<p>21:15 <i>For I will give you the words and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to contradict</i>- This is alluding to Ex. 4:12, where God tells Moses at the time of the Egyptian persecution of God's people, &quot;I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say&quot;. This persecution lead to intensified prayer to God, resulting in&nbsp;the deliverance of the suffering saints at Passover time, after a period of especial distress and 'time of trouble' for the surrounding world due to the plagues. After this deliverance, God's people went into the wilderness and were declared God's Kingdom. We have earlier shown how all these events form a remarkable latter day prophecy. This verse also suggests that the gifts of the Spirit may be given to some in the Elijah ministry in order to enable them to make a more powerful witness (as in Rev. 11:6). The fact they are given personally by Christ would indicate that in some way, Christ is already back at this stage. Time and again we will see how the prophecies of events in the last days are ambiguous as to whether Christ is already back at the time of their fulfilment, or whether they herald his return. Seeing that we will never know the exact time of Christ's return, this is understandable. Similarly Joel 2 prophesies the pouring out of the gifts &quot; before the great and terrible day of the Lord&quot; (:31). Malachi surely refers to this passage when prophesying the Elijah ministry &quot;before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord&quot; (Mal. 4:5). This suggests that the three and a half year Elijah ministry of the last days (James 5:17) will be accompanied by Spirit gifts, and will coincide with the time of persecution. Note that the gifts were given &quot;before the day of the Lord&quot; in AD70 too. It is possible that because of this possession of the gifts by 'Elijah', false teachers within the ecclesia at the end will also claim to possess them (Mt. 24:24), so convincingly that all but the elect within the ecclesia will be duped into following them. Yet it must be stressed that it is a feature of the gifts that they are unmistakable and obvious to identify (cp. Acts 4:16); it will be evident enough if and when they are poured out in the last days.</p>