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The False Prophet - Skolfield
One More Time
CHAPTER 9

They shall come with weeping,
and with supplications will I lead them:
I will cause them to walk
by the rivers of waters in a straight way,
wherein they shall not stumble:
for I am a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.
JER 31:9

DEEP in the mountainous interior of Irian Jaya, formerly Dutch New
Guinea, there lives a tribe of natives called the Yalu. They were one of
the most isolated peoples on the face of the earth yet they had a very
formalized blood sacrificial system. They had a law of Ten
Commandments called the wene malalek and a holy ground called an
osuwa. That osuwa was surrounded by a stone wall. Any man not
consecrated to the spirits of kembu, or any woman who trespassed on
that ground, would be killed. Within the osuwa was a sacred building
called the kembu-vam. It had two rooms, an outer room where the priests
of kembu held ceremonies, and an inner room which held the sacred
stone. The stone was never allowed to be moved by one man, but had to
be carried by four men at its four corners. Pigs were slaughtered and
roasted in the court outside the kembu-vam, and priests, with awesome
ceremony, took pig fat into that holiest of rooms and anointed the sacred
stone.1
       Though unbelievably corrupted, the parallels of the Yalu folk
religion to the Levitical code are so inescapable that one has to ask:
Where did they get all that?
_______________________________

1 A more detailed account of the Yalu folk religion may be found in Don Richard-son’s
Lords of the Earth (Ventura, CA Regal Books, 1977) pp. 76-80.
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       In Burma, there was a tribe of people called the Karen who
worshiped the God Y’wa. Their prophets declared they had once
possessed a book of the law that had been lost many centuries before.
Sacred songs passed down from generation to generation, reminded
them of their lost law:

Omnipotent is Y’wa; Him have we not believed.
Y’wa created men anciently.
He has a perfect knowledge of all things.
Y’wa created men at the beginning.
The earth is the treading place for the feet of Y’wa.
And heaven is the place where He sits.
He sees all things and we are manifest to Him.
Y’wa formed the earth originally.
He appointed food and drink.
He appointed the “fruit of trial.”
Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons.
He causes them to eat of the fruit of the tree of trial.
They obeyed not; they believed not Y’wa ...
They became subject to sickness, aging and death ...
O children and grandchildren,
If we repent of our sins,
And cease to do evil - restraining our passions -
And pray to Y’wa. He will have mercy upon us again.
If Y’wa does not have mercy on us, there is no other one who
can.
He who saves us is the only one - Y’wa.
O Children and grandchildren! Pray to Y’wa constantly.
By day and by night.1

       Y’wa is just too close to Yahweh (the Hebrew name for God) to be
coincidental. And what about the “fruit of trial” and prayer? Those
traditions do not appear to be founded in the New Testament Gospel, but
upon a knowledge of the Old Testament. Again we have to ask: Where
did they get all that?
       The Lahu of northern Burma had a tradition that Gui’Sha, the
Creator of all things, had given their forefathers His law written on rice
______________________________

1 Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts (Ventura, CA, Regal Books, 1981) pp.77-79,
cites from The Gospel in Burma, Wylie, p. 6, and The Karen Apostle, Mason, p. 97-99.
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One More Time 81

cakes. The Rengma tribe in India believed that the Supreme Being gave
His words to their forefathers written on animal skins (which, by the
way, is what the Mosaic law was written on). But according to their
traditions, the forefathers of the Rengma people had been careless with
the skins and dogs had eaten them.1
       These examples are not unique. The native religions of almost every
isolated people on earth contain haunting memories, in varying detail,
of an earlier knowledge of the true God, or of His Law. So, once again
we ask; where did all this knowledge come from? To find out, we may
need to go back again into the history of the children of Israel ...
       Jacob, named Israel by the Lord, was Abraham’s grandson. Jacob
had twelve sons, among whom was Joseph, and those twelve men
became the fathers of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel. After the
death of Jacob, Israel’s twelve tribes remained in Egypt for 430 years.
They fled Egypt in 1446BC, and were in the wilderness for another 40
years. After Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, they lived in the Promised
Land, under judges, for another 300 years. Then, during the judgeship
of Samuel, the people demanded to have a king.
       God first gave them Saul, then David, and with David began the line
of kings through which Jesus would be born. But the kingdom remained
unified for only two generations. If you read the account carefully, it
appears that Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, had a son who
was truly inept. Rehoboam’s decision to raise taxes caused a revolt, so
during his reign the Davidic kingdom divided. God separated Judah and
Benjamin from the ten northern tribes, and the twelve tribes became two
separate nations: Israel in the North, and Judah in the South. Jerusalem
remained the capital of Judah while Samaria became the capital of Israel.
       Northern Israel remained in continual rebellion to the Lord, putting
it in conflict with Judah and the nations around them. Finally, in 748BC,
Tiglath-pileser of Assyria made northern Israel a vassal state and took
captives off to Assyria. In 725BC, Shalmaneser began a major
deportation of Israel, and put Samaria under siege. Samaria itself fell in
____________________

1 Ibid pp. 85-91
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One More Time 82

722BC and what was left of the nation of Israel was taken captive and
relocated near the Caspian Sea (north of what is now Iran) and they were
never heard from again. This happened just as Moses prophesied it
would:

Neh 1:8 Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst
thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you
abroad among the nations:

Why did God ever allow this to happen? Were the Israelites not part of
God’s chosen people? Didn’t the everlasting covenant God made with
Abraham include the ten tribes? The prophet Isaiah saw what was going
on around him and lamented:

Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways,
and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’
sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

       The fall of northern Israel was not just an unfortunate accident in
history. It was an integral part of God’s eternal plan, and the Lord told
His people about it in advance.
       The prophet Hosea was placed in Israel just before its fall, and he
alone details the future of the ten tribes after their dispersion among the
Gentile nations. Hosea prophesied from about 750-722BC and he
prepares God’s people for the calamity that is about to befall them. Read
the prophet carefully, and you will see that the destruction of Israel and
Samaria is fixed. It is going to fall to Assyria, no matter what. Hosea is
not a call to repentance to save the northern kingdom. Instead, the
prophet is describing the Lord’s plan for the ten northern tribes after
they disappeared.
 
One More Time 83

GRAPH NUMBER 13



In the verse below, we begin to see the everlasting love our
Heavenly Father has for His wayward Israelites. While they were
figuring out ways to rebel against Him, God was putting a long-term
plan in motion to save them: a plan spanning thousands of years. The
following verse is in that setting. Israel is about to go into captivity when
God tells them:

Hos 1:10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the
sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it
shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them,
Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the
sons of the living God.

That is a paradoxical Scripture is it not?. Note the tense of the verb,
“shall be.” Shall be is future to when it was written. Israel is about to go
into captivity never to be heard from again, and the Lord tells them that
they are going to be numerous beyond count. Furthermore, He tells them
that no one will know they are His Israelites. Nonetheless, they will be
called the sons of God. Isn’t that mystifying?

Hos 2:19-20 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever ... I will even
betroth thee unto me ... and thou shalt know the LORD.

       The Lord then declares that this lost and scattered people will be
 
One More Time 84

His bride, a bride whether they know it or not. Impossible from man’s
standpoint, nevertheless, an accomplished fact from God’s. But there is
more. If we picture in our minds how seed was sown in the old days, we
can also understand this unique Old Testament figure of the sower:

Hos 2:23 And I will sow her [Israel] unto me in the earth; and I
will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will
say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and
they shall say, Thou art my God.

       Taking from his bag of grain, an ancient farmer would cast seed
evenly over every square foot of his field with a side-wise motion of his
arm. That is what the Lord did with Israel. He scattered Israelites all over
His great field, the earth, from South Africa to China. Oh my, can you
see it? God scattered the seed of Israel over the whole world, from Terra
del Fuego to the tip of Siberia.
       Descendants of the lost tribes of Israel are everywhere, and God did
not disperse them to lose them. In spite of their scattering, the Lord
declared that He would have mercy on them. Here, at the beginning of
the 21st century, it is only a hundred generations from when God made
an everlasting covenant with Abraham. Since the very hairs of our heads
are numbered, surely the Lord has no trouble remembering every one of
Israel’s descendants. The prophet Amos also spoke of this continuing
covenant with a dispersed Israel, but in figurative language:

Amo 9:9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel
among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the
least grain fall upon the earth.

       Can we hear that? “Yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth?”
The Creator of the universe was going to save his wayward Israelites.
But not only them. God didn’t have just a little local plan to deal with a
few Israelites. The Lord saw and planned the history of the whole world
and its inhabitants in eternity and He is very good. Everything God does
is good. So it is reasonable to believe that the Lord scattered the ten
tribes of Israel abroad for a good reason, and not just as judgment upon
His people. To see why Israel was dispersed, we need to stand outside
our 21st century mind-set and look back on Earth’s 6000 years of
recorded history from the standpoint of God’s overall plan.
 
One More Time 85

       Earlier in this chapter we saw how bits of the true faith were spread
among the primitive peoples of the world.1 Apostate as northern Israel
became, it is scripturally provable that there were still men within it who
retained a knowledge of God and of His law (2 Ki 17:26-28). Taking a
broad view of history, it appears that 700 years before Jesus was born,
the Lord may have spread the children of Israel over the whole earth for
the express purpose of sharing the knowledge of the true God with the
Gentile nations. To prepare the hearts of the people of the world for the
coming of Messiah and the preaching of the Gospel. Now we can see a
literal fulfillment of a verse that is usually spiritualized:

Rom 11:25-26 Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the
fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And thus all Israel shall be
saved.

       What does that verse say? That Gentiles must come to the Lord for
all Israel to be saved. But when the Gentiles do turn to Jesus, ALL Israel
shall be saved! Do you see what that verse could mean if taken literally?
Despite the dispersion of the ten northern tribes, it could mean that God
intended to save the Israelites all along, and in the Christian Era there is
only one way He would do so: by leading them to a knowledge of His
Son. Everyone in the Church may not be a direct descendant of Jacob,
but from Amos 9:9 and the other verses we have read, it is reasonable to
conclude that the dispersed descendants of Israel are saved and in the
Church.
       No matter what the color of your skin, or where you are on this
planet, if you have come to the Lord with a humble heart it is very
possible that you are a physical descendant of one of the ten tribes of
Israel, and as such you could be the physical brother or sister of every
__________________________

1 Because parallels to prominent historic Israelite figures like Abraham, Moses, and David
do not appear in most native religions, Don Richardson (author of Eternity in their Hearts,
Peace Child and Lords of the Earth) questions whether these religions originally sprang
from Hebrew roots. But the beliefs of these primitive peoples were passed down by oral
tradition over the 2700 years that Israel has been dispersed. During that length of time,
almost any amount of corruption or omission could have taken place. The importance of
their great historic figures would have lessened as the memory of their deeds was lost in
antiquity. If a culture barely remembers that it once had a “lost book,” it seems unlikely
that it would remember who wrote it, or what it contained.
___________________________
 
One More Time 86

other believer on Earth. Greetings, then, my brother or sister, in the
name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

EPHRAIM,WHERE ARE YOU?

       Now we have discussed all Israel, but what happened to the tribe of
Ephraim? Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Our historic
setting for the following quote is with them, in Egypt, at Jacob’s bedside
3700 years ago. The great seven-year famine is long past. Jacob is old
and full of years. He is almost blind and now he is about to die.
       Jacob (Israel) called his twelve children around him to give them his
final blessing. Joseph and his two sons were ushered in first. Joseph
herded his two boys before him just as any father would when he wants
you to notice his children:

Gen 48:13 And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand
toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward
Israel’s right hand, and brought them near unto him.
14-16 And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon
Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon
Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was
the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom
my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all
my life long unto this day, The Angel which redeemed me from all
evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the
name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a
multitude in the midst of the earth.
17-18 And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand
upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his
father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head unto Manasseh’s
head. And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is
the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head.
19 And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it:
he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly
his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall
become a multitude of nations.

       So the half tribe of Manasseh would become a great people, but
further into the future, the half tribe of Ephraim would become a
multitude of nations. Now Ephraim never became a multitude of nations
in Old Testament times, so if they didn’t before they were taken captive,
 
One More Time 87

then they would have after they were absorbed into the Gentile world.
Obviously, the tribe of Ephraim is not out there claiming to be Israel, so
they must not even know who they are themselves. Where has the Lord
hidden them, and can it be proven biblically?

Hos 11:8-9 How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee,
Israel Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled
together ... I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not
return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in
the midst of thee.

As the warrior tribe, Ephraim was the most powerful house in Israel. In
fact, that tribe was so influential that Ephraim’s name was sometimes
used in reference to all ten tribes. But when the Lord tells us He will not
give Israel up, He does make a special reference to Ephraim, so Ephraim
might have a special prophetic significance.

Hos 11:10 ... then the children [of Ephraim] shall tremble from the
west.

       They are going to return from the West, and, since Israel’s lands
bordered the Mediterranean Sea wherever they are, west would have to
be west of the Holy Land itself!

Hos 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.

       That is one of my favorite verses. The tribe of Ephraim is not only
mixed among the nations, but it is also a bread not turned. What can that
possibly mean? Well, the ancient Israelites baked their bread one side at
a time, something like the pancakes we make today. It took time to bake
one side, and more time to bake the other. At the time of Hosea, the Lord
tells us that only one side of the bread is baked, in other words,
Ephraim’s history is only half over. For Ephraim’s future, the cake
would need to be turned and baked on the other side. God is telling us
that half of Ephraim’s saga was still future to this prophecy and that it
would take place after their dispersion. So where did God put them?
 
One More Time 88

Hos 9:13-17 (excerpts) Ephraim ... is planted in a pleasant place:
but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer ...1 Oh
Lord: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry
breasts...yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the
beloved fruit of their womb . . and they shall be wanderers among
the nations.

Ephraim will be placed in a pleasant land, but in these terrible texts, we
see that Ephraim’s future would not always be pleasant. A warrior tribe
still, they would be involved in foreign wars. And many of their children
would die unborn, either through miscar-riages or abortions. So who and
where are they?

REVELATIONS “TIMES” IDENTIFIES EPHRAIM

       The “time, times, and half a time” in Daniel were provably 2500
years, so unless there is a good scriptural reason to disregard that
principle, Revelation’s “times” should also be 2500 years.

Rev 12:14 And to the woman [Israel] were given two wings of a
great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place,
where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time,
from the face of the serpent.

       This 2500 year period cannot be in our future because there can be
only one generation (forty years or so) following the time of the Gentiles
and the time of the Gentiles is over (Luk 21:24-32). So to find out when
this “time” fits, we need to lay this 2500 years over past history.
       The last we heard of Israel was when they were taken captive into
Assyria. Samaria, the capital of Israel, fell in 722BC. But the major
captivity took place about two years earlier, circa 724BC. Hosea stated,
“Ephraim is mixed with the nations,” and his book was written just
before the fall of Samaria. Could 724BC be when Revelation’s “time,
_____________________________

1 “Murderer” in Hebrew is: H2026. harag, haw-rag’; a prim. root; to smite with deadly
intent: put to [death], make [slaughter], slay (-er), “Shall bring fourth his children to the
murderer (slaughter)” In OT times, Israel “went forth to war.” This is probably a
figurative reference to warfare, to abortion, or to both.
_____________________________
 
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times, and half a time” began?1 If so, then this time should lead us to a
significant year in the history of Ephraim:


       2500 - 724BC = 1776AD...The United States became a nation!

GRAPH NUMBERS 14


       Is America the pleasant land where Ephraim was planted, and could
the people who come from all over the world to seek freedom from
tyranny and religious persecution be the descendants of those missing
tribes? It certainly appears to be a possibility. For years people have
been looking for the United States in prophecy. Now that we have found
some evidence that this nation might contain the remnants of Ephraim
______________________________

1 The language of the verse does not tie us to the date of the destruction of Samaria. “Fly
into the wilderness” speaks of the dispersion itself, and would be applicable for any time
between 725-722BC.
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and the ten lost tribes of Israel, do you suppose anyone will believe it?
Not a chance. We would rather hang in there with the Seven-Year
Tribulation view for which there is NO biblical or historic evidence
whatsoever. But, unless we can think of some other incident of major
prophetic importance that took place on or about 1776, then the United
States becoming a nation is probably what that prophecy is about. That
makes North America and the United States the pleasant and protected
land where the Lord hid Ephraim (Hos 9:13).

THE DISPERSION

       How most of the children of the ten dispersed tribes migrated to
Europe is a story recorded by others.1 Suffice to say that the heraldic
symbols used by the great houses of Europe have their roots in the titles
Jacob gave his twelve sons. If you question that, ask any authority on
heraldry.2 The coats of arms that people so proudly hang on their walls
are straight out of Gen 49:1-27.
       Throughout the Christian Era, the true saints of God were hounded
all over Europe. The chronicles of the oppression of the true Church
during the middle ages have to be read to be believed. Fox’s Book of
Martyrs, Thielman van Braght’s Martyr’s Mirror (the Anabaptist
record), and Broadbent’s The Pilgrim Church record the sufferings of
our forefathers in detail. The true Christians had no settled home in any
land, and their very lives were continually at risk. They wandered from
place to place or were in hiding from persecution. They had a symbolic
valley of Achor (Achor means trouble) throughout the middle ages. But
the Lord told us it would be like that:
________________________________

1 To avoid any suggestion that the author is using material which is conjectural or lacks
red-letter accreditation, only common historic knowledge and the Bible itself were used
to support the conclusions in this chapter. However, for those interested in pursuing this
line of study, here are a few books on the subject: One Man’s Destiny, C.R. Dickey
(Merrimac MA, Destiny Publishing); Missing Links Discovered in Assyrian Tablets, E.
Raymond Capt (Thousand Oaks, CA, Artisan Sales); The Royal House of Britain and
Enduring Dynasties, W. H. M. Milner (Windsor, Ontario, Canadian-British Israelite
Association.)
2 Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning coats of
arms, tracing genealogies, and determining and ruling on questions of rank or protocol,
as exercised by an officer of arms.
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Heb 13:13-14 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp,
bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we
seek one to come.

       Then they cried unto the Lord and the Lord hid them from their
persecutors and planted them in a very pleasant land. It was rich and
fruitful and flowing with milk and honey. The New World was just such
a land, and the United States was founded by Christians fleeing religious
persecution. God also told us exactly how that was going to happen:

Rev 12:15-17 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a
flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away
of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened
her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out
of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went
to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the
commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

       In the verses above we read that Satan would try to destroy the Jews
and the Church with a flood of people.1 But the Lord separated a
remnant church and many Jews from their enemies by the Atlantic
Ocean. This country grew and prospered and became the hub of the
Western world. West, West, where have I heard that before? This
hemisphere is as far West as you can get. Go any farther and it is called
the Far East.

Hos 11:10-11 (excerpts) They shall walk after the LORD ... then
the children shall tremble from the west ... and I will place them in
their houses, saith the LORD.

Furthermore, the Church, like the Levites, is called to be priests and to
come out from the world.2 God called Levi to be directly in the Lord’s
service. As priests, they were separated from the rest of the people. God
even gave them special cities to live in:

Num 35:7 ... cities which ye shall give to the Levites shall be forty
and eight cities: them shall ye give with their suburbs.
_______________________________

1 “Waters” is figurative language for many peoples: Rev 17:15 “And he saith unto me,
The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and
nations, and tongues.”
2 2Co 6:14-18, 1Pe 2:5-9, Rev 1:6, 5:10, and Rev 18:4-5.
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       The Levites had 48 cities; the Continental United States has 48
states. It was not until after the pivotal year of 1948 that we too “mixed
ourselves with the nations,” (Hos 7:8) and states outside our borders
were added. It was not until after 1948 that the United States began to
lose its influence as the Christian lighthouse of the world. Occasional
coincidences happen. But are all these historic fits just random chances
that by some fluke of mathematical magic just happen to fit Scripture?
That would be difficult for any thinking person to swallow. Here are
another couple of “coincidences” of interest.

1. The Lord gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. Until the
last decade, babies were routinely circumcised in the United States.
Why us? There is no sound medical reason for this practice.
2. The United States was the first nation to have a five-day work
week, thus observing the Sabbath as well as Sunday.
3. Though Jacob had only 12 sons, Joseph’s two sons became two
tribes. Counting Ephraim and Manasseh, there were then actually
thirteen tribes. In America there were only 12 colonies, but the
Carolinas were too large to govern in horse and buggy days, so the
Carolinas were split into two states, North and South Carolina. So
as Israel’s twelve sons became thirteen tribes, our twelve colonies
became thirteen states.

       All that was long ago. Since then the United States has fought a
half-dozen foreign wars: bringing her “children forth to the murderer,”
as foretold in Hosea 9:13. And now, through manifold abortions, we also
bring our children forth to the murderer in a new and savage way.
However, terrible as that may sound, God’s eternal plan is still on
schedule.

EZEKIELS TWO STICKS

       Just before Ezekiel describes the battle of Armageddon in the 38th
and 39th chapters of his book, he tells of the restoration of the Jews to the
Holy Land in a vision of “dry bones.” Noting the context, these drybones
were fulfilled in Israel in 1948.

Eze 37:11-12 Son of man, these bones are the whole house of
Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost:
we are cut off for our parts ... Therefore prophesy and say unto
 
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them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open
your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and
bring you into the land of Israel.

       Armageddon follows closely at the heels of this prophecy. How
soon will that battle be? End-time pundits notwithstanding, Scripture
doesn’t appear to say. However, because of where we are in history, we
can now cross-reference those dry-bones with one of Daniel’s final
prophecies and get a time pin:

Dan 12:1-2 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great
prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall
be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation
even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be
delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And
many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, and some to shame and ever-lasting contempt.

       As the Lord put flesh on the dry-bones lying in their graves (Eze
37:11), so those who slept in the dust awoke, to be restored to the Holy
Land (Dan 12:1-2). Same event, different figurative language. As an
interesting side note, God tells us that all who came to life (returned to
Israel) would not be believers. However, despite their spiritual condition,
the Lord is assembling the forces that are going to take a stand for Him
in the final battle:

Eze 37:16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and
write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his
companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph,
the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions:

       All agree that the above is an end-time vision. Simply stated,
Ephraim and the ten northern tribes are one stick, while Judah (the Jews)
is the other. As we look about us now, something wonderful is
happening to both the Jews and the ten lost tribes, something we have
been waiting to see for 2700 years:

Isa 11:13 The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the
adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.
 
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       Before the end, the Lord will take the stick of Ephraim, now in the
true Church, and unite it with the stick of Judah, and we will be one stick
in God’s hand.

Eze 37:19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will
take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the
tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with
the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one
in mine hand.

       It appears that God plans to make one stick (one people) of Israel
and Judah again. He is going to heal the division between them and draw
them together. Within this generation, the Christians will be united with
the Jewish people, and we will be one people again. The Israel of God.
Are we up to the task ahead? Of course not, but now that our hearts can
be opened to who Ephraim and Judah are, we can just begin to see what
our end-time roles will be:

Zec 9:13 When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with
Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O
Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.

       Judah, now back in the Holy Land, will have only one true ally:
Ephraim and the Gentile church. We are the only candidate left in the
world for the title of “the stick of Joseph.” The days when the United
States was a trustworthy ally to Israel are swiftly passing, as our
governmental leaders pander to the wishes of the Palestinian Moslems
and dip Old Glory into the inescapable tar-pit of Islamic oil.
       There is only a remnant of the true Church left in any western land
now. As Scripture opens before us, we can see that the remnant may be
from the lost tribes of Israel, whom Satan has always hated (Rev 12:17).
Don’t be lulled to sleep, folks. If the Lord doesn’t provide a way of
escape, physical persecution is close at hand for Christians everywhere:

Rev 12:11-12 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb,
and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives
unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in
them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil
is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth
that he hath but a short time.
 
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So, were 1948 and 1967 important dates? In those years, the new nation
of Israel was born and the time of the Two Witnesses came to an end.
Jerusalem was freed, and all day=years and time-times were fulfilled.
We are now in the end-times, the final generation, and God is
assembling His forces for the hour of trial (Rev 3:10) and the battle of
Armageddon. The true Church is part of those forces, and the other part
is ...

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