BEHOLD THE BEAST
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The False Prophet
9 - ONE MORE TIMECHAPTER 9
They shall come with weeping,
and with supplications will I lead them:
I will cause them to walk
by the rivers of waters in a straight way,
wherein they shall not stumble:
for I am a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.
JEREMIAH 31:9
DEEP in the mountainous interior of Irian Jaya, formerly Dutch
New Guinea, there lives a tribe of natives called the Yalu. They
were one of the most isolated peoples on the face of the earth yet
they had a very formalized blood sacrificial system. They had a
law of Ten Commandments called the wene malalek and a holy
ground called an osuwa. That osuwa was surrounded by a stone
wall. Any man not consecrated to the spirits of kembu, or any
woman who trespassed on that ground, would be killed. Within
the osuwa was a sacred building called the kembu-vam. It had two
rooms, an outer room where the priests of kembu held
ceremonies, and an inner room which held the sacred stone. The
stone was never allowed to be moved by one man, but had to be
carried by four men at its four corners. Pigs were slaughtered and
roasted in the court outside the kembu-vam, and priests, with
awesome ceremony, took pig fat into that holiest of rooms and
anointed the sacred stone.1
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1 A more detailed account of the Yalu folk religion may be found in Don Richard-
son's Lords of the Earth (Ventura, CA Regal Books, 1977) pp. 76-80.
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Though unbelievably corrupted, the parallels of the Yalu folk
religion to the Levitical code are so inescapable that one has to
ask: Where did they get all that?
In Burma, there was a tribe of people called the Karen who
worshiped the God Y'wa. Their prophets declared that they once
possessed a book of the law but had lost it many centuries before.
Sacred songs passed down from generation to generation,
reminded them of their lost law:
Omnipotent is Y'wa; Him have we not believed.
Y'wa created men anciently.
He has a perfect knowledge of all things.
Y'wa created men at the beginning.
The earth is the treading place for the feet of Y'wa.
And heaven is the place where He sits.
He sees all things and we are manifest to Him.
Y'wa formed the earth originally.
He appointed food and drink.
He appointed the "fruit of trial."
Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons.
He causes them to eat of the fruit of the tree of trial.
They obeyed not; they believed not Y'wa ...
They became subject to sickness, aging and death ...
O children and grandchildren,
If we repent of our sins,
And cease to do evil - restraining our passions -
And pray to Y'wa. He will have mercy upon us again.
If Y'wa does not have mercy on us, there is no other one
who can.
He who saves us is the only one - Y'wa.
O Children and grandchildren! Pray to Y'wa constantly.
By day and by night.1
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1 Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts (Ventura, CA, Regal Books, 1981)
pp.77-79, cites from The Gospel in Burma, Wylie, p. 6, and The Karen Apostle,
Mason, p. 97-99.
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Y'wa is just too close to Yahweh (the Hebrew name for God)
to be coincidental. And what about the "fruit of trial" and prayer?
Those traditions do not appear to be founded in the New
Testament Gospel, but upon a knowledge of the Old Testament.
Again we have to ask: Where did they get all that?
The Lahu of northern Burma had a tradition that Gui'Sha, the
Creator of all things, had given their forefathers His law written
on rice cakes. The Rengma tribe in India believed that the
Supreme Being gave His words to their forefathers written on
animal skins (which, by the way, is what the Mosaic law was written
on). But according to their traditions, the forefathers of the
Rengma people had been careless with the skins and dogs had
eaten them.1
These examples are not unique. The native religions of almost
every isolated people on earth contain haunting memories, in
varying detail, of an earlier knowledge of the true God, or of His
Law. So, once again we ask; where did all this knowledge come
from? To find out, we may need to go back again into the history
of the children of Israel ...
Jacob, named Israel by the Lord, was Abraham's grandson.
Jacob had twelve sons, among whom was Joseph, and those
twelve men became the fathers of the twelve tribes of the nation
of Israel. After the death of Jacob, Israel's twelve tribes remained
in Egypt for 430 years. They fled Egypt in 1446BC, and were in the
wilderness for another 40 years. After Joshua's conquest of
Canaan, they lived in the Promised Land, under judges, for
another 300 years. Then, during the judgeship of Samuel, the
people demanded to have a king.
God first gave them Saul, then David, and with David began
the line of kings through which Jesus would be born. But the
kingdom remained unified for only two generations. If you read
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1 Ibid pp. 85-91
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the account carefully, it appears that Solomon, the wisest man who
ever lived, had a son who was truly inept. Rehoboam's decision to
raise taxes caused a revolt, so during his reign the Davidic
kingdom divided. God separated Judah and Benjamin from the ten
northern tribes, and the twelve tribes became two separate
nations: Israel in the North, and Judah in the South. Jerusalem
remained the capital of Judah while Samaria became the capital of
Israel.
Northern Israel remained in continual rebellion to the Lord,
putting it in conflict with Judah and the nations around them.
Finally, in 748BC, Tiglath-pileser of Assyria made northern Israel
a vassal state and took captives off to Assyria. In 725BC, Shal-
maneser began a major deportation of Israel, and put Samaria
under siege. Samaria itself fell in 722BC and what was left of the
nation of Israel was taken captive and relocated near the Caspian
Sea (north of what is now Iran) and they were never heard from
again. This happened just as Moses prophesied it would:
Nehemiah 1:8 Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou
commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I
will scatter you abroad among the nations:
Why did God ever allow this to happen? Were the Israelites not
part of God's chosen people? Didn't the everlasting covenant God
made with Abraham include the ten tribes? The prophet Isaiah
saw what was going on around him and lamented:
Isaiah 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy
ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy
servants. sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.
The fall of northern Israel was not just an unfortunate
accident in history. It was an integral part of God's eternal plan,
and the Lord told His people about it in advance.
Hosea was placed in Israel just before its fall, and he alone
details the future of the ten tribes after their dispersion among
the Gentile nations. Hosea prophesied from about 750-722BC and
he prepares God's people for the calamity that is about to befall
them. Read the prophet carefully, and you will see that the
destruction of Israel and Samaria is fixed. It is going to fall to
Assyria, no matter what. Hosea is not a call to repentance to save
the northern kingdom. Instead, the prophet is describing the
Lord's plan for the ten northern tribes after they disappeared.
In the verse below, we begin to see the everlasting love our
Heavenly Father has for His wayward Israelites. While they were
figuring out ways to rebel against Him, God was putting a long-
term plan in motion to save them: a plan spanning thousands of
years. The following verse is in that setting. Israel is about to go
into captivity when God tells them:
Hosea 1:10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as
the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor
numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where
it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be
said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
That is a paradoxical Scripture is it not? Note the tense of the
verb, "shall be." Shall be is future to when it was written. Israel is
about to go into captivity never to be heard from again, and the
Lord tells them that they are going to be numerous beyond count.
Furthermore, He tells them that no one will know they are His
Israelites. Nonetheless, they will be called the sons of God. Isn't
that mystifying?
Hosea 2:19-20 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever ... I
will even betroth thee unto me ... and thou shalt know the
LORD.
The Lord then declares that this lost and scattered people will
be His bride, a bride whether they know it or not. Impossible from
man's standpoint, nevertheless, an accomplished fact from God's.
But there is more. If we picture in our minds how seed was sown
in the old days, we can also understand this unique Old Testament
figure of the sower:
Hosea 2:23 And I will sow her [Israel] unto me in the earth;
and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy;
and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art
my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.
Taking from his bag of grain, an ancient farmer would cast
seed evenly over every square foot of his field with a side-wise
motion of his arm. That is what the Lord did with Israel. He
scattered Israelites all over His great field, the earth, from South
Africa to China. Oh my, can you see it? God scattered the seed of
Israel over the whole world, from Terra del Fuego to the tip of
Siberia.
Descendants of the lost tribes of Israel are everywhere, and
God did not disperse them to lose them. In spite of their
scattering, the Lord declared that He would have mercy on them.
Here, at the beginning of the 21st century, it is only a hundred
generations from when God made an everlasting covenant with
Abraham. Since the very hairs of our heads are numbered, surely
the Lord has no trouble remembering every one of Israel's
descendants. The prophet Amos also spoke of this continuing
covenant with a dispersed Israel, but in figurative language:
Amos 9:9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of
Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet
shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
Can we hear that? "Yet shall not the least grain fall upon the
earth?" The Creator of the universe was going to save his
wayward Israelites. But not only them. God didn't have just a little
local plan to deal with a few Israelites. The Lord saw and planned
the history of the whole world and its inhabitants in eternity and
He is very good. Everything God does is good. So it is reasonable
to believe that the Lord scattered the ten tribes of Israel abroad
for a good reason, and not just as judgment upon His people. To
see why Israel was dispersed, we need to stand outside our 21st
century mind-set and look back on Earth's 6000 years of recorded
history from the standpoint of God's overall plan.
Earlier in this chapter we saw how bits of the true faith were
spread among the primitive peoples of the world.1 Apostate as
northern Israel became, it is scripturally provable that there were
still men within it who retained a knowledge of God and of His
law (2 Ki 17:26-28). Taking a broad view of history, it appears
that 700 years before Jesus was born, the Lord may have spread
the children of Israel over the whole earth for the express purpose
of sharing the knowledge of the true God with the Gentile nations.
To prepare the hearts of the people of the world for the coming of
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1 Because parallels to prominent historic Israelite figures like Abraham, Moses, and
David do not appear in most native religions, Don Richardson (author of Eternity
in their Hearts, Peace Child and Lords of the Earth) questions whether these
religions originally sprang from Hebrew roots. But the beliefs of these primitive
peoples were passed down by oral tradition over the 2700 years that Israel has
been dispersed. During that length of time, almost any amount of corruption or
omission could have taken place. The importance of their great historic figures
would have lessened as the memory of their deeds was lost in antiquity. If a culture
barely remembers that it once had a "lost book," it seems unlikely that it would
remember who wrote it or what it contained.
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Messiah and the preaching of the Gospel. Now we can see a literal
fulfillment of a verse that is usually spiritualized:
Romans 11:25-26 Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until
the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And thus all Israel
shall be saved.
What does that verse say? That Gentiles must come to the
Lord for all Israel to be saved. But when the Gentiles do turn to
Jesus, ALL Israel shall be saved! Do you see what that verse could
mean if taken literally? Despite the dispersion of the ten northern
tribes, it could mean that God intended to save the Israelites all
along, and in the Christian Era there is only one way He would do
so: by leading them to a knowledge of His Son. Everyone in the
Church may not be a direct descendant of Jacob, but from Amos
9:9 and the other verses we have read, it is reasonable to conclude
that the dispersed descendants of Israel are saved and in the
Church.
No matter what the color of your skin, or where you are on
this planet, if you have come to the Lord with a humble heart it is
very possible that you are a physical descendant of one of the ten
tribes of Israel, and as such you could be the physical brother or
sister of every other believer on Earth. Greetings, then, my brother
or sister, in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
EPHRAIM, WHERE ARE YOU?
Now we have discussed all Israel, but what happened to the
tribe of Ephraim? Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.
Our historic setting for the following quote is with them, in Egypt,
at Israel's bedside 3700 years ago. The great seven-year famine is
long past. Jacob is old and full of years. He is almost blind, and
now he is about to die.
Jacob (Israel) called his twelve children around him to give
them his final blessing. Joseph and his two sons were ushered in
first. Joseph herding his boys before him, just as any parent would
do when he wants you to notice his children:
Genesis 48:13 And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right
hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand
toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near unto him.
14-16 And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it
upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left
hand upon Manasseh's head, guiding his hands wittingly; for
Manasseh was the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph, and
said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did
walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day,
The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads;
and let my name be named on them, and the name of my
fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a
multitude in the midst of the earth.
17-18 And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right
hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he
held up his father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head
unto Manasseh's head. And Joseph said unto his father, Not
so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand
upon his head.
19 And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I
know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be
great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he,
and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.
So the half tribe of Manasseh would become a great people,
but further into the future, the half tribe of Ephraim would
become a multitude of nations. Ephraim never did become a
multitude of nations in Old Testament times, so if they didn't do
so before they were taken captive, they would have do so after
they were absorbed into the Gentile world. Obviously, the tribe of
Ephraim is not out there claiming to be Israel, so they must not
even know who they are themselves. Where has the Lord hidden
them, and can it be proven biblically?
Hosea 11:8-9 How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I
deliver thee, Israel Mine heart is turned within me, my
repentings are kindled together ... I will not execute the fierce-
ness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I
am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee.
As the warrior tribe, Ephraim was the most powerful house in
Israel. In fact, that tribe was so influential that Ephraim's name
was sometimes used in reference to all ten tribes. But when the
Lord tells us He will not give Israel up, He does make a special
reference to Ephraim, so Ephraim might have a special prophetic
significance.
Hosea 11:10 ... then the children [of Ephraim] shall tremble
from the west.
They are going to return from the West, and, since Israel's
lands bordered the Mediterranean Sea wherever they are, west
would have to be west of the Holy Land itself!
Hosea 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
That is one of my favorite verses. The tribe of Ephraim is not
only mixed among the nations, but it is also a bread not turned.
What can that possibly mean? Well, the ancient Israelites baked
their bread one side at a time, something like the pancakes we
make today. It took time to bake one side, and more time to bake
the other. At the time of Hosea, the Lord tells us that only one side
of the bread is baked, in other words, Ephraim's history is only
half over. For Ephraim's future, the cake would need to be turned
and baked on the other side. God is telling us that half of
Ephraim's saga was still future to this prophecy and that it would
take place after their dispersion. So where did God put them?
Hosea 9:13-17 (excerpts) Ephraim ... is planted in a pleasant
place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the mur-
derer ...1 Oh Lord: what wilt thou give? give them a
miscarrying womb and dry breasts...yea, though they bring
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1 "Murderer" in Hebrew is: H2026. harag, haw-rag.; a prim. root; to smite with
deadly intent: put to [death], make [slaughter], slay (-er), "Shall bring fourth his
children to the murderer (slaughter)" In OT times, Israel "went forth to war." This
is probably a figurative reference to warfare, to abortion, or to both.
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forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb . .
and they shall be wanderers among the nations.
Ephraim will be placed in a pleasant land, but in these terrible
texts, we see that Ephraim's future would not always be pleasant.
A warrior tribe still, they would be involved in foreign wars. And
many of their children would die unborn, either through miscar-
riages or abortions. So who and where are they?
REVELATION'S "TIMES" IDENTIFIES EPHRAIM
The "time, times, and half a time" in Daniel were provably
2500 years, so unless there is a good scriptural reason to disregard
that principle, Revelation's "times" should also be 2500 years.
Revelation 12:14 And to the woman [Israel] were given two wings
of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into
her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times,
and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
This 2500 year period cannot be in our future because there
can be only one generation (forty years or so) following the time
of the Gentiles and the time of the Gentiles is over (Luk 21:24-32).
So to find out when this "time" fits, we need to lay this 2500 years
over past history.
The last we heard of Israel was when they were taken captive
into Assyria. Samaria, the capital of Israel, fell in 722BC. But the
major captivity took place about two years earlier, circa 724BC.
Hosea stated, "Ephraim is mixed with the nations," and his book
was written just before the fall of Samaria. Could 724BC be when
Revelation's "time, times, and half a time" began?1 If so, then this
time should lead us to a significant year in the history of Ephraim:
2500 - 724BC = 1776AD...The United States became a nation!
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1 The language of the verse does not tie us to the date of the destruction of
Samaria. "Fly into the wilderness" speaks of the dispersion itself, and would be
applicable for any time between 725-722BC.
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Is America the pleasant land where Ephraim was planted, and
could the people who come from all over the world to seek
freedom from tyranny and religious persecution be the
descendants of those missing tribes? It certainly appears to be a
possibility. For years people have been looking for the United
States in prophecy. Now that we have found some evidence that
this nation might contain the remnants of Ephraim and the ten
lost tribes of Israel, do you suppose anyone will want to believe it?
Not a chance. We would rather hang in there with the Seven-Year
Tribulation view for which there is NO biblical or historic evidence
whatsoever. But, unless we can think of some other incident of
major prophetic importance that took place on or about 1776,
then the United States becoming a nation is probably what that
prophecy is about. That makes North America and the United
States the pleasant and protected land where the Lord hid
Ephraim (Hos 9:13).
THE DISPERSION
How most of the children of the ten dispersed tribes migrated
to Europe is a story recorded by others.1 Suffice to say that the
heraldic symbols used by the great houses of Europe have their
roots in the titles Jacob gave his twelve sons. If you question that,
ask any authority on heraldry.2 The coats of arms that people so
proudly hang on their walls are straight out of Gen 49:1-27.
Throughout the Christian Era, the true saints of God were
hounded all over Europe. The chronicles of the oppression of the
true Church during the middle ages have to be read to be
believed. Fox's Book of Martyrs, Thielman van Braght's Martyr's
Mirror (the Anabaptist record), and Broadbent's The Pilgrim
Church record the sufferings of our forefathers in detail. The true
Christians had no settled home in any land, and their very lives
were continually at risk. They wandered from place to place or
were in hiding from persecution. They had a symbolic valley of
Achor (Achor means trouble) throughout the middle ages. But the
Lord told us it would be like that:
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1 To avoid any suggestion that the author is using material which is conjectural or
lacks red-letter accreditation, only common historic knowledge and the Bible itself
were used to support the conclusions in this chapter. However, for those interested
in pursuing this line of study, here are a few books on the subject: One Man's
Destiny, C.R. Dickey (Merrimac MA, Destiny Publishing); Missing Links Discovered
in Assyrian Tablets, E. Raymond Capt (Thousand Oaks, CA, Artisan Sales); The
Royal House of Britain and Enduring Dynasties, W. H. M. Milner (Windsor, Ontario,
Canadian-British Israelite Association.)
2 Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning coats
of arms, tracing genealogies, and determining and ruling on questions of rank or
protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms.
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Hebrews 13:13-14 Let us go forth therefore unto him without
the camp, bearing his reproach. For here have we no
continuing city, but we seek one to come.
Then they cried unto the Lord and the Lord hid them from
their persecutors and planted them in a very pleasant land. It was
rich and fruitful and flowing with milk and honey. The New World
was just such a land, and the United States was founded by Chris-
tians fleeing religious persecution. God also told us exactly how
that was going to happen:
Revelation 12:15-17 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water
as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be
carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman,
and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the
flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the
dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war
with the remnant of her seed, which keep the
commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus
Christ.
In the verses above we read that Satan would try to destroy
the Jews and the Church with a flood of people.1 But the Lord
separated a remnant church and many Jews from their enemies by
the Atlantic Ocean. This country grew and prospered and became
the hub of the Western world. West, West, where have I heard
that before? This hemisphere is as far West as you can get. Go any
farther and it is called the Far East.
Hosea 11:10-11 (excerpts) They shall walk after the LORD ...
then the children shall tremble from the west ... and I will
place them in their houses, saith the LORD.
Furthermore, the Church, like the Levites, is called to be priests
and to come out from the world.2 God called Levi to be directly in
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1 "Waters" is figurative language for many peoples: Rev 17:15 .And he saith unto
me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and
multitudes, and nations, and tongues..
2 2Co 6:14-18, 1Pe 2:5-9, Rev 1:6, 5:10, and Rev 18:4-5.
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the Lord's service. As priests, they were separated from the rest of
the people. God even gave them special cities to live in:
Numbers 35:7 ... cities which ye shall give to the Levites shall be
forty and eight cities: them shall ye give with their suburbs.
The Levites had 48 cities; the Continental United States has 48
states. It was not until after the pivotal year of 1948 that we too
"mixed ourselves with the nations," (Hos 7:8) and states outside
our borders were added. It was not until after 1948 that the
United States began to lose its influence as the Christian
lighthouse of the world. Occasional coincidences happen. But are
all these historic fits just random chances that by some fluke of
mathematical magic just happen to fit Scripture? That would be
difficult for any thinking person to swallow. Here are another
couple of "coincidences" of interest.
1. The Lord gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision.
Until the last decade, babies were routinely circumcised in
the United States. Why us? There is no sound medical
reason for this practice.
2. The United States was the first nation to have a five-day
work week, thus observing the Sabbath as well as Sunday.
3. Though Jacob had only 12 sons, Joseph's two sons
became two tribes. Counting Ephraim and Manasseh, there
were then actually thirteen tribes. In America there were
only 12 colonies, but the Carolinas were too large to govern
in horse and buggy days, so the Carolinas were split into two
states, North and South Carolina. So as Israel's twelve sons
became thirteen tribes, our twelve colonies became thirteen
states.
All that was long ago. Since then the United States has fought
a half-dozen foreign wars: bringing her "children forth to the
murderer," as foretold in Hosea 9:13. And now, through manifold
abortions, we also bring our children forth to the murderer in a
new and savage way. However, terrible as that may sound, God's
eternal plan is still on schedule.
EZEKIEL'S TWO STICKS
Just before Ezekiel describes the battle of Armageddon in the
38th and 39th chapters of his book, he tells of the restoration of the
Jews to the Holy Land in the vision of the "dry bones." Noting the
context, these dry-bones were fulfilled in Israel in 1948.
Ezekiel 37:11-12 Son of man, these bones are the whole house
of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our
hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts ... Therefore proph-
esy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O
my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to
come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of
Israel.
Armageddon follows closely at the heels of this prophecy. How
soon will that battle be? End-time pundits notwithstanding,
Scripture doesn't seem to say. However, because of where we are
in history, we can now cross-reference those dry-bones with one
of Daniel's final prophecies and get a time pin:
Daniel 12:1-2 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the
great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:
and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since
there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time
thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found
written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the
dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and ever-lasting contempt.
As the Lord put flesh on the dry-bones lying in their graves
(Eze 37:11), so those who slept in the dust awoke, to be restored
to the Holy Land (Dan 12:1-2). Same event, different figurative
language. As an interesting side note, God tells us that all who
came to life (returned to Israel) would not be believers. However,
despite their spiritual condition, the Lord is assembling the forces
that are going to take a stand for Him in the final battle:
Ezekiel 37:16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick,
and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel
his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it,
For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of
Israel his companions:
All agree that the above is an end-time vision. Simply stated,
Ephraim and the ten northern tribes are one stick, while Judah
(the Jews) is the other. As we look about us now, something
wonderful is happening to both the Jews and the ten lost tribes,
something we have been waiting to see for 2700 years:
Isaiah 11:13 The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the
adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy
Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
Before the end, the Lord will take the stick of Ephraim, now
in the true Church, and unite it with the stick of Judah, and we
will be one stick in God's hand.
Ezekiel 37:19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold,
I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of
Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put
them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them
one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
It appears that God plans to make one stick (one people) of
Israel and Judah again. He is going to heal the division between
them and draw them together. Within this generation, the
Christians will be united with the Jewish people, and we will be
one people again. The Israel of God. Are we up to the task ahead?
Of course not, but now that our hearts can be opened to who
Ephraim and Judah are, we can just begin to see what our end-
time roles will be:
Zechariah 9:13 When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow
with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy
sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty
man.
Judah, now back in the Holy Land, will have only one true
ally: Ephraim and the Gentile church. We are the only candidate
left in the world for the title of "the stick of Joseph." The days
when the United States was a trustworthy ally to Israel are swiftly
passing, as our governmental leaders bend to the wishes of the
Palestinian Moslems and dip Old Glory into the inescapable tar-pit
of Islamic oil.
There is only a remnant of the true Church left in any western
land now. As Scripture opens before us, we can see that the
remnant may be from the lost tribes of Israel, whom Satan has
always hated (Rev 12:17). Don't be lulled to sleep, folks. If the
Lord doesn't provide a way of escape, physical persecution is close
at hand for Christians everywhere:
Revelation 12:11-12 And they overcame him by the blood of the
Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved
not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens,
and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth
and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having
great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
time.
So, were 1948 and 1967 important dates? In those years, the new
nation of Israel was born and the time of the Two Witnesses came
to an end. Jerusalem was freed, and all day=years and time-times
were fulfilled. We are now in the end-times, the final generation,
and God is assembling His forces for the hour of trial (Rev 3:10)
and the battle of Armageddon. The true Church is part of those
forces, and the other part is ...
If you arrived at this spot through a link, it would be better if you
started this book from the beginning rather than clicking "next
chapter" as it is a brick by brick discussion. Click here for chapter 1