NKJV (Isaiah 9: 6) 6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called:
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
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In the previous article we discussed that the peace of the earth has already been taken away and we have compared the vision of Isaiah about the Prince of Peace with the present time, the falling away in those days and the falling away now. We have also talked about the ‘inner peace’ that we have, through atonement for our sins through Jesus’ blood.
The Christian struggle to maintain peace in our hearts is a struggle on two fronts.
The struggle of persecution through the world. And the struggle caused by the money system.
The theme of this article is; The struggle that must be waged by Christians to maintain peace in our heart.
The struggle of persecution by the world and by other religions
NKJV (John 15: 18-20) 18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you;
A book that encourages worldwide persecution of Christians is the Quran.
That is not what the ordinary Muslims want, but orthodox believers of the book encourage other Muslims to persecute and force them to do what is written in the book.
(See also: 3. Worship of the ‘image’ https://www.dojc.nl/?p=6810&lang=en )
Christians, on the other hand, are taught to love and pray for even our greatest enemies despite all persecution (Matthew 5:44).
But time and again, word artists and ignorant point to the stories of the Bible for comparison with the Quran, to show that the Bible also incites violence.
Scriptures about the Israelites, who were led by God to the Promised Land.
With its inhabitants, the Canaanites, full of idolatry, violence and child sacrifices.
But never a reference is made to Jesus’ words, who finds physical violence reprehensible as a solution.
Even if a Christian is imprisoned for faith, he may not take up the sword:
HCSB (Revelation 13:10) 10 If anyone is destined for captivity, into captivity he goes. If anyone is to be killed with a sword, with a sword he will be killed….
HCSB (Matthew 26:52) 52 Then Jesus told him, “Put your sword back in place because all who take up a sword will perish by a sword.
To make Muslims hear the message of Jesus is a difficult task, yet Christians do that.
The struggle of slander and persecution
Christians will (or are already) the target of envy and slander and are for that reason considered inferior:
HCSB (1 Corinthians 4:13) 13 when we are slandered, we entreat. We are, even now, like the world’s garbage, like the filth of all things.
Christians must get rid of all the outbursts of anger and wickedness – which is so common in this world – and make great efforts to forgive each other and treat each other with kindness:
NKJV (Ephesians 4: 31-32) 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.
In the last days, Christian love will grow cold with the increase of sins in the world:
NKJV (Matthew 24: 12-13) 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
The difficult struggle that has to be waged by Christians
Our Christian struggle is primarily against Satan and his demons.
The battle is not against people personally, but against the secret agenda and the influence of power of Satan and of Satan’s children:
HCSB (Ephesians 6:12) 12 For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.
In Ezekiel is spoken of a message to the king of Tire, but in reality, there is written about Satan:
NKJV (Ezekiel 28: 12-16) 12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created. 14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. 16 “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones.
A cherub is a high-order angel who performs sacred duties for the face of God and herewith distinguishes himself from the other angels. Satan is a cherub, an angel with wings.
“verse 16: “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned;
The pursuit of wealth with the associated trade appears to have its origins with Satan.
Apparently, that’s where he is lord and master of, with trading partners who – with violence – have joined in.
Some people have become infected with Satan’s ideas of unjust trade, they herewith have become children of Satan:
NKJV (1 John 3:10) 10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God,….
NKJV (Matthew 13: 38-39) 38 The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. 39 The enemy who sowed them is the devil,….
Satan is the mastermind behind the unjust money system of central banks, where some of his children have become rich by the fiat money. They multiply money without underlying value and also receive interest on this borrowed fiat money.
Central banks are therefore (in the background) led by Satan’s children, people without natural love and mercy: (Romans 1:31)
NKJV (Luke 16:11) 11 Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
The children of Satan can be recognized by the injustice. (1 John 3:10)
This reminds us of Jesus’ removal of traders and money changers from the temple, just as we – after Jesus’ example – now have to abstain from this, because we are God’s temple:
NKJV (Matthew 21: 12,13) 12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ “
NKJV (1 Corinthians 3:16) 16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
Satan with his angels cast out of heaven
There is written something remarkable in the book of Revelation:
NKJV (Revelation 12: 3-4, 7-8) 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth….. 7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.
A fiery red dragon (Satan) was thrown out of heaven by Michael and his angels, but the dragon drew a third of the stars to the earth.
Stars sometimes portray angels, just as Jesus calls Himself a Morning Star:
NKJV (Revelation 22:16) 16…. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
So here it seems to be written, that Satan may have a third of the angels as allies.
How many angels are there? To give an impression of the numbers of angels:
HCSB (Matthew 26:53) 53 Or do you think that I cannot call on My Father, and He will provide Me at once with more than 12 legions of angels? (A legion consisted of around 5000 – 6000 men)
HCSB (Hebrews 12:22) 22 Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem), to myriads of angels in festive gathering,
The great struggle is caused by Satan’s children with the money system
The struggle through the money system will be by far the most difficult struggle.
The pursuit of money and wealth turns out to be a way of Satan, to tempt us or to mislead us:
NKJV (Matthew 6: 19-21) 19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
NKJV (Matthew 6:24) 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
‘Being covetousness or greedy’ is equated with idolatry in Scripture:
NKJV (Colossians 3: 5) 5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
But through the money system, Satan will raise a much more difficult struggle, the struggle of idolatry and persecution by the Antichrist of the last hour.
The abomination of desolation in the end-time, which Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24:15 is the imposition of the mark that you must have to be able to buy or sell.
(See also: 7. No part of this world https://www.dojc.nl/?p=3773&lang=en )
That is quite a bit, not even being able to buy the required food anymore.
As we discussed in ‘Part 3’, it is now high time to arm ourselves for the Antichrist’s attack, to maintain peace in our heart during those difficult days. (2 Thess. 2: 6-10)
What do we all know about the false prophet, THE Antichrist of the last hour?
When we limit ourselves to the New Testament:
- He will exalt himself above God and present himself as God (2 Thess. 2: 4)
- He will come as if it were Satan, with power, signs and lies (2 Thess. 2: 9)
- He will be a deceiver of injustice, for ‘the apostasy’ who believes him (2 Thess. 2:10)
- He will deny both Jesus and the Father (YHWH) (1 John 2:22)
- He will say that Jesus did not come in the flesh (1 John 4: 1-3) (2 John 1: 7)
- He will be a false Messiah with the lies of Satan (Rev. 13:11)
- He will exercise all authority from the current world power, the US, before its eyes (Rev. 13:12)
- He will do great signs, such as fire from heaven, to deceive (Rev. 13:13)
- He will mislead many by signs and tells those, who live on the earth, that they must make an image for ‘the beast’ / ‘the current world power’ (Rev. 13:14)
- He will make that image viable and kills (or let kill) all, who do not worship ‘the image of the beast’ = ‘the image of the current world power’ (Rev. 13:15)
- He will force everyone to accept the mark (Rev. 3:16)
- He will ensure that only people with the mark can buy or sell (Rev. 13:17)
According to our research in Revelation, this global money system consists of the 8th world power, the empire ‘that was and is not’, a financial empire, with the 10 (= completeness) uncrowned kings of the central banks. It is not a classical kingdom or world power, but it is nevertheless a world power:
(See: world powers 9. The woman and the scarlet colored wild beast https://www.dojc.nl/?p=501&lang=en )
NKJV (Revelation 17: 7-8, 11) 7… I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. 8 The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition….. 11 And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.
The beast in the above mentioned Scripture, is the scarlet colored beast which bears the woman. The scarlet colored beast represents the central banks.
The woman, the whore, stands for the financial institutions and ordinary banks.
This 8th world power, the central banks, is independent and determines the financial rules and controls the world economically. Almost all central banks are linked to the BIS-Bank, the secret bank in Basel, which – so to speak – controls the global money world.
This whore, the financial institutions and ordinary banks, is referred to as the mother of the whores and the horrors of the earth. (Op. 17: 5)
Take Deutsche Bank now. The share price of Deutsche Bank is constantly decreasing, from 25 euros in 2015 to around 6 euros in June 2019.
https://usawatchdog.com/if-deutsche-bank-breaks-6-40-world-in-trouble-charles-nenner/
If – according to the respected Charles Nenner – the Deutsche Bank share price falls below $6.40 (5.64 euros), the bank will most likely collapse and as a result other banks will be dragged.
When Deutsche Bank collapses, the derivatives (leverage constructions with the right to buy or sell) will be a major problem, because the amounts involved are extreme. (20 x GDP of Germany)
Now we have gradually arrived at the end of the process of the central banks to release large amounts of money (Quantitative Easing) and to lower interest rates.
It will not end well with the whore, who has provided money to all people with financial tricks. According to Scripture, the money system as we know it today will collapse:
NKJV (Rev. 17: 15-16) 15 Then he said to me, “The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. 16 And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire.
Remarkable; The 10 uncrowned kings of the central banks, those who provided the whore with cheap fiat money, will thoroughly destroy her if things go wrong.
Also for the 10 uncrowned kings and their stakeholders in the background, the children of Satan, there is ultimately no victory. These 10 uncrowned kings will be overcome by the Lamb:
NKJV (Revelation 17:14) 14 These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”
But before that battle against the Lamb comes, all people will first be forced to accept a common means of payment by the foretold false prophet (the Antichrist):
NKJV (Rev. 13: 15-17) 15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Buying or selling is only possible if someone is committed to ‘the image’ of the current world power, ‘the image’ or monstrosity (= Satan) that has been made alive and can even speak (Rev. 13:15).
That is the Satanic New World Order with its mark to be able to buy or sell, with the false prophet or Antichrist as the leader.
For God, receiving the mark is certainly not without repercussion. It’s worshiping the monstrosity or Satan and that’s idolatry:
NKJV (Revelation 14: 9-10) 9 Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God,…
NKJV (Revelation 16: 2) 2 So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.
All money transactions are registered again by means of the mark, also money transactions with crypto-currency such as blockchain technology (digital money).
The super-rich families – children of Satan in the background – who have earned a fortune with the current system of central banks can continue their income and power.
The armor of Christians
Christians are not allowed to use violence, but to pull down enemy strongholds through our words.
Our weapons are therefore spiritual weapons:
NKJV (2 Corinthians 10: 3-4) 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
Paul compares the Christian struggle with a race, with Christ’s tolerance for sinners as an example:
NKJV (Hebrews 12: 1-3) 1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.
NKJV (2 Timothy 2: 5) 5 And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.
In Ephesians is described, how we can protect ourselves against the temptations of Satan:
NKJV (Ephesians 6: 11, 14-18) 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.…. 14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints–
Jesus commissioned the apostles for a symbolic sword, which the apostles initially did not understand. They then came up with real swords:
NKJV (Luke 22: 35-36,38) 35 And He said to them, “When I sent you without money bag, knapsack, and sandals, did you lack anything?” So they said, “Nothing.” 36 Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one…..38 So they said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” And He said to them, “It is enough.” (For who takes the sword, see Matthew 26: 51-52)
Finally:
Christians are encouraged for the good fight of peace in faith in the Christ:
NKJV (1 Timothy 6:12) 12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
NKJV (Hebrews 4:12) 12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Pursuing peace is a basic characteristic of every Christian:
NKJV (1 Peter 3: 10-11) 10 For “He who would love life And see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, And his lips from speaking deceit. 11 Let him turn away from evil and do good; Let him seek peace and pursue it….
In the following article we will discuss how still some of the unbelievers will be attracted to the God of peace and how peace will be established on the new earth.