THE FIG TREE

By

Alvin Mitchell

All prophecy, John penned in the Revelation, is about Jesus (Rev. 19:10—“…the Spirit of prophecy is Jesus”, his angelic, apocalyptic host informed him.). Jesus Christ is therefore Bible prophecy’s theme and chief point of focus. If this simple assertion be true then, for this reason alone, the subject and the study of Bible prophecy is tremendously elevated in the thinking of the saints, both Jew and Christian, given that it puts the genre on a par with the four gospels, in terms of relevance and importance. Furthermore, one might think of prophecy, therefore, as a kind of Fifth Gospel.

Book Description

Judgment Day: Volume 4 The Screenplay

The Book of the Revelation is not a standalone tale of the end times. That is, it was never intended to be the complete history written in advance of how God intends to bring life on earth as we know it to a close. Rather, as the totality of this study attempts to show, it is an organized saga, woven together around three fundamental themes, which are the sums of many other eschatological subthemes that must be extracted and stitched together, as it were, so as to construct the narrative God wants this, what might be termed our terminal generation, to see.

Having then accomplished the bulk (or most if not all) of the heavy lifting, the question before us now is how does it all fit together? Knowing as we do that the road to Armageddon begins with a coordinated attack that brings about the collapse of an end times economic colossus, the preservation and rise of Israel to the level of a Superpower followed by the events of the Revelation, what should be our take-away in terms of how this will or might actually play out in sequence if we could see all the parts acted out before us, as if on the “big screen”? What message does God want His saints to convey to the world at large relative to His plans for the end of this age (Obviously, the symbols and pictures presented to John and to us suggests that God has a specific vision or image that He wishes to implant upon our minds)? Or, put another way, what should the “big picture” look like?

This book, Judgment Day, Volume 4, Acts of GOD verses Gods of Earth (The Screenplay), is the finale in an effort to lay out a compilation designed to paint a virtual portrait of the end times road that leads to the return of Christ and the Battle of Armageddon. The verse-by-verse discussion already having been done, it will flesh out, in a matter of speaking, or put another way, the primary objective here is to explore the topic of Judgment Day in its three primary themes from its purely cinematic point of view—namely

• #1) Judgment Day USA,
• #2) Judgment Day: Israel a Global Superpower, and
• #3) Judgment Day: God’s Last Call.

If those of you on my rss.com feed have enjoyed or otherwise found the this initiative in anywise worthy of your attention, you may find this coagulation of this all effort equally intriguing, if not informative. In addition to weekly blog posts, The full audio version as well as a printed (pdf) version is available here, on WordPress: Audio Book: Judgment Day, Volume 4: GOD Verses Gods of Earth! – 1 Bible Study Hour 4U.com

You may find the free weekly blog here: https://1biblestudyhour4u.com/blog-posts-2/.

For prophecy notes, outlines and charts, click here: https://1biblestudyhour4u.com/blog-posts-3/?frame-nonce=c059eb97e5

Please do take the time to check us out there!

Nipped in the Bud

Hereby, Solomon shattered any hope he ever had that his family line would ever host the Messiah. Although certain of his descendants were faithful, in a manner comparable to king David, Solomon’s failure was all that was necessary to void the promise, where he and his offspring were concerned. Effectively, with every opportunity in the world before him to succeed on the one hand (ostensibly, that is, given the family factor, which still could have wrecked any success on his part), he never had a chance, on the other. He did not merely do something wrong; that would have been bad enough. Rather, this, the wisest man of all time—by the Hand and generosity of the God of his father, no less—did completely sever his good relationship with the God of his fathers, choosing and committing himself to doing evil in His sight, in deference to his three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines—most or many of whom were pagans, to whom he should never have been married in the first place (he never repented or returned; Ezekiel 3:20-21).

“Because you have done this, having refused to obey My commandments and My statues, I will now take the Kingdom from you and give it to your servant…you will be left with only one tribe, and that, only for sake of My servant David, and for Jerusalem, which I have chosen…so as to preserve on his behalf a Light in My presence, forever” (I King 11:11-13, 36; that Light “preserved forever” is none other than the Light of the world—the Messiah Himself).

The Last Glimmer of Hope

Immediately prior to the Babylonian invasion and captivity, as if to squeeze every glimmer of any remaining light out of a dark, lightless chapter long closed and dead to the Solomon clan with reference to the grand plan, God makes the following declaration regarding the last of David’s rebel descendants to rule upon the throne in Jerusalem: “even if Coniah (Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim) …were a signet upon My right hand, I would nonetheless pluck it off…this is what the Lord has to say, ‘write this man off as one who has never had a child, one who will not prosper, ever, in his life…given that none of his progeny will ever prosper, sitting (as king) upon the throne of David, or ruling any more from Judah’” (Jer. 22:24-30).

The point of Jeremiah’s prophecy is not that Coniah would never have sons. Rather, God was emphasizing finality of his determination that no son or descendant of Solomon would ever be included in the Messianic line-up. His proclamation was, therefore, the final death nail in a series, on top of the ultimate of death nails, this man would never have a son who would ever serve as king in Jerusalem. The lineage listing in Matthew’s gospel shows quite clearly that Jehoiachin did in fact have sons, albeit, in captivity, after he was deported by the Babylonians. None was ever a king; had it been otherwise, then Joseph, husband of Mary and stepfather to the Christ, would have been king at the time of the birth of Jesus. “…if you forsake Him, He will forsake you, forever”, David, the incumbent king, warned Solomon in his waning moments (I Chron. 28:9). King Solomon never returned or repented of his evil.

Jesus: The Nature of His Being.

Herein, Daniel, lies the significance of the "virgin" birth of Jesus Christ. There were no human reproductive cells involved in the conception and birth of our Lord (i.e., there were no human gametes: no egg and no sperm). So then, while fully human blood coursed through His veins, just as with you and me, no part of His person originated within the bodies of any other human being. None of His blood came from any member of Adam’s race. That being the case, Joseph, Jesus’ stepfather, and Joseph’s family line (descendants of King David, through his son, King Solomon) had no part whatsoever in His conception. Is that not strange? Because of this, Jesus was born perfect, flawless, free from the rebel, sin natures that you, I, and the six billion (plus) people now living inherited because of Adam's disobedience and fall in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1 and verses following; Romans 5:12-19; I Corinthians 15:20-22). By all accounts and measures, His humanity, His human nature, was precisely, identically (100%) the same as what He Himself originally created in Adam, “good in every sense of the word” (Genesis 1:31). He was completely without blemish of any kind, so that His Deity, everything that He had always been as “God”, given up at the incarnation, per Philippians 2:5-11, was not a factor in His perfection. Our lot in life is not so, no matter how good we are, we are by no means perfect.

Of us, Daniel, God's estimation is such that none of us is any wise righteous; not one of us is capable of doing good on any level that would ever please Him. Every human being born since Adam (through normal procreation) is a rebel and therefore sinful and only capable of falling short of God's expectations for men (Romans 3:9,10,12,23; Isaiah 64:6). The absolute only viable, acceptable remedy for this condition, is death, marked by a shedding of human blood (Romans 6:23; Hebrew 9:22; Leviticus 17:11). The price is as steep as it is absolute. Somehow, somebody has to, and, somebody will, pay that price. Sinful, rebellious mankind cannot pay, at any cost, for the eradication of his indebtedness to God (regardless of how righteous any given man may be, in fact), owing to his own sinfulness before God. Woe is me! We're doomed then, right, Daniel?

Foreword

In the New Testament (NT), God is careful to introduce and highlight Jesus—His only "begotten" Son—as a unique and unusual "Son", one having a "prior" existence, one born or birthed, but not conceived, in the "usual" way. That is, this "Son"—in a wardrobe of one hundred percent flesh, blood and bones—has "roots" traceable to God, the Creator of everything (John 1:3; Colossians 1:14-17; Ephesians 3:8,9; Hebrews 1:1-3). This means, then, that He as such, being the Christ of the NT, is nothing, if not also the God of the Old Testament (OT). Hereupon hangs a truth that gives birth to and a never-ending enigma, as it prompts a series of nagging questions. It is these questions which, in a measure, are the focus of this book: Was He then as a Man, trolling the roads of Galilee, “God”, at the same time? Understanding as we do that, He is alive now, two thousand years after His death, was He the same then as He is now?

In light of the controversy surrounding this issue, one must most certainly agree that requisite to any satisfactory resolution, is a careful defining of terms. Hence, what is "God"? What characterizes divinity or "God"; what qualities quantify a “God” persona? If God defined is, in a nutshell, “All-powerful, All-knowing, and Everywhere-present”, is that the way Jesus Christ the Nazarene is defined in the Bible? Does God make any effort to portray Him (Jesus) as literally, functionally "God" throughout or at any point in His earthly walk; that is, One who was equal, in every way, except the obvious, to the Father? The biggest names in evangelical/fundamentalism argue vehemently—based squarely upon what they ‘think’, and His reaction to the words of the Pharisees—that He was born, lived, died, arose again, having existed as Man, who was simultaneously “God”. That is, He gave up nothing when He was born, having every attribute, all the power, and all the authority He ever had throughout His earthly walk. Realizing that most of these haven’t a clue, as they cannot find and explain the one place in four gospels where He talks repeatedly about His limitations and handicaps, is that what He taught about Himself? Did Jesus Himself ever show aspiration such that He wished to be received or viewed as “God”, during His earthly sojourn?

OZONE DEPLETION

Burned, But Not Consumed

As with the rest of the judgments scattered through this Apocalypse, there is no credible reason to discount this one as merely symbolic. Knowledge of our surroundings, including our solar system, our galaxy, and the entire universe has increased tremendously within the past 106 years (as of 11/05/06). Our sun, not unlike the 300 billion other suns (called stars) in this galaxy alone is known to be a thermo-nuclear, pressure-cooking dynamo. This is true as well of the hundreds of billions on average found in the hundreds of billions of galaxies throughout the known universe. That is, our sun produces energy in its pressure packed core of roughly 230 thousand miles diameter under unimaginable pressure (340 billion times that of the earth’s 14psi, at sea level, to be exact!) by forcing a collision between deuterium and tritium atoms to produce an explosion that releases an even higher level of energy (these atoms are hydrogen derivatives or isotopes, having one proton but one and two neutrons respectively, as opposed to ordinary hydrogen, which has no neutrons.). This collision causes an explosion, followed by a release of energy in the form of dangerous and deadly gamma radiation (leaving the sun’s center supercharged at around 27 million degrees F). It has been suggested that the sun has been so constructed that it takes these gamma rays the equivalent of roughly two million years to migrate from the sun’s core, through its approximately 330 thousand miles of radiation and convection zones, to reach the surface of the sun (having been downgraded in strength along the way from gamma, to x-rays, to ultraviolet light), where it leaves on its 8 minute, 93,000,000 mile journey (at 186 thousand miles per second) to our earth, in the two energy forms we know as visible light and heat—each critical to life on earth.

Thankfully, the sun’s gamma radiation, as such, never reaches the earth. If it did, it would instantly destroy and vaporize the entire planet. Rather, having been substantially cooled, what began as extremely high frequency, exceedingly high energy, lethal gamma rays leave the sun’s outer surface as electromagnetic energy in at least three distinct frequency ranges. Visible light, that range of electromagnetic frequencies which allows us to see, and infrared energy (those frequencies just below those of visible light, which account for the heat we need to survive) comprising two of those ranges, ultraviolet radiation is the third.

Mark Of The Beast & RFID

People Control: The Need & The Means

The idea being espoused here relative to fire from the sky, the image of the beast and now his mark is one of people control. At this point, the beast and those under him will have survived two major conflicts/wars—one global—and many catastrophes, including severe food and crippling fuel shortages, only to face yet more prevailing deep depression and deprivation due to immense, unavoidable social, economic and political unrest. If he is to have any chance of success in bringing some semblance of order into this otherwise hopeless (and Hopeless!), chaotic situation, in addition to gaining their confidence and trust, the beast will realize that he must also affect some sort of a system of control over those under his domination. In addition to an easily implementable threat, and a central point of focus, common to the eyes of all, key to this system will be the need to spontaneously locate, identify, and track each and every man, woman and child living on the earth, during those days, as he simultaneously regulates and controls everything they need for sustenance. “Rationing” of everything—particularly food and fuel—will be critical to the survival of humanity, as with so many key men and women dead or missing, God will not allow time for a resurgence to pre-tribulation levels (His objective will be to “…shake the sugar tree…” as it were, until the very last fruit of the most stubborn of lost souls fall, then, close the curtain.). The aftermath of the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes of several years ago gave the world a glimpse of the kind of mob-mentality that will fuel hotspots of unrest that will in turn have to be located quickly, identified and managed into submission during these days of deep desperation. But how does he do that? An effective system of management of all that remains—including people—will be a matter of highest priority. Realizing the troubles the US phone companies faced not so many years ago inventing new numbers for a growing demand when the population was then well under 300 million, how will this beast supply numbers to a world population which may still stand at in excess of 2 to 4 billion souls—even after having suffered heavy, extraordinary losses due to both the rapture and death from many causes?

HUMANOID ROBOTS, PEOPLE CONTROL/TRACKING

Fire-breathing Skies:

The Beast and Space Lasers

An intelligent image of one called the “beast” that talks and is able to give life-changing instructions, issuing life-threatening edicts, while his “prime minister” backs him up by commanding fire from the skies; people-tracking systems that allow for precise monitoring of one’s every move, in any location, worldwide: sound far-fetched? For some living today, it might be mind-boggling to think that back of forty to fifty years ago—before Steve Jobs and Bill Gates; before micro-chips or transistors—either scenario would have been just that, farfetched. Neither was much more than the stuff of good science fiction. As of the early 20th century, even science fiction as we know it, had barely been born. No such things were even remotely realizable. Like most everything else we, particularly in America, so take for granted today, neither had the slightest basis in reality.

As with all things biblically prophetic, the prospect of ‘fire from the skies’ (other than lightning) must seem remote at best to most people today—even in America, the industrial capital of the world; land of all things new and innovative. It was a thought hopelessly inconceivable two thousand years ago, when the prophecy was first issued. Man, summoning fire from the heavens (!)? Yet, the Bible declares in no uncertain terms that he will, regardless of whether in the end, that feat is man-made, or, supernatural through the auspices of his hands. So, the question is, how might that deed be achieved?

John the Revelator’s vision aside, men, other than the Bible’s prophets, began to dream of the killing potential in fire from the skies about sixty plus years ago (as of approx. / /2010). Their hopes were supported and buoyed in part by the physics of an Einsteinian understanding of light. From start to the present, the base ingredient to making it all a reality, however, was termed an “elusive technology”. Like the thermo-baric weapons which make the killing potential in John’s vision of the kings of the east possible, and the thermo-nuclear technology which will make the downfall of America possible in under one hour, so likewise the sequence and series of technological advances necessary to make this a reality from man’s point of view has only recently begun to take shape. From humble beginnings in 1960 (at the Hughes Research Lab., in Malibu, CA), for years thereafter the stuff only of pipe dreams (showing no real “wartime” promise) battle-grade “fire”-producing weapons technology (such as John envisions) is no longer elusive. It is now both viable and quite deadly—as expected—and as such, a scorching reality.