The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Day of Christ, #53

And I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished. (Daniel 12:7)

It is the Holy Spirit in God's saints (holy people) who prevents the open revelation of Antichrist. The scattering of the "power of the holy people" is the removal of the restraining power that hinders the revelation of Antichrist.

Notice, in the following verse, how God gives Antichrist the ability to make war with the saints and to conquer them, and also authority over every tribe and nation:

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:7,8)

Satan in the man of lawlessness craves the worship of human beings. But he cannot have such worship until he conquers the saints, until he shatters the power of Christ's holy people.

In order to support their hypothesis that the Christian Church will be removed from the earth before the Day of Christ, various teachers have attempted to divide the Kingdom of God into a Jewish elect and a Gentile elect.

Such teachers maintain that when the term "saint" is used in the Old Testament, and sometimes in the New, it is referring to those who are Jewish by natural birth. But Paul declared that the believers in Christ are "called to be saints" (Romans 1:7). In fact, Paul, in his epistles, never once termed the believers "Christians" but he often referred to them as saints.

There is no scriptural basis for restricting the term saint to those who are Jewish by birth. The division of God's elect into Jew and Gentile is the work of those who are attempting to support the pre-tribulation rapture of the believers to Heaven. But such a division is totally contrary to Paul's teaching. Paul asserted that when a Gentile becomes a Christian he becomes part of God's Israel, he becomes Abraham's Seed, he becomes a branch of the good olive tree, of Christ, of the "one new man."

The oneness of the elect of God is a cardinal doctrine of Christianity (Ephesians 4:4-6). To alter this premise is to rip apart the seamless robe of Christ. There is one fold, one Shepherd, one King—Christ. There is no other Body of Christ.

The second chapter of Second Thessalonians indicates that it is the overcoming of the testimony that permits the revelation of Antichrist.

Notice carefully:

. . . except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, . . . . (II Thessalonians 2:3)

To be continued.