Jun 27, 2008

The term Salvation in Scripture refers literally to deliverance from some enemy, one's general state of health, or one's right standing with God.

Scripture often applies national salvation in terms of being "saved from your enemies," as in Psalm 18:3. The term is yasha, which is the root of Yeshua, the Hebrew name of Jesus. The term has to do with being set free and brought to safety, which usually implies being set free from captivity, oppression, or some evil threat.

When applied to individuals, it takes on the added implication of being set free from that "last enemy," which is death (1 Cor. 15:26).

When Israel was cast off 800 years before Christ, they were deported to Assyria as part of their foreign policy, and people of other nations were sent to Canaan to replace the Israelites. Assyria believed that if people were left in their own land, they would be more likely to revolt, since they were fighting for their traditional inheritance. If deported, they would be more easily controlled. So they implemented this policy with many of the nations that they had conquered.

Israel's captivity as such lasted 2,520 years, a period of 7 "times," a time being a period of 360 days or 360 years. Israel began to be deported in 745 B.C. and Samaria (their capital) was captured in 721 B.C. The 2,520 years of captivity ended from 1776 to 1800 A.D. We know, of course, that 1776 happens to be the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed, forming this new nation of the United States of America. Then in the year 1800 our nation's capital was built, and the government moved to Washington D.C.

But the picture is bigger than just a 2,520-year captivity beginning with Assyria. In the bigger picture, Israel's captivity was just one beginning point. The second major beginning point was Judah's captivity to Babylon, which conquered Nineveh in 607 B.C. This, too, has a 2,520-year application. The difference is that 2,520 years later, in 1914, America did not see a release from captivity, but a repeat of it. This new Babylonian captivity came in 1914 with President Wilson's signature on the Federal Reserve Act.

In other words, God used the first 2,520-year period to start a new Israelite nation in 1776. But because men were yet imperfect and rebellious against His laws, God used the second date (1914) to put us back into captivity.

God was merciful to us, however, by blinding us (i.e., "hardening" us), so that we would not understand and know that we were even entering a new captivity. The Federal Reserve Act was formulated by bankers at Jekyl Island a few years earlier and then passed as a "routine banking bill." Yet it gave private bankers (shareholders of the Federal Reserve Corporation) absolute control over the nations' money supply. In doing so, they became the real power over the nation itself.

Because God blinded our eyes, we accepted these new Babylonian rulers without a fight. This was God's merciful intent, because it meant that we accepted the wooden yoke and would not have to endure the iron yoke of Deut. 28:48. The iron yoke involved war and destruction and deportation to a foreign land, such as Israel and Judah had endured in ancient times. The wooden yoke, offered to Judah (Jer. 27, 28), meant that the people would submit to Babylon and be allowed to remain in their own land to serve out their sentence.

America was thus placed under a wooden yoke in 1914, and we were allowed to serve out our sentence without being destroyed by war or by being deported or scattered to a foreign land. As a sign of the wooden yoke, God called President WOODROW Wilson to sign the bill putting us officially under the wooden yoke.

This captivity may be centered in America, but it is actually a world-wide captivity that affects virtually all nations. Thus, all nations have a stake in the outcome.

I believe that we are now coming to the end of our wooden-yoke captivity. The time of America's "hardening" (i.e., blindness) is coming to an end. These things are now being revealed that were once hidden from us. Up to now, God would not trust us to know the truth of this captivity, because if too many people knew of it, they would have staged a revolt, and God would have had to treat us like the people in Jeremiah's day. Recall what the prophet Hananiah did on behalf of Judah in Jer. 28:10--

"Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it."

Hananiah represented the rebellious people of Judah. The result of this is seen in verse 13--

"Go and speak to Hananiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, You have broken the yokes of wood, but you have made instead of them yokes of iron."

God knew the rebellious hearts of His people, and so in His mercy, He blinded our eyes so that we would be content as captives to Babylon. Well, the time of our servitude is complete, and God has already begun the process of judging Babylon and setting America and the whole world free.

The timing of this is complex, because there is more than one beginning point and therefore more than one end point. I have written of this in more detail in the past. See especially my book, The Prophetic History of the United States. The original Babylonian captivity was for 70 years, but even that one had many beginning points and many end points. So also is it with us.

One of the major beginning points of our modern captivity was in 1933 when President Roosevelt induced Congress to declare an economic emergency and remove the nation from the protection of the Constitution. Seventy years later is the year 2003, when President Bush sent U.S. troops to Iraq and overthrew the territory of old Babylon. I doubt that he knew that he inadvertently manifested on earth the overthrow of the Babylonians who are his bosses--the real rulers in America. (Our presidents are only figureheads who must do as they are told, or they will be dealt with accordingly.)

All things happen in the spirit before they happen in the world. The spiritual warfare that was accomplished in the years prior to 2003 began to manifest in the world in 2003 with the overthrow of Iraq. Those who understand spiritual things know how this works. It is only a matter of time before we see the whole Babylonian system topple.

The invasion of Iraq began to drain us of our economic capital. This is destroying the US dollar, increasing our debt to foreign nations, and is the key to the current economic crisis. It brought the mortgage scandal to the surface last year, followed by the housing crisis and the credit crunch. I do not know how long it will take for Babylon to hit the ground, but I believe that we are past the point of no return.

So when Paul says in Rom. 11:25 that "a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fulness of the nations has come in," this prophecy has both a long-term and a short-term (end time) fulfillment. In the long term, those Israelites in dispersion were blinded to their own identity as Israel in order to fulfill the prophecy in the name Manasseh, "forgetfulness." If they had remembered who they were, they might have tried to return to the old land, but God had forbidden this.

Israel had to be blinded until the time of the end, after the fulness of nations had come in. This refers to the promise to Ephraim in Gen. 48:19, "his descendants shall become a multitude [Heb.rob, "abundance, fulness"] of nations [goyim] ." Goy or goyim refers to nations, not necessarily non-Jews or "gentiles." The same is true with the N.T. Greek word ethnos used in Rom. 11:25. More later.