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"My kingdom is not of this world..."
Jesus Christ, John 18:36
...and He IS coming.
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After Alexander's conquest of the world from Greece to India and his subsequent death, the world had come to exist in a new material and cultural context; this context was that Greek materialism, religion, and ideology had become the new substrate for civilization. Across the entire world, all the way to India, old ways were compromised or forgotten to accomodate this new way of life. This shift of world culture was called Hellenism, and those kings who succeeded Alexander sought to reunite the former kingdom of Alexander for the purpose of creating a universal Hellenistic society under one rule. Reuniting the world under one ruler and under Hellenistic culture was the goal and a defining characteristic of monarchs from the death of Alexander until the completed emergence of the Roman Empire.

...but it never happened.

After ascending to world dominance, Rome embraced the lasting effects of Hellenism. But previous to the Roman Empire, attempts to revive Alexander's great Hellenistic society all failed and only resulted in non-stop wars, Israel being caught between the strongest Hellenistic empires, Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid Empire of Mesopotamia and Syria.

From the time of Alexander to the time of Antiochus IV, although corrupted by Hellenism and internal rivalry, Israel had managed to continue the high-priesthood under the line of Aaron/Zadok. Previous to this, there had been incursions and assults on the integrity of this lineage, all of which failed; and perhaps the most notable incursion came when after returning to Jerusalem from captivity, the Levites were commanded by Ezra to put away their strange wives and children, which they did.

The point in history at which the lineage of high-priest comes into question is upon the advent of these concurrent events: the arrival of Antiochus IV and the death of Onias the high-priest. As Josephus relates, Onias' successor as high-priest was but an infant, also named Onias.¹ The late high priest had a brother named Jason and another called Menelaus who fought one another for the high-priesthood. When Menelaus and his supporters saw Jason prevailing, they appealed to Antiochus, and in solicitation for his support declared that they wished to leave their time-honored laws, follow the laws of Antiochus, and live according to Hellenistic culture. And they did so, even requesting a Greek gymnasium. (Jewish Antiquities, book 12, ch. 5) This would likely mean that the new high-priest and priests were engaging in wrestling matches naked! This is because in the same passage, immediately after their request for a gymnasium, Josephus relates that they tried hid their circumcision as to appear to be Greeks!

As can be told from this account, Hellenism had corrupted Israel to utter apostacy. As for king Antiochus, to whom the apostates had appealed for power, he would soon be turned back by Rome without a fight and told that he must leave Egypt, which he had just conquered. At this point Antiochus peacably entered Jerusalem; and having indignation at his failed plans of glory and conquest, directed this indignation on all non-Hellenized Jews through brutal religious persecution. The deeds of Antiochus would come to be recognized by faithful Jews as fulfillment of prophecies in Daniel. Ancient accounts memorialize Antiochus as utterly cruel in his persecutions. His tortures and butcheries of non-conforming Jews can hardly be exaggerated, and he even tried to destroy the scriptures. But even worse, complicit with his crimes were apostate, Hellenized Jews.

Hellenism changed the world and defined the way in which the world would operate, but it was confounded by the heritage of faithful, believing Jews who would not apostatize and who revolted, ultimately driving out Hellenism and the Seleucids, yet again reestablishing a Jewish state.

There is such a force as Hellenism which has recently shot across the globe, creating a materialistic and cultural context which is similar to Hellenism in its spiritually corrupting effects which are offensive and abominable to God. It is called Globalism, and as Hellenism before, it has set the stage for wars and the decline of nations, ready to be eclipsed by yet another age. Globalism is described in the following passage:

"And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I marveled with amazement." (Rev. 17)

Globalization has caused the nations to commit whoredom against God, as if they worship idols instead of God, for their posessions and abominations are their idols, and it is Babylon who has taught them that this is "freedom." Babylon even has a television program called "idol," and people in a lot of Babylon's churches love to watch the "idol" program. Babylon has made the nations drunk with abominations and murder, declaring to them that through their markets they obtain freedom; but what Babylon has really done is to teach the world to die in confusion, poverty, and war. But confusion, poverty, and war cannot make people free; that only makes people afraid, poor, and kills them. Only our Lord Jesus can make people have freedom. Then people are not scared anymore, they are content, and they are kind to one another.

But in the days we live in, many are making the mistake of surrendering their souls to the fleeting posessions and ideas of this world in lieu of loving God and their neighbor. Maybe they do not think they have an alternative. This is just like the apostates of Israel who once traded their religion for the fleeting and vain fashions of Hellenism, and they ended up persecuting their faithful brethren.

Fortunately, we have the the past and the future to help us. We have the example from the past of Hellenism to teach us how to avoid the corrupting influence of Globalism. And we have many prophecies that not only fortell events, but which also tell us what is expected of us during these events. It is from these examples that we equip ourselves as not to compromise to the point where we become part of the problem. And this is what is difficult for many people to grasp, that they themselves can become part of the problem. People allow themselves to believe what they are doing is justified, and in the machinations of the dedicated wicked, misdeeds are cast as righteousness.

The process of Globilization lasted throughout the 1990s, in the aftermath of the First Gulf War with Iraq and the introduction of market forces behind formerly Communist lines. Throughout the 1990s, citizens of the world, but particularly Americans, squandered decades of material gain, in what was then described as investment, but which was truly a willing transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street. People decided that they no longer wished for a safe and viable national economy, but that they would rather exploit other nations through overseas investment and call it "freedom." But they exploited and enslaved themselves as well. Massive wealth and a new era of limitless growth turned out to be the lies and false promises of Globalization, which by 2001, had run its course, having now prepared the deathbead for its inevitable period of convulsion and decay. Nations will no longer unanimously cling to the false hopes of global free-trade, but rather they will behave as nations always have, jockeying for dominance over one another, trying to reinstitute a global order, each on its own terms, but without the luck of Alexander.

We are starting to see how the final generation of this age misbehaves itself into final judgement. Although Islamic terrorists were previously detected long before 2001 as still among the population in sleeper cells, and had already attacked American embassies and on American soil, to include the World Trade Center in New York City, and had been warned against in Washington throughout all of 2001 by Eugene Delguadio and the late Jack Clayton, both of Public Advocate of the United States, the attacks on 9/11 were allowed by those in power, who were negligent in their duty; and the 9/11 attacks, not the ones which had already happened long before, became the pretext for new Orwellian social tyranny and ambiguous war. That war is currently set on the plains of Shinar.

It is in this way that the stage of the Apocalypse has been set, not for a mere single country, but the world. It will be important to remember that this world will try in vain to restore itself to the false grandeur of 1990s Globalsim. This world has already failed; all remaining events to precede our Lord Jesus' glorious return occur in a world trying to ressurect itself out of the disease that it has injected into itself: Globalism, the disease of man's fruitless attempt at prosperity without God, and also in the systematic ideologies of raw hatred which lead nations and men to war and killing.

It is this period of deconstruction in which we find the nations and character of the Apocalypse. Essential to understanding the character of the Apocalypse, one must understand that the world stage of the Apocalypse sits uneasily upon this unstable aftermath of an already failed world revolution called Globalization.

But this time, the world brings itself to the point of utter destruction, which is cut short for the sake of the elect, when Jesus Christ, the first of the living among the dead, returns on the Day of the Lord to deliver justice and sit at His millenial throne.

It is prophecied that during the time of end of the age chaos, an end-time church will arise and encompass the globe, publishing the Gospel of the Kingdom, the Good News, The Government News that you can join an organization numbered only by Almighty God Himself. Members accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. These members of the end-time church complete the heritage of citizenry prepared for the new government under our Lord Jesus when Babylon is destroyed and the Millenial Kingdom is established. This end-time church arises not much through media and most certainly not through building massive meeting buildings, but person to person and house to house, just as Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire.

It is from either of the two with which each person must decide to join: the government of the coming kingdom of our Lord Jesus, who shall establish his reign in the Ezekiel Temple, OR this world of chaos and hatred, which when it is certain of its own failure will become indignant against those who have aligned themelves with God's heritage. There is great hope, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and it will never fail, for the LORD ALMIGHTY is our King.

Repent of your sins, accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, and dedicate yourself as a missionary to spread the Gospel of the Kingdom. Dedicate yourself to the good works which our Lord Jesus has commanded us to do. Join today!

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¹The child Onias, successor of the high-priesthood ultimately built an inferior temple in Egypt. (Antiquities, book 13, ch.3)