Shabbat Shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome to Part 48 of our Book of Revelation series of studies. Last time we had a grand overview of chapters 12 to 14 and then began our study of the first 10 verses of chapter 13 in which we were introduced to the first of two 'beasts' who arrive on the scene. So that's where we've got up to.

The first and foremost of these two 'monsters' or 'beasts' is a political figure, a global dictator wielding a totalitarian régime over all the known ethnic groupings of mankind. So we're moving away from Israel in the story line and to the whole world. Even as I speak we are already experiencing a number of the devices he uses to control the world and though he hasn't revealed his face officially yet we have met many of his agents already active on the political scene. We will meet many more of these in the years to come as the battle between righteousness and evil swings to and fro. In the meantime, I want us to go away at the end of this session better equipped to identify his methods.

Who who exactly is this 'beast'? He goes by the title 'Anti-Messiah' or 'Antichrist' and we first meet him in John's first epistle, or to be more exact, we meet his demonic spirit, energy, power or influence which has been around for a couple of millennia now. We read:

"Dear children, this (~AD 95) is the last 'hour'; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour" (1 John 2:18, NIV).

This is, of course, a 'prophetic hour' and not a literal one, and spans a long time in human terms. Since being 'cast down' from the shammayim (heavens) to the earth where he meets rather different circumstances to those he has hitherto been used to, Satan must now focus his war against the only target remaining to him, the Messianic Community (Church). Accordingly, he has raised many experimental antichrist 'prototypes' over the centuries from amongst mortal men as he adjusts to his new earth-bound reality. He has to learn which of his schemes work and which don't, which are more effective and which less. These 'antichrists' (with a lower-case 'a') we encounter throughout history: evil rulers of empires, and nations, secular and religious. Just look around at the political scene today and it won't be too hard to identify a number of them in our own time. They're on the news practically every day, seeking the limelight, wanting our devoted attention and demanding that we have faith in their ability to deliver the things we have been trained to want, and nearly always at a terrible price. Perhaps the best known of his offers is 'security in exchange for freedom'. They regularly appear in the news waging war, blowing up gas pipelines, using secretive weapons of mass destruction, interfering with the climate, oppressing their peoples, and all the while carrying out a single agenda. The many 'antichrists' march to a common drum beat and enact pretty much the same policies in governments everywhere.

One thing we need to be clear early on is the precise meaning of the prefix 'anti' in the English words 'Anti-Messiah' and 'Anti-Christ'. This is a Greek word that means 'instead of' and not, as many suppose, 'against'. In other words, an 'Anti' is a counterfeit rather than a 'competitor' with the true Christ or Messiah. He can't compete anyway as he's already lost that war, so he must deceive and get us to go down his carefully crafted sideroads of destruction.

Specifically, those antichrists around us, including the last in the line - the Antichrist' possessing global dictatorial power as he will - have one common characteristic which lies at the core of Satan himself. This we find enumerated in Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians:

"Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called Elohim (God) or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in Elohim's (God's) temple, proclaiming himself to be Elohim (God)" (2 Thess.2:3-4, NIV).

The spirit of antichrist, and his final 'incarnation', as it were, in the first of the two 'beasts' of Revelation 13, acknowledges no higher law than his own will and therefore , and nations as his own 'law-giver' in consequence of which he demands worship. Specifically, the law or spirit of antichrist, and its human political manifestations, opposes Yahweh's Law which we know as the Torah, the Divine Rule Book of Mitzvot (Commandments), which are summarised in the Ten Commandments or 'Ten Devarim (Words)' as they are known in Hebrew. Any person, any philosophy, any political system, any ruler who opposes Yahweh's Torah, in whole or in part, is therefore an ally, and promoter of, the antichrist system and the Antichrist himself. That's pretty sobering when you consider how many people claiming to be 'Christians' often oppose the Torah with a passion, in part or in whole, and in consequence end up inventing their own man-made 'gospels' that are fundamentally out of balance. However, it's the political aspect of Anti-Messiah that is specifically in focus here.

So this 'Beast' of Revelation, chapter 13, is a human individual who accepts the satanic offer which Yah'shua (Jesus) refused when he was tempted by the Devil in the Wilderness of Judea at the beginning of His ministry:

"Again, the devil took Him (Yah'shua/Jesus) to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. 'All this I will give you,' he said, 'if you will bow down and worship me'" (Matt.4:8-9, NIV).

The first Beast is therefore anti-Torah so it should come as no surprise that he is also 'Anti-Christian' or 'Anti-Messianic'. Why wouldn't he be? So when politicians and the institutions they control or steer start persecuting believers it should really come as no big surprise because this is the default behaviour of the beast system. As we have seen in last week's and this week's text, he specifically "makes war against the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) and overcomes them" (Rev.13:7); but this victory, as we learned in chapter 12, is only a temporary one:

"They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death" (Rev.12:11, NIV).

The Beast's characteristis are likened to a combination of leapard, bear and lion which you'll remember we also encountered in Daniel 7 last week for these were characteristics of long extinct empires - Babylonian, Persian and Greek. The fact that these empires or kingdoms are long gone doesn't, as some maintain, mean that Daniel couldn't possibly have been talking about historical nations since they seemingly reappear in the end time. In reality, what Daniel saw was the first manifestation of these 'spirits' in the form of specific nations that shall again appear - and already have appeared - in this the final part of the 'end times'. Just look at the late Saddam Hussein's Iraqi (Babylonian) régime (recall, if you're my age or were around in thw 1990's, the First and Second Gulf Wars), or the Persian Ayatolla's of the current oppressive extremist Moslem Iranian régime, or the way the European Union (or indeed the West in general) does its business based on the ancient Greek model of 'democracy', and you will see modern manifestations of these beasts seen by Daniel. And don't forget the fourth of these prophetic 'beasts' which last week we identified as Rome, which is still around, 2,500 years later and, as we speak, evolving into global empire.

The Beast of Revelation 13 arises from a federation of poltitical rulers, does he not, and according to this prophecy gains the attention of the world through an astonishing recovery from a fatal wound, assumed by many to be an attempted assassination but which could, in fact, also be referring to the system he represents suffering what appears to be a permanent defeat (death). It's right to consider possible literal meanings of prophecy first but we must not forget the symbolic category of meanings either. I have been warning you that the élites would suffer a major defeat at this time but I have never said they would be entirely destroyed. Clearly either the Beast himself or the political system or institution that he represents, or both, will appear dead for a while, only to later revive and rule the whole earth anywhere from 3½ years (42 months) to 7 years. So we have been forewarned, and indeed those of the first century were given a foreshadowing of this end-time event in the person of the Roman Emperor Nero about whom it was believed by many that he survived his own death in some form or another. The difference this time is that the latter-day Nero won't remain dead after his assassination - or the apparent destruction of his political system...or both - but will arise again for 3½ years to commit global terror against Yahweh's people in the same way the communists in particular did in the 20th century, leading to mass martyrdom. It could be argued (and I would agree) that communism didn't die with the Soviet Union but is returning...or already has.

It's so important that you grasp this so that you don't fall for the hype which will in the main be promoted by the New Agers saying that, with the defeat of the currenmt élites, we won't see them regain control again. The New Agers and their sympathisers have not understood how they too will be deceived (and already have been in other areas of importance) when the whole rotten system reappears in a new 'New Age' guise more to their liking. Gone, at first, will be the brazen satanic elements which we're seeing now paraded with glee. So, the next cabal of satanic élitists be back, but not before a 'moderate' New Age version is first rolled out with which to regain the confidence of those non-Christians formerly 'awakened' to what's going on in our time, now.

Understand this: those who are presently our allies will in exposing the current hardcore satanic élites will turn against us in Round #2, in the post-fatal-wound-and-recovery stage, save those who come to see the truth for themselves and come to Messiah for salvation and discipleship. So this message is, I hope you'll agree, an extremely important one because some (if not many) Christians/Messianics will convert to the New Ageism of our present 'allies' and even be persuaded that theirs is a superior form of 'spirituality' to the allegedly 'less evolved' forms of Christianity which is how we are viewed. And they will cite the corrupted and false versions of the Gospel in evidence, a reason we have to stay up-to-date and inform these people of the difference between true Christianity and the counterfeit. You'll need to rescue a lot of these lapsed believers and bring them back to the truth, so you're going to have to get to know and understand how the New Age Religion works as Satan's deceptive 'softcore' version opf raw satanism which is what he's really about; for, you see, the Beast will employ the language of both the softcore and hardcore versions of Satanism...and there are many. So, again, you ened to be aware - you need to be informed.

To accomplish this, the first Beast will be aided, and bolstered, by the second Beast, his 'religious colleague', as it were, who has supernatural powers with which to 'wow' gullible and lawless souls, whose task will be to focus the world's worship on his superior, the first Beast. His miracles will deceive the nations as, amongst other things, he commands fire to fall down from the sky and causes images of the first Beast to appear in thin air. The powers-that-be are already actively testing, and have used in trial runs, and are daily improving, these 'fire' weapons and hologram technologies able to show false signs. I recall, not so many years ago and before the present conflict, a projection of Christ being placed in the sky above Ukraine that deceived many Eastern Orthodox believers into thinking Yah'shua (Jesus) was about to return. There are online videos of these and similar manifestations on the internet designed to take peoples' eyes off the true biblical Messiah and prepare them for the false New Age one. In fact, the former have been used quite systematically in the last few years as means to enhance their program for the acquisition of world dictatorial power. But more of the second Beast next week because there's a lot more we have to say about him.

What I'd like to do with the rest of today's session is to highlight and further dissect parts of Revelation 13:1-10 which we didn't have the opportunity to cover in our big 'overview' last time, and to use these to explain how the Enemy's system of deception is currently at work in the world. We're probably going to need many more such overviews in the future as we look at the seond half of the Book of Revelation so that we don't get bogged down in details and lose sight of the 'big picture', a narrative which we are already living in and which we must clearly understand so as not to be unwittingly drawn into it by the Enemy's carefully crafted seductive powers.

Too much of the so-called 'prophetic teachings' in circulation these days miss the big picture because they are so focussed on certain elements in the Book of Revelation...like the identity of the Antichrist; and the problem with that is if you lose the bigger picture, those individual elements soon gain independent lives all of their own, as it were, being seen apart from their placwe in the integral whole, and are liable to therefore become distorted and misunderstood. There's also an unfortunate tendency to get so involved trying to understand the 'dark' side of these prophecies that people forget that believers have very specific and important tasks to accomplish. From our point-of-view, we only want to know about the 'dark side' so that we can expose it and so successfully navigate around it in order to carry out the tasks given to us in evangelism, the Final Gathering and the Last Exodus. We're not interested in knowledge about the dark side for its own sake but neither do we want to be ignorant of it...otherwise Yahweh would not be informing us of it in such great detail in this remarkable Book (something those still deceived by the rapture doctrine need to carefully think about too since according to them we won't be here and won't need to identify it).

So let's quickly run through the main text again and then we'll zoom into specific parts:

"[12:18/1a 'Then the dragon (Heb. 'nachash' - OJB) took his stand on the seashore' - NRSV]. 1b And I saw a beast ('monster' - KNT; 'animal' - JBP; Heb. chayyah - OJB) rising up out of the sea (Dan.7:3), having ten horns (Dan.7:7; Rev.15:2; 16:13) and seven heads (Heb. 'roshim' - OJB) [1], and on his horns (Heb. 'karnayim' - OJB) ten ('royal' - Barclay) crowns (Heb. 'asarah' - OJB; 'coronets' - JB; 'diadems' - NRSV, ESV, RNAB, NASB), and on his heads a blasphemous name (Heb. 'Chillul haShem gidufim - OJB; 'blasphemous titles' - JB; 'blasphemous names' - NRSV, ESV) (Dan.11:36; Rev.17:3). 2 Now the beast ('monster' - KNT; 'animal' - JBP) which I saw was like ('resembled' - NIV) a leopard (Dan.7:6), his feet were like the feet of a bear (Dan.7:5), and his mouth like the mouth of a lion ('lions' - HRV) (Dan.7:4). The dragon (Heb. 'nachash' - OJB) gave him ('assigned to the beast' - Barclay) his power, his throne, and great ('worldwide' - JB; 'far-reaching' - Barclay) authority (Rev.2:13; 16:10). 3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally (fatally) wounded (Gk. 'the plague of its death', 'death-blow' - NRSV; 'wounded beyond recovery' - NLT), and his deadly wound was healed (Aram. 'he was raised from the wound of death' - HRV). And all the world marveled ('was in awe' - NLT; 'in amazement' - NRSV; 'was amazed' - NASB; 'in fascinated wonder' - Barclay: 'astonished' - NIV) (Rev.17:8) and followed the beast ('monster' - KNT; 'animal' - JBP). 4 So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority ('memshalah' = 'governing authority', OJB) to the beast ('monster' - KNT; 'animal' - JBP); and they worshiped ('prostrated themselves in front of' - JB) the beast ('monster' - KNT; 'animal' - JBP), saying, 'Who is like ('can compare with' - JB) the beast ('monster' - KNT; 'animal' - JBP) (Ex.15:11) {a parody of the name Michael, 'Who-can-compare-with-Elohim/God'}? Who is able to make war with him?' ('How could anybody defeat him?' - JB) 5 And he was given a mouth speaking great things ('matters' - ISRV) and ('arrogant' - JNT; 'haughty' - NRSV, ESV, OJB; 'use grandiloquent language' - Barclay) blasphemies ('terrible words of blasphemy' - NLT; 'arrogant words and blasphemies' - NASB; 'allowed to speak monstrous blasphemies' - JBP) (Dan.7:8,11,20,25,36; 2 Thess.2:4), and he was given ('allowed to exert' - JBP) authority to continue for forty-two months (3½ years) (Dan.7:25; 9:27; 12:7; Rev.11:2). 6 Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy ('poured out blasphemies' - JBP; 'poured out a torent of insults' - Barclay) against Elohim (God), to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle (Heb. 'Mishkan' = 'dwelling place' - OJB, KNT, ESV, JBP; 'Sh'khinah - glorious manifest presence' - JNT; 'heavenly Sukkah/Tent' - JB, IRSV; 'temple' - NLT), and those who dwell in heaven (Rev.12:2). 7 It was granted to him to ('fight' - ISRV) make war (Heb. 'milkhama' - OJB) (Dan.7:21; Rev.11:7) with ('against' - NIV) the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) ('God's dedicated people' - Barclay; 'holy ones' - RNAB) and to overcome ('conquer' - NIV, Barclay) them. And authority (Heb. 'samchut' - OJB) was given him over every tribe (Heb. 'shevet' - OJB), tongue (Heb. 'lashon' = 'tribe' - OJB), and nation (Heb. 'goy' - OJB) (Dan.7:21; Rev.5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 17:15). 8 All who dwell on the earth ('the whole population of the world' - Barclay) (Rev.3:10) will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book (Dan.12:1) of Life ['which is'] of the Lamb (Jn.1:29)
slain ('slaughtered' - JNT; 'sacrificial Lamb' - JB) (Is.53:7; Rev.20:12) from the foundation ('creation' - NIV) of the world (Heb. 'ha'Aretz' - OJB; 'earth' - KNT; 'written in the book of life of the Lamb (Heb. 'sefer haChayyim' of the 'Seh' - OJB) slaughtered from the foundation of the world' (Heb. 'lifnei hivvased tevel' - OJB) - NKJV fn) (Ex.12:3; Is.53:7; Mt.25:34). 9 If anyone has an ear, let him hear ('Let the listener hear this' - JBP) (Rev.2:7). 10 He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity ('If anyone is to be taken into ['destined for' - JBP, RNAB, NASB] captivity, into captivity they will go' - KNT, ESV, Barclay; 'the people who are destined for prison will be arrested and taken away' - NLT); he who kills with the sword (Heb. 'chevel' - OJB) must be killed with the sword ('those who are destined for death ('to be slain' - ESV) will be killed ('slain' - NLT, Barclay) (Jer.15:2; 43:11; Mt.26:52). Here is the patience ('constancy' - JB; 'endurance' - NRSV, ISRV; 'gallantry' - Barclay; 'perseverance' - NASB; Heb. 'savlanut' = 'patient endurance' - OJB) and the faith ('faithfulness' - NIV; Heb. 'emunah' - OJB) (Heb.6:12) of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) (Rev.14:12)" (Rev.13:1b-10, NKJV).

You may have noticed that this week I reversed the New King James Version (NKJV) order of the "7 heads and 10 horns" to "10 horns and 7 heads" in verse 1 (marked red in the text above) which the vast majority of translations, based on better and older manuscripts, use [1] which you may think a minor and unimportant detail. However, this is not so, a reason the end of the Book of Revelation makes the dire warning not to subtract or add to the any of the words of the book (Rev.22:18-19), and that, by implication, includes not rearranging anything and thereby distorting prophetic patterns either. So how do the 10 horns coming before the 7 heads change the meaning?

In Revelation 13, this is the Beast in his superhuman stage. He has already been on the earth for 3½ years in his ordinary human or mortal stage prior to his demonic empowerment with supernatural abilities. He then receives his death-wound mentioned in verse 3 (as the 7th head) and 'comes up out of the Deep Pit or Abyss' as the 8th king comprising all the 7 heads and the 10 horns. These, in their superhuman form, are then crowned. In their unempowered, ordinary human state they were not crowned. Looking ahead to chapter 17, the correct meaning becomes more obvious, but we must wait until we get there for a full interpretation. So for now just be aware of this verse in question and mentally shelve it for later:

"The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one [prophetic] hour will receive authority as kings along with the Beast" (Rev.17:12, NIV).

This is just the outline description or brief statement of the two Beasts who will be elaborated on in four chapters' time. So let's stick with the outline for now. Last week we focussed on Rome, which would have been the more immediately real aspect to the first century believers living under its tyranny, in the same way that the USA, NATO and EU are real to us today. But clearly we have something here in Revelation 13 that goes far beyond Rome, whether pagan or (later) papal, and something far beyond the '4th beast' of Daniel which was indisputably the Roman Empire. Now, in today's passage, we see all the world powers and dominions gathered up and concentrated in this one sign. Here, in the Book of Revelation, they are in their superhuman form whereas in Daniel they were in their mortal form as empires. It is the whole image or statue of Daniel 2 in its superhuman form which we are now confronted with rather than one of its mortal parts: we are seeing the actual power behind the image.

So who, or what, exactly is being revived here? What is recovering from its 'fatal wound'? And this is my main point: it is the image revived as a whole. It reaches, as the Book of Daniel states, "wherever the children of men dwell" (Dan.2:38, NKJV) - it affects, as the Book of Revelation itself thrice says, "all inhabitants of the earth" (Rev.13:8; 11:10; 14:6, NIV). Thus Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome come, in the end-time, to represent all the nations and all the peoples of the world, being all the major empires of antiquity mentioned in the Bible world.

When the time for these final judgments to arrive, the great stone of Daniel will strike. Where - on which part of the statue's body - does it strike Nebuchadnazzar's image first? It's feet made of mixed clay and iron (Dan.2:34). But - and this is the important thing - immediately after the feet are smashed this happens:

"Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time (together) and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock (stone) that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth" (Dan.2:35, NIV).

So this is far more extended than the original Roman Empire which was a Mediterranean power - it is global; it is planet-wide. The 'Roman' power is a lot bigger today. The whole earth is a part of this glorious clamity for the Devil and his henchmen. In fact, at this moment of striking, all earthly power, and all worldly dominion, is taken out in the great and final consummation. The kingdoms of the world, along with its kings, will be consumed - utterly destroyed. Hence, all the heads and horns of the various successive powers are here combined and united as one. They are the embodiment of all political sovereignty on earth. And they will never ever reappear on the earth again, not even following the final rebellion at the end of the Millennium! The only power that will ever exist on the earth, henceforth and forever, will be that of our Creator and Supreme Sovereign, Yahweh-Elohim and His Messiah. The striking caused by that stone reduces to dust all the pagan kingdoms of this world that ever were, ensuring they never arise again, because that stone metaphorically becomes a mighty mountain filling the whole earth with no space for anything else. So there's no room on earth for anyone else's kingdom!

Satan has had a very long time to learn how we humans work and how to exercise evil control through them. He has 'honed his science' to a deep level of sophistication that most people don't understand. The Book of Revelation teaches us what he will do and when but says little about the 'how' other than in the broadest outline. The whole Bible actually speaks of his methodology. Because dominion of the earth has been given to humans by Yahweh, Satan must prize it away by both subtle and not-so-subtle means. He has devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to obtaining this dominion and the absurdity of his project becomes immediately apparent when you consider that he will only enjoy this near-absolute power over the unsaved for a mere 1,260 days! But like any junkie - and that's what he amounts to being - he can only be 'fully alive', in the darkest possible sense of the word, for a brief moment while he rages after his next 'fix' of evil.

His coup d'état over humanity has been in progress now since the beginning, and in its present direction for less than 2,000 years. Because of man's agency and the fact that every man and woman is born into the world with a certain amount of discernment which the apostle John calls 'the Light of Christ' in the first chapter of his Gospel, Satan is forced into conquering humanity by means of three main methods:

• 1. By means of raw Power through the totalitarian execise of politics, philosophy and religion;
• 2. By means of Seduction through deception and allure; and
• 3. By means of War creating chaos and disorientation.

Though I don't recommend that anybody rush out and buy these, Robert Greene (who is sometimes called the 'modern Machiavelli', the Florentine philosopher of the 16th century who wrote Il Principe, a treatise on Statecraft advocating for the use of deceit and cunning), has produced three books called The 48 Laws of Power (1998), The Art of Seduction (2001) and The Concise 33 Strategies of War (2006). They were intentionally written for worldly men and women who wish to succeed in the world (by imitating the devil) but can be used by the righteous, who are possessed enough by the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) so as not to be tempted by its wicked devices, to expose how the Enemy works. In some respects they're a little outdated because the Enemy has changed gear in the last 10-20 years and is using more refined methods. We need, at least in part, to understand how he is doing this, for as I have said many times, you do need to know your Enemy if you are to defeat him in in your life as a biblical overcomer.

Let's take a close look at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century - now, today - and how it is mankind has got himself into his latest mess. There's no one way we can approach this as every swimming pool has four sides and usually an elevated diving board as well, so I am just going to plunge in where I am standing. How many of you have noticed that today's modern society seems to go around in circles? How many of you feel that you are going around in circles? There are reasons - they're comprehensible and we could, if we wanted to, soon get out of these interminable circles that lead to frustration and exhaustion.

Society is a system. Government is a system. Your body is a system, and so is your life. When systems go around in circles it is because of a failure of management and control - self-management and self-control in the case of individuals. People suffer from physical paralysis because the controlling nervous system gets out of joint. Our lives go - and society as a whole goes - round in circles because we're acting or behaving in a particularly negative way, because of the misalignment of our 'feedback loops' which aren't working anymore. Accountability has broken down, nobody takes responsibility - impersonal 'forces' and sometimes even 'fate' are blamed. A society without accountabily leads to chaos and anarchy. A nervous system that doesn't have feedback mechanisms allowing it to analyse input stimuli and adjust properly breaks down. It's like someone who breaks their back and is completely paralysed downwards from the break, or holds a life electricity cable and doesn't let go. The result is chaos leading to a complete breakdown in the system.

Society is breaking down for a number of reasons but from a puirely analytical-point-of-view it's because the managers of society couldn't punch their way out of a wet paper bag. They're clueless, like someone being expected to drive a car who has received no instruction and has no instructors to correct their mistakes. The political system no longer holds the managers of society to account. Nobody gets corrected for mistakes or wrong-doing. Drug companies in the USA are by law immune from prosecution in certain areas of business so they have no incentive, in an immoral post-Christian age, to make sure their products are safe.

I think many of you will agree with me that these days it doesn't matter what political party you vote for in a 21st century democracy because you don't get 'left' or 'right' any more - you don't get socialist or conservative, because they're neither. They don't even seem to have an ideology of their own any longer and it's sometimes impossible to know whether their ideology is the same as, or different from, their supposed competitors. I long ago gave up trying to figure out what political parties stood for in anything but their historical sense. Conservatives are no longer conservative and socialists are no longer socialist. Indeed, apart from an official 'gloss' making them apparently look different, they all seem pretty much the same to me.

A majority of modern leaders, be they politicians or scientists, lack integrity and rational arguments because they are time-serving technocrats who are part of a club (a political party) with various perks for fawning in the realm of the media. They no longer engage with genuine truth or genuine politics because they no longer believe in either truth as an absolute or the need for multiple, competing ideologies to examine, critique and choose between because they don't like choice. 'Truth' has now become subjective (we now speak of 'my truth' as though it had some sort of objective reality, which it doesn't). So society goes around in a loop where concepts don't have genuine depth because people don't understand the terms the politicians and academics are now using - or they do understand them but are deliberately misusing them.

To function successfully, a society needs rational argument put forward in good faith. Thus we now find the majority are captured by an unnamed (and therefore untestable) ideology that fundamentally prevents them from seeking the truth beyond what one might call 'self'. They do not possess rationally-derived opinions but only the 'received wisdom' whatever that may be. For want of a better word, people have started calling it 'woke', a pretty vague (and subjective) term. Understand this also: a 'statement made in good faith' is not the same as a 'statement of faith', that's to say, a statement of ideological adherance. There is a difference - and I have been saying this for years - between (a) 'faith', (b) the faith' and (c) 'faithfulness to the faith': 'faith' is just believing 'whatever' and 'the faith' is that which one can objectively have faith in which, for a Christian or Messianic, is the Torah and the Besorah (Gospel, Good News) and a whole system of philosophy and science behind it. It's a whole, comprehensible worldview for which one can argue in the defence and promotion of.

This is what is frustrating to people who have functioning minds: How do you talk about things in the state system - have a rational debate in good faith - when you could be interrupted at any moment and be told that what you just said was offensive and so risk being shut down or 'cancelled'? The result of this abuse is that you start performing at a level exponentially below what you are capable of. Therefore the only place you can have a rational debate is outside the state's institutions because the institutions are now wholly corrupt. They have been taken over by absolutists who claim their have the whole truth and that there's nothing more to debate. Gone are the days when, for example, you could have a rational debate about something on the BBC or some other mainstrean media outlet. This is because Satan now has control of them. They are no longer truly independent. They are 'owned' and their owners only want one narrative in society. There is no longer a conversation with society, just a series of diktats dressed up to look like a conversation without actually being one. The 'conclusion' is predetermined. I can't tell you how disillusioned I was to learn as a teenager that the wrestling matches I watched with my uncle were all rigged. No skill was involved except play-acting.

Most of us here know all of this is going on without my getting into contemporary examples. When we find ourselves in such a controlled or rigged situation, where only one view is allowed to win, something rather sinister kicks in that we need to understand because of the way we were made. We were created by Yahweh to be part of - belong to - a tribe; we are programmed to want to be accepted as part of what it means to be a human being. From a purely biological point-of-view, in the days long before modern civilisation came into being, being expelled from the tribe could typically be signing your death warrant because there would be no means of protecting yourself unless you were a skilled and well-equipped alpha-male. There is safety in numbers and we all instinctively know this.

Imagine being on your own, say, trying to hunt in the African savannah or in the wilds of America hunting bison as the Indians once did before the arrival of the Europeans, or the tundra of the Siberian Arctic. In such environments you need a cooperating group to successfully hunt. There is in us an inbuilt loathing and fear of being expelled from 'the tribe' or group, of being ostracised or alienated. We want to be accepted, liked, respected and loved. It's hardwired into us by the Creator who wants us to know Him. When we turn away from wanting to know Him, we turn to fellow humans as a substitute. And whilst on one level we certainly need each other, at the very deepest, spiritual level only Yahweh can meet that need. So to go against the grain in society nowadays, is to stand up against the irrational mob, and this is something very few people are willing to do, let alone being capable of doing, because nobody wants to be alone. And yet there are times we must stand alone, like Daniel, in order to do what's right. Everyone one of us faces that challenge at some time, but most crawl back to the very system that abused them so as not to be left out in the cold. Only we aren't alone if we have Elohim (God) and that's the major lack of an unbelieving, irreligious society. So there aren't many who know how to stand alone against the system.

An example of today's 'mob' would be the vocal mob on Twitter, at least before Elon Musk took it over in October 2022 where only one point-of-view was basically allowed. Another would be the institution of something like CNN or the BBC and the dominant culture. The horrible thing about such environments is that there may be people in them who may be nice to your face until they hear you say something that runs contrary to the 'official narrative' or 'received wisdom', who then will try to get you fired, silenced, humiliated, ostracised, economically ruined, cancelled, and so on. When institutions fail at their most basic level - when the managers are failing, as they are now doing in the West - then what you are dealing with is not necessarily just a 'mob' but what Thomas Sowell calls a self-anointed 'mini-tribe' who are consciously and deliberately imposing their values on you and society as a whole. Society is fractured into essentially two tribes, even if the tribes may have their separate clans. The dominant tribe today in the West is the 'woke,' neo-Marxist community, which is 'nice' to you when you agree with it but utterly mean-spirited and vile when you don't. They never forgive. For those who 'belong' and feel a tribal affinity and identity there is a 'safety' of sorts, yet it's not really safe because you never know when you will be denounced by the cult. It sounds a bit like the former Soviet Union and modern Communist China, doesn't it?

This brings me now to the 'rest' who don't fall in with the 'mini-tribe' trying to impose hegemony over all the rest. What about those 'inbetween' - those appointed by the 'self-appointed mini-tribe' at the top like those who work at CNN or the BBC? They don't think like the élite managers in the mini-tribe who know exactly what they are doing, who know they are lying, who are deliberately trying to wreck the old Christian culture and replace it with their own radical atheistic/occultic one. The 'inbetween' agents or 'middle-men' of the mini-tribe are what one might call the 'true believers' who think because, they are in positions of influence (through the media, for example), that they have the power and means to take society into their Utopia. They believe that the 21st century is their 'moment of opportunity' to dismantle the old and build their Marxist paradise.

Now the élites at the top in their mini-society know it's dystopian (but they don't care because they're satanists), we know it's dystopian (but we do care because we're believers), but the human instruments of the élites don't know their Utopia is dystopian, and that makes them the most dangerous of all because they are determined revolutionaries like Antifa, BLM, 'Extinction Rebellion', etc.. They're not consciously planning evil - rather, they think the evil that they think and do is good and necessary - 'the ends justify the means'. They sincerely think they're improving the world by destroying everything that came before - they are 'true believers' in the sense that they believe their overlords and will readily embrace message of the Antichrist in his first 3½ years of power which we're all being prepped withandor Hitler's 'brownshirt' thugs.

The method of seizing control in this way is as 'old as the hills', the methods have just become more refined and sophisticated with new lables applied to make it all seem 'new'. Satan has been been watching human behaviour for millennia, discovering our every weak spot and learning how to exploit them to the full. The history of the world has always been determined by a small group of people who strongly believe in a philosophy, religion, agenda or narrative, who seize the public's imagination and who then seize the means of control over that society whatever that may be (what Marxists would call 'the means of production'). Today the media looms large because of its importance in reaching a mass, global audience, so capturing what was vitally important, as TV did when it was young, and before that the radio and newspapers. And you know how successful nazi propaganda was in the 1930's and 40's. Just listen to what's being said by the media and it becomes immediately obvious that it is banal, meaning it is sorely lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring. But then Satan has, and does, nothing that is truly original. He's just using well-tried methods and repackaging them. Why change something that works every time? What dioes it matter of only a minority finds you out? So that's why we hear the dumbed down followers mouthing inanities which you can never engage in conversation or debate with. Their only answer to your holding a contrary belief or opinion is violence, be it verbal, social, economic or physical.

We are entering a totalitarian era and we had better become prepared and equipped for it, and the earlier the better. Classical liberal democracy, which was created within a Christian worldview, is over - it's gone and it's never coming back. The outward democratic forms still exist, as did the monuments to the previous system which only now are being ripped down and demolished by the woke mob; but without freedom these 'elections' are as meaningless as an election in Stalinist North Korea. There is only ever one candidate there, as in the former Soviet Union and in modern Red China. We have multiple candidates in the West still but all the important ones are controlled to ensure the desired outcome by the ruling élites. They learned how to do that in communist East Germany (GDR/DDR) which was a multi-party system. But without freedom and without the institutions guaranteeing liberty, democracy is just a sham. East Germany was known as the 'German Democratic Republic' - it had many parties but the outcome of elections was always assured because the state structures were communist. This is the satanic way of gaining power in societies with a former tradition of freedom. But first the freedoms have to be eroded. Beyond a certain point, the pretense of a multi-part state is no longer needed. East Germany had to have multi-parties because they were guaranteed by the Potsdam Agreement. But where no such guarantees existed, or exist, then all that's left is a totalitarian state like Communist China today.

We are being conditioned, by the 'woke' revolution, to think in only one way. There's was an American army psychiatrist called Robert J. Lifton back in the 1960's who wrote a book called Thought Reform: The Psychology of Totalism - Brainwashing in China which, if you can get hold of a copy, is worth reading. It might be hard, or expensive, to get hold of today. Lifton basically shows what the limits are in how you can think in a totalitarian state. I wouldn't be surprised in the Communists in China borrowed from it. The way things are going since Xi Jinping took power - and I have said this many times over the years...what you see in the Peoples' Republic of China - is what we are globally headed for.

The CCP or 'Communist Party of China' uses methods of control that are being introduced into the West adapted to our cultures. First, you are 'deconstructed' as an individual - your individuality, your social network. The CCP government conducted 'thought reform' classes that people voluntarily signed up for in order to get ahead. If you wanted to succeed in China, you'd sign up for your certificate that confirmed that your thinking was now in line with communist thought and ideology. Large numbers of Germans joined the nazi party for the same reasons, not because they believed the ideology, but to prosper in nazi society. And in modern universities in the West what's happening is identical: people decide that the only way to have a very successful career, despite what they tell you, is by allowing yoruself to be indoctrinated in postmodernist, woke, Marxist, deconstruction classes.

The tragedy of the modern Western university is that quality teaching doesn't actually matter to the powers-that-be. In my day universities were only for an élite - they were hard to get into. Today as many as possible are encouraged to go to university (they converted all the polytechnics into 'universities' in the UK) and to do that the standards are lowered, which has been a disaster for society requiring the skills the universities originally provided. The reason? To make sure as many of the young are indoctrinated. I would never go to a mdoern university now because they are just indoctrination mills. Of course, certain skills are taught - they have to be to justify their existence - but the quality of education has crashed. The academics working in the modern universities are really only bothered about getting their research published and bringing in research money from sponsors in industry...who have their own agendas steered by the mini-tribe right at the top. They really don't much care about anything else because money is needed to drive education, and that's now concentrated in the hands of the technocrats. You can't do your doctoral thesis in anything you want, as I tried when I applied to do postgraduate research in Cambridge University on the philosophy of biological origins that challenged Darwinian assumptions, a big 'no-no' in that rarified academic atmosphere.

So how can this system possibly work? How can society survive this dumbing down? We're basically down to seduction and power. There's a really good novel by Arthur Köstler that explains how all this works called, Darkness at Noon. It's the story about what it's like being imprisoned in a totalitarian state. If you're not an academic, this is a great way to learn about the things I have been talking about as we move, not inch by inch when I was younger, but mile by mile into the Beast System. Köstler also wrote an academic paper called, interestingly, The Commissar and the Yogi which is what I want to briefly comment on.

According to Köstler, people are divided into two types - the 'yogi' is the spiritualist dreamer, and the 'commissar' the person with the clipboard and the power. The universities have created these institutions within the university where you don't have to be that good academically anymore. You can climb the greasey pole by being a commissar, by enforcing language codes. So they set up a Language Code Unit and a Harrassment Unit. When you have a unit dedicated to finding harrassment, an awful lot of harrassment is found because they have to justify their own existence. They measure productivity by stupid criteria. These irrationalities are the explanation as to what is going wrong in society - you have these people in institutions-within-institutions that are pushing; it doesn't matter if they believe in what they're pushing or not. We 'pretend to pretend' to believe.

Let me give you an example. When I was growing up I, like almost all children, heard the 'Father Christmas' or 'Santa Claus' story from my parents and other adults. As adults no one actually believed that that my parents believed in a Father Christmas' but - and this is where the self-decption comes in - they believed in children's innocence even when as children we had already worked out that the Santa business was all nonsense. I never believed in the character or Rudolph the Reindeer. You see, they needed us to believe in the innocence of children believing in Santa. It's the same with the tooth fairey which I do remember believing in a while as a small child when money was exchanged for my tooth while I was asleep. Again, my parents needed me to believe to reinforce their belief in children's innocence. And we do the same with other things. What's interesting and important about this, for so many different reasons, is that this shows that there are levels of belief.

Let me give you another example. A Christian tribe in Ethiopia called the Dorze, like many other Christian traditions, believes in Fasting days. They believe, for whatever bizzare reason, that the leopard is a Christian animal. But on fast days, when the leopard is supposed to be fasting like them, they still guard all their livestock. We have this idea that primitive people have primitive beliefs. No. They have beliefs that tie the community together and they pick and choose what they truly believe - it's quite a sophisticated system, actually. We do it too, if we're honest, to maintain family or community unity. Now apply this principle to modern institutions and what you get is some of these commissars who are 'born-again' nutty commissars - the 'true believers' - but there are others who are doing it for completely manipulative and cynical reasons. So the 'true believers' are driving the system; they have the need for us to believe - in the universities, in the media, in the corporate world and in sport an incentives structure - these nutty 'woke ideas' which the mini-tribe doesn't believe in but which they need us to believe; people respond to incentives above all (it's what drives human behaviour) - people will do the thing that benefits them to the extent that they are able to assess that benefit, so some unbelievers will comply.

So there are the true believers and then there's the rest of us who are fighting over that 85 per cent in the middle - the people who will go in either direction - which is why a small number of extremists can change the course of history so easily, because if they can persuade, brainwash, manipulate, inspire, etc., that big majority in the middle, they have chieved their need for them to believe too. As a result, that small group gets to do whatever their program is, whatever their agenda is. If these were evil people who in their technocratic élitist vision got together and were conspiring for the overthrow of the system and not believing in the self-contrdictory mumbo-jumbo of the philsophy they were promoting, that would be pretrty bad, I'm sure you would agree. But you can get a lot more done and inspire a lot more people if you truly believe the crazy thing that you're selling. It's a religion, a cult. Some are true believers and there is a large group of people who will go along with it because it's convenient for them.

I guess what I am trying to say is that there is a science in all this manipulation and control. It appears random and insane on the surface to those who are awake but their is an evil design at work. Society is divided into essentially three components and you need to know how each of thse thinks and acts if you are to help them:

• 1. There are the satanist élites at the very top who are extremely demonised and will only respond to raw, supernatural power of the kind they are most familiar with. They know exactly what they are doing but they're the slave-prisoners of Satan. They have been lied to, of course, by their controlling demons and believe they're on the winning side. Arguing with them, if you should ever meet one, is, for the most part, pointless - they are the Cult Masters, Sowell's 'self-anointed mini-Tribe';

• 2. There are the deluded 'True Believers' who run the media and the various institutions of state, who cannot think rationally at all because they are essentially part of a secular religion in the broadest sense of the word. They truly believe they are right and superior to the 'unbelievers'. They have been brainwashed, often from when they are young, in the élite's schools and universities. You cannot argue rationally with them but must treat them as you would someone coming from a religious cult; and
  The brainwashed 'true believers' in the middle

• 3. There are the 85 or so per cent who follow the 'True Believers' for financial or social advantage and there are those who are not fooled. The former have to be approached in a different way to the first two categories.

Now I'm not saying there aren't other categories too because there are, but these three are the major ones - there are always different shades inbetween. People like the Soros', Schwab's and Gates' are obviously not in the last two categories - the things that have said publically demonstrate that - though they're not necessarily in the highest echelons of the first category either who prefer to remain completely out of sight. The important thing is to be aware of the different types of player because each must be approached differently should you ever come into contact with them - you can't assume that they all think alike. To actually help those who have a conscience and want to be helped requries a combination of supernatural discernment from the Ruach (Spirit) plus plus some basic knowledge of how the system works such as I am trying to outline this afternoon. When the Beast System eventually takes full global power, then it will be time to either fully exit the system and gather to the appointed places, or respond to various missions that Yahweh sends you on and be prepared to lay down your life if necessary.

Everything that's going on around you, though it appears random and meaningless, was all carefully planned a very long time ago. Yahweh knows exactly what these social engineers are up to, their system having the demonic system all over it. If you don't believe me, get a hold of a copy of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (you'll find it online) and ignore the alleged conspirators in it (who have been named to excite various prejudices) but rather seek to understand the system at work in it - the agenda for power-seizure. There is a diabolical mathematics to it that's been 'hidden in plain sight' for anyone with a little knowledge of the history of the last century prepared to look carefully enough. Once you've got past the various smokescreens and eliminated the false trails, it's actually an absurdly simple system that's being used on us.

Those of you familiar with fractals, whether as scientists or as artists, may have heard of Sirpinsky triangles. As you bisect angles you get a fractal shape by repeating a very simple pattern. It works in human behaviour as it does in geometry so that what appears to be very complex is actually remarkably simple, like the repetitive branching of a tree. One little act performed in your local environment can therefore cause something similar to happen elsewhere. As you analyse society's behaviour patterns you'll find this symmetrical fractal pattern everywhere because what happens on the microscopic level happens on the macroscopic too. It's the same kind of phenomenon you see from atoms to galaxies. There's this common signature. No complex social engineering is required to get the pattern to duplicate - once launched it multiplies like a virus in the same way that computer viruses multiply and spread through computer systems. Maybe some of you have played with computer programs that generate pretty fractals: you enter some parameters and when you hit the Return button, this beautiful pattern repeats forever and ever in a huge compliex work of art.

Establish a new code of behaviour in society in public, like the 'woke' philosophy, and it soon spreads everywhere. But to be successful on a psychological level, its momentum must be sustained through being 'pushed' by a deliberate policy of social enforcement on people. You don't have to agree with the parameters, just yield and repeat them in your own behaviour - like not using certain words or showing deference to the demands of certain segments of society. That's the driving force. So it's not so much about belief as about power. If you've ever censored yourself on Facebook (like not questioning the alleged 'science' of pandemics) so as not to be penalised or cancelled, you'll understand what I'm saying. The enforcement can be quite subliminal and so long as the victims have no frames of reference, they won't understand what's going on and will be swept up and moved along by the wave. Dictators know how to work this. Read Wilhelm Reich's book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, which has been around a long time now, if you're interested, though it's a little out-of-date now. The 'mini-Tribe' is expert at manipulating human behaviour, having tried and tested it for generations.

The truth is all out there if you care to look for it, a reason why alternatives to state institutions are so essential... and why the 'mini-Tribe' at the top is trying to censor and suppress them. The battle that's currently raging is all about who controls the narrative; and like all totalitarian systems, it must have someone to 'blame' - a scapegoat - to channel attention away from the Big Lie. In the last century, it was the bourgoisie and the Jews; in this one, it's white heterosexual Christian males. The only way to stop such a total wave is to build barriers by saying 'No' and presenting an alternative narrative based on Truth. Alternative explanations of things provide contrasts so that you can ask questions and decide for yourself what's going on, but you have to have the freedom to do so, a reason those freedoms are being taken away by the 'mini-Tribe' at the top. That's why New Media are breaking the mould, reversing the systematic dumbing down in so-called 'education' by informing and enabling. The knowledge is out there if you want it on the internet but unless you have pre-existing reading skills with cultural hinterland and background, you can't make use of all this material. So learn a language well and gets some basic historial knowledge of your culture.

Satan has been very successful - there is a whole generation of students now who have been left behind who don't have these skills because they've never been taught them. They've been taught what to think but not how to think...which is what true education is all about. That is why I am at pains to inform my readers of history, how to think for yourself, and how to become more culturally aware by exposing you to alternative views and interpretations so you can begin to think and assess the truth for yourself. These days there are students in the humanities who can get a degree without ever having read a complete book! Unbelievable! Christians who have never read the whole Bible for themselves, but have only received fragments of it stitched together in different ways by teachers from the denominations, are no less disadvantaged than your modern liberal arts university student who are getting useless degrees of no practical value to society in subjects like 'Gender Studies'. Knowledge is absorbed by these youngsters in a fragmentary form without any meaningful frames of reference. So, again, we have to provide that for them. And not just the students of academic institutions. Knowledge on the Internet is very fragmented which makes it an ideal breeding ground for ideologies not based on truth. The flatearth phenomenon is a perfect example which would never have arisen if children had been taught proper science at school. There is one single integrated system which is what you need to understand a subject in depth.

That's what I love so much about the ministries of Mike Heiser (who tragically died of cancer last week) and N.T.Wright, whether you agree with everything they say or not (and that's the point - we ought to be able to compare, contrast, debate and decide for ourselves) because they make the effort to bring Bible scholarship down to an intelligible level for the common man and woman. Knowledge, whether secular or spiritual, needn't be - and shouldn't be - confined to the ivory towers of academia but must be made available to all where it can be of pastoral service too. As you know, I am passionate about education for all but what I cannot abide is brainwashing in the state institutions of education. The truth is more than able to take care of itself. It doesn't need patrolling by storm-troopers of the extremes. And I take the view that if it cannot be explained in simple terms to the common man and woman that it's a waste of time. There must be practical application for all who care to know.

Actually, Satan cannot now succeed because once truth, like a rumour, has been let out of the bag, it cannot easily be put back in again. The lies are being exposed. The Enemy is losing the information war although he has a big head start because of his control of the means of mass communication. Yes, he will always have his 'true believers' and they will follow him for at least the first 3½ years when the 'mini-Tribe' headed by the Antichrist gets global political control, until they too finally wake up. Then all that will be left to the Enemy to maintain control over the plebians is brute force, which is why the last 3½ years are going to be hell on earth. When the mask comes off, the pretense at benevolence abruptly ends. That doesn't mean everyone is going to be 'saved' at that time because everyone will have had their free agency to choose truth or lies along the way - just because you don't understand the complexities of the things I have been speaking of doesn't mean that you aren't responsible at least for your behaviour toward other with whom you may not agree - your actions - in response, or subsequent, to believing the lies.

That inward sense of right and wrong, whether we understand exactly what's going on or not, is always there, even in the most brainwashed soul. It all depends how many lines of moral retraint you are willing, or unwilling, to cross - and whether you're willing to deliberaely hurt others or not in your pursuit of the Big Lie. It's how you treat Yahweh and how you treat others that's the deciding factor, not how much knowledge you have. In Mormonism, for example, you are 'saved' no faster than you obtain knowledge. Knowledge is an important tool but we are not saved in proportion to the amount of knowledge we have as the gnostic religions and occult systems teach. Everybody has a basic sense or understanding of the difference between goodness and evil, but once the conscience becomes so defiled by repeating wrong choices leading to evil deeds that you can't tell the difference any longer - when you come to believe, for instance, the lie that 'the means justifies the end' as Marxists do - then you're truly in serious trouble; then, as we'll discuss next week, you have received the mark of the Beast, belong to him and his master, the devil, and are hell-bound. The choice, as always, is yours. Choose love - Christ's agapé-, ahavah-, chesed-type love - because true love always wins the day.

I had to fight a big battle yesterday - last night and early this morning - to get this message out to you as one obstacle after another got in my way - worsening illness, an ageing malfunctioning computer, exhaustion and depression when my laptop deleted half this material and I had to reconstruct it all again at 3 am this morning. So if I have been repetitive, I hope you'll forgive me. I should have been asleep! I have not had the opportunity to discuss 2 Esdras as I promised, for which I also apologise, which will have to await another day. It's an important historical text that shows us how Jewish thinking has evolved and will help us understand how Jewish apocalytic took a wrong turn before the Apostle John was called to set that right. The story is every bit as complex as the reasoning of Job's friends was which on the surface seemed so 'reasonable' (people often quote his friends without realising they're propagating lies) but which was so false as to anger Yahweh and vindicate Job and cause him to pray for his friends!

What a blessing it will be in the Millennium to finally live on a falsehood-free world! But for now, we must wrestle with it and expose it as we are so commanded to do by Paul:

"Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them" (Eph.5:11, NIV)

"The wrath of Elohim (God) is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness..." (Rom.1:18, NIV).

The course of the first Beast is brilliant but short like all dictators. They are admired by their brainwashed followers or 'true believers' for a season because of their genius (never mind that it's diabolical and full of blasphemy) but sooner or later they turn on even their own followers. No matter how 'good' a communist or how loyal you were to the Leader in Stalinist Russia, you never knew if you were secure. You all know the Soviet joke about Comrade Popov I'm sure that Ronald Reagan loved telling. For those who are not, three inmates in a Siberian Gulag are talking and asking each other why they were there. 'I supported Comrade Popov,' said the first. 'I was against Comrade Popov,' said the second. 'I am Comrade Popov,' said the third. That's what the Antichrist system is all about - raw power, and nothing but raw power. There is no reason or morality to it. That's all Satan cares about and he doesn't care how he gets it - power. It's the core philosophy of Marxism, Fascism, Feminism and Wokeism because raw power always overturns truth making it fundamentally anti-human and anti-God. And as you know, Marx hated Elohim (God) passionately. And were Satan allowed to destroy humanity, which would indeed happen without Yahweh's intervention, he would next go about destroying even his own fallen malaklim (angels), the demons. It is ultimate nihilism - it centres on self and ultimately destroys everything and everyone but self.

So we shall resume the battle against lies and wickedness next week as we examine the diabolical rôle of the first Beast's assistant, the second Beast. The way these two work together is rather important in our understanding of how the Enemy arrays his forces against us. So until then, be blessed and strengthened in the presence of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) in your life as you seek the face of Yahweh through His Son Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). Get out the Book of Psalms and start praising Him! Amen.

Endnotes

[1] The KJV and NKJV place the 7 heads before the 10 horns (as do the LB, NLT, JB & JBP) - I have here corrected the NKJV and placed the 10 horns first, in line with all mdoern translations from the conservative RSV, NASB, Moffat, ESV & NIV to the more liberal NRSV, TEV & Barclay translation. The messianic RSTNE, which is essentially a revamped KJV, follows the wrong KJV order, along with the ISRV & HalleluYah Scriptures. The Aramaic (e.g. HRV), along with the messianic JNT/CJB which use the best Greek MSS, follows the correct order too.

Acknowledgements

[1] Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone - The New Testament for Everyone Commentary Series, Vol.19 (SPCK, London: 2011)
[2] E.W.Bullinger*, Commentary on Revelation (Kregel Classics, Grand Rapids, Michihan: 1984)
[3] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (JNT Publications, Clarksville, Maryland: 1992)
[4] ESV Study Bible (Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois: 2011)
[5] The NIV Study Bible (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1995)
[6] Ed. J.R.Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (MacMillan, London: 1909)
[7] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007)
[8] Dr Paul A. Taylor, Academia Has Fallen - an interview on the Triggernometry podcast, Season 7 (2023)

*E.W.Bullinger was a brilliant Anglican clergyman and scholar whose works merit careful study by serious students of the Bible. He was, however, seriously in error in at least three main areas, namely, (1) he believed the 'Church' has been raptured before the Book of Revelation opens, (2) he believed that the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 are 7, literal Jewish churches or assemblies yet to come, and (3) he believed in a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture.

• 1. White horse - military aggression
• 2. Red horse - bloodshed
• 3. Black horse - famine
• 4. Pale Green/Blanched/Pallid/Sickly-looking horse - disease, epidemics

  ---

• 5. Persecution & prayer
• 6. Tremour & terror

  ---

  INTERLUDE I (Ch.7)
  (The 144,000 Redeemed)

  ---

• 7. Silence in heaven, listening to prayers which are then answered in a final catastrophe: a severe earthquake I

• 1. Scorched earth
• 2. Polluted sea
• 3. Contaminated water
• 4. Reduced sunlight

  ---

• 5. Insects and plague (for five months) (1st Woe)
• 6. Oriental invasion (200 million army) (2nd Woe)

  ---

  INTERLUDE II (Ch.10-11)
  (The Malak with the Little Scroll)
  (The Two Witnesses)

  ---

• 7. The Kingdom comes, the world is taken over by Yahweh & Yah'shua (Jesus) after a severe earthquake II (3rd Woe)

  ---

  INTERLUDE III (Ch.13-14)
  (The First & Second Beasts)
  (The Lamb & the 144,000)
  (The Messages of the Three Malakim)

  ---

• 1. Boils on the skin
• 2. Blood in the sea
• 3. Blood from the springs
• 4. Burning by the sun

  ---

• 5. Darkness
• 6. Armageddon

  ---

• 7. Hailstorm (OB 368:11-12) and severe earthquake III, leading to international collapse