The vision of the millennium Kingdom of Israel as seen by John in Revelation 21:1 – 22:5 is portrayed in Old Testament symbols that remain meaningful to the Christian dispensation. Ezekiel recorded his vision of the Kingdom in symbols that would remain familiar to those of the Hebrew dispensation from his day to their fulfillment in Daniel's Seventieth Week.
Ezekiel 40:1-2, "In the twentieth-fifth year of our Babylonian captivity, in the beginning of the year, in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after Jerusalem was taken, in the same day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me in visions of God into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain, on the south of which was a city".
Ezekiel sees Israel restored to the promised land. Not from their captivity in Babylon, but from their captivity in sin. This is the 144,000. The "very high mountain" is Zion; the city on its southern aspect is new Jerusalem, the City and Bride of David's greater Son.
Psalm 48:1-3, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God on His holy mountain. Beautiful for situation, the joy of all the earth, is mount Zion, the city of David. On its northern side is Mount Moriah and the Temple. God is known in her palaces as her sure defense" (Matthew 5:35).
When John first saw the vision in Revelation 1, the City was signified by the golden lamp stands that stood before God in the southern side of the sanctuary. Ezekiel saw it after the Gentile dispensation was complete when the sanctuary has been transformed into the "very high mountain" like mount Sinai wherein no profane thing may so much as touch its border (Exodus 19:12-13; Revelation 21:27; 22:14-15). Solomon's Temple signified the fifteen hundred-mile high pyramid- shaped holy mountain of God's dwelling place on earth; the golden lampstand that stood in the south is transformed into the City of God on the southern side of the mountain, while the table of shewbread that stood in the north side of the sanctuary representing Israel is here transformed into the millennium temple on the northern side of the same mountain or Kingdom.
God manifested His Presence in the Pillar of Fire and Cloud in the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple on Mount Moriah. His Presence led the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan (Exodus 13:21-22), covering them from the heat of day as it will cover new Jerusalem throughout eternity (Psalm 105:39; Isaiah 4:5). It became a fire by night, giving light to the Israelites but "was a cloud and darkness" to the pursuing Egyptians. In the vision of Ezekiel 10:4 and 11:23 the Presence departed the temple at the commencement of the "times of the Gentiles" and was absent from the temple restored by Zerubbabel and from the temple beautified by king Herod. Throughout this period the temple suffered frequent desecration by the heathen and a corrupt priesthood with the climax to come in Daniel's Seventieth Week when Satan, incarnate in "that man of sin," will exalt himself in the new temple atheist David Ben Gurion called "a shrine of the prophets to serve the federated union of all continents . . . the seat of the supreme court of Mankind" (Isaiah 14:13; II Thessalonians 2:1-4).
The Shekinah will return to Israel's reinstructed millennium temple built in one day without hands. Then Satan will ensure "there shall not be left here one stone upon another that is not thrown down" in martyrdom (Ezekiel 43:2; Revelation 6:11; 14:1-5, 1-13; 15:2-4). But in the regeneration, not just the temple precinct on Mount Moriah but the whole of the "very high mountain" of Zion shall be sacrosanct (Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:21-25; Matthew 19:28-30).
The deliverance and glorification of Israel will take place after the deepest humiliation: "In the last days it shall come to pass, that Mount Zion shall be established as the highest of all mountains (or head of all kingdoms), and be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the [magnified] Law shall go forth from Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem'" (Micah 4:1-2; Isaiah 2:2-4; 42:21; Revelation 21:24-27).
Nebuchadnezzar "saw a stone cut out of the mountain without human hands. It smote the image of his dream on its feet of iron and clay and broke them into pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so no trace of them could be found: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain that filled the whole earth".
In revealing the interpretation of the king's dream through His prophet Daniel, God said: "When Papal Rome rules Satan's New World Order, the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: nor shall its sovereignty be left to other people, but it shall break and crush and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever" (Daniel 2:34-35, 44; I Peter 2:4-8).
So what is this holy mountain? It is the spoken Word of God made manifest by the virgin birth through which God had pre-eminence of one Man to declare Himself and redeem an election from Adam's race. As they come under Christ's Headship, they reflect His glory by manifesting the Word for their age, and are changed into the same image from glory to glory, in proportion to the measure of Spirit revealed for their day (II Corinthians 3:18). Once Christ's end-time Bride comes into the unity of the faith and is under His pre-eminence He will manifest the fullness of the Godhead bodily in her to impart grace for translation faith in the manifestation of the Sons of God. Then He'll take us Home. And after the Wedding Supper, we shall return to earth as that City descending from God out of heaven upon that great mountain or kingdom, restored back to Eden. This is God's threefold purpose of Colossians 1:15-29.
As the Spirit of the Lord transported Ezekiel in his vision (Ezekiel 40:2), John (who signifies Christ's end-time Bride), was caught up into the Spirit to that "great and high mountain" by one of the seven angels who had the Seven Vials of wrath to pour upon the nominal church. This angel was William Branham (1909-1965) who showed John a preview of our return to earth as "the City of the Great King" (Malachi 4:5-6; Revelation 10:7; 17:1; 21:9-10).
God brought Ezekiel to the City, new Jerusalem, by vision. In the flesh the prophet was in Babylon, on Nisan 25, 574BC but he was caught up into the Spirit in the Lord's day to a time approaching the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week.
Ezekiel 40:3-4, "The Lord brought Ezekiel to the City of God, and there was a man, whose appearance was like brass, with a line of flax in his hand (for long measures), and a reed (for short lengths), standing in the gate. And he said, Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart on all that I shall show you; for you are brought here to see these things then declare all that you see to the house of Israel."
Now the identity of this man interests us because it was Brother Branham (Revelation 21:9-15) who revealed the mystery of God to John who represents Christ's end-time Bride. Ultimately it is the fullness of the Word portrayed in Revelation 1:13-15 as "one like the Son of Man," which is Christ's Bride drawn out from all seven Church Ages and reflecting His glory. When God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, He set cherubim and a flaming sword at the east gate. It was via the eastern gate that Ezekiel saw the Spirit of the Lord depart Solomon's temple, and by this gate He sees Him enter a temple for the millennium not made with hands. Christ's Bride stands in the gate of the City where in ancient times judgments were made, for God will judge the world by Christ and His Bride (Matthew 19:28; John 5:27; Acts 17:31; I Corinthians 6:2; Revelation 21:12).
Judgment is signified in Revelation 1:13-16 where the Bride is girt about the breast with Truth (Ephesians 6:14) and in Ezekiel 40:3-4. In Revelation 11:1-2, "A reed as a measuring rod (of the Absolute of the open Book of Revelation 10) is given to John (who represents the end-time Bride): and Christ says, Rise, and measure the temple of God and the altar of incense, and all (the sanctified blood Israelites) who worship inside. But omit the outer court, and measure it not; for it is given over to the Gentiles: and they shall tread the holy City under foot forty-two months." That is, for the first three-and-a-half years of Daniel's Seventieth Week in which God's Covenant in Christ is reconfirmed to Israel (Daniel 12:6-7; Revelation 12:14; 13:5).
God's standard is incarnate in Christ's end-time Bride against whom He is measuring or judging the faith and character of 144,000 Israelites who will constitute His millennial temple by the unbending reed of THUS SAITH THE LORD of the fullness of His Word by which she was called and chosen—without a Mediator.
Let's confirm the identity of this symbolic Man in Daniel 10:4-6. "In the twenty-fourth day of Nisan, as I was by the side of the great river Hiddekel, which is the Tigris; I lifted up my eyes, and looked, and saw a Man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with pure gold of Uphaz: His body also was a golden lustre like yellow serpentine, His face looked like lightning, His eyes were like flaming torches, His arms and His feet shone like polished brass, and the sound of His Words was like the voice of a multitude".
This is the same Being we saw at an earlier stage in the development of this prophecy. It is the heavenly Bridegroom of the future Bride of Christ afterwards revealed to John and Ezekiel as new Jerusalem, the dwelling-place of God. As Brother Branham said, this symbolic man of brass was so "like unto the Son of Man" because through the invisible marriage union the two have become one as Jesus prayed in John 17:21-26.
Revelation 21:9-10, 15, "One of the seven angels who had the Seven Vials full of the seven last plagues, came and spoke with me, saying, Come with me! I will show you the Bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God. (This is similar to the vision of Ezekiel 40:2 only the focus of that vision was on the 144,000 Israelites in the restored theocracy of the millennium). And he who spoke with me had a golden reed to measure the City, and its gates and its wall." The golden reed is the Absolute of God's unchanging Word and signifies the eternal quality of God's elect.
The angel with the Vial was Brother Branham. Only Brother Branham's ministry could define the City which is Christ's Bride of all Ages, the Lamb's Wife, because it restored the apostolic faith and finished the mystery of God (Malachi 4:5-6; Revelation 10:7). He preached the same revelation as Paul by which God will judge the world by Jesus Christ—"the full measure of the stature of the perfect Man" (Acts 17:31; Romans 16:25; Ephesians 4:13). When the Prophet was translated beyond the curtain of time, and met some of his Laodicean converts, he declared, "Everything Paul preached, I preached exactly the same." They replied, "We're resting on that".
Measuring the City defines the harmony and perfection of its structure. And the manner in which the revelation of Christ was delivered to the saints during the Seven Church Ages, "here a little and there a little more," instructs us "that by speaking the Truth in love we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:15-16). We know the Word or measure of Spirit by which God called and manifested the "lively stones" chosen for each division of the City, and from the Revelation of the Seven Seals and An exposition of the Seven Church Ages can discern who was accounted worthy to pass that judgment and enter in through its gates and foundations which bear the names of Israel's patriarchs, and the twelve apostles upon whose doctrine it is built. In the renewed heavens and renewed earth the patriarchal and apostolic fathers will sit in the City gates to judge and receive tithes from the "saved." Finally, Brother Branham defined the proportions of the City wall which signifies 144,000 elect Israelites (Revelation 21:14-20). Like ourselves, they will be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). This is our Absolute, the golden reed of the fullness of the Word possessed by His Bride (Revelation 11:1-2).
The Vial contains the temporary judgment of his Message to prove the nominal church who proclaimed themselves to be Christians. This trial is to separate the false group who rejected his Message from the foolish virgin who believed yet did not become one with It. We know that the revelation of Jesus Christ was given to Jesus by God after His ascension, and that He revealed it to only one man—the angel to the seventh or Laodicean Church Age who was William Branham. We know this from Revelation 1:1 and 10:1-4.
When John saw Christ's parousia in the revelation of the Seven Seals (following the close of mediation in Revelation 4 and 5), he was about to write down the hidden mystery when a voice from heaven commanded: "Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not . . . but in the days of the voice of the prophet-messenger to the Laodicean Church Age, the mystery of God should be finished" (Revelation 10:7).
The messenger to the Laodicean Age was the only man to whom Jesus revealed the Seven Seals. The angel who guided John throughout the Book of Revelation was William Branham. Like Ezekiel, John was caught up in the Spirit into the Lord's Day. In the flesh, he was on the Isle of Patmos. In the Spirit he saw visions of the future and heard the angel William Branham teach "those things which the seven thunders uttered".
Like Daniel, John could not comprehend everything signified by Old Testament symbols, and forbidden to transcribe the explanation of the voices of the Seven Thunders (which are the mysteries hidden under the Seven Seals), he recorded the symbols he saw and the words spoken by the angel, William Branham, "to show to God's servants things that must shortly come to pass" (Revelation 1:1).
God always foretells things before they occur and believers through the ages of PART-Word, although unable to discern the mystery of these symbols nonetheless held them to be true. Now since the saints predestinated to the PART-Word Body of the seven Church Age saints have all been baptized into their position in the Body, there is no longer "time is no longer" delayed for intercession.
Since the mystery of God is finished the end-time Bride with the fullness of the Word has no requirement for mediation and no excuse for ignorance. She discerns her place in the Word and her position in the body by applying the mystery of the Seven Thunders to the symbols in the Book, and identifying which prophesies of Scripture were fulfilled historically we recognize our day and its Message. And because Israel is God's timepiece we can determine the lateness of the hour, the nearness of the first resurrection and Daniel's Seventieth Week.
Ezekiel 40:5 – 42:20 is God's instruction to Ezekiel for building the millennium temple. The temple is where God revealed His glory to Israel and dwelt in their midst. He now wishes to reveal His glory in the temples of Christ and His Bride to Israel's elect 144,000, making them His millennium temple where we will dwell in love once their stony hearts have been converted into hearts of flesh. The Bride is already manifested Word and in Revelation 11:1-2 we apply the Absolute of the revealed Word to measure and choose the 144,000 who will be our personal servants as signified in Ezekiel 40-48.
Ezekiel's instructions show Israel that the way into the Presence where the likeness of the glory of God is revealed is by a total separation from all uncleanliness. His Book reveals how the Presence of the Spirit of the Lord departed Solomon's temple prior to its destruction by His servant, Nebuchadnezzar, and the commencement of "the times of the Gentiles."The Ark of the Covenant was destroyed along with the Urim Thummim when Solomon's temple was razed, hence the Shekinah did not return wither the temple of Zerubbabel or Herod. Zechariah 43:2-4 prophesies His Presence will return to Israel in their revelation of the 'parousia' Coming of their King and High Priest Jesus Christ with His Queen to restore the kingdom to Israel after the expiration of the "Gentile dispensation." Christ's Bride is the "lively" stones from which the temple was built in seven stages signified by the seven rests, sabbaths or Church Ages in the antitype of Israel's Pentecostal feast (Matthew 3:9). Individually each member of the Bride entered into the Holy of Holies through the riven veil of Christ's Body by three successive stages of grace during Israel's blindness (Ezekiel 40:24-37), and the Shekinah took its abode in each one of us as signified at the inauguration of Christ's mystic Body on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). Revelation 11:2 demonstrates conclusively that once the Gentile dispensation has ended there will be no further opportunity for nominal or false Christians, or Gentiles of any station, including so-called Jews, to pass beyond the outer court. And under the Old Testament type they would have been evicted by the temple guards.
The Temple itself stood east on Mount Moriah, and when Titus destroyed Jerusalem, judgment began at the sanctuary of the Temple (Ezekiel 9:6; I Peter 4:17). On the northern side of the sanctuary were tables for slaying and dividing the sacrificial beasts. Like the bodies of those beasts that were flayed and inspected for imperfections before acceptance, Israel will be sifted, purged in the fire of afflictions as silver and gold are refined, and crushed like grapes (Amos 9:9-10; Malachi 3:2-6; Revelation 14:12-20). This signifies Israel will enter the Presence through the Great Tribulation.
During the tribulation, the beast will establish his headquarters in Jerusalem and profane a new temple to be built on Mount Moriah (Daniel 11:45; Isaiah 14:13). His judgment and the slaughter of Armageddon will also come from the north, the side of the sanctuary that held the table of shewbread that represents Israel. Under the Sixth Seal death will come upon the Christ-rejecting world; it will afflict Israelites and Israel under the Seventh Trumpet, while the curse of the Seventh Vial will be poured out upon the Vatican and (once) Protestant United States by God's servant Gog, the self-styled Jews' colony of Russia, and upon self-styled Christians to separate the foolish virgin from denominational harlots (Revelation 7:1-3; 17:1 – 18:20).
As John represents Christ's end-time Bride throughout the Book of Revelation, Ezekiel represents an election of the whole nation of Israel throughout his Book. In chapter 4:4-6 he lay on his left side three hundred and ninety-days representing Israel, and on his right side forty days to represent Judah. In chapter 42:20, the angel instructs Ezekiel as Israel's proxy into the revelation of the Glory. When commanded to define the sanctuary and its 144,000 worshipers, Ezekiel measures a thick wall surrounding and separating the sanctuary from the profane place, which in John's symbolical temple is to be given over to the heathen, for in the holy City, new Jerusalem, nothing unclean can approach the Presence (Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 24:30-31; Revelation 21:27; 22:14-15).
The plan for Ezekiel's temple requires an area far greater than Mount Moriah where the temples of Solomon, Zerubbabel and Herod once stood. Ezekiel is translated in the Spirit by a vision into the Lord's day where his angel guide (40:1-4), Brother Branham—ultimately the Bride of Christ (Revelation 11:1-2)—meets him and measures the temple. At the climax of his tour of instruction, which is in reality the revelation of the Feast of Trumpets to Israel by the Hebrew Prophets of Zechariah 4 and Revelation 11, Ezekiel sees the Shekinah returning by the gate whence It departed (Revelation 7:1-2).
The seven judgment angels of Ezekiel 9 are the seven-fold Spirit of God that destroyed the temple by Babylon, the head of gold, under Nebuchadnezzar whom God called "My servant" to sanctify Israel (Jeremiah 27:6) as a prefigure of their destruction of Herod's temple by Rome, the legs of iron under Titus. And in the near future the feet of iron and clay of Rome and her globalist allies under the incarnate Beast will pollute Lucifer's new temple to be built on temple mount. The judgments under Rome were signified to John in Revelation 8:1 – 11:15 by the Seven Trumpet angels who announce plagues upon Israel for rejecting the Gospel trumpets sounded by seven earthly angels to the Church Ages through the Pentecostal feast.
Revelation 8:5, "And the angel took the censor, and filled it with fire of the altar (as in Ezekiel 10:7), and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake."
These coals from the altar of incense in the heavenly Sanctuary had sanctified and offered back to God the revelation of His Word made flesh in the Bride of each age. The evening service of the Pentecostal feast being ended, the cinders are cast down to earth, cleansing the heavenly Sanctuary of their dross. The Gentiles, having shut their ears to "sound doctrine" have rejected His 'parousia' Coming and will soon unite with the State to force Rome's mark of the beast. The fire cast down upon earth signifies judgment that will commence with the earthquake at the close of grace.
Ezekiel 9 and 10:2 represent the destruction of Herod's temple by Titus with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Judean nation at the commencement of the Seven Trumpet judgments on Israel under the New Testament dispensation. "Jesus came to His own and His own received Him not" (John 1:11). A generation after Calvary, Pentecost and Paul's Message to the Ephesian Church Age when the Lord had gleaned the elect Judahite remnant into the Church the First Trumpet judgment came upon Jerusalem and Judea as Jesus foretold in the parable of the marriage of the king's son (Matthew 22:7), and the six destroying angels were preceded and controlled by the Writer with the ink horn, the sealing Angel or Holy Ghost. When Titus scattered the coals over Jerusalem in AD70 all who were sealed with the Holy Ghost paid heed to Jesus' warning and escaped (Matthew 24:15-21; Ezekiel 9:4).
Israel thought God was inexorably bound to the city and temple. However God doesn't dwell in buildings made with hands, but in the spoken Word Body of Christ and His Bride. Ezekiel 9 portrayed Him in the midst of the destroying angels. God was able to destroy both the city and its temple and depart. Very soon He will depart from the Gentiles, taking His Bride Home to the Wedding Supper while two Hebrew prophets "set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people" (Isaiah 11:11; Zechariah 13:7).
The prophecy of Ezekiel 10:18-19 was veiled behind Old Testament symbols, "The Glory of the Lord departed from the entrance of the temple, and stood over the cherubim. And they lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in Ezekiel's sight when they went out with the wheels beside them, and stood at the entrance of the east gate of the outer court that opened into the city; and the Glory of the God of Israel was over them." The glory of God is Jesus Christ, His virgin-born Temple made without human hands veiling the Shekinah (Matthew 3:17; John 2:19-21).
Ezekiel, 11:22-23, "Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them; and the Glory of the God of Israel was over them. And the Shekinah rose up from over the midst of the city, and stood over the mount of Olives to the east of the city." Ezekiel was prophesying what Jesus Christ would do when He was rejected by His people.
Finally, Jesus confronted the Edomite Jews with the fact they were Serpent's seed impersonators of Israel and Serpent's seed in direct lineage of Cain, and that all of the curses he had just delivered would come upon their race. Then He lamented, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that killed the prophets, and stoned them who were sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not"!
"Behold, your temple is left you desolate" [of the Presence of God]. For I tell you, You will not see Me again, until you say, Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord [at My second or 'parousia' Coming to Israel in Daniel's Seventieth Week]. And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple" (Matthew 23:35 – 24:1). Do you see the fulfillment of Ezekiel 10:18-19? We will touch on this again.
The departure of the Glory from the Temple to the mount of Olives symbolized the Lord's abandonment of His Temple and His people to their foes and ultimate destruction. The Shekinah was never again seen in the Temple but six hundred years later took residence in the Temple of Jesus Christ when He was baptized by John in the river Jordan and became the Temple in which the Glory of God is revealed. Since Pentecost, we too are Temples of the Holy Spirit by the baptism with the Holy Ghost, for God and the soul that is joined together with God is one Spirit (I Corinthians 6:17-19).
Luke 19:37-44, "As Jesus approached Jerusalem (the city of peace) at the descent of the mount of Olives, a whole multitude of disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen; saying, Blessed be the King Who comes in the Name of the Lord: there is peace in heaven from the misery of sin; glory in the highest heaven!"
"Some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said, Master, rebuke your disciples. But He answered, I tell you that if they should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out".
"And when He was close, He saw the city, and wept loudly over it, saying, If only you had recognized your day and its Message which was to reconcile you to peace with God! but now It is hid from your eyes. For the day is coming when your enemies shall erect a palisade and surround you, and shut you in on every side (Josephus V. vi.2; xii.2), and will level Jerusalem to the earth, and dash her children to the ground; and shall not leave one stone upon another (that's why in verse 40 He said "the stones will cry out")—all because you failed to recognize the time of God's visitation through your Messiah."
Jesus foretold the coming destruction of Jerusalem under Titus in parallel fulfillment of Ezekiel 9 under Nebuchadnezzar. Those who became Christians remembered His Words:
Luke 21:20-28, "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, understand that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let those who are inside the city get out; and let not those who are in the country enter in. For these are the days of God's vengeance upon the enemies in His own house, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe to them who are pregnant, and to them that nurse, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and retribution upon this people."
"And they shall fall by the edge of the sword; and shall be led away captive into all nations: (Josephus states 1,100,000 were slain and 97,000 taken prisoner to Egypt and the provinces), and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." (Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Titus, Chosroes, the Mussulmen, the Crusaders, Islam, the Ashkenazim, and soon Rome once more. Next Jesus describes events that will happen two thousand years in the future, at the end of the Gentile dispensation, just before God returns to Israel).
"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations (bereft of resources, on account of treacherous IMF usury, the interdependence caused by globalization, which has bankrupted the nations, destroying their sovereignty, self-sufficiency and independent viability via trade agreements like LIMA, GATT, NAFTA, APEC, the EU and Maastrecht; the depression is coming); the ocean waves roaring, (following the earthquake that sinks Los Angeles), and men's hearts failing through apprehension," in anticipation of nuclear warfare before Russia invades America: for Satan will be cast out from heaven to earth.
"Then Israel shall see the sign of the Son of man [Christ's parousia] coming in a cloud with power and great Glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draws nigh".
This Sign of Christ's parousia to Israel will be seen over the mount of Olives as described in Zechariah 14:4 and Revelation 7:2. Of course, this will not be a Man but the pillar of Cloud that appeared for we Gentiles on February 28, 1963 as foretold in Daniel 7:9, Matthew 26:64, Acts 1:9-11, Revelation 1:7, 14; and 10:1-4, Jesus' feet will not touch this earth until He returns with the saints of all Ages for the millennium.
Luke 24:50-51, "He led them out of Jerusalem by the mount of Olives toward Bethany, and lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven" (Acts 1:7-12).
Jesus' departure from Jerusalem was typed by the departure of the Shekinah from the temple; It went East to the mount of Olives which is higher than Jerusalem and affords a view over the whole city (Ezekiel 11:22). The Presence of the Glory was the sign of God's favor toward Israel, whilst Its absence was the token of His extreme displeasure (Revelation 11:19; Deuteronomy 31:17-18; Hosea 9:12).
Jesus and the Shekinah will return to Israel as they departed—from the east in the Form of a Supernatural Cloud upon the mount of Olives. As for we Gentiles, It manifested above Arizona on February 28, 1963.
Ezekiel 11:8-16 foretells Israel's dispersion among the surrounding nations, and God's blessing upon those of their number who receive His correction through chastisement. It points principally to the Gentile dispensation when Israel is apostate, having rejected the Atonement. It also speaks of their regathering, and of the regeneration of the 144,000 after the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week, when the Glory anoints the Most Holy.
This is Revelation 14:1-5, "I looked, and, lo, the Lamb stood on the mount Zion, (the Presence returned), and with Him 144,000, (prior to martyrdom) having His Father's Name written in their foreheads (Revelation 7:1-8). And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures (God's throne guards which type the 144,000), and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the 144,000, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women (churches); for they are virgins (typed as eunuchs serving Christ's Bride). These follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They were redeemed from among men, as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no lie: for they are without fault before the throne of God".
These are the 144,000 elect after they have been born-again, with the revelation that they were eternally a part of God, in which comfort they will lay down their lives in Judaeo-Roman Catholic martyrdom.
Ezekiel 43:1-2, "Afterward He brought me to the gate that looks toward the east." The measuring is finished in that the complete number of 144,000 elect Israelites have been gathered and sealed. Now Ezekiel is led back to the eastern gate so he may see the Glory returning to take Its rest is His ancient people. "And, behold, the Glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and His Voice was like a noise of many waters and the earth shone with His Glory".
The return of "the Glory of the God of Israel" is revealed to the 144,000 as the Glory that has enlightened "the whole earth," drawing to their King "a Bride out of every kindred, tribe and tongue" of Adam's race. Ezekiel 47 and 48 signify their actual new birth and restoration in tribal order.
Isaiah 6:3, "And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His Glory." (See also Habakkuk 2:14). bb971203.htm
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