Bible Believers' Newsletter #624
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660
Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for sharing fellowship in Christ.
We extend an especially warm welcome to our new subscribers. We will send you a free CD of our PowerPoint presentation "The Second Coming of Christ," if you advise your postal address. As it was prepared for saints who are conversant with Brother Branham's Message we suggest newcomers should study Part II and its linked teachings before studying Part I.
All saints planning to spend Easter in Nigeria this year are cordially invited to attend the Easter Convention arranged by Pastor Chibueze Uzoho and the saints in our sister Church at Owerri. The program and emphasis of teaching is set out on the above link; if you plan to attend, please email Pastor Chibueze advising the numbers in your party.
Brother pastors Bible Believers' Church, Owerri. The Lord has blessed his growing congregation and vindicated his ministry, so it is with pleasure that we commend his teaching "Bring All the Tithes into the Storehouse." Quite recently he sent me the transcript of this teaching he had delivered to his Church; shortly thereafter a subscriber asked if we would post instruction on this subject, and only today a family of new subscribers wrote with a similar request.
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ, Anthony Grigor-Scott
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The Pope is the First among the Patriarchs
Rome, January 25, 2010 — Relations with the Orthodox Churches have never been so promising as they have since Joseph Ratzinger has been pope. . . The document of Ravenna, approved unanimously by both sides, affirms that "primacy and conciliarity are mutually interdependent." And in paragraph 41, it highlights the points of agreement and disagreement:
"Both sides agree that . . . Rome, as the Church that 'presides in love' according to the phrase of St. Ignatius of Antioch, occupied the first place in the taxis (structure of the universal Church), and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the protos (or first) among the patriarchs. They disagree, however, on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as protos, a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium". . . Full story: chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it
Comment: The basis of the discussion is a text that was drafted on the island of Crete at the beginning of autumn in 2008. The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium, which is unscriptural and unhistorical iniquity grasping for terrestrial power. "By way of deception thou shalt do war," like your "elder brother".
According to Clause 4 of this document, the Hebrew witnesses of Zechariah 4 and Revelation 11 were Peter and Paul. Infallible Papal authority claims both men were martyred in Rome, contradicting Jesus Christ who prophesied they will be martyred in Jerusalem by the Catholic church after the close of the Gentile dispensation and visibly ascend into heaven after three and a half days, while Peter's grave may be visited today.
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Restoring One Universal [False] Church
March 4, 2010 — The "Cretan Unia," signed by the "ecumenical" Patriarchate of Constantinople, whose higher clergy have long used the US and an association with Freemasonry, have brought the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) and its new patriarch in common prayer and increasingly energetic efforts for rapprochement with the Catholics who participated in dedicating the Russian Union Theological Seminary of the Russian Orthodox Church in Paris.
The political power of the Russian Federation encouraged this in order to achieve acceptance by the "global elite." Such a rapprochement between the hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Vatican is a consequence of refusing to truly evaluate Globalization, New World Order, that is advancing the kingdom of the Antichrist. After the Vatican commission for dialogue with Judaism, agreed that Jews remain God's chosen people after they rejected Christ, and do not need baptism to be saved, and that Catholics are waiting with them for the same Messiah . . . by not adopting a similar union of science, Orthodox churches and the Orthodox doctrine of Antichrist will be considered "extremism" and "will be legally prosecuted." Already, the prosecution charges are known, its expertise, and even court decisions . . . [Revelation 13:15-18].
The Russian Orthodox Church MP will accept this in a spirit of union, and try to present it to the faithful in a beautiful package, claiming "global recognition of the increasing role of the Orthodox Faith," and the need for "a common Christian front of resistance against the present ungodly tendencies, and even evil "Muslim extremism." Papal propagandists will express his defensive-patriotic oratory more clearly. . . Full story: wiadomosci.monasterujkowice.pl
Comment: Machiavelli redividus.
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Ecumenical Patriarch receives Cardinal Poupard Prize for Environment
March 5, 2010 — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople has received the first Cardinal Paul Poupard Foundation Prize because of his "engagement in favor of safeguarding creation." The prize was awarded under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco.
Born in 1930 and appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Paris in 1979, Cardinal Poupard has served as Pro-President and President of the Secretariat of Non-Believers (1980-93), President of the Pontifical Council for Culture (1988-2007), and President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (2006-7). Full story: catholicculture.org
Comment: "He shall come in peaceably, and obtain the [church] kingdom by flatteries" or intrigue (Daniel 11:21).
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Can You imagine them in a Palestinian Scarf?
March 5, 2010 — This montage by Jewish musician and writer Gilad Atzmon illustrates the cowardly treachery of the world's political leaders, confirming Revelation 16:13-16, "I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon [Satan], and out of the mouth of the beast [the Roman Catholic church], and out of the mouth of the false prophet [the pope]. For they are the spirits of demons, working miracles, which go forth to the leaders of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." And:
Zechariah 14:2, "For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and of half the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city".
The Judaeo-Catholic church is uniting the world church system for the second crucifixion. Their Black Nobility have our so-called elite "useful idiots" dressed in funny hats; their banksters of 'the City of London' will covenant with Rome (Daniel 9:27) to refinance the US dollar with real gold backing (in opposition to the allocation of carbon credits as currency), not the gold-plated tungsten substituted for bullion. (Could this explain why Rothschild sold Mocatta)? Once Rome has established economic and monetary hegemony she will break her covenant and these self-styled Jews will side with Judao-Communist Russia, presently sidelined, as their vehicle of vengeance. For Russia is God's servant to destroy the false church as Nebuchadnezzar was His servant to punish Judea.
Were you aware of this cabbala? The Israeli-owned MOving SyS tems IncorporAteD operated by Israeli spies involved in the 9/11 scam contains the word MOSSAD. Now do you remember Mossad "warning" about 200 "Al-Qaeda terrorists" said to have been preparing major attacks in the US? At the time of this writing, we are one year into the largest investigation in American history, and not one of these 200 "terrorists" has been discovered. But 200 Israeli spies were discovered, among them Israeli military: electronics experts, wiretapping and phone tapping specialists, and explosives experts with the skill to bring down tall buildings. Logic and common sense leads to the conclusion that the "200 Al Qaeda terrorists" were in reality, 200 Zionist terrorists sent to frame the Arabs for terrorist attacks and drag America into a war. . .
Full story: prisonplanet.com whatreallyhappened.com
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One Prime Example of Controlled-Media
March 1, 2010 — You know how much the media demonizes Iran, right? Well, with that in mind, why didn't they make a big stink about the Iranians forcing down a plane so they could haul off some guy? Maybe it was a story they didn't want Americans to hear? If this had happened with anyone else, the US media would definitely be shouting it out on the airwaves—and you think our media is free? What a joke. They work for the same people behind all this mess going down.
The Iranian guy was named Abdolmalek Rigi and was on board a plane traveling over Iranian airspace from United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan, when security forces made his plane land (I don't know if it was intercepted by fighters or not). Riga confessed to being the ringleader of the Jundullah "terrorist" group. He also admitted some other interesting things, like America offering him unlimited military aid, money and a secret base in Afghanistan, just across the border so he could conduct operations inside Iran.
Basically, the CIA was caught offering to fund a terrorist. A terrorist working for us, against a sovereign government. You might even call this guy a "homegrown terrorist" being recruited by the US. And the pro-Zionist media in the US has the nerve to accuse Iran of funding anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah and Hamas? Just think how hypocritical this all is. Read on to find out who the guy was supposed to meet at his destination. [A Khazar Jew from Russia, US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke]. Full story: incogman.wordpress.com
Comment: According to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, senior Israeli military officers, US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer, US intelligence and former State Department officials, "beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid and training to Hamas over a period of years" and the FBI sent Hamas money.
"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaeda. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US . . ." (Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook). Yid Irony has Goys chasing the "Toilet".
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Japanese have Washington Post running scared over 9/11
March 8, 2010 — The issue as framed by the US ruling elite's hometown house organ is very simple; a top insider in Japan's new government has lost his marbles. The Washington Post's apoplexy over the fact that Councilor Yukihisa Fujita isn't buying the official version of what happened on September 11, 2001, is well reflected in the two headlines it gave to its March 8, 2010 editorial. First we have the print edition:
Poisonous Thinking in Japan
Has a conspiratorial view of 9/11 taken hold in the ruling party?
Then we have the even more hysterical headline in the electronic version:
A Leading Japanese Politician Espouses a 9/11 Fantasy
The two paragraphs below capture the flavor of The Post's screed. I have provided some educational assistance for the reader by supplying useful links. Only the last of the six links was in The Post's original online version.
Fujita's ideas about the attack on the World Trade Center, which he shared with us in a recent interview, are too bizarre, half-baked and intellectually bogus to merit serious discussion. He questions whether it was really the work of terrorists; suggests that shadowy forces with advance knowledge of the plot played the stock market to profit from it; peddles the fantastic idea that eight of the 19 hijackers are alive and well; and hints that controlled demolition rather than fire or debris may be a more likely explanation for at least the collapse of the building at 7 World Trade Center, which was adjacent to the twin towers.
As with almost any calamity whose scale and scope assume historic proportions, the events of Sept. 11 have spawned a thriving subculture of conspiracy theorists at home and abroad. The only thing novel about Mr. Fujita is that a man so susceptible to the imaginings of the lunatic fringe happens to occupy a notable position in the governing apparatus of a nation that boasts the world's second-largest economy.
The giveaway as to how frantic The Post is over this matter is that they are editorializing before reporting. That Fujita, who as a graduate of Keio University is about as plugged in to Japan's ruling "old boy" network as it is possible to be, has abandoned the 9/11 sinking ship was not previously even mentioned in The Post or anywhere else in the mainstream US press, to my knowledge.
Now The Post tells us that they have interviewed him. . . I'm not holding my breath waiting for The Post to print that interview, no matter how much we might clamor for it. . . Full story: dcdave.com
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Bring All the Tithes into the Storehouse
By Pastor Chibuze Uzoho
Today, some good folk believe tithing is not as important as it was in the Old Testament Temple system of worship. Others suggest that the freewill contributions of the saints have taken the place of tithing in the Church. However, basic Biblical principles like this do not change. Tithing existed before the Old Testament 'Levitical' order was established and it continues to exist.
The tithe is a tenth. We first learn about "tithing" when Abraham met Melchizedek (Genesis 14:1-20), Priest-King of Salem, which means "peace" or "security." Earthly Salem was initially ruled by Amorites, but the Jebusites who ruled in the era of Joshua called it "Jebusi," and when both names were conjoined it became "Jerusalem," or "city of peace" (Joshua 18:28; Ezekiel 16:3). When Abram first encountered Melchizedek, the "King of Righteousness," Creator and Redeemer of heaven and earth He was the theophany that would later manifest as the virgin-born Prince of Peace. And as the Father of the Son of God, His city was not earthly Salem established by the Serpent's seed, but the "heavenly Jerusalem that is free of the yoke of Mosaic Law and is the mother of us all" and will one day "come down from God out of heaven as a Bride adorned for her Husband" (Galatians 4:6; Hebrews 12:22; Genesis 10:15-19: Hebrews 7:2; Revelation 21:1-2).
This is the first mention of the word "Priest" in Scripture. A Priest is an intercessor between God and men; as God's representatives His ministers received God's tithe for their sustenance under grace as they did under the Law (Numbers 18:24). Consequently when Abraham met Melchizedek he was not learning how to give tithes, as this was his custom. Abraham and Jacob like we Gentiles today lived under grace which predated the Law of Moses and the Temple worship, (Genesis 14:20; 28:20-22); both understood the principle of paying tithes which is obligatory to every believer. Leviticus 27:30 states, "All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord".
As exemplified by the Patriarchs of old, the Christian's life is one of stewardship. Jacob promised a tenth to the Lord. "And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that You give me I will surely give the tenth to You" (Genesis 28:20-22, 30). Hence tithe paying is a principle of stewardship, not a ritual fulfilled on Calvary.
Malachi wrote the last Book of the Old Testament, announcing the first Coming of the messenger of the New Testament and His forerunner, John. Malachi 3:8-12, is often regarded as Old Testament Scripture whereas it is actually a prophecy of the Lord's second or 'parousia' Coming to Israel as "the God of judgment" after the close of the Gentile dispensation, and emphasizes the importance of tithing among God's people.
"Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, How have we robbed You? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in My house, and thereby put Me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you, and pour out for you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the devouring locust for your sakes, and it shall not destroy the fruits of your soil; your vine in the field shall not fail to ripen, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts" (Malachi 3:8-12).
In this Scripture we see the entire nation of Judah had defrauded God in tithes and heave offerings which belonged to Him and would have been utterly consumed as they deserved were it not for His longsuffering patience for the sake of His elect. This lukewarm spirit has now engulfed the entire world as we approach the end of grace. The spirit of Laodicea is hindering the revelation of Jesus Christ and the expression of the Token of His Life in many in the circle of this end-time Message; God's wrath is restrained only by His longsuffering patience waiting for the last elect to recognize his day and its Message. Once the last soul is baptized into Christ, God's wrath will fall on the earth. We stand at the threshold of the crisis of the ages.
God reproved the Israelites and also promised to bless them abundantly if they would bring the tithes into His storehouse. In fact He declared he would open the windows of heaven and pour an abundant blessings upon them. And God is poised to open the windows of heaven and pour out a more than sufficient blessing upon you who will take Him at His Word for, "there is great reward in keeping your Word" (Psalm 19:11). God wants to show Christians tremendous revelations that will enlighten both wise and foolish virgin, Spiritual and material blessings are withheld from unbelievers and doubters who rob Him of His tenth (tithe), impoverishing His labourers as in the days of Nehemiah. "I discovered that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them: so that they and the singers, who did the work, had fled each to his field" (Nehemiah 13:10).
God owns everything "and the cattle upon a thousand hills" (Psalm 50:10, 24:1). He allows us the joy of giving and personally using His possessions for His glory. However, He requires His people to dedicate a good portion, a tithe, for His service. "And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's: it is holy to the Lord" (Leviticus 27:30-32). Tithes belong to God and were portions He exclusively reserved to the Priests and Levites; those who minister in the Temple. The tithes of Israel were offered as a heave offering and given to the Levites. The "heave offering" was lifted upward once, properly separated from the larger mass and devoted to the divine service of God.
"As for the descendants of Levi, I have given them every tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their services as custodians of the tabernacle of the congregation. Henceforth the children of Israel are never to come near the sanctuary, lest they bear sin, and die. The Levites shall discharge the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity: it shall be a perpetual statute for ever throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance. For I have designated the tithes which the children of Israel present as a heave offering to the Lord, for an inheritance to the Levites: therefore I have told them, that they are not to own any property among the children of Israel: they shall have no inheritance" (Numbers 18:21-24).
Levites were to pay a tenth, a tithe of a tithe. "Speak unto the Levites and direct them, When you take the tithes from the children of Israel which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present a heave offering of it for the Lord, a tithe of the tithe. Your heave offering shall be credited to you as though it were the grain from the threshing floor, and as the full produce of the winepress. Thus from all your tithes which you receive of the people of Israel, you are to contribute a heave offering to the Lord, and give the Lord's heave offering to Aaron the priest. Out of all your gifts you are to select from every heave offering for the Lord the best thereof, the hallowed portion of it. Tell them also, When you offer the best part of it, it shall be credited to the Levites as the increase of the threshing floor, and as the increase of the winepress. And you may eat it in any place, you and your households: for it is your reward in return for your service in the tabernacle. You will not bring any sin upon yourselves, provided you contribute the best of it. You are not to desecrate the holy gifts of the Israelites lest you die" (Numbers 18:26-32).
The Levites were God's ministers and they too must pay one tenth (ten percent) of the heave offering that was offered by the children of Israel. The rest was for their own use, because it was the reward for their service in the tabernacle of the congregation. This shows that Ministers of the Gospel are to pay tithes, and the giver and the receiver are of the same fivefold ministry, the blessing comes from God for both ministers, as they give their services to God. Non-paying of tithes is a grievous sin tantamount to despoiling God (Hebrews 10:26-27). In trying to defraud God we only defraud ourselves. As the eagle which robbed the altar would set her nest on fire from the burning coal that adhered to the stolen flesh, Christians who retain God's tithe in their treasuries will surely find it a losing possession. No one loses by serving God with a completely surrendered heart, nor ever gains by serving Him half heartedly, as seen by numerous examples in Scripture. We may compromise with conscience for half the price, but God will not endorse the compromise; and, like Ananias and Sapphira, we shall lose not only what we thought we had purchased so cheaply, but also the price we paid for it. If we would have God open His treasury, we first must open ours. If we want to preserve our possessions we must be faithful stewards in tithing. One cause of loss and barrenness in the Church is the unwillingness of members to pay their tithes and give freewill offerings with a cheerful heart. When Christians refuse to render to the Lord according to the benefits they have received they fall short of the mark of His high calling.
"Windows of heaven" is an expression that speaks of rain for the crops, especially the early and latter rains to bless the field. It indicates much increase to be poured out in the allusion of a vessel completely emptied of its contents, no blessing being kept back as the result of obedience in tithes and offerings. Jesus said, "Give and it shall be given to you, good measure pressed down, and shaken together, and running over." God promises security and protection to the obedient servant. He says, "I will rebuke the devouring locust. I will no longer corrupt the seed, but will rebuke every agency that could hurt it." These magnificent promises speak of the Christian's sources of income and property. In obedience His people are seen as a delightsome blessing in His presence (Deuteronomy 33:29, Zechariah 8:13; Malachi 3:11).
God has opened the windows of heaven to the Church and abundantly poured out His blessings in these last days. Therefore, He reasonably expects us to bring our tithes into His storehouse for His service, but if we have refused and have not planned accordingly to promote the cause of Christ, the Spirit is grieved, and the blessing is withdrawn. Why? Because, we have failed to be liberal when God had dealt so bountifully with us in blessing (Amos 4:9).
When Christians are not consciously dependent on the Spirit but rely on their own resources, God curses their blessings. In many instances, they sin against their own mercies, because they become lifted up with their success, taking credit to themselves and not giving all the glory to God. "If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to My Name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will even send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: indeed I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart" (Malachi 2:2).
Jesus admonishes us, "Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you mete withal it shall be measured to you again. God loves a cheerful giver." (Luke 6:38, II Corinthians 9:7b). Don't you know, "the liberal souls shall be fat and he that waters shall be watered also himself" (Proverbs 11:25)?
Malachi 3:10 speaks of bringing all the tithes into his store house. Therefore for a true relationship with the One who provides all things, only a complete tithe is appropriate, which is a tenth of one's increase. To understand the Storehouse as implied, the following Scriptures offer some clue. II Chronicles 31:11-15, "Then Hezekiah commanded to prepare chambers in the house of the Lord; and they prepared them, and brought in the offerings and the tithes and the dedicated things faithfully" (I Chronicles 26:20; Nehemiah 10:38; 13:5, Deuteronomy 12:5-6, 11).
In the Temple the storehouse was the area where grains and produce were stored for use by the Priest and Levites—those whose work it was to minister before the Lord. In the New Testament, this store House is the Church where we receive the spiritual food in due season and the Ministers are the fivefold Ministry. As the Levites lived upon the tithes of their congregation, the fivefold Ministry live upon the tithes of their congregations. And as freewill offerings furnished the needs of the Old Testament temple, our freewill offerings meet Church expenses for maintenance, repairs, electricity, stationary, office staff and so forth. Tithes are not for constructing church buildings or feeding the poor. Congregational freewill offerings serve these ends (Exodus 25:2-8).
In Malachi 3:10, God says "prove me," showing that He wants His people to test Him whether He will keep His promise of blessing them for their loving obedience (II Chronicles 31:10). God's case against non-payment of tithes and offerings is based on robbery, which is a breach of the eighth commandment (Exodus 20:15). Withholding God's property is perhaps the most obvious symptom of indiffence to God, though we may feign ignorance. "But you shall remember the Lord your God: for it is He who enables you to prosper that He may establish the covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. . . Honour the Lord with your substance, and with the first fruits of all your increase: So shall your barns be filled with plenty, and your vats overflow with new wine" (Deuteronomy 8:18; Proverbs 3:9-10).
As mentioned earlier, some good folk believe that returning a tenth to God was a commandment only to those of the Old Testament. This attitude is indicative of the fact that they are not yet born-again because of their inability to rightly divide and measure the Word against appropriate shadows and types rather than adding here and taking-away there to justify themselves (Revelation 22:18-19).
In the time of Jesus' first advent, the Jewish leaders were intent on bringing all the people to perfection . . . according to their man-made paradigms. They figured that God would be obligated to help them conquer the Romans on account of their zeal for self-works. They made extra rules, which told people how to keep these laws, whereby they made the Word and faith of no effect. Back then neglecting tithe was not an issue. Here is Jesus' comment: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the Law: judgment, mercy, and faith you ought to have done, and not to leave tithing undone" (Matthew 23:23, Luke 11:42).
Jesus' statement clarifies that tithe paying is still a requirement, but while honouring their obligation to tithe the Jewish leaders of His day were seriously remiss in neglecting the compassionate elements of the Law. Therefore, Christians are duty bound to tithe a minimum ten percent of their increase to their pastor who feeds them Spiritual food in due season.
Some zealots argue that Jesus' statement regarding tithes pertained only to the Priests. This has no Scriptural support since had the people not tithed the priests would have been exempt from their obligation to tithe a tenth of their increase. The congregation paid tithes to the priests. The Jewish leaders tended to demand observances of the people that they themselves ignored, "for you lade men with burdens grievous to be borne and you yourselves touch not the burdens" (Luke 11:46).
At the Cross, the ceremonial laws which pointed forward to the Lamb of Calvary ended (John 1:29; Matthew 5:17; 27:51), but tithing did not point to the Cross and was not fulfilled on the Cross. Therefore tithe-paying remains an obligation today as do freewill contributions and gifts. More so, the spiritual leaders of Church are worthy of support today. "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour especially those that labour in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn. And the labourer is worthy of his reward" (I Timothy 5:17-8).
"Do we have no right to eat and drink? . . . Whoever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock? Do I say these things as a mere man? Does the Law not say the same also? For it is written in the Law of Moses, You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. Is it oxen God is concerned about? Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope. Inasmuch as we have sown Spiritual seed among you, is it remarkable for us if we reap your material things? Since others enjoy the right to share material benefits from you, do not we even more? Nevertheless we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the Gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple, and those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar? Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the Gospel should live from the Gospel" (I Corinthians 9:4, 7-14).
In verse 7 of the above Scripture, Saint Paul asks, "Who serves as a soldier at his own expense?" With the expression "muzzle an ox" Brother Paul is still referring to the Temple Law of tithes. For as the Ox that treads out the grain is worthy to eat of the grain so the Minister of the Gospel ought to live from the tithing of the Church (Deuteronomy 25:4). Paul teaches that in the sanctuary, priests and Levites were supported by the people and alludes to the New Testament fivefold Ministry who labour daily in the Word. He points out that Christians need to remember to be faithful in tithes and contributions (Malachi 3:10; II Corinthians 8:4; I Corinthian 9:4).
The majority of believers are wary of sacrificing too much for God, but He abundantly blesses in ways beyond money all who obey this commandment. Holding back tithes for any reason is not an option. It is a joy to partner with the Lord. Our first obligation is to pay our tithes; bring the tithes and offerings into the storehouse of God where we get spiritual food. Second, we must meet our family responsibilities, settle any lingering debts, and responsibly steward any surplus.
Since Messiah has "magnified the Law and made it glorious" our motivation in serving God is enlarged beyond what ever it was under the Old Testament, such that Christians should go beyond the Old Testament people in consecrating both themselves and their substance to God (Isaiah 42:21). God delights in a cheerful giver and those who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, becoming written epistles of the Present-Truth.
You are to pay your tithe to your Pastor, however, if you are without a pastor, you should support the minister who feeds your soul with Spiritual food in due season (I Corinthians: 9:1-14; 16:1-2; I Timothy 5:17-18). The tithe is not church property, it belongs to the Pastor to live on and spend as he pleases. If it insufficient for his needs he will have to work. He will in turn pay his own tithe to Ministers who feed him. This is the tithe of tithes as in the Old Testament where the Levite was obligated to pay a tenth to the Priest (Nehemiah 10:38; Numbers 18:28-32).
Church expenses should not be met out of the Pastor's pocket but from the free- will offerings of the saints. Tithes and freewill contributions should not be conflated as they are two separate obligations of the believer (Exodus 25:2; 8 Deuteronomy 16:16-17). The obligation on these two still exists in the Church. The assembly does not belong to the Pastor. It belongs to the entire congregation. It is your assembly and the Pastor is your servant, not your benefactor. He should be reimbursed by the church for his telephone, traveling, postage and other expenses incurred in the "business" of the assembly.
How do we calculate our tithe? It is calculated on our "increase" (Deuteronomy 14:22). For a businessman, it is the tenth of his net profit or increase after deducting the overhead costs, tax and other expenses. For a wage or salary earner this should be ten percent of the total income calculated after tax has been deducted.
Contrary to denominational doctrine, Ministers of God do not receive a salary or stipend from the Church, but according to Scripture they derive their living from the tithes of God's people. Bazaars, fetes, and suppers are not God's ways of supporting the Ministry. God said, "Bring the full tithes into the storehouse." The man who loves God will always take pleasure in supporting God's work. You like to help those you dearly love, and when you help the Church, you are helping God. Jesus said, "inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these My Brethren, you have done it unto Me," and the minister being your servant is the least (Matthew 23:11; 25:40). So, brethren, do not withhold any part of your tithes thereby making your Pastor wait for his due as though he were a beggar. Do not defraud God. Pay the full sum of your tithes. Your Pastor has obligations and expenses to meet and having dispensed his duties he is therefore worthy to receive his entitlements. If your Minister has faithfully sown Spiritual things for you, is it remarkable that he reaps your material things? You should pay your tithes as soon as you receive your increase. Hello! My Pastor friends, the tithe is your right from God, it is not charity, so don't be bashful.
Malachi 3:8-12 is a Scripture frequently quoted by those who support tithing and also by those who do not believe in tithing, claiming this is Old Testament Scripture and does not apply to the Church today. However it needs to be said that there are more Scriptures in the Old Testament yet to be fulfilled than there are in the New, and Malachi 3:2-4:6 speak of New Testament times yet future. Tithing is not simply an Old Testament commandment; it applies in the New Testament dispensation.
Jesus taught us that the commandment to tithe will continue throughout eternity. In the new heaven and new earth, "The nations of the saved shall walk in the Light of the Shekinah over New Jerusalem: and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honour [or tithe] into it. Its gates shall never be shut by day: and there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour [or tithe] of the nations into it. But nothing unclean [unregenerate], nor anyone who commits abomination, or practices falsehood: but the born-again saints whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life shall enter therein" (Revelation 21:24-27). So tithing is most definitely a New Testament requirement. If we neglect to pay our tithes and freewill offerings we are robbing God of His due and as well robbing ourselves of His blessings, and indicate we are not in the Bride.
If God is not opening the windows of heaven to you, rise up now brother and sister and discover the cause of your Spiritual or material dearth before the Gentile dispensation ends. We must endeavor to meet the requirements of God's unchanging Word in order to come into the unity of faith with the Token on display at all times. Now is checking-up time to discover our short comings and amend our lives and prove whether we are living in the promises of God.
In this end-time God has sent us a Prophet, William Branham who was the Elijah of Malachi 4:5-6, to reveal Gods entire plan in such simplicity even the fool should not err. Since Christ's mediation for ignorance of the fullness of the Word ended with the revelation of the Seven Seals: He is no longer winking at men's ignorance but requires us to "live by His every Word".
This is what our 'Elijah' taught on the matter of tithing: "Hebrews 7:7-9, "Without any contradiction the less is blessed of the better. (Certainly. Watch Who He is). And here men that die receive tithes;. . . (That's the priesthood of the order of priests and preachers and so forth, men that receive tithe, die. See?). . . but here He receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that He liveth."
"What would a man take tithings for, if he never was borned, and never will die, and was from beginning to end, and never had no father or mother or descent, and owned the whole heavens and earth and all in it, why would He take tithe? Why would he ask Abraham to pay tithes? You see what a strict thing it is to pay tithes? Tithing's right. Every Christian's duty bound to pay tithe. That's right. Never has been changed" (William Branham, Hebrews, p. 310:122-123).
"Thank you, my little sister, for this tithing. As a minister, I'm supposed to receive tithing" (From that Time, #60-07160).
Question: "Brother Branham, don't you feel that everyone who claims to be a Christian should pay tithes; pay their tithes into the storehouse of the Lord? Please give Scripture to this question.
All right, if you will. . . That is right, that the Bible said in Malachi the 3rd chapter, "Will a man rob God? And you say, 'Where have we robbed Thee?' In tithe and offerings. Bring all your tithe and offerings into My storehouse and prove Me," saith the Lord, "if I will not open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that there'll not be room enough to receive."
That's a challenge to any individual. And if I only had the time, and would not get to this little Scripture that I wish to get to in about the next ten minutes, I would like to give you a personal testimony of how that I was even hungry, and my mother and them hungry, and my daddy sick, but I took my tithes out first and give it to God, and you ought to see what happened. I have never seen in my life, that any man or a woman, that if you only make one dollar a week, will bring the ten cents of that money and put it into your storehouse, your church where you come, if God don't bless that, call me a hypocrite. Yes, sir. That's a challenge to anybody. And every Christian. . . That goes to this other question. Every Christian should pay tithes. That's right. It should be done" (C.O.D., p. 617:Q436).
Question: Does a Christian not get to heaven because they do not pay tithe?
"I could not say yes or no to that. But I do believe that every Christian is obligated to pay tithings because it is a commandment of the Lord. "And blessed are they that do all His commandments, that they might have a right to enter into the Life, the Tree of Life." Now, I do believe that tithe-paying is essential to a Christian experience" (C.O.D., p. 604:Q136; Revelation 22:14).
Question: Would it be wrong to use tithes on church building funds?
"Well now, here's a touchy little thing for the church now. No, correctly, tithes is to go to the minister. That's right. In the Bible they had a box they'd set at the door in the Old Testament. This box was a fund where the people put in there for the repairing. . . You've read it many times in the Old Testament. They kept up the buildings and things like that. . . All the repairs on the buildings was taken care out of that fund. But all the tithings went to their priests, their pastors. Yes, tithings are to go for nothing else."
"I know people take their tithes and give them to a widow woman. That's wrong. If you've got anything to give the widow woman, give her, but don't give her God's money. That's not yours in the first place. That's God's.
"If you sent me downtown to get a loaf of bread, and you give me twenty-five cents to get the loaf of bread, and I met somebody on the street wanted something else, and I'd give him the twenty-five cents (See?), I give them your money. If they asked me for something, let them get it over here in this pocket and give them my money; but this is your money. And a tenth of it is the Lord's. And Levi the priest could live by the tenth."
"The tenth is to be a tithing that's to be brought into the storehouse with a promise of God to bless it and a proof. He said, "If you don't believe it, come and prove Me and see if I won't do it." See? That's right." "The tithing goes into the church for the pastor and so forth like that to live on. And then the building funds and things like that is a separate fund altogether. Now, that is Scriptural. One time when we get started, I want to take a night. . . I've went here some time ago before I left the tabernacle and taken about two or three weeks and just on subjects like that and went plumb through it and showed what tithings was in the church" (C.O.D., p. 680:Q161).
In Branham Tabernacle there was "a little box on the back where they put their tithes in" (Jehovah Jireh, #56-1209E).
Question: Should a person pay tithes to an individual, or should a Christian work?
"Sure he should. He's the one man that will work, is a Christian. "Pay tithes to an individual?" It depends on who the individual is. See? That's right. In Hebrews the 7th chapter, when Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings met Melchisedec, he paid Him a tithe. That was Melchisedec, the King of Salem, which is King of Peace, and King of Righteousness, which was nobody but God Himself. See?"
"But when you pay tithings. . . Really, where you owe tithings is where you get your food. "Bring ye all your tithings into My storehouse, saith the Lord. (That right?) And prove Me herewith saith God, that if I'll not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that you would not have room enough to receive it." I challenge any man or woman that's not a tithe payer to accept that."
"I could stand here till in the morning, telling you just what happened when I seen that, and what condition I was in. But just as loyal as I ever could, I paid tithes. And when I took my own money from the church here or from my campaigns, I'd take more. . . I'd give a tenth. Then I'd give it out to the ministers, and give the rest of it to ministers. Then when I couldn't do that, then the thing I did, I kept ten percent and give God ninety. And then, when the law told me I couldn't do that, I'd have to take. . . And if I did, it was going to be charged to it, then I had to take and bypass it into foreign missions and so forth, and then just take a wage out of that of a hundred dollars a week; and I pay my tithes from that."
"Yes, sir. I believe in paying tithes. It's one of God's blessings that's proven to be a blessing. You say, "That's of the Old Testament." It is of the New Testament too. Yes, sir" (C.O.D., p. 1034: Q307).
When Brother Branham was in court over the income tax matter his attorney asked: "How do you get your money?"
I said, "What people send me." I'm looking in the face of people right now that sends me tithing continually. I never ask them, they just do it. That's the Holy Spirit. He's able to take care of His own" (The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, p. 17:74).
In Summary, these are Twelve Reasons for Tithing:
1. Tithing is Scriptural—ordered and approved of God in the Old and New Testaments.
2. Tithing teaches the true worshippers of the Lord Jesus Christ to put God and His work first.
3. Tithing teaches us to recognize and acknowledge God's ownership of our lives.
4. Tithing is an act of worship.
5. Tithing gives us more confidence in our prayers to God.
6. Tithing invokes God's blessings upon the tithe-giver.
7. Tithing tends to increase the tithe-giver's ability to give more than just a tenth of his or her income.
8. Tithing allows tithe-givers an opportunity to receive from God His blessings as they give Him their tithes.
9. Tithing creates a commanding position of stewardship in the lives of Christians.
10. Tithing increases the tithe-giver's influence over others to follow his example to practice tithing.
11. Tithing is giving in a systematic manner rather than an emotional or spasmodic giving.
12.Tithing causes the tithe-giver to give freely and spontaneously rather than waiting for an appeal.
Brethren, If we neglect to pay tithes and offerings we are robbing God of His portion and consequently robbing ourselves of His blessing and testifying we are not in His Bride and not in the rapture. We have to ensure we are among God's tenth. Those who are not faithful in tithe paying will have no part in the rapture and translation. The rapture has been in process since Christ opened the Seven Seals in 1963 and revealed them through His prophet—the New Testament Elijah of Malachi 4;5-6 and Matthew 17:11. Thus the translation of the faithful living Saints may be later than you think. Those with the Spirit of God will understand and obey the revealed Word but those who know to do righteousness but refuse it are in iniquity and will suffer the awful curse of God. nl624.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in other countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
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Thursday, March 11, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Whole Creation Groans in Travail - Part V
Bible Believers' Newsletter #623
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660
Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are pleased you could join us in fellowship around God's unchanging Word.
This week we proceed with our study in Zechariah. Please study this carefully along with its linked articles and Scripture references as we endeavour to draw a picture and chronology of end-time events.
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ, Anthony Grigor-Scott
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Defections shake up Climate Coalition
February 17. 2010 — Oil giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday they won't renew their membership in the three-year-old US Climate Action Partnership, a broad business-environmental coalition that had been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping emissions of greenhouse gases.
The move comes as debate over climate change intensifies and concerns mount about the cost of capping greenhouse-gas emissions. . . Full story: wsj.com
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All in the Family
February 5, 2010 — Recent exposes reveal editors, senior journalists, foreign editors and TV correspondents reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for New York Times, Atlantic Journal, US News & World Report, NPR, San Diego Union-Tribune, Associated Press, Time Magazine, CNN, Tikkun and other media organizations are not impartial but Israeli citizens with family members or are themselves serving in the Israeli military, so news reaching the West is not impartial.
"It is common to hear Western reporters boasting to one another about their Zionist credentials, their service in the Israeli army or the loyal service of their children." Apparently, intimate ties to Israel are among the many open secrets in the region that are hidden from the American public. If, as the news media insist, these ties present no problem or even, as the Times Keller insists, enhance the journalists' work, why do the news agencies consistently refuse to admit them?
The reason is not complicated.
While Israel may be family for these journalists and editors, for the vast majority of Americans, Israel is a foreign country. In survey after survey, Americans say they don't wish to "take sides" on this conflict. In other words, the American public wants full, unfiltered, unslanted coverage. Quite likely the news media refuse to answer questions about their journalists' affiliations because they suspect, accurately, that the public would be displeased to learn that the reporters and editors charged with supplying news on a foreign nation and conflict are, in fact, partisans. . . Full story: counterpunch.org
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Targeting the Wrong Kind of Tunnels
February 20, 2010 — At a time when extreme and even unthinkable measures are being taken to completely sever the few remaining passageways of life into Gaza through Rafah's underground tunnels into Egypt, other tunnels of a different kind and a different purpose are being dug elsewhere everyday in broad daylight for all the world to see in occupied East Jerusalem under the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and its surrounding areas . . .
Whereas Gaza's network of underground tunnels that reach the Egyptian side of Rafah are constructed out of despair and absolute necessity by a besieged and cornered population, Jerusalem's underground mining is carried out by—and with the tight guardianship of—the Israeli military; allegedly to unearth historical evidence for the presence of King David in that area when in reality these operations are solely driven by a salivating desire to Judaize the entire city and drastically alter its Palestinian identity. . . no . . . super steel walls and cutting-edge monitoring technologies to try and halt these illegal underground tunnels . . . Full story: palestinethinktank.com
Comment: Zechariah 14:5, "You will escape through the valley of My mountains, which will reach to Azal at the eastern gate: You will flee as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah".
Matthew 24:15-16, "When you see the desolating abomination spoken of by Daniel the prophet, FALL in the holy place, (you know what I mean): then let those in Judaea flee into the mountains" . . . AGAIN.
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HAARP: Artificial Ionosphere creates Bullseye in the Sky
October 2, 2009 — HAARP's high-frequency radio waves can accelerate electrons in the atmosphere, increasing the energy of their collisions and creating a glow. The technique has previously triggered speckles of light while running at a power of almost 1 megawatt1. But since the facility ramped up to 3.6 megawatts—roughly three times more than a typical broadcast radio transmitter—it has created full-scale artificial auroras that are visible to the naked eye. . . The scientists believe that these dense patches of plasma could be gas that was ionized by the HAARP emissions. "This is the really exciting part—we've made a little artificial piece of ionosphere," Pedersen says.
"The novelty is not seeing the aurora—it's the fact that we can actually create enough high-energy electrons to form plasma," says Mike Kosch, chair of Experimental Space Science at Lancaster University, UK, and a former co-worker of Pedersen's who was not involved in the experiment. . . Full story: niburu.nl
Comment: The 8.8 February 27, 2010 earthquake in Chile (see above) was the seventh largest earthquake on record. According to reports our Brethren, their church and homes are unharmed. In this interview a witness reports seeing lights in the sky at the time of the earthquake, which is the signature of HAARP evident at the time of the 8.0 May 12, 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, said to have been induced to explode China's main nuclear arsenal as reported in Newsletter #530, and shown in this commentary.
This map of the South American plates shows the San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that runs along the boundary of the Pacific and North American plates for about 810 miles through California in the United States, and Baja California in Mexico, continuing down the Mexican coast as the boundary between the Cocos and North American plates. Here the North American plate crosses the isthmus bridging North and South America, passing under the island of Hispaniola which straddles the Caribbean and North American plates. Haiti occupies the north-western third of this island. The continental transform fault also continues south between the Nazca plate and the South American plate which it is subducting, causing volcanism, earthquakes and orogenesis. Hence the Chilean earthquake.
According to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation, having moved Earth's figure axis by about 3 inches and shortened the length of days on our planet by 1.26 microseconds.
The US military is now preparing to simulate how it would respond to a big earthquake in Alaska at the end of April.
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The Whole Creation Groans in Travail – Part V
Israel's repentance and conversion foretold in Zechariah 12 – 13 will be realized in Zechariah 14 which describes Daniel's Seventieth Week in "the time of Jacob's trouble"—the consummation of their dreadful trials for rejecting the Holy Spirit and murdering Messiah, their glorious deliverance, and the martyrdom of an election (Jeremiah 30:7; Matthew 27:24-26).
When Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion announced the establishment of the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948, he read Ezekiel 37 which said it will be like dead men's bones. Joel 3:1-2 spoke of the day of the Lord under the Sixth Seal after our dispensation saying, "In those days, and at that time the Lord will gather the children of Judah and Jerusalem . . . and My heritage Israel, whom the heathens have scattered among the [now Muslim] nations of their [Assyrian] captivity," and unite them as one nation in the land of the Covenant by the revelation of the Feast of Trumpets. And after the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week, their elect will realize Zechariah's "Light in the evening time" is the Logos, Jesus Messiah's second or 'parousia' Coming, and be filled with His Spirit (Hosea 6:1-3; Zechariah 14:7).
While the latter or harvest rain falls upon all flesh, and the just and the unjust manifest the life of the seed received into their soul (Daniel 12:10; Matthew 5:45; Hebrews 6:7-8; Revelation 22:11), the elect Israelites will receive their former or teaching rain through the prophets of Zechariah 4 and Revelation 11 ministering in Jerusalem "which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified." Here the folly of British Israel and Christian Identity doctrine is made manifest, for Israel's deliverance or new birth will be found only in Zion (Isaiah 4:3; 59:20-21; Joel 2:32; Obadiah 1:17; Romans 11:26). God deals with Israel as a nation, and consequently only in the land of the Covenant, for any Israelite outside the land is outside the Covenant. The judgment of the heathen nations, with the emphasis on Edomite Jewry, will be a means of delivering elect natural Israel, and the whole nation, all 144,000, will be born-again in one day.
Zechariah 14:1-2 marks the end of the Gentile dispensation and man's day when the Seventh Trumpet, Sixth Seal and Seventh Vial announce the day of the Lord with earthquakes that sink Los Angeles and cleave the mount of Olives. Then "the Lord will gather all the nations to war against Jerusalem (Joel 2:1-27; 3:2; Isaiah 13:6), which will be captured, its houses rifled and their spoil casually divided within the city. The women will be raped (Isaiah 13:16) and half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city".
Israel is a type of the United States, which will be invaded and conquered under the same circumstances and at the same time. "Because you have listened to such stuff as these television programs on rock-and-roll and sin, and some cold formal preacher not able to interpret the supernatural. The handwriting is on the wall. That's right. And we are weighed in the balance and found wanting. . . The Bible says it will happen" (William Branham, Handwriting on the Wall, p. 11:84-90).
Isaiah 13 describes the opening of the Sixth Seal at the end of our dispensation with a prophecy against the nations and a denunciation of judgment against MYSTERY Babylon (when the union between the spiritual and physical Serpent's seed disintegrates – Daniel 2:40-45). It is a compound prophecy. As the Medes and the nations of Persia and Armenia ended Judah's captivity under the first Gentile world empire by defeating ancient Babylon in man's day, in the day of the Lord He will assemble the modern "Medes" and all of the nations to execute judgment upon Judah's present-day captors as prophesied in Ezekiel 38 and 39 where Magog represents Russia, which sprung from intermarriage between Scythians and Medes. God will execute His fierce anger upon the arrogant non-Semitic, anti-Semitic self-styled Jews who are foreigners to Israel, bound neither by ties of piety nor possession and who will "flee like scared gazelles or a panic-stricken herd, every man to his own people, and flee every one into his own land" (Isaiah 13:14-17; Jeremiah 46:16; 50:16). As Brother Branham often sang:
The fig tree is growing, Jerusalem's restoring,
Her national life, long dethroned;
Today she is calling
Her latter rain's falling,
Return, O dispersed to your own.
Following the earthquake, Mount Moriah, bare of temple and mosque, will be a signal whereby the Lord beckons and calls to these "Medes," His "sanctified ones with the kingdoms of the nations He has mustered together to enter the gates of [Zion's] tyrants and execute His judgment" (1-5; Joel 2:1-11; Zephaniah 1:14-18). It will also signal the believing exiles of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, and Israel's ten tribes, to return to the land of the Covenant for their redemption (Matthew 24:3, 29-34). "The day of the Lord comes as a destruction from the Almighty. . . cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to make earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners out of it." As with the shock attack at Belshazzar's feast, men's hearts will fail as volcanoes and quakes "shake the heavens, turning the Moon into blood when Earth moves from its axis, darkening the Sun and extinguishing the stars; and for fear of [tidal waves, the great tribulation, biological and atomic warfare] prophesied to come upon earth" (7-10; Zechariah 14:12; Luke 21:25-28; Hebrews 12:25-29). Three and a half years later "All kindreds of the earth shall wail," when in hindsight they recognize this was Christ's second or 'parousia' Coming to Israel (Revelation 1:7).
In parallel with Zechariah 14, Isaiah 13 is prophesying the opening terrors of the Sixth Seal with the earthquakes of verse 13; 2:10-21; 29:6; 34:4; Joel 2:10-11; Haggai 2:6; Revelation 6:12; 8:5; 11:19, and 16:18-19. "I will stir up the Medes, who neither care for silver nor desire gold" and will be impelled by higher motives. The Lord will "raise up the spirit of the kings of the Medes as His device against the [violent last Gentile world empire] of [Judaeo-Catholic MYSTERY] Babylon," striking the earthquake-smitten belligerent terrorist twins, Israel and the united States of America, "to destroy [them all]; for that is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for His temple"—not the temple razed by Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, but His millennium temple of 144,000 elect Israelites (Jeremiah 51:11; Isaiah 61:2; Luke 21:20-22). Under the real holocausts of Lenin and Stalin, those Judaeo-Communist golems of 'the City of London,' scores of millions of Christians were mercilessly slaughtered and 'false flag' massacres, assassinations and coups d'etat executed worldwide. Today sycophants of 'the City' are massacring millions of innocent Muslims to loot natural resources and realize the insane, unscriptural nightmare of a "greater Israel," eliminating genuine Israelites and encircling Judaeo-Communist Russia with military garrisons in the process. When this earthquake demolishes the Dome of the Rock the natural Medes will have a religious impulse, and their political offspring Russia, a strategic purpose to attack.
The Prophet said Russia covets Israel's vast mineral wealth whose estimated total value is four times that of the United States. "The Red Sea and all these things they're putting out the materials that's there [owned by Rothschild], the Jews, real rich, then that same thing [the abomination of Rome's heathen worship forcing her mark of the beast] will pollute their camp again (Ezekiel 7:20-22; 39:7; Daniel 11:30-39; 12:7, 13-14; Revelation 13:15-18). Yeah. [Again in the second half of the Seventieth Week . . .] They'll come right down, the cities of the world. Russia will come down, say, "We just got to have that stuff. That's uranium and everything down there; we got to go get it." And as they go down, then will be the battle of Armageddon. That'll be when God will stand like He did in the valley [of Jehoshaphat] for the children of Israel and fight again" (C.O.D., p. 77:111).
The Lord's Temple is Spiritual Israel—an election of Christians, and our 144,000 Israelite servants (living mainly in the Muslim lands of the ancient Assyrian empire) who will become the Temple of Christ and His Bride in the millennium. For this reason the Luciferian 'City of London' and Rothschild's fiefdom puppet state of non-Semitic modern Israel regard Christianity and Islam as "the enemy" (Genesis 3:15; 27:39-41).
"I will punish the whole world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will put an end to the arrogance of the proud and will lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless. Few will live when I have finished My work. I will make men scarcer than fine gold, and mankind rarer than the gold of Ophir" (11-12; 2:10 – 6:13; Malachi 4:1). Truth and righteousness are so scarce today, particularly among our degenerate, dysfunctional national and world leaders, that when the wicked are destroyed the martyred remnant will be as scarce, pure and precious as fine gold in comparison: just 144,000 souls in a world of billions.
Rome, the Black Nobility and the banksters of 'the City of London' all seek control of Jerusalem whence the pope will rule Lucifer's totalitarian one world government through the covenant of Daniel 9:27 and an impersonation of Bible Prophecy. Do you see why the USA is under submission to Israel? It is because, like Britain, she remains a colony of the Jews' City of London and will be in alliance with the Roman world church system. Even now "they are gathering the kings of the earth and of the whole world to Armageddon" (Revelation 16:13-16), and following a brief World War II in which Israel and the USA will be invaded by Russia and the Muslim nations, they will unite the religions and the nations under one world government, ostensibly to restore peace and restrain Judaeo-Communism. The heavenly sanctuary being cleansed by the casting out of Satan and the Seventh Vial having been poured out to separate the foolish virgin from the hypocrites (Revelation 12:7-12; 15:5-8; 16:17; 11:19), the Jews' daily sacrifice will be restored on mount Moriah and the abomination of a new temple "made with hands" will desolate the holy place (Isaiah 14; Daniel 8:23-25; Acts 7:48; II Thessalonians 2; Revelation 13:8).
Zechariah 12:2 states, "I will make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to the surrounding nations when they are in the siege against Judah and against Jerusalem" (Isaiah 29:9). This attack at the start of Daniel's Seventieth Week will activate the covenant between a revived Judaeo-Roman empire, the Black Nobility and Jewish plutocracy (Daniel 9:27; Revelation 17:12-14). The Lord will make a way of escape for His elect as He did in the days of Uzziah (Zechariah 14:5), and Lucifer will restore peace under Roman one world government (Revelation 13:4). Zechariah 14:3, "The Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as in His day of battle, in the day of conflict" when He fought for Israel against the Egyptians at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:14; 15:3). And as He then made a way through the divided sea, so now will He cleave in two "the Mount of Olives" to provide a way of escape for those not taken into captivity.
Zechariah 14:4-7, "In that day His feet will stand on the mount of Olives to the east of Jerusalem [asserting dominion and subjection in claiming His possession (Deuteronomy 11:24; Psalm 8:6; Daniel 12:1; I Corinthians 15:27; Revelation 10:1-2)], and the mount of Olives will cleave in the middle, forming a very wide valley running eastward and westward; half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half toward the south. You will escape through the valley of My mountains, which will reach up to Azal" by the eastern or St. Stephen's gate so as to enable the citizens to flee by this new passage immediately on leaving Jerusalem, and the same divinely sent earthquake that opens out a way of escape to the Hebrews will swallow up the foe as in the crossing of the Red Sea.
Brother Branham explained, this broad valley is not created by the earthquake but by the new fifteen hundred mile high mount Zion beginning to push up from beneath thrusting these new mountains apart. He was speaking metaphorically, for this new pyramid mountain will not rise until after the millennium and White Throne Judgment when heavens and earth are renewed. However, as Christ's Bride of all Ages is the Lord's Mountain Kingdom, when the earthquakes sink Los Angeles and cleave the mount of Olives, our part of mount Zion will begin to push up from beneath as our sleeping Brethren raise up out of the earth (I Corinthians 15:42-57). The earthquake of Zechariah 14:4-5, Isaiah 29:6 and Revelation 16:19 says that after three days the Mount Zion rapture will commence. Three and a half years later the 144,000 will recognize the "Rock of offence" God lay in Zion is the Capstone which the builders disallowed, as indicated by its want on Enoch's the Bible in Stone (Isaiah 8:13-14; I Peter 2:6-8).
Zechariah 4:7, "Who are you, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel [a type of Christ and lineal descendant of David who restored the first temple] you will become a plain (Isaiah 2:2; Daniel 2:35; Zechariah 14:10): and Christ shall bring forth the Capstone [completing the redemption of the last Temple] with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it." When Israel recognize the 'parousia' Coming of their rejected King they will see the Capstone fulfilled in His Queen, and themselves as their Royal millennium Temple.
Isaiah 2:1-5, "The Word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the last days, that the Mountain of the Lord's House shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and be raised above the hills, to which all nations shall stream. And many peoples shall go and exhort, Come! and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us concerning His ways, and we will walk in His paths. For instruction in Truth [which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Isaiah 42:1-4, 21)] sought by the nations [or innumerable offspring of Abraham's Royal Seed (Isaiah 53:10; 65:23) promised in Genesis 22:15-18: Spiritual Israel, the Gentile Church (Daniel 7:10; Revelation 7:9-17). The Gospel of Truth] shall go forth out of Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). And He shall judge between the nations (Matthew 25:31-32) and decide for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O House [descended from Abraham, Isaac and] Jacob, come, let us walk in the Light of the Lord" (Micah 4).
Isaiah, Daniel and Zechariah describe the same "Mountain Kingdom" which grows by faith in Christ's Bride of all Ages—"the many peoples" whose testimony passes His Life through the Body to God's elect; and which, after our Homecoming will enter the heart of an election from "the House of Jacob," our millennium Temple. In the renewed heavens and renewed earth One God will be manifest in the glorified Jesus Christ and His Bride as one City on one Mountain which alone will be exalted. "The haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day" (Isaiah 2:12-17) manifest in the flesh of His glorified Family. Millennial "realization" must be forerun by "revelation" manifest in the lives of His saints (Acts 3:19-28).
Zechariah 14:7-11 telescopes the "revelation" to the physical "realization" of the millennium and the renewed heavens and earth (Isaiah 66:8; Zechariah 3:9-10). "It will be one day known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but at evening time it shall be Light. In that day, living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the Dead Sea, and half of them to the Mediterranean Sea continuously in summer and in winter. And the Lord will be King over all the earth. In that day shall there be One Lord, and His Name alone will be worshipped. And [relative to the fifteen hundred mile high mountain] all the land shall become like a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain elevated, from Benjamin's gate to the place of the first gate, then to the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel to the king's winepresses. And it shall be inhabited, for it will no longer be placed under a curse, Jerusalem shall dwell in security".
"You will flee as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord My God shall come, and all the saints with You." Once again we need to separate "revelation" from physical "realization." To the elect Israelites this speaks of their "revelation" of the 'parousia' Coming of "the Lord their God," Jesus Christ, attended by His Gentile Wife and the Old Testament saints. This "revelation" of the resurrected Messiah and His resurrected Queen returning with the resurrected Old Testament saints will cause the nation of 144,000 elect Israelites to be born in one day (Isaiah 66:8). However its physical "realization" will not take place until the millennium.
From our prospect as Christ's end-time Bride this speaks of our much earlier "revelation" of His 'parousia' Coming with the theophanies of the Church Age saints physically "realized" in the first resurrection of I Thessalonians 4:17. "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we can also believe that when Jesus returns God will bring back with Him those who have fallen asleep . . . For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with the shout [of Brother Branham's end-time Message], with the voice of the Archangel [Christ in the heart of His Bride placing the Message from Genesis to Revelation], and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord".
Thus the following Scriptures confirm that the earthquake of Zechariah 14:4-5, Isaiah 29:6 and Revelation 16:19 that cleaves the mount of Olives in Israel will be coincident with the earthquake that sinks Los Angeles beneath the Pacific (Revelation 6:12; 16:18-20 and 18:21-24).
Zechariah, Daniel 7:9-10 and Matthew 25:31-30 all telescope the "revelation" of Christ's 'parousia' Coming to Israel with His glorified physical "realization" in the millennium and the White Throne Judgment to follow after a thousand years, while Revelation 19:1-15 telescopes Israel's "revelation" of Christ's 'parousia' Coming with Armageddon.
Matthew 25:31-32 "When the Son of man comes in His glory with all the holy angels [the glorified saints of all Ages], He will sit on the throne of His glory [on this earth, as heaven is God's throne (Isaiah 66:1; Revelation 3:21)]: all nations will be gathered before Him: and He will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats"
Zechariah 14:6-7, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be a unique day which shall be known only to the Lord (Matthew 24:36; Acts 1:6-7), not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be Light".
In Laodicea the Gentile world became lukewarm "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God: having a form of godliness but denying His inherent power" (II Timothy 3 – 4). And as Israel apostatised when she rejected Christ's physical Coming, Laodicea apostatised when the evening Light of His second or 'parousia' Coming (Revelation 3:20) was obscured by the ambivalent gloom of man-made creed and tradition and Satan seduced worship from Logos to reason in the church. The following Scriptures describe the natural phenomena associated with the opening of the Sixth Seal when Israel's Seventh Trumpet announces Christ's 'parousia' return to Israel and calls the physical resurrection.
Isaiah 13:9-14; 34:1-8 and 63:1-6 speak of separating Edomite Jews from Israelites returning to the land of their Covenant. And Joel 2:10, 31; 3:15; Matthew 24:29-31; Mark 8:38 and Revelation 6:12-14 depict the convulsions of nature that will induce their exit and confirm that the earthquake of Zechariah 14:4-5 is coincident with that which will sink Los Angeles (Revelation 6:12; 18:21-24). Revelation 16:18-20, "The outpouring of the Seventh Vial will be followed by voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so extensive and severe [it will sink the Jews' Los Angeles and Hollywood, "whose sorceries deceived all nations," when a 1,500 x 300-400 segment of earth's crust falls beneath the ocean]. The great city of Jerusalem will be split into three parts; cities throughout the world will collapse in heaps of rubble, and [Rome, MYSTERY] Babylon the great will come in remembrance before God, to make her drink the cup of His furious wrath. Islands will vanish, and mountains flatten out." Once again we see the Sixth Seal is telescoped to the renewed earth.
With respect to Daniel 12:1, Brother Branham said: "It is in the midst of a time of great trouble that Jesus comes. And with His Coming there is a resurrection. Many are to come forth out of the dust and rise with those who are alive but waiting for His return. And these will be given crowns. Why? Because they are Sons of God. They are kings with Him. They are reigning with Him. That is what the crown signifies—reigning and ruling with the Great King, Himself. That is the promise to all those who suffer with Him here on earth—all those who endured patiently knowing that God, the Just Judge would reward them. They who gave up all for Him and committed all to Him will sit down in His throne and share in His glorious kingdom" (An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages, p. 315:2).
As indicated by the sign of His 'parousia' Coming to Israel (Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 24:29-30), "Michael will stand up" or commence His reign (Daniel 11:2-3) when the day of the Lord begins and He casts Satan and his angels down to earth (Revelation 12:7-13). After the siege of Jerusalem at the start of Daniel's Seventieth Week, "The Lord will go forth and fight against those nations," however Israel will not recognize this sign until the beast having ruled forty-two months, "makes war with the saints" and "thy people" are born-again (Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 11:45; 12:5-8; Revelation 13:5). Thereafter they will be martyred and enter the first resurrection to return with the saints of all Ages for the millennium (Malachi 4:1-3), while the rest of the dead will be sleep until the second or general resurrection (Daniel 12:2).
This Cloud over mount Zion signifying Christ's second or 'parousia' Coming (Daniel 21:1; Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 24:30) will be the countersign to the Cloud of glory over Sunset mountain, Arizona, on February 28, 1963. His precious feet will not touch this earth until He returns with the glorified saints of all Ages to step out on the atomic ashes of the wicked for a thousand years of peace (Malachi 4:1-3; Matthew 3:12; Revelation 19:20; 20:5). Its important significance will be unrecognized until after the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week, as the significance of our Cloud was not recognized for some years. For Israel this will fulfill the prophecy of Acts 1:10-12:
"Jesus was taken up into a Cloud of glory that carried Him from their view. And as they strained their eyes for a further glimpse of their Lord, suddenly two men in white apparel stood by them, and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come again in the same manner in which you have seen Him go into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem, which is a sabbath day's walk from the mount of Olives".
Jesus appeared many times in the visions of Ezekiel 1 – 11 in which the Lord anathematized Israel's idolatry and Levitical uncleanliness, foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem and its people. Ezekiel 5 – 9 prophesied the siege of Titus and Judea's dispersion among the Gentiles, which Jesus affirmed on the mount of Olives before His crucifixion (Matthew 24:3). In Ezekiel 9 the prophet saw Jesus Christ, Israel's Messenger of mercy become her Messenger of judgment after "He came to His own nation, and His own received Him not" (John 1:11). Israel's Mercy Seat became her Judgment seat, the priesthood was no longer her mediator with God but her executioner, and Christ, clothed in white linen, was seen as High Priest and Mediator for the PART-Word Church sealing the saints before Titus besieged the city. In Ezekiel 10:2 Christ was told to, "Go in between the whirling wheels beneath the cherub and take a handful of blazing coals, and scatter them over the city," signifying God's judgment to be exacted on Jerusalem wherein the people ate bark from the trees and even their own children. And when the armies of Titus finally entered the through the treachery of Edomite Jews, the city with its temple were leveled with the ground and its citizens scattered to "the four winds," of war and strife for two thousand years under Seven Trumpets of judgment.
Even before Nebuchadnezzar razed the Temple, Ezekiel saw "The cherubim lift up their wings and rise into the air with their wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel stood above them. Abandoning the Temple as His abode, the Shekinah went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mount of Olives East of the city" (Ezekiel 10:18-19; 11:22-23). The abandonment of the Temple was the abandonment of the city also (Hosea 5:15; Matthew 23:38-39), and a prophecy of Christ who is the glory of God turning from Israel to the Gentiles. The rainbow of grace and mercy seen in Ezekiel 1:28 was absent, for the six men with slaughtering weapons were commanded to "smite without mercy or pity all Judeans not baptized into Christ: slay old men, young men and maidens, children and women alike, but do not approach anyone who is sealed. Begin at My sanctuary. So they began with the old men who were in the Temple. And Christ said, Defile the Temple and fill its courts with the slain. Go out, and slay in the city. . . The guilt of the house of Israel and of Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of injustice".
I see no Biblical evidence regarding any Shekinah glory present in either the Temple of Zerubbabel or Herod since the sacred fire lit by God, Ark of the Covenant and the Urim and Thummim had been destroyed in the first Temple. The absence of the Shekinah in the Temples of Zerubbabel or Herod is established by Ezekiel 43:2-4 which signifies the Presence taking residence in each of the elect Israelites as it has entered each Christian temple.
In these visions the Lord foretold the initiation of 2,000 years of vengeance upon apostate Israel (Luke 21:20), and His return in mercy to an election of 144,000 blood Israelites—not so-called Jews—when retribution is ended. Once they are sealed into the Kingdom God will destroy the sinners. The ungodly character of Israel at their rejection of Messiah's first Coming is seen today in the apostate churches, politicians, businessmen, institutions and the Gentile world generally since its rejection of His second Coming.
Judah's servitude, captivity and desolations, and Nebuchadnezzar's razing of God's Temple and Jerusalem were a warning and foretaste of "seven times more" chastisement Israel would receive under 2,000 years of Roman domination owing to its wicked recalcitrance foretold in Daniel 9. The departure of the symbol of God's Presence from the Temple preparatory to the destruction of the city was foretold by Moses, "This people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land among whom they are about to come, and will forsake Me, breaking the Covenant I have made with them. My anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them, and they will be devastated; and calamities and troubles will befall them. In that day they will cry out and say, Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us? But at that time I will withdraw My face from them because of the sins they have committed in turning to other gods" (Deuteronomy 31:16-18; Hosea 9:12).
This is precisely what has happened to the Gentile churches at the end of the Laodicean Church Age when the sevenfold Spirit of the Lord left earth and returned before the throne of God (Revelation 4:5). Christ's mediation for the ignorance of PART-Word was fulfilled, and the Blood removed from the Mercy Seat; Christ claimed the Book of Redemption, loosed its Seven Seals (Revelation 5:1-7; 6; 8:1) and returned to earth, placing judgment on Rome, the beast from the sea, and on her (once) Protestant image, the US beast from the earth. He revealed the mysteries of the Seven Thunders which are the revelations contained in the Seven Seals to the seventh angel (Revelation 10:1-7) whose Message is the "shout" of I Thessalonians 4:16, which is the "midnight cry" of Matthew 25:6 calling the wise and foolish virgin out of MYSTERY Babylon the great to be filled with the Spirit (Revelation 18:4).
After Brother Branham had addressed a Full Gospel Business Men's breakfast in California on February 11, 1961 a Baptist Brother said, "That sermon could be put into the Book of Revelation. I want to pray for you, Brother Branham." He threw his arms around the Prophet and began to speaking in tongues. When he had spoken a Frenchman from Louisiana said, that wasn't an unknown tongue, it was French. And a woman from Lausanne, Switzerland, followed by a young man who was an interpreter with the UN came forward with the translation:
"Because thou hast chosen the narrow path, the harder way, thou hast walked in your own choosing. Thou hast picked the correct and precise decision and it is My way. Because of this momentous decision, a huge portion of Heaven awaits thee. What a glorious decision thou hast made! This in itself is what will give and make come to pass the tremendous victory in the love divine".
Heaven consists of the Word or Logos, not PART-Word. Revelation 19 depicts Jesus coming to Armageddon to judge and make war. He is crowned with many crowns, His garments are dipped in blood, and His Name is called The Word of God, or Logos. With Him is the vindicated Word of His resurrected saints. The prophecy matches God's Commission and promise to Brother Branham on August 7, 1957, which was Joshua 1:5-7:
"No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with you: I will not fail you, nor forsake you. Be strong and of a good courage: for you will divide the land for an inheritance to this people, which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, to observe the whole Law, which Moses My servant commanded you: do not depart from it to the right hand or to the left so that you may prosper wherever you go".
Brother Branham's sermons are in the beloved Book of Revelation sealed under Old Testament symbols. The spoken Word of his Message revealed the mysteries of the Seven Thunders Daniel and John were told to "seal up unto the time of the end" (Daniel 12:4, 9; Revelation 10:4). They are the revelations contained in the unwritten Seventh Seal that unfolds the six written Seals, "finishing the mystery of God" and revealing the fullness of the Word as prophesied in I Corinthians 13:10. They brought Christ back to earth as the Logos or (W_O_R_D) form. His Message is that "huge portion of Heaven . . . [which] . . . in itself is what will give and make come to pass the tremendous victory in the love divine" as without the Capstone Bride the PART-Word saints of the Church Ages cannot be raised and glorified (Hebrews 11:39-40). The "tremendous victory in Divine Love" engraved in the Capstone is faith's victory of eternal Life over death (Matthew 12:20; I Corinthians 15:16-26; 54-56).
Like Joshua, Brother Branham put God's Word first, and as Joshua divided the Land for an inheritance to the people under the Old Covenant, he defined the inheritance of the saints under the New Covenant to show us, Christ's end-time Bride, what parts of the Word were fulfilled in the Church Ages, and that all seven Church Ages are fulfilled, so we will not err by impersonating the Word for a day gone by, but recognize our day and its Message, become written epistles of our part of the Word and enter our place in the Body.
As stated, Christ's Mediation was fulfilled when the last saint predestinated to the PART-Word division of the Body was born-again in Laodicea, then redemption was over. In Revelation 5 the elders advertised for a Kinsman Redeemer and the bleeding bloody Lamb advanced from the altar of sacrifice where His body had lain as a memorial, took the title deed to redemption and became the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Before Him were the elders with "golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints".
Revelation 8:3-5 is in parenthesis explaining what takes place during the Silence in Heaven the Space of Half an Hour following the opening of the Seventh Seal. "And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and a vast quantity of incense was given to him to mingle with the prayers of all saints [for we are one Body] upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand".
This "vast quantity of incense," the Prophet is mingling with the prayers or revelations of all saints is "the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him, to show to His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and Jesus sent and signified it by His angel [William Branham] to His servant John" (Revelation 1:1; 3:14; 10:7; 14:8; 22:6, 9-10, etc). It is the "huge portion of Heaven . . . [which] . . . in itself is what will give and make come to pass the tremendous victory in the love divine." A combination of incense with the prayers (or revelation) indicates Divine acceptance. Added to the faith of all saints it presents a perfect and acceptable offering "in the unity of the faith".
Then "the angel took the censor, and filled it with fire of the altar (as prophesied of Christ in Ezekiel 10:2, 7 following His crucifixion), and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake." These coals from the altar of incense in the heavenly Sanctuary had sanctified and offered back to God the revelation of His Word made flesh in the Bride of each age. When the last saint predestinated to Christ's end-time Bride has taken his place in the Body, the evening service of the Pentecostal feast will have ended, and the cinders will be cast down to earth with Satan and his angels, cleansing the heavenly Sanctuary of their dross and marking the close of the Gentile dispensation with judgment smiting the earth (Malachi 4:6; Matthew 3:12). The Alaskan earthquake on Good Friday 1964 was a token of what will take place at the Seventh Trump of Revelation 11:15-19, the Sixth Seal, the Third Woe and the Seventh Vial.
Zechariah 14:4-7 foretold how, under the Sixth Seal an election of Israelites will flee eastward through the valley of God's mountains, escaping their enemies. And later in Daniel's Seventieth week, Revelation 7, which is a parenthesis under the Sixth Seal, records the sealing of the 144,000 elect Israelites upon their revelation of Christ's parousia and the sign of the Cloud returning from the East three and a half years previously.
Ezekiel 43:1-2 and 7 also describes the Presence returning from the East as foretold to the disciples by the two Hebrew witnesses anointed with the Spirit that endued Moses and Elijah (Acts 1:10-11). Once "the Holy Place, and the Altar of Incense, and they who worship therein" are measured (Ezekiel 40:3; Revelation 11:1), the 144,000 who will comprise the millennium temple will all have been hewn from the world and gathered by the feast of the Trumpet mysteries as Solomon's temple "was built of stones finished in the quarry: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was being built" (I Kings 6:7). Thus the millennium temple will complete and finished as an actual house for the Lord, signifying Israel's two witnesses "shall have finished their testimony" (Revelation 11:7).
Ezekiel is taken back to the East gate that He may see the return of the glory of the God of Israel to take His rest in the millennial Temple by the new birth of the 144,000. "And I beheld the glory of the God of Israel come from the east: and the sound of His Coming was like the sound of many waters: and the earth shone with His glory. And He said to me, Son of man, this is the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and the house of Israel shall no more defile My holy Name, neither they, nor their kings, by their idolatry, nor by the idolatrous adulation and adoration of them and their religious edicts".
God from the first claimed to be Israel's King politically as well as religiously: He had resisted their wish to have a human king, as implying a rejection of Him as the proper Head of the state. Even when He yielded to their wish, it was with a protest against their king ruling except as His vicegerent. When Messiah reigns at Jerusalem, He will then first realize the original idea of the theocracy, with its at once divine and human king reigning in righteousness over a people all righteous (Ezekiel 43:12; Isaiah 52:1; 54:13; Zechariah 14:20-21; Revelation 21:27; 22:15).
When Israel is born-again in one day, "they will sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb [to Jesus Messiah], Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Your ways, You King of saints. Who shall not reverence You, O Lord, and glorify Your Name? for You alone are holy: for all nations shall come and worship before You; for the justification of Your judgments upon Israel is made manifest" (Revelation 15:3-4). nl623.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in other countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
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"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660
Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are pleased you could join us in fellowship around God's unchanging Word.
This week we proceed with our study in Zechariah. Please study this carefully along with its linked articles and Scripture references as we endeavour to draw a picture and chronology of end-time events.
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ, Anthony Grigor-Scott
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Defections shake up Climate Coalition
February 17. 2010 — Oil giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday they won't renew their membership in the three-year-old US Climate Action Partnership, a broad business-environmental coalition that had been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping emissions of greenhouse gases.
The move comes as debate over climate change intensifies and concerns mount about the cost of capping greenhouse-gas emissions. . . Full story: wsj.com
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All in the Family
February 5, 2010 — Recent exposes reveal editors, senior journalists, foreign editors and TV correspondents reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for New York Times, Atlantic Journal, US News & World Report, NPR, San Diego Union-Tribune, Associated Press, Time Magazine, CNN, Tikkun and other media organizations are not impartial but Israeli citizens with family members or are themselves serving in the Israeli military, so news reaching the West is not impartial.
"It is common to hear Western reporters boasting to one another about their Zionist credentials, their service in the Israeli army or the loyal service of their children." Apparently, intimate ties to Israel are among the many open secrets in the region that are hidden from the American public. If, as the news media insist, these ties present no problem or even, as the Times Keller insists, enhance the journalists' work, why do the news agencies consistently refuse to admit them?
The reason is not complicated.
While Israel may be family for these journalists and editors, for the vast majority of Americans, Israel is a foreign country. In survey after survey, Americans say they don't wish to "take sides" on this conflict. In other words, the American public wants full, unfiltered, unslanted coverage. Quite likely the news media refuse to answer questions about their journalists' affiliations because they suspect, accurately, that the public would be displeased to learn that the reporters and editors charged with supplying news on a foreign nation and conflict are, in fact, partisans. . . Full story: counterpunch.org
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Targeting the Wrong Kind of Tunnels
February 20, 2010 — At a time when extreme and even unthinkable measures are being taken to completely sever the few remaining passageways of life into Gaza through Rafah's underground tunnels into Egypt, other tunnels of a different kind and a different purpose are being dug elsewhere everyday in broad daylight for all the world to see in occupied East Jerusalem under the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and its surrounding areas . . .
Whereas Gaza's network of underground tunnels that reach the Egyptian side of Rafah are constructed out of despair and absolute necessity by a besieged and cornered population, Jerusalem's underground mining is carried out by—and with the tight guardianship of—the Israeli military; allegedly to unearth historical evidence for the presence of King David in that area when in reality these operations are solely driven by a salivating desire to Judaize the entire city and drastically alter its Palestinian identity. . . no . . . super steel walls and cutting-edge monitoring technologies to try and halt these illegal underground tunnels . . . Full story: palestinethinktank.com
Comment: Zechariah 14:5, "You will escape through the valley of My mountains, which will reach to Azal at the eastern gate: You will flee as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah".
Matthew 24:15-16, "When you see the desolating abomination spoken of by Daniel the prophet, FALL in the holy place, (you know what I mean): then let those in Judaea flee into the mountains" . . . AGAIN.
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HAARP: Artificial Ionosphere creates Bullseye in the Sky
October 2, 2009 — HAARP's high-frequency radio waves can accelerate electrons in the atmosphere, increasing the energy of their collisions and creating a glow. The technique has previously triggered speckles of light while running at a power of almost 1 megawatt1. But since the facility ramped up to 3.6 megawatts—roughly three times more than a typical broadcast radio transmitter—it has created full-scale artificial auroras that are visible to the naked eye. . . The scientists believe that these dense patches of plasma could be gas that was ionized by the HAARP emissions. "This is the really exciting part—we've made a little artificial piece of ionosphere," Pedersen says.
"The novelty is not seeing the aurora—it's the fact that we can actually create enough high-energy electrons to form plasma," says Mike Kosch, chair of Experimental Space Science at Lancaster University, UK, and a former co-worker of Pedersen's who was not involved in the experiment. . . Full story: niburu.nl
Comment: The 8.8 February 27, 2010 earthquake in Chile (see above) was the seventh largest earthquake on record. According to reports our Brethren, their church and homes are unharmed. In this interview a witness reports seeing lights in the sky at the time of the earthquake, which is the signature of HAARP evident at the time of the 8.0 May 12, 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, said to have been induced to explode China's main nuclear arsenal as reported in Newsletter #530, and shown in this commentary.
This map of the South American plates shows the San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that runs along the boundary of the Pacific and North American plates for about 810 miles through California in the United States, and Baja California in Mexico, continuing down the Mexican coast as the boundary between the Cocos and North American plates. Here the North American plate crosses the isthmus bridging North and South America, passing under the island of Hispaniola which straddles the Caribbean and North American plates. Haiti occupies the north-western third of this island. The continental transform fault also continues south between the Nazca plate and the South American plate which it is subducting, causing volcanism, earthquakes and orogenesis. Hence the Chilean earthquake.
According to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation, having moved Earth's figure axis by about 3 inches and shortened the length of days on our planet by 1.26 microseconds.
The US military is now preparing to simulate how it would respond to a big earthquake in Alaska at the end of April.
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The Whole Creation Groans in Travail – Part V
Israel's repentance and conversion foretold in Zechariah 12 – 13 will be realized in Zechariah 14 which describes Daniel's Seventieth Week in "the time of Jacob's trouble"—the consummation of their dreadful trials for rejecting the Holy Spirit and murdering Messiah, their glorious deliverance, and the martyrdom of an election (Jeremiah 30:7; Matthew 27:24-26).
When Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion announced the establishment of the modern state of Israel on May 14, 1948, he read Ezekiel 37 which said it will be like dead men's bones. Joel 3:1-2 spoke of the day of the Lord under the Sixth Seal after our dispensation saying, "In those days, and at that time the Lord will gather the children of Judah and Jerusalem . . . and My heritage Israel, whom the heathens have scattered among the [now Muslim] nations of their [Assyrian] captivity," and unite them as one nation in the land of the Covenant by the revelation of the Feast of Trumpets. And after the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week, their elect will realize Zechariah's "Light in the evening time" is the Logos, Jesus Messiah's second or 'parousia' Coming, and be filled with His Spirit (Hosea 6:1-3; Zechariah 14:7).
While the latter or harvest rain falls upon all flesh, and the just and the unjust manifest the life of the seed received into their soul (Daniel 12:10; Matthew 5:45; Hebrews 6:7-8; Revelation 22:11), the elect Israelites will receive their former or teaching rain through the prophets of Zechariah 4 and Revelation 11 ministering in Jerusalem "which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified." Here the folly of British Israel and Christian Identity doctrine is made manifest, for Israel's deliverance or new birth will be found only in Zion (Isaiah 4:3; 59:20-21; Joel 2:32; Obadiah 1:17; Romans 11:26). God deals with Israel as a nation, and consequently only in the land of the Covenant, for any Israelite outside the land is outside the Covenant. The judgment of the heathen nations, with the emphasis on Edomite Jewry, will be a means of delivering elect natural Israel, and the whole nation, all 144,000, will be born-again in one day.
Zechariah 14:1-2 marks the end of the Gentile dispensation and man's day when the Seventh Trumpet, Sixth Seal and Seventh Vial announce the day of the Lord with earthquakes that sink Los Angeles and cleave the mount of Olives. Then "the Lord will gather all the nations to war against Jerusalem (Joel 2:1-27; 3:2; Isaiah 13:6), which will be captured, its houses rifled and their spoil casually divided within the city. The women will be raped (Isaiah 13:16) and half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city".
Israel is a type of the United States, which will be invaded and conquered under the same circumstances and at the same time. "Because you have listened to such stuff as these television programs on rock-and-roll and sin, and some cold formal preacher not able to interpret the supernatural. The handwriting is on the wall. That's right. And we are weighed in the balance and found wanting. . . The Bible says it will happen" (William Branham, Handwriting on the Wall, p. 11:84-90).
Isaiah 13 describes the opening of the Sixth Seal at the end of our dispensation with a prophecy against the nations and a denunciation of judgment against MYSTERY Babylon (when the union between the spiritual and physical Serpent's seed disintegrates – Daniel 2:40-45). It is a compound prophecy. As the Medes and the nations of Persia and Armenia ended Judah's captivity under the first Gentile world empire by defeating ancient Babylon in man's day, in the day of the Lord He will assemble the modern "Medes" and all of the nations to execute judgment upon Judah's present-day captors as prophesied in Ezekiel 38 and 39 where Magog represents Russia, which sprung from intermarriage between Scythians and Medes. God will execute His fierce anger upon the arrogant non-Semitic, anti-Semitic self-styled Jews who are foreigners to Israel, bound neither by ties of piety nor possession and who will "flee like scared gazelles or a panic-stricken herd, every man to his own people, and flee every one into his own land" (Isaiah 13:14-17; Jeremiah 46:16; 50:16). As Brother Branham often sang:
The fig tree is growing, Jerusalem's restoring,
Her national life, long dethroned;
Today she is calling
Her latter rain's falling,
Return, O dispersed to your own.
Following the earthquake, Mount Moriah, bare of temple and mosque, will be a signal whereby the Lord beckons and calls to these "Medes," His "sanctified ones with the kingdoms of the nations He has mustered together to enter the gates of [Zion's] tyrants and execute His judgment" (1-5; Joel 2:1-11; Zephaniah 1:14-18). It will also signal the believing exiles of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, and Israel's ten tribes, to return to the land of the Covenant for their redemption (Matthew 24:3, 29-34). "The day of the Lord comes as a destruction from the Almighty. . . cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to make earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners out of it." As with the shock attack at Belshazzar's feast, men's hearts will fail as volcanoes and quakes "shake the heavens, turning the Moon into blood when Earth moves from its axis, darkening the Sun and extinguishing the stars; and for fear of [tidal waves, the great tribulation, biological and atomic warfare] prophesied to come upon earth" (7-10; Zechariah 14:12; Luke 21:25-28; Hebrews 12:25-29). Three and a half years later "All kindreds of the earth shall wail," when in hindsight they recognize this was Christ's second or 'parousia' Coming to Israel (Revelation 1:7).
In parallel with Zechariah 14, Isaiah 13 is prophesying the opening terrors of the Sixth Seal with the earthquakes of verse 13; 2:10-21; 29:6; 34:4; Joel 2:10-11; Haggai 2:6; Revelation 6:12; 8:5; 11:19, and 16:18-19. "I will stir up the Medes, who neither care for silver nor desire gold" and will be impelled by higher motives. The Lord will "raise up the spirit of the kings of the Medes as His device against the [violent last Gentile world empire] of [Judaeo-Catholic MYSTERY] Babylon," striking the earthquake-smitten belligerent terrorist twins, Israel and the united States of America, "to destroy [them all]; for that is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for His temple"—not the temple razed by Nebuchadnezzar and Titus, but His millennium temple of 144,000 elect Israelites (Jeremiah 51:11; Isaiah 61:2; Luke 21:20-22). Under the real holocausts of Lenin and Stalin, those Judaeo-Communist golems of 'the City of London,' scores of millions of Christians were mercilessly slaughtered and 'false flag' massacres, assassinations and coups d'etat executed worldwide. Today sycophants of 'the City' are massacring millions of innocent Muslims to loot natural resources and realize the insane, unscriptural nightmare of a "greater Israel," eliminating genuine Israelites and encircling Judaeo-Communist Russia with military garrisons in the process. When this earthquake demolishes the Dome of the Rock the natural Medes will have a religious impulse, and their political offspring Russia, a strategic purpose to attack.
The Prophet said Russia covets Israel's vast mineral wealth whose estimated total value is four times that of the United States. "The Red Sea and all these things they're putting out the materials that's there [owned by Rothschild], the Jews, real rich, then that same thing [the abomination of Rome's heathen worship forcing her mark of the beast] will pollute their camp again (Ezekiel 7:20-22; 39:7; Daniel 11:30-39; 12:7, 13-14; Revelation 13:15-18). Yeah. [Again in the second half of the Seventieth Week . . .] They'll come right down, the cities of the world. Russia will come down, say, "We just got to have that stuff. That's uranium and everything down there; we got to go get it." And as they go down, then will be the battle of Armageddon. That'll be when God will stand like He did in the valley [of Jehoshaphat] for the children of Israel and fight again" (C.O.D., p. 77:111).
The Lord's Temple is Spiritual Israel—an election of Christians, and our 144,000 Israelite servants (living mainly in the Muslim lands of the ancient Assyrian empire) who will become the Temple of Christ and His Bride in the millennium. For this reason the Luciferian 'City of London' and Rothschild's fiefdom puppet state of non-Semitic modern Israel regard Christianity and Islam as "the enemy" (Genesis 3:15; 27:39-41).
"I will punish the whole world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will put an end to the arrogance of the proud and will lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless. Few will live when I have finished My work. I will make men scarcer than fine gold, and mankind rarer than the gold of Ophir" (11-12; 2:10 – 6:13; Malachi 4:1). Truth and righteousness are so scarce today, particularly among our degenerate, dysfunctional national and world leaders, that when the wicked are destroyed the martyred remnant will be as scarce, pure and precious as fine gold in comparison: just 144,000 souls in a world of billions.
Rome, the Black Nobility and the banksters of 'the City of London' all seek control of Jerusalem whence the pope will rule Lucifer's totalitarian one world government through the covenant of Daniel 9:27 and an impersonation of Bible Prophecy. Do you see why the USA is under submission to Israel? It is because, like Britain, she remains a colony of the Jews' City of London and will be in alliance with the Roman world church system. Even now "they are gathering the kings of the earth and of the whole world to Armageddon" (Revelation 16:13-16), and following a brief World War II in which Israel and the USA will be invaded by Russia and the Muslim nations, they will unite the religions and the nations under one world government, ostensibly to restore peace and restrain Judaeo-Communism. The heavenly sanctuary being cleansed by the casting out of Satan and the Seventh Vial having been poured out to separate the foolish virgin from the hypocrites (Revelation 12:7-12; 15:5-8; 16:17; 11:19), the Jews' daily sacrifice will be restored on mount Moriah and the abomination of a new temple "made with hands" will desolate the holy place (Isaiah 14; Daniel 8:23-25; Acts 7:48; II Thessalonians 2; Revelation 13:8).
Zechariah 12:2 states, "I will make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to the surrounding nations when they are in the siege against Judah and against Jerusalem" (Isaiah 29:9). This attack at the start of Daniel's Seventieth Week will activate the covenant between a revived Judaeo-Roman empire, the Black Nobility and Jewish plutocracy (Daniel 9:27; Revelation 17:12-14). The Lord will make a way of escape for His elect as He did in the days of Uzziah (Zechariah 14:5), and Lucifer will restore peace under Roman one world government (Revelation 13:4). Zechariah 14:3, "The Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as in His day of battle, in the day of conflict" when He fought for Israel against the Egyptians at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:14; 15:3). And as He then made a way through the divided sea, so now will He cleave in two "the Mount of Olives" to provide a way of escape for those not taken into captivity.
Zechariah 14:4-7, "In that day His feet will stand on the mount of Olives to the east of Jerusalem [asserting dominion and subjection in claiming His possession (Deuteronomy 11:24; Psalm 8:6; Daniel 12:1; I Corinthians 15:27; Revelation 10:1-2)], and the mount of Olives will cleave in the middle, forming a very wide valley running eastward and westward; half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half toward the south. You will escape through the valley of My mountains, which will reach up to Azal" by the eastern or St. Stephen's gate so as to enable the citizens to flee by this new passage immediately on leaving Jerusalem, and the same divinely sent earthquake that opens out a way of escape to the Hebrews will swallow up the foe as in the crossing of the Red Sea.
Brother Branham explained, this broad valley is not created by the earthquake but by the new fifteen hundred mile high mount Zion beginning to push up from beneath thrusting these new mountains apart. He was speaking metaphorically, for this new pyramid mountain will not rise until after the millennium and White Throne Judgment when heavens and earth are renewed. However, as Christ's Bride of all Ages is the Lord's Mountain Kingdom, when the earthquakes sink Los Angeles and cleave the mount of Olives, our part of mount Zion will begin to push up from beneath as our sleeping Brethren raise up out of the earth (I Corinthians 15:42-57). The earthquake of Zechariah 14:4-5, Isaiah 29:6 and Revelation 16:19 says that after three days the Mount Zion rapture will commence. Three and a half years later the 144,000 will recognize the "Rock of offence" God lay in Zion is the Capstone which the builders disallowed, as indicated by its want on Enoch's the Bible in Stone (Isaiah 8:13-14; I Peter 2:6-8).
Zechariah 4:7, "Who are you, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel [a type of Christ and lineal descendant of David who restored the first temple] you will become a plain (Isaiah 2:2; Daniel 2:35; Zechariah 14:10): and Christ shall bring forth the Capstone [completing the redemption of the last Temple] with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it." When Israel recognize the 'parousia' Coming of their rejected King they will see the Capstone fulfilled in His Queen, and themselves as their Royal millennium Temple.
Isaiah 2:1-5, "The Word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the last days, that the Mountain of the Lord's House shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and be raised above the hills, to which all nations shall stream. And many peoples shall go and exhort, Come! and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us concerning His ways, and we will walk in His paths. For instruction in Truth [which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Isaiah 42:1-4, 21)] sought by the nations [or innumerable offspring of Abraham's Royal Seed (Isaiah 53:10; 65:23) promised in Genesis 22:15-18: Spiritual Israel, the Gentile Church (Daniel 7:10; Revelation 7:9-17). The Gospel of Truth] shall go forth out of Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). And He shall judge between the nations (Matthew 25:31-32) and decide for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O House [descended from Abraham, Isaac and] Jacob, come, let us walk in the Light of the Lord" (Micah 4).
Isaiah, Daniel and Zechariah describe the same "Mountain Kingdom" which grows by faith in Christ's Bride of all Ages—"the many peoples" whose testimony passes His Life through the Body to God's elect; and which, after our Homecoming will enter the heart of an election from "the House of Jacob," our millennium Temple. In the renewed heavens and renewed earth One God will be manifest in the glorified Jesus Christ and His Bride as one City on one Mountain which alone will be exalted. "The haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day" (Isaiah 2:12-17) manifest in the flesh of His glorified Family. Millennial "realization" must be forerun by "revelation" manifest in the lives of His saints (Acts 3:19-28).
Zechariah 14:7-11 telescopes the "revelation" to the physical "realization" of the millennium and the renewed heavens and earth (Isaiah 66:8; Zechariah 3:9-10). "It will be one day known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but at evening time it shall be Light. In that day, living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the Dead Sea, and half of them to the Mediterranean Sea continuously in summer and in winter. And the Lord will be King over all the earth. In that day shall there be One Lord, and His Name alone will be worshipped. And [relative to the fifteen hundred mile high mountain] all the land shall become like a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain elevated, from Benjamin's gate to the place of the first gate, then to the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel to the king's winepresses. And it shall be inhabited, for it will no longer be placed under a curse, Jerusalem shall dwell in security".
"You will flee as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord My God shall come, and all the saints with You." Once again we need to separate "revelation" from physical "realization." To the elect Israelites this speaks of their "revelation" of the 'parousia' Coming of "the Lord their God," Jesus Christ, attended by His Gentile Wife and the Old Testament saints. This "revelation" of the resurrected Messiah and His resurrected Queen returning with the resurrected Old Testament saints will cause the nation of 144,000 elect Israelites to be born in one day (Isaiah 66:8). However its physical "realization" will not take place until the millennium.
From our prospect as Christ's end-time Bride this speaks of our much earlier "revelation" of His 'parousia' Coming with the theophanies of the Church Age saints physically "realized" in the first resurrection of I Thessalonians 4:17. "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we can also believe that when Jesus returns God will bring back with Him those who have fallen asleep . . . For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with the shout [of Brother Branham's end-time Message], with the voice of the Archangel [Christ in the heart of His Bride placing the Message from Genesis to Revelation], and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord".
Thus the following Scriptures confirm that the earthquake of Zechariah 14:4-5, Isaiah 29:6 and Revelation 16:19 that cleaves the mount of Olives in Israel will be coincident with the earthquake that sinks Los Angeles beneath the Pacific (Revelation 6:12; 16:18-20 and 18:21-24).
Zechariah, Daniel 7:9-10 and Matthew 25:31-30 all telescope the "revelation" of Christ's 'parousia' Coming to Israel with His glorified physical "realization" in the millennium and the White Throne Judgment to follow after a thousand years, while Revelation 19:1-15 telescopes Israel's "revelation" of Christ's 'parousia' Coming with Armageddon.
Matthew 25:31-32 "When the Son of man comes in His glory with all the holy angels [the glorified saints of all Ages], He will sit on the throne of His glory [on this earth, as heaven is God's throne (Isaiah 66:1; Revelation 3:21)]: all nations will be gathered before Him: and He will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats"
Zechariah 14:6-7, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be a unique day which shall be known only to the Lord (Matthew 24:36; Acts 1:6-7), not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be Light".
In Laodicea the Gentile world became lukewarm "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God: having a form of godliness but denying His inherent power" (II Timothy 3 – 4). And as Israel apostatised when she rejected Christ's physical Coming, Laodicea apostatised when the evening Light of His second or 'parousia' Coming (Revelation 3:20) was obscured by the ambivalent gloom of man-made creed and tradition and Satan seduced worship from Logos to reason in the church. The following Scriptures describe the natural phenomena associated with the opening of the Sixth Seal when Israel's Seventh Trumpet announces Christ's 'parousia' return to Israel and calls the physical resurrection.
Isaiah 13:9-14; 34:1-8 and 63:1-6 speak of separating Edomite Jews from Israelites returning to the land of their Covenant. And Joel 2:10, 31; 3:15; Matthew 24:29-31; Mark 8:38 and Revelation 6:12-14 depict the convulsions of nature that will induce their exit and confirm that the earthquake of Zechariah 14:4-5 is coincident with that which will sink Los Angeles (Revelation 6:12; 18:21-24). Revelation 16:18-20, "The outpouring of the Seventh Vial will be followed by voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so extensive and severe [it will sink the Jews' Los Angeles and Hollywood, "whose sorceries deceived all nations," when a 1,500 x 300-400 segment of earth's crust falls beneath the ocean]. The great city of Jerusalem will be split into three parts; cities throughout the world will collapse in heaps of rubble, and [Rome, MYSTERY] Babylon the great will come in remembrance before God, to make her drink the cup of His furious wrath. Islands will vanish, and mountains flatten out." Once again we see the Sixth Seal is telescoped to the renewed earth.
With respect to Daniel 12:1, Brother Branham said: "It is in the midst of a time of great trouble that Jesus comes. And with His Coming there is a resurrection. Many are to come forth out of the dust and rise with those who are alive but waiting for His return. And these will be given crowns. Why? Because they are Sons of God. They are kings with Him. They are reigning with Him. That is what the crown signifies—reigning and ruling with the Great King, Himself. That is the promise to all those who suffer with Him here on earth—all those who endured patiently knowing that God, the Just Judge would reward them. They who gave up all for Him and committed all to Him will sit down in His throne and share in His glorious kingdom" (An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages, p. 315:2).
As indicated by the sign of His 'parousia' Coming to Israel (Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 24:29-30), "Michael will stand up" or commence His reign (Daniel 11:2-3) when the day of the Lord begins and He casts Satan and his angels down to earth (Revelation 12:7-13). After the siege of Jerusalem at the start of Daniel's Seventieth Week, "The Lord will go forth and fight against those nations," however Israel will not recognize this sign until the beast having ruled forty-two months, "makes war with the saints" and "thy people" are born-again (Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 11:45; 12:5-8; Revelation 13:5). Thereafter they will be martyred and enter the first resurrection to return with the saints of all Ages for the millennium (Malachi 4:1-3), while the rest of the dead will be sleep until the second or general resurrection (Daniel 12:2).
This Cloud over mount Zion signifying Christ's second or 'parousia' Coming (Daniel 21:1; Zechariah 14:4; Matthew 24:30) will be the countersign to the Cloud of glory over Sunset mountain, Arizona, on February 28, 1963. His precious feet will not touch this earth until He returns with the glorified saints of all Ages to step out on the atomic ashes of the wicked for a thousand years of peace (Malachi 4:1-3; Matthew 3:12; Revelation 19:20; 20:5). Its important significance will be unrecognized until after the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week, as the significance of our Cloud was not recognized for some years. For Israel this will fulfill the prophecy of Acts 1:10-12:
"Jesus was taken up into a Cloud of glory that carried Him from their view. And as they strained their eyes for a further glimpse of their Lord, suddenly two men in white apparel stood by them, and said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come again in the same manner in which you have seen Him go into heaven. Then they returned to Jerusalem, which is a sabbath day's walk from the mount of Olives".
Jesus appeared many times in the visions of Ezekiel 1 – 11 in which the Lord anathematized Israel's idolatry and Levitical uncleanliness, foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem and its people. Ezekiel 5 – 9 prophesied the siege of Titus and Judea's dispersion among the Gentiles, which Jesus affirmed on the mount of Olives before His crucifixion (Matthew 24:3). In Ezekiel 9 the prophet saw Jesus Christ, Israel's Messenger of mercy become her Messenger of judgment after "He came to His own nation, and His own received Him not" (John 1:11). Israel's Mercy Seat became her Judgment seat, the priesthood was no longer her mediator with God but her executioner, and Christ, clothed in white linen, was seen as High Priest and Mediator for the PART-Word Church sealing the saints before Titus besieged the city. In Ezekiel 10:2 Christ was told to, "Go in between the whirling wheels beneath the cherub and take a handful of blazing coals, and scatter them over the city," signifying God's judgment to be exacted on Jerusalem wherein the people ate bark from the trees and even their own children. And when the armies of Titus finally entered the through the treachery of Edomite Jews, the city with its temple were leveled with the ground and its citizens scattered to "the four winds," of war and strife for two thousand years under Seven Trumpets of judgment.
Even before Nebuchadnezzar razed the Temple, Ezekiel saw "The cherubim lift up their wings and rise into the air with their wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel stood above them. Abandoning the Temple as His abode, the Shekinah went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mount of Olives East of the city" (Ezekiel 10:18-19; 11:22-23). The abandonment of the Temple was the abandonment of the city also (Hosea 5:15; Matthew 23:38-39), and a prophecy of Christ who is the glory of God turning from Israel to the Gentiles. The rainbow of grace and mercy seen in Ezekiel 1:28 was absent, for the six men with slaughtering weapons were commanded to "smite without mercy or pity all Judeans not baptized into Christ: slay old men, young men and maidens, children and women alike, but do not approach anyone who is sealed. Begin at My sanctuary. So they began with the old men who were in the Temple. And Christ said, Defile the Temple and fill its courts with the slain. Go out, and slay in the city. . . The guilt of the house of Israel and of Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of injustice".
I see no Biblical evidence regarding any Shekinah glory present in either the Temple of Zerubbabel or Herod since the sacred fire lit by God, Ark of the Covenant and the Urim and Thummim had been destroyed in the first Temple. The absence of the Shekinah in the Temples of Zerubbabel or Herod is established by Ezekiel 43:2-4 which signifies the Presence taking residence in each of the elect Israelites as it has entered each Christian temple.
In these visions the Lord foretold the initiation of 2,000 years of vengeance upon apostate Israel (Luke 21:20), and His return in mercy to an election of 144,000 blood Israelites—not so-called Jews—when retribution is ended. Once they are sealed into the Kingdom God will destroy the sinners. The ungodly character of Israel at their rejection of Messiah's first Coming is seen today in the apostate churches, politicians, businessmen, institutions and the Gentile world generally since its rejection of His second Coming.
Judah's servitude, captivity and desolations, and Nebuchadnezzar's razing of God's Temple and Jerusalem were a warning and foretaste of "seven times more" chastisement Israel would receive under 2,000 years of Roman domination owing to its wicked recalcitrance foretold in Daniel 9. The departure of the symbol of God's Presence from the Temple preparatory to the destruction of the city was foretold by Moses, "This people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land among whom they are about to come, and will forsake Me, breaking the Covenant I have made with them. My anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them, and they will be devastated; and calamities and troubles will befall them. In that day they will cry out and say, Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us? But at that time I will withdraw My face from them because of the sins they have committed in turning to other gods" (Deuteronomy 31:16-18; Hosea 9:12).
This is precisely what has happened to the Gentile churches at the end of the Laodicean Church Age when the sevenfold Spirit of the Lord left earth and returned before the throne of God (Revelation 4:5). Christ's mediation for the ignorance of PART-Word was fulfilled, and the Blood removed from the Mercy Seat; Christ claimed the Book of Redemption, loosed its Seven Seals (Revelation 5:1-7; 6; 8:1) and returned to earth, placing judgment on Rome, the beast from the sea, and on her (once) Protestant image, the US beast from the earth. He revealed the mysteries of the Seven Thunders which are the revelations contained in the Seven Seals to the seventh angel (Revelation 10:1-7) whose Message is the "shout" of I Thessalonians 4:16, which is the "midnight cry" of Matthew 25:6 calling the wise and foolish virgin out of MYSTERY Babylon the great to be filled with the Spirit (Revelation 18:4).
After Brother Branham had addressed a Full Gospel Business Men's breakfast in California on February 11, 1961 a Baptist Brother said, "That sermon could be put into the Book of Revelation. I want to pray for you, Brother Branham." He threw his arms around the Prophet and began to speaking in tongues. When he had spoken a Frenchman from Louisiana said, that wasn't an unknown tongue, it was French. And a woman from Lausanne, Switzerland, followed by a young man who was an interpreter with the UN came forward with the translation:
"Because thou hast chosen the narrow path, the harder way, thou hast walked in your own choosing. Thou hast picked the correct and precise decision and it is My way. Because of this momentous decision, a huge portion of Heaven awaits thee. What a glorious decision thou hast made! This in itself is what will give and make come to pass the tremendous victory in the love divine".
Heaven consists of the Word or Logos, not PART-Word. Revelation 19 depicts Jesus coming to Armageddon to judge and make war. He is crowned with many crowns, His garments are dipped in blood, and His Name is called The Word of God, or Logos. With Him is the vindicated Word of His resurrected saints. The prophecy matches God's Commission and promise to Brother Branham on August 7, 1957, which was Joshua 1:5-7:
"No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with you: I will not fail you, nor forsake you. Be strong and of a good courage: for you will divide the land for an inheritance to this people, which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, to observe the whole Law, which Moses My servant commanded you: do not depart from it to the right hand or to the left so that you may prosper wherever you go".
Brother Branham's sermons are in the beloved Book of Revelation sealed under Old Testament symbols. The spoken Word of his Message revealed the mysteries of the Seven Thunders Daniel and John were told to "seal up unto the time of the end" (Daniel 12:4, 9; Revelation 10:4). They are the revelations contained in the unwritten Seventh Seal that unfolds the six written Seals, "finishing the mystery of God" and revealing the fullness of the Word as prophesied in I Corinthians 13:10. They brought Christ back to earth as the Logos or (W_O_R_D) form. His Message is that "huge portion of Heaven . . . [which] . . . in itself is what will give and make come to pass the tremendous victory in the love divine" as without the Capstone Bride the PART-Word saints of the Church Ages cannot be raised and glorified (Hebrews 11:39-40). The "tremendous victory in Divine Love" engraved in the Capstone is faith's victory of eternal Life over death (Matthew 12:20; I Corinthians 15:16-26; 54-56).
Like Joshua, Brother Branham put God's Word first, and as Joshua divided the Land for an inheritance to the people under the Old Covenant, he defined the inheritance of the saints under the New Covenant to show us, Christ's end-time Bride, what parts of the Word were fulfilled in the Church Ages, and that all seven Church Ages are fulfilled, so we will not err by impersonating the Word for a day gone by, but recognize our day and its Message, become written epistles of our part of the Word and enter our place in the Body.
As stated, Christ's Mediation was fulfilled when the last saint predestinated to the PART-Word division of the Body was born-again in Laodicea, then redemption was over. In Revelation 5 the elders advertised for a Kinsman Redeemer and the bleeding bloody Lamb advanced from the altar of sacrifice where His body had lain as a memorial, took the title deed to redemption and became the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Before Him were the elders with "golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints".
Revelation 8:3-5 is in parenthesis explaining what takes place during the Silence in Heaven the Space of Half an Hour following the opening of the Seventh Seal. "And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and a vast quantity of incense was given to him to mingle with the prayers of all saints [for we are one Body] upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand".
This "vast quantity of incense," the Prophet is mingling with the prayers or revelations of all saints is "the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him, to show to His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and Jesus sent and signified it by His angel [William Branham] to His servant John" (Revelation 1:1; 3:14; 10:7; 14:8; 22:6, 9-10, etc). It is the "huge portion of Heaven . . . [which] . . . in itself is what will give and make come to pass the tremendous victory in the love divine." A combination of incense with the prayers (or revelation) indicates Divine acceptance. Added to the faith of all saints it presents a perfect and acceptable offering "in the unity of the faith".
Then "the angel took the censor, and filled it with fire of the altar (as prophesied of Christ in Ezekiel 10:2, 7 following His crucifixion), and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake." These coals from the altar of incense in the heavenly Sanctuary had sanctified and offered back to God the revelation of His Word made flesh in the Bride of each age. When the last saint predestinated to Christ's end-time Bride has taken his place in the Body, the evening service of the Pentecostal feast will have ended, and the cinders will be cast down to earth with Satan and his angels, cleansing the heavenly Sanctuary of their dross and marking the close of the Gentile dispensation with judgment smiting the earth (Malachi 4:6; Matthew 3:12). The Alaskan earthquake on Good Friday 1964 was a token of what will take place at the Seventh Trump of Revelation 11:15-19, the Sixth Seal, the Third Woe and the Seventh Vial.
Zechariah 14:4-7 foretold how, under the Sixth Seal an election of Israelites will flee eastward through the valley of God's mountains, escaping their enemies. And later in Daniel's Seventieth week, Revelation 7, which is a parenthesis under the Sixth Seal, records the sealing of the 144,000 elect Israelites upon their revelation of Christ's parousia and the sign of the Cloud returning from the East three and a half years previously.
Ezekiel 43:1-2 and 7 also describes the Presence returning from the East as foretold to the disciples by the two Hebrew witnesses anointed with the Spirit that endued Moses and Elijah (Acts 1:10-11). Once "the Holy Place, and the Altar of Incense, and they who worship therein" are measured (Ezekiel 40:3; Revelation 11:1), the 144,000 who will comprise the millennium temple will all have been hewn from the world and gathered by the feast of the Trumpet mysteries as Solomon's temple "was built of stones finished in the quarry: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was being built" (I Kings 6:7). Thus the millennium temple will complete and finished as an actual house for the Lord, signifying Israel's two witnesses "shall have finished their testimony" (Revelation 11:7).
Ezekiel is taken back to the East gate that He may see the return of the glory of the God of Israel to take His rest in the millennial Temple by the new birth of the 144,000. "And I beheld the glory of the God of Israel come from the east: and the sound of His Coming was like the sound of many waters: and the earth shone with His glory. And He said to me, Son of man, this is the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and the house of Israel shall no more defile My holy Name, neither they, nor their kings, by their idolatry, nor by the idolatrous adulation and adoration of them and their religious edicts".
God from the first claimed to be Israel's King politically as well as religiously: He had resisted their wish to have a human king, as implying a rejection of Him as the proper Head of the state. Even when He yielded to their wish, it was with a protest against their king ruling except as His vicegerent. When Messiah reigns at Jerusalem, He will then first realize the original idea of the theocracy, with its at once divine and human king reigning in righteousness over a people all righteous (Ezekiel 43:12; Isaiah 52:1; 54:13; Zechariah 14:20-21; Revelation 21:27; 22:15).
When Israel is born-again in one day, "they will sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb [to Jesus Messiah], Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Your ways, You King of saints. Who shall not reverence You, O Lord, and glorify Your Name? for You alone are holy: for all nations shall come and worship before You; for the justification of Your judgments upon Israel is made manifest" (Revelation 15:3-4). nl623.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in other countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
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Friday, February 26, 2010
WORD: the Logos and the Rhema
Bible Believers' Newsletter #622
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660
Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We extend an especial welcome to our new subscribers and invite those who do not have our PowerPoint presentation, "The Second Coming of Christ," to advise their mailing address and we will send this important CD.
Our main article, written in 1983 by Chicago pastor Alfred RAA Olsen with our additions, distinguishes the rhema, gamma or "letter" of the spoken or written word "which without the Spirit kills," from the logos or understanding of the thought expressed by the same Word quickened by God's Life-giving Spirit (II Corinthians 3:6).
This essential teaching is timely in these closing hours of the Gentile dispensation when everyone within the circle of this Message has heard, read, and even memorized the rhema of the Prophet's Message as Caiaphas, priests, Levites and the believers of Jesus' day had heard, read and could recite the rhema of Moses and the prophets, but without the Spirit to impart the logos they murdered their very Messiah! And only a precious few believers see the logos of Brother Branham's Message.
Just this morning I received an outrageous email from a Brother with absolutely no revelation of the Message, the Bible or historical fact; he made egregious, dishonest, unsupported and self-righteous accusations all because he has read the rhema, gamma or "letter" of the Bible, the Message and the filtered lies of history without respect to the admonitions of Jesus and Paul to "prove all things, hold fast that which is good," and Brother Branham to "treat me like the Dutchman, take me for what I mean and not what I say.
Paul explained such people "have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, not having submitted themselves to the righteousness of God" measured by faith (Romans 10:2-3). The Prophet explained the foolish virgin are without the Spirit, either because they were dilatory and neglected the admonition of those noble Bereans to graduate from the rhema to the logos, which is the mind of God, or because their pastor and those with whom they spoke did not possess the Spirit to introduce the logos that they might be born-again.
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ, Anthony Grigor-Scott
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Road to Armageddon: Insane Drive for US Hegemony threatens Life on Earth
February 26, 2010 — There will always be Americans who will believe whatever the government tells them no matter how many times they know the government has lied to them. Despite expensive wars that threaten Social Security and Medicare, wars based on non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, non-existent Saddam Hussein connections to al Qaeda, [non-existent al Qaeda], non-existent Afghan participation in the 9/11 attacks, and the non-existent Iranian nukes that are being hyped as the reason for the next American war of aggression in the Middle East, more than half of the US population still believes the fantastic story that the government has told them about 9/11, a Muslim conspiracy that outwitted the entire Western world.
Moreover, it doesn't matter to these Americans how often the government changes its story. For example, Americans first heard of Osama bin Laden because the Bush regime pinned the 9/11 attacks on him. Over the years video after video was served up to the gullible American public of bin Laden's pronouncements. Experts dismissed the videos as fakes, but Americans remained their gullible selves. Then suddenly last year a new 9/11 "mastermind" emerged to take bin Laden's place, the captive Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the detainee waterboarded 183 times until he confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attack.
In the Middle Ages confessions extracted by torture constituted evidence, but self-incrimination has been a no-no in the US legal system since our founding. But with the Bush regime and the Republican federal judges, whom we were assured would defend the US Constitution, the self-incrimination of Sheik Mohammed stands today as the only evidence the US government has that Muslim terrorists pulled off 9/11. . . Full story: globalresearch.ca
Comment: Do you still doubt the bloodied USA is the "image to the beast" of Imperial Rome (Revelation 13:11-18)? In the third public warning on the US-controlled NATO expansion since last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad correctly stated, "The West's ultimate goal is not Iran, but India and China" and "named the recent concentration of NATO forces around India and [MOSSAD/CIA-orchestrated] unrest in Pakistan as an argument." He added that NATO now "almost completely surrounded Russia" and advocated that "Russia should respond to the deployment of NATO forces along its borders." Full story: globalresearch.ca
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A Sign of Empire Pathology
January 12, 2010 — Here is a shocking statistic that you won't hear in most western news media: over the past nine years, more US military personnel have taken their own lives than have died in action in either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are official figures from the US Department of Defence, yet somehow they have not been deemed newsworthy to report. Last year alone, more than 330 serving members of the US armed forces committed suicide—more than the 320 killed in Afghanistan and the 150 who fell in Iraq (see wsws.org).
Since 2001, when Washington launched its so-called war on terror, there has been a dramatic year-on-year increase in US military suicides, particularly in the army, which has borne the brunt of fighting abroad. Last year saw the highest total number since such records began in 1980. Prior to 2001, the suicide rate in the US military was lower than that for the general US population; now, it is nearly double the national average. . . Not included are the many more veterans—officially classed as civilians—who take their own lives. . . It is estimated that the suicide rate among veterans demobbed from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq is as high as four times the national average. The US Department of Veteran Affairs calculates that over 6,000 former service personnel commit suicide every year. . . Full story: globalresearch.ca
Comment: More US military personnel have taken their OWN lives than have died in action. As at February 23, 2010, 1,661 Coalition troops have keen killed in action is Afghanistan, of whom 1,006 were US military (see icasualties.org). The objective is to steal a strip of land upon which to run oil and gas pipelines in order to compete with Russian and Iranian oil whereby diminished prices at the wellhead will upset the economies of both nations. As stated in Newsletter #555, the United States has greater reserves of oil that the rest of the world combined—enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2,041 years straight"—not counting additional reserves discovered since 2006. After exporting US inflation to the rest of the world by creating demand for Federal Reserve fiat money required to purchase US dollar-denominated oil, and supporting her imports with trillions of dollars of Treasury IOUs, alien Bankster-owned US oil companies can break the economies of OPEC countries at any time by cutting oil imports and exporting, crashing the market and US Treasuries to cents in the dollar, and bankrupting all nations.
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Our World balances on a Sea of Debt
February 21, 2010 — As was customary among prisoners who became friends, Tommy allowed me to read his legal papers and I quickly became fascinated by the Judge's sentencing speech, the gist of which was that Tommy's activities had been parasitical. By creating money out of little more than thin air he had reduced the purchasing power of more deserving members of society. What would happen if everyone behaved like him? . . .
Inflation, just like counterfeiting, dilutes the value of the community's hard-earned wealth and as such constitutes a terrible social evil. Creating too much money—'real,' just as much as 'fake'—can wreck an economy. . . legal tender represents, at its absolute highest, only 3 per cent of the total money in circulation in the global economy . . . even were Tommy responsible for printing every single note in circulation throughout the world his power to dilute the rest of our wealth would amount to only a tiny fraction of that of the real manufacturers of money . . . that the activities of my friend Tommy and the activities of the bankers are in essence identical: the creation of money—which is to say claims on the rest of us—out of nothing. . . a simple and devastatingly effective swindle, a swindle largely invisible because it has become so deeply embedded in our culture. . . Full story: telegraph.co.uk
Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency—the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. "They were totally opposed to it," Born says. "That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden"? Full story: pbs.org
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The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews
January 27, 2010 — There is, of course, the issue, where the Khazars presently living in Palestine (called "Israel" by them) should go once Israel breaks up. It would not be a good idea if they fled to Europe, or, to the USA.
It is however well known that for 81 years a real homeland has existed for these people, Birobidjan. This country is situated in Eastern Russia and everybody considering himself Jewish is welcome there. Lady Renouf furthers the idea of Jewish immigration to that beautiful country on her homepage, where she presents the case in a 10 minute video. Another professionally produced video is posted on YouTube where her commentary on Birobidjan, the first and sustained Jewish homeland runs from 6.16 to 7.28 minutes into Part 10 of a videoed seminar held in England's House of Lords.
When is it permissible to kill non-Jews? The book "Torat ha-Melekh" [The King's Teaching—INT], by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, dean of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva near Nablus, together with rabbi Yossi Elitzur from the yeshiva. The book contains 230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guide for those who ponder if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew. Reviewed by Roi Sharon, Maariv, Israel, November 9 2009. Full story: globalfire.tv
Comment: Those who do not familiarize themselves with the rhema of God's Word will never receive the logos. From Nebuchadnezzar's invasion to the consummation of life, Israel will be ruled by Gentiles as it is today (Daniel 9:27). "A brief History of the Terms for Jew" states: "Strictly speaking it is incorrect to call an Ancient Israelite a 'Jew' or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew" (1980 Jewish Almanac, p. 3).
Soon two thirds of Israel's population of non-Semitic anti-Semitic self-styled Jews: so-called 'Israelis,' not Israelites, "will be cut off and die. Then the Lord will gather all nations against Jerusalem which will be taken, the houses rifled, the women raped and half of the city's population exiled. After this the Lord will turn His have to the little ones," that is to the blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with whom He made His Covenant, not Jews with whom He has no Covenant (Zechariah 13:7 – 14:2; Revelation 16:19). At that time, the children of the House of Israel and of the House of Judah will return to the land of the Covenant (Psalm 17:7; Isaiah 6:10-13; 11:11-16; 27:13; Jeremiah 3:12, 18; 16:15; 23:8; 31:8; Ezekiel 37:14; 39:27; Micah 5:3; Zechariah 10:9-12; Matthew 24:29-31; Revelation 12:14), mainly from the Muslim lands of the ancient Assyrian Empire.
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WORD: the Logos and the Rhema
Based on the book by Brother Alfred Raa Olson
"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You" (Job 42:5).
In I Corinthians 1:21 the Bible teaches, "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe." With the vocabulary of our speech we go forth proclaiming the Good News—"Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior." Those who have ears to hear what the Spirit has to say, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, shall be saved.
For over thirty years I have journeyed to more than 70 countries preaching the Gospel. I generally can't speak their language, but tell the old story of Jesus Christ, and the plan of salvation, through an interpreter to those in whose eyes I am a stranger, with strange tongue and peculiar mannerisms. I pray they may come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, through the words I speak. When I'm through preaching and depart, my language and speech is still foreign to them. If through hearing the interpreter, they become knowledgeable of God and His ways, they have heard all I had to say. My language and manner of speech were not important. What is important is that they perceived God in the Light of His Truth.
The ministry of William Branham has gone forth in these closing hours of time just before Christ returns for the glorious millennium: this ministry was promised by our Lord Jesus Christ, to "finish the mystery of God" and "restore all things" for the Rapture of His Church. Jesus testified the vast majority of people always rejected God's prophets, or misinterpreted their Message. Those associated with the Message Brother Branham brought are no exception. They reiterate his words by quoting the "letter" of the Spoken Word books, as those in previous times quoted the letter of prophets before him, without understanding what the Spirit was saying through them. When matters of doctrine arise, instead of searching the Scriptures, as the Bible instructs (II Timothy 3:16), people typically respond "I'm going to stay with what the prophet said!" Few perceive the God he preached. Had they truly heard what the prophet had to say then their hearts would have been restored to the faith of the Pentecostal fathers (Malachi 4:5-6), the Gospel of Jesus Christ laid out by the apostle Paul (I Corinthians 3:10-11), and they would diligently search the scriptures to "prove all things. . ." (I Thessalonians 5:21).
So many preachers of this last day Message are so preoccupied with the words and speech of William Branham and trying so desperately to be "in the message," that they have lost sight of the foundation of our faith as laid out in the scriptures, "which are able to make you wise unto salvation" (II Timothy 3:15). The baptism of the Holy Ghost, Christ dwelling in you in the Form of the Holy Spirit, is the Seal of God's promise to you that He will return for you. The evidence that you have the Holy Spirit is that you believe God's Word, the Bible. For if Christ does dwell within you, you cannot deny what He wrote in His Gospel, the Scriptures. But these preachers have not had their hearts turned back to the truth in the Gospel of Christ. Instead, they repeat only words and speeches, not perceiving the Message of Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Confusion and uncertainty follow them, as it is written in Job 38:2:
"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?"
* * *
Brother Branham taught God wrote three Bibles: one in the heavens, one in stone, and the written Scriptures we know as "the Word."
The Gospel was first declared in the stars (the Zodiac), and was a witness to the ancient world testifying to our Lord's first Coming, the purpose for His sufferings and to His Coming again (E.W. Bullinger, The Witness of the Stars). According to ancient astrologers, the Zodiac began with Virgo, the Virgin, and ended with Leo, the Lion. Our Lord Jesus Christ came born of a virgin and will return as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. This is but one of many examples of how "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handywork" (Psalms 19:1).
often, when people meet me in Chicago, I take them to visit the planetarium. Visitors to the planetarium sit in a circular auditorium in soft, cushioned chairs, which lay back so you can look up at the ceiling. The lights are turned off, and a machine in the center of the room projects lights up onto the ceiling, each representing a star or planet. A narrator explains what the sky looks like tonight. He can also show us how the heavens looked two thousand years ago, about the time Christ was born, and how they will look a thousand years from now. Why, the very heavens declare God's predestination, nothing is hidden from Him. The Bible says the righteous shall shine as the stars.He knows the path our lives will take, for He is omniscient. He knows the thoughts going through our minds, even the number of hairs on our heads. God knows where we will be tomorrow, next year, and where we will be a hundred, or a thousand, even ten thousand years from now. And by His foreknowledge He knew, even before I was born, that I would be writing this booklet. By His foreknowledge He chose me through Christ Jesus, and from the foundation of the world He wrote my name in the Book of Life (Revelation 17:8).
The Word of God is written, secondly, in nature. This is made evident throughout the Scriptures where situations in nature were used to illustrate God's ways. In John 12:24 Jesus spoke of His impending death saying, "Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit".
Jeremiah compared the man who trusts in the Lord to a tree: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreads out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat comes, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8).
Even the seasons give testimony: spring brings forth life; summer is youth; fall older age; and winter is death. But after winter, comes spring—the resurrection. Everything testifies of the Word of God.
The second Bible was built of stone by Enoch as a witness before the Flood. The Great Pyramid sits geographically in the center of the earth so the sun never casts a shadow around it and types Christ and His Bride. Notice how it is broad at the base and constantly narrows as it nears completion, like the elect Church which becomes a tiny minority as it nears the Capstone. The great pyramid and its unplaced capstone with the all-seeing eye of God is "The Great Seal" of the United States and has never been used for sealing, and rarely for any other purpose, aside from its reproduction on the US dollar bill where it is drawn with thirteen rows of masonry, (thirteen is the number of woman), and above the Church Age saints the capstone represents Christ incarnate in His end-time Bride overshadowed by the Glory of God. The "Seven Thunders" of Revelation 10 are the revelations contained in the Seven Seals that literally turn the hearts of the children to the faith of their apostolic fathers, forming the Capstone on the Body of Christ under preeminence to the Word for the manifestation of the Sons of God.
For the instruction of those who are wise, the Great Pyramid is a prophecy that the same Light which shone in the East, would be restored in the West, to Seal and complete that which He has begun: He is Alpha and Omega. Latin mottos above the Great Seal announce: "He has Favored Our Undertakings" and under it, "A New Order of the Ages."
Then God wrote a third Bible—the final one. And that is the Scriptures are often referred to as "the Word." We use various terminology today, in referring to the Word. Some of it is good, and some of it is bad. We have, for example, the "living Word;" we have the "written Word;" we have the "revealed Word," and we have the "restoration of the Word." This last reference to God's Word isn't good. There is no such thing as "restoration of the Word." Restoration means to restore back to its original state of being. You might be able to restore a building that is beginning to crumble, but you cannot restore God's Word. The Word of God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It never changes. Therefore, there can be no restoration of the Word. Instead of speaking about a restoration of the Word, let's speak about a restoration of the of the Bride or Church back to the Word. There's a big difference. If you say the Word has been restored, then you testify that the word has failed. Jesus said: "Heaven and earth shall pass away or change, but My words shall not change" (Matthew 24:35). It is man that has failed and not the Word.
The New Testament, as you know, was originally written in Greek. The Greek language is far more precise than the English language, with more words giving finer distinctions in meaning. Take for example, the word "love." Two Greek words: 'agape' and "Phileo" are both translated "love," however they have entirely different meanings. The Greek "parousia," a present participle meaning "arrival and subsequent presence" is translated "come," as in the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; "erchomai," also means to come, go, or enter but is used only in the present and imperfect tenses. Debate and confusion arise where these two different Greek words are translated by one English word. Now, I don't know a lot of Greek, but I know a man—a Greek scholar—who teaches Greek at a seminary near Chicago. He thinks I'm rather a fanatic, perhaps, but when I have questions about the Greek New Testament, he's always willing to see me and explain it. I appreciate that.
If you were to look up the word "word" in the Greek, you would find that there are two words for "word." One is Logos and the other is Rhema, both are translated "word." It is interesting to look in a concordance at the different scriptures in which the word "word" is used. Let me give you an illustration:
The word Rhema means "that which is spoken; what is uttered in speech or writing. In the singular, a word" (i.e. noun, pronoun, or adjective, etc.). Rhema is what is uttered in speech. Let me illustrate from Scripture: "every idle word (Rhema) that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matthew 12:36). When Jesus was brought before Pilate and they were making all manner of accusations: "Jesus answered him to never a word (Rhema) insomuch that the governor marveled greatly" (Matthew 27:14). In II Corinthians 12:4, Paul describes "How he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words (Rhema), which is not lawful for man to utter." One last example, from John 8:20: "These words ( Rhema—utterance, speech, what is spoken; the spoken word) spoke Jesus in the treasury as He taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on Him for His hour was not yet come".
Now, let me give you an illustration of Logos. Logos is an expression of thought: a concept, an idea, the reasoning behind the Rhema. Galatians 5:14 says: "For all the Law is fulfilled in one word (Logos—concept, thought, or idea), even in this; You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In John 5:24 Jesus says, "Verily, verily I say unto you, He who hears My word (Logos), and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting Life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." And in John 8:43, "Why do you not understand My speech? Even because you cannot hear My Word (Logos)."
This next example, is probably one of my favourites. It's found in the tenth chapter of Acts. There was a certain devout man in Caesarea called Cornelius, who feared God, but did not know the way of salvation. He gave alms to the poor and did good things but he was not born again, and he was a Gentile. An angel appeared to him one day and told him to send his servants to Joppa to find one Simon Peter and bring him back. So Cornelius sent his servants to Joppa. In the meantime Peter had seen a vision; a sheet came down from heaven "wherein were all manner of four footed beasts of the earth. . . And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean: And the voice spoke unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common" (Acts 10:12-15). Gentiles, you see, were considered to be unclean. As soon as the vision was over, there came a knock on the door, and it was the servants of Cornelius. They took Peter back to where Cornelius had gathered his whole household: his mother, father, sisters, brothers, slaves and servants, etc., to hear what Peter had to say.
Peter began to preach Christ unto them. And "While Peter yet spoke these words (Rhema), the Holy Ghost fell on all those who heard the Word (Logos)." Do you see the difference? I had thought they ALL got the Holy Ghost. But it doesn't say that. They all heard his speech, his Rhema, the spoken words, but only those who caught the Logos, (the concept or idea behind what he had said) received the Holy Ghost.
We can hear a man preach, listen to his tapes, and read books. We can all hear speech or read words, as Cornelius' household listened to Peter. But we've got to catch the Logos, or thought behind what is spoken or written. Many believers today are saying, "we'll say just what the prophet said, or quote the Scriptures." Beware! You can quote a prophet, the Bible, or any other book word- for-word, and still not say what the speaker or author has said. Let me quote a Scripture: When Jesus was brought before Pilate, the high priests wanted to find some reason for putting Him to death and needed an accusation to bring against Him, but could find no witnesses. At last, there came two false witnesses. One said, "This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days" (Matthew 26:61). The man had heard Jesus' speech, but did not catch the thought behind what Jesus had said. He wasn't talking about the Temple in Jerusalem: Jesus was talking about His own body—"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). This witness had heard Jesus' Rhema but had not heard the Logos. Do you see the difference?
Another illustration: Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, wanting to know the ways of the Lord. He was a Pharisee, yet he knew that Jesus was a man sent from God. Jesus told him, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Nicodemus did not understand: "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit" (John 3:4-6). Nicodemus heard the Rhema, the words Jesus spoke. But he didn't catch the thought or Logos behind what He had said. (Oh, I hope you're getting the Logos behind what I'm trying to share with you). The Bible says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says" (Revelation 2:7). ". . .for the letter (Rhema) kills, but the Spirit gives Life" (II Corinthians 3:6). The Spirit has to reveal to you the thought or concept behind what is being said.
I went to college for a few years. Before I had graduated, however, I met my wife and we were married: I had to quit school and find a job to support us. I remember an incident in advanced math while I was still in college. One day the instructor wrote some equations on the blackboard—they were, I think, algebraic equations. Well, he explained the first one, and when he had finished, he turned around. There we were scratching our heads with blank expressions. He looked at us and said, "You didn't get it. Did you? You haven't been doing your homework, have you? I'll explain it again." So he went through the equation again and explained each portion of it. When he had finished, he tuned around to find us still scratching our heads with blank looks on our faces. "You still didn't get it did you?" And explained it one more time part-by-part. Suddenly, I caught the idea behind what he was saying: the thought or concept behind the equation. Now that's what we Christians need to do—make sure we have the thought behind what is being preached or written, as regards the things of the Lord.
I go to France, sometimes, to preach. One day when I was in France I was trying to talk with a Frenchman. Now I don't know any French, and he spoke very little English. I was trying to explain something and the more I tried to make him understand what I was saying, the more confused he became. I was trying hand signals, anything I could think of to make him understand. After quite some time, when I was about to give up, his face suddenly changed. It was almost as if a light had come on: he caught my Logos—the thought behind what I had been saying.
Another example: Suppose each of us was a missionary preaching to sinners in different parts of the globe. In preaching to the unconverted church-goer, the best place to start bringing the plan of salvation is Acts 2:38. We have to show them who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and their need to repent of their sins and be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, one of us might go to China and be speaking in Chinese. You might be using an illustration of some type to emphasize their need to repent, accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and be baptized in His Name. Another of you might go to another country—maybe an island in the Pacific—and use different words and illustrations, and a different language understood by those people. Still another might serve in a third country and use different words, different illustrations, and different scriptures. But no matter how we went about it, each is presenting the same concept—that which is found in Acts 2:38. Why, it's like chicken: you can boil it, you can fry it, you can stew it, or you can grill it, no matter how you cook it, it's still chicken! The situation is much the same with us Christians as we learn the things of God. Whether we hear a preacher, listen to tapes or read Brother Branham's sermons, we must get the thought behind what is spoken or written. And we can't "say what the prophet said," unless we have the Logos behind what he was saying. Do you see that? Amen!
Now we know that "God watches over His Word."—He watches over the Logos. Let me explain. Theologians today are unsure what language Jesus actually spoke. For the moment let's presume He spoke Galilean, the language of the common people. After His death and resurrection, the apostles wrote what He said, as well as things that happened, and they wrote it in Greek. Twelve or fourteen hundred years later, it was translated into English. Not long ago, I was in Bangladesh preaching in English with an interpreter. Just imagine—from Galilean to Greek, from Greek to English, then into Bengali. It's a wonder anyone knows what original the story was. You can tell someone a story and let them pass it on. By the time it returns, it's often an different story altogether. But "God watches over His Word:" He watches over the Logos. Those in Bangladesh who were predestinated, caught the same thought and as came forth when Jesus preached It two thousand years ago. Do you see that?
Years ago people used to debate the issue of water baptism. "Should we be baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost?" some asked. "No, we should be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ!" others said. They argued back and forth until they got the thought behind it, the Logos. "Lord Jesus Christ" IS THE NAME of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Without the Logos there was confusion.
Revelation 22:18-19 says we cannot add or take away one Word from Scripture—the "word" here is Logos. You cannot add a single thought, because the Bible is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ. You can add one Rhema or utterance: there are many words written in italics to indicate they are not in the original, and have been added to make grammatical sense. Words are sometimes added because there's no English equivalent. The Bible is God's thoughts, or Logos, expressed in writing (Rhema); and although the various translations use different words we cannot add one Logos. Unless the Holy Ghost reveals it personally, we can never get the Logos in the first place.
The Bible says, "all should be taught of God." Now you're either taught of God, or you're not taught at all. You can go to college or Bible school to learn many different things, but you cannot go to school to learn God. You either learn from Him or you don't know Him at all. I'd like to quote here from I Corinthians 2:9-16:
"As is written, eye has no seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teach, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ."
We don't know what another person is thinking. He can say one thing and think another. Only the spirit within the person knows what he is thinking. Likewise, no man can know what God thinks, but the Spirit of God. When the Spirit of God us indwells in the Form of the Holy Ghost, you have the mind of Christ, and understand His thoughts.
I John 2:20-27 says: "But you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things." The unction is the Holy Ghost. "But the anointing which you have received of Him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in Him." Though a man preaches the Gospel, the Holy Ghost must take what was said and reveal the thought behind it. Do you see that? The revealed Word is the Logos, the concept made known to you. Praise the Lord! That puts all preachers on the same level. God is neither helped nor hindered by our vocabulary, or eloquent speech. Paul said, "I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God." Regardless of our words, God takes what is said, and reveals the thought behind them by His Spirit. Otherwise we could never hear it. We have got to get the Logos of God. We can receive nothing unless it be given from above.
Our Lord Jesus prayed in John 17:21, "that they all may be one; as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me." On the day of Pentecost that prayer was answered! God sent the Holy Ghost, Which is Himself, "and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:4), making the oneness between God and man! Jesus Christ comes into the believer, by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, doing the same works as when He was yet with them.
Jesus said, "My sheep hear my Voice." Because those listening all heard His Rhema did not mean they were "His sheep." One day, Jesus said to His disciples, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that You are John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." They all had different ideas who Jesus was. Then He said to them, "But whom say you that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus replied, Blessed are you Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but My Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 16:13-17). No matter how well a man can preach, or express himself, Christ is building His Church on the rock of God revealing the Logos personally to you. Amen! We all hear different concepts and different ideas, but those who hear the Logos from God, hear the same thing. Amen! Paul asked, "Is Christ divided?" The Corinthians knew more than many in this day because THEY KNEW He is not divided. By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. And if we are baptized into the Body and His Spirit dwells in us, we will hear His voice and be hearers and doers of His Word (James 1:22). Everyone with the Holy Ghost will hear the same thing. Let me give you a scripture to back that up.
After Paul was converted on the Damascus Road, he didn't go to Jerusalem to confer with men, but spent three years in the desert where God could reveal His Word or Logos without human influence. When Paul met with the apostles in Jerusalem, they all had the same revelation. Those with ears to hear believe alike by the same Logos; there is one God, and everyone who has the Holy Ghost receives the same Logos or concept.
I am hearing among Christians today, a variety of "requirements" to be in the rapture. People say, "Brother Olson, we're trying to make the rapture. And I say, "Brother, the rapture cannot take place without me, because I'm sealed unto it."
God's only requirement to be in the rapture is that we are sealed with Holy Ghost. If we are sealed by the Holy Ghost, we are sealed unto the day of redemption. Only the elect can be born again. When we're sealed we're a finished work and He has to take you. Once we've been sealed, we obey His Word: not so we might be accepted—we are already accepted and we want to please Him. Law says if we do certain things, we'll be accepted; Grace says because we are accepted, we desire to do the things which please Him.
Now you may disagree with me, but it seems to me that many of these "requirements for making the rapture" come about because so many of the preachers in the circle of this Message preach in the negative. They use what we call reverse psychology. I'll give some illustrations: If I got up here and said to you, "Listen, brother, in order for you to go in the rapture you've got to have rapturing faith." I would be implying that you don't have it. I could get up and say, "If you're going in the rapture you've got to have power. You've got to have the resurrection power in you." I would be implying that you don't have the power. I might tell you, "If you're going in the rapture you've got to have perfect love. You've got to have the love of God—Agape love—in you." What I'd be doing is implying that you don't have it. And that would be destroying your faith.
Brethren are uncertain because they lack a clear revelation. The "rapture" is a revelation, a process of coming into oneness or agreement with God by putting on the mind of Christ. This began with the revelation of the Seven Seals in 1963 which gave us the perfect interpretation of the Word. THIS is That which is Perfect. It has done away denominational part Word and is calling Christ's Bride into the fullness of the Word, for the manifestation of the sons of God. The rapture is the separation described in Luke 17:22-36, II Thessalonians 2:1, and Revelation 18:4.
Faith, which is a clear understanding of the Word, is still the separator, knowing the Logos, rather than the Rhema. The rapture is the second Coming of the Lord, we would all agree on that. The Greek word for "Coming" is "parousia," which refers to "the arrival and subsequent Presence" of the Word as the Son of Man, not to His millennial Coming as Son of David. The second Coming is "as a thief in the night," so it is a mystery. It is also "universal," and clearly can not His second physical Coming when He returns as Son of David with the saints of all Ages for a thousand years of peace.
According to the Rhema, the "parousia" or second Coming is the Logos of the fullness of the Word—Christ, incarnating His Bride by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or new birth. Separating His people from the churches through faith in the fullness of the Word. Luke 17:34-37, "there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left: Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other one left. And the Disciples said unto Him, where to Lord? And Jesus said unto them. Wheresoever the Body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." He did not say, "To the Wedding Supper." Did he? This is the rapture, not the translation, spiritually catching up the living Bride in the revelation of the fullness of the Word, which brings Her into Oneness with the Father, and under preeminence for the manifestation of the sons of God.
The baptism of the Holy Ghost or new birth is Oneness with the Word, and it is a revelation. The rapture is a revelation. If we are going to receive glorified bodies at the end of the Gentile dispensation, we've got to have "rapturing faith." Rapturing faith does not mean technically understanding how God manifests the saints in glorified flesh. Rapturing faith is simply a clear understanding in the Logos, not Rhema, of the end-time Message of Revelation 10:1-7 and Malachi 4:5-6. What is this? It is the faith of the apostolic fathers restored in this last day, plus the mystery of the Seven Church Ages and the Seals. This places the Church in history, identifying the true and false churches—the Church of God, and the churches of Satan. It shows what part of the Word is fulfilled already and therefore what part God is fulfilling in His elect today. "Rapturing faith," is oneness with the fullness of the Word. Until the revelation of the Seven Seals "finished the mystery of God," oneness with God was only possible through Christ's mediation for ignorance of the pure of the Word.
People say, "You've got to have the resurrection power in you." Or "You've got to have perfect love. You've got to have the love of God, Agape love, in you." If you have the Logos of the Word God is fulfilling today—your part of the Living Body Word of God—you have the resurrection power in you already. Paul spoke of it in the first chapter of Ephesians. "Agape," is God's own love for you confirmed by your new birth. The "love of God" is Jesus Christ, the hope of glory which enters into you by the Spiritual Marriage Union of the Bride and Christ. What the Holy Spirit has joined together: neither death, nor life, nor angels, or principalities, or powers, nor things present, or things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Faith is a revelation. If you have a clear revelation of the present Truth and can see that part of the Word coming to pass in your life, that is the evidence of your new birth. The love of God is in you, and you are already in the rapture. You don't have to prove it to anyone: you can't, because they'd have to receive the Logos from God before they could understand. If the same Spirit which raised up Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you, it will quicken your mortal body to every Word, and the Life of Christ will be on display.
If you're truly born again, there is not one thing you need do to be in the rapture, or Jesus Christ died in vain. Don't be provoked by carnal folk who challenge you to prove you have 'agape' by fleshly comparison with the charitable works of the world church system. If after the first and second admonition they cannot receive the faith, just walk away from them.
Adolph Hitler once said, "If you repeat something often enough, people will believe it." He was [not commending deception but referring to the subterfuge of the Jews' Weimar Republic], and he was right. The best way to paralyze faith, is to let men persuade you you've got to get this, do that, or you'll never make it. The old devil will always tell you what you lack, but he'll never tell you how to get it. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Men who imply you don't have it without proving their point in God's Word, are sowing doubt. And if there is no faith in the church of Jesus Christ, it must be the fault of the preacher—he must not be preaching the Word. If you have to have love to go in the rapture, there's only one way to ever get that love—the love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. If you have the Holy Ghost, you have perfect love.
Preaching in the negative destroys faith. Brother Branham talked about the time when the angel appeared to him and said, "If you can get the people to believe, nothing will stand in the way of your prayers." If ever you were in his meetings, you know he would testify to what the Lord has done. He would generate faith. The people saw and heard God do great and wonderful works. POSITIVE! They would think, "He's no respecter of persons, what he has for done others, surely He will do for me." He would then challenge their faith by saying, "I challenge you. If the Lord will reveal what your problem is, will you believe He will grant you the desire of your heart?" What can preachers do but challenge people to have faith in God? Christ is NOT divided. There might be differences of opinion; there might be groups which argue; there might be brethren who say, "We believe one way, and he believes another." But Christ is NOT divided. The elected will eventually believe the same thing, for His sheep hear His Logos.
I recall hearing a man preach years ago. He said something very good. He said, "Do you know what wisdom is? Wisdom's taking the mysterious and deep things of God and making them so simple a fool can understand them. Do you know what foolishness is?" He asked. "It's taking the simplicity of the Gospel and making it so complicated nobody knows what's being said."
I remember after Brother Branham had finished preaching the "Seals" and the "Church Ages," and all those different revelations. They were so plain and simple, we wondered how we'd missed them all these years. THAT WAS WISDOM!
On the other hand, let me tell you about a friend of mine who is a Doctor of Divinity. I hadn't seen him in years when he came to Chicago to preach, and I had the opportunity to hear him. Well, I want to tell you this man had one of the largest vocabularies I'd ever heard, with theological terms for every expression and situation. He is a gifted and eloquent speaker. After service all the people said, "Oh, that was such a wonderful service. Wasn't it beautiful? Have you ever heard such wonderful speech?" But most had no idea what he'd been talking about, and were embarrassed to say, "I didn't get his point," because someone else might think they were not very spiritual. He took the simplicity of God's Word and presented It with such complex terminology, he caused confusion. THAT WAS FOOLISHNESS! That kind of preaching breeds doubt and confusion, "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints" (I Corinthians 14:33).
We see so many different interpretations of the Word. Even among those who listen to Brother Branham's tapes and read his sermons, there are different opinions as to what was actually said. Many are saying we've got to get together. They are saying that we've got to get unity. THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. You see, the Body of Christ is ALREADY one through the baptism of the Holy Ghost and they all hear His voice. Those that have been sealed with the Holy Ghost will hear the Logos—and they are already "one".
Paul told the early churches "heresy" must come (I Corinthians 11:19). In Greek, heresy means "sects." Different groups and ideas MUST come. Why? So that so those who are approved of God might be made manifest. If you think it's bad now, wait. It will get worse. It has to be that way. However, the elect cannot be fooled: they have unity in Christ, the Word (Logos), and will not be confused by different ideas that come along! The non-elect are and will continue to be confused by those God has raised up to bring confusion.
Think for a moment: if the devil wanted to deceive you, what do you think he would do? If he told you to go and rob or swear, or commit adultery, you'd know right away that was Satan. But when the devil comes, he's usually 99%—almost 100% right! What he says is mostly truth. In Matthew 16:6-12, Jesus said, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees"—meaning their doctrine. Leaven is likened to corrupt doctrine, a little sin eventually affects the whole lump. It takes just a small amount; it would almost deceive the very elected, IF that were possible.
I hear so many people say, "Brother, are you in the Message?" And they all have different ideas what the "Message" is. It's not whether you're in the Message, or the Message is in you—that isn't the point. The question is, "Are you in Christ?" If you're in Christ you have the baptism of the Holy Ghost; you've heard His Logos, which is understanding the Message. Do you see the difference? Many believe the Message and can quote it by page and paragraph. Only the elect can receive the Holy Ghost; they hear His voice and will not be confused.
We hear it said so often, "the evidence of the Holy Ghost is to receive the Word for our day"—to believe the Logos of God revealed in our day. Everyone who heard Brother Branham preach, however, didn't hear the same Logos. There were many logos' of men, but there is only one Logos of God—and not everyone heard the Logos of God. One man gets up and says, "I believe Brother Branham was a prophet. I believe the 'Church Age' Message. I believe the 'Seals'. I believe that the cloud appeared. I believe all this. Then, over there you have another brother who says, "I believe Brother Branham was a prophet. I believe the 'Seven Church Ages' Message. I believe . . . etc., etc., etc. But I don't agree with the first brother. I see it this way." Somewhere else there is another brother. He says, "Hold on. Brothers—I love you and all that, but you're both wrong. I believe Brother Branham was a prophet (remember the devil believes too! He knows the Message better than you and I). I believe this, that and the other. . . But you're both wrong. This is the way it is. . ." Then people stop and say, "Wait a minute, who is right? They're either all wrong, or one is right and the others are wrong. How do I know who's right and who's wrong?" And how do you know if what I am saying is right? You can't know unless the Lord shows you.
There are so many different ideas; so many have the Rhema without the Logos—the letter without the Spirit. Many were in Brother Branham's meetings, but only the elect heard it right. Brother Branham did not have a formal education. But although his grammar may have been limited, the elect heard God's Logos. God was not restricted by his choice of words. Education is an accumulation of knowledge without faith. That's all it is. In America today there are men with only a few years of schooling, who head large corporations. It thrills me in this day of specialization and high tech, to see God chose an unlearned man to reveal His mystery of His Word This proves God does not require our intellectual accomplishments. Either we get It from Him, or we don't get it at all.
How do we know, then, who is right? How do we even know if Brother Branham preached the truth? "Well," you say, "there were signs and wonders." How do you KNOW there were signs and wonders? Were you there when that cloud appeared? Did you see all those things happen? How do you know? You say, "The signs and wonders prove what he preached was truth." Many have signs and wonders—and not all preached the truth! Back in the sixties, it was Oral Roberts. Then, there was Kathryn Kuhlman. People would come into her services, just to see what she had to say, and they'd be healed. I knew a "Jesus Only" man who visited her service out of curiosity. He had a heart condition and the Lord healed him in her service, though he himself was not prayed for. Others had signs and wonders also. Signs and wonders are not proof Brother Branham preached the truth.
According to the Scriptures, Aaron had a breastplate, called the Urim and Thummim. The breastplate hung in the temple, it's twelve stones are said to be the birthstones of the Patriarchs. If a man had a vision, a dream or a revelation, he would tell it before the Urim and Thummim. If it was of the Holy Ghost, a Light or rainbow would flash, vindicating it as truth. However, if the Light did not appear—then it was wrong.
The Bible is our Urim and Thummim, every revelation is already within its pages. The Greek for "revelation" means to "unveil" or "uncover." Brother Branham's Message is the "revealed Word" which finished the mystery of God, veiled under symbols in the Apocalypse, or the Revelation of Jesus Christ, uncovering Jesus Christ, the Logos of God. The prophet simply preached the Logos veiled in the Rhema. Brother Branham proved each Seal by Matthew 24. They may have been hidden, but they were already there. As we listened to him preach those Seals, the same thing happened to us, as happened on the Emmaus road—the Lord drew nigh and opened our understanding. Beginning with Moses and the prophets, He drew back the veil and uncovered the Logos, just as "the Message" does. Amen! These things were always there.
And so you say, "What happened, Brother Olson? How come there are so many divisions—so many different concepts and ideas?" I'll tell you why. It is because some believers are making the Rhema of Brother Branham's Message rather than the Bible their Urim and Thrummim. Not comparing it with Scripture to find the Logos, they've veiled Jesus Christ once again in the Rhema of the Message.
Years ago there was a ministers meeting. Now, I don't like ministers meetings. The council of Nicea, Rome was a ministers meeting. I believe the gospel is open to whoever wants to hear it. But these preachers got together and said. "Let's, all gather together. discuss our differences of opinion try to work them out and get some kind of unity." And so they met at Spoken Word Publications. They had a big hall up above the office and that's where they got together. They came from all over. "Listen," they said, "each one will have the opportunity to express his thoughts or opinions on the message. But, you have to use the books of Brother Branham's Message. You cannot use the Scriptures." They threw out the Urim and Thummim—the, Bible! And, they argued back and forth and never came to any conclusions. In fact, they were more confused at the end of the meetings than they had been when they first came together.
Everyone in this so-called "last-day Message" has a choice to make and will make that choice in many cases, unconsciously. They must decide what is going to be their absolute or final authority when it comes to the things of God. Most people in the circle of this Message are saying that William Branham and his Message are the supreme authority, making the Message superior to the Scriptures. The devil's got them! OUR ABSOLUTE HAS GOT IO BE JESUS CHRIST AND THE LOGOS THAT'S IN THE BIBLE.
There is only one thing that is infallible. "Infallible" means something that can never fail. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away but My Logos shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35). Amen. We can only know the truth by applying the Word test—the Bible test. We talk about the "Word." Do you know the "Word" is a Title? "Father" is a Title. A Title is a word that describes or identifies a person or thing. Son, Holy Ghost, I Am, Alpha and Omega, are all Titles. The Title itself is not God, but an Office which identifies certain attributes which reveal His nature. God was expressing Himself in Christ Who is the whole concept, the Logos or idea of God, made flesh. In the Scriptures, the Logos is likened to a seed: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever" (I Peter 1:23). "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit" (John 3:6). Therefore, until you have been born again of the Spirit, the seed of God is not in you: God is not your Father. Adam's seed and the serpent seed are both corruptible: the seed of God, which is the Word or Logos, is incorruptible. We are born again when we receive incorruptible seed, or Logos, through the spoken Word or Rhema, whereby God imparts His Life through faith in Jesus Christ, the Logos, and we put on a new nature, a spiritual Life through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
James 1:21: "receive with meekness the engrafted (the Greek 'Emphutos,' means 'implanted') Logos which is able to save your souls." In other words through preaching the incorruptible seed, which is Christ, the seed of God is implanted in us through faith, and we are born again.
The Bible is God's thoughts (Logos) put in written form (Rhema). Everyone who's been born again is filled with the Holy Ghost, which is the Spirit of Christ expressing Himself through the believer by manifesting the Logos for his day. We act like Him and do as He would do, because the Holy Spirit expresses the nature of Christ through our faith.
The Bible says that in the last days there will be a famine—not for food or water, but for the hearing of the Word. In this day and age, the Gospel is being preached more than It was at any other point in history: Christian stations preach the Gospel over radio and television. It is recorded on cassette, and printed as literature. The famine, you see, is not for the preaching of the Rhema, but for hearing the Logos. You see the difference? Only the elected can hear His Logos, and because the non-elect are offended it cannot often be shared.
When you listen to Brother Branham or some preacher, you hear his Rhema. Jesus said, "Why do you not understand My Rhema? Even because you cannot hear My Logos." They all heard His Rhema, but we must have the Holy Ghost to understand the Logos. The Holy Ghost reveals to us the thought behind the words. It says in Mark 16:19-20:
"So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God (meaning absolute authority). And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Logos. . . (not Rhema). . . with signs following".
The Lord confirms the Logos! He stands behind His Word.
We talk about vindication—the vindicated prophet. We say Brother Branham was a vindicated prophet. God confirmed the Gift He gave the man through the signs and wonders that followed him. In Ephesians 4:7-8:
"But to every one us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he said when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men".
Now, the MAN is not the Gift. The OFFICE of the man is the Gift of Christ. When God vindicates His prophets, He is confirming to others the Office of prophet, or the Gift of Christ that is in the man. God did not vindicate the words of the man, William Branham. He vindicated His Own Words (Logos) expressed through the prophet.
How do we distinguish between Brother Branham's words, and the Word of the Lord? When a prophet pronounces something in the Name of the Lord, or says something is THUS SAITH THE LORD, he is saying the thought was not His own, but God expressing Himself through his lips. Our test, or Urim and Thummim is the Bible. Anything a genuine prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord, must line up with the Bible, then it is THUS SAITH THE LORD. If what a man says does not line up with the BIBLE, it is just the words of the man. A genuine prophet will NEVER fail the Word test.
In his sermon, "He Cares, Do You Care?" on July 21, 1963, Brother Branham cautioned "be careful what you're listening to. See? There's so much of it that it's just the human side. . ." God uses human substance to bring forth a divine Message, we must discern what the Spirit is saying (Logos) through the words (Rhema) of the man (". . . the human side. . .")
"The Word," or Jesus Christ in the Form of the Holy Ghost, comes to every believer, or we couldn't be a believer! That's what makes you one with the Word—a Word believer or Word Bride. But we receive It SECONDARILY, for "The Word is FIRST revealed to the prophet."
Amos 3:7 says, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he reveals His secret unto his servants the prophets." Before God can bring judgment or destruction, He reveals His counsel or plan to His prophets in advance as a warning to the people, providing an escape to those who hear and obey.
Brother Branham was a prophet, and he had open visions. Open vision is the sovereignty of God over which Brother Branham had no control. He waited on the angel to come and rest upon someone before God would give him a vision. Brother Branham said to me one time, "Brother Olson, I have to go by faith. I can go into a congregation and we'll have a healing meeting, I don't know if the angel will come or not. I have no control over it. HE has control over me. By faith I believe if I go in His Name, He'll be there." When he went in His Name the angel came, because God honored His faith. God stands behind the Gift, not the man. When Brother Branham had a vision it was the sovereignty of God. He could say, "Your name is so-and-so, you live here, etc.," and it never failed, because it was the grace of God. Visions come under a certain anointing; preaching requires another anointing. They are two different operations or manifestations of the Holy Spirit. How many times after preaching, did we hear Brother Branham say, "I'm going from one anointing into another, and the people don't understand what that's like." Then he would wait for that change of anointing.
The Bible says Balaam was a prophet. Balak wanted him to curse Israel, but as a prophet of God, he could not do it! He got up to prophesy evil but he prophesied good, because the Gift or Office of prophecy was the sovereignty of God. He couldn't help himself! So in order to gain Balak's reward, He taught them error when he preached. Like modern preachers who know there is no such thing as a Trinity or baptism in three Titles, but for the sake of denominational reward, will twist the Rhema and cause the congregations to believe the lie. Don't claim Brother Olson said Brother Branham taught error—I'm using the example of Balaam to show you the difference between administrations. As a prophet, Balaam could not prophesy to curse Israel; but as a preacher he could teach contrary to the Word and bring the people into idolatry by departing from Exodus 34:14-16, ". . . you shall worship no other God etc." This illustrates that the gift of a prophet is a separate manifestation of the Spirit distinct from the operation of a Gift to teach. They are not the same thing. Balaam was a prophet, his prophetic Gift was the sovereignty of God over which he had no control.
When Brother Branham received a revelation, or Logos, it was up to him to faithfully preach what God had revealed. The same is true of your pastor; when the Lord reveals something, or uncovers the Logos, he's responsible to preach it to the best of his ability. The Holy Ghost takes what he is saying and reveals to you the thought behind it. We must be careful not to look to the man—we have to look to the Gift that God gave to the man.
Brother, the Bride of Christ will not be deceived. She hears His Logos and knows how to apply the Urim and Thummim, or Word, proving everything that is preached from Genesis to Revelation, which is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ. If it's in the Word it was always there: we must not add one idea, thought, or concept to what lies within its pages.
The apostles were anointed of God. Paul was ordained of God to write the New Testament, and lay the foundation or basis upon which our faith rests. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." It's already there and always has been. Through the Dark Ages the faithful were martyred and the faith was lost, but the foundation was always there. In the last days, God sent a messenger to restore us back to the original foundation. Malachi 4:5-6 says the spirit of Elijah would turn the heart of the children back to the faith of their Pentecostal fathers.
It says He'll "turn their HEARTS." In Greek as in Hebrew, the word "heart" signifies the seat of intellect—the mind, purpose, intention, knowledge, understanding and insight of a person. We read, "out of the abundance of the heart" (Matthew 12:34); "to love the Lord your God with all your heart. . ." (Mark 12:30); "Why reason in your hearts?" (Mark 2:8); "Jesus perceived the thought of their hearts" (as the Holy Ghost did though Brother Branham, Luke 9:47). In Luke 21:14 it says, "Bear it, therefore, in your heart for a purpose. . ." Luke 24:38 says, "Why do thoughts arise in your heart?" You see? The heart is the intellect, your mind. That's the real you. Malachi 4 is to RESTORE our understanding or knowledge, to agreement with the faith of the Pentecostal fathers. After Brother Branham had finished preaching, I looked up my Bible and knew what Paul had been talking about, I knew what Peter had been saying, and what John meant, because I was turned back in my understanding and intellect to the faith of the apostolic fathers.
Now brother, if you've never been turned back in your heart—no matter how well you know the Message and profess to believe, you've missed It. We must have the same faith they had in the beginning. Paul said, "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid from those who are lost . . . other foundation can no man lay." It was already there when Brother Branham came. God's messenger was not sent to deliver a new gospel, but to RESTORE our faith to the original foundation laid in the early church.
It says in the last days there will come a great falling away, people will not endure sound doctrine, and shall turn away from the truth and be turned to fables. "The last days" is the time of the end, when Christ's Mediation has ended, and the Seven Seals have been revealed.
There was no apostasy during the Dark Ages. Churches did not meekly accept dogma, the saints were faithful unto death at the hands of Rome. In order for you to apostatize you must have something to fall away from. Lutherans could not fall away in their Age, they weren't restored back. Methodists couldn't fall away in their Age, they were not restored. But at the end of the Pentecostal Age, God sent a prophet and "finished the mystery of God," to restore His people back to the faith of the fathers. They did run well, but the Pentecostal denominations and those of other Ages, all rejected the messenger and His Message, fulfilling Revelation 3:20; the Gentile churches end in apostasy.
The "falling away" or apostasy could not take place until first the faith was restored back to its original foundation. God permits it, all who will fall away, will fall away. It's also happening today in "Message" circles. Only those with the Seal of God will remain steadfast. If you have the Holy Ghost within you, you will believe the Word, and that will hold you. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. The Message is, "Come out of Babylon and be filled with the Spirit!" Jesus Christ, the same— yesterday, today, and forever.
We talk of the Message. Just what is the Message? There IS only one Message. I John 1:5:
"This then is the MESSAGE which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all."
The Message is Spiritual LIGHT, faith, or revelation of the Word on which Christ said He would build His Church. Zechariah 14 describes how the denominational Ages culminate in apostasy: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Light shall not be clear, nor dark: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at the evening time it shall be Light".
Proverbs 4:18: "But the path of the just is the shining Light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day." After the centuries of Dark Ages, the people saw Light. When Luther preached "the just shall live by faith," the Light began to shine. Wesley followed with sanctification and that Light grew brighter. Pentecost, with the baptism of the Holy Ghost shone more of the same Light, "a Light to lighten the Gentiles." The Holy Spirit working through Brother Branham, caused that Light to shine brighter still. Today as in every Age, the Message is Jesus, the Light of the world. As in every Age, It's greatest enemies are those who claim to be the household of faith but who are impersonating the glare of an Age gone by, NOT walking in the Light Jesus is manifesting.
Judas Iscariot was chosen by the Lord Jesus Himself as one of the twelve apostles Jesus sent forth saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand: heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, . . etc." Judas was thought to be "in the Message," for his day, but he betrayed the Word and never made it to Pentecost!
In the Eternity to come, in that Holy City, the New Jerusalem, "there shall be no night; and they will need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them Light: and they shall reign forever and ever".
Dear Christian, "He that is of God hears God's Words" (John 8:47). "And ALL Your children shall be taught of God" (Isaiah 54:13): being ONE WITH THE WORD proves whether you are of God and Spirit-filled. No other criterion. Its Christ (the Logos) in you that is your hope of glory.
Why don't you stand up now and say out loud, "I CHOOSE JESUS CHRIST!"
Jesus Christ the same—yesterday and today, and forever is the Message and the spiritual food for today. If you believe on Him and obey His Word, He will lead you into that way everlasting and open your understanding to His Word.
"If so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus" (Ephesians 4:21). bb920623.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in other countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
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"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660
Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We extend an especial welcome to our new subscribers and invite those who do not have our PowerPoint presentation, "The Second Coming of Christ," to advise their mailing address and we will send this important CD.
Our main article, written in 1983 by Chicago pastor Alfred RAA Olsen with our additions, distinguishes the rhema, gamma or "letter" of the spoken or written word "which without the Spirit kills," from the logos or understanding of the thought expressed by the same Word quickened by God's Life-giving Spirit (II Corinthians 3:6).
This essential teaching is timely in these closing hours of the Gentile dispensation when everyone within the circle of this Message has heard, read, and even memorized the rhema of the Prophet's Message as Caiaphas, priests, Levites and the believers of Jesus' day had heard, read and could recite the rhema of Moses and the prophets, but without the Spirit to impart the logos they murdered their very Messiah! And only a precious few believers see the logos of Brother Branham's Message.
Just this morning I received an outrageous email from a Brother with absolutely no revelation of the Message, the Bible or historical fact; he made egregious, dishonest, unsupported and self-righteous accusations all because he has read the rhema, gamma or "letter" of the Bible, the Message and the filtered lies of history without respect to the admonitions of Jesus and Paul to "prove all things, hold fast that which is good," and Brother Branham to "treat me like the Dutchman, take me for what I mean and not what I say.
Paul explained such people "have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, not having submitted themselves to the righteousness of God" measured by faith (Romans 10:2-3). The Prophet explained the foolish virgin are without the Spirit, either because they were dilatory and neglected the admonition of those noble Bereans to graduate from the rhema to the logos, which is the mind of God, or because their pastor and those with whom they spoke did not possess the Spirit to introduce the logos that they might be born-again.
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ, Anthony Grigor-Scott
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Road to Armageddon: Insane Drive for US Hegemony threatens Life on Earth
February 26, 2010 — There will always be Americans who will believe whatever the government tells them no matter how many times they know the government has lied to them. Despite expensive wars that threaten Social Security and Medicare, wars based on non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, non-existent Saddam Hussein connections to al Qaeda, [non-existent al Qaeda], non-existent Afghan participation in the 9/11 attacks, and the non-existent Iranian nukes that are being hyped as the reason for the next American war of aggression in the Middle East, more than half of the US population still believes the fantastic story that the government has told them about 9/11, a Muslim conspiracy that outwitted the entire Western world.
Moreover, it doesn't matter to these Americans how often the government changes its story. For example, Americans first heard of Osama bin Laden because the Bush regime pinned the 9/11 attacks on him. Over the years video after video was served up to the gullible American public of bin Laden's pronouncements. Experts dismissed the videos as fakes, but Americans remained their gullible selves. Then suddenly last year a new 9/11 "mastermind" emerged to take bin Laden's place, the captive Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the detainee waterboarded 183 times until he confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attack.
In the Middle Ages confessions extracted by torture constituted evidence, but self-incrimination has been a no-no in the US legal system since our founding. But with the Bush regime and the Republican federal judges, whom we were assured would defend the US Constitution, the self-incrimination of Sheik Mohammed stands today as the only evidence the US government has that Muslim terrorists pulled off 9/11. . . Full story: globalresearch.ca
Comment: Do you still doubt the bloodied USA is the "image to the beast" of Imperial Rome (Revelation 13:11-18)? In the third public warning on the US-controlled NATO expansion since last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad correctly stated, "The West's ultimate goal is not Iran, but India and China" and "named the recent concentration of NATO forces around India and [MOSSAD/CIA-orchestrated] unrest in Pakistan as an argument." He added that NATO now "almost completely surrounded Russia" and advocated that "Russia should respond to the deployment of NATO forces along its borders." Full story: globalresearch.ca
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A Sign of Empire Pathology
January 12, 2010 — Here is a shocking statistic that you won't hear in most western news media: over the past nine years, more US military personnel have taken their own lives than have died in action in either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are official figures from the US Department of Defence, yet somehow they have not been deemed newsworthy to report. Last year alone, more than 330 serving members of the US armed forces committed suicide—more than the 320 killed in Afghanistan and the 150 who fell in Iraq (see wsws.org).
Since 2001, when Washington launched its so-called war on terror, there has been a dramatic year-on-year increase in US military suicides, particularly in the army, which has borne the brunt of fighting abroad. Last year saw the highest total number since such records began in 1980. Prior to 2001, the suicide rate in the US military was lower than that for the general US population; now, it is nearly double the national average. . . Not included are the many more veterans—officially classed as civilians—who take their own lives. . . It is estimated that the suicide rate among veterans demobbed from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq is as high as four times the national average. The US Department of Veteran Affairs calculates that over 6,000 former service personnel commit suicide every year. . . Full story: globalresearch.ca
Comment: More US military personnel have taken their OWN lives than have died in action. As at February 23, 2010, 1,661 Coalition troops have keen killed in action is Afghanistan, of whom 1,006 were US military (see icasualties.org). The objective is to steal a strip of land upon which to run oil and gas pipelines in order to compete with Russian and Iranian oil whereby diminished prices at the wellhead will upset the economies of both nations. As stated in Newsletter #555, the United States has greater reserves of oil that the rest of the world combined—enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2,041 years straight"—not counting additional reserves discovered since 2006. After exporting US inflation to the rest of the world by creating demand for Federal Reserve fiat money required to purchase US dollar-denominated oil, and supporting her imports with trillions of dollars of Treasury IOUs, alien Bankster-owned US oil companies can break the economies of OPEC countries at any time by cutting oil imports and exporting, crashing the market and US Treasuries to cents in the dollar, and bankrupting all nations.
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Our World balances on a Sea of Debt
February 21, 2010 — As was customary among prisoners who became friends, Tommy allowed me to read his legal papers and I quickly became fascinated by the Judge's sentencing speech, the gist of which was that Tommy's activities had been parasitical. By creating money out of little more than thin air he had reduced the purchasing power of more deserving members of society. What would happen if everyone behaved like him? . . .
Inflation, just like counterfeiting, dilutes the value of the community's hard-earned wealth and as such constitutes a terrible social evil. Creating too much money—'real,' just as much as 'fake'—can wreck an economy. . . legal tender represents, at its absolute highest, only 3 per cent of the total money in circulation in the global economy . . . even were Tommy responsible for printing every single note in circulation throughout the world his power to dilute the rest of our wealth would amount to only a tiny fraction of that of the real manufacturers of money . . . that the activities of my friend Tommy and the activities of the bankers are in essence identical: the creation of money—which is to say claims on the rest of us—out of nothing. . . a simple and devastatingly effective swindle, a swindle largely invisible because it has become so deeply embedded in our culture. . . Full story: telegraph.co.uk
Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure federal regulatory agency—the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—not only warned of the potential for economic meltdown in the late 1990s, but also tried to convince the country's key economic powerbrokers to take actions that could have helped avert the crisis. "They were totally opposed to it," Born says. "That puzzled me. What was it that was in this market that had to be hidden"? Full story: pbs.org
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The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews
January 27, 2010 — There is, of course, the issue, where the Khazars presently living in Palestine (called "Israel" by them) should go once Israel breaks up. It would not be a good idea if they fled to Europe, or, to the USA.
It is however well known that for 81 years a real homeland has existed for these people, Birobidjan. This country is situated in Eastern Russia and everybody considering himself Jewish is welcome there. Lady Renouf furthers the idea of Jewish immigration to that beautiful country on her homepage, where she presents the case in a 10 minute video. Another professionally produced video is posted on YouTube where her commentary on Birobidjan, the first and sustained Jewish homeland runs from 6.16 to 7.28 minutes into Part 10 of a videoed seminar held in England's House of Lords.
When is it permissible to kill non-Jews? The book "Torat ha-Melekh" [The King's Teaching—INT], by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, dean of the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva near Nablus, together with rabbi Yossi Elitzur from the yeshiva. The book contains 230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guide for those who ponder if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew. Reviewed by Roi Sharon, Maariv, Israel, November 9 2009. Full story: globalfire.tv
Comment: Those who do not familiarize themselves with the rhema of God's Word will never receive the logos. From Nebuchadnezzar's invasion to the consummation of life, Israel will be ruled by Gentiles as it is today (Daniel 9:27). "A brief History of the Terms for Jew" states: "Strictly speaking it is incorrect to call an Ancient Israelite a 'Jew' or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew" (1980 Jewish Almanac, p. 3).
Soon two thirds of Israel's population of non-Semitic anti-Semitic self-styled Jews: so-called 'Israelis,' not Israelites, "will be cut off and die. Then the Lord will gather all nations against Jerusalem which will be taken, the houses rifled, the women raped and half of the city's population exiled. After this the Lord will turn His have to the little ones," that is to the blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with whom He made His Covenant, not Jews with whom He has no Covenant (Zechariah 13:7 – 14:2; Revelation 16:19). At that time, the children of the House of Israel and of the House of Judah will return to the land of the Covenant (Psalm 17:7; Isaiah 6:10-13; 11:11-16; 27:13; Jeremiah 3:12, 18; 16:15; 23:8; 31:8; Ezekiel 37:14; 39:27; Micah 5:3; Zechariah 10:9-12; Matthew 24:29-31; Revelation 12:14), mainly from the Muslim lands of the ancient Assyrian Empire.
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WORD: the Logos and the Rhema
Based on the book by Brother Alfred Raa Olson
"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You" (Job 42:5).
In I Corinthians 1:21 the Bible teaches, "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe." With the vocabulary of our speech we go forth proclaiming the Good News—"Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior." Those who have ears to hear what the Spirit has to say, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, shall be saved.
For over thirty years I have journeyed to more than 70 countries preaching the Gospel. I generally can't speak their language, but tell the old story of Jesus Christ, and the plan of salvation, through an interpreter to those in whose eyes I am a stranger, with strange tongue and peculiar mannerisms. I pray they may come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, through the words I speak. When I'm through preaching and depart, my language and speech is still foreign to them. If through hearing the interpreter, they become knowledgeable of God and His ways, they have heard all I had to say. My language and manner of speech were not important. What is important is that they perceived God in the Light of His Truth.
The ministry of William Branham has gone forth in these closing hours of time just before Christ returns for the glorious millennium: this ministry was promised by our Lord Jesus Christ, to "finish the mystery of God" and "restore all things" for the Rapture of His Church. Jesus testified the vast majority of people always rejected God's prophets, or misinterpreted their Message. Those associated with the Message Brother Branham brought are no exception. They reiterate his words by quoting the "letter" of the Spoken Word books, as those in previous times quoted the letter of prophets before him, without understanding what the Spirit was saying through them. When matters of doctrine arise, instead of searching the Scriptures, as the Bible instructs (II Timothy 3:16), people typically respond "I'm going to stay with what the prophet said!" Few perceive the God he preached. Had they truly heard what the prophet had to say then their hearts would have been restored to the faith of the Pentecostal fathers (Malachi 4:5-6), the Gospel of Jesus Christ laid out by the apostle Paul (I Corinthians 3:10-11), and they would diligently search the scriptures to "prove all things. . ." (I Thessalonians 5:21).
So many preachers of this last day Message are so preoccupied with the words and speech of William Branham and trying so desperately to be "in the message," that they have lost sight of the foundation of our faith as laid out in the scriptures, "which are able to make you wise unto salvation" (II Timothy 3:15). The baptism of the Holy Ghost, Christ dwelling in you in the Form of the Holy Spirit, is the Seal of God's promise to you that He will return for you. The evidence that you have the Holy Spirit is that you believe God's Word, the Bible. For if Christ does dwell within you, you cannot deny what He wrote in His Gospel, the Scriptures. But these preachers have not had their hearts turned back to the truth in the Gospel of Christ. Instead, they repeat only words and speeches, not perceiving the Message of Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Confusion and uncertainty follow them, as it is written in Job 38:2:
"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?"
* * *
Brother Branham taught God wrote three Bibles: one in the heavens, one in stone, and the written Scriptures we know as "the Word."
The Gospel was first declared in the stars (the Zodiac), and was a witness to the ancient world testifying to our Lord's first Coming, the purpose for His sufferings and to His Coming again (E.W. Bullinger, The Witness of the Stars). According to ancient astrologers, the Zodiac began with Virgo, the Virgin, and ended with Leo, the Lion. Our Lord Jesus Christ came born of a virgin and will return as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. This is but one of many examples of how "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handywork" (Psalms 19:1).
often, when people meet me in Chicago, I take them to visit the planetarium. Visitors to the planetarium sit in a circular auditorium in soft, cushioned chairs, which lay back so you can look up at the ceiling. The lights are turned off, and a machine in the center of the room projects lights up onto the ceiling, each representing a star or planet. A narrator explains what the sky looks like tonight. He can also show us how the heavens looked two thousand years ago, about the time Christ was born, and how they will look a thousand years from now. Why, the very heavens declare God's predestination, nothing is hidden from Him. The Bible says the righteous shall shine as the stars.He knows the path our lives will take, for He is omniscient. He knows the thoughts going through our minds, even the number of hairs on our heads. God knows where we will be tomorrow, next year, and where we will be a hundred, or a thousand, even ten thousand years from now. And by His foreknowledge He knew, even before I was born, that I would be writing this booklet. By His foreknowledge He chose me through Christ Jesus, and from the foundation of the world He wrote my name in the Book of Life (Revelation 17:8).
The Word of God is written, secondly, in nature. This is made evident throughout the Scriptures where situations in nature were used to illustrate God's ways. In John 12:24 Jesus spoke of His impending death saying, "Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit".
Jeremiah compared the man who trusts in the Lord to a tree: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreads out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat comes, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8).
Even the seasons give testimony: spring brings forth life; summer is youth; fall older age; and winter is death. But after winter, comes spring—the resurrection. Everything testifies of the Word of God.
The second Bible was built of stone by Enoch as a witness before the Flood. The Great Pyramid sits geographically in the center of the earth so the sun never casts a shadow around it and types Christ and His Bride. Notice how it is broad at the base and constantly narrows as it nears completion, like the elect Church which becomes a tiny minority as it nears the Capstone. The great pyramid and its unplaced capstone with the all-seeing eye of God is "The Great Seal" of the United States and has never been used for sealing, and rarely for any other purpose, aside from its reproduction on the US dollar bill where it is drawn with thirteen rows of masonry, (thirteen is the number of woman), and above the Church Age saints the capstone represents Christ incarnate in His end-time Bride overshadowed by the Glory of God. The "Seven Thunders" of Revelation 10 are the revelations contained in the Seven Seals that literally turn the hearts of the children to the faith of their apostolic fathers, forming the Capstone on the Body of Christ under preeminence to the Word for the manifestation of the Sons of God.
For the instruction of those who are wise, the Great Pyramid is a prophecy that the same Light which shone in the East, would be restored in the West, to Seal and complete that which He has begun: He is Alpha and Omega. Latin mottos above the Great Seal announce: "He has Favored Our Undertakings" and under it, "A New Order of the Ages."
Then God wrote a third Bible—the final one. And that is the Scriptures are often referred to as "the Word." We use various terminology today, in referring to the Word. Some of it is good, and some of it is bad. We have, for example, the "living Word;" we have the "written Word;" we have the "revealed Word," and we have the "restoration of the Word." This last reference to God's Word isn't good. There is no such thing as "restoration of the Word." Restoration means to restore back to its original state of being. You might be able to restore a building that is beginning to crumble, but you cannot restore God's Word. The Word of God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It never changes. Therefore, there can be no restoration of the Word. Instead of speaking about a restoration of the Word, let's speak about a restoration of the of the Bride or Church back to the Word. There's a big difference. If you say the Word has been restored, then you testify that the word has failed. Jesus said: "Heaven and earth shall pass away or change, but My words shall not change" (Matthew 24:35). It is man that has failed and not the Word.
The New Testament, as you know, was originally written in Greek. The Greek language is far more precise than the English language, with more words giving finer distinctions in meaning. Take for example, the word "love." Two Greek words: 'agape' and "Phileo" are both translated "love," however they have entirely different meanings. The Greek "parousia," a present participle meaning "arrival and subsequent presence" is translated "come," as in the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; "erchomai," also means to come, go, or enter but is used only in the present and imperfect tenses. Debate and confusion arise where these two different Greek words are translated by one English word. Now, I don't know a lot of Greek, but I know a man—a Greek scholar—who teaches Greek at a seminary near Chicago. He thinks I'm rather a fanatic, perhaps, but when I have questions about the Greek New Testament, he's always willing to see me and explain it. I appreciate that.
If you were to look up the word "word" in the Greek, you would find that there are two words for "word." One is Logos and the other is Rhema, both are translated "word." It is interesting to look in a concordance at the different scriptures in which the word "word" is used. Let me give you an illustration:
The word Rhema means "that which is spoken; what is uttered in speech or writing. In the singular, a word" (i.e. noun, pronoun, or adjective, etc.). Rhema is what is uttered in speech. Let me illustrate from Scripture: "every idle word (Rhema) that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matthew 12:36). When Jesus was brought before Pilate and they were making all manner of accusations: "Jesus answered him to never a word (Rhema) insomuch that the governor marveled greatly" (Matthew 27:14). In II Corinthians 12:4, Paul describes "How he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words (Rhema), which is not lawful for man to utter." One last example, from John 8:20: "These words ( Rhema—utterance, speech, what is spoken; the spoken word) spoke Jesus in the treasury as He taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on Him for His hour was not yet come".
Now, let me give you an illustration of Logos. Logos is an expression of thought: a concept, an idea, the reasoning behind the Rhema. Galatians 5:14 says: "For all the Law is fulfilled in one word (Logos—concept, thought, or idea), even in this; You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In John 5:24 Jesus says, "Verily, verily I say unto you, He who hears My word (Logos), and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting Life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." And in John 8:43, "Why do you not understand My speech? Even because you cannot hear My Word (Logos)."
This next example, is probably one of my favourites. It's found in the tenth chapter of Acts. There was a certain devout man in Caesarea called Cornelius, who feared God, but did not know the way of salvation. He gave alms to the poor and did good things but he was not born again, and he was a Gentile. An angel appeared to him one day and told him to send his servants to Joppa to find one Simon Peter and bring him back. So Cornelius sent his servants to Joppa. In the meantime Peter had seen a vision; a sheet came down from heaven "wherein were all manner of four footed beasts of the earth. . . And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean: And the voice spoke unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common" (Acts 10:12-15). Gentiles, you see, were considered to be unclean. As soon as the vision was over, there came a knock on the door, and it was the servants of Cornelius. They took Peter back to where Cornelius had gathered his whole household: his mother, father, sisters, brothers, slaves and servants, etc., to hear what Peter had to say.
Peter began to preach Christ unto them. And "While Peter yet spoke these words (Rhema), the Holy Ghost fell on all those who heard the Word (Logos)." Do you see the difference? I had thought they ALL got the Holy Ghost. But it doesn't say that. They all heard his speech, his Rhema, the spoken words, but only those who caught the Logos, (the concept or idea behind what he had said) received the Holy Ghost.
We can hear a man preach, listen to his tapes, and read books. We can all hear speech or read words, as Cornelius' household listened to Peter. But we've got to catch the Logos, or thought behind what is spoken or written. Many believers today are saying, "we'll say just what the prophet said, or quote the Scriptures." Beware! You can quote a prophet, the Bible, or any other book word- for-word, and still not say what the speaker or author has said. Let me quote a Scripture: When Jesus was brought before Pilate, the high priests wanted to find some reason for putting Him to death and needed an accusation to bring against Him, but could find no witnesses. At last, there came two false witnesses. One said, "This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days" (Matthew 26:61). The man had heard Jesus' speech, but did not catch the thought behind what Jesus had said. He wasn't talking about the Temple in Jerusalem: Jesus was talking about His own body—"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). This witness had heard Jesus' Rhema but had not heard the Logos. Do you see the difference?
Another illustration: Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, wanting to know the ways of the Lord. He was a Pharisee, yet he knew that Jesus was a man sent from God. Jesus told him, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Nicodemus did not understand: "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit" (John 3:4-6). Nicodemus heard the Rhema, the words Jesus spoke. But he didn't catch the thought or Logos behind what He had said. (Oh, I hope you're getting the Logos behind what I'm trying to share with you). The Bible says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says" (Revelation 2:7). ". . .for the letter (Rhema) kills, but the Spirit gives Life" (II Corinthians 3:6). The Spirit has to reveal to you the thought or concept behind what is being said.
I went to college for a few years. Before I had graduated, however, I met my wife and we were married: I had to quit school and find a job to support us. I remember an incident in advanced math while I was still in college. One day the instructor wrote some equations on the blackboard—they were, I think, algebraic equations. Well, he explained the first one, and when he had finished, he turned around. There we were scratching our heads with blank expressions. He looked at us and said, "You didn't get it. Did you? You haven't been doing your homework, have you? I'll explain it again." So he went through the equation again and explained each portion of it. When he had finished, he tuned around to find us still scratching our heads with blank looks on our faces. "You still didn't get it did you?" And explained it one more time part-by-part. Suddenly, I caught the idea behind what he was saying: the thought or concept behind the equation. Now that's what we Christians need to do—make sure we have the thought behind what is being preached or written, as regards the things of the Lord.
I go to France, sometimes, to preach. One day when I was in France I was trying to talk with a Frenchman. Now I don't know any French, and he spoke very little English. I was trying to explain something and the more I tried to make him understand what I was saying, the more confused he became. I was trying hand signals, anything I could think of to make him understand. After quite some time, when I was about to give up, his face suddenly changed. It was almost as if a light had come on: he caught my Logos—the thought behind what I had been saying.
Another example: Suppose each of us was a missionary preaching to sinners in different parts of the globe. In preaching to the unconverted church-goer, the best place to start bringing the plan of salvation is Acts 2:38. We have to show them who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and their need to repent of their sins and be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, one of us might go to China and be speaking in Chinese. You might be using an illustration of some type to emphasize their need to repent, accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and be baptized in His Name. Another of you might go to another country—maybe an island in the Pacific—and use different words and illustrations, and a different language understood by those people. Still another might serve in a third country and use different words, different illustrations, and different scriptures. But no matter how we went about it, each is presenting the same concept—that which is found in Acts 2:38. Why, it's like chicken: you can boil it, you can fry it, you can stew it, or you can grill it, no matter how you cook it, it's still chicken! The situation is much the same with us Christians as we learn the things of God. Whether we hear a preacher, listen to tapes or read Brother Branham's sermons, we must get the thought behind what is spoken or written. And we can't "say what the prophet said," unless we have the Logos behind what he was saying. Do you see that? Amen!
Now we know that "God watches over His Word."—He watches over the Logos. Let me explain. Theologians today are unsure what language Jesus actually spoke. For the moment let's presume He spoke Galilean, the language of the common people. After His death and resurrection, the apostles wrote what He said, as well as things that happened, and they wrote it in Greek. Twelve or fourteen hundred years later, it was translated into English. Not long ago, I was in Bangladesh preaching in English with an interpreter. Just imagine—from Galilean to Greek, from Greek to English, then into Bengali. It's a wonder anyone knows what original the story was. You can tell someone a story and let them pass it on. By the time it returns, it's often an different story altogether. But "God watches over His Word:" He watches over the Logos. Those in Bangladesh who were predestinated, caught the same thought and as came forth when Jesus preached It two thousand years ago. Do you see that?
Years ago people used to debate the issue of water baptism. "Should we be baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost?" some asked. "No, we should be baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ!" others said. They argued back and forth until they got the thought behind it, the Logos. "Lord Jesus Christ" IS THE NAME of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Without the Logos there was confusion.
Revelation 22:18-19 says we cannot add or take away one Word from Scripture—the "word" here is Logos. You cannot add a single thought, because the Bible is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ. You can add one Rhema or utterance: there are many words written in italics to indicate they are not in the original, and have been added to make grammatical sense. Words are sometimes added because there's no English equivalent. The Bible is God's thoughts, or Logos, expressed in writing (Rhema); and although the various translations use different words we cannot add one Logos. Unless the Holy Ghost reveals it personally, we can never get the Logos in the first place.
The Bible says, "all should be taught of God." Now you're either taught of God, or you're not taught at all. You can go to college or Bible school to learn many different things, but you cannot go to school to learn God. You either learn from Him or you don't know Him at all. I'd like to quote here from I Corinthians 2:9-16:
"As is written, eye has no seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teach, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ."
We don't know what another person is thinking. He can say one thing and think another. Only the spirit within the person knows what he is thinking. Likewise, no man can know what God thinks, but the Spirit of God. When the Spirit of God us indwells in the Form of the Holy Ghost, you have the mind of Christ, and understand His thoughts.
I John 2:20-27 says: "But you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things." The unction is the Holy Ghost. "But the anointing which you have received of Him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in Him." Though a man preaches the Gospel, the Holy Ghost must take what was said and reveal the thought behind it. Do you see that? The revealed Word is the Logos, the concept made known to you. Praise the Lord! That puts all preachers on the same level. God is neither helped nor hindered by our vocabulary, or eloquent speech. Paul said, "I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God." Regardless of our words, God takes what is said, and reveals the thought behind them by His Spirit. Otherwise we could never hear it. We have got to get the Logos of God. We can receive nothing unless it be given from above.
Our Lord Jesus prayed in John 17:21, "that they all may be one; as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me." On the day of Pentecost that prayer was answered! God sent the Holy Ghost, Which is Himself, "and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:4), making the oneness between God and man! Jesus Christ comes into the believer, by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, doing the same works as when He was yet with them.
Jesus said, "My sheep hear my Voice." Because those listening all heard His Rhema did not mean they were "His sheep." One day, Jesus said to His disciples, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that You are John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." They all had different ideas who Jesus was. Then He said to them, "But whom say you that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus replied, Blessed are you Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but My Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 16:13-17). No matter how well a man can preach, or express himself, Christ is building His Church on the rock of God revealing the Logos personally to you. Amen! We all hear different concepts and different ideas, but those who hear the Logos from God, hear the same thing. Amen! Paul asked, "Is Christ divided?" The Corinthians knew more than many in this day because THEY KNEW He is not divided. By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. And if we are baptized into the Body and His Spirit dwells in us, we will hear His voice and be hearers and doers of His Word (James 1:22). Everyone with the Holy Ghost will hear the same thing. Let me give you a scripture to back that up.
After Paul was converted on the Damascus Road, he didn't go to Jerusalem to confer with men, but spent three years in the desert where God could reveal His Word or Logos without human influence. When Paul met with the apostles in Jerusalem, they all had the same revelation. Those with ears to hear believe alike by the same Logos; there is one God, and everyone who has the Holy Ghost receives the same Logos or concept.
I am hearing among Christians today, a variety of "requirements" to be in the rapture. People say, "Brother Olson, we're trying to make the rapture. And I say, "Brother, the rapture cannot take place without me, because I'm sealed unto it."
God's only requirement to be in the rapture is that we are sealed with Holy Ghost. If we are sealed by the Holy Ghost, we are sealed unto the day of redemption. Only the elect can be born again. When we're sealed we're a finished work and He has to take you. Once we've been sealed, we obey His Word: not so we might be accepted—we are already accepted and we want to please Him. Law says if we do certain things, we'll be accepted; Grace says because we are accepted, we desire to do the things which please Him.
Now you may disagree with me, but it seems to me that many of these "requirements for making the rapture" come about because so many of the preachers in the circle of this Message preach in the negative. They use what we call reverse psychology. I'll give some illustrations: If I got up here and said to you, "Listen, brother, in order for you to go in the rapture you've got to have rapturing faith." I would be implying that you don't have it. I could get up and say, "If you're going in the rapture you've got to have power. You've got to have the resurrection power in you." I would be implying that you don't have the power. I might tell you, "If you're going in the rapture you've got to have perfect love. You've got to have the love of God—Agape love—in you." What I'd be doing is implying that you don't have it. And that would be destroying your faith.
Brethren are uncertain because they lack a clear revelation. The "rapture" is a revelation, a process of coming into oneness or agreement with God by putting on the mind of Christ. This began with the revelation of the Seven Seals in 1963 which gave us the perfect interpretation of the Word. THIS is That which is Perfect. It has done away denominational part Word and is calling Christ's Bride into the fullness of the Word, for the manifestation of the sons of God. The rapture is the separation described in Luke 17:22-36, II Thessalonians 2:1, and Revelation 18:4.
Faith, which is a clear understanding of the Word, is still the separator, knowing the Logos, rather than the Rhema. The rapture is the second Coming of the Lord, we would all agree on that. The Greek word for "Coming" is "parousia," which refers to "the arrival and subsequent Presence" of the Word as the Son of Man, not to His millennial Coming as Son of David. The second Coming is "as a thief in the night," so it is a mystery. It is also "universal," and clearly can not His second physical Coming when He returns as Son of David with the saints of all Ages for a thousand years of peace.
According to the Rhema, the "parousia" or second Coming is the Logos of the fullness of the Word—Christ, incarnating His Bride by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or new birth. Separating His people from the churches through faith in the fullness of the Word. Luke 17:34-37, "there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left: Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other one left. And the Disciples said unto Him, where to Lord? And Jesus said unto them. Wheresoever the Body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." He did not say, "To the Wedding Supper." Did he? This is the rapture, not the translation, spiritually catching up the living Bride in the revelation of the fullness of the Word, which brings Her into Oneness with the Father, and under preeminence for the manifestation of the sons of God.
The baptism of the Holy Ghost or new birth is Oneness with the Word, and it is a revelation. The rapture is a revelation. If we are going to receive glorified bodies at the end of the Gentile dispensation, we've got to have "rapturing faith." Rapturing faith does not mean technically understanding how God manifests the saints in glorified flesh. Rapturing faith is simply a clear understanding in the Logos, not Rhema, of the end-time Message of Revelation 10:1-7 and Malachi 4:5-6. What is this? It is the faith of the apostolic fathers restored in this last day, plus the mystery of the Seven Church Ages and the Seals. This places the Church in history, identifying the true and false churches—the Church of God, and the churches of Satan. It shows what part of the Word is fulfilled already and therefore what part God is fulfilling in His elect today. "Rapturing faith," is oneness with the fullness of the Word. Until the revelation of the Seven Seals "finished the mystery of God," oneness with God was only possible through Christ's mediation for ignorance of the pure of the Word.
People say, "You've got to have the resurrection power in you." Or "You've got to have perfect love. You've got to have the love of God, Agape love, in you." If you have the Logos of the Word God is fulfilling today—your part of the Living Body Word of God—you have the resurrection power in you already. Paul spoke of it in the first chapter of Ephesians. "Agape," is God's own love for you confirmed by your new birth. The "love of God" is Jesus Christ, the hope of glory which enters into you by the Spiritual Marriage Union of the Bride and Christ. What the Holy Spirit has joined together: neither death, nor life, nor angels, or principalities, or powers, nor things present, or things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Faith is a revelation. If you have a clear revelation of the present Truth and can see that part of the Word coming to pass in your life, that is the evidence of your new birth. The love of God is in you, and you are already in the rapture. You don't have to prove it to anyone: you can't, because they'd have to receive the Logos from God before they could understand. If the same Spirit which raised up Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you, it will quicken your mortal body to every Word, and the Life of Christ will be on display.
If you're truly born again, there is not one thing you need do to be in the rapture, or Jesus Christ died in vain. Don't be provoked by carnal folk who challenge you to prove you have 'agape' by fleshly comparison with the charitable works of the world church system. If after the first and second admonition they cannot receive the faith, just walk away from them.
Adolph Hitler once said, "If you repeat something often enough, people will believe it." He was [not commending deception but referring to the subterfuge of the Jews' Weimar Republic], and he was right. The best way to paralyze faith, is to let men persuade you you've got to get this, do that, or you'll never make it. The old devil will always tell you what you lack, but he'll never tell you how to get it. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Men who imply you don't have it without proving their point in God's Word, are sowing doubt. And if there is no faith in the church of Jesus Christ, it must be the fault of the preacher—he must not be preaching the Word. If you have to have love to go in the rapture, there's only one way to ever get that love—the love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. If you have the Holy Ghost, you have perfect love.
Preaching in the negative destroys faith. Brother Branham talked about the time when the angel appeared to him and said, "If you can get the people to believe, nothing will stand in the way of your prayers." If ever you were in his meetings, you know he would testify to what the Lord has done. He would generate faith. The people saw and heard God do great and wonderful works. POSITIVE! They would think, "He's no respecter of persons, what he has for done others, surely He will do for me." He would then challenge their faith by saying, "I challenge you. If the Lord will reveal what your problem is, will you believe He will grant you the desire of your heart?" What can preachers do but challenge people to have faith in God? Christ is NOT divided. There might be differences of opinion; there might be groups which argue; there might be brethren who say, "We believe one way, and he believes another." But Christ is NOT divided. The elected will eventually believe the same thing, for His sheep hear His Logos.
I recall hearing a man preach years ago. He said something very good. He said, "Do you know what wisdom is? Wisdom's taking the mysterious and deep things of God and making them so simple a fool can understand them. Do you know what foolishness is?" He asked. "It's taking the simplicity of the Gospel and making it so complicated nobody knows what's being said."
I remember after Brother Branham had finished preaching the "Seals" and the "Church Ages," and all those different revelations. They were so plain and simple, we wondered how we'd missed them all these years. THAT WAS WISDOM!
On the other hand, let me tell you about a friend of mine who is a Doctor of Divinity. I hadn't seen him in years when he came to Chicago to preach, and I had the opportunity to hear him. Well, I want to tell you this man had one of the largest vocabularies I'd ever heard, with theological terms for every expression and situation. He is a gifted and eloquent speaker. After service all the people said, "Oh, that was such a wonderful service. Wasn't it beautiful? Have you ever heard such wonderful speech?" But most had no idea what he'd been talking about, and were embarrassed to say, "I didn't get his point," because someone else might think they were not very spiritual. He took the simplicity of God's Word and presented It with such complex terminology, he caused confusion. THAT WAS FOOLISHNESS! That kind of preaching breeds doubt and confusion, "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints" (I Corinthians 14:33).
We see so many different interpretations of the Word. Even among those who listen to Brother Branham's tapes and read his sermons, there are different opinions as to what was actually said. Many are saying we've got to get together. They are saying that we've got to get unity. THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. You see, the Body of Christ is ALREADY one through the baptism of the Holy Ghost and they all hear His voice. Those that have been sealed with the Holy Ghost will hear the Logos—and they are already "one".
Paul told the early churches "heresy" must come (I Corinthians 11:19). In Greek, heresy means "sects." Different groups and ideas MUST come. Why? So that so those who are approved of God might be made manifest. If you think it's bad now, wait. It will get worse. It has to be that way. However, the elect cannot be fooled: they have unity in Christ, the Word (Logos), and will not be confused by different ideas that come along! The non-elect are and will continue to be confused by those God has raised up to bring confusion.
Think for a moment: if the devil wanted to deceive you, what do you think he would do? If he told you to go and rob or swear, or commit adultery, you'd know right away that was Satan. But when the devil comes, he's usually 99%—almost 100% right! What he says is mostly truth. In Matthew 16:6-12, Jesus said, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees"—meaning their doctrine. Leaven is likened to corrupt doctrine, a little sin eventually affects the whole lump. It takes just a small amount; it would almost deceive the very elected, IF that were possible.
I hear so many people say, "Brother, are you in the Message?" And they all have different ideas what the "Message" is. It's not whether you're in the Message, or the Message is in you—that isn't the point. The question is, "Are you in Christ?" If you're in Christ you have the baptism of the Holy Ghost; you've heard His Logos, which is understanding the Message. Do you see the difference? Many believe the Message and can quote it by page and paragraph. Only the elect can receive the Holy Ghost; they hear His voice and will not be confused.
We hear it said so often, "the evidence of the Holy Ghost is to receive the Word for our day"—to believe the Logos of God revealed in our day. Everyone who heard Brother Branham preach, however, didn't hear the same Logos. There were many logos' of men, but there is only one Logos of God—and not everyone heard the Logos of God. One man gets up and says, "I believe Brother Branham was a prophet. I believe the 'Church Age' Message. I believe the 'Seals'. I believe that the cloud appeared. I believe all this. Then, over there you have another brother who says, "I believe Brother Branham was a prophet. I believe the 'Seven Church Ages' Message. I believe . . . etc., etc., etc. But I don't agree with the first brother. I see it this way." Somewhere else there is another brother. He says, "Hold on. Brothers—I love you and all that, but you're both wrong. I believe Brother Branham was a prophet (remember the devil believes too! He knows the Message better than you and I). I believe this, that and the other. . . But you're both wrong. This is the way it is. . ." Then people stop and say, "Wait a minute, who is right? They're either all wrong, or one is right and the others are wrong. How do I know who's right and who's wrong?" And how do you know if what I am saying is right? You can't know unless the Lord shows you.
There are so many different ideas; so many have the Rhema without the Logos—the letter without the Spirit. Many were in Brother Branham's meetings, but only the elect heard it right. Brother Branham did not have a formal education. But although his grammar may have been limited, the elect heard God's Logos. God was not restricted by his choice of words. Education is an accumulation of knowledge without faith. That's all it is. In America today there are men with only a few years of schooling, who head large corporations. It thrills me in this day of specialization and high tech, to see God chose an unlearned man to reveal His mystery of His Word This proves God does not require our intellectual accomplishments. Either we get It from Him, or we don't get it at all.
How do we know, then, who is right? How do we even know if Brother Branham preached the truth? "Well," you say, "there were signs and wonders." How do you KNOW there were signs and wonders? Were you there when that cloud appeared? Did you see all those things happen? How do you know? You say, "The signs and wonders prove what he preached was truth." Many have signs and wonders—and not all preached the truth! Back in the sixties, it was Oral Roberts. Then, there was Kathryn Kuhlman. People would come into her services, just to see what she had to say, and they'd be healed. I knew a "Jesus Only" man who visited her service out of curiosity. He had a heart condition and the Lord healed him in her service, though he himself was not prayed for. Others had signs and wonders also. Signs and wonders are not proof Brother Branham preached the truth.
According to the Scriptures, Aaron had a breastplate, called the Urim and Thummim. The breastplate hung in the temple, it's twelve stones are said to be the birthstones of the Patriarchs. If a man had a vision, a dream or a revelation, he would tell it before the Urim and Thummim. If it was of the Holy Ghost, a Light or rainbow would flash, vindicating it as truth. However, if the Light did not appear—then it was wrong.
The Bible is our Urim and Thummim, every revelation is already within its pages. The Greek for "revelation" means to "unveil" or "uncover." Brother Branham's Message is the "revealed Word" which finished the mystery of God, veiled under symbols in the Apocalypse, or the Revelation of Jesus Christ, uncovering Jesus Christ, the Logos of God. The prophet simply preached the Logos veiled in the Rhema. Brother Branham proved each Seal by Matthew 24. They may have been hidden, but they were already there. As we listened to him preach those Seals, the same thing happened to us, as happened on the Emmaus road—the Lord drew nigh and opened our understanding. Beginning with Moses and the prophets, He drew back the veil and uncovered the Logos, just as "the Message" does. Amen! These things were always there.
And so you say, "What happened, Brother Olson? How come there are so many divisions—so many different concepts and ideas?" I'll tell you why. It is because some believers are making the Rhema of Brother Branham's Message rather than the Bible their Urim and Thrummim. Not comparing it with Scripture to find the Logos, they've veiled Jesus Christ once again in the Rhema of the Message.
Years ago there was a ministers meeting. Now, I don't like ministers meetings. The council of Nicea, Rome was a ministers meeting. I believe the gospel is open to whoever wants to hear it. But these preachers got together and said. "Let's, all gather together. discuss our differences of opinion try to work them out and get some kind of unity." And so they met at Spoken Word Publications. They had a big hall up above the office and that's where they got together. They came from all over. "Listen," they said, "each one will have the opportunity to express his thoughts or opinions on the message. But, you have to use the books of Brother Branham's Message. You cannot use the Scriptures." They threw out the Urim and Thummim—the, Bible! And, they argued back and forth and never came to any conclusions. In fact, they were more confused at the end of the meetings than they had been when they first came together.
Everyone in this so-called "last-day Message" has a choice to make and will make that choice in many cases, unconsciously. They must decide what is going to be their absolute or final authority when it comes to the things of God. Most people in the circle of this Message are saying that William Branham and his Message are the supreme authority, making the Message superior to the Scriptures. The devil's got them! OUR ABSOLUTE HAS GOT IO BE JESUS CHRIST AND THE LOGOS THAT'S IN THE BIBLE.
There is only one thing that is infallible. "Infallible" means something that can never fail. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away but My Logos shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35). Amen. We can only know the truth by applying the Word test—the Bible test. We talk about the "Word." Do you know the "Word" is a Title? "Father" is a Title. A Title is a word that describes or identifies a person or thing. Son, Holy Ghost, I Am, Alpha and Omega, are all Titles. The Title itself is not God, but an Office which identifies certain attributes which reveal His nature. God was expressing Himself in Christ Who is the whole concept, the Logos or idea of God, made flesh. In the Scriptures, the Logos is likened to a seed: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever" (I Peter 1:23). "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit" (John 3:6). Therefore, until you have been born again of the Spirit, the seed of God is not in you: God is not your Father. Adam's seed and the serpent seed are both corruptible: the seed of God, which is the Word or Logos, is incorruptible. We are born again when we receive incorruptible seed, or Logos, through the spoken Word or Rhema, whereby God imparts His Life through faith in Jesus Christ, the Logos, and we put on a new nature, a spiritual Life through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
James 1:21: "receive with meekness the engrafted (the Greek 'Emphutos,' means 'implanted') Logos which is able to save your souls." In other words through preaching the incorruptible seed, which is Christ, the seed of God is implanted in us through faith, and we are born again.
The Bible is God's thoughts (Logos) put in written form (Rhema). Everyone who's been born again is filled with the Holy Ghost, which is the Spirit of Christ expressing Himself through the believer by manifesting the Logos for his day. We act like Him and do as He would do, because the Holy Spirit expresses the nature of Christ through our faith.
The Bible says that in the last days there will be a famine—not for food or water, but for the hearing of the Word. In this day and age, the Gospel is being preached more than It was at any other point in history: Christian stations preach the Gospel over radio and television. It is recorded on cassette, and printed as literature. The famine, you see, is not for the preaching of the Rhema, but for hearing the Logos. You see the difference? Only the elected can hear His Logos, and because the non-elect are offended it cannot often be shared.
When you listen to Brother Branham or some preacher, you hear his Rhema. Jesus said, "Why do you not understand My Rhema? Even because you cannot hear My Logos." They all heard His Rhema, but we must have the Holy Ghost to understand the Logos. The Holy Ghost reveals to us the thought behind the words. It says in Mark 16:19-20:
"So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God (meaning absolute authority). And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the Logos. . . (not Rhema). . . with signs following".
The Lord confirms the Logos! He stands behind His Word.
We talk about vindication—the vindicated prophet. We say Brother Branham was a vindicated prophet. God confirmed the Gift He gave the man through the signs and wonders that followed him. In Ephesians 4:7-8:
"But to every one us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he said when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men".
Now, the MAN is not the Gift. The OFFICE of the man is the Gift of Christ. When God vindicates His prophets, He is confirming to others the Office of prophet, or the Gift of Christ that is in the man. God did not vindicate the words of the man, William Branham. He vindicated His Own Words (Logos) expressed through the prophet.
How do we distinguish between Brother Branham's words, and the Word of the Lord? When a prophet pronounces something in the Name of the Lord, or says something is THUS SAITH THE LORD, he is saying the thought was not His own, but God expressing Himself through his lips. Our test, or Urim and Thummim is the Bible. Anything a genuine prophet speaks in the Name of the Lord, must line up with the Bible, then it is THUS SAITH THE LORD. If what a man says does not line up with the BIBLE, it is just the words of the man. A genuine prophet will NEVER fail the Word test.
In his sermon, "He Cares, Do You Care?" on July 21, 1963, Brother Branham cautioned "be careful what you're listening to. See? There's so much of it that it's just the human side. . ." God uses human substance to bring forth a divine Message, we must discern what the Spirit is saying (Logos) through the words (Rhema) of the man (". . . the human side. . .")
"The Word," or Jesus Christ in the Form of the Holy Ghost, comes to every believer, or we couldn't be a believer! That's what makes you one with the Word—a Word believer or Word Bride. But we receive It SECONDARILY, for "The Word is FIRST revealed to the prophet."
Amos 3:7 says, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he reveals His secret unto his servants the prophets." Before God can bring judgment or destruction, He reveals His counsel or plan to His prophets in advance as a warning to the people, providing an escape to those who hear and obey.
Brother Branham was a prophet, and he had open visions. Open vision is the sovereignty of God over which Brother Branham had no control. He waited on the angel to come and rest upon someone before God would give him a vision. Brother Branham said to me one time, "Brother Olson, I have to go by faith. I can go into a congregation and we'll have a healing meeting, I don't know if the angel will come or not. I have no control over it. HE has control over me. By faith I believe if I go in His Name, He'll be there." When he went in His Name the angel came, because God honored His faith. God stands behind the Gift, not the man. When Brother Branham had a vision it was the sovereignty of God. He could say, "Your name is so-and-so, you live here, etc.," and it never failed, because it was the grace of God. Visions come under a certain anointing; preaching requires another anointing. They are two different operations or manifestations of the Holy Spirit. How many times after preaching, did we hear Brother Branham say, "I'm going from one anointing into another, and the people don't understand what that's like." Then he would wait for that change of anointing.
The Bible says Balaam was a prophet. Balak wanted him to curse Israel, but as a prophet of God, he could not do it! He got up to prophesy evil but he prophesied good, because the Gift or Office of prophecy was the sovereignty of God. He couldn't help himself! So in order to gain Balak's reward, He taught them error when he preached. Like modern preachers who know there is no such thing as a Trinity or baptism in three Titles, but for the sake of denominational reward, will twist the Rhema and cause the congregations to believe the lie. Don't claim Brother Olson said Brother Branham taught error—I'm using the example of Balaam to show you the difference between administrations. As a prophet, Balaam could not prophesy to curse Israel; but as a preacher he could teach contrary to the Word and bring the people into idolatry by departing from Exodus 34:14-16, ". . . you shall worship no other God etc." This illustrates that the gift of a prophet is a separate manifestation of the Spirit distinct from the operation of a Gift to teach. They are not the same thing. Balaam was a prophet, his prophetic Gift was the sovereignty of God over which he had no control.
When Brother Branham received a revelation, or Logos, it was up to him to faithfully preach what God had revealed. The same is true of your pastor; when the Lord reveals something, or uncovers the Logos, he's responsible to preach it to the best of his ability. The Holy Ghost takes what he is saying and reveals to you the thought behind it. We must be careful not to look to the man—we have to look to the Gift that God gave to the man.
Brother, the Bride of Christ will not be deceived. She hears His Logos and knows how to apply the Urim and Thummim, or Word, proving everything that is preached from Genesis to Revelation, which is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ. If it's in the Word it was always there: we must not add one idea, thought, or concept to what lies within its pages.
The apostles were anointed of God. Paul was ordained of God to write the New Testament, and lay the foundation or basis upon which our faith rests. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." It's already there and always has been. Through the Dark Ages the faithful were martyred and the faith was lost, but the foundation was always there. In the last days, God sent a messenger to restore us back to the original foundation. Malachi 4:5-6 says the spirit of Elijah would turn the heart of the children back to the faith of their Pentecostal fathers.
It says He'll "turn their HEARTS." In Greek as in Hebrew, the word "heart" signifies the seat of intellect—the mind, purpose, intention, knowledge, understanding and insight of a person. We read, "out of the abundance of the heart" (Matthew 12:34); "to love the Lord your God with all your heart. . ." (Mark 12:30); "Why reason in your hearts?" (Mark 2:8); "Jesus perceived the thought of their hearts" (as the Holy Ghost did though Brother Branham, Luke 9:47). In Luke 21:14 it says, "Bear it, therefore, in your heart for a purpose. . ." Luke 24:38 says, "Why do thoughts arise in your heart?" You see? The heart is the intellect, your mind. That's the real you. Malachi 4 is to RESTORE our understanding or knowledge, to agreement with the faith of the Pentecostal fathers. After Brother Branham had finished preaching, I looked up my Bible and knew what Paul had been talking about, I knew what Peter had been saying, and what John meant, because I was turned back in my understanding and intellect to the faith of the apostolic fathers.
Now brother, if you've never been turned back in your heart—no matter how well you know the Message and profess to believe, you've missed It. We must have the same faith they had in the beginning. Paul said, "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid from those who are lost . . . other foundation can no man lay." It was already there when Brother Branham came. God's messenger was not sent to deliver a new gospel, but to RESTORE our faith to the original foundation laid in the early church.
It says in the last days there will come a great falling away, people will not endure sound doctrine, and shall turn away from the truth and be turned to fables. "The last days" is the time of the end, when Christ's Mediation has ended, and the Seven Seals have been revealed.
There was no apostasy during the Dark Ages. Churches did not meekly accept dogma, the saints were faithful unto death at the hands of Rome. In order for you to apostatize you must have something to fall away from. Lutherans could not fall away in their Age, they weren't restored back. Methodists couldn't fall away in their Age, they were not restored. But at the end of the Pentecostal Age, God sent a prophet and "finished the mystery of God," to restore His people back to the faith of the fathers. They did run well, but the Pentecostal denominations and those of other Ages, all rejected the messenger and His Message, fulfilling Revelation 3:20; the Gentile churches end in apostasy.
The "falling away" or apostasy could not take place until first the faith was restored back to its original foundation. God permits it, all who will fall away, will fall away. It's also happening today in "Message" circles. Only those with the Seal of God will remain steadfast. If you have the Holy Ghost within you, you will believe the Word, and that will hold you. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. The Message is, "Come out of Babylon and be filled with the Spirit!" Jesus Christ, the same— yesterday, today, and forever.
We talk of the Message. Just what is the Message? There IS only one Message. I John 1:5:
"This then is the MESSAGE which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all."
The Message is Spiritual LIGHT, faith, or revelation of the Word on which Christ said He would build His Church. Zechariah 14 describes how the denominational Ages culminate in apostasy: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Light shall not be clear, nor dark: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at the evening time it shall be Light".
Proverbs 4:18: "But the path of the just is the shining Light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day." After the centuries of Dark Ages, the people saw Light. When Luther preached "the just shall live by faith," the Light began to shine. Wesley followed with sanctification and that Light grew brighter. Pentecost, with the baptism of the Holy Ghost shone more of the same Light, "a Light to lighten the Gentiles." The Holy Spirit working through Brother Branham, caused that Light to shine brighter still. Today as in every Age, the Message is Jesus, the Light of the world. As in every Age, It's greatest enemies are those who claim to be the household of faith but who are impersonating the glare of an Age gone by, NOT walking in the Light Jesus is manifesting.
Judas Iscariot was chosen by the Lord Jesus Himself as one of the twelve apostles Jesus sent forth saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand: heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, . . etc." Judas was thought to be "in the Message," for his day, but he betrayed the Word and never made it to Pentecost!
In the Eternity to come, in that Holy City, the New Jerusalem, "there shall be no night; and they will need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them Light: and they shall reign forever and ever".
Dear Christian, "He that is of God hears God's Words" (John 8:47). "And ALL Your children shall be taught of God" (Isaiah 54:13): being ONE WITH THE WORD proves whether you are of God and Spirit-filled. No other criterion. Its Christ (the Logos) in you that is your hope of glory.
Why don't you stand up now and say out loud, "I CHOOSE JESUS CHRIST!"
Jesus Christ the same—yesterday and today, and forever is the Message and the spiritual food for today. If you believe on Him and obey His Word, He will lead you into that way everlasting and open your understanding to His Word.
"If so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus" (Ephesians 4:21). bb920623.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in other countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
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