So we're coming to the question, who is a Manifestation of God? Each of the world religions claims that their religion is the true religion and the others are false. For instance, the Jews say no one can equal Moses. When Jesus came along, they said, "This man is just a carpenter's son—he can never equal Moses—no one can equal Moses!" They said. ''This man even puts himself above Moses," so they rejected Jesus. The Christians deified Jesus by taking the pagan triune god—the trinity—and making Jesus part of it, saying no one can equal Jesus—He's God! Thus the Christians rejected Muhammad when He came, even though Jesus prophesied Muhammad by name in the Bible. Muhammad called Himself the "seal of the Prophets," and now the Muslims interpret this to mean that He's the last Prophet and no one will ever come after Muhammad—therefore everyone has to become Muslim. So when the Bab (Baha'u'llah's Forerunner) and Baha'u'llah came, who were prophesied in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran, the world has turned them down flat. Today the Christians say Jesus is the Prince of Peace, but Jesus said that He wasn't—He told His apostle Peter, "Suppose ye that I am come to bring peace on earth? I tell you. Nay; but rather division..." (Luke 12:51). Christianity has resulted in great division, turning peoples against each other and families against each other—confusion. But Jesus said that the Manifestation of God, Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), was going to come—"Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, so will the son of man be ashamed of him when he comes in Baha'u'llah." (Mark 8:38). The word "Baha'u'llah" that Jesus spoke in the 9
Aramaic language was translated into the English Bible as "the glory of the Father." (Matthew 16:27, Luke 9:26). Now Baha'u'llah has come. But all the people today are doing just as all the previous people have done. They are rejecting the next Manifestation that has come to create man...'God's image, even though the concept of the several Manifestations appears in the first page of the Bible—"Let us make man in our image"—this "us" refers to the Great Divine Manifestations of God. We can't know God in His essence—only through His logos or thought—the Revelation of God. The logos descended upon Moses in the burning bush. The spirit of God descended upon Jesus as a dove when He was baptized by John in the river Jordan. The logos descended upon Muhammad in the cave of Hira. The same happened with the Bab and Baha'u'llah. These are the Great Divine Manifestations. And the only thing we can ever know of God comes from the Manifestations. We receive a branch of this Holy Spirit. A lot of people say, "I'm full of the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit is actually the thought of God that descends upon the Manifestations, just as the light of the sun would descend upon a mirror. That mirror then reflects the light to us, but the primary rays go to the mirror. In this analogy, God would be the sun, the Manifestation is the mirror, the rays of light are the Holy Spirit. God speaks to us through a Manifestation, just as the sun would be reflected to us in a mirror. The Holy Spirit reflected in the pure and polished mirror of the Manifestation of God is the only thing we can ever know about God. The Manifestation receives the Holy Spirit from God, and then we receive a branch of the Holy Spirit from turning to the Manifestation. Baha'u'llah fulfills the prophecies for the Prince of Peace. He said that the nations must form an International Tribunal or World Court to settle their disputes around a counsel table rather than go to war. In this World Court, they must make a pact amongst themselves to disarm and maintain peace through consultation. There have already been several attempts at implementing Baha'u'llah's solution to the world problem. The Czar of Russia, Nicolaevich Alexander II, believed in Baha'u'llah. When Baha'u'llah was imprisoned in Tehran, the Czar extended to Him the aid of one of his ministers and got Him out of prison. Baha'u'llah wrote to the Czar that since he believed in Him, he should proclaim His Revelation and implement His plan for world peace. Czar Alexander never arose to do this and was assassinated. But his son, Czar Alexander III, had Baha'u'llah's principal works translated into Russian, and 10
Alexander's. son Czar Nicholas II, studied Baha'u'llah's plans for world peace. As a result Czar Nicholas called the nations together in 1899 for the First Hague Peace Conference which set up the World Court. when the heads of state heard the Czar explain the plan for world peace which he took from Baha'u'llah's teachings, they were so impressed that they eulogized the Czar for having such a brilliant mind to come up with these concepts. These eulogies swelled the Czar's head to such an extent that he failed to proclaim Baha'u'llah. Since he didn't proclaim Baha'u'llah, this body was merely secular and very political, and we had World War 1. Another attempt to establish Baha'u'llah's peace Plan was made by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson's daughter was a Baha'i, and he himself had studied the writings of Baha'u'llah concerning an international House of Justice or World Court. Wilson, after World War I, set up the League of Nations as an attempt to set up Baha'u'llah's peace program. But since Wilson couldn't get the United States to join, and the League of Nations was also merely secular and very political, we had World War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor attended Baha'i firesides in Washington D.C. for three years at the home of a Baha'i physician. After World War II, FDR made another attempt to implement Baha'u'llah's plan, setting up the United Nations. He got the United States, England, France and Russia to take out the charter for this world tribunal, and he intended to proclaim Baha'u'llah. Roosevelt was waiting for the atom bomb to be perfected so he could call the heads of state to the Nevada proving ground, explode a nuclear device, proclaim Baha'u'llah, and give this bomb to the United Nations so that if any nations refused to disarm, the U.N. could force them to do so. All nations would have had to completely disarm, so that if any nation violated another' s boundaries, they could call them into the United Nations and make them pay a penalty. If any nation persisted in hostilities, if necessary the U.N. would wipe that nation off the face of the earth. Roosevelt was going to do this, but he died before the atom bomb could be perfected. When they asked the next American President, Harry Truman, if he wanted to carry out Roosevelt's program, he said, "Hell no, we've got the bomb—the other nations can dance to our tune!" So now the atomic bomb is in the hands of hostile independent nations, and as a result, we' re going to have World War III. Neither the Czar, nor Wilson, nor Roosevelt proclaimed Baha'u'llah, which is essential, since Baha'u'llah is the Prince of Peace. They were supposed to put 11
into effect His laws and His teachings in order to have universal peace. We will have World war III, which will be very destructive, because the world has failed to turn to the Prince of Peace. World War III is the Battle of Armageddon, which will be the last war. This war will be so destructive that mankind will be forced to turn to the Prince of Peace and establish the Kingdom of God on this planet. In the Middle East today, the stage is being set for this world war. It will only be a short time before this war happens. What the world needs to know before World War III is Baha'u'llah's plans for the Kingdom of God on earth. But how do you know for sure that Baha'u'llah is the Prince of Peace, or if any one of the Manifestations have come from God? If someone claimed to be the return of Jesus, how would you be able to tell whether or not this was true. Do you have any way to tell the difference between an ordinary person and a Prophet of God? The world seems to have no particular criteria to recognize the One sent by God. When Jesus came, 2000 years ago, the people were expecting a Messiah. It was prophesied, and the clergy were telling the people the Messiah was going to come. But when He came, they nailed him to a cross. The people expected that when the Messiah came, they would listen to Him, and see what He had to say. If they agreed with what He said then they would accept Him. But Jesus brought a message which was different from what they were preaching in the synagogues. In fact, Jesus went into the Temple with a whip and drove out the money-changers there because they had made the Temple into a den of thieves (John 2:14-16). It's something like what happened with the PTL ministry. Some people say about recognizing the return of Christ, "I'll have a gut feeling—I'll just know." Other people say, "I'll ask my priest." Well if the priests accepted Baha'u'llah as the Promised One, the whole world would have accepted it by now. In fact, it was the clergy in the time of Jesus that turned against Jesus. So we have to have a definite criteria by which anyone can independently recognize the Promised One. If you want to know what the distance between two places is you use an odometer. If someone asked you how warm it is, you'd use a thermometer. If someone asked you how fast you were going, you'd use a speedometer. To find out how tall you are we'd use a measuring stick, and to find out what direction you were going you'd use a compass. If someone asked you how heavy something is you'd use a scale. We have a criteria for just about everything. 12
But the most important thing for the people to have is a criteria by which to recognize the Promised One. This is because the clergies of all the religions are in conflict—they come up with so many bad concepts that they resemble people who are drunk on bad wine. The garbage that the clergy comes up with causes people to the leave the churches and often to reject the Manifestations altogether. The clergy are the cause of the confusion in religion, and World War III is going to result from the confusion of the nations—and religion plays a large part in this. Religious confusion is at the crux of the world's problems, especially between the Jews, Christians and Muslims. They need to have a criteria to know who is the Promised One from God and who is not. To recognize the Prince of Peace, we need to have a criteria which is so accurate that we won't make a mistake. It has to be scientifically accurate. The United States put a man on the moon. When the man stepped out onto the moon, it was within three seconds of the calculated time. To send a man to the moon and set him down within three seconds of the calculated time is accurate. We have to have an accurate criteria, just like 2 plus 2 equals 4, in which there can be no dispute. Unless we have an accurate criteria, every charlatan, every false prophet, and every salesman can come along with a line in order to lead you down the dark alley and hijack you. This is what is happening in the world today with the TV evangelists, for example. They're taking the people down the dark alley and hijacking them. If you ask them for proofs of what they're saying, they say you have to accept it on faith. I have nothing against faith—I have the strongest faith in the world, but my faith is built on actual fact that what I believe is true. People have a lot of weeds in their garden upstairs—most of the things people believe regarding religion are weeds. And many things the scientific world tells us are also inaccurate. They often change their theories, such as how the world has come into existence—this has been revised and revised and revised. So these things are inaccurate. But in order for me to devote my time, my energy and my life to any cause, I need to know absolutely, positively that what I believe is an actual fact. This is what I would like to present to you. And if you find that what I tell you isn't so, I'll be the first one to tell you not to believe it. I won't be trying to circumcise you, or baptize you, or enroll you, or have you sign a card, or ask for money. All we will try do is arrive at an understanding by using our intellect to look at fact. This will be just as in school, when the teacher said, "What are two apples and two apples?" You said, "I don't know, maybe it's three or maybe it's seven." So the teacher said, "No two apples and two apples are four apples You asked the teacher how she arrived at that, and she said, "We'll, count them one, two, three, 13
four." and through this type of proof you learned two, three, four." And through this type of proof you learned that two and two is four. Similarly, the Bible is a scientific approach to this problem in the Bible. In the beginning of the Adamic Cycle, God had a plan by which He was going to send a number of Divine Manifestations to the world progressively, like the grades in school to educate humanity. Before the time of Adam, there were civilizations, but the people didn't think in the abstract. Our abstract thinking goes back to when we had our first recorded history 6,000 years ago, and the Bible states that Adam came 6,000 years ago. Man had begun to use symbols to portray something else. This began with hieroglyphics which was pictorial language—they'd draw a little horse or a dog, or a tree. They could draw these symbols very quickly. This system gave way to cuneiform, in which marks represented certain things. This, in turn, developed into the various alphabets. With an alphabet, a letter "A" doesn't represent a horse, it represents a sound, and the letter "B" represents another sound, and so on. Each letter of the alphabet is a symbol representing something else. Thus speech began to be recorded. Speech had just started before the Adamic Cycle. As stated before, there were four civilizations before Adam, each ending with a catastrophe, such as the sinking of Atlantis. After the sinking of Atlantis, now that abstract thinking was dawning, Adam gave a whole new concept to history—that there is one in-visible God that made everything. Mankind was now going to be created in the image of God. It says in the 26th verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis, "Let us make man in our image," meaning that man would be educated to take on the spiritual qualities by turning to the Divine Manifestations which reflect God. This "our" pertains to the Manifestations. God is a very scientific spirit. That is, all the sciences come from God, so He had to be scientific. Thus, God had a plan for the coming of these Manifestations in the Adamic Cycle, just as an architect has a plan for building a house. The owner hires an architect, and the architect decides where all the rooms are going to be—the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathroom, the front room, and so on. He doesn't put the bathroom in the front room, that wouldn't be appropriate. Likewise, when God made this plan to send these teachers, He designated when they were going to come, what their names would be, where they were going to appear, and what they were going to teach when they came. Four things. 14
These four things appear on a personal business card. There are four cardinal points on a business card—name, address, date and profession. For instance, a calling card for a physician would have the doctor's name, the address of the office, the hours they would be there, and their profession. Such card might read, Dr. Opal M. Jensen, 328 Stephens Avenue Missoula, Montana, chiropractic physician, and it would state her hours. There might be other people named Opal, and they might even be Opal Jensen, and some might even be Dr.Opal M. Jensen. Some of them might even be chiropractors. But there is only one person in this world named Dr. Opal M. Jensen, who is a chiropractic physician, who is at 328 Stephens Avenue, at her particular time. There is only one person in this world who fulfills this, not 10 people, not 1000 people, not 2 people, just one person. You could be in China, and someone could give you her card, and you could get on a plane to the Missoula airport, take a taxi to 328 Stephens Avenue and sit down in the reception room of her office. When she came out you wouldn't call her a liar, would you? Because on the wall would be her diploma and her license, and she would come out as her proof that she was there. God is that scientific about the coming of the Manifestations. At the time of Adam He had already pre-named the Manifestations that would come. For example, Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am", meaning that before Abraham was born in the 2100's B.C., Jesus was in the plan of God . So was Moses. All the Manifestations were in the plan of God, and in this plan of God, He had a definite pre-ordained date for them to come, at a certain address. For instance, to show you how this works, Jesus was prophesied in the Old Testament. He was prophesied by name, by the date at which He came, the address at which He would appear, and what He would teach when He got here: the calling card. To show you that this is a scientific approach, we're going to go through these prophecies, though Jesus is already accepted as a Manifestation of God. The thing is, there is definite proof in the Bible that Jesus was the Promised One that was to come. The Jews didn't accept Him, and they don't accept Him today, because they don't go by the criteria that is in their own book. If they went by the criteria in their own book they would accept Him. Jesus' name was prophesied in the book of Isaiah, which was written over 740 years before He was born. In this passage, Isaiah addresses the house of David: Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, 15
and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:13-14 King James version). Isaiah addresses the house of David because this prophesied person is going to be a descendant of David. This is one of the first proofs—this person has to be a descendant of David. The name "Immanuel' is Hebrew for "God with us." God is always with us, so this means God with us in Manifestation. The apostle Matthew shows how this prophecy was fulfilled: ... The angel of the Lord appeared unto him [Joseph] in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your, wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit [is a Manifestation of God]; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel." (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus. (Matthew 1:20-25 Revised Standard version). Why did Joseph ever call his son Jesus when the prophecy says his name shall be called Immanuel? "Jesus" is the same as the Aramaic word "Joshua." "Jesus" also has the same meaning as the Hebrew word "Immanuel," which means "God with us." The reason Joseph used the Greek word "Jesus" in place of the Hebrew word "Immanuel" is that the prophecy was given by Isaiah in the Hebrew language 742 years previously. By the time of Jesus, the Jews no longer spoke Hebrew—they were speaking Greek. So Joseph used the Greek equivalent of "Immanuel," the Greek word "Jesus," which he named Him, and which means the same thing: "God with us. " And of course, "God with us" means God with us in Manifestation; God is with us right here in essence—He pervades the entire universe, but the Manifestation is the mirror that reflects God to us and causes God to be come manifest. His name is called Jesus because He was the one that was going to reflect God. So this is how Jesus was prophesied by name. The prophet Micah, over seven hundred years before Jesus, foretold His address: But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Juda, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. (Micah 5:2 RSV). 16
"Ephrathah" was the name of Bethlehem before David made it his city. The reason this person is going to come from the city of David is that He is going to be a descendant of David. We saw that the prophecy for Immanuel was addressed to the House of David for the same reason. So Bethlehem is the city from which the Messiah will come forth. The prophecy describes this person as a "ruler." The Messiah is a ruler, as the word "Messiah" means "a male lineal descendant of King David that is anointed." The prophecy states that this person will be of the tribe of Judah—which is the tribe of David. Although Mary was of the tribe of Levi, Jesus' father Joseph was of the tribe of Judah. Everyone knows that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But the apostle Luke tells us how Jesus came to be born in Bethlehem: In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment [census for tax purposes], when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph went also went up into Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and of David, to be enrolled with Mary. his betrothed who was with child. And while they were there, the time cane for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1-6) Caesar Augustus decreed that the Jews now had to be taxed. They had to register to be taxed at the home of their ancestors so everyone would be counted properly. As Joseph was a descendant of David, he had to go to the city of David, Bethlehem, to register for the tax. Thus while Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem to register for the tax, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Jesus was raised in Nazareth where Joseph and Mary had their permanent address, but He was born in Bethlehem, the prophesied address from which the Messiah was to come forth. The Old Testament prophet Daniel, writing 600 years before Jesus, recorded the exact date at which the Messiah would appear and carry out His mission. This part of the book of Daniel, the ninth chapter, is one of the most wonderful parts of the whole Bible, so I would like to go into the background of what is going on in this section. Daniel was a prophet who was taken into captivity by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar when he conquered Jerusalem in 606 B.C. Daniel was of the 17
elite, the royal family of the Jews, and he and the prophet Ezekiel and many other Jews were taken captive to Babylon at that time. Nebuchadnezzar totally destroyed Jerusalem and took the rest of the people captive in 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar loved Daniel very much, since Daniel was able to interpret a dream for him. Nebuchadnezzar hadn't been able to find anyone who could interpret the dream, and then he forgot the dream. He called together the soothsayers, astrologers and wise men of Babylon, telling them that if they couldn't tell him what his dream was and what it meant he'd kill them all. Daniel intervened, telling Nebuchadnezzar not to kill them, and that he'd tell him what the dream was and what it meant. Daniel succeeded in doing this, and Nebuchadnezzar recognized that the One Invisible God that Daniel worshipped was certainly the true God, though he, Nebuchadnezzar, was pagan. As a reward, Nebuchadnezzar made Daniel his vizier over all of Babylon. Daniel ultimately wanted to return to Jerusalem with his people and rebuild the city and the temple. Nebuchadnezzar refused to go along with this, since he had already found it necessary to conquer the Jews twice. So Daniel decided to take the case to a higher court—the Court of God himself. Daniel dressed in cheap raiment, gunny sack material, and anointed himself with ashes, humbling himself before God. Daniel poured out his heart to God, saying, "O Great Lord, who rules over everything, see our plight, we're in captivity. We deserve to in captivity, because we broke all your laws, we violated your Covenant, we did everything you us we'd go into captivity if we disobeyed you. But we're the people called by your name, and now the people say the God of Israel is a weak God, He couldn't protect His own people. For your sake, O Lord, allow us to go back and rebuild the Temple'" Daniel prayed very sincerely, confessing the sins of his people: "As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and giving heed to thy truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity righteous in all the works he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.... "O my God, incline thy ear and hear; open thy eyes and behold our desolation's, and the city which is called by thy name; for we do not present our supplications before thee on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of thy great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord give heed and act; delay not, for thy own 18
sake, O my God, because thy city and thy people are called by thy name. "While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God; while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. He came and he said to me, 'O Daniel, I have now come out to give you wisdom and understanding. At the beginning of your supplications a word went forth, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved; therefore consider the word and understand the vision." (Daniel 9: 13-14, 18-23). The angel Gabriel had been overseeing the Persian-Median unity that was coming about at that, time in History. But when Daniel prayed, God heard his prayer and sent Gabriel by swift flight to tell him what would take place in the future. Daniel was praying to be able to go back and rebuild the city and the temple right away, but it was already in the annals of God how this would come about—God already had a plan for that. Daniel was praying for something which God had a different plan for—just as in the building of a house, some of the builders might have an idea to build it differently from the plan, and the architect would say, "No, you have to go according to the plan. Here Gabriel comes to tell Daniel what God's plan is: "Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy one. "Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary...... "And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week." (Daniel 9:24-27). Here it says that from the order to restore and build Jerusalem to the time that the Messiah will be cut off is going to be 70 weeks or actually 70 weeks of 19
years. In 70 weeks we have 490 days. Ezekiel 4:6 and Numbers 14:34 confirm that each day of the Lord's equals a year. So these 70 weeks of years are 490 years. The order to restore and build Jerusalem was given in 457 B.C. This order was recorded in the 7th chapter of the Book of Ezra (see dated Bible). So we subtract 457 B.C. from the 490 years in order to get the date, A.D., for the coming of the Messiah. When we do this we get 33 years, the age of Jesus when he was crucified. It so happens that there are 456 years from 457 B.C. to the birth of Christ, since there was no "zero year." This gives us 34 years left over, so we see that Jesus, at the age of 33, was crucified in 34 A.D. Here is the exact date for the crucifixion of the Messiah. This date is also divided up in the prophecy as 7 weeks, 62 weeks, and 1 week. In 7 weeks we have 49 years, since there are 49 days in 7 weeks, and each day is equal to a year. This 49 years is the length of time it took to restore and build Jerusalem with walls around the city and a moat. This bring us to 408 B.C. Then we have 62 weeks, which equals 434 years. This is the time between the rebuilding of the city until we come to the last week, the week of the covenant, and this brings us to 27 A.D. The last week is described as follows: "And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and offering to cease." (Daniel 9: 27). We divide the last week into two periods of 3 1/2 years, since there is a division in the middle of the week, the middle of the seven days or seven years. The beginning of the week is the time when John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, started baptizing. After 3 1/2 years he baptized Jesus, and this caused the sacrifice in the Temple to cease, because the perfect sacrifice Jesus had come. The animal sacrifices of the temple no longer had any effect on the removal of sins, as the start of Jesus' mission inaugurated a whole new dispensation. After 3 1/2 years of teaching, Jesus died on Calvary Cross for the remission of sins. 20
The Book of Daniel not only prophesied Jesus' crucifixion, but also the start of His ministry and when John the Baptist started His ministry. So here we have the date for the coming of Jesus. And Jesus' mission, as Daniel prophesied, was to "finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness..." (Daniel 9:21). There might have been a lot of people called Jesus. But there was only one person in history whose name was called Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem, that started His mission in 30 A.D. and died on the date 34 A.D. according to the 70 weeks prophecy, for the remission of sins. This will never be fulfilled by anyone else. Jesus fulfilled that prophecy. But the Jews weren't going by their own book from which I took these prophecies. These proofs for Jesus came out of the Jews' own book. Jesus was prophesied in their book by name, by date, by address and by mission—there should have been no argument. But the people were fanatical—they built up all kinds of theologies and mythologies about how the Messiah was going to come, and Jesus did not fulfill their imaginations—He fulfilled prophecy—the calling card. And this calling card is just as accurate as can be. This establishes a criteria by which to recognize the Promised One. To day we have all kinds of people saying they're Jesus—on street corners there might even be three or four people saying they're Jesus, all in competition with each other. We have seen the prophecies for the coming of Jesus, but now the people await the return of Christ, and the Christians are looking for the same Jesus that was crucified in 34 A.D. to come again. The Christian author Hal Lindsey writes on this subject in his book The Late Great Planet Earth. This book has been a best seller for over twenty years, and over twenty million copies have been sold. Several movies have been made based on this book. The following quote from page 18 of this book concerns the prophecies for the Messiah or the Christ: 21
Two completely different portraits of a coming Messiah were described by the Old Testament prophets. The portraits, painted by the sure hand of God, were placed on the same canvas, framed in one picture. For those who lived prior to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the perspective of these two portraits of the Messiah was difficult to understand. Imagine a man looking at a range of mountains. He is able to see the peak of one mountain, and beyond it is the peak of another. However; from this vantage point, he cannot see the valley which separates these two mountains. Men viewed the two portraits of the Messiah in the same manner. They saw two different persons... Well first of all, do you know the meaning of the word—"Christ"? Most Christians don't know what the word "Christ" means. They think it means, "Son of God," or "God," or was Jesus' last name, or some other misconception, because the clergy and the Christians never mention what the word Christ means. The word Christ doesn't mean that Jesus was God or the son of God. And it's not Jesus' last name either. If Christ was his last name, then his father would be Joseph Christ and his mother would be Mary Christ. Christ is a title—it is the same word in the Greek language as the Hebrew word "Messiah." "Christ" and "Messiah" both have the same one meaning: "an anointed male lineal descendant of King David." The apostle Paul talks about this subject in the first chapter of the book of Romans. This is what the Bible says about the subject, not what the Church says. You have to go by what the Bible says, not what the Church says. Paul says, "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." (Romans 1: 3-4 KJV). The "seed" of David is a sperm—Mary had an ovum. Therefore, Jesus was physically the son of David through the sperm of His father Joseph. Paul says that Jesus was only "declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness." In other words, Jesus the Christ was a son of David. Jesus was only spiritually declared or designated the son of God. But Paul clearly states that Jesus the Christ was Physically a son of David. 22
You might ask, how can Jesus be physically a descendant of David through his father Joseph if his mother was a virgin? This is the big bogeyman that has come down through the ages. At the time of Jesus they didn't have microscopes, so they didn't know that sperm have tails. Under the microscope, sperm look like little polliwogs and they swim around very fast. If you put a sample of a male's urine under a microscope, you will see these sperm swimming around. Sperm can stay alive outside the body for as long as three days in a moist, warm medium. If a sperm should happen to be on the belly of a female virgin, for some reason or other, that sperm could swim with its tail down into the vagina, through the pores in the hymen, through the uterus and all the way to the fallopian tubes and find an ovum. The hymen would remain intact but the woman would be pregnant. Many virgins bear babies every year—this is on record in hospitals and in the medical literature. Dear Abby even talks about this (from The Missoulian, May 9, 1986): "One of the questions I have been asked often by teens is: How far can l go without getting pregnant?" "That is not a dumb question. It's a very intelligent one. A lot of kids get aroused by just lying close to each other while kissing. Then they just naturally proceed to the next step, which is petting. "Sometimes they remove some of their clothing because it's 'in the way,' or they burrow underneath it to explore each other's bodies with their hands. This is known as heavy petting, or 'doing everything else but.' "The technical and legal definition of sexual intercourse is 'penetration.' (The male's sex organ must penetrate the female's.) However, as impossible as it may sound, in the medical literature can be found cases where there has been no penetration — the girl remained a virgin, but after engaging in heavy petting she found herself pregnant. "How can that be? Simple. "The boy and girl were lying very close to each other (unclothed), doing 'everything but', when a small amount of sperm leaked out... near (not inside, but very close to) the girl's vagina. The sperm got into the moisture around the vagina and found its way up into it, and fertilized the egg. 23
It doesn't state in the Bible exactly how Joseph's sperm got onto Mary and to her ovum for instance, whether they were "heavy petting," or if Mary inadvertently inserted Joseph's sperm in her vagina after touching urine with Joseph' s sperm in it. The Bible only says that Joseph was the father—and Paul confirms this. Christians try to get around this fact by saying that Mary was a descendant of David—but Mary didn't have a sperm, and Paul says Jesus was of the "seed [sperma is the Greek word Paul used] of David. " And the genealogy of Jesus back to David given in both the book of Luke and Matthew is through Joseph, not Mary (see Luke 3:23; Matthew 1:16). Mary was of the tribe of Levi and was of the priestly class, while the Davidic lineage is of tribe of Judah. So the Bible gives the genealogy back to Joseph because only Joseph had the sperm of David, and Mary didn't. So we have the genealogy of Jesus going back to David through Joseph, and we have Paul telling us that Jesus was made of the sperm of David according to the flesh. Paul said that Jesus was only "declared" or "designated" to be the Son of God "according to the spirit of holiness." (Romans 1:4). Why was he designated the Son of God? Jesus received this designation because His Revelation was of the potency of the "Son of God," compared to Abraham who was the "Friend of God," and Muhammad who was the "Comforter." Baha'u'llah's Revelation is of a greater potency than Jesus', which is why Baha'u'llah comes in the "Glory of the Father." It was Jesus' Revelation that was the Son of God; Jesus was only called the Son of God because He brought that Revelation that was designated the Son of God. Just like the when the "ice cream man" comes, all the little children run into the street yelling, "The ice cream man, the ice cream man!" The ice cream man receives that designation because he brings ice cream. The ice cream man isn't made of ice cream! Is the grocery man groceries, or does he deliver groceries? Jesus was designated the Son of God because that was the title of the Revelation he delivered. Just like in school you have a history class and a geography class, Jesus gave a class in the Son of God. That was the elevation of the Revelation Jesus gave. Returning to Lindsey, he points out that there are going to be two Messiahs. according to the prophecies: Men viewed these portraits of the Messiah in the same manner they saw two different persons but missed the connection. They did not perceive that there could be just one Messiah, coming in two different roles, and separated by the valley of time. 24
It's actually Lindsey and the Christians who miss the connection. They think Jesus wasn't the son of David. If He wasn't the son of David, then He couldn't be the Christ, because the word Christ means a son of David. They're denying that Jesus was the Christ, and therefore, the Bible says that they are of the anti- Christ. John says anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ is the anti-Christ (1 John 2:22). When they say Jesus is not a descendant of David, they are anti- Christ. The reason that Lindsey and the Christians say there can only be one Messiah is that they believe in deifying Jesus, making Him God by saying God is the literal father of Jesus. God is not a descendant of David. And if Jesus is not a descendant of David, He's not the Christ. Lindsey continues: One portrait of the Messiah depicts Him as a humble servant who would suffer for others and be rejected by His own countrymen. This portrait we may call "the Suffering Messiah." (Look into the prophecies of Isaiah 53 for the perfect picture of this Messiah). The other portrait shows the Messiah as a conquering king with unlimited power, who comes suddenly to earth at the height of a global war and saves men from self-destruction. He places the Israelites who believe in Him as the spiritual and secular leaders of the world and brings in an age free of prejudice and injustice. Baha'u'llah's Universal House of Justice fills the role of bringing in an age of justice, and one of His principles is the elimination of all forms of prejudice. Lindsey continues: It's easy to see why this would be the most popular portrait. We may call this second picture "the Reigning Messiah." We find this description in such prophecies as Zechariah 14 and Isaiah 9:6,7. In these prophecies of Isaiah and Zechariah, the Reigning Messiah appears as a man sitting on David's throne. According to Psalm 89, David's throne is a kingship which will always continue—there will always be a male lineage descendant of David seated on his throne. Jesus didn't marry and have a son, so he left no descendants to establish the Davidic kingship back in the world. In fact, Jesus explicitly said that He Himself did not sit on David's throne; "My Kingship is not of this world. If my Kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed 25
over to the Jews; but my kingship is not of this world" (John 18:36 RSV). Thus Jesus proves He was not the Reigning Messiah, but rather the Suffering Messiah. Baha'u'llah, on the other hand, was directly descended from the descendants of David who were the Kings that ruled Israel and then went into exile as the Exilarchs (short for exiled monarchs). The royal line Exilarchs or exiled monarchs preserved the throne of David for thousands of years in Iraq and later, in Iran, and Baha'u'llah was born from this royal family of David. Baha'u'llah did marry and have a son 'Abdu'l-Baha, and He appointed this son to be His successor, and this appointed His grandson Shoghi Effendi to be his successor, and Shoghi Effendi appointed 'Abdu'l-Baha's adopted son Mason Remey to be his successor, and this Davidic Kingship continues infinitely. So the word "Christ" means a descendant of David, and the Christians don't know this. But two Christ's are prophesied. The question arises, since you know the Second Christ was prophesied to come, how are you going to recognize Him when he comes? If you had lived in the time of Jesus, would you have been able to recognize Jesus without a criteria? No, you would have been among the crowd saying, "Crucify Him, give us Barabbas." Jesus would not have been recognized by the people of today if they had lived in His time. And today the people reject the Second Christ, because paganism has entered into Christianity. This paganism of having a triune god began in the time of the first Babylonian Empire, polluted the whole world with its deception, and crept into Christianity in Pergamum; we will get into this history a little later. But there is a bigger reason why the Christians are not looking for anyone other than Jesus coming to be the Second Christ. Although there are two Christ's prophesied, they're looking for the same Christ. This is because the Christians say that Jesus physically, bodily resurrected from the grave and went up into heaven and that He will return again from this heaven. Therefore, since they think the same person will come again, they cannot accept another person to be the Second Christ. This situation is analogous to the situation in which Jesus sent His disciples out to teach the Jews that He was the Messiah. These disciples were just ordinary people—fishermen, a bank teller, a tax collector, and so forth. They came up against the intelligentsia of the Jewish people—the rabbis, the priests, the lawyers, the scribes. The scribes told the disciples that Jesus couldn't 26
possibly be the Messiah. They pointed out that the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, says that the prophet Elijah must return before the Messiah (Malachi 4:5). And according to the second chapter of the Second Book of Kings, Elijah ascended into heaven in a flaming chariot. So the disciples came back to Jesus and asked Him, "How come it says right here in Malachi that Elijah the prophet is going to come first?" In other words, how can you claim to be the Messiah when we haven't seen Elijah come streaking across the sky in a flaming chariot? Do you know what Jesus told them? Jesus told them that John the Baptist is Elijah! The disciples were dumfounded. They said to Jesus, "John? John is your cousin, your aunt Elizabeth was pregnant with John when your mother Mary was pregnant with you. You grew up together, you played marbles together. How can this man John be Elijah?" (I'm paraphrasing here). Jesus said, "If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah." (Matthew 11:14). Well today the Christians accept that John the Baptist is the return of Elijah although he's a different person. They went to John and asked him if he was Elijah, and he said, "I am not" (John 1:21), meaning that he wasn't the same person. But Jesus said that John was Elijah. Jesus was looking at the light, and not at the lamp. For instance, Elijah was living in the desert, wearing a camel's hair coat, living on locusts and honey, and telling the people to repent and return to the Lord. Nine hundred years later, here comes John the Baptist, walking in the same desert living on locusts and honey, and telling the people to repent and return to the Lord. If you looked at one, and you looked and the other, you couldn't tell the difference. They both had the same message—repent and return to the Lord. They were talking to a wayward people, calling them to have the sin of error washed away from them. Therefore, when it says that Elijah is going to come, it means that someone will come to fulfill that mission, as the forerunner of Jesus. So the people asked John, "Well then who are you?" He said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said." (John 1:2,3) This was prophesied by Isaiah, that one would come in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. (Isaiah 40:3) Today the Christians accept that John the Baptist was the return of Elijah, because Jesus said so. But today the Christians are making the exact same mistake the Jews made. It says in the Bible that Jesus went up into heaven just as it says in the Bible that Elijah went up into heaven. And Jesus said He would return, just like the Bible says Elijah would return. Although the return of Elijah 27
was John the Baptist—the Christians say, "No, it must be the same Jesus!" because they deified Jesus—made Jesus a god. This was a hanky-panky, monkey-business that the pagans did when they came into Christianity, and we'll get into that later, but first, we need to look at the resurrection: Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him [Jesus], "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:39) In other words, here the clergy asks Jesus, "If you're the Messiah, the one we're waiting for, give us a sign so that we all can believe in you." Jesus told them that a wicked generation looks for a sign of the type they were seeking, and they would get no such sign, except for the sign that "as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." It is a well known fact that Christ was crucified on Friday by sundown, and that his tomb was empty Sunday morning. So the Christians say this refers to Jesus' death and bodily resurrection, and the "three days and three nights" are Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But the Christians didn't get through first or second grade in school if this is the way they calculate. From Friday night to Sunday morning is not three days and three nights. Friday night, all day Saturday, and Saturday night are two nights and a day—only thirty-six hours. Three days and three nights is seventy- two hours. Christians will tell you that Jesus rose on the third day, but they never say He rose in three days and three nights. The question arises, if this is the sign that Jesus is the Christ why was the tomb empty on Sunday morning in just half the time? Why wasn't his body in the tomb three days and three nights? There's a real reason that tomb was empty. The tomb was empty in only half the time so that neither you nor anyone else would ever believe there was a physical resurrection. It did not meet the criteria. Christians might be able to slosh over these very vital points in order to put forth the theology that His physical body resurrected. But the vital point is Jesus gave this sign to show that His physical body is not important. In the sixth chapter of John, He says, "The flesh is of no avail. The words that I have 28
spoken, they are spirit and life" (John 6:63 ). And Jesus' words were dead not on Friday night, but on Thursday night, the night before the crucifixion. After the Last Supper, Jesus took his disciples up on a mountain and told them, "I'm going to be arrested, and they're going to crucify me." The apostle Peter had said when Jesus told them this before, "God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you." And Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me Satan!" (Matthew 16:22-23). Why did Jesus call Peter Satan? Peter thought, as did the other apostles, that Jesus was the reigning Messiah that would establish the kingdom of God on earth by re-establishing David's throne in the world, and He would have a horse and an army and conquer the Roman Empire, setting the Jews up in ascendancy over the people of the world. This was the clergy's concept at the time—the whole world better watch out, they thought, because the Messiah would be their conquering king. And the apostles also wanted Jesus to be the Messiah that would be the conquering king. But as we saw previously, there are two Messiahs—the Suffering Messiah and the Reigning Messiah. So when Peter said, "Not you O Lord," Jesus told Peter that he was Satan, meaning, "You've been with me all this time and you still don't comprehend who I am (the Suffering Messiah)." And during the Last Supper, Judas was all fidgety, thinking to himself, "Gee, maybe we'd better turn Jesus in." Jesus told him, "Judas, go do what you have to do." So Judas went to have Jesus turned in, for thirty pieces of silver in return, telling the Roman guards the one he kissed on the cheek would be the one they should arrest. When Jesus called the apostles up on the mountain Thursday, Judas came to Him with some Roman guards and kissed Jesus on the cheek, and Jesus was arrested. Then all the apostles fled, and disbelieved in Jesus, thinking, "How could Jesus be the Reigning Messiah when he's been arrested?" Just before this happened, Jesus told the apostles. "Tonight, everyone in the world will disbelieve in me." Peter said, "O Lord, even if everyone disbelieves I'll still believe." Jesus told him, "Peter, before the cock crows you'll deny me three times." And this was fulfilled after Jesus' arrest. What I'm pointing out here is that there were no longer any believers in Jesus Christ that night. Jesus said this would happen. Jesus' body was the church— this is found in the books of Colossians and Ephesians (Ephesians 1:22-23; Colossians 2:19). It says the body of Christ is the "ecclesiasia"—the believers. 29
The night Jesus was arrested, there weren't any believers, so the body of Christ was dead. The body of Christ was dead the day before the body that was of no avail was crucified. And that's why the tomb of the body that was of no avail was empty. It was empty because it did not contain the body that was going to resurrect. Three days and three nights from the time that Jesus was rejected by His body of believers, the apostles were in the upper chambers. Mary Magdalene had already told them that the tomb was empty, and then she spoke with them, and after she left they discussed this matter. The apostles were in "the upper chambers", meaning that they were in meditation, in the highest regions of the intellect. In this meditation, Jesus appeared to them—and in their meditation, they recognized that Jesus was the Suffering Messiah. They saw the holes in His hands, in His feet and His side. They said, "How dumb we are! Jesus didn't come to establish the throne in the world. He said His kingdom was not of this world. Jesus is the Suffering Messiah, not the Reigning Messiah" They admitted, "We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21). Thus they all became believers in Him again, and the body of Christ resurrected in three days and three nights! Why does the Church teach otherwise? We're just about to get into that. But before we get into that, it says in the first chapter of Acts: Men of Galilee; why do you stand looking up into heaven This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. (Acts 1:11) The Christian reads this and says, "Oh, Jesus' body did resurrect, and as He went up into the sky He's going to come down from there. But this Bible passage doesn't say Jesus went up into the sky, it says He went up into heaven. Jesus said He came from heaven (John 3:13), and He didn't come from the sky. He came from His mother. Do you know any men of Galilee? If you don't, then how would you know how Jesus went up into heaven, because the men of Galilee were the only ones who saw how this happened? And there isn't any place in the Bible where these men of Galilee say how Jesus went up there. But the Bible does say that the way Jesus left was in the hands of the law—He was arrested. He was judged. He was put in jail. He was condemned to death. 30
He was crucified. And He said the same way you see Him go, is the same way He's going to come again. That is, the people that rejected Him were the religious people of His day. They were the clergy! I want you to know that it was the clergy. They were going by their theologies—which are mythologies. These are the ones that condemned Him. And on His return, the same People re rejected Him—the clergy. And they had Him arrested and put in jail. Baha'u'llah spent 40 years as a prisoner and an exile, although He was born an earthly prince with gold buttons on His coat. He was arrested and put in Jail for the same reason as Jesus—Baha'u'llah proclaimed He was the second Messiah, just as Jesus claimed to be the first. One more thing. Why is the clergy today in opposition to the return of Christ? Why do they want the same man to come back when the Bible is clear that the return is not the same man? The Bible says that Jesus was the son of David, that His physical body was not in the tomb three days and three nights, that His father Joseph was His physical father as a descendant of David, and Paul says that Jesus was born of the sperm of David. Why does the Christian clergy today teach otherwise? Because of paganism. Today the people don't know they're in paganism. They don't even know what paganism is. The reason why there is the same confusion about the return of Christ like there was at the time of the first coming of Christ is because the Church has become pagan. That is, the Church has accepted in the place of the one God, three gods as one god. There is not three gods as one God. There is not one god "the Father," one god "the Son," and another god "the Holy Spirit." There is but one supreme God that is invisible, that pervades all space, that is all-knowledgeable and is all- powerful. He does not become a person. How do they explain the conception of Jesus? Some Christians say that God had an intercourse with Mary and placed His seed in her. Others say that God compressed Himself out of the universe into a tiny little pill and got inside of Jesus. Well if God was in there then the whole universe would be without protection. God surrounds all, He's not surrounded, so all these theories are bunk. Where did they get this theory of the trinity? Not out of the Bible, but out of the pages of paganism ...which was a universal religion alive at the time of Jesus. 31
Paganism started after the flood. Before the flood, the first Manifestation Adam had the people He was teaching separated from the people in the world that were pagan. Paganism started before Adam. Before Adam there were four great civilizations coming after one another with four great Manifestations. There has never been a time when humanity was without the guidance of a Manifestation. But during these four earlier civilizations, which each ended in a catastrophe, the people had not evolved to thinking in the abstract, so their civilizations did not teach an abstract God. The people knew they didn't create themselves, but since they hadn't evolved to understanding the abstract invisible God, they worshipped whatever they thought was more powerful than them or gave life to them—mostly the sun, moon and stars. This nature worship was the earliest type of pagan religion. The first pagan civilization's name is not known, but the next were Mu, Lemuria and Atlantis. The sinking of Atlantis came just before Adam. These people were just starting to think in the abstract so —God for the first time revealed Himself as the One invisible God through the words of the Prophet Adam. The book of Genesis mentions the Prophet Adam, who had a wife named Eve, and it also mentions a story about them in the Garden of Eden—a parable that is outside of the scope of this present writing. When He started revealing God to the people of His day, Adam found that most people had not evolved far enough to accept His message, so He taught His family. The descendants of Adam became spiritual, and He moved them to a secluded region in the mountains between Tibet and Eastern Turkestan called the Tarim basin. After 1500 years, these descendants of Adam started having intercourse with people outside of the Adamic race who weren't living according to His Revelation. Adam's people started to revert back to their old condition, and they became corrupt, which was why they were drowned in the flood. The valley or mountain basin they were in filled up like a kitchen sink, drowning everyone except for those that were on Noah's ark. After the ark landed on Mt. Ararat, the people Noah taught went into Shinar in Mesopotamia, which was populated by pagans. These pagans lived through the flood because they weren't surrounded by mountains—the water just destroyed their dwellings. After the flood, the wild animals began increasing faster than man. Of course, the animals could run faster than man, and they had sharp teeth and claws with 32
which they would tear up and eat people. The people, who were now without dwellings, had become vulnerable to the attacks of wild animals, and were easy prey. However there was a giant among the Adamites named Nimrod, an enormous man who was able to tear a lion or bull apart with his hands, and would wear the horns of the bull on his head as sign of his might. Babylonian art depicts Nimrod as half man, half bull, with cloven hoofs, a tail and the horns of a bull on, his head, the typical depiction of the devil or Satan (see Fig. 10). This shows where this concept of the devil began. The 10th chapter of Genesis describes Nimrod: Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefor it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Niveveh and Calah; that is the great city. (Genesis 10:8-12) 33
Nimrod's empire, starting in Babylon, extended from the Middle East to the Straits of Gibraltar in the west. It was the first empire in the history of the world. Nimrod established his empire by forming horseback hunting parties—he was the first man to tame the horse—with which he protected the people and gathered them from the forests into cities. The family of his wife Semiramis, who were masons, built walls around these people that they gathered together, and they built a tower. They went from place to place gathering the people, protecting them from the animals. Nimrod would kill many of the wild animals so that the people could plant gardens and forage for food. Nimrod became a great man and was a renowned benefactor, as he taught Adam' s revelation of the One Invisible God everywhere he went. He was a very highly religious person. This is why he is referred to as "Lucifer," which means "light-bringer"—Nimrod spread the civilizing light of Adam's Revelation. People were more than happy to accept his empire, as they considered him like an angel. But later on Nimrod fell. The fourteenth chapter of Isaiah says, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" (Isaiah 14:12; KJV). As Nimrod expanded his empire, the hunting party he formed became the first calvary, or the first army, to put down any instances of rebellion. This introduced war into history. As the people had not learned war up to this point, it was very easy for Nimrod to maintain his empire in this way. Although the people loved Nimrod, as they were greatly in his debt, they came to dislike the spiritual laws of Adam, resenting the strict personal discipline these entailed. They put pressure upon Nimrod to release them from these laws, and Nimrod relented. Mythology recounts Nimrod's fall in the story of Atlas, who lifts the heavens up to his shoulders. Since Atlas (Nimrod) was a giant, this allowed the people to walk in complete freedom rather than bowed in humility before the discipline of Adam's Revelation. With another heave Atlas (Nimrod) raises the heavens above the sycamores, and then with a third heave he raises the heavens up above the mountains, which represents the total perversion of religion which Nimrod 34
allowed—resulting in all types of licentiousness, corruption, perversion, orgies, drinking parties, drugs, etc... and this all entered into their religion. This brought the people away from turning to the One True Invisible God, and returned them to the worship of the sun, moon and stars, with Nimrod's father Cush represented by Jupiter, and Nimrod represented by Saturn. According to mythology Saturn was born from Jupiter. We get the word 'Satan" from the word "Saturn"—the star of Nimrod. This religion spread all over the world. The Bible says that there were different languages throughout Nimrod's empire, there was a confusion of tongues. The way to say Nimrod and his attributes was different from place to place. Thus it eventually became lost that the various pagan male gods were the same—it was all the same religion centered around Nimrod. At the time that Nimrod's empire was becoming corrupt, there was alive in the world a very highly spiritual being—Shem—who is also known in the Bible as Melchizedek. Shem, who lived 500 years after the flood, was the beloved son of Noah. He became aware of Nimrod ' s violations of the revelation of Adam. Shem spoke to the 72 judges of Egypt, who administered the laws Adam, notifying them that Nimrod had completely corrupted Adam' Revelation and was now an apostate. These 72 judges listened to him and agreed with him. At this time, Nimrod was away expanding his empire, but when he returned, he was brought to trial before 30 of the judges. They found him guilty of apostasy, of perverting the religion of Adam, and they sentenced him to death. Before they could execute the sentence, he had to be brought before the full body of 72 judges, and this full Council decided he should be cut up in pieces, with the different parts of his body sent to the different nations of his empire to show them how dastardly a matter it is to corrupt the Revelation of God. When Nimrod's widow Semiramis received a chunk of her husband's body with a note attached explaining this was in punishment of Nimrod's apostasy, she was furious. She was greatly loved by the people, as her family had built the walls of their cities, and she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. Religious scholar and historian of Babylon, Alexander Hislop, writes in The Two Babylons (p. 58): If there was one who was more deeply concerned in the tragic death of Nimrod than another, it was Semiramis, who from an original humble position, had been raised to share with him the throne of Babylon. What, in this emergency, shall she do? Shall she quietly 35
forego the pomp and pride to which she had been raised? No. Though the death of her husband had given a rude shock to her power, yet her resolution and unbounded ambition were in nowise checked. On the contrary, her ambition took a still higher flight. In life her husband had been honored as a hero, in death she will have him worshipped as a god... Semiramis decided that since her husband was considered a god in life, she would make him eternally a god. To the paganism Nimrod encouraged, and to his deification, Semiramis added yet another new concept in: the Trinity—a triune god. Semiramis became pregnant, but since Nimrod had died long before her pregnancy, people wondered how this pregnancy came about. Semiramis explained that she was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, which resided in her womb. When the child was born, she said he was the divine incarnation of his father Nimrod, and she named him Bar-Nin, meaning "son of Nimrod" (The word Nimrod comes from "Nimr," which means "leopard," and "rod," which means "to subdue.") Because of the diverse languages, Nimrod and Bar-Nin were called by different names from place to place. For instance, in Egypt, Bar-Nin was called Horus, the divine son in whom Osiris (Nimrod) incarnated after he was dismembered and the pieces of his body were dispersed among the nations. The divine mother who gave birth to this divine son was Isis, the Egyptian name for Semiramis. Thus there were now three gods to whom worship was due—a father god, a son god, and a holy mother goddess—yet all of these were to be considered equal, because they were all to be considered equal parts of a triune god. Semiramis replaced the emperor ship of Nimrod with this new trinitarian religion. She indoctrinated her "divine son" into this religion, teaching him the Babylonian mystery of the three gods in one, and she set him up as the first high priest or Pontifex Maximus of trinitarianism. The people of the decaying empire 36
of Nimrod turned to this religion in place of the emperor Nimrod. The trinity became an international pagan religion that spread throughout the world, and it eventually took over the Revelation of the true Divine Religions as they appeared—Judaism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Christianity. Thus from Semiramis came a whole new type of paganism. Some of this religion retained worshipping the sun, moon and stars as god, but most importantly, it produced the triune god with Nimrod being god, Nimrod becoming incarnate in the son through the Holy Spirit, and Semiramis being the first madonna. Thus this trinitarian religion was born into the world. At first the people had to be convinced that this trinity was really true. In response, Semiramis offered a golden cup of intoxicants to the people who would come to pay tribute to her and her divine son. This concoctions dulled their senses, convincing them to submit to initiation into the Babylonian mysteries of the three separate gods as one god, and she indoctrinated some of the people it a priesthood. A great deal of regalia and pomp accompanied this new trinitarian religion. The Pontifex Maximus, or "chief priest," wore a great hat or miter shaped like a fish, since they said that Nimrod had originally come into the world from the 37
sea. These narration's show Nimrod's identity with the Philistine fish god Dagon. The Pontifex Maximus held a shepherd's crosier, representing the fact that Nimrod had been the "shepherd king" who herded the people into cities after the flood. And the Pontifex Maximus bore with him the "keys of Janus and Cybele, keys representing the "mysteries" brought into the world by Nimrod and Semiramis. This trinitarian religion spread all over the world. The people of Greece got their religion from Phoenicia and Egypt which had both been part of Nimrod's empire. Rome also got its religion from Phoenicia and Egypt. This pagan religion spread throughout Europe, so that the Druids in England, the Norsemen the Danes, the Norwegians, and the Germans all had the same gods, only under different names. Each son of Bar-Nin was called the Pontifex Maximus, with the individual who bore this title filling the role of both king of Babylon and head of the pagan trinitarian church. Each pontiff was worshipped as a god, and when he died, his statue was placed in a pantheon to be worshipped. The pontiffs, and Semiramis as well, were each worshipped for a different specific purpose. One was worshipped for fertility, another for wealth, another for health, another for salvation, and so forth. 38
This religion revolving around the throne of Satan (Satan = Saturn = Nimrod) continued from century to century, although the breadth of Nimrod's empire was never again brought together under one supreme control. There were clashes for supremacy, with various nations trying to win control. Finally, in the last quarter of the 7th century B.C., the Pontifex Maximus Nebuchadnezzar, who was a direct descendant of Bar-Nin, established an empire in Babylon simulating Nimrod's, though not nearly as large. Nebuchadnezzar called himself "the Conqueror of the world," and he conquered the monotheistic Jews, taking them and their king back with him to Babylon. However in 538 B.C., Cyrus, the King of the newly formed Median-Persian empire, conquered the Babylonian empire. Cyrus hated the trinitarian pagan religion of Babylon, since he worshipped the One True Invisible God which he learned of through Zoroaster, the ancient Persian Manifestation of God (Zoroaster began His mission in 1000 B.C.). Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem were they would later rebuild their temple, and he drove the pagan Babylonian throne of Satan completely out his realm and out of the Middle East. The throne of Satan did not die, however. It was continued in the kingship of Pergamum in Asia Minor, which is Turkey today. The second chapter of the Book of Revelations describes Pergamum as the city of Satan's throne (Revelations 2:12-13) where trinitarian paganism entered Christianity. 39
Once the kingship of Pergamum died out, the position of Pontifex Maximus needed a new home. The pagan triune god found its new capital city in Rome. Hislop writes: Pergamos itself became part and parcel of the Roman Empire, when Attalus III, the last of the kings, at his death, left by will all his dominions to the Roman people, B.C. 133 For some time after the kingdom of Pergamos was merged in the Roman dominions, there was no one who could set himself openly and advisedly to lay claim to all the dignity inherent in the old title of the kings of Pergamos...But when Julius Caesar, who had previously been elected Pontifex Maximus became also, as emperor, the supreme civil ruler of the Romans, then, as head of the Roman state, and as head of the Roman religion, all the powers and functions of the true legitimate Babylonian Pontiff were supremely vested in him, and he found himself in a position to assert these powers...Then, on certain occasions, in the exercise of his high pontifical office, he appeared in all the pomp of the Babylonian costume, as Belshazzar [an ancient Pontifex Maximus of Babylon himself] might nave done, in robes of scarlet, with the crosier of Nimrod in his hand, wearing the miter of Dagon and bearing the keys of Janus and Cybele. (The Two Babylon's, p. 241). Up until the Roman emperor Constantine Christianity in the early 4th century A.D., were both head of the Roman empire and also Pontifex Maximus—head of the pagan church. Constantine's proclamation of Christianity led to the merger of Christianity and paganism in the Roman empire. As head of the pagan church, Constantine wore the garb and paraphernalia of Satan which had been passed down through the Babylonian empire, preserved in Pergamum, willed to Rome, and was worn by Julius Caesar and the subsequent Roman emperors. The Roman emperor Constantine had the fish hat, the crosier, and the keys of Janus and Cybele. In 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea, Constantine made an official decree combining the doctrine of the pagan trinity the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The trinity became the law of the Roman empire if anyone refused to accept the new trinity with Jesus as the physically incarnated divine son of the father god, they would be put to death. In 381 A.D., the Roman emperor Gratian refused to wear the paraphernalia of Satan, but he passed it to the Roman Pope Damasus. Since Damasus, every 40
Pope of Rome has worn the garb of Satan—the fish hat, the crosier, and the keys of Janus and Cybele. Today, Pope John Paul II wears the garb of Satan. As the pagans had worshipped their gods (icons of their deceased pontiffs) in their pantheons and temples, they now worshipped their patron saints and their lcons in cathedrals and churches. Semiramis—who was Ashtoreth to the Jews, Aphrodite in Greece, Venus in Rome, known also as Astarte, Ishtar, Aurora, Diana, Rhea, Urania, and Isis—was worshipped now as Jesus' mother Mary. These pagan practices and concepts of the trinity continue in full bloom today in the Catholic church! Historian Will Durant states that paganism conquered Christianity, saying that paganism continued "in the form of ancient rites and customs condoned or accepted and transformed by an often indulgent Church." Durant explains: "An intimate and trustful worship of saints replaced the cult of the pagan gods, and satisfied the polytheism of simple or poetic minds. Statues of Isis and Horus were renamed Mary and Jesus (The Story of Civilization, Vol. IV, p. 73). The trinitarian pagan clergy withheld the Bible from the people for over a thousand years in order to firmly establish the trinity in Christianity, since 41
everything about the trinity is reviled in the Bible. God plainly states in the second commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:3-6; KJV). By the time Martin Luther got the Bible into the hands of the people, the trinity which included the perverse concept of a deified son god Jesus had become so ingrained in their minds that they accepted it as fact. Today's pagan trinitarian clergy won't go against the pagan triune god, for they find that the trinity is good business—people love it, as have all trinitarian pagans for thousands of years. So this is the world to which the second Christ comes. Why haven't the people turned to the second Christ, the One that God sent to bring the Kingdom of God on earth? Because they're drunk with the wine of the Babylonian whore...believing in three gods in the place of the One True God. Jesus never said He was a god or that there was a trinity of gods that were all gods. Nor did Jesus say that Mary or anyone else was a god or goddess to be prayed to. No wonder the people don't accept the return of Christ—they're in paganism.