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The Prince of Persia, Part 2

Apollyon, the Prince of Persia, is the evil counterpart to Peniel, the angel of the feast of Tabernacles. Therefore, to understand the job description of the Prince of Persia, one must take note of the opposing side. In essence, Apollyon seeks to hinder or prevent the fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles and the birthing of the sons of God.

The Great Loser

The Greek name, Apollyon, is said to mean “destroyer,” but its root word is apollymi, translated “destroy, perish, lose, be lost.”

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g622/kjv/tr/0-1/

Matthew 10:6 speaks of “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The word “lost” is apollymi. These sheep were not killed, but the nation itself certainly died and was in need of resurrection.

The Hebrew name Abaddon (or Abadon) is from the word abad. Jeremiah 50:6 says, “My people have become lost sheep.” Here the word translated “lost” is abad. So also, Abadon is an important city in Iran (modern Persia). It is the site of the largest oil refinery in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abadan,_Iran

The point is that Apollyon, the Prince of Persia was responsible (under God) for losing the house of Israel. Those lost sheep are, in fact, so lost that even today men refer to them as “the lost tribes of Israel.” Because of their persistent sin, God empowered Apollyon to destroy the nation and to lose track of the people themselves.

God is sovereign, of course, and no demonic force has the power to overrule God’s decrees and verdicts. Hence, Job 1:12 tells us that Satan must obtain permission/authorization from God to do his adversarial work. He is, therefore, God’s subordinate and is empowered by the sins of men to do his evil work. The law judges all men and angels impartially.

The main result of divine judgment against Israel was to remove from them the name Israel. They became lost sheep, primarily because God stripped them of this birthright name. They became known by other names that were given to them by the nations in which they settled. Hence, part of Apollyon’s task is to strip them of the birthright and to ensure the transfer of that birthright to evil people who are not actually called to be sons of God.

Jacob’s Example

Jacob was called to receive the birthright from his father Isaac. However, he stole the birthright by lying to his father, thinking that prophecy could be fulfilled in an unlawful manner. For this reason, Jacob had to flee to the house of his uncle Laban, where he worked for 20 years as a slave (or near slave).

When he finally returned to the land of Canaan, he wrestled with Peniel and was given the name Israel, signifying that he had paid the penalty for his earlier sin and was now finally eligible to receive the birthright from a legal standpoint. This process, however, took 20-21 years.

Jacob was born in the year 2108, which was the 43^rd year of Jubilee (from Adam). He lived for 3 Jubilee cycles and died at the age of 147 in the year 2255. All of the main events in his life took place in Sabbath years, showing that the original Creation Jubilee Calendar divided time into Sabbath years and Jubilees. In the year 2185, Jacob was 77 when he went to Laban’s house. He worked 14 years to obtain his wives, plus another 6 years to gain wealth.

Jacob then returned to Canaan after 20 years of labor. He then returned in that Sabbath year of rest (2205-2206) when he was 97-98 years old—that is, his second Jubilee. Because that rest year was like a vacation that was due, we can say the time he worked for Laban was 21 years.

This was the original 21-year pattern for the prophecy of “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7 KJV). The number 21 is the biblical number of distress, and it defined his time of hard labor while he learned the principle that one cannot fulfill prophecy by unlawful means or by the power of the flesh. It took 21 years to actually receive the name Israel.

Hence, when Daniel fasted for 21 days, it marked a parallel time scaled down from 21 years to just 21 days. His time of fasting can be considered a time of trouble, or distress, ending in revelation and victory. It also suggests that Jacob’s time as a near-slave to Laban established a short-term prophetic pattern for his descendants of the house of Israel who would be scattered off the land for a longer cycle (multiples of 21 and multiples of 210 years).

I showed in chapters 14 and 15 of Secrets of Time how this was actually fulfilled in 12 x 210 = 2,520 years. Details are too lengthy for this short weblog.

https://godskingdom.org/studies/books/secrets-of-time/chapter-14-tribulation-and-the-time-of-jacobs-trouble/

https://godskingdom.org/studies/books/secrets-of-time/chapter-15-jacobs-trouble-fulfilled-in-the-modern-nations/

The main point is that Jacob’s prophetic pattern of the 21-year time of trouble links it to the lost tribes of Israel. This suggests also that, because of Jacob’s sin, Apollyon was empowered to put Jacob into hard labor until the coming of Peniel, who conferred upon him the name Israel.

So we see Apollyon’s role in “losing” the house of Israel as a matter of divine judgment.

Jacob’s Second Time of Trouble

When Joseph was 18, he was sold by his brothers into the slave trade. They deceived their father Jacob into thinking Joseph had been torn apart by beasts and was lost forever. For the next 21 years, Jacob presumed that Joseph was dead. Even after he was elevated to power in Egypt, Joseph’s identity remained hidden because his name had been changed to Zaphenath-paneah (“hidden treasure”). (See Genesis 41:45).

Finally, Joseph was restored to his father at the age of 39, which was 21 years later. Hence, this too bears the fingerprints of Apollyon, who made sure that the birthright holder was “lost” until 21 years had passed. Only then did the revelation arrive, and Jacob then understood what had happened. It was another Peniel moment. Note the parallel with Daniel, where the Prince of Persia withstood/resisted Peniel and his revelation for 21 days.

We may conclude, then, that the calling of Apollyon, the Prince of Persia, was to delay the birthright until Jacob had learned not to try to fulfill prophecy in an unlawful manner. Jacob needed to be trained in the laws and ways of God before he could be entrusted with the full authority of the birthright.

The Great Counterfeit

Spiritual princes and archprinces are territorial in one sense, but their influence reaches far beyond mere political borders. The Prince of Persia is not confined to the territory of Iran, as we have already shown, even though Abadon is a noteworthy city in Iran. The fact that Abadon is a large center of crude oil (as opposed to olive oil), suggests that the Prince of Persia does his work by counterfeiting the Holy Spirit.

Just as there is a true manifestation of the Holy Spirit, there is also a counterfeit. This is a problem in some Pentecostal circles, though they are generally unaware of it. Wherever there is such a counterfeit, one can see the influence of the Prince of Persia.

The Prince of Persia has dominated Persia/Iran for thousands of years to keep the people in a state of bondage. Yet I believe that the Holy Spirit is being poured out upon the nation even today and that Iran's greater calling is to manifest the messianic calling of King Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1). The day will come when it will emerge from a "beast" nation (Daniel 7:5) to a Kingdom of God nation.

Who are Chosen?

During Jacob’s long period of training, the Prince of Persia was responsible for deceiving men into believing that carnal people (which he could control) were, in fact, God’s chosen people. Esau-Edom coveted the birthright, though he never repented of his bloodthirsty ways. His descendants were eventually absorbed into the nation of Judah in 125 B.C., as every history book and encyclopedia says.

The Edomite portion of world Jewry are manifested today as the Zionists, prophesied in Malachi 1:4 and in many other places. Whether we attribute this to Apollyon or to Edom alone is perhaps a matter of debate, but this is how it has actually worked out in prophecy.

Peniel represents the face or presence of God. His calling is to bring about the manifestation of the sons of God through transfiguration, where they reflect the glory of God in their face. This is the implementation of the birthright—the right to be called sons of God (John 1:12). Apollyon’s calling is to try to prevent this from happening by establishing a counterfeit chosen people, based on carnal (genealogical) qualifications. John 1:13 says, however, that it is “NOT by blood(line).”

So the Prince of Persia continues to deceive many in the church even today, and Christian Zionism is his primary doctrine of deception. But the time is now fast approaching when the eyes of the church will be opened to see who the true chosen people are. They are the overcomers, the remnant of grace, those who have the revelation of Israel that “God rules” and that he needs no help from the flesh to fulfill His plan.