comfortably asleep? The five-fold ministry of preachers. They preach to the churches every week, but everyone remains asleep. Thus the real Biblical issues are not addressed. The feel-good motivational speakers and popular entertainers who now lead the churches, avoid the real errors in the church world that would wake people up if they knew of those issues.

But a wake-up call is coming that will shake the complacently asleep, but saved Christians, out of their churches with their limited understanding of the Bible. Then they will frantically try to get their oil to burn so as to produce enough light to read and understand the Scriptures. Understanding Scripture is the only guide to God.

God is not impressed that we are asleep (though we think we are wide awake) at the time of the harvest.

PROVERBS 10:5   ...  but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.

MATTHEW 25:7   Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

When the wake-up call finally comes, it will be catastrophic. Saved Christians will be badly shaken and have to do a reality check.  They will find that they are not where they should be and that they are not what they should be. Lamp trimming time is drastic.  This means the painful cutting of embedded carbon (sin and unbelief) of the wicks of the lamps so that the oil can burn and give light.

The purpose of a lamp is not to have oil, although that is essential. The purpose of the oil is to burn and produce light so that we can read and understand the Bible. If you cannot understand the Bible verses it is because you do not have light. You may have oil but it is not burning. Understanding the Bible verses is the evidence of light given out from the burning oil.

DANIEL 12:10   ... but the wise shall understand.

According to this parable, no Christians are in the right place at the end. We should be focusing on understanding the Scriptures, not on belonging complacently to church traditions.

MATTHEW 25:5   While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

:6   And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

The wake-up call told them to go out from whatever church they were in. No church was the right place to be.

PHILIPPIANS 2:12    ... work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 

This is not salvation from hell which cannot be achieved by our own works. This is salvation from great Tribulation which is where we go if we are not ready for the Lord's Coming.

Sadly, few will take this warning seriously.

LUKE 13:23   Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them,

:24   Strive to enter in at the strait gate:

for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

Satan wants a man to be elevated in the place of God

The goal of Satan is to indwell some man who is elevated to take the place of God.

ISAIAH 14:13   For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:

:14    I will be like the most High.

The stars of God are His saints.

DANIEL 12:3   And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

The pomp and splendor of Nebuchadnezzar's great buildings were proof of his magnificence. Rivaled by the magnificence of the religious Vatican buildings.

Babylon under their great king Nebuchadnezzar was raised up to be the strongest nation on earth.

That is the ultimate aim of the succession of Popes.

But we are not saved by building magnificent works. However, we are easily fooled by imposing buildings.

After all, the church is the people, not the building.

In the east, the king was worshiped as a god.

GENESIS 4:16   And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Cain went east with his awful serpent-human hybrid spirit and his lying and murderous demons. Ever since then the east has been a home for demonology.

One aspect of this eastern demonology is that the eastern kings, like Nebuchadnezzar, took the place of God on earth.

VICARIVS  DEI  in Latin means "In place of God".

Why? Easterners prayed to their gods and got no answers. Obviously, the gods were not listening to them.

But if the king was God on earth then there was a chance of sending a petition to the king who may then do something to help.

This idea of worshipping a king as God had to somehow be transferred to the west.

That is where Greece played a huge role. The most brilliant military genius in western history was Alexander the Great. His achievements were so incredibly vast that when he declared himself a god, many westerners were prepared to believe that. Such was his fame that even his four Greek successors were able to claim that they were also gods. That was represented by the four wings on the swift leopard. Alexander crushed Persia in a few years.

The priest-kings or Pontiffs of Pergamos became the figureheads of the Babylonian mysteries but they needed a more famous  Pontiff in order to be taken more seriously. This would happen when the city of Pergamos was given to Rome and Julius Caesar became Pontiff.

These ideas were all mixed into the Babylonian mysteries that would enter the Christian church later. By looking at the indwelling spirits, Daniel is focusing on the spiritual effects of these four Gentile kingdoms. The way that they will affect the beliefs of the future church.

Nebuchadnezzar, impressed by Daniel’s prophetic insights, over-compensated by getting the people to worship an image of the prophet Daniel. That is why Daniel was not there. He could not worship an image of himself.

This was Babylon’s most subtle mistake. Elevating a godly prophet to the Godhead.

This would very effectively undermine the ministry of the prophet. They overdid it. Daniel was so respected (which was good) that they felt that he was an infallible man to be worshipped as a god on earth (which was bad).

Pope Pius 9 declared himself infallible in 1870.  But only God is infallible. So man was elevating himself up to the level of God.

Message-people elevate brother Branham to the Godhead by calling him the Son of man and saying that he is infallible as the Voice of God. The same mistake that Babylon made with Daniel.

In the middle ages, the Pope sold indulgences which he claimed could forgive sins. Only God can forgive sin. Again, the Pope was assuming a power that only God has. This sparked Martin Luther's Reformation.

Today Roman Catholics have to confess their sins to a priest who takes the place of Christ. This is the elevated priesthood that stands between the people and God. Nicolaitanism is the conquering of the laity or congregation by the elevation of a holy man above the congregation. God hates this elevation of people in the church systems.

There is a weakness common to all churches. An unscriptural idea of elevating a leader enters the church and it makes the church grow.
REVELATION 2:6   But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Then, almost unnoticed, that unscriptural idea becomes a binding doctrine in that church organization as the years go by. Church organizations thrive on clever unscriptural business plans and a ruling class of preachers in the five-fold ministry who assume executive powers over the church.

REVELATION 2:15   So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

The first Gentile kingdom worshipped the prophet Daniel. The same worship of a prophet would happen at the end-time when a Gentile prophet has to restore Bible truth by challenging the denominational church systems that have been spawned by the Roman Catholic church. By claiming that the prophet is infallible,  his followers will allow themselves to replace Scripture with his quotes. They will even claim to interpret the unwritten seven Thunders. They speak where God is silent. Thus they dare to correct God and improve on what God wrote. The followers of the end-time prophet are elevating themselves up to the level of God. Such self-importance is a serious hindrance to the spreading of truth. Just as pointless as was Nebuchadnezzar's self-importance.

REVELATION 10:4   And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

God expresses His thoughts through His Word. If God's Word is not written on a topic, nobody can claim to know His thoughts. Their opinions on what the seven Thunders uttered cannot be Scriptural because there is no written Scripture to interpret.

Belshazzar was the king of Babylon for three years. Then he was killed.

This symbolizes that the antichrist spirit has three main effective attributes.

The white horse of religious deception.

The red horse of political power.

The black horse of money power.

Then Death.

Religion combines with politics and big-money to make a toxic brew that destroys faith in the Bible.

When religion, politics, and money combine then a man can be elevated to take the place of Christ as the Voice of God.

The pale horse is not a separate horse. It is simply a corpse-colour due to the merging of the three antichrist spirits into the final world-conquering church power that is ridden by Death.

A horse is a beast or power in the vision of Revelation Chapter 6.

Remember Judas who was religious but then he got involved with the political Jewish priesthood and sold out for money. That trinity of religion, politics, and money sent him to his death.

The first three horses, representing the stages of the development of the antichrist spirit, all combine and unite together to form the deadly fourth hybrid stage that kills.

REVELATION 6:2   And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

Religious deception gained a crown around AD 860 when Pope Nicholas I was crowned. By around 1315 this became the famous triple crown of the Popes.

REVELATION 6:4   And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

Political power. The Roman Catholic church, amid much bloodshed, rose in the Dark Ages to dominate Europe.

REVELATION 6:5   And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

:6   And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

Money power. The Roman Catholic church became the world's wealthiest organization.

REVELATION 6:8   And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

Religious deception, politics, and money power merge and unite to produce the end-time Pope who will rule the world and destroy the saved foolish virgins in the 3.5 years of great Tribulation.

We turn to Daniel Chapter 8.

Mysteries move from Babylon to Pergamos to Rome

The mysteries of Babylon were refined by Greek philosophy to form a hybrid church religion.

DANIEL 8:1   In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.

First and third are linked in this verse.

The first empire and the third empire seem to be emphasized.

The third empire of the Greeks with their wisdom would provide a clever philosophical upgrade to the Babylonian mysteries. The Greeks would also provide Alexander the Great who the west could accept as a god because of his great achievements.

Daniel saw the vision of four beasts in Belshazzar’s first year and then a vision of a goat and a ram in Belshazzar’s third year.

The first year of Belshazzar symbolizes the first beast of a lion-eagle hybrid.

This represented Babylon with the pagan priesthood that successfully developed the mysteries of Babylon. These would later develop into a very clever hybrid of Christianity and paganism called Mystery Babylon, the Great. This signified that it would be a church that was a Great Deception that would fool millions of Christians. These original mysteries of Babylon would evolve until they were the greatest threat to the Christian faith. That is why Daniel was tracking their progress through the pagan kingdoms whose influence would make the Babylonian mysteries mutate into even more deceptive errors.

In the third year of Belshazzar, Daniel saw a vision in which a Greek goat destroyed a  Medo-Persian ram. Persia was the first world-wide empire.

When Abraham was about to offer up Isaac, God stopped him. A ram caught in a thicket by its horns became the sacrifice, and Isaac was saved.

Thus a ram was the symbol of the coming of Christ, the anointed One, to save us.

ISAIAH 45:1   Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus,

Cyrus saved the Jews from their Babylonian activity by sending them back to Israel. He is the only non-Jewish king to be called anointed, which means Christ.

Thus the ram was a symbol of Persia, whose anointed king saved the Jews, as Persia was the kingdom established by Cyrus.

The Babylonian priesthood after revolting against the Persians, fled from the Persian king Cyrus to set up their mysteries in Pergamos in Asia Minor on the edge of the empire. There they escaped unnoticed. But Persia also conquered Egypt which brought the influence of Egyptian trinities (father, son, and wife who were known as Osiris, Horus, and Isis) and their sun god worship, into the Babylonian mysteries. Persia developed the idea of a centralized administration that could control a worldwide empire. They offered you peace and order if you were dutifully submissive. The Vatican would later develop into an impressive centralized organization to run the worldwide Roman Catholic church.

Persia, as the small, dark green portion of the map, first conquered the Medes. They co-ruled with the Medes as Medo-Persia.  The three ribs in the mouth of the bear of Daniel Chapter 7 were their conquest of Babylon, then Pergamos, then Egypt. So the Egyptian pagan mysteries joined into the Babylonian mysteries at Pergamos thanks to the Persian conquests.

The Persian empire expanded as shown by the light green areas. It became the first worldwide empire stretching from the east to the west. Later the Roman Catholic church would also become a worldwide spiritual empire, based on the centralized organizational skills of the Vatican.

Then came the dominating goat. Alexander the Great from Greece. The Persians bowed down to him. The Greeks only bowed to a god. To fuse Greeks and Persians into one culture, where everybody bowed to him, Alexander had to declare himself a god. For the first time, a western man was lifted up as a god by many because of his amazing talents as a general. Thanks to Alexander, the Greeks introduced to the western world the idea of elevating a man to be a god.

Alexander is described in Daniel by a goat.

Today the top sportsmen are called GOAT. Greatest Of All Time.

Then cunning Greeks with their brilliant philosophy developed ideas for the trinity like father and son being regarded as having the same substance but being separate persons. The trinity ideas of the eastern pagans received an upgrade in Pergamos.

The pagan mysteries moved from Babylon to Pergamos. The last stage of these Babylonian pagan mysteries was to move from Pergamos to Rome.

The fourth stage was Rome where Julius Caesar became Pontiff or high priest of the Babylonian mysteries and dictator of Rome. The Babylonian mysteries now had the world's most famous person as their priest-king figurehead. Caesar regarded himself as a god in 46 BC but was soon killed in 44 BC. Soon after his death he was worshiped as a god. This is the first time that this had happened in Rome. But the Babylonian mysteries were now entrenched in Rome with the Roman emperor being the Pontiff and being regarded as a god. The pagan Roman emperors soon embraced the idea of emperor worship.

The fourth beast in Daniel's vision is a hybrid monster that produces death. Starting with the Roman emperor Nero in AD 64 the pagan Romans persecuted and killed about 3 million Christians before Constantine stopped the slaughter in AD 312.

The Roman Empire collapsed in AD 476 due to barbarian immigration and invasions. Out of the ruins of the pagan Roman empire grew the politically powerful and very wealthy Roman Catholic church. Mystery Babylon the Great with the Pope as the new Pontiff of the Babylonian mysteries.

In the Dark Ages, the Pope revived the persecuting spirit of Nero and killed tens of millions of Christians who refused to submit to him.

After AD 250 Catholic scholars began to merge Greek philosophy and pagan traditions into the Christian faith to produce an astonishingly deceptive but deadly hybrid belief built around a Trinity God and a dictatorial and infallible Pope. Greek thinking played a vital role in the rise of Roman Catholic creeds and beliefs.

The three-in-one God was a product of Greek philosophy as it is not written in the Bible.

So the Roman Catholic church changed their beliefs to suit Greek philosophy, instead of changing their own beliefs to suit what is written in the Bible.

Persians conquer the first worldwide empire

Daniel’s vision in Chapter 8 starts with the Persian ram and the Greek goat.

Belshazzar means Bel or Baal protect the king.

Belshazzar ruled two years and was killed in his third year by Darius the Mede (539 BC)

Yet his name had a meaning. The false beliefs of his Babylonian mysteries have been protected and they evolved to form the false foundation of the beliefs of millions of Christians today.

DANIEL 8:2   And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai.

Shushan means a lily.  Ulai  pure water.  Shushan became the capital of the Persian nation.

When a place becomes the capital it becomes important and famous. That usually leads to the death of truth. Truth grows best in humility when it is unnoticed and poor.

The wise men lost sight of the star when they entered Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.

SONG OF SOLOMON 2:2    As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.

Women symbolize churches. The lily is the pure white truth of the Word that has to grow in the midst of all the thorny denominational errors that came from the Babylonian mysteries and the pagan traditions.

This indicated a rough ride for the true believers of the future church ages.

But Ulai indicates that there will always be the pure water of the Word for those who focus on truth.

DANIEL 8:3   Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.

The Medes rose to power first. Their kingdom is shown in red on the map that is above. But then they got conquered by Cyrus the Persian. Persia is the small dark green part of the map. He was happy for them to rule together in association with him as long as he was the main king. Cyrus was a brilliant military general as well as an astonishingly good administrator. He then really extended the Persian empire to make it into the first worldwide empire.

Persia started as the small dark green area and then swelled up into the first worldwide empire, shown in light green.

DANIEL 8:4   I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.

Persia conquered vast territories to the east. This became the source of their great wealth and endless manpower for their vast armies. But Daniel ignores this. The Persians would later lose their empire and fade off the world scene. So Daniel did not follow their physical conquests. He was interested in Babylon, Egypt, and Pergamos because that is where the future spiritual deception of the church would be hatched.

Daniel was only interested in tracking down the mysteries of Babylon that would later evolve and undermine the Christian faith. There were three areas that would form an axis of evil.

Babylon with its mystery priesthood and Pontiff. Egypt with its trinity ideas and sun god worship and Pergamos which would become the new home of the Babylonian mysteries. There they would develop the Greek idea that the king is god in the western world. This god-king leader or Pontiff and his Babylonian priesthood would then be given to Rome. They later became famous when Julius Caesar became Pontiff and dictator of Rome. Today the Pope is the Pontiff and the dictator of the Roman Catholic church. The Pope is the only dictator in western Europe.

Cyrus first moved north from the original Persia to conquer the Medes and then they combined as Medo-Persia, the two horns of the ram.

To conquer Pergamos (the Greek name of Pergamum) Cyrus has to move north and then west. The original Persia was the small area shown on the map. Pergamos was in the kingdom of Lydia.

The king of Lydia revolted when Cyrus went back to the original Persia. Cyrus returned to crush him.

Then Cyrus conquered Babylon which also took him north and west from the original Persia.

The Babylonian priesthood had to flee. They knew Cyrus was keen to conquer the east, so they fled to Pergamos. They successfully guessed that Cyrus would not go there again as he had already been there twice.

Cyrus died and his son Cambyses conquered Egypt. Pergamos and Egypt were now part of the same empire. Clever trinity ideas and sun god worship now flowed from Egypt to Pergamos. The Babylonian mysteries got an upgrade and became even more deceptive.

Alexander was the first Western man to be called a god

DANIEL 8:5   And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.

The goat moved fast, not seeming to touch the ground. Alexander the Great conquered the vast Persian empire in a few years.

The ancient capital of Greece was called Aegae or Goat City. Greece is a mountainous country. Mountain goats described them well. Especially when they conquered Persia and reached the massive Hindu Kush mountains on the way to India as well as the mountains of Afghanistan.

DANIEL 8:6   And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power.

The river Ulai had a deep significance. The Greek leader Alexander the Great fought his two first battles against the Persians by charging over a river. Alexander was probably the most gifted military general in history. He out-maneuvered and out-fought the Persians until their empire was in his hands.

DANIEL 8:7   And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.

“Cast him to the ground” means a total victory.

“Stamped upon him” means he took total control of the Persian empire.

Alexander trampled others to prove his pre-eminence.

Too many churches today are obsessed with proving that they are better than the other churches.

Humans love being elevated to prove their pre-eminence. But pride comes before a fall.

DANIEL 8:8   Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.

Alexander got to Egypt and declared himself to be the son of God.

The Egyptians declared their Pharaohs to be divine. By claiming divine descent from Zeus-Ammon, Alexander brought Egypt under his dominion as they wanted to be ruled by a god. The Greek Zeus was supposed to be the same god as the Egyptian Ammon. Thus the Greek and Egyptian pagan religions became intertwined.

The conquered Persians were used to worshipping their kings as gods.

In a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing, he became the only man to ever conquer Afghanistan.

There he declared himself to be god. This was common for eastern kings.

Such was the fame of his conquests that Alexander became the first western man to be widely accepted as a god.  Alexander was now both king and god.

But the man who would be god was dead within four years of declaring himself a god.

Jesus had a ministry of three and a half years. So if you think you are a god, you have a brief time to achieve your aims. Only Jesus, as God on earth, could fulfill His ministry in such a short time.

“…and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven”.

A horn is the power of an animal. A horn makes an animal dangerous.

After Alexander died there was a vicious civil war for 20 years as his empire split into four.  One of the four generals, Lysimachus, took over the area around Pergamos. The economy of Pergamos flourished and it became extremely wealthy. As such it gained importance in the eyes of the people. We are always impressed with someone who is wealthy. Thus humans are driven by the love of money.

The four generals who controlled Alexander’s kingdom now followed his example and declared themselves both kings and gods. This was represented by the four wings on the leopard.

Alexander’s military skills had made him the first western man to be accepted as a god. So the west admired a man who had killed great multitudes of people in his lust to rule. This was the spirit that entered the Roman Catholic church in the Dark Ages as tens of millions of Christians who opposed them were killed.

Lysimachus died and finally, a man called Attalus finally became priest-king of Pergamos in 241 BC. The Babylonian priesthood regarded him as a god.  Attalus was loyal to Rome and was given much territory by the Romans to form the big and rich kingdom of Pergamum. The city of Pergamos was the capital of the kingdom of Pergamum.

The prestige of the Babylonian priesthood in the city of Pergamos depended on the reputation of their Pontiff-king. Pergamos (the Greek name of Pergamum) was the capital city of Pergamum which was the biggest kingdom in Asia Minor. By having the king of the wealthy kingdom of Pergamum as their Pontiff, the Babylonian priesthood gained importance in the eyes of the pagans.

These priests in Pergamos had a lot of prestige as they were regarded by the pagans as being the only genuine line of succession from the original Babylonian priesthood.

Being heir to a long line of successors that began with Nimrod made the Babylonian Pontiff important.

The Pope would copy this idea as he claims to be the heir of a long line of successors who go all the way back to the apostle Peter, who they call the first Pope. Why is this important? Because Jesus gave Peter the keys to Heaven. So the Pope claims if you obey him, as the successor of Peter, then Peter will open the Door to Heaven for you when you die. A cunning argument that convinced the pagans and barbarians who conquered the Roman empire.

Babylon was linked back to Babel and Nimrod which captured the imagination of the pagans. Nimrod’s biggest empire was in the minds of the pagans who believed in his man-made religious mysteries that were taught by the Babylonian priesthood. The idea of a mystery religion fascinated the people. “We believe it but do not really understand it” was their statement of faith. Just like modern-day Christians describing the unscriptural Trinity. Nimrod’s mind-capturing religious mysteries have spread far.

The mark of the beast in the forehead. In your forehead is your brain where your mind and thinking occur. The mark of the beast is when you are brainwashed to believe unscriptural doctrines. Then your mind is under the control of human thinking rather than the Bible. God wants to control your thinking to the extent that you can believe the whole Bible. Religious deception, which is Nimrod’s spiritual empire, is to get you to deviate from the Bible in some way. Today, virtually every church tells you that the Bible has mistakes and contradictions. They tell you that many Bible verses are irrelevant details and that there is much information in the Bible that we do not need to know. So Nimrod’s influence has spread.

Alexander’s conquests had reached India who had their own trinity of Brahma, Krishna, and Siva. (Creator, sustainer, and destroyer). This was a trinity of three males. Better than having a female in the godhead. Three heads on one body was their attempt to indicate three gods who were somehow one god.

In Pergamos the trinity belief of Egypt (Osiris, Horus, and Isis as father, child, and mother) merged with the trinity of India that had three males in the godhead. The trinity concept was evolving.

The Egyptian picture of three persons in the godhead showed the godhead as a big throne with three people sitting on it. This was an easier model for the western people to accept.

They just had to change the female Isis for a male god. That would come much later at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD when they chose the Holy Spirit as the unscriptural "third Person of the Trinity".

Clever Greek philosophy later developed a three-in-one belief where you saw three but somehow (nobody knows how) there was only one. “Co-equal” and “of the same substance” were clever Greek inventions. One substance but three persons. One-in-three.  The three-are-one. These were heady days for clever philosophical speculations. It all sounded so clever. Yet it was just smoke-and-mirrors that revealed nothing definite. But those mystery-ideas fascinated the religious thinkers.

“Father and son are of the same essence”. Whatever that means. A godhead draped in a veil of tantalizing mystery. So Greek philosophers manipulated words in a brilliant smokescreen that appeared to reveal and yet left people confused with no clear picture of who their god was nor what his name was.

Pagans, who believed in multiple gods, could easily embrace this slick propaganda.

The Babylon mystery religion got a boost in their importance by having the priest-king of the Pergamos empire as its Pontiff and figurehead. They were no longer hiding unnoticed in Pergamos from the major Persian king Cyrus who had been angry with them. A minor king Attalus was now their protector and Pontiff.

DANIEL 8:9   And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.

“Exceeding great” means the Pope has spread his influence further than Alexander the Great.

"A little horn". The Vatican City state occupies one square kilometer and is the smallest independent state on earth. It has less than 800 citizens.

“Toward the east”.  Cain went east. Since then the east has been the home of demonology.  Ancient heathens developed the ideas of worship of trinity gods. Praying to idols. By praying to dead saints and Mary, Catholicism had ventured far into demonology. Worshiping relics. Claiming that Peter has the power to let you into Heaven. Claiming that the Roman Catholic church could forgive sin with such ceremonies as sprinkling a baby whereby  “the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism”. Indulgences were sold that claimed that the Pope had the power to forgive people of their sin. 

From the east had come demonology with its trinity gods and worship of idols. Bringing this into the Roman Catholic church made it far more acceptable to the pagans.  Carved idols entered the churches. Pagans thus felt at home there.

I JOHN 5:21   Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

Mother and child worship originated in the east as seen from this ancient Hindu statue.

When idolatry entered the church, mother and child worship came with it. The famous Madonna statue.

The kings of the east are demons.

REVELATION 16:12   And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

:13     And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

:14     For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles

The great miracle that Satan is performing today is the uniting of the churches. As well as the uniting of the Roman Catholic church with Islam.

Roman Catholicism emerged as baptized paganism.

“And toward the pleasant land”.  This to a Jew like Daniel could only be the land of Israel.

In 1964, Pope Paul VI arrived in Jerusalem for a whirlwind eleven-hour visit to Christian sites.

The Second Vatican Council revoked the doctrine that the Jews of today are responsible for the death of Jesus.

Then in 1994, the Vatican recognized the State of Israel.

Pope John Paul II visited Jerusalem in 2000. He wanted to improve relations between Rome and Israel.
His wish was "to place his Church at the heart of a new religious alliance that would bring together Jews. Muslims, and Christians in a great religious armada"

So today the Catholic church is drawing closer to the Jews. Each new Pope visits Jerusalem.

The day will come when the final Pope will sign a covenant with the Jews as Rome has so much access to the world’s gold and the Jews have so much access to the world’s Stock Exchange money.

Peter is elevated to be the Door keeper in Heaven 666

Let us once again go back to history.

While in the Greek city of Pergamos, the Babylonian priesthood then received two major but totally unexpected triumphs that were not of their own making.

In 133 BC the Pontiff and priest-king of Pergamos , Attalus III, died and handed over his empire to Rome in his will. The Babylonian priesthood, with their gorgeous robes and impressive ceremonies, now were part of the Roman scene.

Then came a major triumph. Julius Caesar, soon to become the most famous of the Romans, was so impressed with the stunning robes of the Babylonian Pontiff that in 63 BC he borrowed money to bribe the priesthood to elect him as Pontiff of the Babylonian Mysteries. When he later became dictator of Rome it meant that the Babylonian Pontiff was now the world’s most powerful man. At the same time, he turned the Roman Republic into a one-man dictatorship. Caesar ended the Roman Republic. The Roman Empire was born that would be run by dictatorial emperors.

This laid the basis for the rise of the Roman Catholic church.

Each local church in the New Testament was run independently by a group of elders.

The Roman church wanted one man as a priest to be in charge of a church. Then one man as a bishop was in charge of the priests in a city. An unscriptural archbishop controlled a group of bishops. An unscriptural Cardinal controlled the Archbishops. The unscriptural Pope was the supreme leader of all the world. Today the Pope is the only dictator in Europe, and he is called Pontiff.

Julius Caesar's last descendant to be emperor was Nero. In AD 64 he began killing Christians and exiled Saint John to the island of Patmos. John was released in AD 68 when Nero died.

Domitian became Roman emperor in AD 81 and also persecuted Christians. He exiled John to the island of Patmos once again. Once again John was released when Domitian died. That was in the year AD 96.

The Roman Catholic church picked up this spirit of persecution during the Dark Ages and killed tens of millions of Christians who refused to submit to the Pope.

By AD 476 the pagan Roman Empire collapsed under the weight of barbarian immigration and invasions. Out of the ruins of the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church struggled and grew as a spiritual empire by spreading its ideas into the minds of people. Rising up as a church and a money power it made the Pope the most powerful man in Europe during the Dark Ages.

Today the Pope is one of the most influential of world leaders.

The biggest gathering of world leaders ever seen was at the funeral of the late Pope John Paul 2.

DANIEL 8:10   And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.

Today the Pope, with over a billion Roman Catholics who are spread worldwide, is one of the world’s most powerful men. The Pope is the only dictator in Europe. His prestige has certainly waxed great. He rules a far bigger spiritual kingdom or church than Alexander ever did.

Ignatius, unscripturally, called himself bishop of Antioch and before AD 130 had said that "your bishop presides in the place of God”. This was Nicolaitanism, the elevation of a holy man above the church laity or congregation. Then as ambition saw men rise to power, the church invented unscriptural titles like archbishop, metropolitan, cardinal, and finally Pope. These titles appeared and stayed in the church.

The Roman Catholic church invented the ideas of praying to the dead saints and to Mary. This pulls them down from being stars in Heaven and turns them into spiritualists. Praying to dead saints is an extreme or high form of spiritualism.

The bishops of Rome claimed to be descended from the apostle Peter. They unscripturally promoted Peter to being the Prince of the Apostles. As Peter’s successors, they claimed to be “Vicar of Peter” (VICARIVS  PETRI). In other words they stood in the place of Peter. Thus they pulled Peter down from his place as a bright star in Heaven and cast him to the ground. This was because they “made” Peter dabble in the corrupt politics of the growing Catholic Church. Then they pretended that Peter was the first Pope.

Jesus gave Peter the keys to Heaven.

Peter opened the Door to Heaven on the day of Pentecost with this key.

ACTS 2:38   Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

:39   For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

Peter’s other key was to close down John the Baptist’s baptism which no longer applied after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The Popes changed all this. They claimed that you had to be obedient to the Pope of Rome, as the successor of Peter, in order to get into Heaven.

The Popes, as "Vicar of Peter" claim that they were the successors of St. Peter by standing in the place of Peter. They invented the titles  "Vicar of the Prince of the Apostles" and "Vicar of the Apostolic See". All these man-made titles were needed to boost the supremacy of the Pope over other churches by boosting the importance of Peter. The strong spirit of elevating a holy man above all the churches.

DANIEL 8:11   Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host,

and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

The Prince of the Heavenly host of saints is Jesus.

How could the Pope elevate himself to that level?

Once again they had to rely on the reputation of Peter. Peter was given the keys to Heaven.

Now came the most subtle but powerful error.

The Popes agreed that Jesus was the Door to Heaven but claimed that it was more important to please Peter.  Because Peter, having been given the keys, was the Door-keeper who decided either to open or close the Door to Heaven for you.

So salvation by repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ were trampled on and ignored.

All that counted was to keep Peter happy.

And Peter would be happy if you did something good for his successors, the Popes. If you gave the Catholic church land, or jewels, or money, or protected the church from being attacked by its enemies. Then Peter would open the Door for you. Jesus was no longer the only Saviour. The church claimed that salvation depended on the good works that you did for the betterment of the church. As far as salvation was concerned, pleasing Peter was more important than repenting and accepting Jesus as Saviour. Within a short while, the words of Peter on the day of Pentecost were forgotten and were no longer part of the Roman Catholic beliefs.

In AD 754 a crucial event happened.

The Pope in Rome realized that the Roman emperor in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) could no longer defend him from the barbarians who had overrun Europe.

The Lombard tribe had taken over most of Italy and threatened Rome.

Pope Stephen then went to Paris to make a deal with the Franks under their leader Pepin. The Franks were the strongest barbarian tribe in Europe.

Pope Stephen would crown Pepin as king of the Franks if Pepin drove the Lombards away from Rome and gave the Pope a stretch of territory known as the Papal States. This is shown in red on the map below. This was called the Donation of Pepin whereby Pepin would supposedly buy his way into Heaven.

Thus the Pope began to convert the barbarians to Roman Catholicism by claiming that only he could crown kings with God's approval. In return, the Franks would protect the Pope.

An excellent though a fraudulent piece of business.  The Pope gained a useful piece of territory in Italy for free.

But in order to convince Pepin, Pope Stephen had forged a document called The Donation of Constantine which claimed that Constantine had given the Popes all the western territory as successors of Saint Peter. In the document, Saint Peter is described as VICARIVS  FILII  DEI (in place of the Son of God). The Pope claimed to be the successor of Peter and Peter stood in the place of the Son of God because he would open the door to Heaven for Pepin if Pepin did the Pope the favour of giving him the Papal States in Italy.

In Latin  I = 1   V = 5    L = 50    C =  100   D = 500     but  A, R, S, F, and E represent no numbers.

In Latin, capital U is written as V.

The VV became W which is still called "double U".

V   I   C   A   R   I   V   S       F   I    L    I   I         D    E   I

5  1 100            1  5                 1  50  1  1       500      1   which add up to  666     the number of the beast.

REVELATION 13:18   Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:

for it is the number of a man;

and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Only once in history has this title been used. It was applied to Peter. According to the Pope, Peter had taken the place of Jesus. As the gatekeeper to Heaven, Peter decided who to let into Heaven. You cannot get a higher position than taking the place of Jesus.

This forged document drags Peter down from being a saint in heaven, one of the top saints, and tramples him into the ground as a messy liar. Just to satisfy the Pope's greed for land and power over the barbarians who now trust Peter to be their saviour by opening the Door to Heaven for them. That is antichrist.

This was as bad a deception as you can get.

This is an awful example of how the reputation of a saint can be dragged down from heaven and trampled into the dust.

Peter is not to blame because he made no such claim.

So the Pope rose to power amongst the barbarians by means of a forged document. But most importantly, the barbarians became very scared of Peter. They were convinced that Peter would never open the Door to Heaven for them if they were not in submission to the Popes.

The Beast of Papal succession was and is not yet is

Papal succession is the long line of Popes that have ruled the Catholic Church.

So the Trail of the Serpent was set up, the long line of Popes who claimed to be Peter’s successors.

This was their main tactic to bring the pagans into submission to the Pope.

REVELATION 17:8   … when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

The beast is the power that makes people want to worship some human as god on earth.

The Roman Catholic church is a spiritual power that wants to uplift the Pope until he stands in the place of Christ as the forgiver of sins.

Then Pope Innocent III claimed the title of VICARIVS CHRISTI  or Vicar of Christ (in the place of Christ) around AD 1200.

The Pope now believes that he takes the place of Christ on earth. Thus he is regarded as being infallible in terms of doctrine. He also claims the right to forgive sin as he stands in Christ’s place.

Thus the Pope magnified himself to the level of Jesus.

The Pope is the figurehead of the Roman Catholic beast system.

“The beast that was and is not”.

The Pope “was” as there was always a Pope according to the Catholic claim that Peter was the first Pope (an unscriptural claim). Then the Pope "is not” when he dies.

But then a new Pope is elected by the unscriptural Council of Cardinals.

So a new Pope lives and “yet is” for a few more years before the cycle repeats.

This succession of Popes is the longest line of rulers in the world.

The Romans killed Jesus to end the daily sacrifice

DANIEL 8:11   Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host,

and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

The daily sacrifice ended when the Law ended.

Caiaphas, the High Priest, tore his robe which ended the Law.

Speaking of the robe of Aaron, the first High Priest, the Bible says that it must never be torn or rent.

EXODUS 28:31   And thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue.

:32     And there shall be an hole in the top of it, in the midst thereof: it shall have a binding of woven work round about the hole of it, as it were the hole of an habergeon, that it be not rent.

MATTHEW 26:65   Then the high priest rent his clothes,

saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.

This act ended the Old Testament Law.

Then when Jesus died the Temple veil was rent by God to acknowledge that Caiaphas had ended the Law.

MATTHEW 27:50   Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

:51     And, behold,

the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom;

and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

Even the rocks in the earth’s crust tore apart.

God tore up the Temple veil when Jesus died. That was the end of the Temple worship. The daily sacrifice, as they killed a lamb every day, became meaningless from that day on.

It was the Roman Pontius Pilate who gave the death sentence to Jesus which ended the Temple daily sacrifice.

Then it was the Roman general Titus who destroyed the Temple or sanctuary in 70 AD.

These two acts prove that pagan Rome began the process that ended with the Roman Catholic Pope, represented by the beast, elevating himself to stand in the place of Christ on earth.

The Pope also pulled Peter down from Heaven by claiming that Peter, as the Door keeper, and not Jesus decides who goes to Heaven. This really impressed the barbarians who had conquered the Roman empire. They flocked to join up with the Pope who was Peter’s spokesman on earth. Or so they thought.

51-0729  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  LAZARUS

Notice. Then the first thing you know, what did he do? He stirred the regions. One day along about eleven o'clock in the day, he was preaching and there stood a little old priest across said, "You mean to tell me, Rabbi, that the time's coming when we won't have the daily sacrifice? You're wrong."

He said, "There'll come a time when a Man will be the sacrifice."

51-1003  BELIEVEST  THOU  THIS

Jesus went with him down to Jordan. I can see him come walking down about the eleven o'clock in the day. And I can hear the little old John across the pond over there. The crowds got so big they had to set him on the other side, the priests on the other side, saying, "Rabbi, do you mean to tell me that

there'll come a time when the daily sacrifice will be taken away?"

He said, "There'll come a time when a man will die for the sins of the world."

I can hear the priests say, "Oh, you're wrong, Rabbi."

He said, "Behold, there comes the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world."

54-0516  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  LAW  HAVING  A  SHADOW

Now, wouldn't you all like to have a real Bible church?

A real Bible church where all the spiritual gifts were set in order, everything making manifest just exactly the way it should be. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Now, you're going to have to sacrifice, not money.

You're going to have to sacrifice what? Some of your own ideas.

You're going to have to sacrifice some time in prayer.

You're going to have to sacrifice your... maybe a stubborn will, to break down in humility.

The whole Christian move is sacrificial. "He that will follow Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me daily."

Is that right?

How often do you have to sacrifice? Every day. Paul said, "He died daily; every day, he died."

Christians must learn to sacrifice their own ideas and prejudices.

We must prove our ideas by joining Scriptures together. Not what we think, but what the Bible says.

We must sacrifice our self-will. We must allow God to fully control us.

This is a daily sacrifice of dying to self and believing and obeying the written Scripture.

61-1231  IF  GOD  BE  WITH  US  THEN  WHERE  IS  ALL  THE  MIRACLES

So what happened then? He wanted to see the works of God. John said, "I'll know Him when He comes."

One day he was standing there, he said, "Yes, there'll come a time that the daily sacrifice will be taken away. The Messiah will be the daily Sacrifice. And the abomination that maketh desolations will set in.

Jesus as the Word or Bible will be rejected. In the same way that Jesus as a Man was rejected.

55-0403  FELLOWSHIP  BY  REDEMPTION

Now, Israel, when they come into fellowship with God, there was only one place of fellowship with God, and that was in the tabernacle. In the tabernacle is where the bleeding sacrifice was going, all the time. The people...

God never promised to meet with the people anywhere else but under the shed blood.

Think of it. I'm going to let that soak a minute now.

We're getting ready to close.

Look.

God has never promised to meet any man upon his merits, upon how good he is,

or how good she is. He's never promised to meet them there. There's no fellowship with God upon your own merit. The only place there is fellowship is under the shed blood. From Genesis to Revelations, it's only through the blood, innocent substitute to cover the guilty, penitent sinner: only the blood.

Now, notice, quickly. Israel went to the building; they shed the blood. And in this building was the only place that God would meet and fellowship with the believer. In the building that's where the shed blood was.

The lamb died at the altar, daily. The blood went on, and the black smoke hung over the tabernacle. And God could not see the sin, so the people went beneath the blood and had fellowship.

Daily we have to confess our sins. Daily we have to acknowledge the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf.

Daily we have to remember that Jesus shed His Blood for us.

We try hard to be good but we are never good enough.

When a Jew brought his lamb to the altar as a sacrifice, the priest examined the lamb, not the Jew. If the lamb had no flaws or faults, the sacrifice was accepted and the Jew was forgiven.

Our daily Sacrifice for sin is Jesus. He is the Word. Whatever you think about the Bible is what you actually think about Jesus. If you think words in the Bible are wrong and need changing, then you admit that your Sacrifice is not flawless. If you say that the Bible contradicts itself, then your sacrifice Jesus contradicts Himself and He is thus not perfect. Then your sacrifice is not accepted and your real sin, which is unbelief, is not forgiven.

Then you will never discover the revealed truth of the Bible.

So we have to remember that our daily Sacrifice is perfect. Jesus in Word form is the King James Version of the Bible which must also thus be perfect.

That is where the Roman church cast truth down by accepting things that are not in the Bible and denying things that are in the Bible. The Protestant churches followed this bad example. Many churches today regard the King James Version of the Bible as an enemy that they vigorously oppose.

So rejecting the truth of the King James Version of the Bible has spread worldwide. Most church-goers today claim to be Christians but believe that the Bible is flawed and contradictory. So unbelief has prospered. Criticizing the Bible has enabled churches to grow big.

The Roman Catholic church claims to be the mother church as she was the first denomination. The first church to assume power over other churches with man-made doctrines and pagan traditions that were merged into Christianity. Then clever Greek philosophy and elaborate ceremonies made people rely on religious church habits for their salvation. Today many believe that they are saved because they go to church regularly.

One Greek influence that has dominated the church world is the Greeks’ brilliant ability to defend error.

So the churches today can defend their errors in a very clever manner.

Their arguments are very convincing but contradict Scripture in places.

They rely on a brilliant style of argument to make up for their lack of Bible substance.

The Roman Catholic priesthood was elevated (Nicolaitanism)  to stand between man and God. People had to submit to this priesthood to get saved.

The abomination is to replace salvation through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice by some church works and some man-made traditions. Salvation becomes a mixture of faith and church works.

Believe in God but go with the program of the church.

People find safety in church membership. They stop thinking for themselves as they rely on some one-man-leader to tell them what to believe. As long as they sit regularly in their church they believe they are fine. But there are 45000 different kinds of denominational and non-denominational churches. So which church is right? Is any church right?

But all these differences breed suspicion and cause a division into rival power blocs. Each strove to put others in the shade.

God says He has vomited our last church age of Laodicea (peoples’ rights) out of His mouth.

REVELATION 3:14   And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write;

:16     So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Thus Jesus, the Word, is no longer in the church. The Bible is rejected and criticized as having mistakes, just like the Jews rejected Jesus as a Man.

REVELATION 3:20   Behold, I stand at the door, and knock:

Sadly, Jesus stands outside the modern-day church.

But Jesus is the Word. If we say there are any faults in the Bible then we are actually saying that there are faults in Jesus. No wonder He stands outside.

DANIEL 8:12   And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.

Jesus stood alone in the judgement hall of Pontius Pilate.

Everyone in the huge crowd rejected Him. Nobody spoke up for Him. The whole crowd united to condemn Him.

The same has happened today with denominational religion. They have transgressed against various Bible truths.

The Bible is described as having mistakes, contradictions, myths, and words that need to be changed.

If you say that every word in the King James Version of the Bible is perfect then it is a large group of the Christian church-goers who will condemn you.

For Christians today, the daily sacrifice involves being Scriptural and just believing in what the Bible says. This sacrifice involves being rejected by most churches. The sacrifice of reading from the Bible and then finding that people do not want to listen. They do not want to know. Then the pain of being shunned and rejected by church-goers.

The vast majority, the large host, of Christians believe things that are not written in the Bible like evolution and the Big Bang.

The common belief in the churches is that the Tribulation is 7 years instead of 3½ years.

Then comes the unscriptural Christmas on 25 December, Trinity, and the refusal to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

The refusal to acknowledge that Eve was punished for being pregnant.

GENESIS 3:16   Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception;

Her punishable conception could not be from Adam who was her lawful husband.

So truth has been cast to the ground.

The Trinity God has got no name just 3 titles

Churches do not know the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

The Roman Catholic church accepted the Trinity doctrine at the Nicaean Council of 325 AD. They spread it to the Protestants.

“God the Son” and “God the Holy Ghost” are unscriptural. Even “God the Father” never appears in the Old Testament.

“The three-are-one….”  is from Greek philosophy, not from the Bible.

No single name can be found for three separate People. So the Christian God lost His name thanks to the Trinity.

That is what angered Muhammed as he built up his alternative Muslim religion by giving God a name, Allah. So the Trinity doctrine was partly responsible for the rise of the Muslim faith, as they further trample truth to the ground.

Christians cannot give God a single name.

They talk about the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost but cannot tell us what that name is.

Denominational Churchianity has flourished and grown into a huge host. It is now the vast bulk of the Christian world. Error has prospered as the number of church-goers has multiplied enormously. People settle complacently into their multitude of different types of churches.

They believe that their safety depends on church membership and obedience to their church creeds.

They believe in a Trinity and yet claim that man was made in the image of God.

But a man and a woman on earth is not the image of three Men in Heaven.

“And it practiced, and prospered”.

Each church practices its own man-made ideas and ceremonies that people love. They sprinkle babies and later confirm them. They set up Christmas trees and decorations. Not to mention Santa Claus and reindeers and Easter eggs and rabbits. Disco music whips up a “bubble dancing” infatuation that stops when the drums stop. Drums are never mentioned in the Bible but are an essential component of modern-day church entertainment.

Baptism is done in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But nobody is allowed to ask what that name is because church-goers cannot answer the question. Everyone is bluffed into thinking that three titles somehow become a name.

But this practice has fooled the masses and swelled the church numbers. Church-goers regard big congregations and much money as the signs of prospering.

Divide and conquer has the pastor above the people

PERGAMEAN  CHURCH  AGE  -  CHURCH  AGE  BOOK  CPT.5

Now we know that the wounded head was the pagan Roman Empire, that great political world power. This head rose again as the "Roman Catholic spiritual empire". Now watch this carefully. What did political pagan Rome do that was the basis of her success? She, "divided and conquered." That was the seed of Rome--divide and conquer. Her iron teeth tore and devoured. Whom she tore and devoured could not rise again as when she destroyed Carthage and sowed her to salt. The same iron seed remained in her when she arose as the false church, and her policy has remained the same--

divide and conquer. That is Nicolaitanism and God hates it.

[Nicolaitanism is elevating the preachers above the congregation to form an elect priesthood]

[I PETER 2:9   But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,…

All saved Christians are part of the priesthood. No priest is above any other priest. Only the High Priest, Jesus, is above a priest]

Now it is a well known historical fact that when this error crept into the church, men began to vie for the office of bishop with the result that this position was being given to the more educated and materially-progressive and politically-minded men. Human knowledge and program began to take over Divine wisdom's place and the Holy Spirit no longer controlled. This was indeed a tragic evil, for the bishops began to maintain that it no longer required a transparent Christian character to minister either the Word or the rites in the church for it was the elements and the ceremony that counted. This allowed evil men (seducers) to rend the flock.

With the man-made doctrine of the elevation of bishops to a place not accorded them in Scripture,

the next step was the handing out of graded titles that built up into a religious hierarchy; for soon there were archbishops over bishops and cardinals over the archbishops and by the time of Boniface the third there was a pope over all, a Pontiff.

[Boniface was Pope for AD 607 and died that year. He sought and obtained a decree from Emperor Phocas in Constantinople which restated that "the See of Blessed Peter the Apostle should be the head of all the Churches". This ensured that the title of "Universal Bishop" belonged exclusively to the Bishop of Rome. Thus the Bishop of Rome was now the recognized Pope and head of the church].

What with the Nicolaitane doctrine and the amalgamation of Christianity with Babylonianism

the net results had to be what Ezekiel saw in Chapter 8:10,

"So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall around."

Revelation 18:2,

"And he cried mightily, with a strong voice saying,

Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird,

for all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."

Now this Nicolaitane doctrine, this rule that was established in the church did not hit it off too well with a lot of the people for they could read the odd epistle or essay on the Word written by some godly person. So what did the church do?

It excommunicated the righteous teachers and burned the scrolls.

They said, "It takes a special education to read and understand the Word. Why even Peter said that many things Paul wrote were hard to understand." Having taken away the Word from the people,

it soon came to the people listening only to what the priest had to say, and doing what he told them.

They called that God and His holy Word. They took over the minds and lives of the people and made them the servants of a despotic priesthood.

Now if you want proof that

the Catholic Church demands the lives and minds of men,

just listen to the edict of Theodosius X. Theodosius' First Edict.

This edict was issued immediately after he was baptized by the First Church of Rome. "We three emperors will that our subjects steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by Saint Peter to the Romans, which has been faithfully preserved by tradition and which is now professed by the pontiff, Damasus of Rome,

[In AD 366 Damasus hired thugs to kill 137 opposition members and then a few days later to kill another 160 opposition members, of the non-Trinitarian Arian group, in order to be elected Pope]

and Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of Apostolic holiness according to the institution of the Apostles, and the doctrine of the Gospel; let us believe in one Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of equal majesty in the Holy Trinity. We order that the adherents of this faith be called Catholic Christians; we brand all the senseless followers of the other religions with the infamous name of heretics, and forbid their conventicles assuming the name of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect the heavy penalty which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom shall think proper to inflict..."

The fifteen penal laws that this emperor issued in as many years deprived the evangelicals of all rights to the exercise of their religion, excluded them from all civil offices, and threatened them with fines, confiscation, banishment and even in some cases, death.

Do you know what? We are headed right that way today.

The Roman Catholic Church calls herself the Mother church. She calls herself the first or original church. That is absolutely correct. She was the original First Church of Rome that backslid and went into sin. She was the first that organized. In her was found the deeds and then the doctrine of Nicolaitanism. No one will deny that she is a mother. She is a mother and has produced daughters. Now a daughter comes out of a woman. A woman robed in scarlet is sitting on the seven hills of Rome. She is a harlot and has borne daughters.

Those daughters are the Protestant churches that came out of her and then went right back into organization and Nicolaitanism.

This Mother of the daughter-churches is called a whore. That is a woman who was untrue to her marriage vows. She was married to God and then went off fornicating with the devil and in her fornications she has brought forth daughters that are just like her.

This mother and daughter combination is anti-Word, anti-Spirit and consequently anti-Christ. Yes, ANTICHRIST.

Now before I get too far along I want to mention that these early bishops thought that they were above the Word.

They told people they could forgive their sins upon confession of those sins. That never was the truth. They began to baptize infants in the second century. They actually practiced regenerational baptism. No wonder people are mixed up today. If they were so mixed up then, so close to Pentecost, now they are in a most desperate condition, being about 2000 years away from original truth.

Oh, Church of God, there is only one hope. Get back to the Word and stay with it.