FOOT NOTES
1. The battering ram with the iron head of a goat (Lev. 17:7; 2 Chron. 11:15, “satyrs”) symbolizes the satanic attack that God permits to come against the false church in the spiritual wilderness (Rev. 17:3-5). He did the same thing to apostate Jerusalem (Ezek. 21:21-27; Rev. 18:8).
The King of Babylon in the Ezekiel passage above represents Satan, who was the power behind the throne of the earthly king of Babylon, even as Satan was in the case of the king of Tyre (Ezek. 28:2, 12).
2. In the last days before the Lord Jesus returns, the false church will be in league with the Antichrist, who is called “a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names” (Rev. 17:3; 13:1), and who is the personification of Satan, the “great red dragon” (Rev. 12:3). The Antichrist and his armies will turn upon this whorish church and destroy her by fire (Rev. 17:16).
3. The man-controlled organization that calls herself “the church” is centered upon things of this world and seems oblivious to any impending judgement of God against her. This also was the case with the people in the days of Noah and in the city of Sodom (Luke 17:26-30). This church will not understand what God is doing (Matt. 24:39).
4. The false church is called “Babylon the Great” (Rev. 17:5) because she is the final form of the satanically inspired, religious system that began in the days of the tyrant Nimrod to exalt herself through witchcraft and idolatry (Gen. 10:8-10; 11:1-4). This first Babylonish church used bricks instead of stone to build her city, even as today’s Babylonish church builds herself up with man-made materials instead of relying upon Jesus Christ to build her with living stones (Matt. 16:18; 1 Pet. 2:5).
5. In Genesis 28:12-13, Jacob dreamed that “a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven” with the angels of God ascending and descending on it. The Lord, in His pre-incarnate form, was standing above it.
He told the first disciples that they would see the heavens opened and the angels ascending and descending upon Him (John 1:51).
6. This is the shed blood of Christ that releases us from guilt and separation from God that was caused by our sins (Rev. 1:5). The way is now open to the throne of God by faith (Heb. 10:22) through hope (Heb. 7:19) in the Lord Jesus.
7. It is the release from the power of sin by the death of the totally corrupt corporate spiritual heart of the human race. This happened when the old human race died with Christ on Calvary. God gives those who would believe in His Son a new heart that lives by the resurrection life of the Lord (Eph. 2:10; Rom. 6:6-8; 2 Cor. 5:14-17; Col. 3:3; Gal. 2:20).
8. It is to live in God (Col. 3:3) the heavenly life of love, ministering to His needs (Ps. 65:4; Rev. 3:12. It is the place of the disciple who continually bears about in his body the sentence of death from the same inner cross to his own self-expression that Jesus bore daily here on earth (2 Cor. 4:10; 1:9; Matt. 16:24; Phil. 2:7). It is the final stage of overcoming the enemies of God, where the soul life (mind, emotions and will) of Christ Jesus is being imparted to the believer (Matt. 16:25). It is the place of the overcoming Christian in every generation (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26-28; 3:5, 12,21). The disciple who overcomes the world, the flesh, and the devil as the Lord Jesus overcame them seeks only the living God, in comparison with whom all things are as rubbish (Rev. 3:21; Col. 3:1; Phil. 3:8)
9. The area where one arrives first when entering heaven is called Paradise. One then moves on to the celestial city – the heavenly Jerusalem – and finally to the throne of God the Father (Heb. 12:22-23). Jesus promised the repentant thief whom they crucified with Him at Calvary that He would meet him in Paradise that very day (Luke 23:43).
10. The living church is able to climb into Paradise in spirit and to live “hidden with Christ in God” in spirit and heart (1 Pet. 3:4; Col.3:3) as described in the three sections of the stairway of Christ under notes 6, 7 and 8 (John 3:21; Isa. 26:12; Ps. 31:19-20). His people are also able to: (a) hide in caves in places prepared by God (Rev. 12:14), as did David and his men (1 Sam. 22:1); or (b) float on the water, as did Noah and his household during the flood (Gen. 7:23).
Christians are those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit implanting the Word of Scripture concerning salvation within their new hearts and spirits so that they have begun to experience the life, light, and love of God.
11. In heaven, whatever one asks for immediately appears because the abiding fruit of Christ’s character is in everyone; all things are available in Him, as He promised (John 15:16).
12. The Garden of God in heaven (Ezek. 28:13), which is the pattern for the Garden of Eden that was on the earth (Gen. 2:8-9), contains fruit trees too.
13. Every created object and every living creation (angelic, human, animal, plant) in heaven is formed of God’s light, which is substantial and can be felt and allows the divine light of the glory of God to shine through everything (Rev. 21:23; 22:5). There are no shadows there, no hint of darkness.
14. The work of certain angels is that of rescuing believers from danger as described in Psalm 91:11-12: God gives “His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” An angel of help rescued Daniel from the lions (Dan. 6:22) and Peter from jail (Acts 12:11).
