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The Real Conspiracy
(The Big Picture)
We hear a lot about conspiracy theories these days. Some are just educated guesses, others wild extrapolations, but some are undoubtedly based on good research. Many, like Hitler, have laid out their plans openly if you know where to look. Others assume political opinion has been turned so completely that the mere denunciation of one who suggests a conspiracy is real will shame the whistle-blower into silence. When there is an obvious burying of information, we can surmise that this is a trail to follow.
But one thing is certain. There has been at least one global conspiracy since the beginning of time—or earlier—and any others that are genuine are just sub-plots of this one, whether they know it or not.
In the 1860s, Alexander Hislop did a masterful job of showing, in The Two Babylons, how all paganism—from Greek mythology (when it wasn’t real planetary events they were describing) to what the Roman Church allowed back into an entity first built on sure Hebraic foundations—stems from Nimrod, his wife, and her son allegedly born to Nimrod post-mortem as his supposed reincarnation.
So who was this Nimrod and what did he do? The Biblical data on him is minimal. He is called a “mighty hunter before YHWH” who founded several cities two generations after Noah’s flood. (Gen. 10:8ff) But something mentioned so early in Scripture has ramifications that reverberate all through history. Why? One seemingly-minor comment tells it all: “The beginning of his kingdom was Bavel.” (10:10)
Ah, now we have much more data to deal with, especially when we realize that Bavel (Babel) and Babylon are the same place; the latter is just the Greek way to say it.
Other legends say Nimrod hunted down wild beasts to keep his subjects safe (as Namer-rad, the “subduer of leopards”), then became the first to build walled cities to keep them out. Some say he was killed by someone righteous (probably Shem) for introducing idolatry into the world—most notably worship of the sun and other heavenly luminaries. His son was also mourned by pagans of all generations for his tragic, violent death, possibly at the hands of Esau, another great hunter. (Gen. 25:27)
But Hislop showed that Nimrod was known in every classical nation throughout history by countless names—from Orion to Saturn to Atlas to (the earlier) Zoroaster to Baal to Molech to Bacchus to the Norse Balder. They were all just different ways of telling the same story. His wife, Semiramis, also came to be deified as Venus, Isis, Diana, Rhea, Astarte/Asherah/Ishtar/Eostre/Easter, Cybele, Fortuna, and was later disguised as Mary to keep the paganism from being too obvious when it had to go underground (“occult”). She supposedly remained a “virgin goddess” even after she bore his supposed son Tammuz, through whom they claimed Nimrod was resurrected. Tammuz was also known as Osiris, Horus, Yule, Krishna, Cupid, Mithras, and Adonis, whose worship was later hidden behind that of the Christ-child (because his birthday was December 25). This “holy family” of three was deified by those who followed their lead into idol-worship.
As far afield as the South Seas, one of the things he was celebrated as was “the lifter of the oppressively-low heavens”—an allegory of one who wanted to “free” human beings from the “burdens” YHWH had placed on us after the Flood to prevent a repetition of the excesses that led to the need for a Flood. And we see that same pattern over and over when men want to be free to do their own thing. But the strictures YHWH had put in place were not a cage, but rather guardrails to keep us from making a train wreck of society again.
Another possible etymology of Nimrod’s name is Nin-mirud –“the rebel child”. Bavel was his first case of overt rebellion. YHWH had told Noah’s descendants to replenish the earth (Gen. 9:1) and that required spreading out over its whole surface. This he decided not to do. The historian Herodotus confirms that all idolatry flowed out of Babylon. But a critical point to recognize is that behind Nimrod was another, “deeper state” mastermind, who was also a rebel.
The Challenger
Eddie Chumney summarized history as a dispute in the heavenlies being played out in the physical realm, because haSatan (“the accuser” or simply “the adversary”) lodged a complaint when YHWH named mankind the ruler over His creation. (Psalm 8:6) He* thought he could be a better ruler, and 1/3 of the angels agreed with him. In fact, he thought he could even do better than YHWH Himself! (Isaiah 14:12-14) YHWH gave him a fair shake at proving he was really right, but Heaven was too holy a dimension to allow such a contest. So this universe was, in part, created as the battleground.
He did in fact beat the first Adam by undercutting his high opinion of the Creator with doubts about His motives (Gen. 3), and was given his realm to rule, being called “the prince of this world” (Yochanan/John 12:31), until another human being worthy of the deed to this world (Revelation 5:2) could be found.
One has been found who succeeded at the same test Adam failed (Phil. 2:6) and all authority in both heaven and earth has been given to him (Mat. 28:18), except, of course, that of YHWH, Who gave it to him. (1 Cor. 15:27) This officially ousted haSatan (Yochanan 14:30), but this is not to be manifested universally until haSatan is allowed to play out his whole hand and show what his “better” world will look like, within reason, so he does not destroy everything as he nearly did before YHWH had to flood the world and start over.
HaSatan also started over at Bavel. His strategy depended on the pooling of many minds in one place, so he persuaded them to settle down at the first suitable site they found. YHWH had tried to preclude this by telling fallen men to scatter, but they disobeyed under Nimrod, so over and over in history He has had to cause setbacks like this so we would not ruin His creation as we tend to do. When knowledge starts going too far in a wrong direction, to save humanity, some of that knowledge has to be lost to the masses. He usually just lets haSatan’s own philosophies breed the setbacks on their own, as in the Dark Ages--the natural result of faulty reasoning when truth was valued less than power. But at Bavel He had to speed up this process because if haSatan’s end goal was realized too early, it would all collapse before everything was in place.
We have recently seen how things can implode when ideals are ramrodded through before the right groundwork is laid, whether by trying to terminate fossil fuels before there is sufficient infrastructure to support “green” alternatives (making it necessary to buy the former from elsewhere at much greater cost) or South America’s too-quick push for hydroelectric power that backfired disastrously. Yet haSatan is a tyrant at heart and force is the only way he knows to rule. YHWH’s idea works better, especially in a fallen world—allowing free will but overcoming evil with good by those who have “saved their data on the heavenly backup drive” laying down their lives because they do not need to worry about whether their present bodies are lost. But haSatan is too proud to admit that works best.
Though his kingdom was limited, he was allowed a long leash to show off what he had to offer. And some of it was pretty splendid—Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome… each mitigated by some of YHWH’s operatives being close at hand, even in the inner workings of the governments (think Joseph, Moses, Daniel, or Esther) so they would not become too tyrannical or genocidal. Israel was created partly as a counter-measure to slow the spread of evil, not through subterfuge but through shining light in dark places and exposing the counterfeits by holding the real thing up beside them.
Then for 2,000 years after the Messiah made possible the transformation of hearts (Ezek. 36:26) and minds (Romans 12:2) that could make men truly good again even in a still-unholy environment (and unholy bodies), as the promised redemption spread throughout the world, haSatan was still allowed to operate, partly underground (sneaking paganism into Messiah’s following a little at a time so it was harder to recognize), to leave the door open for men to be rewarded for making the right choices. In one sense, his rule was now a rebellious, illegal one, because a new heir to the world had been named. But YHWH allowed men, who were now on better footing than ever before, to choose whether to follow the legitimate ruler or the subversive rogue.
Its Modus Operandi
Since all the way back at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, YHWH has hated mixtures of things He created to be distinct. (Lev. 19:19; Ex. 34:16; Deut. 22:10) The Torah was given to teach us to make distinctions (Lev. 10:9-10), and He is reviving its preeminence in this day when the strongest delusion will soon be upon us. (2 Thessalonians 2:11) The book of Proverbs emphasized the paramount importance of building skill in the area of discernment, and gave us great examples of how to do so.
What ambitious rulers since Nimrod have tried to do is to unite all of humanity under one banner, which means making compromises that force us to give up whatever is unique or exclusive. Sometimes that can be temporarily beneficial in a crisis, to ensure the basic welfare of more people, but it is not healthy if you have to sacrifice truth as revealed by YHWH’s spokesmen. That reveals whose hand is behind it.
“Catholic” simply means “universal” (literally “according to the whole”) and the entity which adopted that name did make many compromises with paganism in order to keep its new constituency, most of whom had come out of paganism but out of whom some of the pagan traditions had not been able to be purged, and those unlearned in the history of YHWH’s work in the world could not see the difference in things that to them looked pretty similar on the surface. And much of that similarity was intentional as camouflage for the infiltrators.
Thus, what came to be called the Church was a mixture of YHWH’s truth (Hebraic culture handed down from heaven, culminating in the Messiah) and Nimrod’s paganism (largely the worship of things YHWH created to be servants to humanity rather than or in addition to the Creator Himself, or a misplaced emphasis on nature as if it was still in its pristine state rather than corrupted as it actually is).
That doesn’t mean that everything that has a pagan parallel started in paganism. The fake is not always an obvious antithesis of the True; haSatan “puts some truth in every lie”, as the late Keith Green noted, to make it harder to distinguish the fact that he is building a counterfeit. He does not create anything new; the best he can make is a corrupt copy, or a mixture—never anything original.
The prophecy of the Seed of the Woman who would finally defeat the Seed of the Serpent (Gen. 3:15) was well-known to the re-founders of the world after the Flood (Eve herself having thought Cain was already the fulfillment of that promise before she was so greatly disappointed). The pagans laid claim to the virgin birth, which was nonetheless still necessary to deal with human sin (though unlike the pagan goddess they tried to conflate with her, the real Miryam/Mary did not stay a virgin all her life but had other sons in the normal way). But what better way for the serpent to cloud the picture than to precede the real fulfillment with an artificial, forced one, and try to redefine its terms in the public mind? As we will see, that will be his strategy all the way up to the days preceding the return of the real Messiah.
HaSatan tried to beat YHWH to the punch and in the process gave some good things a bad name—his intent all along. (This, of course, meant reducing them to something that did not require miracles to accomplish.)
Many names for the Nimrodic family included “the Branch”, the Deliverer, or the “son of oil” (the Anointed One, or Messiah). The cross was another crucial component (no pun intended—that is its definition!) These and other parts of the solution YHWH had prophesied early on got co-opted—which is one reason He left some aspects of His plan only minimally explained until redemption had already become an accomplished fact. (1 Corinthians 2:8)
But once the real thing was in place, going back to the earlier failed attempts was not only a slap in YHWH’s face, but a downright danger to those who now could be redeemed—but could also be kept from redemption by smokescreens that clouded the simple solution YHWH had provided to the problem of sin and death that had resulted from that “tree of mixture”.
A Scepter Handed Down
Nebukhadnetzar, Babylon’s greatest ancient king, was given a dream that laid out in advance the whole history of this series of nearly-world-encompassing empires. (Dan. 2:31-45) It came in the form of a statue of a man: “His head was of fine gold, his chest and arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.” The king was told Babylon was the head. Its mystery-based religion “made all the earth drunk”. (Jeremiah 51:7) Its legacy and spirit continued down through the other kingdoms in the vision—Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and its numerous successors.
When literal Babylon’s empire fell, “The defeated Chaldean [priests]s fled to Asia Minor, and fixed their central college at Pergamos," according to historian William Barker in Lares and Penates of Cilicia. “This made Pergamos the temporary new ‘seat’ of Babylonian mystery religion." Alexander Hislop notes, “There, in consequence, for many centuries was ‘Satan’s seat.’ [cf. Revelation 2:13] There, under favor of the deified kings of Pergamos, … was the worship of Asklepios, under the form of the serpent… Pergamos itself became part and parcel of the Roman Empire, when Attalus III, the last of its kings, at his death, left by will all his dominions to the Roman people in 133 BC. In this way, the Roman emperors had become the heirs of ‘Satan’s seat’ during John’s day. Later, when the Roman Empire collapsed, its successor, the Holy Roman Empire, would inherit the role.” Thus there is both a literal and physical connection between Babylon and Rome.
Another “mixed” kingdom, somehow connected to its predecessors, will inherit it in the days to come. (Daniel 2:33) It seems to be shaping up to be much more “catholic” this time, incorporating not just two antithetical faiths, but all religions, or at least the major “recognized” ones. It will have a messiah figure who claims to be the one each of them has been looking for, to delude them all.
Babylon was the head, so the whole body is known as Babylon in the final version that appears in the book of Revelation. But the real Messiah is also called “the Head” and he has a “body” too (Eph. 4:16; Col. 1:18; 2:19), of which we do want to be a part.
There is an “image” (Rev. 13:15) in the final manifestation of the counterfeit kingdom, and it speaks. There are many speculations about what form that will take, but the fact that men worship it immediately ties it to the image Nevukhadnetzar set up and ordered all his subjects to bow down to. (Daniel 3) Daniel’s three companions famously refused—prototypes for a day that is coming when we too will need to do so, in faith that our Elohim can preserve us, but that even if not, He alone is worthy of our worship. (3:18)
But there is an “image” in the Real things as well—the “image of Elohim” which humanity initially carried but lost. (In Genesis 5:3 we are told that Adam’s son was born in his own image—not Elohim’s any longer.) We were truncated from the original definition of human, hence YHWH’s asking where the man He had created had disappeared to. (Gen. 3:9)
This image is not an idol (pessel) like the kind forbidden in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:4), but an outline (tselem) that demarcates the parameters of how to understand how far we are “like Elohim” and where we are not! It’s the same word as for a “shadow”, which shows the true shape of what cast it, but the shadow is never the substance itself! Adam and Eve failed to make this distinction, but another was to come who would not fail. YHWH kept the Adam prototype and fleshed it out again in one called the “second” or “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). This was that “seed” promised since the very day we were sentenced, and uniquely exempted (because of virgin birth) from the poison passed down from Adam’s veins every time an egg (immoral until that point) was fertilized by a male carrier of the genetic defect, as Dr. Arthur Custance explained in The Seed of the Woman. He thus was able to be, genetically, the same thing Adam was before he lost YHWH’s full image.
Thus in Yeshua the Image of Elohim was restored, and can be restored in anyone who chooses to be transferred from Adam’s race to Yeshua’s (the only two races that actually exist) by the same spirit that first enabled the true human DNA to spring back to life in Yeshua. (2 Cor. 3:18) It is a privilege offered to us all for the asking.
The same word (tselem) is used of the image Nevukhadnetzar built (Daniel 3:1-18), showing that he was trying to replace that tselem that had been lost in the Garden. He built it all of gold (misconstruing the point of his dream in which only the head—identified as himself--was gold). He let it “go to his head”.
But even the term “kingdom” was first used of Nimrod’s—at the initial manifestation of Babylon--but we know that the “Kingdom of Elohim” was a major theme of Yeshua and the other prophets. His will be the final one, never to be overthrown.
This is the real of which the other is a counterfeit, for the final outcome in the prophetic dream is that “a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like … chaff… and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them: and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.”
The interpretation Daniel gave was that “the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly fragmented. As you saw iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not adhere one to another, even as iron cannot be mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the Elohim of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” (Daniel 2:34-35, 42-44)
Just as we see in the world of politics today, haSatan will only be able to get these men to cooperate by coercion, and as we saw with the Soviet Union, that kind of unity falls apart as soon as there is any loosening of the repression. The mixtures do not ultimately work! (Dan. 2:43) They weaken the whole structure because the foundation is faulty. A Church of mixed Hebrew and pagan elements, too, cannot stand; it is only a holding tank at best until the full manifestation of the restored tribes of Israel is ready for its temporary occupants to be transferred to.
When HaSatan divides, it is to conquer—a predictable, shallow plot; when YHWH divides (as He did with the two houses of Israel—it was His idea, per 1 Kings 12:24), it is to make us more fruitful than we could have been as only one entity and to keep many of His protected ones hidden until the time comes to bring them back together—just as He did with Adam in the creation of Chawwah (Eve). The time of our being more fruitful separately will soon end, and Israel will no longer be considered two kingdoms, but one again. (Ezekiel 37:22) Some thought of the two as physical and spiritual Israel, but it turns out they were mainly two halves of physical Israel, one overt and one incognito, plus the many Gentiles who because of their proximity to either the Jews or the “lost sheep of the (Northern) House of Israel” (Mat. 5:24)—Yeshua’s “other flock” (Yochanan 10:16)—were able to be grafted into one branch of Israel or the other. (Romans 11, based on Ezekiel 37:16ff)
But just as the “Church” (more properly the ekklesia, “called-out community”) was infiltrated by Babylon, not everything connected with Israel now is holy either. There is a surface version of Israel which may even play into the conspiracy when it forgets its deeper meaning. Babylon (the antithesis of Jerusalem) may even temporarily have its headquarters at Jerusalem just before the end of this age, for why would not haSatan want to appear to be fulfilling the prophecies of the Messianic Kingdom this time, just as he tried with Nimrod and the popes? So this requires some “rightly dividing of the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) to be ready to recognize when this he is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Some even point out the similarity of the “mother of harlots” (Rev. 17:5) with the allegory of Judah committing even worse prostitution than her wayward Northern sister (Ezek. 23:11), and they ask, “Is Rome or Jerusalem really the harlot?” A chilling question, which seems downright blasphemous, but despite its repudiation of idolatry, Judaism, too, is indeed still not without its pagan aspects—the superstitious “hand”, the adoption of the Babylonian months, all named after pagan deities, including Tammuz himself. Not saying the name of our deity was also a practice brought back from Babylon after the captivity. But Rome kept the entire paradigm of Babylon under different names, so it is the primary heir of Babylon—but “if the shoe fits…” None of us has completely escaped its influence.
The Conspiracy in Biblical Terms
So, yes, there is a grand conspiracy—one of global proportions and more—encompassing the heavenly realms as well. Anyone who has not been called out of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of the Second Adam (Colossians 1:13) is still, whether he knows it or not, part of the Kingdom of Darkness. (Yochanan 3:36; 1 Yoch. 5:12; 1 Peter 2:9) Most of the conspirators don’t know they’re involved in it; they are just following their own selfish tendencies—“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”—things Yochanan says define “the world” (1 Yochanan/John 2:16), which in its entirety “lies within the wicked one“. (1 Yoch. 5:19)
That “world” seems to be the biblical term for this conspiracy behind all conspiracies. (Remember who “the prince of this world” is.) “The world’s” goal has always been to be one entity, unified—but not for good, but rather to oppose YHWH and those who remain faithful to Him, as we have seen since the Bavel incident. It all boils down to just these two sides: “If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.” (1 Yochanan 2:15) Another writer, whom Yeshua named his successor, agrees: “If anyone wants to be a friend of the world, he makes [himself] an enemy of Elohim.” (Yaaqov/James 4:4) If that is not a division rather than a mixture, what is?
Yet now we are thrown a curveball: “Elohim loved the world so much that He gave His only son”, for “YHWH did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but that through him the world might be salvaged.” (Yochanan 3:16-17) Its citizens we, too, are told to love, even when they oppose us, for we have something they do not (Romans 12:20), and they are helpless to avoid a hostile response to what they cannot understand until YHWH moves on their hearts—and He usually means to do that through us.
The part of the ”world” that we are not to love is the “world order” that has been in place—sometimes below the radar—since haSatan’s own attempted coup. Both concepts do mesh, because a watershed was created by Yeshua’s presence: “This is the deciding factor: a light has appeared in the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (Yoch. 3:19) He recognizes the dilemma for those who follow him into the light: “If the world hates you, realize it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not [part] of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world; that’s why the world hates you.” (Yochanan 15:18-19)
Therefore a big part of Yeshua’s brother’s definition of “pure, undefiled [unmixed!] religion” (besides helping the neediest who are left with no covering against the environmental and economic effects of the system’s evil) is “to keep oneself unsullied by the world.” (Yaaqov/James 1:27) It bears repeating because we have that inward pull to security, to be part of what seems to provide for everyone.
Disentangling the Mixture
For the tree of life to again flourish in this world, the mingling of good and evil brought by that other tree’s fruit had to be taken back apart, and that has often required the (temporary) loss of some things that appeared—and actually were--good. One thing that means is that we have to divest ourselves of all the pagan things that have gotten mixed in with the truth. Sometimes that can be very painful because of the emotional attachments we have for memories of things we now know originated in compromise.
In this struggle, “The flesh sets its desire against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, so that you cannot do what you wish.” (Galatians 5:17) Even some of the most straightforward principles of life in a fallen world had to be set aside and some strange rules followed: “Love your enemies, bless them who curse you, do good to them who hate you, and pray for those who falsely accuse you and persecute you.” (Mat. 5:44) Sometimes that has resulted even in martyrdom, to be sure, which seems a far cry from the blessings once promised to those who keep the commandments, which are designed to keep us safe in a world interlaced with evil. We are now called to be part of the solution in a deeper way, and are thus special forces in a war, and as with every soldier, we are no longer civilians; our normal life is disrupted. But with YHWH, that is not the end of the story. In the final analysis, after the conspirators play out their hand against you, still “not a hair of your head will perish”. (Luke 21:18) The promises will ultimately be kept—after the adventure He allows us in the meantime.
This is a drama in which over and over, it appears all is lost—that the good/evil mix has won out over the actual, pure good, making a mockery of all those who dare to hope against all odds. Think of the stories of the Red Sea crossing, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, his three friends in the furnace, Queen Esther, the Maccabees, the crucifixion of the one it had been hoped would be Messiah. It didn’t stop with Biblical times. Within the memory of many alive today are the restoration of the nation of Israel after the Holocaust, the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War, when many nations ganged up against an Israel that appeared easy to vanquish, yet she emerged the victor.
The Master Playwright against whom the conspirators rage loves the thicken the plot and push things right up to the brink and sometimes even beyond, building the suspense until all visible hope is lost, and then bring deliverance from an unseen, unexpected source that had been readied for just that occasion.
He even made some things look impossible, partly to show that He could still untie these gordian knots, and partly to keep the woman’s seed hidden until it was time. We saw how gruesome the attacks were on the infants once Herod knew where the Messiah had been born; how many other things did haSatan try to do to keep the line even from getting to that point? Yehoash (Joash) had to be hidden away for six years in the only place off limits to his wicked usurper of an aunt (2 Kings 11), or the line would have been lost even then. Later, he persuaded Y’khoniyah (Coniah) to become so evil that even YHWH could not stand to let any son of his continue on David’s throne. That appeared to terminate the promise (Jeremiah 22:30), but YHWH had the royal seed take twists and turns through loopholes like levirate marriages before coming back to light, as Dr. Arthur Custance has ably shown in Hidden Things of God’s Revelation. YHWH can indeed “out-sneak” the Sneaky one when He has to. (2 Samuel 22:26-27)
Some things can’t be disentangled until the very last moment: “An enemy has done this…[but] lest while you gather up the tares you uproot the wheat with them, let them both grow together until the harvest.” (Mat. 13:28-30) There is the danger of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” if we carry our hunt for paganism too far. Some have even thrown out Yeshua (without whom our transfer back to the original human race would be impossible) when trying to throw out baby Tammuz! And we can’t always tell who the real enemy is and who will end up our ally. Remember Sha’ul, the rabbinical scholar who appeared to be another Haman to the earliest followers of Yeshua, yet ended up using his expertise to champion his cause and become the spearhead for bringing the lost tribes back into covenant.
Yes, while there is a strong conspiracy that each day seems to be bumping off more and more of those who stand in its way, none of this is a surprise to YHWH, who has always had “hidden arrows in His quiver” (Isaiah 49:1-2) saved for just the time when nothing else is left and the enemy seems to have the victory sewn up.
The Culmination
HaSatan will be given one more shot at bringing about an earthly paradise as he defines it, so that no one can say his ideas were never tried. We are now at the point where the pieces are nearly in place for the counterfeit Kingdom to play out its final version, because humanity has advanced far enough to actually make the world a pretty good place. Hunger has been overcome—if we will distribute the food equitably. Cleaner energy is available, if we will choose it. HaSatan wants “his” world to be a pleasant one, so he is trying to coerce mankind into making the more sustainable choices, hence all the political wrangling about this agenda. Much disease has been done away with—if we will not release it back into the wild, as scientists working for selfish rather than altruistic interests just did. Something similar to this will finally blow his cover. People will see through the facade, and it will all unravel.
Since haSatan wants the worship that is only due the One who could really make a utopia work, he is undercutting the success of his plan. So it is doomed to fail, because without changing human nature, men will not be altruistic or symbiotic when pressured by anything out of their comfort zones.
But though Babylon could not get all nations to cooperate, YHWH can. There will indeed finally be a worldwide reign of one king, as Daniel told us. YHWH has already written the end of the story and made it known to us, so it is clear which kingdom one should side with, no matter how hard it gets before that.
Yet haSatan seems to think he can still change the script and the outcome! He genuinely seems to imagine that he can win the battle!
He has one more trick up his sleeve, which he really thinks will work: transhumanism, the mixture par excellence. It is billed as the next stage in evolution, a deliberate self-evolving carried out by our species itself. If he can just change human nature, he thinks, he can circumvent the need for a new birth by mixing humanity with the cyborg, and make mankind immortal without the justly-required death that now takes the reborn to their full inheritance with the redemption of their bodies. (Romans 8:23) He wants men to think they can be reborn without the shedding of the blood of one truly innocent.
But only one thing can really change human nature: the regenerating infusion of Messiah’s spirit which reverts individuals back into bearers of Elohim’s image, and which can bring humanity back to what it was before Adam fell (and beyond, for the Messiah, once he had been fully tested, was no longer innocent as Adam was, but actually righteous, having made the right choice and therefore been rewarded by graduating to a higher level that Adam never got to). This is a restoration of the kind of humanity YHWH created—which is how He wanted it, not a new species He did not create or intend.
HaSatan has always claimed he could carry a soul into another body (e.g., reincarnation) and that it would arrive undamaged. YHWH’s idea is to instead reconstitute the same body that became corrupted, so that a person’s own identity remains. But though he tempts us through individualistic self-interest, haSatan does not care about individuals, only about blanket mandates that advance his cause more quickly, which is why his previous attempts at “workers’ paradises” have all ended up as blood-baths or fudged success stories based on lies told often enough to sound believable since any alternative explanations have been censored so that the public never gets to hear what is really available.
HaSatan only wants the finest specimens in his paradise, so he has no qualms about culling out the “undesirables”--not just the handicapped and weak, but also those who will not bow to his philosophy because they can see through his lies. That’s why YHWH’s people have always been his special target for annihilation or at least suppression to the point of having no voice and therefore relegated to poverty because their choice not to worship the false lord has left them ostracized and outcasts, sometimes to the point of letting the natural course of starvation kill off those he can’t overtly slaughter.
Two Opposing Marks
We are “in the world, but not of it”. Israel is called to be separate, “not counted among the nations” (Numbers 23:9), though located right in the very center so it can influence them all. And YHWH continues to call us to “come out of [Babylon], My people” (Revelation 18:4, based on Jeremiah 50:8; 51:6-8) “and be separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17). This must increasingly become our flint-hard mindset as the ultimatum approaches in which those who do not join with the bandwagon will not be permitted to participate in the system that will then monopolize public society, presented, using Daniel’s terms (Dan. 7), as a “beast” that rules the whole world:
“He [a second “Beast” who promotes the first] causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, unless he had the mark, or the name of the [first] Beast, or the number of his name.” (Rev. 13:16-17)
Twice in this context we are told “Here is the [key to] the endurance of the set-apart ones”. One tells us the final outcome: “The one that leads into captivity will go into captivity; the one who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword.” (Rev. 13:10) I.e., don’t make any compromises just to survive, because justice will ultimately come. And the second key is, “If anyone worships the Beast and his image, and receives [his] mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of Elohim… and be tormented… for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the Beast and his image, and whosoever receives the mark of his name.” (Rev. 14:9-11) Knowing that can give the courage to withstand the torture and not give in.
But for that we need support. Becoming a tight community has been the only way for Israel (in all its forms) to avoid the inroads of paganism, and it will also be the way to not become so dependent on “the world” for our sustenance, because as we saw above, a time is coming when it will demand all-or-nothing allegiance, and will appear to leave us no other way to survive. (We experienced a “dry run/ pilot test” of this in the recent vaccine mandates.) But when all worldly securities are taken away, just as He did before, YHWH can provide us with manna in the wilderness again. (Psalm 78:22-25) It may again be something that unusual, or it may just be His providing resources for us through one another.
Just as the unified world will have its mark of membership, the manna came for the first time in the context of YHWH putting His mark on us after we had put the mark He designated for protection on the doors of our houses:
“And it [the observance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread] shall be for a sign to you on your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, so that the Torah of YHWH may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand YHWH has brought you out from Egypt.” (Ex. 13:9) See? On your hand and between your eyes—on your forehead. The Beast’s mark is again just a counterfeit of this one, and in the final shakedown, no counterfeit passes for true currency and can therefore not buy you anything real.
That kind of mark shows up again in a vision YHWH gave Ezekiel of idols brought into His house and women at His doors weeping for Tammuz (Ezk. 8:14)—remember, Nimrod’s baby son!--while others were outside sighing and crying over the abominations being done in His house. But YHWH put a special mark of protection on their foreheads before He began to bring judgment. (Ezk.9:4ff)
Those being so accused are the House of Israel—so this is likely referring to the later Church (most of which descended from the Northern Kingdom) more than anything in the actual Jerusalem Temple. The vision was given at the gate from Jerusalem “that looks north” (8:3)—facing his audience, the Northern Kingdom, whose chief crime (possibly its chief form of idolatry) was “mixing with the nations” (Hosea 7:8)—the very thing all Israel has been warned against all along. The right kind of weepers were outside the Temple and the wrong kind inside, suggesting they have taken over YHWH’s sanctuary, substituting pagan worship there, as was seen in the days of the Maccabees and the Romans, but then allegorically, the Roman religious system infiltrated the worship of YHWH and excluded those who insisted on maintaining the true standard of worship. (Compare Daniel 8:11-14; 9:27; Mat. 24:15)
So as the first instance of the good mark referred to Passover, what they are doing here (while keeping those marked with YHWH’s “brand” outside) refers clearly to Easter, with its sunrise services—for in facing east toward the sun, these pagans at the doorway of YHWH’s house had their backs to His Temple! (Ezk. 8:16) That is the sign of repudiation and scorn for His true sanctuary. So the demarcation between these two simultaneous holidays is a great watershed in YHWH’s eyes. (Interestingly, when the way of figuring the date for Easter was decided upon, it was based on the equinox and divorced from all connection to Passover, proving that it was not about Yeshua’s resurrection, but that of Tammuz.)
Remember, the false worshippers claim to be able to buy or sell, but their currency is as unreal as Bitcoin! It’s a mirage, propped up by sleight of hand just like the Wizard of Oz. Their earthly leader may even be nothing more than a hologram. They think they are the ones with the resources, but just as He did with Pharaoh in Egypt, YHWH is again going to put immense pressure from the natural (created) world on the world men have superimposed on it. (It appears He will even disrupt their neat equinox calculations by restoring the earth to its original orbit, which was much more orderly.) But before He does, He tells His messengers of judgment, “Do not harm land, sea, or tree until we have sealed the servants of our Elohim in their foreheads.” (Revelation 7:3) As with Goshen (Exodus 8:23), these people will be exempt from (at least some of) the plagues that come on “the world” at this time. (Rev. 9:4)
What is that seal? Besides the Passover in particular (as seen above), the Words of YHWH in general (but in particular, the Shema’, the witness that YHWH is one—unlike pagan deities) are to be “a sign on your hand and like frontlets between your eyes” (Deut. 6:8)—i.e., on your right hand or forehead, for, again, the Beast’s mark is only a counterfeit. The meditating on Torah with our heads and the doing of Torah with our hands are the mark we want to bear, as opposed to the other mark, which will incur the same wholesale wrath that came on those in Ezekiel’s vision, just as it did on the gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12).
A prophecy that used to be part of some canons of Scripture tells us, “If you prepare your hearts, to sow in them the fruits of Torah, it will protect you in that time when YHWH is to shake the whole creation.” (2 Baruch 32:1) Don’t worry; step out of the way and wait in the wings (Isa. 26:20), because this shaking is not targeting you. Its purpose is to separate, to disentangle the mixture: “Yet once more, I will shake the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land.” (Haggai 2:6) “And this ‘Yet once more’ signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” (Hebrews 12:27) The evil will be removed and only the good will be left—as at creation, so it is the complete reversal of the ill effects of the wrong tree.
Whether the conspirators overload the electromagnetic fields with their new infrastructure or end up causing a nuclear war, this “world” will “destroy the earth” and YHWH will in turn destroy those who have again ruined the world He created. (Revelation 11:18)
HaSatan has been given his occasion to “show his stuff”. Only when he has utterly messed things up will he be totally bound so that Messiah’s reign can be unfettered and demonstrate what this world could have been had the first Adam not given haSatan the keys. After that, the other tree, the Tree of Life, will be back and will bring healing to the nations (Rev. 22:2) that have been so damaged by the one who thought he could do better than YHWH.
Meanwhile, our place on the world stage is to choose and promote the right Kingdom. Seek it even over our necessary food and clothing, and the rest will come to us incidentally as we need it. (Mat. 6:33) And to “occupy” until Messiah returns (Luke 19:13)—that is, hold the territory that has been won and never give it up, and with the resources he has lent us, expand it by bringing more people under his authority, thereby populating the kingdom so he has subjects awaiting when he takes the throne.
We represent the legitimate ruler, but some are still living by the laws imposed by the deposed one who still refuses to abdicate his throne, so sometimes we who follow the higher laws will be at variance with the laws of men. Like Daniel in the days of the spiritual “prince of Greece” and “prince of Persia” (Dan. 10:13, 20), the lesser rulers which have been put in place to keep order among the nations may at times overstep their limits and the men who rule under them may make laws that we cannot obey. We can submit to their punishment to uphold others’ respect for the rule of law, but not disobey the higher laws in the process. And sometimes that punishment will be severe, even ultimate. But sometimes the outcome may be like Daniel’s.
We have great weapons at our disposal: “Though we walk in the flesh, we do not battle according to the flesh, because the weapons of our warfare are not physical, but, through Elohim, effective at pulling down strongholds, destroying imaginary philosophies, and any high barrier that exalts itself against the knowledge of Elohim, and bringing every idea captive into submission to the Messiah.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
Some of those weapons, which enable us to succeed at overcoming the adversary, are “the blood of the Lamb” and the “word of our testimony”. And, as has always been the case in the past, when the showdown comes to a head, it will require some stiff self-sacrifices—“loving not our own lives even to the point of death” (Rev. 12:11) to overcome the usurper. And we have the “whole armor of Elohim”—such things as faith, salvation, truth, the glad news of reconciliation, and the word of YHWH (Eph. 6:11-13)-- which will enable us, when all is said and done, to remain standing.
At that time, any remaining weapons of the other kind will be laid to rest (Isaiah 2:4) and retooled to put to better use (Micah 4:3) because the battle will be won and, without haSatan roaming free, the world will be a safe place for righteousness to thrive (2 Peter 3:13). So put everything you have into this one last push, like the desperate inhabitants of the dust speck in Dr. Seuss’ “Horton Hears a Who” story.
The final watershed is at hand. Will you invest everything (Mat. 13:46) in the Kingdom that is right for this world, even if it looks like a hopeless gamble?
You have heard of the Pax Romana (“Peace of Rome”). It was the absence of war—a very precarious unity--imposed by the fact that Rome controlled all the countries around the Mediterranean and therefore they were all under the same regime. But it was the classic example of the grand conspiracy to conquer and repress any dissent which we have seen in other totalitarian regimes that have been pilot tests for the intended grand takeover of the whole world. That is peace as Rome (Babylon) sees it.
What that in mind, consider the well-known Biblical verse, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” (Psalm 122:6) If the Peace of Rome could accomplish that much with its ruthless, unfeeling policies, how much better will be the peace that comes when a throne is established in mercy and the king sits down in faithfulness (Isaiah 16:5) on a throne established on righteousness (Psalm 97:2; Prov. 25:5)? And its result is a genuine unity, based on truth, that has “good and pleasant”, not coerced, results. (Psalm 133)
There is one final “strong delusion” that will try to make us believe “the lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:11)—not just any lie, but a specific one. What was the first lie? It’s one the proponents of a “New Age” still promote: “Be intimate with the mixture of good and evil, and you can be like Elohim”—the very same wish haSatan had, and was denied.
If even he (who was once “the anointed kheruv that covers” [Ezek. 28:14]—the highest-ranked angelic being) couldn’t achieve it, how ever could we, who are “lower than the angels”? (Psalm 8:5) So don’t buy it!
Consider the juxtaposition of two vignettes in Jacob’s deathbed prophecy: “Dan [‘a judge’] shall judge his people…Dan shall be a serpent by the road…that bites the horse’s heels so that the rider falls backward.” Because of this imagery and the absence of Dan in the tribal listing of Revelation 9, many have speculated that the final ruler of the Conspiracy may, ironically, come from the tribe of Dan. Whether or not that is the correct interpretation, the next thing Yaaqov says is, “I have waited for Your salvation (yeshuah), O YHWH!” (Gen. 49)
Immediately after that final test, the true new age that we have really been awaiting will finally be brought about--by YHWH, not by one who tries in vain to be His equal.
Don’t settle for counterfeits. Wait for the real thing.
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* Or might haSatan prefer the pronoun “she”? Some traditions say so, which would make her like Vashti, the deposed queen who was being replaced—which would be another explanation for her vicious wrath and desire to destroy everything YHWH created as good.
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