OUR TEXT FOR THE BEGINNING OF THIS MESSAGE WILL BE TAKEN FROM THE 19TH CHAPTER OF MATTHEW, AND PARTICULARLY FROM VERSE 28 WHERE JESUS SPEAKS OF THE REGENERATION. HE HAD BEEN CONFRONTED BY A YOUNG MAN THAT NO DOUBT WAS VERY RICH. THAT WAS THE OCCASION FOR HIM TO SPEAK AS HE DID. THE QUESTION WAS ASKED, GOOD MASTER, WHAT GOOD THING SHALL I DO, THAT I MAY HAVE ETERNAL LIFE; AND THE ANSWER TO HIS QUESTION CAUSED HIM TO TURN AWAY VERY DEPRESSED BECAUSE HE HAD GREAT RICHES. WHEN HE WAS GONE FROM THEM, JESUS SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES, IT IS GOING TO BE HARD FOR A RICH MAN TO ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD. THAT IS WHEN HE SAID, IT IS EASIER FOR A CAMEL TO GO THROUGH THE EYE OF A NEEDLE, THAN FOR A RICH MAN TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD. THIS STATEMENT CAUSED HIS DISCIPLES TO BE VERY TROUBLED AND THEY ASKED, WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED? JESUS TOLD THEM THAT ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE WITH GOD. PETER THEN SAID TO HIM, “BEHOLD, WE HAVE FORSAKEN ALL, AND FOLLOWED THEE; WHAT SHALL WE HAVE THEREFORE?” (IN OTHER WORDS, ARE WE GOING TO MISS IT TOO? THEY HAD LEFT THEIR FISHING BOATS, WHICH WAS THEIR MEANS OF EARNING A LIVING; AND THEY HAD LEFT THEIR FAMILIES; SO YOU CAN SEE WHY HE WOULD ASK SUCH A QUESTION.) JESUS ANSWERED HIM LIKE THIS, (VERSE 28) “JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, THAT YE WHICH HAVE FOLLOWED ME, IN THE REGENERATION WHEN THE SON OF MAN SHALL SIT IN THE THRONE OF HIS GLORY, YE ALSO SHALL SIT UPON TWELVE THRONES, JUDGING THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL. AND EVERY ONE THAT HATH FORSAKEN HOUSES, OR BRETHREN, OR SISTERS, OR FATHER, OR MOTHER, OR WIFE, OR CHILDREN, OR LANDS, FOR MY NAME’S SAKE, SHALL RECEIVE AN HUNDREDFOLD, AND SHALL INHERIT EVERLASTING LIFE.” NATURALLY, HE WAS SPEAKING OF THE MILLENNIUM, WHEN HE SPOKE OF THE THRONE OF HIS GLORY, AND OF THEM SITTING ON THRONES JUDGING THE TWELVE TRIBES OF ISRAEL. UNTIL THEN, THIS OLD WORLD WE ARE LIVING IN IS GOING TO CONTINUE ON IN ITS DOWNWARD TREND OF DEGRADATION. ONLY THE LITERAL COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST TO RULE AND REIGN FOR ONE THOUSAND YEARS IS GOING TO CHANGE THAT PICTURE.

RIGHT NOW THOUGH WE ARE GOING TO BEGIN LOOKING AT SOME SCRIPTURES THAT ENABLE US TO KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT IF WE ARE AMONG THOSE WHO WILL STILL BE LIVING WHEN HE COMES. THERE ARE PEOPLE AMONG THE DENOMINATIONAL RANKS THAT THINK IT IS VERY FOOLISH FOR ANYONE TO THINK OF COMING BACK TO EARTH, ONCE THEY HAVE GONE TO HEAVEN; (AS THEY THINK OF IT) BUT WHAT WE NEED TO REALIZE, IS THAT EARTH IS WHERE GOD HAS DETERMINED TO WORK WITH, AND FELLOWSHIP WITH MANKIND. RIGHT HERE, IS WHERE HE PUT MAN IN THE FIRST PLACE; AND THAT IS WHERE HE INTENDS TO DEAL WITH MANKIND UNTIL HE HAS THAT FAMILY UPON EARTH THAT HIS HEART YEARNS FOR, SO TO SPEAK.

SATAN IS BOUND UP

I believe we should at this time go to Revelation 20:1-3, and read the only scripture in the Bible that tells us the duration of the Kingdom Age. (1) “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. (2) And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, (3) And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.” This is when the Millennium, or Kingdom Age begins, which is the age of regeneration. Verse 4, describes the next scene, what takes place next after Satan is chained up. “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.” Let me stop right there. That is not all of the verse, but the rest of it belongs to another message. I will read this portion again. “And I saw thrones, (plural) and they (plural) sat upon them. (What did they sit upon? Thrones, plural.) And judgment was given unto them,” (plural). I wanted to be sure you catch the plural terminology, and now I will take this right back to the 19th chapter of Matthew, to that word Jesus mentioned. He said as He spoke to Peter, “In the regeneration.” Christians for centuries have read right over that word, never even allowing it to register in their mind’s, and certainly taking no time to try to understand exactly what the word pertained to in the statement of Jesus. I notice in the Scofield Bible that the word regeneration is translated from the Greek word paliggenesia, which means to recreate or renew a social order. When we compare that with Genesis, where the Lord commanded Adam and Eve while they were still just spirit beings yet in His presence, He put into their intellect a commandment, or commission. Replenish. That word replenish, and the word regenerate are almost the same. There is a difference in this sense, When the Lord said to Adam and Eve, Replenish, He was merely referring to repopulating, or refilling the planet. He was not talking about creating any specific social order, or anything like that. The social order was to be determined by how Adam and Eve met their test. That is what we have to understand. Even though they failed in their test, there is a social system that has come forth out of it, and that social system has not always been pleasing to God. As man has been propagated upon the planet, he has been left to his own fate many times, and to his own doings, because he creates his political and social environment, motivated by the nature that is within him. Therefore, he is born a sinner and many times until the grace of God changes him, he does knot know anything else to do but what comes naturally. Many times that can be very greedy and selfish. Nevertheless this word regeneration used by Jesus, is applicable to an age of time, an age that is going to accomplish something on earth far greater than what any man prior to that period of time has ever accomplished. It is not only going to be an era of repopulating, propagating life again, but it is going to bring about the establishing of a kingdom, and a social structure that will be exactly like God wants. It will be strictly motivated by the Spirit of God. For 1000 years, the earth will know only righteousness, because righteousness is in power to rule and reign. When we can see that Millennial Age from the scriptures, it makes one wonder how so many of the professing Christians of the world, all having the same New Testament, could miss the whole picture. They may have different translations, or versions of the Bible, but that particular passage of scripture, no matter what translation it is taken out of, when you read it with the right thought, you are going to have to look ahead to the period of time in which that will be fulfilled. It is a tragedy that within our denominational church world we have thousands, possibly millions of church going people that will read that verse and the whole thought just passes them by like water under a bridge, having no meaning whatsoever. They see nothing, so why be concerned. That is why the Methodists, the Nazarene, the Pilgrim Holiness, Church of God of Prophecy, and elements like that do not even see a Millennium reign of Jesus Christ. They will take certain scriptures that Paul wrote, like in 1st Thessalonians 4, how at the last trump the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which will remain alive shall together with them, be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with Him, and say, Praise the Lord, that proves we are going to go to heaven and get out of all this heartache and materialistic struggle. Who would want to come back to earth? Yes saints, I have heard it presented just exactly like that, but now it is my time to say something. They have said that for as long as two hundred years, or however old their movement is. It presents a false concept of what the plan of God really is. Naturally I realize we can only see what the Spirit of God reveals to us, but I have very little patience with those who just simply take a stance and fight against the revealed truth of God’s word. God gave the original Church an insight to the future, that they might see the world to come, and the part the Church was going to play in the overall picture. Well if there is going to be an age that will accomplish that, then let us look at the hour we are living in. Why will an age like that be necessary? What causes the hour we are living in to be changed? We have many scriptures to look at, and we are going to deal with them in this phase of this message, hoping to prove by the scriptures that the world cannot expect to just move out of this era of time into an age of bliss, without there being a period of time wherein humanity will pass through a terrible ordeal; catastrophic, chaotic conditions that will prevail upon this planet. Those conditions lead right up to the day of the Lord. As you read the writings of those Old Testament writers, you find the day of the Lord mentioned often. We are going to look at some of those prophecies.

WHAT THE PROPHETS SAW-HEARD-AND WROTE

Verses like Joel 2:31, give us a little more insight than a lot of the others; but they all speak of the same time, the end of this age when these chaotic conditions are climaxed by the coming of Jesus Christ back to earth in bodily form calling forth the wrath of God upon all ungodliness. Here is what that verse says. “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.” As that anointing came upon those old prophets and took possession of their insight, it was almost like a captain on a ship taking that long set of binoculars, pulling them out to the limit, and focusing on a certain object in the far distance. That is exactly how those prophets could see things that were far off in the future. God caused them to be able to focus way beyond the time they were living. There was no way those prophets could understand, or relate to what they were seeing, but they were certainly able to write what they saw. They saw the day of the Lord and what a terrible time it was going to be, and they just simply wrote what the Spirit inspired them to write when they saw those things. Not only did they see future events, they also heard things which they wrote down. And then they took their place among the dead, never to see any of it come to pass. Why would we have a book that relates over and over, repeatedly, about the day of the Lord, unless God wants mankind to pay close attention to what is taking place in the world, and recognize the nearness of that time as it draws nigh at hand? We will not be able to touch all these prophecies; but we can look at the main one’s. Some are major, some are minor, some are lengthy, and some are just two or three verses in a particular chapter or writing of a prophet, but taken together, they paint a very clear picture of what they are pointing to. We will endeavor to get the major ones, that give the overall profile of this day of the Lord which will precede that throne setting we looked at in Revelation 20. That day of the Lord will close out the things you and I see, and are related to in this present hour. Therefore it is necessary, if we are going to play our part in this end time wind up, that we have obeyed the gospel call and accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior; and that we are willing to let HIM take possession of our lives. We can only know how to walk day by day, by letting Him lead and direct us in every walk of life. In Isaiah, chapter 13, is one of the first major prophecies spoken, concerning this time. We begin in verse 9, because verse 9 starts with this, “Behold, the day of the Lord.” Now let us describe this day of the Lord. What are we actually dealing with? Are we dealing with a period of twenty four hours? No. Are we dealing with one specific hour? Not at all. Then what are we dealing with when we are talking about the day of the Lord? We are dealing with an hour of time upon earth, during which the Lord Jesus Himself will come to earth in bodily form to finish out all of what the prophets have spoken concerning the end of this age. We have been given signs to watch for at the end time. When we begin to see those signs developing in political, economical, military and social orders, we can rest assured, the time is getting close at hand for God to fulfill His purpose in the whole thing. I am not talking about the rapture, and I am not going to tell you any exact time when the rapture is likely to take place. We are presently dealing only with the day of the Lord. In your denominational realms, they have taken these prophecies and split them apart. Some have said the day of the Lord is when Jesus comes. That is true, if you are not thinking of the rapture when you say such a thing. Then they will take other scriptures which describe the day of the Lord and say, That is just before the eternal age sets in. Well we know it cannot be both, so let us go back. The day of the Lord is that era or that little span of time that God begins to introduce His purpose, as He begins to execute certain drastic changes, judgments, creating chaotic circumstances, wherein mankind has to stand back and begin to realize, This has to be the hand of God. A man would be a fool even today, to look at the present world right now, and in the light of what has transpired in the last few months, not see the hand of God setting everything in place for the wrapup. Anyone who would stand today and say, I do not see anything happening that looks like God changing things, would have to be spiritually blind. I see a lot. I see things taking place in this hour that could not have come about forty years ago, or at any other time. Think of the Communistic world, how long they were, in accomplishing their previous boundary and influential status. The Bolshevik revolution which cost millions of lives when men died in the snowy battlefields, eventually led to the creation of an ideology. Years of occupation, then a war, and then gradually spreading. We can safely say that over a period of roughly seventy some years, an empire eventually spread its net. Then in seven months of time it practically fell to pieces. Do not tell me that is mere chance. It just simply does not work that way. Therefore this day of the Lord is how mankind is going to begin to be dealt with. In some of these tragedies, disasters, chaotic upheavals, social disorders, and economic disturbances, as mankind begins to be jostled and shook, if somehow these events are not allowed to awaken him to the reality of what is taking place, and if he does not take heed, then you can rest assured, God’s wrath will strike him. There is no way such a person can look up and say, well you did not tell me. Yes. The day of the Lord is within a period of time, as we begin to see signs developing. The day of the Lord is a little era of time, a span of time when we begin to see the hand of God executing in the earth things to cause His word to begin to be quickened, and come alive. All of that is going to lead to, or be climaxed by the day of His wrath, judgment and destruction of ungodly men, and the destroying of man’s so called beautiful social order. Our nation in the past forty some years has tried to lead the world and portray an image of democracy. The democracy our nations portray today, is a philosophy that you can put criminals and law abiding people all within the same environment, and that everything ought to be wonderful. The people who read the Constitution today, and who interpret the Constitution to the modern application of democracy, are blind. The men who wrote that very charter they interpret so carelessly, did not believe you could put a mad dog and sheep in the same pasture and have any right to expect that they will all get along together, and that everything will come out alright in the end. Those men were endowed with a true concept of right and wrong, and they established a true democracy. The trouble comes as a result of all these amendments and modern day interpretations by people who seem to be unable to look beyond their own nose. Never has there been an era of time before, when the political leaders of this once great nation were as void of understanding of what true democracy is as they are today. I am not talking about one party being better than the other. God forbid. They are all cut from the same mold. They are like a bunch of spoiled children playing, each one feeling that if things do not go according to his or her own way, they will just refuse to play. In other words, you will all play by my rules, or I will take my ball and go home. The other side of the picture is, each one has a private interest of some kind, and they will only vote for a certain bill, or law, if their interest is sufficiently represented. Is that what our founding father’s had in mind when they drew up the Constitution? We every one know better. People campaign for these politicians, and promote them as great men, (or women) but when somehow we are able to look behind the front they put up, a lot of them live lives that are abominable, and do very little to preserve and uphold principles that would be acceptable in the eyes of God and in the eyes of our forefather’s, if they could see what is going on. If the founding fathers who wrote the charter of the Constitution of the United States were to come alive today and step in the White House, and could be allowed to express their temperaments like they did back then, you would really see some action. If you have not already done so, you ought to read a little of the history about what went on in the early days of our political system. Those men so cherished a point of truth, they were ready to defend it at any and all costs to their personal being, even if it led to a fist fight. Oh! But we do not believe in those things. That is why we have a stinking mess in our political offices, instead of citizens that have the interest of the whole country at heart. Our politics stink to the high heavens; and a just God will naturally deal with it in due time. All of this lets us know, this eventually is what constitutes the need for God to fulfill His desire and bring it to an end. Let us read the rest of that verse. (Isa.13:9) “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.” When God really gets angry, brother I want you to know, mankind is going to learn in very short order, by some of the things He demonstrates, that they are no longer messing around with a God of love. He will be a God of wrath instead. Naturally the day of the Lord and His wrath is aimed at sinners, transgressors, atheists, dope addicts, drug kingpins, crooked politicians, people that have no regard for decency, immoral and evil. His wrath is aimed at that type of individual, because they have corrupted everything round about them and spurned any mention of a righteous God. (10) “For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” More than one prophet down through the span of time, saw this day of the Lord; and many of them saw how the constellations, the heavenly bodies would become disturbed. We are living among a modern minded generation of mankind that think this book is just a book of religious myths. They think of it as being in the same category as Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, and some of that type of literature. They are going to find out the hard way that this one is the very word of God they ignore. God will just let mankind pass through an era of time where they create such an attitude about God and creation. When their abominations reach a certain point, then it will be time for Him to pour out His wrath upon the whole thing. That is what God was looking at, when He caused things way back there to be spoken and written in the Bible. He was looking right on through time to an hour that is just ahead. Even the constellations will testify against their ungodliness. You cannot go to a modern scientist and have him give you a logical explanation of how that is going to come about. I cannot tell you either, but I do believe this for sure: God is able to shut the heavenly lights off when the time comes. I have heard how they used to say at the turn of the century when Haley’s Comet come in, how it scared the daylights out of people. Because it created a semi darkness in certain areas of the earth as the day would dawn, articles were written in the paper, Doomsday is upon us, Judgment is coming. Well Haley’s Comet passed over and all of that faded into the background. Then it reoccurred on the horizon a few years back, but this time it was announced and did not have the same effect as before. No. It is not going to be Haley’s Comet that will do this. It will be something God Himself does. Somewhere out in space, He has something all lined up to do that very thing; and your scientists and astrologers will not have an explanation for it, even if they had an opportunity to give one. This is not the only scripture that tells of this event; Matthew 24:29, tells of the very same thing. So does Revelation 6:12-17. (11) “And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.” We all know, because we hear the news and read in the newspapers, of the various evils our social structure is being invaded with today. The underworld gangs of organized crime, with their drug dealing and all of that, are making a nation that once was influenced by godlike ideas and principles, and that had politicians who used the Bible as a road map and a basis for writing laws to govern us by, into a rotten mess that only God Himself could deal with. It is the same the world over, we just know more about what is happening in our own country. We have passed out of that era when such a large percentage of our population at least had respect for God and the Bible and have gone past the point of no return in the other direction. We now have a nation where the larger percentage of the people want nothing at all to do with God; and do not want the Bible mentioned. But little do they realize, the very things they are doing, and are advocating, are what God’s word is pointing to. Think of our scientists today, our philosophers, who on TV News programs and talk shows, talk about the gradual process of man’s evolutionary patterns. They seem so sure that they know where he came from, and how he has come through certain stages of evolution to get where he is today. Brother, they are just as arrogant to talk like that, and to take our young children and fill their mind’s with this kind of picture as they could possibly be. If you, as a parent would go to the school and put up an argument against such, then you are immediately looked upon as some kind of fanatic. They begin to brand you, and even write articles in papers about how illiterate, unlearned, unstable, and irrational you are. They want you to be looked upon by the rest of the world as though you are some insignificant speck of humanity that ought to be eradicated from existence. That is the arrogancy spirit of this world, that this scripture is referring to. They are proud of thinking in terms like that. However, God says He will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. In accomplishing this, it is God in that day known as the day of the Lord, which is a time of wrath poured out upon all who fall into that category.

LOOKING AT-AND BEYOND THE DAY OF THE LORD

When God is accomplishing His purpose in all of what constitutes the day of the Lord, here is something else that is derived out of it. Notice verse 13, “I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.” In other words, when God gets through with all that He will accomplish in the time called the day of the Lord, it is going to bring the human population down to such a low level, that world wise, global wise, a man that survives that hour will be likened to a piece of gold that has been brought through the refiners fire. “I will make a man more precious than fine gold,” has to be talking about the realm of living mortal mankind that survives that day of the Lord. The earth will still have a living element of decent people left alive to repopulate the world during the Millennial reign of Christ. Verse 13, says, “Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.” How would you like to be left here on this planet, and all of a sudden it is no longer just a 6.4 on the Richter scale, but this old planet starts having convulsions, upheavals, and they are of such a magnitude that it creates tidal waves from continent to continent? This cannot help but create a planet like a lop sided basket ball trying to roll across the floor. It will be wobbling instead of spinning. Instead of the planet being able to stay on course and spin at its normal rate, it is definitely going to create some kind of unstable course in its rotation around the sun. It is going to pass through a little era of catastrophic upheavals, so that the inhabitants left on it are going to wonder what has gone wrong with this old ball of clay they have lived on for so long. I will tell you one thing for sure, there will not be anyone sitting around laughing about it. (14) “And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.” I read that last verse to give you this thought, the prophecy that we have just read started in verse 9. Isaiah was prophesying to Israel things relating to their present tense hour, when he knew Israel was going to be dealt with, actually was already being dealt with by their Creator, but when we reach verse 9, the Spirit of prophecy began to reach way out into the future tense. Isaiah soared through the spiritual atmosphere of the future, writing of things for our day; and then in verse 14, he is right back to his day and hour, right back on the same level he was before. That is how God keeps the doctors of divinity in your denominational ranks from being able to put a picture together. Without the Holy Spirit revealing it, the natural mind just simply fails to make the distinction. Let us look at the writings of a New Testament apostle concerning this same era of time we have been considering. Go to 2nd Peter 3:1, to begin reading; but verse 10, is what I want to get to. The apostle Peter is also speaking of this DAY OF THE LORD, and he holds back no words. Think of the license these self willed teachers have, to teach their garbage to mankind. They will present their charts and refer to them as though there could be no doubt about what they portray. They find all these skulls, skeletons, and various bones, they mark them, and date them, and give a little biography about each one. Then they write and elaborate thesis that is supposed to settle the whole issue. The most they can do is assume and accumulate a bunch of ideas, This is the path. This is the process. This is how we have come to the hour we live in; and all the time completely ignoring the scriptures. If ever there was an hour that the scientists, the atheists, the evolutionists, the agnostics, were in their hey day, it is now. You know it. Sixty years ago they had a hard time getting into schools with this nonsense, but this is their hey day. This is the hour Peter was talking about. (2nd Peter 3:1-10) “This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: (2) That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: (3) Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers.“ (What is a scoffer? Look in your dictionary. A scoffer is not a little old ignoramus; he is a character that thinks he knows what he is talking about. He thinks he has so much to back him up and prove his theory he no longer looks at it as theory. To him it is fact, and anyone who differs with him is just plain stupid. But in reality, he is the fool. We are talking about the same scoffers Peter was talking about, people who out rightly make fun of the word of God, and of anyone who believes it.) Walking after their own lusts, (Their own fleshly ways of reasoning.) (4) “And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? (They would say that to you and me, Where is, or what about the promise of His coming?) for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (This word fathers can be a word better translated ancients, in this case. for since the ancients, the teachers of the same belief you believe, died, is what it all points to. In other words, those who used to say that are all dead now, and He still has not come. Your category of people who believe that, is getting less and less, and ours is getting more and more; so where is the promise of His coming? That is the final analysis of what that all leads up to. There is not as many of you as there was before. Let me tell you, When the hour comes that the Bride, the living element of the true Church, is to be taken, there is not going to be as many as there once seemed to be.) (5) For this they willingly (or because of their self willed attitude) are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water (or it could be read like this, existing in the water and out of the water) (6) Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished(That scripture does not tell you that the planet perished. I hear Methodists, Nazarene who advocate the idea that all of this present creation will be burned up simply because they read this and literalize it so much. To them God will have to burn up everything. The Bible tells us that this earth is going to be burned, that is what the word of God says. They say that ignorantly, not knowing how to read what the Bible actually says. That is why they take what Paul said in Thessalonians and say, The Bible says we are to meet the Lord on a cloud in the air and we are all going to heaven for the rest of eternity. Well let us see what Peter really did mean, when we come on down. He gives us a remembrance of how the heavens and earth of old perished, but I ask you, What perished? Did God create a new world after the flood, or would you agree that we are living in the same world Noah lived in?) (7) But the heavens and the earth, which are now, (Everybody has to realize, it is the same planet, not another ball of earth out here in space. It is the same planetary body Genesis 1:1, speaks of.) by the same word (What does he mean by the same word? It is the same word of judgment, the same word of wrath.) are kept in store, reserved unto fire against (or for) the day of judgment and perdition (or destruction) of ungodly men. (8) But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (After 1900 and some years have passed since the gospel of Christianity began being proclaimed, we have almost come to the closing of two millenniums, which is two days of time counting like that; and that scripture, or prophecy has been lying there all the time.) (9)The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” In every generation throughout these almost 2000 years of time that God has been dealing with us Gentiles, just think of the grace of God that has been ignored as it came, visited, and then moved on through nation after nation. Somewhere in those nations, that gospel, the effect of it, the purpose of God in it, was there long enough that it left a picture, a testimony, and it left a message that should not have been ignored. I have thought many times as we would read in our secular histories where Gentile Christendom started, really in the western coastal areas of what is now called Turkey, how in that same area today there are very few traces of the existence of true Christianity. It is now mostly all under Islamic control. At one time it was the very center of the existence of Christianity. The seven churches of Asia, which are mentioned in Revelation 1:11, today are all ancient geological ruins. God passed through and took His quota. Then somehow or other He struck those areas with situations, knowing they would never return to what they had been before; and those cities just lie there in ruins. We have come down to where Peter gets real specific and brings in details as to how this day of the Lord is to be executed. Notice verse 10. “But the day of the Lord will come (When Peter said this, he was actually speaking of the same period of time that we read about in Isaiah 13. Only he gives specifics as to how this day of the Lord is going to be executed.) as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.“ The way that sounds, people who literalize the disintegrating of the planet, think this planet is literally going to be completely dissolved and pass into oblivion, complete annihilation. They say the Bible says that, but if we stop there and just let that kind of attitude launch the rest of our thinking, then we have to read the rest of what he wrote with a lot of misgivings. (11) “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, (12) Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” (Peter brings this in, This will take you back to Isaiah 55 and 56, because his mind was looking back there to what Isaiah said in those last chapters; but you can rest assured, the burning God does will be for the purpose of cleansing this planet, not destroying it completely.) If you want to believe that pertains to a literal annihilation of this planet, then you would be more comfortable in the Methodist Church which believes like that. You cannot preach the true revelation a lot of the Bible in the Methodist Church. I tried it years ago; and was told that we ought not preach things that the Methodist Church does not believe. Well it is very strange, it was preached in the apostolic Church. If the Methodist Church is like the apostolic Church, then it ought to open up to apostolic teachings. Time may have changed people, but God has not changed; and neither has His Word changed. (13) “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” A new heaven and new earth. What is that telling us? Is that saying that we interpret the epistle of Peter, that this planet we are on now is literally going to be dissolved, melted down, completely annihilated, and that we are going to be transported far beyond time into some distant realm of space to another planet, another heavenly environment, is that the new heaven and new earth? Is that the way we apply the scriptures? No. The point is, No one scripture you read is the complete determining factor as to how you apply the day of the Lord; and what it is to accomplish in the earth. Look with me, in the 21st chapter of Revelation, and I will show you why I say that. I will start reading in verse 3, because this is actually talking about what takes place in the eternal age, beyond the Millennium. The reason I will read this at this particular time, is to remind the readers of this important fact, Throughout these centuries of time that God has been among us Gentiles, He has been taking out of us a people to be known by His name. He has given to us the Spirit of regeneration. The Spirit of regeneration is the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost which is in us. He is not making a complete new physical being out of us, but He is bringing about a renewing of the real you and me, making us into what we should be. We were born into this world by a God ordained means; but because of Adam’s sin we have an inherited sinful nature, which renders us spiritually dead. Therefore until the Spirit of God does something to get our attention, we have no desire to know God or seek after Him. There is no righteousness in us. Our nature is strictly earthly, animal, and very carnal. That is why Paul speaks of us in the many terms that he did, carnal, natural, earthly, and all of that. Without the Spirit of God in us, we only think in realms that we can reason ourselves through. On the other hand, when God gives us that Spirit of regeneration we have within us that part of His Spirit that sin caused us to be born without, and that we are helpless without. We do not know how to please Him no matter what anyone says to encourage us to live right; but His Spirit in us, causes a renewing of our spirit, and that is referred to as the regenerating Spirit of God. He will make a new person out of you, which in reality is the person we ought to have been, but we were not. That is what the Spirit of regeneration does. Did you know, The word regeneration, appears only twice in the Bible? First in Matthew 19:28, which we read at the beginning of this message, and in Titus 3:5, where Paul was instructing that young man concerning his ministry. Let us read verses 3-7, and see how the apostle Paul used the term, and then we will go to Revelation 21. “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers (or various) lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.“ As you can see, the one in Paul’s writing is talking about the renewing of the individual person, and in Matthew where Jesus spoke of it, He was applying it to the social order of the whole planet. Therefore, this age of regeneration in which Jesus will sit upon the throne of His glory in Jerusalem, is going to bring about an era of time on earth that things are to be renewed and brought to a higher plane. Now we can go to Revelation 21, which picks up after the great white throne judgment is completed, and every abominable thing has been cast alive into the lake of fire, leaving on earth only the righteous one’s that have been regenerated, washed by that Spirit of regeneration. We will start in verse 1, so we can get the whole picture. (1) “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; (actually cleansed and completely changed from their former estate) and there was no more sea. (2) And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, (To where? Not to a newly created earth, but a completely renewed old earth.) prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (3) And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, (Where? Right here on this same planet where we were redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and renewed in our spirit to be like Him.) and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. (4) And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. (5) And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” Here, it is even prophesied as the Lord speaks, “Behold, I make all things new.” If He is going to make all things new, do we interpret that to mean that He is going off somewhere ten million light years away to make another planet, another heaven and so forth, and that He is literally going to transport us from here to there? That is not the picture the Bible presents.

MANY PROPHETS-BUT ONLY ONE PICTURE

It should not be confusing for people to see the Bible prophecies of what is ahead; and it would not be if people did not try to interpret the whole picture by just two or three verses taken out of context. When you consider the whole scope of the plan of God for the ages, you can better associate the terminology of the various writers of the scriptures that were inspired of God to write their part of the plan, without being shown the whole picture from start to finish. Peter spoke of the heavens and earth, and how they will be dissolved by a fiery, catastrophic judgment. Well the planet is going to go through it, but not for total annihilation, just for cleansing. God knows what to burn and what to save. As I said, no one prophecy is the complete determining factor as to how we look upon that day of the Lord because each prophet only wrote what he saw. That is how God dealt with that prophet, and that is how God keeps the true picture from theology scholars and reveals it to whomsoever He has chosen. Let us now go back to Isaiah, chapter 24. Isaiah saw again, this terrible, catastrophic day of judgment and wrath, just as Peter described it in his epistle. It lays out here in front of mankind somewhere. When we read this, we need to look at our present world conditions round about us and realize why it is necessary for God to bring this present world system to such a drastic end, like is described here. (Isa.24:1) “Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, (That is the way Isaiah saw it, looking like it was empty. Him looking at it from an overall viewpoint, it would look empty to him.) and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.” When that day of His wrath comes, and when God executes this kind of condition to bring about the ending of sin, wickedness, pride and such like, He will not be a respecter of persons. Their rank, wealth, status, nor anything else will make any difference, when God begins to cleanse this earth of all traces of sin and rebellion. “And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; (Saints, there is going to be many so called preachers left here.) as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, (I wonder if that is not a little of what the earth is going through right now, the earth is mourning and groaning.) the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, (That is referring to the planet itself.) and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.” Every time you hear the environmentalists speaking today, they are telling you that very thing. Greedy mankind is polluting the whole planet. We know how, in the past number of years we have had these giant oil spills. I would be a fool to elaborate on how not to have oil spills; but I do know this, when our ships were smaller and somehow or other man had not quite reached the state of greediness they have in this hour of time, we hardly ever heard of oil spills. All of a sudden though, there was an all out rat race to see who could build the largest oil tankers. Japan built theirs, some were built in Europe, and today they have them that look like aircraft carriers. They ride way up out of the water when empty, but think how deep down in the water they go when they are full. I have to say this: With the technical knowledge we now have, and with the capability we have to launch huge satellites that can bounce communication signals around the world, if man could get his greedy feelings out of the picture, we would be harnessing the sun for much of our energy today. That is a non polluting source of energy that mankind could be enjoying without so much fear and heartache. Huge batteries could be used to hold that energy for periods when the sun was at a minimum. I am just an ignorant farmer, but I can look ahead and envision the Millennium. There will be no oil spills in the Millennium. It is my opinion, there will be a knowledge of how to harness things of nature, that can be used for the tranquility of earth’s inhabitants, and for the cleaning up of a lot of things. Right now though, one of the things that has this earth mourning is the way man is allowed to cut down the rain forests. Eventually that will lead to a shortage of oxygen. The shortage of oxygen, and the increasing of the monoxides in the air, will eventually create such an environment in the air, man will have difficulty breathing. We are not far from that now. I saw this demonstrated on TV by an environmentalist, portraying the year 2000 and something; and they said if man does not do something to curtail that oncoming condition, in certain areas of the earth people would have to wear a mask and carry a little oxygen tank, in order to step outside their homes. Is that not a tragic future man has to look forward to? I cannot help but wonder what some of these people have for brains, that want to spend billions of dollars building space platforms, so they can go into space and experiment with the idea of growing plant life in glass bubbles. The idea is, when the world gets overpopulated, we will send a few up there. Let me tell you, When that time comes, God is going to render this thing void and He will do it in quick order. All of this type of thinking lets us know that man has come to the end of his road. I heard the other day, that the world population has passed five billion and in every ten years it is doubling its population. Well there is only ten more years until the year 2000. If this planet doubles its population every ten years, by the year 2000, there is going to be a lot of people on this old ball of clay. That means there is going to be less oxygen around. Things could be rough. I am not belittling, only expressing the fact that politicians, along with other greedy, carnal minded men are bringing this planet to an hour of ghastly tragedies. I say that the hour for greedy men to make wealth and control energy, so they can charge the poor in a reckless way, is just about over. God knows exactly how to bring the whole thing to an end. What a tragedy. In December 89, we had a terrible cold spell strike this area, and it set a record in this nation in over 105 cities,causing heating oil prices to shoot sky high. Then it warmed up; the oil companies did not get in any hurry about regulating their prices to reflect that. Now is our chance to get rich quick, no doubt they thought. They raised the price on everything. My point is: They are going to play with this kind of thing every chance they get, because they are getting it where they can control it. It is that dollar they are after. They are in a position to use the earths natural resources to squeeze out of you every penny, and every dollar for their greedy purposes. God is going to get tired of that. Do you know what He is going to do? One day He is going to simply choke the life out of them. That is why it is pictured here, when the world languisheth, and when the world mourneth. It is talking about a terrible environmental condition that has come about upon this planet; and no matter what man does now, it is too late to correct the situation. We have made our chemicals and thought we were doing a good thing; but the manufacturers were probably more concerned about jobs for their people and money in their bank account than they were the safety of the products. Little did they realize, that one of these days as these little river and streams flow to the oceans and the oceans flow nowhere, that all of this would catch up with us. One of these days our oceans will be nothing but cesspools of the overflow of chemicals of man’s industrial waste. It is all because greedy mankind wants to dig into the earth and use the earth’s resources for a carnal, greedy purposes. This is my way of saying, The earth is mourning today. Is that not why Paul says the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together until now? For what purpose? Waiting for that day. What day? The manifestation of the sons of God. No, not in this era, but in the Millennium. That is as soon as anyone has any right to expect this situation to be corrected. That is when the righteous will rule. That is when the planet will be lifted from its terrible struggle with death. Environmentalists are suddenly jumping to the rescue of certain species of birds, fish, and wildlife. They are going about it as if they think they are the only hope these species have; but God only needs two. Did you ever stop to think about that? He only needs two. But Bro. Jackson, we need to help Him. You were not there to help Him after the flood. He instructed Noah what to do, and then He destroyed all the rest. The point is, God is looking at this hour we are living in. He sees man in his sinful, greedy, selfish state. He knows mankind will not change. Things have gone too far. It has to be changed by the intervention of the coming of the Lord in the day of His wrath and judgment, when this planet will undergo a drastic, terrible, chaotic upheaval. He is going to cut off the wickedness, every existence of it. He is going to bring an end to all political regimes, and man’s systems of monetary control. He is going to send His Son Jesus the Christ, who after this time of wrath is past, will sit upon the throne of His glory in Jerusalem. He is coming back with His Church, which is called the Bride of Christ. He is going to set them over the nations they were taken out of, to rule with Him. This will be an era of time when the earth will be repopulated, the righteous will rule, and the glory and knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth. Yes, there will be children born in the Millennium. The earth will be completely repopulated, but Satan will never get another chance to pervert things. He will be loosed from his chains for a little season to test all of those born in the Millennium, but he will never be allowed to carry out any kind of evil plan for judgment will be knocking at his door. This time he will be cast into the lake of fire, instead of just being chained up. That is what the Bible says.

JESUS-FIRST HIGH PRIEST-THEN KING

Jesus is certainly not sitting on the throne of His glory yet. For almost two thousand years, He has been sitting upon the Father’s throne. The Father is not a person, and therefore needs no literal chair to sit upon; therefore we must think in spiritual terms when we read of these various positions of authority. The Bible says The Father took His only begotten, immortal Son and positioned Him on His right hand of majesty and power. The Father has invested in this Son His very divine presence, and given Him to be the head over the Church and all things that pertain to redemption. He has been, and still is our high priest, pleading for every lost sinner foreknown to be a predestinated seed of God. No. He is not pleading for the serpent seed of this world. Their destiny is the lake of fire, and no amount of intervention could ever change that. We have all been servants of the devil, but not his children. Religious beliefs around this world are as varied as the colors of a rainbow; and none of them like to hear anyone say that there are people in this world that are ordained to damnation, but the Bible says that. These words did not originate with me; they come from Jude 4, and John 8:38,41,44, and from various other scriptures through the Bible. Therefore there is a vast difference between being a servant of the devil and a child of the devil. We serve the interests of Satan until we come to the knowledge of what the Father has in store for His foreknown children. Hallelujah! We have an inheritance from the great Creator; for the Bible says we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. The devil’s children do not have this promise, so do not tell me Jesus is interceding for the devil’s children. He is interceding for lost, predestined children of God, whose lives must be changed from reflecting the image of this old world we live in, to reflect the image of the One who died for us and rose again. Even though we are predestinated children of God, we still have to be washed in the blood of Jesus, and be renewed in the spirit of our mind’s by the washing of the waters of the word of God. The apostle Paul referred to this as the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, in Titus 3:5; so that is what this Christian life is all about. Predestinated children of God being molded into vessels fit for the glorious privileges we have awaiting us. Over comers will partake of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God and will reign with the King of Kings, when He comes to rule and reign upon this earth for one thousand years. I will not try to limit my remarks just to the subject we are dealing with, The Age Of Regeneration, for there are a lot of other things that can be meaningful when you are on a subject like this. We need to get a picture in our mind’s of what our Heavenly Father is really after. He did not design this whole plan just so certain one’s could go to heaven and dwell there in His presence throughout the eternal ages. He wants the world filled with creatures like He created in the beginning, but He designed the whole thing so every human being that dwells with Him in eternity, is there by his or her own choice, after having been tempted and tried by Satan and offered all of the things that pertain to this present life in exchange for our soul. That is really what it all boils down to, you know. God did not just create a multitude of people and pick some to be saved and the rest to be lost. He created angels. He created one man and one woman and He created the animal kingdom. He gave the man and woman which He had created in His own SPIRIT image the freedom of choice. They originally had the privilege of fellowship in both the physical and the spirit realm. The choice was theirs to make, but like every promise we have in the word of God, their privileges and benefits were conditional. They were not to partake of the tree (or law) of the knowledge of good and evil, if they were to retain the original standing they enjoyed with the Creator when He would come by in the cool of the evening and fellowship with them. Well you know the story, how they disobeyed the word of God and became earth bound creatures. Not only did they loose their access into the spirit world, a penalty of death was imputed to them, making it necessary for them to be redeemed from that sentence of death, in order to be restored to a place where eternal life would again be their portion. At this point, every child born into the world from the genes of both Adam and his wife Eve, would be predestinated children of God, because the only adverse attribute in them was that sentence of death that was imputed to Adam and Eve because of their disobedience. The foreknowledge of the Creator is an important factor that you need to keep conscious of if you are going to understand predestination, because the story gets real twisted up from here on without it. What makes the difference is the fact that God knew before He ever created Adam, every person that would ever choose to serve Him throughout all time; and these whom He saw like that are the Predestinated seed of His. Bro. Jackson, how did the children of the devil that Jesus spoke of get into the picture? That is the part that you need to understand, if you want to be able to receive revelation of much of the written word of God; for without that understanding, you cannot make application of much of what you read.

WHERE SATAN’S CHILDREN CAME FROM

We have published other messages explaining that the serpent in the garden of Eden was an upright creature much in the physical image of Adam, even though he was of the animal kingdom God created. He was a servant to Adam. It was his responsibility to do the manual labor for Adam. However, when he (the serpent) allowed the devil to persuade him to seduce Adam’s wife, the whole story changed. I am not going into proving to you that the eating of the tree of knowledge was absolutely a sex act, because we have all of that fully explained in other messages. The truth is, the serpent introduced the sex act to Eve strictly upon the basis of the pleasure that could be had in partaking; when the true purpose of God was that the act be entered into purely for the purpose of reproduction, not only the humans but the animals likewise. Having sex only for the purpose of reproduction, would have been eating (or partaking) of the tree of life, had the pleasure part never been introduced. However, the serpent did introduce sex to Eve strictly for pleasure; and when she learned how pleasurable it was, she went directly to Adam and introduced the same act to him for pleasure. Most of the religious people of the world reject what I am about to say because it is contrary to their traditional religious beliefs, but Eve came out of that with a dual conception; and do not tell me that is impossible, for we have scientific proof of dual conceptions. We just have to believe God allowed Eve to conceive from that serpent for a reason. Therefore she gave birth to what looked like twins, but in reality those two boy baby’s were the offspring of different daddies. Cain was the serpent’s son; therefore he was part animal. Abel was Adam’s son with those attributes in him that made him God conscious and a revelatory capacity that caused him to know how to worship God. On the other hand, Cain being Eve’s son, he had a desire to make an offering to the Creator, but he had too much of that animal nature in him to have a revelation of how to make an offering God would accept; so he just brought a nice basket of his fruit and vegetables to God, and God refused to accept it. That was just like his kind do today. They build these beautiful buildings, furnish them with the best furnishings money can but, and think God ought to be thrilled to meet with them in such a beautiful place when the truth is, they want no part of a true revelation of the Godhead, nor of His true purpose. Up until the account of Genesis Chapter 6, there were two separate seed lines of mankind upon earth, the seed of the serpent, and the seed of Adam which made them the seed of God. However, after the events of chapter 6, when the two lines began to intermarry, every child born to those mixed marriages had attributes of both sides, and could go either way, depending upon the balance of attributes. That is how those serpent seed genes survived the flood; they were mixed within the family of Noah. Also that explains why some families even today, will have one true, God fearing child and the rest be renegades, or maybe one renegade among several that serve God. The thing about it is, God knew before He ever created anything, every one that would ever give their heart to Him and that is why it can be said that they are predestinated seed of God. Their destiny was known before they were ever born, simply because of the foreknowledge of the Creator. It is not His will that any of His predestinated seed be lost. He will reach into the most remote regions of the planet to get the attention of one of His lost children; and while that one is hearing the message of his inheritance, (the gospel of Jesus Christ) a thousand serpent seed may hear the same message, and it will mean nothing to them. Oh, a lot of them may get religion, but they will never go all the way to a born again experience of salvation. These are the make believers of the world. No. You cannot pick them out for they will do every outward thing they see a true Christian doing, but deep within their heart’s they have no revelatory capacity to worship God in Spirit and in truth. The one thing we can say dogmatically, is that every baby born to woman has that inherited sin lying within its genealogical makeup, and stands in need of this regeneration, or rebirth experience. The gospel is preached to all, and those who are foreordained to eternal life (because of God’s foreknowledge) will eventually believe and obey from the heart, and be made clean by the washing of regeneration. Praise God! Does that sound like God picked some to be saved and left the rest to be damned? It may sound like that; but if you will examine the whole picture, it is not a matter of God picking anyone for salvation above another; but the balance of attributes in the genes of every individual. That is what makes the difference. No one will have any reason to blame God when they stand before the great white throne to be judged because the same gospel is preached to all. Whosoever will, let him come; but God already knows which one’s will come to Him. God does not have to worry that more may accept the invitation to come, than what He has made preparations for at the marriage supper of the Lamb; (HIS SON JESUS) for He already knows those who by their own inability to accept the true word of God exclude themselves from that glorious gathering of the true saints of all ages. If you are hearing this, or reading this, and you can yield your heart completely unto God He will accept you. However, when Jesus sits upon the throne of His glory, He will no longer be high priest. The time of a salvation experience will no longer exist. Now is the time of salvation, just like the Bible says; but you have to remember, there are serpent seed out there that can never have a true salvation experience, no matter how much they hear the gospel preached because they are void of that revelatory capacity that must be there to receive the true experience. Do not say, Now Bro. Jackson that is not fair, because it is fair. God did not design them like that. He designed each species perfect. These are like that because of the mixture of animal and human genes way back there in the garden of Eden, when Eve allowed the serpent (their animal servant) to seduce her. Cain was of that union, and the results of that union are still present in the world today. Only when regeneration is finally completed, will that reproach upon God’s human family be done away with forever.

EXAMPLES OF WHY REGENERATION IS NECESSARY

Do you never wonder why you can go from church to church out here in this Gentile church world, and every one of them would have their own interpretation to the scriptures I am using? Is that the way the Church of the living God is supposed to be? You know it is not. It is like little children coming to the table just learning to eat good food and Daddy is saying, Do not eat that sonny, it is not good for you. Then when he drops it Mommy comes in and says, You must eat this, you need it. One says do not eat it and the other says eat it; and after a while the poor child will wonder what is right. I just use that as an illustration. How often do the same preachers get in the pulpits of the denominational churches and say we believe the word of God, and by their own preaching deny that they do. Even what they profess to believe they tear to pieces later, trying to use another verse of scripture they have no revelation of. That is just simply playing with the scriptures, and not preaching the word of God at all. When you use the word of God like that, twisting scriptures around trying to make them fit a certain traditional idea, you distort the whole picture. As for prophecy of the scriptures, there is not one verse of prophecy written to tear another one. It is carnal minded mankind that presents them like that. Every prophecy of the scriptures will somehow compliment every other prophecy of the Bible; for God has always been looking at the whole picture when He gave His prophets a certain portion of it to proclaim. Somewhere it all has to fit together. One cannot cancel out another. If God gave prophecies like that, He would be playing and we know He does not play with His word like that. That is the purpose of this message, to give the listener or reader an opportunity to see the word of God as it really is. We are not preaching this from a theological standpoint, because to me it is sickening to think of preachers doing that. What does theology have to do with presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world of humanity anyway? Just as our alarm went off this morning, (it turns the radio on instead of an alarm) a preacher was talking. It was a talk show, with a Catholic priest, a Presbyterian preacher and certain others that I do not remember, but it was a gathering of a bunch of preachers in this area. They were discussing the lottery and all of that kind of nonsense. It is bad when the religious world has come to the place that this is all they have to talk about. Will the Lottery be beneficial to our community? Is it right to have it? What will the long term effect be? I just have to say this: Nothing designed by carnal mankind is ever going to be a perfect solution to anything.

HOW MAN’S POLLUTED MIND CONTRIBUTES TO THE POLLUTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT

We are going back to Isaiah 24, to the scriptures dealing with and portraying the day of the Lord, which is judgment and wrath. The day of the Lord is the ending of what this era of mankind has done on earth in relationship to, and because of being sinners. He (natural man) has corrupted the earth. This prophecy portrays the earth as we see it in our day and hour. We were down to verse 5, “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Like I said, the environmentalists are warning us everyday of the greenhouse effect that is threatening this planet because of our ways of living; but who can do very much about it at this late hour of time? The ocean waters are being polluted. That is a warning. The subterranean water table is being polluted by chemicals. That is a warning. Regardless of what some may say, The earth is not being defiled by the ground hogs, nor the polar bears. They are not the ones defiling this planet. They only add to the ecology. It is man creating a false environment of livelihood, that is defiling the earth. He has polluted the air, the water, everything that is vital to a healthy existence. I am not a meteorologist, but common sense will tell you, all you have to do is watch the pattern and trends of the air currents, especially in this Ohio valley that acts as a trough affecting the air currents that flow from the north and from the south, and you will understand a lot of what people are talking about. It picks up all the industrial pollution from St. Louis, Paducah, Evansville, Owensboro, Louisville, Cincinnati and right on up the trough it goes. It is no wonder that this area is called “consumption valley”. Weeping eyes, runny noses, shortness of breath and tiredness are common complaints among our residents. Did God create it like that? No. All of our problems are a result of what mankind has done to the perfect creation the Creator created. When I was a boy we hardly heard of anyone having sinus problems. If you caught a bad cold you could usually blow it away in three days. I know a lot of people do not like my way of saying things, but you cannot help but know what I mean when I get finished. I do not leave you hanging, with a lot of fancy words some people have to go to the dictionary to get the definition of. Medical doctors in this area will admit that this particular area has the most respiratory infected realm of human population there is in the nation, unless you were actually living right in the cities of St. Louis, New York, or Chicago. It is because this valley traps in all of the pollution. There are certain mornings when the air temperature is just right for it, that the chemicals from the various plants up and down the Ohio River have deposited something in the air that will actually burn your nose when you breathe and burn your eyes. It was not like that when I was a child growing up. That is why I say, If time was to last another 50 years, what would our environment be like? Will it be better? No. They used to catch the fish and eat them. Now they are telling you not to eat those caught from the Ohio River. Why? Chemical pollution. Some of them taste just like diesel fuel. Something is wrong. You cannot tell me this is a natural way to look at things. This is not progress. It is a greedy, covetous, Satan planned, false environment, created by people who presume that the almighty dollar is going to take care of everything, and provide all the answers. It will not. Time will tell. It will take its toll. Therefore, the reason the earth is defiled by the inhabitants is because they have transgressed the common sense laws every one of us should be morally obligated to uphold. Every common, logical law of nature, man has just broke and tore to pieces. They have changed the ordinances and broken the everlasting covenant. That is how mankind exists here at the end of the age. I am sure of one thing, That when the fire of God’s judgment starts burning, just like the rain started falling in Noah’s day, it will not be because man learned how to make liquor. Back then, it was because man had defiled his own moral conduct; and that is what it will be because of the next time God’s wrath is poured out upon the earth. All these other sinful things just go along with that. They are companions one of another. (Verse 6) “Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.” In what way has the curse devoured the earth? What is this curse? It is the side affects of what man’s greed has produced. Did you ever notice, Malachi 4 verses 5 and 6, as it speaks for our end time fulfillment, God said this, and He will send again that spirit of Elijah to do what? To turn the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. When we look back to the 60’s and on back, you did not hear of this greenhouse affect. We did not hear so much about acid rain and all that. They were in the making, but they had not reached the danger proportions. However, after that Elijah message hit the earth, it looks like the minute God reached out and took him off the scene, then it was the signal for all hell to turn loose. It was just about that time, that prayer was taken from our schools. The minute prayer went out of the school houses, God took His hand off the White House, and off of the U.S. Supreme Court. This nation is leading the world in the image of immorality. There has been more rapid decay in the moral, the social family structure in this nation, in a shorter time, than any other nation on the face of this earth. Yet the nation boasts that we are the nation the world should look to as the model of democracy. That is a laughing matter now. We have got one of the greatest sicknesses running rampage over the face of the earth that mankind has ever known. The curse is the side effects of all of man’s excesses. I am convinced that man has known for centuries what dope is, and what it can do to a human mind, but it is a fact that just as there has always been the knowledge of dope and what it can do; yet in every generation there was always a small percentage that was low enough and stupid enough to give themselves to it. Just look at a nation today that is crying out, We need to better educate our children. How can we expect to create more millions of dollars to educate our children in a better way of learning, and yet standing at the door in the bathrooms, in the streets, in the alleys, is every contraption of the devil to insert that evil dope, pill, powder, snuff, whatever it is, into their bodies? What good is the best mathematics going to do a human mind that is being gradually destroyed by the effects of that? It is not enough to just take the few leaves off a hemp bush, which is marijuana, and smoke it, but when they learn how to take certain chemicals and make artificial or synthetic dopes, which they say just a little bit of it can ruin you for the rest of your life. What kind of human being, what kind of brain do they have that wants to ward off the warning signs and say, give it to me anyhow? I have to say there is something wrong in this modern nation, and world. You cannot say today, that all our education has made it better for us. Our education was beneficial to us when we were willing to respect the God above that put us here to fulfill a purpose of His, and use certain things here for His glory in serving Him; but when we said, We do not need you any longer, we can get along without you, then He said, Go to it. Just go until it runs out your ears and out your mouth. We sure have that kind of a sick condition in our nation today. “And they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.” Now this is the last picture of this prophecy as we look at the effects of that day of the Lord. This is setting the stage. This is why God is compelled to eventually burn this planet with a terrible fire. You know when God does it, He will do it right. He will not cut it short because people are screaming too loud. My opinion is, when He turns the fire on, whatever method and means He devises to start this terrible inferno that the planet is to go through, it is not going to last for days and hours; but in a short interval of time He will have snuffed the light out of billions of people. They will hardly have time to scream because when He does something like this, He does not intend to play around just to torture people, just play with them like a cat with a mouse. No. The end effect is this, “Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned.” That has to fit in with what we have already read out of 2nd Peter the 3rd chapter, “Seeing therefore brethren that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of men ought we to be in all manner of godly living and so forth.” As Isaiah saw it from the way God showed it to him, he saw all this evil, how it has corrupted and defiled the planet, and Isaiah could see how God would bring it to an end by a terrible fire. Now right here it shows. Sure there is going to be a fire, but out of the terrible fire there is going to be a few men left. The Nazarenes and Methodists do not read it like that, but Isaiah said it; so there will be few men left. Now who could this few men be? I am sure that the few men that are left is a mortal realm of mankind that God has ordained for a purpose, that will be left alive to move into the era of time when Jesus will sit on His throne of glory and the Bride will sit in her positions, (thrones) relative to the nations she was taken out of. Those few men left of the nations, will be the nations of people they will rule over. That is what we see in Revelation 20:4.

WHAT GOD’S OTHER PROPHETS WROTE

Let us see what Jeremiah says, as we turn to his writings. Chapter 25, verse 31, “A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations.(He has something in His heart He wants to deal with, based on something that is then in existence, and it needs to be discussed.) He will plead with all flesh; He will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord.” The word here is applicable to anything God sees fit to use, because when it speaks of sword here, it is an anonymous way to say He will pour out His wrath. It is judgment. It can be earthquakes, it can be terrible tidal waves, it can be raging infernos, the belching of volcanoes, or anything like that. Whatever it is, it is His sword of judgment. “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.” The word coasts, many times is translated, from the borders of the earth. Verse 33, “And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; they shall not be lamented, (no weeping) neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.” They will just be left to decay and stink. Let us analyze that. For too long religious philosophers of prophecy have read Ezekiel 38 and 39 and have read this as well as in the 14th chapter of Revelation, along with the 16th chapter, and they group Ezekiel 38 along with Revelation and say it is all pertaining to the day of the Lord. Well, what I have read to you is pertaining to the day of the Lord here, and what I have read to you is exactly the same thing we will read in Matthew 24 and in Revelation; but Ezekiel 38 and 39 is not even related to this. In this one over here it says, and the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth to the other end. It is going to be such a devastating condition. It is going to be done under certain conditions that they are not even going to be wept over. It literally means there will be no funeral directors around to gather them up and give them a decent burial. There will be no flowers to decorate their graves. It is going to bring such a tragedy, such a startling experience to the ones that do survive it, when it is over, they are going to know exactly why it has happened. Therefore they will not weep over the effects of it. However when we read Ezekiel 38, we do not read of that same kind of picture. What we read in Ezekiel 38 is a description of a war, a war that will have a short duration, and it is a miracle war. Yes. God will miraculously slay a great host of that army of Gog and Magog and so forth, that come against Israel, somewhere in front of us; but it does tell us, that for seven months Israel will be gathering up the dead bodies that are slain by that conflict, and they are going to be hauled, transported to a certain predetermined spot in the land of Israel, given a burial, tombstones, crosses, or something erected there to mark their place. God has already named the place, it is the valley of Hamongog. Hamongog is not Jezreel, nor Armageddon. Hamongog is not this picture we are looking at, where God pours out His wrath upon all wicked mankind. Hamongog is not the effect of the day of the Lord. It is a war designed by God and brought about by God’s leading. It is one of those things that precedes the day of the Lord because it is one of the signs, the developments that shapes the social structure of man, bringing it closer to that terrible day of the Lord. In verse 33, it tells us that when that terrible wrath of God is struck in the earth, it is not going to just be somewhere in one little strategic spot. It is going to be a universal picture. Since it is a universal picture, let us try to analyze the various prophets as they saw it. Yes, there is going to be a terrible raging inferno of fire turned loose, but we must understand this: the God of heaven who has caused His various prophets to write, let us know what the end result will be just like I read in Isaiah, where it said the earth shall be burned and few men left. Now if there are few men going to be left, then we are going to read in a minute in another prophecy, Revelation 19, how that He will call for the fowls of heaven and beasts of the fields, to come to the great supper of God, that they may eat the flesh and drink the blood of the rich, small and great, the captains of the hosts and such like. You and I know, for a few men to be left on this planet, then it literally means that era of fire cannot annihilate all life, because it would mean there was no oxygen left. How many understand what I am saying. Anyone that is familiar with the atmosphere, knows hydrogen bombs, atomic bombs consume vast cubic feet of oxygen. That is why scientists for years have been fearful of a terrible hydrogen bomb to exploding, it would set off a chain reaction and you would have one explosion right after another as it is able to engulf more oxygen and feed on that. Well if we can trust the word of God, He knows there is going to be a terrible baptism of fire that is going to literally scorch and burn this planet. In some places it is not going to be to the degree that it will destroy all living species. All living species, whether they be birds, or animal life, breathe the same oxygen that you and I do. If all the oxygen is burned out of the atmosphere you can rest assured, trying to get your breath is not going to keep you alive one of these days. It will be worse than being shut up in a vacuum with no oxygen to breathe at all. I am saying these things to help you understand these scriptures. It is because of people’s ignorance and unwillingness to allow the spirit of God to plant a picture of understanding in their mind’s that they walk in ignorance. They would rather please the system of the church they are in than to please the God that is the author of these scriptures. We do not have another generation to make up our minds about what we are going to believe, and what we are not going to believe. I am convinced we are a generation God is giving an opportunity to have the understanding of what is and what is not laying in front of us. We do not have another generation of time to run around and try to find a church that pleases our flesh. Let us go to Matthew 24. This is the words of the Lord Himself, as He spoke in relationship to this day. This day of the Lord is the coming of the day of Jesus Christ, as He comes from heaven with all His hosts, His Bride and the angelic bodies of heaven. What is He coming to earth to do? He is coming first from the heavens to execute the judgment and wrath of God on the earth and upon wicked, sinful mankind. That judgment will be carried out in the earth in many ways, by nature being disrupted, catastrophic conditions turned loose. When we go back to Isaiah 13, as it said how the earth will be turned upside down and it will remove out of its place, only God can do a thing like that. There is not enough dynamite to make the earth change its course; but if there was a terrible earthquake brought about by an internal combustion of the pressure that bursts forth in these volcanoes scattered throughout the earth, deep down in the bowels of the earth, let us just say there is a renewing of pressure of gasses that suddenly begins to crack the earths surface, to the extent as it says in Revelation, and the cities of the nations fell. It will be worse than Los Angeles, it will be worse than Sacramento. That is not an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude. It is an earthquake that causes mountains to sink, it is an earthquake that causes islands to disappear. An earthquake that raises mountains up in other places where they had never been before. Now when you get that kind of convulsion taking place down in the earth, then this planet can absolutely rock and become ever so unstable. It will take the hand of God, after a period of time, to stabilize it again, in its transit through the universe. Yes, it is all in the plan of God. As He does it, what is He doing it for? God is going to make a fast burial of a lot of this stuff He destroys. When He makes an end of it, in some places you will never see their dead bodies, because He is going to bury them, and turn them upside down, so deep in the ground that they never will be seen. There will be tidal waves come and wash many away. Yet we do know this as it says, and as I read in other places, they will lay from one end of the earth to the other. Therefore we have got to realize, that this terrible day of the coming of Jesus, which is the day of the Lord and executing of the wrath of God, is going to bring a disastrous, chaotic period of judgment upon this planet. However each prophet saw it, you can rest assured, somewhere on this earth there will be a condition prevailing, that will be just exactly the way that prophet saw it to be. Here, in Matthew 24, is the words of Jesus as He personally speaks of the day of His coming. Verse 27, “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” This is not talking about the rapture. No. This is not the rapture. The rapture will have already taken place before this time. I hope every one of you realize that. This is the visible coming. This is when the heavens are opened, and they will see Him coming, as we see it in Revelation 19. “For wheresoever the carcass is.” Verse 28 has to be understood in this light. Verse 28 is a condition that prevails, and is applicable for and to a people that precedes verse 27. “For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.“ Well that is the Lord’s own way of saying, or of illustrating how eagles will only come and eat on fresh killed meat. Right? How in the world do you think there is going to be a people on earth prepared to be taken out of here, sitting around listening to all these doctors of divinity chew, discuss, or debate. Are you going to get your mind made up by turning your ears to listen to that? Would eagles come down and sit near a carcass with other kinds of beasts standing there saying, Now that is not good for you? You better leave this alone. You know better than that, eagles know what they are after. They know where they are landing. They can tell by the scent, whether it is fit to eat or not. So that is like it is right now. Somewhere there is an eagle people, and they have a spiritual sense of understanding of something going on, how to appreciate the word of truth that is able to get themselves ready to be taken away to meet the Lord. Verse 28, because it is put there in that manner, helps to throw the doctors of prophecy off course. They will say, That is Armageddon. Well, Jesus was not even talking about Armageddon here, if you understand what I mean. Now verse 29 puts verse 27 in the order of time. Here He tells us that His coming will be visible from the east to the west. That proves His visible return to the earth is not something some man is going to have a monopoly on. That is why He warned us in verses 25 and 26. Verse 28 gives us a description that while you have verse 25 and 26 going on, eagles do not run to that type of stuff. Eagles know where the freshly prepared food is. Verse 29, puts the coming in its order, because He tells us, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days.” What is He talking about? The ending of the week of Daniel, which is the last three and one half years of that week of prophetic time. Therefore in our mind, that tells you and me, Jesus visible coming back to earth to fulfill all these prophecies we have read about up until now. That is going to be consummated and carried out at His visible return, as tribulation on earth is drawing to its climax. Then tribulation is ended by His terrible descent and wrath, and judgment, destroying wicked men. That ends the whole cycle. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened.” Did we not read that in Isaiah 13, how the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, how that the moon would not give its light and the powers of the constellations will be shaken? I am fully persuaded that every word of God will be fulfilled, and just exactly like it is written.

A DAY OF MODERNIZATION

This is a day of fantasy. Fantasy is something that liberal minded thinkers like to use to fantasize something, to catch the attention of other people. We used to read about fairy land; and I want to use this little illustration. When I went to school, they used to talk about Cinderella. How many know about Cinderella? Was she someone from outer space? No. She was a make believe person that something had come along in the magic realm and changed the whole picture of her future. It was not someone coming in on a flying saucer, like we see so much of today in these make believe stories. It was not her being visited by some of these lion faced, cat faced, dog faced, monkey faced, outer space creatures. Cinderella was not escorted to the ball by that kind of creature. The truth is, they do not want Cinderella any more. They do not want fairy land with the little angels fluttering in the background. No, that is too much like the Bible. That kind of fantasy is gone forever, to the liberal minded people. They like to brag, We are people of knowledge; we believe it is possible that there can be life on other planets. Oh yes, here they come, weird looking heads, funny shaped bodies, and this modern age of mankind just simply eats up that kind of picture. How do they know what they look like? Some of these drawings could be some imaginative mind that is actually devils they are drawing. I am not altogether sure that devils (or demons) have good features when they manifest. How many know what I am talking about? God can let those devils appear, and project their image to humanity in any likeness He sees fit, to confuse this bunch of scientific, liberal minded thinking characters. We are living in an age of science, when man’s mind is turned toward space; so his whole mind is being bombarded with all this fantasy. They show bodies like a man; but a head like a dog, and all sorts of things like that. Well I can imagine devils acting like that; and we know their chief enjoys pulling the wool over the eyes of carnal minded mankind; so do not be surprised at anything you may hear of. God can allow any amount of that kind of deception to come and capture the mind’s of people who have no regard for His word. As we think of man today, how he looks at life, the future and so forth, we see some grim pictures. Tribulation is going to close with some conditions having developed, and having affected mortal, sinful mankind, and I tell you, I would not want to be left here to face it. “Immediately after those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” Now I come to what I was leading up to. A few months back, they had put together a scientific film, whereby, all of a sudden scientists zeroed in with a huge microscope that peered through space of time and they saw a great big mass of asteroids, moving at a rapid speed toward the earth. Russia was notified. The United States talked with Russia. They got their rockets all ready and decided, either we will use our atomic rockets for a good thing, or those things are going to blow us to pieces. I sat and watched this thing and thought, Oh you silly, just plain stupid creatures. To imagine such a catastrophic thing could actually be, yet at the same time, how do we know but what maybe there are a few flying particles of certain substances way out on the fringes of you know where, and God has just kept them there, just enough that when the time is right He will turn them loose and let that take care of fulfilling some of these prophecies. When man is least expecting, then it will happen; but remember, I am not saying, “Thus saith the Lord” to this, I am merely dramatizing something that is in the realm of possibility; because it says here that the powers of the heavens are shaken. It also says the stars shall fall as a fig tree casts its untimely figs. I am not so sure that is Jupiter falling. Or Plato, Venus, Saturn, and those major planetary bodies; but somewhere out there, there could be a few old junk asteroids that have been floating around, just waiting to be brought into the time to fulfill God’s purpose. When those things go zipping around, flying through space, creating streaks of light, anything can happen. Yes a few can land in the Pacific Ocean, and one could hit a city, and bingo, it leaves a crater. I tell you, that may be fantasy on the part of man entertaining man in this age of unbelief toward God; but it can all fit into the plan of God in the day of His wrath. Why do I say that? Because He is going to shake this old planet, and He will shake it in a way that there is nothing the scientists can do to stop it. It will not do Russia or the United States any good to do anything with their rocket; because their rockets will never get off of the ground. “And then shall appear the sign.” This is why I said earlier, This sign is related to verse 27, for in verse 27 He is warning people, Take stock. When you are thinking of the coming of Christ in His visible earthly return, His visible appearance from the heavens, is going to be of such a magnitude and such a phenomena, no earthly creature is going to say, We have a monopoly. We have Him here, or we have Him there. No. They have no option on this. God has Him yonder, so to speak; and when God says, Now you can go, then He is coming. That is why you have to see verse 27, as we see it then in verse 30. “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” His wife the Church, and all the saints of the ages are going to be with Him. I believer it is Zechariah chapter 14, that says, “Behold the Lord cometh and all His saints.” Even Enoch the seventh from Adam, prophesied, “Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints.” To do what? To execute judgment on earth. Therefore that day of the Lord is going to literally be at the second coming of Jesus the Christ. we have one more verse of scripture to go with this. Turn with me to Revelation 14. We touched on this a little bit already. I have said this before and I say it again now, When we read from the first chapter to the ending, throughout this prophetic letter of Revelation, we are made to see Jesus, the immortal, glorified Son of God in five different image settings. We see Him in the introduction of Him in His priestly office standing in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. You read that in Revelation 1. He is High Priest. The next image you see in chapters 4 and 5, He is sitting on the Father’s throne. There, He is enveloped with the manifestation of God’s divine presence. That is why His countenance takes on a different resemblance. When John saw Him standing in the midst of the golden candlesticks as the High Priest, when he turned to see, he saw one like unto the Son of Man. John knew His earthly features. That is what you have to understand. When he saw Him in the Father’s position of glory, he saw Him there veiled with the manifestation of God’s divine authority. That gives God the Father first and foremost attention. That is why it is that way. Simply because the throne is not Jesus’ throne. It is the Father’s position. Where is it? It is not on earth, it is in heaven, the realm of God’s divine presence. The third place we see Jesus, is in chapter 10. We see Him there as an angel. Yet with the same rainbow, and the same scroll, only the scroll is open. That shows He has come to earth in spirit form to get His Church; to take her to glory. Next, we pick Him up in Revelation 14, and let me say this, Whoever reads this article, or watches this video, when Jesus leaves the throne of God in heaven, as He is portrayed in chapter 4 and 5, He will never be seen as He was in chapter 1, or chapter 4 and 5, again. You need to understand that. The next setting is as He appears on earth with one foot on the land and the other on the sea. Within His hand a scroll is opened, and He lifts one hand toward heaven and cries with a loud voice. That is His next position as time moves forward in relationship to this prophecy. It is dealing with His coming for the Church; instead of Matthew 24, because the world will not be seeing Him when He comes for His Church. When He has taken His Church, we are moving through time, and we are moving through the tribulation on earth; but we (the bride Church) is in heaven, and time is running out. In chapter 14 in the 14th verse, let me word it like this, The same one that had been on earth with the open scroll and the rainbow about His head, is now in heaven. “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man.” Is it not strange, He has the same facial features He had when He was High Priest? but He is not High Priest here. Hear what I say! He is not High Priest any longer. Why? “Having on His head a golden crown.” This crown cannot be placed there until His mediatorial work is finished. When the crown is placed there, He has already got His wife in heaven with Him. The rapture is over. The tribulation has been going on, down on earth, and it has just about run its course. Now the attention is on what is about to take place up there. There, He sits on the cloud. He is crowned. This is the crown of a King. “Having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.” The scroll has been laid aside, because it has done fulfilled its purpose. “And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” This is another way that the Spirit is saying, The day of the Lord has arrived, and it is time to turn loose God’s wrath. Here is one way it is turned loose. “And He that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.” That is portrayed like a man taking a sharp sickle and stepping out into a field of small grape vines. May I say this, In the land of Israel, grapes do not grow in arbors like we see them here. They grow on grape vines, bushes, they crawl around on the ground. I used to think all grape vines had to be trellised up, put on poles or tight wires. Not in Israel. They grow on a shrublike vine. That is why, when the spies went into the land of Canaan, they just pulled up one of these fruitful vines, the whole thing, turned it upside down and stuck a pole through it and came back. That is what you have to see, to understand what is written there. “And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.” Here is how Armageddon, spiritually, is set in motion, for the great battle, from the military standpoint, as to what man in his destructive means will bring about on the face of the earth. “And the winepress was trodden without (or outside) the city, (Yes, in the plains of Megeddo, where ancient battles have been fought.) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.” That is going to be a terrible war. Saints, I want to ask all of you seriously, How do you listen to the news? What do you see coming together? We have watched the Communist world topple in just a few short months. It is very evident that soon as it becomes concrete and positive that the nations of Europe themselves will never pose as a common threat to each other, and as soon as it appears that Russia is no longer a common threat to disrupt the process of what is being accomplished in the European structure, you will see this nation, by conditions that prevail, gradually bring her armament home, because Europe will do it alone. She will have to do it alone. Something will make Europe become such an empire, with such an industrial potential she will be forced to do it alone. She will gain in a short period of time, such a structure, economical wise, and such a unity in her objective, that it will be said, just as it is said in the Bible, Who is able to make war with the beast? Listen, I hear also that we are to start pulling troops home from Korea. We are going to start pulling troops from the Pacific. Our Secretary of Defense goes to Manila and they spit in his face after we have given all that aid, aid, aid, for years. Now they are saying go home! go home! go home! Why is it that way? Sooner or later the kings of the east will no longer have a power to protect them there as to what will happen in the Far East. That Far East, just as Russia has fell to bring this one up, will fall to bring everything under one flag. When this battle of Armageddon is brought about, it brings the kings of the Far East to fight in a battle. I have to say, I pray that none of us are around when it takes place. I pray that we are in the balconies and courts of heaven, waiting to come in the great descent with our Lord. I tell you brothers and sisters, all this mass armament that the world has built over these last years, which right now they are thinking we can stack it up, we can begin to dismantle because we will not need to fight any more. Do not worry; there will still be enough of it laying around to fulfill the scriptures. Armageddon is going to be a terrible thing for those who are left here; but that is all in the hands of a very capable Creator; and His plan and purpose is flawless, so we need not worry. If worrying would help, we have plenty to think about; because we know so many who are completely without regard for a righteous God; but it takes more than worrying to change a picture like that; so just be thankful that you are among that number that will escape the wrath of God, when the abominations of the earth have reached the point of reckoning.

WATCHING GOD FULFILL HIS WORD

Israel is coming home, but I want us to look at something. If this is the hour God is going to show His miraculous power as it says in Isaiah and Zephaniah, when he will lift up an ensign to the nations, saints, I want to be spiritually alert. I do not want to miss anything. That ensign refers to some kind of miracle He will do on the international scale. He will make a way. That is not a highway, yet it is referred to in prophecy as a highway. We realize that kind of highway is a spiritual way for the Jew to be brought home by a miraculous act of God on the international scene and that emphasizes the nearness of the coming of the Lord for His Church. I just have to laugh when I read how Washington stipulates concerning their aid to Israel to help resettle these immigrants from the Soviet Union, that Israel is not to use any of it to resettle them in the occupied areas (which in reality are actually areas of prophetic insight). If that has to build up first, then remember, the scene will build up international wise so that when God does act, no man can claim to be the manipulator of it. People will be forced to recognize God is God. I believe God has timed a lot of things for your and my benefit in line with that. He is giving us a chance to recognize something that the world knows nothing about. When we Gentiles can begin to recognize the hand of God, I believe we can begin to see His hand because the two pictures of God begin to move together. Look what happened following World War 2. There was on the political scene a bringing out of Europe, of those displaced Jews. Then, at the same time, God began to move in the Gentile church world in a supernatural way. He did not do it within the ranks of the old fundamental systems, which was the last thing He had moved among. He just picked up there and began to move on. That is why divine healing and soul salvation, the way it was administered, became a great move of God. That move carried out its potential purpose while God was in the process of regathering Judah and establishing it as a nation. However, when Judah became established, that deliverance hour just sort of played out. That does not mean God changed His mind. You just have to remember, He has a plan and He is going to fulfill His plan. There is a lot more to this, and we will see a lot more take place on the international scene as time moves toward the end. Let me say also, “The Age of Regeneration,” covers to broad a scope to deal with it entirely, the way we would like to, at this time. I will say this at this time, There are entirely too many prophecies within the total scope of God’s word to even try to put them all in four sermons. However, we are going to do our best to cover the most important ones in an effort to project the picture of what the age of regeneration is all about. We read the text from Matthew 19:28, where Jesus was answering the question Peter asked, What shall be ours, seeing that we have forsook all and followed you? Jesus answered, “Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, (that is talking about taking His earthly, kingly position in Jerusalem, on the ancient throne of David, which was prophesied, because He, Jesus, is the seed, the Son of David that will fulfill that.) ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.“ That part lays over here in this, (pointing to the chart illustrating the Millennial reign of Christ and His bride Church) as we recognize how the entire Bride of Christ that will be taken up in the rapture and married to Him, will consist not only of that first age of Christendom beginning first with Jewish saints, then moved off that scene among the Gentiles and the whole Bride of Christ is made up of the beginning Jews and finally the Gentiles which the Lord called to make up the major body. We covered the major prophecies that deal with the day of the Lord and what it is. It is the coming of Christ to execute wrath, judgment and destruction on the earth. For what reason? To fulfill what God has foreseen and shown through the prophets, how this world would be in these later days. How evil and sinful, rebellious, and corrupt mankind would become. That is what constitutes the necessity for God to judge this world of humanity as we see it pictured here. We want to go to the 19th chapter of Revelation, and we are going to pick up a prophecy there, beginning in verse 11. This is a scriptural scene of the actual event of the Lord’s descent from heaven, just as it is described in Matthew 24, how immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun is to be darkened and the moon and stars be affected, and then shall appear the sign of the coming of the Son of Man in power and great glory. It is portrayed by the Spirit of God, as He gave John an insight into that great and glorious event. This scene is not the rapture of the bride Church; it is the visible, bodily return of the Lord in glory, with His saints who have already been taken there. He is coming first to execute judgment and wrath and to destroy wicked mankind from the face of the earth, and to renovate the earth of the conditions that man in his carnal, sinful state has built upon the planet. God has many ways in which He is going to get rid of it, so let us begin reading. (Rev. 19:11) “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True.” Let us analyze Faithful and True, and compare it with Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 9. Isaiah 7, speaks of how the virgin would give birth to a Son, and thou shall call His name Emmanuel, which we know in fulfillment means God with us. Then in Isaiah 9 it speaks of how He is to be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. All those titles are attributed in and to the person of Jesus Christ. We know all those titles are in relationship to Him in His personal identity, as He came to be God’s means of salvation to lost mankind. That is why for 2000 years, if we understand the scriptures, (the Godhead scriptures) in the right revelation, we can see what all those titles are bringing out in the redemptive work of Christ in the whole scope of the plan of salvation. Right here, we see another title brought forth. “He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war.” This is not names, but titles that describe the character that is to be expressed in and through His kingly work. Once God has invested in Him the authority to come to earth to be King, to be Judge, not as we see it in heaven, but to be a Judge in wrath for a period of time on earth. These titles are pointing to the attributes in the way the Spirit will use Him to bring this all about. It says here, “His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns.” Well you know that many crowns on His head is only figurative. What a crown symbolizes is a kingly government or authority. He now has been given the right to come to earth and take over all governments and kingdoms of the world. We would not literally see a huge pile of crowns stacked upon His head, because when we look at the world and the many nations, and races, and governments that there has been through time, that would be sort of an abstract picture. Nevertheless, that is the way it is portrayed to John and we see it by revelation of the Spirit. Then we have to put it in reality, as far as application. It means the authority to be King of kings, and Lord of lords over all the earth is in effect. “And He had a name written, that no man knew, but He Himself.” This name is evidently to show how, or this name brings out His kingly role. Jesus, as we know Him from His first advent, is a name that brings out how God will name His whole family. That is God’s family name. That we really must understand. As I have said before, It has a compound meaning. It is not only God’s family name, but it also means He (God) will save His people. However, as He comes again, whatever that name is, it is not talking about a salvational role. It is laying emphasis upon another role that pertains to how He will be seen, and addressed in His kingship. The name is not written, but we do realize it is a new name that has to be tied in with the fact you and I are going to be given a new name also. You can read that in Revelation, chapter 3. This has caused many people in the Branham following, (because Bro. William Branham made a statement along this line and they immediately jumped to the conclusion that William Marrion Branham was the Lord’s new name) because they saw how God used him in the power and demonstration the Spirit, in a way comparable more to that of Jesus than any other man. People are very prone to jump to conclusions way ahead of time, than they are to wait for a clarification of terminology. As long as we are in this mortal flesh, we are not going to know that name. You can be sure of that. There is another thing sure. When we are changed to be like Him, (Jesus) to have a body like Him, then it means our spirit is going to see things altogether different than what we do through this carnal realm of understanding. Therefore those things will be known then, and not before. This new name, He Himself was the only one that knew it. “And He was clothed with a vesture.” If you look up the word vesture in the dictionary, it literally means, He is clothed with a cloak. Many of you have seen pictures of kings in their cloaks; but how many ever saw a picture of a famous general? Generals today do not wear them; but back many centuries ago, generals, in their dress, wore a cloak draped over their shoulders. This cloak was so ornamented, it brought out all the rank and authority of the man who wore it. Therefore, we can actually say this word vesture, pertains to a coat or cloak. A coat puts it in the twentieth century, but in the true translation, it literally means a cloak. This cloak is significant of the fact that as Jesus has already chosen His Bride, and they are married in the plan of God. He is ready to execute His wrath upon the planet earth, upon sinful mankind. This wrath is going to be executed and carried out in and through the person of His only begotten Son whom we have known by the name JESUS. Now for that to be, He has to be invested with the authority and power to carry out that phase. Therefore, as He sits astride this white horse, He is to be looked upon not only as the King which He is, but He is to be known for something else at the same time. Remember, in ancient times, kings, when war was going on, did not sit at home on their thrones while their generals were leading the forces. Usually the king was out in the battlefield somewhere, supervising the operations. That is what we have to see in the person of Jesus as this scene is unfolded. This is a cloak, but it describes this cloak as dipped in blood, which is red. What is this signifying? We will read. “And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.” All of this signifies how He now has the authority to fulfill every scripture of prophecy, major and minor, that deals with whatever the prophets of old have spoken concerning this terrible day of the Lord. In other words, Jesus, this immortal Son of God, has the power and authority to set in motion in His descent from heaven to earth to carry out every means of wrath, destruction, and vengeance upon the face of this earth. As we read the various scriptures in the many places, we find that there will be terrible earthquakes. In many places terrible volcanoes will be belching out lava. In other places the mountains will disappear, and the islands will flee from sight. What does all of this signify? Jesus is coming. He has the power to execute and turn loose every force there is in the universe to constitute God’s wrath. It is all accomplished in and through the person of Jesus the Christ. Think of how mankind has preached about Jesus being the compassionate Son of God, the one that was willing to take your place and my place at Calvary. We, who were unloving, were loved by Him that much, that He would literally die for us. He is merciful and that is all we have ever seen of Him, his mercy. We do not see, or even imagine Him to be one that could execute such terrible wrath upon the earth. We do know this: When this era or period of God’s grace and mercy is over, and God begins to set in motion things to change the world order and execute His plan, Jesus, as this scripture is fulfilled, is no longer going to be seen as that merciful, compassionate Savior. He is going to be seen as the King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is coming in wrath to execute judgment upon wicked mankind. He has the authority to turn loose any means there is, both in nature as well as in political and military forces to accomplish God’s purpose. That is why there will be an Armageddon that will be, we might say, one of the final earthly things that will help bring about what we see here in this cloak dipped in blood. We do know this, as I read the other night of the last scriptures showing how Jesus is seen in the book of Revelation in five different images. Two of them portray Him in His mediatorial work. The third one is chapter ten where He is seen coming for His Church. That is the secret catching away of the bride Church. Then the fourth one is in the fourteenth chapter where He is already crowned, sitting on a white cloud. He has the authority to unloose spiritual forces for the purpose of gathering together the vines of the earth, which is none other than the forces that make up Armageddon. The fifth one is right here. He is King. He is the King that is going to fulfill that long awaited picture the Jews have read about in all their prophecies. They know that one day their Messiah, which will be the seed of David, will come. The part we know, that they do not, is that He has already come one time and their forefathers condemned Him to die.