The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is liberation of Israel.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of May 7, 2011
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
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In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first. And I saw in the vision; and when I saw, I was in Susa the capital, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. / As I was considering, behold, a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him. And there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power. Then the goat became exceedingly great, but when he was strong, the great horn was broken, and instead of it there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. / Out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land. It grew great, even to the host of heaven. And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them. It became great, even as great as the Prince of the host. And the regular burnt offering was taken away from him, and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown. And a host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offering because of transgression, and it will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper. Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one who spoke, “For how long is the vision concerning the regular burnt offering, the transgression that makes desolate, and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled underfoot?” And he said to me, “For 2,300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.”
When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Ulai, and it called, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” So he came near where I stood. And when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face. But he said to me, “Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end.” / And when he had spoken to me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground. But he touched me and made me stand up. He said, “Behold, I will make known to you what shall be at the latter end of the indignation, for it refers to the appointed time of the end. As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. And the goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power. And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise. His power shall be great—but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints. By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great. Without warning he shall destroy many. And he shall even rise up against the Prince of princes, and he shall be broken—but by no human hand. The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.” (Dan 8:1–26 emphasis added)
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The visions Daniel received was for the time of the end, not the 5th-Century BCE, or the 2nd-Century BCE, or the 20th-Century CE—and if today, early in the 21st-Century is not the time of the end, it is not for today. However, the rapidly expanding world population—a population that this earth cannot long sustain—would suggest that humanity has finally arrived at the end of an age, a period when many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase (Dan 12:4). It is further declared that since January 2002, the visions of Daniel have been unsealed (cf. Dan 12:4, 9; 10:14; 8:17, 26; 2:28–29), that this unsealing came via a calling to reread prophecy, with understanding being given as that rereading was undertaken. And if understanding was not given prior to the time of the end, then every reading of Daniel’s visions earlier than 2002 is without merit and is to be spurned.
Beginning on the second Passover 08 May 2001, national security analysts knew something was afoot, that trouble was brewing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, that a push against the United States was in the making, but nothing apparently came from the eavesdropped chatter that had been intercepted: Vice President Cheney was appointed to head a committee to investigate, what? Intercepted chatter. Then came 9/11 and the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the damage done to the Pentagon. The chatter now made sense: the United States knew but didn’t realize that it knew of the 9/11 attack on the second Passover a decade ago—this statement categorically denies complicity by Federal officials in the attack and denies legitimacy to 9/11 truthers—which makes the killing of Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind 9/11, all the more interesting. Virtually to the day from when the intelligence community intercepted Al-Qaida communications concerning the forthcoming hijacking of jet liners, ten years passed before the United States of America, fronting for the spiritual king of Greece, flew out of the west and finished trampling the human agencies fronting for the spiritual kings of Persia.
The hunt of Osama bin Laden took the United States of America approximately the same length of time as it took Alexander the Great to hunt down and trample the Persian king, Darius III …
Daniel’s visions are not about historical events in this world, but about a war and rebellion in that portion of the heavenly realm that is in the Abyss, a war between demonic kings about which human beings would know nothing if it were not for revelation. Daniel’s people were and weren’t physically circumcised Israel, for Daniel could not have entered the temple at Jerusalem if it had still stood: “‘No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord’” (Deut 23:1) … Nebuchadnezzar made eunuchs of all the foreign captives that served in his administration. Daniel’s people are these:
For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
I will give in my house and within my walls
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off. (Isa 56:4–5)
Daniel is named by the Lord along with Noah and Job as men able to deliver their own lives by their righteousness (Ezek 14:14, 20). Therefore, while the assumption has been that Daniel’s people were the physically circumcised nation of Israel, that the reference in Daniel 10:14 is to the physically circumcised nation, that assumption must be challenged by the Lord including Daniel in a threesome able to save themselves by their own righteousness … when Paul cites the Psalmist,
What then? Are we [Jews is an addition] any better off [at any disadvantage]? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.” (Rom 3:9–12)
Paul condensed the words of David and in so doing he turned a specific referent [the fool] into a general referent:
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread
and do not call upon the Lord?”
There they are in great terror,
for God is with the generation of the righteous. (Ps 14:1–5)
David, using the concept of thought-couplets, used the fool as the antithesis of the generation of the righteous … Daniel, Noah, and Job are declared righteous; hence these three men are excluded from the umbrella category that David identifies as the fool or the foolish. They are excluded from David’s declaration that there is none who does good; Daniel is excluded from the category of those who have become corrupt, from those who have no knowledge, from those who are evildoers. But Paul includes himself in the category of the foolish (cf. Rom 3:9–10; Ps 14:1). This will have Paul not being of Daniel’s people until Paul had his heart cleansed by faith.
There isn’t time or space in this Sabbath reading to further develop the concept that Daniel’s people in the latter days, the people who are the subject of the long vision [Dan chaps 10–2] and the referents for what is written in the Book of Truth, are endtime Christians after their hearts have been cleansed by faith following the Second Passover. For the importance of Daniel’s vision is that these visions disclose what is occurring and is about to occur in that portion of the heavenly realm in the Abyss—and when the spiritual king of Greece, a federation of demonic kings, over which a single bronze-colored king reigns, with this great bronze demonic king being the firstborn/first-convert of the Adversary.
What seems to be occurring and to have occurred is that this legal firstborn of the Adversary has just trampled the silver-color ram, the king[s] of Persia. If this is true, then the Second Passover liberation of Israel will occur this year on the second Passover.
The democratic uprising of this year’s Arab spring would seem to indicate that Greek values, that of democracy, has prevailed in a region that has seen autocratic rule for more than a millennium. Thus coupling the worldwide outbreak of the virus of democratic self-governance to the killing of Osama bin Laden and the widespread dislike of the United States of America, even within America itself, and humankind appears on a collision course with destiny, the end of this present era in this month of May.
Having more time to prepare for the end of the age would be nice, but how much more time is necessary: Christians have already had nearly two millennia and they are still not ready? Would another millennium help?
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The shadow and type of this heavenly war occurred when Persian kings sought to subdue Greek poleis, beginning in 499 BCE and lasting until 449 BCE, thereby kindling the patriotic flames in Greek hearts that would culminate in Alexander crossing the Hellespont in 334 BCE, thus initiating a decisive defeat of Darius III and conquest of the Persian Empire in a decade.
Although the ten year figure is given for how long it took the Greeks to defeat the Persians, that ten year figure excludes the Persians pushing against or stirring up the king of Greece; for when the Persians first crossed the Hellespont themselves, there was no unified Greece kingdom but only many bickering, squabbling, and warring Greek poleis, with Sparta and Athens forming poles around which alliances were made. Macedonia was hardly considered Greek. However, when Alexander was about to sack Jerusalem, unfaithful Hebrews showed the young Greek king where Scripture addressed him: after seeing the Greeks take Tyre, Jewish political leaders introduced into history the concept that Alexander was the first king, the great horn of the king of Greece that Daniel described in his visions (see Dan 8:5–8, 21; Dan 11:3). Unfaithful 3rd-Century BCE Jews, with a Greek army bearing down on the city of Jerusalem, found in the visions of Daniel the seal by which Daniel’s vision would be kept secret until the time of the end. These unfaithful Jews—and they were unfaithful as any study of 2nd and 3rd Century Hebrew politics and ideology will confirm—delivered generations of Christians into prophetic darkness, with Ellen G. White And Herbert W. Armstrong perhaps unwittingly serving as 19th and 20th Century prophets of darkness as they perpetuated the lie that unfaithful Jews told Alexander to save their 3rd-Century BCE necks.
The push by the king of Persia shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece (Dan 11:2) … did the Persians in 499 BCE stir up all against the kingdom of Greece? Were the Egyptians stirred up against Greece? How about other peoples to the west of Greece? Did the Persians stir them up against Greece? No. So what is inscribed in the book of truth (Dan 10:21) doesn’t directly reference Alexander’s campaign that began in 334 BCE? However, how well liked is the United States in the Middle and Near East, in Europe, Asia, Africa? How well liked is the United States in Pakistan?
Jesus told His disciples that Daniel’s visions had not yet come to pass: “‘So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel [11:31], standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Jerusalem flee to the mountains’” (Matt 24:15–16). Therefore, let the reader understand: the liberation of Israel, the nation to be circumcised of heart, is at hand.
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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."