O JERUSALEM. Chapter 15 of "The Rise or Fall of American Empire" by Doug Krieger

O JERUSALEM!

Chapter XV

The Rise or Fall of American Empire?

By

Doug Krieger

Part 3

(4)     ABBA’S WATCHMAN.COM – Is a website out of Alberta, Canada. The site’s content appears all over the map – but, apparently is some form of Sabbath and/or Seventh-Day Adventist-style eschatology. It is vehemently anti-Papal/anti-Catholic. Also, Russia (the Bear) plays a decisive role in the site’s eschatology. The site is strongly “King James Only” in its pursuit of biblical fidelity. The “Ten Kings” of Revelation 17 are as follows:

These are the Ten Kings who don’t have a kingdom who may fight with Russia:

RUSSIA IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

CHINA IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

CUBA IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

IRAN IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

SYRIA IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

NORTH KOREA IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

VENEZUELA IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

PAKISTAN IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

TAJIKISTAN IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

KYRGYZSTAN IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

KAZAKHSTAN IS PREPARING FOR WAR TODAY WITH AMERICA

The site claims that New York City is the “first Babylon” to fall. After reading the following, tell me, am I losing my mind or has this prophecy buff gone mad – perhaps it’s the long winters in Canada?

“Damascus is the oldest city in the world and it has never been completely destroyed and so it never ceased. The fortress of Ephraim is America. Ephraim is the great group of nations which Israel (Jacob) placed his name on in Genesis 48:16. Isaiah 48:1 Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel....

(My Note: This sounds a little like British Israelism – perhaps another defector from Herbert W. Armstrong – a man who seems to have borne much “fruit” and some “nuts” out there in the valley.)

“America is also the nation that Israel will not have to protect them in the day of the Lord’s wrath. Lamentations 4:17

In Ephesians 2:12 Israel (is) called a commonwealth ... being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. The Lord brings an ancient nation = the kings of the east (Led by the king from the far north) against the house of Israel Jeremiah 5:15.

“They devise an evil plan with America and it looks to have already begun with the taking of two Israeli soldiers hostage and the news from Iran saying they are not afraid of war with America because the U.S. can not fight on two fronts they don't have the man power, which is true, but it is pushing Bush’s pride button. Pride goes before destruction. Something provokes the U.S. alone or with Israel into attacking Damascus. Then as the peace and safety speeches are being read the next day at noon, Israel time, the northern armies will move in to surround Jerusalem as a decoy while Russia launches an attack on the U.S. and it will happen in the next day from these scriptures. Iran has just called all Arab nations to wipe Israel off the face of the map. So it’s started for sure but only the Lord knows how this will happen. But we know that it will be a setup. Remember this is a day of trouble. 1 Thessalonians 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. These disasters happen at Eveningtide and at noon time . Eveningtide in Israel is when Damascus gets destroyed = ‘Eveningtide trouble’ and ‘pass over and offend.’ Read this page to understand the timing of the events = Swelling of Jordan. Those who come in the Armageddon attack know the hour and the day and so will God’s elect as it is an appointed time. No one knows what day or the hour the Lord will come to take back the earth at the end of the tribulation period! Luke 21:34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. So always be found Watching!”

Frankly, the more you get into Abba’s Watchman, the more you wonder just what on earth or heaven you’re watching. This site has taken the world-wide web to new heights or phantasmagoric virtue. If you’re suffering from Attention Deficit Hyper-Disorder – this is the site you’ve been missing in your life, trust me.

(5)     PROPHEZINE – A clean and well put together (and sane) website of Ray and Tracye Gano of New Braunfels, TX. The site is straightforward in its description:

Prophezine deals with Bible Prophecy and World Events from a Pre-tribulation, pre-millennial, dispensationalist stand point. We currently serve close to 60,000+ (and growing) people world wide with a newsletter, news updates and website.

The Mission of Prophezine is to carry out the command of the Lord Christ Jesus:

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations" Matthew 28:19

Prophezine is a Christian publication grounded in the deity of Christ and the inerrancy of scripture. The major intent of the editors is the presentation of the Gospel:

"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." 1 Cor. 15:3-4

The site is commercialized to a great extent. Gano offers excellent insights on the “Great Apostasy.” America, however, does not receive any credible mentioning in Bible Prophecy, and, with a strong bias towards the writings of Jack Kinsella’s Omega Letter website (an affiliate of Hal Lindsey) – it is obvious that “America doesn’t even play a bit part” in the Last Days. The emphasis is upon a Euro-Antichrist.

(6)     THE TRIBULATION NETWORK – You’re here!

(7)     JESUS – 888 – CHRIST COME – You’ll find this site very “busy.” “Mystery Babylon” is the United Nations/United States of America. She is burned with fire and then these events take place:

First:          Britain falls.
Second:      Russia falls.
Third:        China falls (the Far Eastern Alliance including Japan, Korea, and Taiwan).

This leaves Germany as the last beast power that devours the whole world.   (Germany will have finally achieved its goal of WW1 and WW2: To militarily conquer the world.)

The New World Order turns the entire world over to the Antichrist power. The Antichrist power is thus established for the remainder of the 3 1/2 year Great Tribulation.

America is dispensed with through immediate judgment – Europe rises to power until Germany becomes the citadel of Antichrist. The site appears to be post-tribulational. There are many extemporaneous prophetic outbursts throughout the site.

(8)     ANTIPAS MINISTRIES – This site is operated by S. R. Shearer. Many of you are familiar with the controversy between Dene McGriff/Doug Krieger and S. R. Shearer and the reasons why we left Antipas back in 2004-2005 over the issue of S.R.’s interpretation of “The Gospel of the Kingdom” and of “fleeing Babylon” (Revelation 18:4). Some of our consternation with Antipas Ministries is covered in Dene McGriff’s article: Flee or Testify? and What’s Happening to Antipas Ministries? The site is post-tribulational and integrates strong elements of left-leaning, social-justice-style liberation theology immersed in a radical call to pre-millenarian/post-tribulational activism; yet, says that only the coming of Jesus Christ will ultimately bring such social justice on the globe – but that doesn’t mean the Church’s mission must continually speak out against the merchants of the earth who are having a field day of trafficking in the bodies and souls of men.

S.R. Shearer would find common cause and expression with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and, though he would outright reject the “Emergent Church” side of Rick Warren’s efforts, he would inadvertently find common cause with Warren’s emphasis upon the SOCIAL GOSPEL—i.e., stealing the thunder of liberal Christianity and waging war on poverty, disease, hunger and other social distortions, while supporting education and those efforts which combat social disintegration. To both S.R. Shearer and Rick Warren, these two pillars are of EQUAL importance in the gospel’s message of salvation and deliverance.

Clearly, Antipas Ministries embraces many of the Tribulation Network’s eschatology, but it is first and foremost (today) a rant against the Corptocracy from an evangelical perspective. Efforts to escape Babylon’s shores have been met with indifference and some consternation by those who moved to Canada and have now returned to Babylon’s citadel (the Americans) after a spat in the Canadian wilderness. Notwithstanding this apparent interlude, S.R. (at least) plans (after a junket throughout the USA) to move to Germany in a final effort to “flee Babylon.”

Instead of a resounding embrace of Revelation 11 and – in the spirit of both Daniel and John – embrace the God of the whole universe and the Testimony of Jesus in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom we are to shine as lights – Antipas Ministries believes that those of us determined by the grace of God to resist the devil in the street of the Great City, while calling people to repentance here and now, will “partake of her plagues and sins” and diminish what little testimony is heard on her streets prior to her inevitable judgment.

We at the Tribulation Network believe this emphasis of fleeing the physicality of Babylon is simply indefensible and flies in the face of the insurmountable evidence and emphases throughout the Word of God for the saints to persevere and endure until the end – wherever believers find themselves. It is our hope and prayer that S.R. Shearer will place Revelation 18:4 in its proper context at the extremity of the Seventieth Week and, with us, take his stand within the Holy City against that Great City. And, notwithstanding some who think that we’ve missed the mark on the timing of Revelation 18:4 – that it is as much a call of rapture/resurrection prior to Babylon’s final demise and the pouring out of the Wrath of God and Wrath of the Lamb upon the earthlings and upon their city, Babylon the Great and the close of the 1,260th day of the latter half of Daniel’s 70th Week – we cannot affirm any other interpretation of this magnitude being placed in the Scriptures at this juncture than what we have so concluded. It is equivalent to the same injunction given in Revelation 11:12 . . . and it is wholly orchestrated by Divine intervention, not manipulated by human contrivance:

“And they (the two witnesses) heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them. In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell . . . .” (Rev. 11:12).

“And I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities . . . therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her” (Revelation 18:4-6, 8).

We are engaged in an horrific struggle – the Holy City of Revelation 11:2 (“And they (the Gentiles) will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months”) is juxtaposed to the Great City (Babylon the Great) of Revelation 11:8. There is a headship in this Great City—make no mistake here. There is both a king and a kingdom whose empire encompasses the earth in the Latter Days – but just as Daniel found himself in Babylon to give witness and testimony to the God of the Universe – even so, we are called to do the same in the Latter Days. Well does Grant R. Osborne, Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. illuminate the Church’s final focus throughout the Seventieth Week of Daniel:

“Martyrdom is a frequent image in Revelation (2:13; 6:9-11; 7:14; 11:2, 7; 13:7; 14:13; 16:6; 17:6; 18:24; 20:4), and here we see God’s instructions for the proper Christian response to their persecutors-pacifism! As Barclay (1959: 293) says, resistance is futile; one can only wait for God. But more than this, while the believers, actively decry the evil of this unholy empire in their witness and certainly refuse to follow the commands of the beast to accept his mark (13:16-17), they passively accept their lot of suffering. This is an important correction to the misunderstanding of many (e.g., liberation theologians) who have seen this book as a call to arms, a call to revolutionary opposition against oppressive, evil governments. On the contrary, the only action allowed believers in the book is faithful witness and perseverance in following Christ. They must not just submit to the beast but even more to divine providence . . . . As in the OT, it is Yahweh who wins the wars on behalf of his people, and the message is clear: do not make war against the beast; that is the work of God. Live faithfully and persevere in witness, but leave the battle to the Lord.” (Revelation, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament – Baker academic (series), Grant R. Osborne, Ph.D., 2006, 3rd Printing, original release, 2002 – p. 506).

(9)     PROPHECY TODAY – This is the official ministry website of Jimmy DeYoung Ministries. DeYoung’s journalism background and his solid training with the likes of Evangelist Jack Wyrtzen, makes him a formidable influence in prophecy circles. His background is extensive and commendable. Jimmy is solidly Premillenarian; and, very pre-trib. The site is not much on immediate content. The need to subscribe and purchase is fairly substantial throughout the site. Little, if any, insight into a Latter Day Babylon the Great domiciled in the leadership of the West, is found on the site.

(10)   GOLDEN CALF – An in-your-face styled website, for sure. At least the site has original up-to-date commentary! The site is operated by Don D. Srail, an unabashed Christian fundamentalist and lover of Israel. In his statement of faith Don is clearly a classical pre-trib/pre-mil/dispensationalist to the max:

Dispensationalism - We believe that the Scriptures interpreted in their natural, literal sense reveal divinely determined dispensations or rules of life which define man's responsibilities in successive ages. These dispensations are not ways of salvation, but rather divinely ordered stewardships by which God directs man according to his purpose. Three of these - the age of law, the age of the Church, and the age of the millennial kingdom - are the subjects of detailed revelation in Scripture (John 1:17; 1 Corinthians 9:17; 2 Corinthians 3:9-18; Galatians 3:13-25; Ephesians 1:10; Ephesians 3:2-10; Colossians 1:24-25; Hebrews 7:19; Revelation 20:2-6).

The Second Advent of Christ - We believe in that "Blessed Hope," the personal, imminent, pre-tribulation and pre-millennial coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for his redeemed ones; and in his subsequent return to earth, with his saints, to establish his millennial kingdom (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Zechariah 14:4-11; Revelation 19:11-16; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 5:9; Revelation 3:10).

I don’t know about you, but this brother speaks from his heart – he sounds a lot like Jack Hook – and for that reason alone, I’d rather have this pre-tribber in the trenches with me when all hell breaks loose than someone trying to flee Babylon when the going gets tough . . .

“God is constantly testing. God is determined that the truth be know. Obama was tested about his statements regarding Jerusalem (before and after the AIPAC meeting on June 4, 2008), and the truth came out very quickly. What about you dear friend? What happens when God tests you for the truth? Are your statements about Christ found to be only lip service, or do you remain standing in the face of adversity? We live in an era where false Christianity thrives. Phony ministers and ministries are the hallmark of this generation. False doctrine is rampant among those who are part of mainstream Christianity; and with false doctrine comes false assurances of conversion. God has already exposed many of these apostate individuals and ministries, but the masses just flow to the next rotten apple in the barrel. The days of repentance and revival are past. The time to come out from among them has gone by. It is now time for dispensational change. The LORD Jesus Christ is coming again to the Holy Land, Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount. Apostate Christianity will be left behind to face the wrath of God. Friend, come out from among them. Come to the real Christ of the Bible. The soon returning Jewish Messiah/King. He is coming to Jerusalem! Jerusalem is going to be Jewish regardless of what the secular politicians think they can force on the world. Friend, come to Christ, and live.”

Well, aside from escaping the mayhem – I think the spirit of this dear brother is right on – and, furthermore, he’ll stand tall and deliver because he’s got his eyes on the prize: The unfaltering Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! No, America is not in his eschatological schematic – and, like all of us (if you’re a normal Christian) Srail realizes that “Western Christianity” has become so flawed and lukewarm that what appears to be the only way of dealing with this “thing” is to escape via rapture and let the Lord have it out with the forlorn brethren who just call themselves “Christian” but are only that in name, not in reality.

CONCLUSION

O Jerusalem is a topic that refuses to remove itself from the international public square. Preterists and Postmillenarians must be having a fit, along with their Amillenarian brethren, that Jerusalem and those pesky Jews keep stealing the headlines on a daily basis – well, perhaps their only refuge may be in claiming Israel’s materiality prior to the Second Coming of Christ is part and parcel of the final Great Apostasy which is to afflict the earth!

It is altogether imperative to understand the times in which we live – that demands a keen eschatological awareness of the Church’s climactic witness and testimony throughout the final week of Daniel’s prophecy, as well as recognition of the Almighty’s positioning of a regathered Israel in her ancient homeland as a witness to the Gentile World Powers – a sign of Divine intrusion into the affairs of the kingdoms of this world.

Furthermore, Jerusalem’s status is irresolvable, given its tumultuous history and its adamant sense of survivability and avoidance of another Holocaust; and, antithetically, given the implacable resolve of Islam to rid herself and her holy lands from this Western pariah – in other words, the quintessential immovable object colliding with the irresistible force. All the Presidents of these United States of America together are stumped by the world’s most prickly problem. If the tectonic plates of Islam collide with Russia in Chechnya – with Serbia in Bosnia – with India in Kashmir – with the Philippines on Mindanao – with Darfur in Sudan – with Northern Nigeria in Nigeria – and on and on – let it be known, that clash is no more apparent and stridently focused more so than on any spot on the planet than at the edge of the Eastern Mediterranean: Israel-Palestine.

Now, for prophetic pundits to obfuscate the immensity of America’s involvement in the Middle East as “interesting” at best, and non-consequential at its worst, is perhaps the most egregious and ostentatious eschatological oversight ever committed by the evangelical Church. We have become geo-politically irrelevant – a kind of pop-psychologist of sorts – a homeopathic practitioner whose dubious results are more placebo in nature than real medicine – in other words, we’ve become naught but crackpots playing upon the global stage, benign amusements amassing tidbits of news here and there – selling our wares – not having any real idea what significance in biblical time and space any of these matters have, aside from the fact they’re taking place in our world and have “something to do” with the Middle East, and, in particular, Israel.

The pre-tribulational rapture of the Church holds an unholy grip upon the Testimony of Jesus and is, and continues to be, our Achilles’ heel – the laughingstock and amusement of Preterism, Amillenarians and especially, a resurgent Post-Millenarianism. Meanwhile, Israel’s striking materiality flies in the face of all these eschatological contrarians and signals the final hour is upon us all. Instead, we Premillenarians await the Great Escape and have so foolishly presumed it to be the Blessed Hope, which in point of biblical fact, is the actual Second Coming of Jesus Christ, not some secret, noiseless snatch accorded to an elite group of overcomers (partial rapturists) or to all who name the name of Christ – escaping their most significant witness to the principalities and powers at the close of this age!

I find it spiritually disconcerting for brethren like Rapture Ready, Rapture Alert and many more, who are so closed and even vehemently antagonistic to their
post-tribulational brethren, who, in spite of according them spiritual standing and who are as committed to the Church’s witness as they – see their post-tribulational brethren abandoning the Blessed Hope! Unfortunately, the evolution of the pre-tribulational doctrine has insinuated itself into the prosperity gospel movement to such an extent, that thankfully, and persistently, numerous brethren are leaving their pre-tribulational moorings. The disquieting element in this departure is the abandonment of Premillenarianism altogether for the more deviant prospects of Amillenarian, Preterism and even post-Millenarian world views.

One of the stalwart bastions of evangelistic fervor has, in the past, been those who embrace a truly Premillenarian Weltanschauung – freeing the saints in their highest calling to deeper Christian devotion and world evangelism. Now, given the overwhelming tide of spiritual instability wrought through one harried deception wafting upon the shores of the Church after another – and, given the world’s communicable diseases so easily diffused in this world of greater technologies – the embrace of a pretribulational mindset has become the antithesis of an ardent Christian witness in the midst of unbridled sin and rampant civil decay. Awaiting the Great Escape is an affront both to a Laodicean Church ill-prepared to “buy of Me gold tried in the fire” – as well as to a world desperate for spiritual reality amidst economic and social instability.

“How shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14) – How shall those “left behind” be born from above if the Holy Spirit be taken from this earthly ball? Pray tell – how?   By carefully designed videos and message transmissions left by the escapees? Nonsense – there has always been a believing witness since Adam. The serpent may bruise our heel – but the WOMAN shall bruise his head!

“And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20a)

No, the prophetic indifference, and abandonment of the Church’s mission before the principalities and powers and from wresting souls from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light – must be exposed for what it is – as Corrie ten Boom so eloquently asserted – I again leave you with her Triumphant Testimony and a profound awareness of the intoxicated condition of the nations but also of the multitudes in the Valley of Decision, for the Day of the Lord is near, in the Valley of Decision (Joel 3:14) – the “fields are white unto harvest!”

“There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution.

“I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation. There is no way to escape it.

“We are next.

“Since I have already gone through prison for Jesus’ sake, and since I met the Bishop in China, now every time I read a good Bible text I think, ‘Hey, I can use that in the time of tribulation.’ Then I write it down and learn it by heart.

“When I was in the concentration camp, a camp where only twenty percent of the women came out alive, we tried to cheer each other up by saying, ‘Nothing could be any worse than today.’ But we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse that I had committed to memory gave me great hope and joy.

‘If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye;
for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you;
on their part evil is spoken of,
but on your part He is glorified.’
(I Peter 3:14)

“I found myself saying, ‘Hallelujah!’

“Because I am suffering, Jesus is glorified!

“In America, the churches sing, ‘Let the congregation escape tribulation’ but in China and Africa the tribulation has already arrived.

“This last year alone more than two hundred thousand Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners. Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation.”

(Please read her entire treatment on this subject here.)

Finally – in confirmation of Sister Corrie’s injunctions—injunctions which by God’s grace we shall never forget:

“Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, ‘Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?’ And I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ So he said to me, ‘These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:13-14).

“And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God and the song of the Lamb . . . after these things I looked, and behold, the sanctuary of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened” (Revelation 15:2-3, 5).

Yes – the “testimony in heaven was opened” – Amen.