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SM1127:On-Line

SM1127: THE X-FILES

PROVERBS 8:10-11

Have you noticed over the last several years or so, how cynical people are getting? There is less and less trust in people, trust in business and even trust in governments. Truth today seems to be out of our reach. We don't know when or who is telling the truth or who is lying. From the News media to school teachers to politicians to even pastors and priests, it is getting harder and harder to discern the truth. Because of that we see emerging a mentality of a "CONSPIRACY PHOBIA"!

In fact, conspiracy is such a hot topic today, even Mrs. Clinton, in speaking of the sexual allegations made against her husband, president Clinton, said that it was a "Right wing conspiracy" that was behind all those allegations. Everyone is affected, before you know it there will be support groups for those that feel there is a conspiracy against them!

Even our television shows have picked up on this idea of "cover-ups", "lies" and-so-on. The one show that comes to my mind is "THE X-FILES". In the show "FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully work to uncover the truth behind unsolved cases that defy normal investigation - cases the government has buried or ignored, labeling them 'X-FILES.'"

And in the show, Fox Mulder believes that within the government there is a huge conspiracy, a huge cover-up regarding the truth about UFO's and extra-terrestrials. And Mulder is out searching for the truth, believing one day he will find it. On the other hand, Scully is a little more reserve about a conspiracy theory. She wants to see before she believes, even though she isbeginning to believe that Mulder is right, or at least closer to the truth than she is. And as this show has evolved the conspiracy's have deepened and become more wide-spread.

Now we call that entertainment, but the reality is, more and more people feel there is a multifaceted conspiracy going on, not only in this country, but throughout the world. That we truly don't know what is going on behind the scenes, that information is being kept from us. Now Christians have picked-up on this and have become terrified of black helicopters spying on them. Concentration camps being set-up for Christians to be incarcerated in. The government taping their phone lines. The spread of germ warfare to decrease populations, such as AIDS and Ebola viruses. The formation of a one world government under one leader with one monitory system that is cashless. And the list can go on-and-on. The point is, people are so conspiracy minded that it completely alters their way of life. Some won't even talk by the phone or television set to people in their homes for fear of "Big Brother" listening in.

Now don't get me wrong, I do believe that our government knows more about us than I would like. I do believe that behind the scenes are the movers and the shakers that are working for a basic goal that we are slowly being made more aware of. In fact, way back on February 17, 1950, James Warburg, a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, (CFR was formed on July 29, 1921), said before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "We shall have world government whether or not you like it - by conquest or consent."

On October 1, 1990, President Bush, in a UN address, said: "...collective strength of the world community expressed by the UN...an historic movement towards a new world order." And in 1991 he spoke in his State of the Union Message: "What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea - a new world order...to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind...based on shared principles and the rule of law...The illumination of a thousand points of light...The winds of change are with us now."

The problem with that kind of thinking, that is the United States becoming part of a one world government, has been stated back in 1992 by Walter Wriston, a member of CFR and former Citicorp chairman. He said: "A truly global economy will require...compromises of national sovereignty...There is no escaping the system."

That is no small matter, for our sovereignty, our independence is something that is not just an idea, but has been placed in our constitution and protected by the way our forefathers setup this government. Back in 1984, author James McGregor Burns said in his book The Power to Lead: "The framers of the U.S. Constitution have simply been too shrewd for us. They have outwitted us. They designed separate institutions that cannot be unified by mechanical linkages, frail bridges, tinkering. If we are to 'turn the Founders upside down' - we must directly confront the constitutional structure they erected." He is saying that for us to become part of a new world order, a one world government, we need to re-write the constitution!

And on July 18, 1993 - Henry Kissinger, who is a member of CFR and a Trilaterialist, said in the Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA: "What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system...a first step toward a new world order."

SO THERE IS A CONSPIRACY GOING ON! Shouldn't we be terrified? Shouldn't we be worried? What are we going to do? RELAX! Don't get the Maalox out or the Tums. Solomon, in Proverbs chapter 8 gives us some words of wisdom that we should heed in these days we are living in. So please turn to Proverbs chapter 8, and lets begin reading in verse 10.

PROVERBS 8:10-11

Solomon is saying that wisdom, godly wisdom, is more valuable than all the treasures you could find in the entire world. Now that may be hard for some to understand because we have become such a materialistic society. Money is everything to many people. But all the money in the world will not put your mind at ease. It will not give you peace. If you think it will, if you think I am wrong, take a ride out to Hollywood California, for one example, and see all the psychologists and psychiatrists that the wealthy are going to, their offices are packed. Why? Because riches will not buy happiness, it won't put your mind at ease, it won't give you peace.

You see, the answer is coming before God, asking Him for wisdom in a given situation. In fact James 1:5 tells us, he admonishes us that "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." Thus, we are without excuse. God wants to give us wisdom. In fact, that word "liberally" in the Greek speaks of bountifully. You see, you don't have to face the circumstances of life in your own wisdom. If you need spiritual insight, ask of God and He will speak to your heart and show you the things you need to know and how to apply those truths to your life.

I think many Christians today have become paranoid, fearful, terrified of many things because they have taken their eyes off the Lord and placed them on the situations that are taken place around them. Paul clearly tells us in Philippians 4:6-7 "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." I'm sure many of you know that verse, the question though is not if you know it or not, but do you believe it? He wants to give you peace, just bring it to Him!

Now in regards to the world problems, the conspiracies that are growing every day, lets look at what God has to say. You see, the problem we have is we think that man is in control and God is totally unaware of what is taking place or He can't do anything about it. Wrong! Man may be thinking he is in control, acting totally independent of God, and he may not even believe that there is a God, but the reality is God is totally aware and He has told us exactly what will take place in the days we are living in, the "Last Days" as the Bible calls them.

Why did He do that? So we won't become anxious, fearful, paranoid, terrified of the things that are happening around us. So we won't think that God has lost control, but everything is going as He said it would. In knowing that we can have peace, great peace, for God has warned us of these things long before they were to ever happen, and today we see them coming to pass.

Turn with me to Daniel chapter 2, and we are going to begin reading in verse 31. But just to give you some background information, the time frame is sometime after 606 BC and the Southern Kingdom of Judah has been taken into captivity by the Babylonians. This is their first assault on the Southern Kingdom of Judah and in this siege they took many of the young, strong, intelligent men with them, back to Babylon to be used in king Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom.

Among the captives were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And they were schooled in the Babylonian ways to be part of the wise men of Babylon. One night the king has a dream that troubles him. So he calls for his wise men to come and interpret the dream, and since he wasn't sure how honest these guys were, since he just inherited the kingdom from his father who died unexpectantly, he tells them to also inform him what he dreamed and then interpret it.

They responded by saying "...'There is not a man on earth who can tell the king's matter; therefore no king, lord, or ruler has ever asked such things of any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean.'" Daniel 2:10. You see, they had these large books of dream interpretations. Thus, as you told them your dream, they would look it up and tell you what your dream meant. But here they were in trouble, in fact they were going to be put to death if they could not respond and give the king his dream and interpretation. The problem was that Daniel and his 3 friends were part of this group and when he heard what was going to happen he had an emergency prayer meeting and then came before the king saying:

DANIEL 2:31-43

"You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all; you are this head of gold. But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay."

In this multi-metallic image that the king saw in his dream, Daniel is going to tell him that each metal was a representation of a world dominating gentile empire. Thus, what we have here is a picture of the world empires from the Babylonians and it will extend all the way into the future, to the last empire when Jesus comes to set-up His kingdom here on earth. Let me show you what I mean. And please understand, in the time frame we have this morning we are not going to be able to expound on these various kingdoms in detail. In fact, you need to read Daniel's visions of these kingdoms to get a clear picture of who they represent. In fact, they are so clear that many liberal scholars say that the book of Daniel had to be written after the fact of these empires because of the details he gives regarding them. No man could know that information ahead of time, and that is true, but God could and does!

The head of gold was the Babylonian empire. This kingdom was run as an absolute monarchy from Egypt to the Persian Gulf. Leon Wood stated that "Nebuchadnezzar was uniquely responsible for [Babylon's] attaining and maintaining empire status. After him its power diminished rapidly, it was far more his kingdom than he was its king. That same was not true of any of the succeeding empires."

The head of gold or the Babylonian empire gave way to the chest and arms of silver or the Medo-Persian empire. And this empire lasted around 200 years.

The chest and arms of silver or the Medo-Persian empire gave way to the belly and thighs of bronze, or the Grecian empire that rose up under the leadership of Alexander the Great, and whose empire lasted around 200 years. This empire swept across the land devouring all that got in its way, so much so that Alexander the Great laid on his bed and wept for there were no other worlds to conquer, it was all his!

The belly and thighs of bronze or the Grecian empire gave way to the legs of iron or the Roman empire. And this empire swallowed up lands and people, and as Leupold said "The Roman legions were noted for their ability to crush all resistance with an iron heel."

Let me ask you this question, "Who defeated the Romans?" No one, it just broke into pieces. And those broken pieces never became world empires again, even though many tried. France had its "day in the sun" under Napoleon who extended the French empire by military victories but was defeated at Waterloo in 1815. Spain, with its Armada, or vast fleet of warships, had its "day in the sun" but was defeated by England in 1588. And England was never a world power. Germany tried twice at world domination. First, under Bismarck, who was known as the "Iron Chancellor" (1815-1898). And then under Hitler from 1933-1945, but they never became world powers.

But as you look at Daniel chapter 2 you will notice that the feet of this image are made of iron and clay. That iron, as we said, is representative of the Roman empire, and thus, in the last days the Roman empire will be revived. But what does the clay represent? It represents people, myriad's of people that were part of the old Roman empire but are now dispersed throughout the world. Thus, by mixing the iron and the clay together you have the strength of the iron and the weakness of they clay and that tells me that this kingdom is inferior to the previous kingdoms.

Some feel that these 10 toes on this image represent 10 nations that have come together out of the old Roman empire, which we would call today The European Community. Interestingly enough, way back on September 18, 1989 Time magazine had an article titled "Charging Ahead On The European Community", and Walter Halstien, who was the first president of the European Commission said: "Anyone who does not believe in miracles in European affairs is no realist...The reality is that Western Europe has finally found its feet, and once again is marching ahead." Is this speaking of the feet on the image in Daniel chapter 2 and is represented by the 10 toes? Maybe!

I think another possibility, and one that I lean towards, is the revived Roman empire being seen in 10 political/economic regions from around the world. That is the world is divided up into 10 kingdoms. Way back on September 17, 1973 the Club of Rome (which had its beginnings in April of 1968 and was formed for the soul purpose of bringing peace and prosperity through a one world government) released a report entitled "Regionalized and Adaptive Model of the Global World System". In this document they have the world divided up into 10 political/economic regions, which we can see emerge with the free-trade agreements of today. A coincidence? I don't think so!

You see, when the Roman empire broke into pieces, the people were spread around the world. Thus, this is a very plausible way to look at what this revived Roman Empire will look like.

How far have we come? Listen to this. Back on September 27 through October 1, 1995, in San Francisco, Mikhail Gorbachev headed an international event called "The State Of The World forum."

In that conference, Sbigniew Brezinski, who was Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, spoke to the people at this conference and said: "Finally, I have no illusions about world government emerging in our lifetime...We can not leap into world government through one quick step...A consensual global system is not just a matter of good wishes or good will, but it requires a process...The recondition for eventual and genuine globalization is progressive regionalization."

Do you understand what he is saying? "...The recondition for eventual and genuine globalization is progressive regionalization." In other words he sees this world being divided up, "regionalization" into a one world government. This process will not happen quickly, but over time this will evolve into a one world government. And don't think by evolution it is just a random chance happening, not for a minute. There are the designers and builders of this new world order that have been working on this for a very long time, and now we are beginning to see it emerge, faster than I thought possible. It is possible that we may see it in our lifetime!

On May 3, 1994 president Bill Clinton signed PDD #25 and then declared it "classified". He offered a brief outline to the 103rd Congress. The outline stated that during times of national emergency, whatever that may be, and who decides that it is a national emergency we don't know, the complete command and control of the United States Military would pass from our Commander and Chief, the president of the United States to the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Think about that for a minute. That means folks, that our military will be controlled not by our government, not by our commander, but by the United Nations! I guess it doesn't bother him for he never served in the military, he doesn't know what it means to defend your country! Yes we are quickly seeing our sovereignty being eroded away and we are being set up for a new world order, a one world government, and we don't even realize it.

I find it interesting that king Nebuchadnezzar saw this image as a beautiful multi-metallic image but that is not how God sees it. And I think it is important to see what God sees of this new government that is arising and the ones that came before it. Turn to Daniel chapter 7, and lets look at the world dominating gentile kingdoms through the eyes of God, beginning in verse 15. We read "I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit within my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near to one of those who stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things: 'Those great beasts, which are four, are four kings which arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.' Then I wished to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the others, exceedingly dreadful, with its teeth of iron and its nails of bronze, which devoured, broke in pieces, and trampled the residue with its feet; and the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn which came up, before which three fell, namely, that horn which had eyes and a mouth which spoke pompous words, whose appearance was greater than his fellows. I was watching; and the same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom." Daniel 7:15-22. Again, we can only touch on this, but this book is the equivalent to the New Testament book of Revelation. Read it and learn what God is saying in it.

I want you to see the ugliness of these kingdoms. They are beasts, monsters in the eyes of God. And this last kingdom, this revived Roman empire is the worst one of them all. As this kingdom comes to power the antichrist will head it, and he will be the leader, controlling all the kingdoms of the earth and even coming against those that come to Christ during the tribulation period and prevail against them. Many will lose their lives during the tribulation period for serving the Lord, that is those that are saved during this last seven year period of history where God will once again deal with the nation of Israel and poor His wrath out upon a Christ rejecting world.

Now I don't want to leave you on this note, so turn to Daniel chapter 2, as I bring this study to a close. In Daniel chapter 2, lets begin reading in verse 44.

DANIEL 2:44-45

"And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure."

During the time of this revived Roman empire, as the tribulation period begins to draw to an end, at the close of the 7 years, the Lord is going to return. And when He does this rebellious world power will be destroyed and blown away, never to be seen again. And that rock that smote the image in the feet and caused it to come crashing down is none other than Jesus Christ. And His kingdom will fill this earth and righteousness will fill this land.

Don't ever think that God has lost control. If you are fearful of these things you see happening, if you are having "conspiracy phobia", look to Christ and allow His wisdom to give you peace. Treasure it more than all the wealth in the world for His peace can't be bought, only received through His Son, Jesus Christ. You see, you can't have the peace OF God until you have received peace WITH God! It is as Romans 5:1 says "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Once you have made peace with God by accepting Jesus Christ into your life as Lord and Savior, then and only then can you have the peace of God in your life. In saying that, let me leave you with this. God has gone through great lengths, given us great detail of the things that will happen in this world. He has told us these things before hand so that we won't be caught by surprise. And just as Daniel told the king, and as God is telling us, "...The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure."