In Daniel 7 the prophet had a long-term revelation of the time of tribulation for both Israel and Judah. As you may recall, Daniel was part of the captivity of Judah and was a trusted official in the Babylonian government. Jeremiah had already prophesied that the Babylonian captivity would last 70 years (Jer. 25:11). Daniel’s revelation put this into context, showing that Babylon was only the first of four major empires that would rule Jerusalem in succession.
The Four Empires
Daniel saw these empires first as metals: gold, silver, bronze, and iron (Daniel 7). Later, he saw them as beasts: lion, bear, leopard, and a beast with iron teeth (Daniel 8). These proved to be:
Babylon (gold, lion)
Persia (silver, bear)
Greece (bronze, leopard)
Rome (iron, beast with iron teeth)
Daniel also saw an extension of Rome, which he called a “little horn” (Daniel 7:8). He described it, saying, “this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering great boasts.” In 7:19-21 Daniel said it waged war on the saints and overpowered them “for a time, times, and half a time” (7:25) until the saints were given jurisdiction over the Kingdom and over the earth itself.
In other words, when the time of tribulation ended, the saints would receive dominion over the earth.
The time of tribulation, given in Lev. 26:18 was a period of “seven times.” Moses did not attempt to define a “time,” nor did Daniel. Daniel only tells us that the little horn would have dominion for 3½ “times,” i.e., the last half of the “seven times” of tribulation prophesied by Moses.
In Revelation 13, John revealed more about this little horn. First, he divided this “horn” into two distinct beasts. The first beast came from the sea (Rev. 13:1), while the second rose up from the earth (Rev. 13:11). In 13:5-7 we are given a description of the beast from the sea,
5 And there was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words, and blasphemies; and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him… 7 And it was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.
This is the same description that we find in Daniel’s vision about the little horn. But John defines the 3½ times as 42 months. A month in long-term prophecy is 30 “days,” that is, 30 years. So 42 months is actually 1,260 years.
The Beast from the Sea
The Western Roman Empire, with Rome as its capital, fell in 476 A.D. The Eastern half of the Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, survived another thousand years until 1453, when the Ottomans conquered the city and made it the capital of the Ottoman Empire. It is now called Istanbul.
Fifty years after the fall of Rome, Justinian I became the emperor of Constantinople (527 A.D.). The first thing he did was to completely revise and revamp the legal system of the empire in order to “Christianize” it. Will Durant tells us in his book, The Age of Faith, p. 111,
“the whole vast body of Roman law had become an empirical accumulation rather than a logical code.”
Roman law had become complicated and unorganized over the centuries. So he instituted a new system based on “Orthodox Christian Law.” These new laws were instituted in 529 and were called Codex Constitutionum. As Will Durant informs us again on page 112,
“This Code ... enacted orthodox Christianity into law .... All ecclesiastical, like all civil, law, was to emanate from the throne.”
After this, work continued by studying the ancient Roman jurists and incorporating 50 volumes of their legal opinions known as the Pandects. Norwich tells on page 63 of his book, A Short History of Byzantium,
“In 530 a second commission under Tribonian began a collection of the writings of all the ancient Roman jurists. Known as the Digest, or Pandects, it was the first attempt ever made to bring these also into the framework of a methodical system. Finally, in 533 there appeared the Institutes, a handbook of extracts from the two main books designed for use in the imperial law schools.”
We see, then, that the law came into force in 529, was revised in 530, and finally, the Teaching Manual for law schools was completed in 533 under the title of Institutes.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says of this,
“It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this ‘Corpus.’ It is the basis of all canon law (ecclesia vivet romana) and the basis of civil law in every civilized country.”
Hence, the legal foundation of the legal system in the West is based upon the Law Code of Justinian. Asimov's Chronology of the World, page 113, says of this,
“In 529 they came up with 12 volumes of a well-organized legal system. This was the ‘Code of Justininan,’ and was followed by a 50-volume collection of legal opinions. It has remained one of the bases of European law generally in all the centuries since.”
While Justinian intended to retain authority over the church by incorporating church law into the law of the empire, the opposite actually occurred. Establishing church law actually put the church in authority over the emperor, which he learned in 536 when he lost his first major disagreement with the pope.
Justinian had elevated Anthimus as the Patriarch of Constantinople. But Anthimus was an Arian, holding the view that Jesus Christ did not have two natures (God and man). This view had been considered “heresy” since 325 A.D. in the Council of Nicea. When Agapetus, the pope in Rome, came to consult with Justinian in 536, Justinian demanded that the Roman pope receive the Arian Patriarch into communion. But Agapetus told him,
“I hoped to find a Christian emperor, and I have met with a new Diocletian [that is, a persecutor of the church]. Well! Let Diocletian learn that the bishop of Rome does not fear his threats, and refuses to submit to his orders…. Then he obtained from the monarch an order for the deposition of Anthimus, and consecrated the new patriarch of Constan-tinople.” [Louis Marie de Cormenin, History of the Popes, Vol. 1, p. 109]
This established the precedent that made the emperor the enforcer of papal decrees. While there was a continual power struggle between monarchs and popes throughout the centuries, the popes dominated until the late 1700’s.
The Calendar Change
In addition to the establishment of canon law, Justinian authorized a change in the calendar as well, because all legal contracts had to be dated. Prior to this, dates on legal contracts and documents were according to the years since Rome’s founding in 753 B.C. Their calendar would have dated Christ’s birth as 751 AUC (ad urbe condita, “from the founding of the city”). But when Justinian adopted the change that was proposed by Dionysius, the same date was written as 1 B.C. (“Before Christ”).
Of course, he thought Jesus was born December 25, 1 B.C. just a week before 1 A.D. (anno domino, “year of our Lord”). There was no Year Zero, as they had no number zero. He was a year off in his calculation of Jesus’ birth, but otherwise the calendar has worked well since that time.
Natural Law and Civil Law
The “little horn” arose out of the Roman Empire, and the Law Code of Justinian marked its legal establishment. My sources, who have studied this extensively, tell me that Justinian’s new legal system combined Roman Civil Law with Natural Law. Hence, the Catholic Encyclopedia says,
… canon law denotes in particular the law of the "Corpus Juris", including the regulations borrowed from Roman law.
The distinction between these two types of law are as follows: Natural laws are contracts between all of creation such as a group of animals having territories that are respected by other animals. Hence, dogs mark out their territorial boundaries by peeing along the border. Bears, too, are territorial. The same is true with men and with groups of people, such as nations, who lay claim to land and demand that other nations respect those borders.
Civil Law is what authorities impose on those who are under them.
It is a complex study. It is outside the scope of my calling and is far beyond my ability to understand. However, one thing is clear; the canon law of the Roman Church is the foundation of Western law, and “Natural Law” is the international part by which the popes claim authority over the monarchs. In other words, the popes became the kingmakers and had authority to function as the mediators between kings and nations.
Those who want to study this further may read the book published in 1758 entitled, The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law, by Emmerich de Vattel.
http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/vattel/
The importance of 529-533 in church history cannot be over-emphasized. It marked the legal transition of power from the power of the Roman Emperors to the Roman Pontiffs. Daniel 7:8, 20, 21 knows it as the rise of the “little horn” coming out of the iron beast of Rome. It proved to be a religious beast, and it was given dominion for a period of “a time, times, and half a time” (Daniel 7:25).
Revelation 13 quotes this passage but interprets it to be 3½ “times,” 42 months (Revelation 13:5). Elsewhere 42 months is the equivalent of 1,260 “days” that is actually 1,260 years.
The Rise of the Earth Beast: 1789-1793
This “little horn” rose to power from 529-533, but its power began to be eclipsed in 1789-1793. Freemasonry, financed by wealthy bankers of the day, overthrew France in the French Revolution. France was known as “the firstborn son of the church,” and when it was transformed into a secular Republic, the church received a deadly wound.
The beast from the earth is the Illuminati, which was established on May 1, 1776 three years after the Jesuit Order was abolished by the pope on account of its abuse of power, assassinations, and secrecy. The Illuminati was founded by Adam Weishaupt, a Jesuit professor of canon law at Inglestadt University in Bavaria, who was furious with the pope for abolishing the Jesuit Order in 1773.
He was then recruited by a Jewish banking cartel, led primarily by the Satanist Rothschild family, formed the secret group called Illuminati, and within five years they were able to infiltrate Freemasonry.
Freemasonry, in turn, was the main vehicle that the Illuminati used to overthrow the monarchy of France. They established a Republic, which disguised the fact that the Illuminati agents had become its leaders, pretending to represent the people, but in reality being employees of the Satanist banking cartel that had financed the revolution.
In 1798 Napoleon marched to Rome and actually took the Pope captive in the Vatican itself. But in 1804 Napoleon seemed to need a pope to crown him as emperor, so he reinstated the Vatican, thus healing the church’s deadly wound (Rev. 13:3).
Since that time, we have had two beasts roaming the earth, the church beast from the sea (Rev. 13:1) and the banking beast from the earth (Rev. 13:11). We are now (in 2013) poised to watch both of these beasts fall as the Kingdom of God emerges.
The problem is that John did not reveal the length of time that the beast from the earth would be dominant. John did not say that it would replace the one from the sea, but only stated that the economic beast from the earth would rise. History shows that it is the beast that dealt Rome its deadly head wound during the French Revolution. That wound was then healed, first by Napoleon in 1804 and later by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when the nations met to redraw the boundaries of European nations in the wake of Napoleon’s final defeat.
The Vatican was brought back to life, but its power had been seriously eclipsed by the new money power of modern banking, which used Freemasonry as its primary vehicle of secret control of political parties, judges and law-enforcement apparatus, and later, technology.
I had no clue when the beast from the sea might lose its power until I finished my recent study of the book of Deuteronomy. The final weblog on our very long series on the book of Deuteronomy was written September 13, 2013. Almost as soon as I completed this, I began to discern things that were hidden from me during the entire series.
Operation Jericho: Sept. 11-17, 2011
When the Twin Towers were demolished on Sept. 11, 2001, I understood that this was the beginning of the final overthrow of Babylon. God had pointed out this important date to us three years earlier, as I explained in my booklet, The 1986 Vision of the Two Gulf Wars.
We related the Twin Towers demolition to Isaiah 30:25,
25 And on every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.
The next verse links this with the battle of Jericho:
26 And the light of the moon [yerach] will be as the light of the sun…
The Hebrew word yerach is the root word for Jericho, which means “Moon City.” We were therefore looking for a Jericho sign connecting to the Twin Towers incident. As it turned out, we had to wait ten years (which is the Hezekiah Factor) on September 11, 2011. As the time approached, people in Minnesota received revelation to conduct “Operation Jericho” from September 11 to 17, 2011, where many circled the city seven times on the last day before gathering at the state capital in St. Paul for the final decree to cast down the denominational walls of the church and to overthrow the spirit of Jezebel.
Building the Walls in 2012
In 2011 Operation Jericho tore down the walls of Jericho-Babylon, and then in 2012 we were called to repair the ruins of the wall around (new) Jerusalem. Chad got this revelation from Neh. 1:3, 2:13, 17, etc., and he understood that we were to speak the word of repair on Sept. 12, 2012. More work was done in late November, and from that revelation, the work was completed on Sept. 13, 2013.
This was the day that I completed my 15-month series of weblogs on the book of Deuteronomy, the second law. Hence, it took a full year to complete the rebuilding of the wall around the New Jerusalem.
The wall around the New Jerusalem is the divine law, which has been broken down by men’s traditions that “the law has been put away.” Because of this view, the study of the law has been largely neglected, and so the wall has come into a state of disrepair. Christians chafe under the yoke of Mystery Babylon today, but they do not have a viable alternative, because they have forgotten God’s true system of government and justice.
It occurs to me also that my study of the Blessing of Moses on the twelve tribes (Deut. 33) represents the repair of the 12 gates in the wall, as each gate represents a tribe.
We are seeing a direct parallel, then, between the new law of the Church instituted by Justinian in 529-533 and the law of God in Deuteronomy in 2013. The law of the Church was, in essence, the law of King Saul. His laws were imperfect and mixed with traditions of men, but they were the legal foundation of the Little Horn of Daniel.
Yet after 1480 years of being ruled by the laws of the Little Horn, the time has come to upgrade the laws of the Kingdom once again. Kingdom law is set forth in the book of Deuteronomy. My series was designed to give people an understanding of that book by showing its New Covenant application. When I started this series in June, 2012, I did not know that the conclusion would come one year after the prophetic declaration to rebuild the walls of the New Jerusalem. The wall is the law. Neither did I know the significance of the year 2013 in long-term prophecy.
The 1480 Revelation
In my final weblog on Deuteronomy, written Sept. 13, 2013, I mentioned the fact that Jesus died on the 1480th Passover since the first one that was kept in Egypt in Exodus 12. I showed how the numeric value of “Christ” (christos in Greek) is 1480 and how only the true Christ could come as the Lamb of God and die on the 1480th Passover.
After writing this in the weblog, it occurred to me that the year 2013 might be the end of a 1480-year cycle as well. So I calculated it back to the year 533 A.D., when the Institutes became the law of the Roman Empire.
I had seen many years ago that the Little Horn’s 1,260 years of dominion had begun to end in 1789-1793, but I had missed seeing the 140-year cycle to 2009-2013.
It is 1480 years from 529 to 2009. It is also 1480 years from 533 to 2013.
The fact that the 1480-year cycle began in 2009 connects this with the Elisha ministry. The Elisha decree was spoken on April 12, 2009. For the next 15 months, we saw the miracle-signs of Elisha unfold, with the eighth sign being completed on July 15, 2010.
I wrote about these in previous FFI bulletins as those signs manifested. But then after the eighth sign was fulfilled with the capping of the Deepwater Horizon oil well on July 15, 2010, the signs unexpectedly ceased. There has now been a three-year gap between the first eight signs and the last eight signs of Elisha.
The final eight signs of Elisha remain unfulfilled as of today, delaying the “double portion” that we have anticipated for the past few years. It is now apparent that this delay has been caused by the “famine of hearing the word,” which was the topic of our September FFI.
In other words, this gap was caused by the three-year “famine” on account of the broken treaties from the past. In the middle of last July, just as we came to the three-year anniversary of the eighth sign of Elisha, the word came to the intercessors in Mahkato (misnamed Mankato) that they were to observe a 40-day time of intercession to repent for the sins of the past. Intercession was completed Sept. 14, 2013, the day after I completed my Deuteronomy study.
God’s Kingdom Ministries
6201 University Ave. N.E.
Fridley, MN 55432 (U.S.A.)
October 2013
Dear Friends,
This bulletin is arriving a little late, due to the Tabernacles conference in late September. I was unable to write the FFI until I returned home. I apologize for that.
I am planning to make another mission trip to the Philippines in November, so I will have to finish the November FFI on time by late October.
In our September FFI, I wrote about the “End the Famine” prayer campaign, which extended from August 6 to September 14, 2013. On the evening of September 4 (feast of Trumpets), I drove to Mahkato, MN, and joined with the intercessors there to blow the shofar and to help with some decrees, as some of the brethren were led to make.
Then on September 14 we met again, but held the meeting at Reconciliation Park a few blocks down the street from the church. My reports on these meetings, along with pictures, are posted as weblogs on my website at: www.gods-kingdom-ministries.net.
The main focus of this work was to intercede for mercy on behalf of the US government, which had broken more than 400 treaties with the Native Americans in the past two centuries. The biblical precedent for this intercessory work is found in 2 Samuel 21, where we read how there was a three-year famine in the days of King David. God said it was on account of Saul’s persecution of the Gibeonites, who had made a peace treaty with Joshua a few centuries earlier. Though the problem was caused by Saul, David had to deal with it many years later.
In the same manner, God raised up intercessors to deal with the same problem that our own government caused in the past two centuries.
Toward the end of the prayer campaign, the Lord showed me that the US government was on the verge of breaking yet another treaty—this time with Syria. It is the treaty between Jacob and Laban the Syrian in Genesis 31:44-53. Most people are unaware of this treaty and how it applies today, because they still identify Jacob with the Jews and/or the Israeli state. However, the Israeli state today represents Esau, not Jacob. I explained this fully in my book, The Struggle for the Birthright.
The descendants of Jacob (after the flesh) are the Western nations, including the USA. But President Obama was threatening to invade Syria in late August, blaming the Syrian government for the sarin gas attack that had actually been perpetrated by the US-backed rebel forces. If the American people had not risen up in unity against this planned attack, there is little doubt that we would now be fully in a state of war against Syria.
I believe that our prayer campaign against broken treaties is the spiritual reason why this attack was cancelled. In other words, our entire country benefited from this prayer campaign and literally stopped a needless war. In fact, I believe it prevented WW3.
The US plan to destabilize the entire Middle East was exposed by General Wesley Clark, who learned about this insidious plan while visiting the Pentagon in September and October of 2001 in the aftermath of the Twin Towers demolition. General Clark began to give speeches about this in 2005, and these can be found easily on the internet by using any search engine. The plan was to overthrow the very dictators which the US had previously put into place by supporting military coups in past decades. The plan was to replace dictatorships with “democracies” led by the Muslim Brotherhood, while at the same time bringing instability to those nations.
This instability had two goals in mind. It was sold to the Israelis on the grounds that it would make those “enemy” states unable to carry out a war with the Israelis. But the more insidious goal was the precise opposite. This change of government was designed to radicalize those Middle East countries in order to cause a war with the Israeli state and to fulfill the Pike Plan for World War 3, in which the Israeli state and the Arab states would all be destroyed by nuclear war.
The Pike Plan, formulated more than a century ago, called for three world wars, culminating with the destruction of the Israeli state in order to cause disillusionment among Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. The seeming failure of Bible prophecy, they thought, would bring about a religious vacuum and cause the people to become Luciferians—the religion of Albert Pike.
That plan is now failing at the most critical point, at the time of our prayer campaign. Coincidence? I do not think so. The failure of the US government to convince the American people to demand war with Syria was a monumental failure to Luciferian plans for World War 3. Furthermore, after the planned Syrian invasion began to unravel, Obama then began to negotiate peace with Iran! On September 27, Obama talked with Iranian president Rouhani, as reported in the press, the first such contact since 1979.
Israeli prime minister Netanyahu gnashed his teeth and raced to the White House to express his displeasure, but to no avail. He then gave the most insulting speech possible at the United Nations, calling Rouhani “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” and a “Nazi.” But in spite of this, Obama’s negotiations have continued, and Secretary of State John Kerry even said that to stop the negotiations would be “diplomatic malpractice.”
It is apparent that the Israelis will have to fight their own wars for a change. I believe that the Israelis will indeed start a war, perhaps soon, because at some point Jerusalem will be destroyed, as prophesied in Jeremiah 19:11. Jerusalem will be uninhabitable by anyone at some point, as Isaiah 29:1-6 prophesies, for God Himself will fight against “Ariel” (poetic name for Jerusalem).
I believe that this will fulfill the word of God in Genesis 21:10, saying, “Cast out the bondwoman [Hagar-Jerusalem] and her son [Jews/Judaism], for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman [Sarah-New Jerusalem].” Paul quotes this in Galatians 4:30 and interprets it for us in the previous verses.
So the children of “Hagar” are about to be cast out in order that the true inheritors of the promise may be established as the heirs of the Kingdom. I do not know how long this will take, but these recent events have moved us closer to the fulfillment of that promise.
Stephen & Darla
