The Nephilim and Pyramid of Apocalypse

by Patrick Heron

  2. He would be betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9)

  3. He would be forsaken by his disciples (Zechariah 13:7)

  4. He would be accused by false witnesses (Psalm 35:11)

  5. He would be dumb in the presence of his accusers (Isaiah 53:7)

  6. He would be scourged (Isaiah 50:6)

  7. He would have his garments parted (Psalm 22:18)

  8. He would be mocked by his enemies (Psalm 22:7,8)

  9. He would be given gall and vinegar to drink (Psalm 69:21)

  10. Not one bone in his body would be broken (Psalm 34:20)

  11. He would die in the presence of malefactors and thieves (Isaiah 53:12)

  12. The 30 pieces of silver would be used to buy the potters’ field (Zechariah 11:13)

  During the course of his lifetime the Messiah prophesied many things himself. On one occasion he told his disciples how it would come to pass that he would have to go to Jerusalem, suffer many things at the hands of the chief priests and be killed. When Peter heard this, he rose up and said to the Messiah in essence: “No way is this going to happen as long as I am around. I will defend you.” But the Messiah rebuked Peter and said: “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.”

  (Matthew 26: 69-75)

  Subsequently, during the detention of the Messiah and his subjection to torture, various people accused Peter of being with him. After Peter’s third denial, the sun began to rise and the cock crowed. Suddenly Peter remembered what the Messiah had said to him and he wept bitterly.

  At another time, the Messiah sat down close to a well to rest. A Samaritan woman came and began to draw out water. The Jews normally would never speak to a Samaritan, as they were considered the lowest form of life, but the Messiah spoke to this woman. He said to her: “Woman, have you no husband to draw out the water for you?” She replied: “Sir, I have no husband.” And he said to her: “You had five husbands and the man you have now is not your husband.” At this she looked at him intently and replied: “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet” (John 4:19). At yet another time, close to the end of his ministry, he walked with his disciples as they admired the magnificence of the Great Temple in Jerusalem. As they marvelled at it, he told them: “Not one stone shall be left upon another.” Thus he prophesied the destruction of the Temple. Less than 40 years later this prophecy was fulfilled when a Roman general named Titus and his soldiers destroyed the Temple so completely that not one stone was left upon another.

  In one study, a scholar named Grant R. Jeffrey (in his book Armageddon: Appointment with Destiny)65 assessed the likelihood of some of these prophecies coming to pass by applying numerical probabilities to them. For instance, in Micah 5:2 it is prophesied that the Messiah would be born in the village of Bethlehem. Now there were thousands of villages in Israel at that time. So the chances of him being born in Bethlehem, a tiny insignificant hamlet, were actually thousands to one. Jeffrey came up with a conservative estimate of 200 to 1. Then he took another prophecy: that the Messiah would make his entrance into Jerusalem on an ass (Zechariah 9:9). Now kings do not ride around on an ass, so Jeffrey put the probability of this coming to pass at 50 to 1.

  So the combined odds of both of these prophecies coming to pass regarding one man is 200 x 50 or 10,000 to 1. Jeffrey continued on with 11 other specific prophecies concerning the Messiah. Among the prophecies he tested are the following:

  PROBABILITY

  1. The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem

  (Prophesied in Micah 5:2) 1 in 200

  2. He would enter Jerusalem on an ass

  (Prophesied in Zechariah 9:9) 1 in 50

  3. He would be betrayed by a friend

  (Prophesied in Psalm 41:9) 1 in 10

  PROBABILITY

  4. Have his hands and feet pierced

  (Prophesied in Psalm 22:16) 1 in 100

  5. Be sold for 30 pieces of silver

  (Prophesied in Zechariah 11:13) 1 in 100

  6. Have his betrayal money thrown down in the Temple and exchanged for the potters’ field

  (Prophesied in Zechariah 11:13) 1 in 200

  7. Be crucified in the presence of thieves

  (Prophesied in Isaiah 53:12) 1 in 100

  He continued on in this manner, assigning probabilities to eleven different Old Testament prophecies relating to the Messiah. When he determined the probability of these predictions being fulfilled in the course of the lifetime of one man, the statistical chances worked out at one chance in 10 billion times a billion. Or one chance in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000.

  He equated the possibility of these prophecies coming to pass with this simple analogy:

  “Suppose you gave me a ring from your finger. I take this ring and go up in an aeroplane and fly over the seven oceans of the world. Somewhere over one of the oceans, I throw your ring out the window. Then I return to you and I give you a boat and a fishing rod. I tell you to sail over all the oceans of the world. When you feel lucky, you can stop the boat and let down your fishing line, and you have one chance to hook your ring and claim it back.”

  For when he calculated the probabilities, based on the numbers given, he deduced that it would be less than one-twentieth of a square inch of the total area of all the combined sea beds of all the oceans in the world. That represents about the size of one printed letter on this page.

  Jeffrey took only eleven predictions into consideration. As I have already stated, the Messiah literally fulfilled 109 prophecies from the Old Testament, 25 specific ones in the last 24 hours of his life. Imagine what the statistical probabilities would be of those coming to pass!

  Now I know that some people will argue that all these Gospels were written after the death of the Messiah. Others will claim that the authors of the Gospels contrived to deceive in their references to the prophecies of old. But this argument makes no sense.

  These were ordinary men doing ordinary work. They were not scribes or priests or religious leaders. Mark was a shepherd, Matthew a reviled tax-collector. Luke was a physician, a doctor. Do you think that they would actually sit down together and try to hatch such a plot and carry it out? Could you persuade four of your friends to sit down and write four different accounts of an incident stretching over 89 chapters and many thousands of words? I think not. As you will discover, there is a lot more to this than meets the eye.

  To give one example of how prophecy unfolds – which is very pertinent to our study and to the world we live in today – we need only look at Israel. In hundreds of prophecies throughout the Old Testament, it was prophesied that the Israelites would be driven out of Palestine and Jerusalem, that they would be scattered to the four corners of the world (wandering Jews), and that everywhere they would go, they would be persecuted, despised and hated.

  In 70 AD this prophecy began to be fulfilled. After he sacked Jerusalem, Titus slaughtered about one million Jews. The rest were scattered to the four corners of the globe. They have been vilified and persecuted everywhere they have gone. This persecution culminated in the gas chambers of the Nazis, where millions of them were murdered. So this particular prophecy, which appears hundreds of times, has literally been fulfilled in one ethnic group.

  But wait. In dozens of other prophecies we are told that in the last days Yaweh would gather his people again and establish them in Palestine and in Jerusalem, where they would have their own homeland at last. This would be done to show the rest of the nations that we were living in the last days. Around the turn of the 20th century, a few Jews began resettling in Palestine. Then in May 1948 Israel became a nation once again almost 2,000 years after the dispersal of its people. When next you view images on TV concerning the Jewish people in Israel, you are watching prophecy being fulfilled. About 5½ million Jews now live in Israel and world peace is contingent on what happens there. Even though the Jews possess only one-sixth of 1% of all Arab land, they are nonetheless hated by most Arabs. Why have the Jewish people suffered so much? Why is it that, wherever they have gone, they have b
een humiliated and persecuted?

  With the Crucifixion of the Messiah, the sorrows of the Jewish race began, for when they rejected their Messiah they brought calamity upon their own heads. When they were baying for the blood of the Messiah, they shouted with one voice:

  “His blood be on us and on our children.”

  Matthew 27:25

  Ever since that day the sword has been upon the Jewish people, for Yaweh had promised them that His judgment would fall on them in the future tribulation. But Yaweh first promised to restore his people to Israel and Jerusalem and indicated that, by doing so, this would be a sign to other nations.

  And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the Earth.

  Isaiah 11: 11,12

  Bear in mind that this was written about 650 years before Christ. Yet here we are, over 2,600 years later, and the Jews are celebrating their return to their homeland! This is only one of many Old Testament passages which foretell of the return of the nation of Israel after the worldwide scattering of its people.

  So here we are in the 21st century. The Jewish people have been back in Israel for more than 50 years now. This is prophecy coming to pass before our very eyes. And we are also told that in the future this world will perish on the rock which is Jerusalem (Zechariah 12: 2-4).

  Prophecy is history written in advance. Because the Scriptures have been ignored for so long by so many, we do not know or understand how to interpret them. It is clear from the character of the Bible that it is not the work of man, for man could not have written it.

  As Clarence Larkin, in his book Dispensational Truth, says:

  “It details with scathing and unsparing severity the sins of its greatest personages, men such as Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David and Solomon, charging them with falsehood, treachery, pride, adultery, cowardice, murder and gross licentiousness. And it presents the history of the Children of Israel as a humiliating record of ingratitude, idolatry, unbelief and rebellion. It is safe to say that, without specific guidance and direction to do so from the Holy Spirit, the Jews would never have chronicled the sinful history of their nation in this way.”

  The Book of Revelation is almost entirely prophetic. It deals with the last days of man’s life on this Earth as we know it. This book has wrongly been called “The Revelation of St. John the Divine,” for its correct title is given in chapter one, verse one: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ . . . ” The word “revelation” in the Greek is “apokalupsis,” which means “unveiling,” as in the taking away of a veil to reveal the face. In another sense it can mean to take away a veil in order to reveal future events in much the same way that curtains are drawn back to reveal a stage.

  What we will be examining in this section is a summary of many of the prophecies contained in the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation. We will endeavour to decode many of these predictions and put them into ordinary language. We shall also examine many of the signs we are told will precede these future events. We shall take both the prophecies and the signs and look at them in the light of many of the events which are happening around us in the world today.

  Many of the incidents portrayed in the Apocalypse are quite frightening, so we will also be demonstrating how they may be avoided. For there is an alternative, there is an escape route, there is another path which leads away from the events portrayed in the prophecies of the Apocalypse. Right now, though, it’s back to the future.

  Parousia

  Not long before his death, the Messiah spoke privately with some of His closest friends. This meeting took place on the Mount of Olives, which is a hill close to Jerusalem. They asked Him a most interesting question, recorded in Matthew 24:

  “Tell us,” they asked, “when shall these things be and what will be the sign of your coming (Parousia) and of the end of this age?”

  I will now reveal what His answer was. I will then elaborate on each point and tie these in with the prophecies of the Book of Revelation. These signs, foretold by the prophet Jesus Christ, are directly related to the Great Tribulation period, which is to last for seven years.

  Verse 4

  And Jesus answered: Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming “I am the Christ,” and will deceive many.

  Verse 6

  You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

  Verse 7

  Nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

  Verse 8

  All these things are the beginning of birth pangs.

  Verse 10

  At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

  Verse 12

  Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.

  Verse 21

  For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be equalled again.

  Verse 22

  If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but, for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.

  Verse 24

  False christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if that were possible.

  Verse 25

  See, I have told you ahead of time.

  Verse 35

  Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

  In Luke 21, we have a parallel discourse in which the Messiah elaborates on this prophecy:

  Verse 25

  There will be signs in the sun, moon and the stars. On the Earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.

  Verse 26

  Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.

  Verse 28

  When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up yours heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

  Luke 21:25,26,28

  Note this last comment. The Messiah says that when we see these things we will know that our redemption is near. I would argue that all these things are happening right now. But let us take a closer look. The first sign the Messiah said to watch out for is:

  1. False Christs, False Prophets and Deception

  Have you noticed lately how many weird cults and sects appear in the news? Hundreds if not thousands of new groups are sprouting up all over the Western Hemisphere. Most of them have a leader who claims to have authority from God. All believe that they possess the truth.

  There has also been a huge increase in the numbers of “false prophets.” Every time you open a newspaper or magazine you are confronted with advertisements offering personal predictions about the future. You can phone in to radio stations with your personal problems and have a “professional” read the Tarot cards to tell you how you might deal with your situation. Three out of every four people who pick up a newspaper in the UK read their horoscopes. Everywhere, mystic and new age shops are opening. In these you can obtain books and information on all the occult arts and new age practices. Everything from Tarot cards to astrology charts to birthstones and crystals. Again, this is a manifestation of the prevalence of false prophets and deception which we were told we would see as we approach the last days. Nobody is teaching our children any alternative Christian doctrine. As a result, they are lapping up this deception to fill the spiritual void in their lives.

  We are specifically forbidden to have anything to do with fortune-tellers, soothsayers, necromancers and other false prophets who are in opposition to the true God and His son. Time and time again we are warned of such people in the Bible, but because we do not know these truths we are easy prey for the agents of darkness. Suppose you wanted to know the future, and you were
standing in a hall with two doors. On one door is the name Jesus Christ. On the other is the name Louis Cifer. Which door would you go through? Most people I know have no problem going to fortune-tellers, reading their horoscope or having their palms read. But when I try to tell them what the Messiah says about their future, they don’t want to know. In fact, many get downright annoyed.

  The first thing we are told to watch out for in the Tribulation period is people who claim to be true Christians and prophets of the true God. We are told that when we see these signs beginning to manifest themselves, we will know that the time is near. Open your eyes. Look around you. The writing is on the wall.

  2. You will hear of wars and rumours of wars . . . nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

  The United States recently approved a huge increase in its military budget. North Korea and China have the capability to devastate American cities with nuclear warheads. India and Pakistan are now nuclear powers. Russia has almost twice as many nuclear weapons as the United States. Between them, these two countries have 35,000 nuclear weapons, strategic and tactical.

  All over the globe, wars are breaking out, and rumours of wars abound in scores of other regions. Elsewhere, old adversaries are renewing their conflicts.