GENTILES ARE A STRANGE PEOPLE 2 WE ENDED LAST ISSUE SPEAKING OF JEWISH WORSHIP, OF WHAT PLACE THE TEMPLE HAD IN THEIR WORSHIP, AND HOW, MANY OF THE PSALMS WERE PROPHECIES IN SONG THAT HAD TO BE SUNG INSTEAD OF JUST READING THEM; SO THAT IS WHERE WE WILL PICK UP AND CONTINUE ON.
There was no music inside the temple; and it was not a large building. It did not need to be, since only the priest went inside it. As we said, the people congregated in the outer court of it; and that is where they would sing, and praise Jehovah. I have read from the writings of the historians, how these psalms were sung by the worshipers as they gathered there. On one part of the court wall the sisters would stand; and on another part of it all the men singers would stand. The musicians, no matter what their musical instruments were, they were all in the outer court. Once the music started there were certain psalms that would be sung. There were certain lines the sisters would sing. Then the men would pick it up and sing back to them. I imagine it was very beautiful. I am bringing this into the message for this one thing, Catholicism established an image of certain types of worship through centuries of time also; but I seriously doubt that very many of you know what went on when the Vatican choir was formed, all made up of young boys. You would not like for me to tell you everything that went on; even if I myself knew all of it. That Vatican choir became known in the old world, and was recognized for its beautiful sound just like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City. You do not hear much about the Vatican choir anymore though; it has become an obsolete thing. I have been in some of those old church buildings though, and seen some of what they were so proud of. They were proud of the organs that the musicians and technicians made in those days. In old Toledo Spain, we saw the third largest cathedral in all Europe. As we stood looking at the pipes of that huge organ, I thought to myself, What a spectacle! What a piece to make music with. You could never have gotten a guitar or banjo into that place; but that is Catholicism. it all had its place of course; but remember this. They (the Catholic Church) were the ones that traditionalized Christianity. They dressed it up so the world love it; but when they got through dressing it up there was no scriptural reality left in it. The world in general loves religion just as long as it allows them to go ahead and live like the devil himself when they are not assembled together for ”worship” or whatever they call it. That is why when you look at Roman Catholicism in the 17th chapter of the book of Revelation, you see a woman dressed in scarlet colored clothes, holding in her hand a cup filled with the abominations and filthiness of her fornication. I want you to notice also what it says about her in verse 5. (“And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” That old woman (which is none other than the Roman Catholic Church) was drunk on the blood of the martyred saints that she had tortured and slaughtered. She is still that way; it is just not as obvious. She is still suffering from a hangover from the Dark Ages. You just have to notice How it is pictured. Shc sat on that scarlet colored beast, she rode that thing, and she committed these terrible immoral acts with kings and potentates, politicians of every nation where Catholicism had been accepted. Think of it saints; this was a vision given to the apostle John in 96 A.D.; long before that woman ever came into existence. It was God’s way of showing Christendom at that time, what would be later. It also speaks of how she is the mother of harlots. When you understand the Reformation, why there was such a thing as a Reformation, you know the history of it, then it helps you in this twentieth century to better understand why there is a Lutheran Church, why there is a Christian Church, a Church of Christ, a Methodist, a Baptist, Episcopalian and dozens of others. All these systems are denominational daughters brought out of the former framework of something that once was the only religious system the world was allowed to accept. All of these are the spiritual harlots and abominations of the earth; the woman dressed in scarlet is the mother of; and God will one day judge them all. He is just letting their cup of abominations get filled up and running over, and then judgment will fall. Some of you may say, Bro. Jackson, how much worse can they get? there is hardly anything that is not done in many of those church systems today. That is true; but God has a time table. He is not moved by surges of sudden anger like so many people on this planet are today.
SEEING THINGS JUST AS THEY ARE
When the hand of God moved to turn Martin Luther loose from that old Dark Age dogma, it was not long until here came Calvin, Knox, Huss, and all those. John Wesley came along a little later; but they every one carried most of their old traditional beliefs with them. That is why on into the 20th century, Christendom was little more than a conglomeration of confusion, with just a little Bible truth here and there; and Roman Catholicism is the mother of every bit of the confusion. One of the first things to take note of after the first age Christians died off and a new generation tilled their places of leadership in the assemblies, was the fact that their revelation of the word of God was not as staunch as the generation before. That antichrist spirit was able to plant seeds of doubt about essential Bible doctrines in the mind of many of them. That is what opened the door for the Roman emperor Constantine to call the Nicaean Council in 325 A.D., to settle the controversy about the Godhead and the deity of Jesus Christ. Have you ever wondered, What right did a pagan, Roman emperor have fooling around with disputes of the Church anyway? Well, right there, is where the three person God became the accepted answer to settle the dispute. Satan never could have put an idea like that off on the generation that followed Jesus in the flesh; but this new generation did not carry on with the same fervency, the same loyalty and devotedness to God and the truth as those who had gone on before them. Man is always looking for some easy way to get into heaven. He wants to find an easy way for his life while here in this world; and just give God enough attention to keep from going to hell. Saints, God does not promise us an easy life in this present, natural world, with an easy road to heaven. He promises you a way that is true, a sure thing; but on His terms. He has promised that He will be with you, to comfort you, help you, and guide you through all your troubles and trials, if you will live for Him. On the other hand He did not promise you that you would be able to be a true Christian and walk with Him in fellowship, and still have fellowship with everyone that walks on the face of this planet. The Bible tells us to live peaceably with all men if possible. That means you do your best, without compromising; and God will do the rest; but there will still be times that you are not going to be able to live in peace with all men. Some of them are going to despise you. They will see you as an odd creature. True Christians have always been the odd ones in the eyes of the people of the world. It is true that out of the ranks of Christianity, has come some fanatics; but keep this in mind. It was the same way back there in the closing years of that first age; because that fanatical spirit is Satan’s parallel of the Spirit of God, always trying to bring reproach upon the true Christian. By the time the 3rd century rolled around, Paul was no longer alive. John was no longer alive. All the early Christians were dead. Men began to get ideas, false revelations that brought about the change of the Godhead revelation. We call them false revelation; but the truth is, if they are false, they are not revelations at all. They are just ideas. Regardless of what you call them though, they change the course of man’s thinking over a period of time. That is how Satan works. Roman Catholicism, as it exists today, is the very institution that gloats over the fact that they are the originators of the I triune godhead. It is written in their own writings, The Glories of I the Mother Church. I have the book, written by their own historians. What Catholicism is today, and what it embraces as the cardinal basis of faith, did not all come about in one day or one night of time. It came about by a slow process, over centuries of time. In those centuries of what they call progress, different popes desiring to make a name for themselves, would set in motion some kind of practice or something that they could sooner or later begin to doctrinalize and make a cardinal teaching to be practiced by the church. When we look at these things, it was not very long after they changed God into a triune being until they had taken immersion out of Christian baptism and put in sprinkling. All of this fits into a pagan setting. When you study some of the ways of the ancient pagans of Rome, and the Roman Empire worship practices in their religious ceremonies, you will find many of those same things being practiced in Roman Catholicism. For instance, Peter was a married man; but these Roman Catholic popes who claim to be his succession… Continued from page 1 refuse to accept Peter’s pattern of life. Where did they get this idea of celibacy? It is something they brought in out of paganism. The old pagan priests of Rome were celibate. They also had a group of women they called vestal virgins. In the great colosseum of Rome, if you were to go there and the guide explains to you, he will show you one panic-War spot where, when they were having the great games and especially when the Christians were fed to the lions, they would show you the exact box where the emperor would sit, and round about him would sit the cabinet, his senate, and then the vestal virgins. When you look at Catholicism today with the priestly order, and the nuns, you have the same thing in practice. All over this world, that institution has left testimonies, not willingly, but the lives those priests and nuns have lived, has brought reproach upon their institution. I wonder how many people realize today that several years back, around the turn of the century, the United States broke all diplomatic relations with the Mexican government? For what reason? Because of the power of the Catholic Church. In one certain monastery, when investigators went in to see what had been going on, here came nuns, some middle aged, and some young, leading children. What was their excuse for having those children? They blamed it on that certain Mexican renegade, a trouble maker whose name I cannot recall at the moment, saying he and his men invaded the monastery and raped the nuns. They had to lay the blame on to someone; but common sense will tell you those black cloaked men were the one’s to blame. Nevertheless, that is the big lie the world has always believed. It was the one’s to blame. It goes right with that old system of religion. As I said earlier, they have perverted every cardinal teaching of the Bible. They took out every doctrine those early Christians held to be essential. Predestination, eternal security of the believer, sanctification, could have a baby boy? Was that what it was all about? No. The end result was this, Judaism was divided over the basic concepts of what the Law said. There, were the Pharisees, the Saducecs, the Zealots, the Herodians, and way off down by the Dead Sea was the bunch that refused to mix with any of them. Could the Messiah come, with Judaism in that kind of condition? No. So God sent a forerunner. That is why when you read Malachi 3:1-2, those verses tell you there would be a messenger that would forerun the messenger of the covenant. The messenger of the covenant was Jesus the Christ. He was the one that was going to announce the covenant of grace that has been in effect now for over 1900 years. He was also the one who was going to be the sacrifice offered to enact it. Then He was going to be the one who would go to heaven as High Priest there to make intercession for all who would believe.. He was the one ordained to activate this Covenant of grace by sending the Holy Ghost back to indwell believers. It was John the Baptist that announced the coming of this One though. He prepared the way. John the Baptist was the messenger to announce: He who is coming after me, whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to bear, shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Then when we go to Malachi 4:5-6, it tells again of the same thing, only it is announced in a different way. Notice scriptural wise, in Malachi 4:5-6 it says, ”Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Please notice that there is a conjunction between two words here; for that conjunction is what gives us the key to the complete revelation of the statement. Elijah was to be sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. That conjunction is what connects the great day with another day of the Lord, the dreadful day. Well we know John fore ran the great day; but that left it for someone else with that God identifying spirit of Elijah to fore run the dreadful day of the Lord. That is what I realized that February morning, when I sat there reading Luke 1, and the angel of the Lord speaking to Zecharias about the birth of John, stopped quoting Malachi 4: 5-6, before he came to the dreadful day part. I knew from that very thing, that the spirit of Elijah would have to come again on some other man to fulfill the rest of that scripture. When he stopped quoting, something inside me said, The rest of that is yet to be, because the angel stopped quoting before he finished the whole statement. And is a conjunction that links it with another event. From that day on began to say, If we are living in the days just before the second coming of Christ, He will send that spirit of Elijah again. Now Gentile theologians, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, all of them will deny the fact, saying that Gentiles never had a prophet. Well it is true, they never had an Old Testament prophet: but I can assure you, they had a New Testament Prophet. Is it not strange the Lutherans built their seminaries, the Baptist built theirs, the Methodist built their’s, and even the Pentecostals built their seminaries and Bible colleges; yet they are blind to that fact even yet today. They read all about what Paul said to the Gentiles. He was an apostle; but somehow or other they cannot link the fact that the covenant of grace we Gentiles are now living under is coming to an end; and it was necessary for that spirit of Elijah to again come upon the scene with a message to prepare hearts to receive the true revelation of the word of God, before Jesus comes for His Gentile bride. She can only dress herself properly, if she has a true revelation. Jesus will not accept a bride dressed in just any kind of denominational tradition. Just remember this, she (the bride) can only be sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water by the word, the revelated word of God. The Gentile religious world that we live in, is in much the same condition Judaism was in at the first advent of Christ. If it was necessary for there to be a forerunner, somehow to probe at Judaism and tell them the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What is the kingdom of heaven from a New Testament standpoint? It is a new dispensation. A new dispensation in which God initiated a new covenant. That new covenant is salvation through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The old covenant was the Law given to Jews, enacted by the blood of bulls and goats and that type of sacrifice; but the sacrifice Jesus made brought an end to that old law covenant for every person who believes the gospel of Christ. We cannot work our way into a state of righteousness; for righteousness under this new covenant is an imputed righteousness; imputed only where genuine faith in that provision is found. What do we read in Ephesians 2:8? ”For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” Therefore if Christ Jesus is the end of the Law for righteousness to every man that believeth, it is because we are under another covenant. John the Baptist was the interlinking prophet between the Old Testament and the New Testament. We all know that. What a lot of people will not agree to, is that John did not fulfill all of Malachi 4:5-6; and refusing to believe that, they cannot possibly see anyone else coming along to fulfill the rest of it. I just have to be thankful to God for opening my eyes. Hallelujah! I love Him.
HOW SOME SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS REACTS TO TRUTH
I want to show you where the denominational Church of Christ people sit today. They say, We only speak where the Bible speaks, and are silent where the Bible is silent. You would have a hard time getting the Church of Christ preachers to preach out of the Old Testament. Why? Because to them it is all fulfilled. To them it is a closed book; because the Bible says Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to them that believe. They cannot see any further than that. They just simply do not know how to interpret what Jesus said in Matthew 11:13 and Luke 16:16. Notice Mat.11:13, first. ”For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.” That is true. Now notice Luke 16:16. ”The law and the prophets (were) until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” What did Jesus mean when He said the Law and the prophets were until John? If you know anything about the Old Testament, here is how we have to look at this. The Old Testament was written by writing prophets. Think of it. Moses was a prophet, leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. It plainly tells you that. While in the forty years of wilderness journey, Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. lie was a writing prophet. Then there came the other prophets, some minor, and some major in their different centuries of time. As the nation of Israel was the people to whom God had given the Law, the first covenant which carried all the types and shadows of better things yet to come, He naturally offered them first, the new covenant which opened up a new dispensation. This old Law dispensation, from the call of Abraham around 1900 B.C. to the first advent of Christ, you can compare to the length of time from Christ’s first advent until now; and we are looking at about the same span of time. Here was the Law, all writing prophets. When John the Baptist came on the scene, a prophet messenger to forerun the activator of the new covenant, the dispensation of Grace, the one that would set this new dispensation in motion, the kingdom of heaven, remember this, John the Baptist was not a writing prophet. He was a preaching prophet. They have already fully dressed themselves in the doctrine their founder taught when he was alive; without a revelation of what that doctrine was supposed to lead them to. They just simply do not want anything else added. Do you know that is why the Bible, in the 17th chapter of Revelation, called this beautiful woman John saw dressed in scarlet with all that gold and silver on her, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. Have you ever wondered who these little daughters of that old spiritual whore could be? You do know this, When a little baby is born, you do not call her a harlot at that time. No. She is just as innocent and beautiful as you would want anything to be. Think of Lutheranism, when it was first born. While Luther was alive, and when the world needed something to turn them from the darkness of Roman Catholicism, the old system of religion that had them shackled, and point them to Jesus Christ, Luther’s message did exactly that. That must have been a great joy, just to be able to step out the doors of an old Catholic Church and say, Praise the Lord! I can have faith in God now! Goodbye pope. Well saints, that was only going to last for so long, because the Holy Ghost does not stop with just one revealed truth. He was sent to lead believers into all truth. The point is, All of those little movements born, coming out of the Dark Ages had a certain portion of truth which God honored. He gave unction and anointing to preach it; but when that generation died and left the scene, the next generation lacked the revelation, and the zeal to carry on; so they just built a fence around what they had, and closed the book to any further revelation; therefore the Spirit of God moved on without them, to another group that was open to truth and revealed the next one to them, leaving the others to just simply dry up spiritually. He came right on down the line like that, until all the basic doctrines Christianity was founded upon had been restored, even if it was in fragments scattered here and there. That was no problem for the Creator; all He needed was one little man anointed with His Spirit, to take all of those Bible truths, fit them together, and pres-ent them to the called out bride of Christ; while those who had been carrying them ran home to mommy. What do you think all at this ecumenical get together is, if it is not that? The children of those who protested Catholicism have run home and made up with mommy. Right there, is as far as you need to look, to see the image of the first beast. Most of you know what I am talking about; so I will just read 3 verses from Revelation 13, to get your thinking in the right direction. Verse 1, ”And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.” That is Romanism. (II) ”And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.” That is Ecumentalism. (12) ”And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” The Ecumenical Council of Churches is destined to be just as diabolical as the old mother church (Roman Catholicism) ever was.
WHAT GOD SEES AS A TRUE CHRISTIAN
The descendants of those who protested Catholic dogma, came right along and built their Bible Schools and Seminaries where their young people go to study theology; and before very long, they were just like mama; operating a system of religion without the anointing of the Spirit of God. What does God need with a Bible School any how? He is well able to reveal the scriptures to us, without us being able to speak Hebrew and Greek; and without us having to study some other man’s opinions of what various scriptures mean. Every last one of those denominational systems followed the same course their old mother did.They formed their Bible school just as the Catholics have their monasteries… Continued from page 6 The Lutherans did it. Then the Methodism of the Baptists, and on and en and finally the Pentecostals built theirs. What is theology, other than studying other men’s theories? It is like a bunch of scientists in a laboratory. They have a little bit of this and a little hit of this, and a little bit of something else; and they mix it all together to see what they get. It might blow up in his face. You know what I mean. Well doctrinally, that is about what some of this theology amounts to: but for the most part, it is just a lot of wind. They do not know how to put the components together to make a Bible picture out of it. As we finish this seventh parable, what it really says to us is that the time will come that the overall net dragging has run its full course. When all the acceptable fish have been caught, if you keep casting your net back out there, You just keep bringing that same old sea turtle back again and again. It reminds me of these Billy Graham campaigns. I have nothing against the man personally; it is just his lack of revelation. He does not know where he is. He said in North Carolina years ago, I want to be the biggest evangelist that has ever been. Well he has accomplished that; but where are the fruit of his labor? Do you see any of them following this message of truth? He has made a lot of good Baptist’s, and a lot of good Methodist, and what have you; but that is not what Jesus Christ is coming back for, He is coming for a bride Church dressed in a pure revelation of the word of God. The Billy Graham’s in the world are not producing such a body of believers. The gospel they preach is presented for the most part as fire insurance issued by a God of love just to keep people out of hell. Well I am here to tell you, God is not in the fire insurance business; He is gathering His predestinated family from the four corners of the earth, so to speak, plucking them out of the clutches of His enemy the devil, that is determined to destroy every one of us; and placing His Spirit within every one of them, to enable them to grow up in the stature of His only begotten Son. It is all for His predetermined purpose; and even though this may seem hard to swallow, He is not the least bit interested in keeping make believers out of hell. I will just have to say, Billy Graham and a lot more like him are about as blind as a bat when it comes to the revelation of God’s word. Any more, he does not even preach against sin the way he did twenty years ago. Why? Because he is preaching to a nominal church world everywhere he goes; and he has the dignitaries to please, if he expects the support of the people. He cannot afford to disturb their dignity by preaching against sin. The time has come when that net, every good thing in it is going to be taken out and put in a special place. We know this, if you were to go to a natural river and fish like that, the law of game reserve tells you, certain fish, if they do not meet specifications you have to put it back in the water. My book says this, God is only going to accept certain kinds of Christians and they are going to be WORD produced Christian. You have to meet certain Bible specifications. Do not think you can come to Him and say, I have been a member of the Baptist Church all my life. I have attended Sunday School every Sunday since I was a little child. God is not the least bit interested in how many Sunday School attendance pins you have hanging on your chest; He is end of time. He truly did bring out the old and the new nuggets found in the Bible, and gave us a picture of something our faith can rest upon. Back in the Old Testament dispensation when we had the writing prophets, the prophets themselves would write the things God gave them as inspiration came; but we all know that through the centuries of time, as the old par-chments or scrolls, which were written on sheepskin or paper type product would become old and deteriorate, it would take a scribe that knew the Hebrew language, all the punctuation and so forth, to rewrite them. Those men were schooled and trained to be able to rewrite those scrolls in their precise structure. Therefore when we bring that to the New Testament dispensation, a scribe is not someone printing something. It is someone who is called to be a messenger of God, to teach the revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in its true form. We had such a spiritual scribe on the scene in this generation. No, it was not Billy Sunday. Nor was it Dwight L. Moody; nor any of the other outstanding Evangelists you may have heard of other than William Marrion Branham. He was born in the State of Kentucky; but preached most of his major messages right here in the Jeffersonville, Indiana area. He was exactly the kind of messenger God needed on the scene : for the hour he lived in; when the Gentile religious world was moving rapidly toward a very precise point in time. That is why Malachi 4 had to come on the scene again. Not to the Jewish people; but now to the Gentile people who are the children of the second covenant. He was a scribe for sure; because he did not do like Luther, just reach in the Bible, take one doctrine, lift it out and explain it. He was to the endtime people what the apostles were of old. He took the truths of God’s word, that the other men had stood for in their hour, put them all together, and gave them to the true Church. No, I am not talking about Branham Tabernacle; I am talking about the universal body of true believers that love the true revelation of God’s word. They are scattered around this world today. Not in the great numbers you hear others boasting about; but in sufficient numbers to fulfill the scriptures. The bride of Jesus Christ will come from all parts of the earth. For that reason, though it may look to some of you like the rapture ought to take place just any minute, you must remember that the bride element on the other side of the globe has to have opportunity to see what you see, before Jesus comes for His universal bride Church. They all have to be restored back to the faith of their apostolic fathers also; in order for the little bride to be in the unity of the faith. When she is truly restored, all of this pushing and shoving in the ranks of what qualifies as the true Church will be a thing of the past. You will not find anyone trying to put someone else’s light out, so theirs can shine brighter. That is where denominational religion has been for so long; but thank God for truth. Now we can see clearly what the apostle Paul was stressing in the 12th chapter of 1st Corinthians. Let me read it to you. (12:13-27) ”For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (14) For the body not one member, but many. (15) If the foot shall say. Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? (16) And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye. I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? (17) If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? (18) But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him. (19) And if they were all one member, where were the body? (20) But now are there many members, yet one body. (21) And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. (22) Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: (23) And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. (24) For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: (25) That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. (26) And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. (27) Now ye are the body of Christ. and members in particular.” When we are able to identify with what is contained in those 15 verses, then we will know the Spirit of God has been working on us; for it is contrary to our human nature to be like that. For that very reason, when Bro. Branham preached that God is One Spirit, and not a person, and preached against organized religion, all of those denominational people that had been enjoying the miracles so much, began to jump on him saying, He has gone mad. Some said, He is right in the heart but wrong in the head. They said similar things about Jesus. I want you to know, saints, that in every Reformation period, the previous movement that had rejoiced in what they had when they were young in their experience, were ready to condemn the next thing God did. They fought it tooth and toenail, as the old saying goes. That is the way it is today. Religion can be a cruel thing if you e do understand it. It is only those that have an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the Church, that know how to conduct themselves when they see Him doing something different than what they if have been used to. God does not speak to any of these denominational systems in this hour, He only speaks to a few hungry individuals inside of those places. That is the way He works. When we had a scribe in our midst, he truly did exactly what the parable is said; he brought forth from his treasure things from the old and to place them right with the new. The messenger to this age, as to God used him back in the 60’s, he reached into this Bible and us brought out the old truths and showed how they fit precisely in with what we had from the new. When you would sit and listen to him preach, you could not help so but say, I believe what the Baptists believe. I believe what the on Methodists believe. I believe what the Pentecostals believe. Why? Because you saw the truth as each one of them were formed… Continued from page 7 around, and you saw how it all belonged together. You were not willing after seeing that, to stop with any single thing. You took it all and put it together. Out of the old, came new revelations. Things God had kept hidden from generations past, that He saw fit to reveal to us in these closing days of the age of Laodicea. That is why the denominational world fights it, and says it is nonsense. Naturally they each felt that if God was ever going to do anything else He would do it through them; But He could not, for they had already shut Him out. Can you not see why I titled this message- GENTILES ARE FOOLISH PEOPLE? Each system thought they had it all; but I say, Stick around. It is not over yet. God will still do some things we have not seen before. The final test is just ahead. Somewhere up the road, God will be bringing something on the scene to put everything to the test. When He does, a few people in this world will come to realize, I belong with these people over here. I can finally see what they have been standing for.
JESUS SHOWED THE APOSTLE JOHN
Let us go to the 3rd chapter of Revelation for a few minutes, just for a few points. Just as the seventh parable describes how there was to be a scribe in the end time, that would do these things, what Jesus showed the aged apostle John set a type of how this would work all through the age of grace, how God would have a vessel in every age He could speak through to the Church. Here in Revelation 3:14, we find what John was told to write and send to the Laodicean Church. All seven of these churches which existed in John’s day were in Asia Minor, which is the country of Turkey today. These cities do not even exist today. Neither do those churches. You will notice though that John was instructed to rite to the angel of each of these assemblies, the words given to him. What you may not know, is that the term angel applied to the pastor of the assembly. John did not write to some spirit somewhere in the spirit world. We do know that in the spirit world, there is an angelic being directing what is done; but that angelic being has to have an outlet; so the outlet in this case would be the pastor of each particular assembly in the hour the letters were written. What is interesting to me is, the fact that these seven churches were mentioned in an order to correspond with the seven parables of Matthew 13, which we have been looking at Jesus was on earth when He spoke those seven parables; but He was in His High Priest office in heaven when He spoke to John in a vision. Naturally all of those pastors are dead now; but we draw from the conditions mentioned in the letters to those seven churches, the revelation of what those seven parables of Matthew 13. applied to. In other words, The spiritual conditions in those seven churches that all existed at the same time, typified the spiritual conditions that would exist in each of the seven church ages during the dispensation of grace, starting in Ephesus and going in the order they were mentioned in. Likewise those seven parables apply the same way, one to each church age straight through in order. The names of those seven churches are the names of the seven church ages. Laodicea was number 7, and that is the age we are living in. When it runs its full course, the bride will be in Glory, with Jesus, waiting to return with Him. The church at Ephesus typified the apostolic age, and the first of the seven parables in Matthew applied to it for that was the age when the gospel seed were sown bountifully, and the New Testament Church came into being. Then we go into the second, the third, the fourth, and so on; and the fourth is Thyatira, the church that had the woman named Jezebel in it, seducing the servants of God, and teaching them to commit fornication. That of course, is what the parable of the woman mixing the leaven in three measures of meal points to; for the woman was the Catholic Church, in the age of Thyatira, mixing her antichrist teachings in with the word of God until she had the whole thing perverted, and the true revelation lost. From that point the reformation started; and the other three parables, along with the messages to the last three churches pointed to that. We are living in Laodicea, so we will look at it and close the message. We have already read the parable of the great net that was cast out: and we explained that, so let us read what was written to the angel of the church at Laodicea, the church that typed this age. Laodicea is that luke warm age, spiritually speaking, the age that (I believe we could say) is completely distasteful to God. When I drink coffee, I want it hot. When I drink something that is supposed to be cold, I want it cold. If either one is lukewarm I will spew it out of my mouth if I am where I can. That is exactly how God sees this age of Laodicea. Let us read it. (Revelation 3:14-19) ”And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; these things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert o cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. This is the spirit of materialism that has entrapped Christendom today. All attention is on who can build the largest building, and have the nicest seats and all the comforts people in this age strive for. The idea is, if you do not have a nice building, you very likely will not keep the congregation; because they will always go where it is the nicest. If that is all they are looking for, then let them go. We are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing; so the Spirit of God is locked out standing at the door knocking, and no one has time to let Him in. Well the Lord’s admonition is, ”I counsel thee to buy of me gold.” So do not offer Him material things. Offer something that is spiritual; and he will receive it and will come in and sup with you. No wonder Bro. Branham back in the 50’s and 60’s, constantly screamed out against the spirit of Laodicea, against organized religion, and against big polished church spirals and all that stuff. No wonder he did not want to go on radio, no wonder he did not like television. He saw what all of that was coming to. Preachers used to haul huge tents up and down the mud; but the time came, that they all got a radio program, then went on TV. On TV, a lot of them began to build stages better than what you see in Hollywood. When you look at what Jim Bakker had in Heritage Village, every time he came on with that PTL Club set-up, people stood in line to give their money to it. I sometimes wonder what Peter and Paul would have felt like, if they could have sat down in the luxury of those elegant couches and chairs. Poor old Paul was in jail, in Rome, without any of those things. I think of the price that was paid for the benefits and privileges we have; and shudder to think that this modern day society supports such as we see and hear on Television in this hour. Thousands of twentieth century church people go for it. That is why the Bible describes this generation as a society that is wretched, miserable, and blind. Everyone wants religion; but very few want anything to do with the only kind God will accept. Of course I know there are those who would say, Bro. Jackson, If you were the right kind of Christian you would not talk like that about people. Saints, I am not picking on individual people, I am only endeavoring to expose some of the deceptive systems well meaning people pump their hard earned money into. If you saw someone with his foot caught in a bear trap, would you not try to get him free of it? I would. People who are trapped by those systems of religion are worse off than a man with his foot caught in a bear trap. At least that bear trap does not have his soul captured. Multitudes are in spiritual bondage today; and time is running out. Timewise we are coming to the end of the dispensation of Grace. The dispensation of Grace, which Jesus referred to as kingdom of heaven, was divided into seven periods called church ages, which means Christendom has been exemplified in all seven of the types set forth in the letters to the seven churches of Asia. Those seven types, starting from Ephesus and e going right on through to Laodicea, type the entire span of e Gentile Christianity on earth. What a picture! Yet God has been perfecting a people for His name in every age. Perfection in God’s sight, is living according to what you have revealed to you in your hour of time.
LAODICEA’S DOWNFALL
What is our great temptation in the Christian ranks today? I am talking about the collective body of Christ. It is the temptation to drift into materialism, and to use it as a means to entice people. That is the great temptation. That is why so many TV evangelists have been caught in traps. They get the idea, we can win more people, we can reach more people if we do so and so. So what. Suppose God does not want to reach people that way? They get on the biggest TV station, they outline a big program, they build a big platform to project their ministry from, and then they start begging for support. God has laid this great burden on me, will you please stand with me and my ministry? They will start, preach 15 minutes and beg for money the rest of the time. They will go in debt a half million, then a million, then a million and half; and the first thing you know they are in debt so deep they can never get out. They cry, beg and put on all kinds of gimmicks; but God is not in that kind of thing, so they are destined to fail and fall sometime. It’s just a matter of when and how. Look at the trick Oral Roberts pulled on his supporters back sometime ago, ”If I do not raise such and such an amount of dollars before a certain time, God is going to take me off the scene.” What a hoax! Yet a great multitude fell for it, and the man is still on Television, going right on.
GOD IS NOT A BEGGAR!
When He is ready to support someone or something, He just speaks to certain ones to rise to the occasion, and there is no need for anyone to beg. That is God’s way. When God told the apostle Paul he would testify in Rome, Paul rested on that He did not have to make it work out by trickery. From Jerusalem to Rome was quite a long span; but regardless of how much that old boat rocked, and regardless of shipwrecks, Paul knew he would somehow get to Rome; because he had the word of God for it. Oh brother, the way God brings people to their senses and causes them to realize their need for Him, most of the time is very in-expensive materially speaking. it does not cost very much money. It costs a lot otherwise. You could have Television broadcasts in every nation on the face of this earth every day, and spend all of your program time begging for money to keep you on the airways, and still not reach anyone with the soul saving gospel message of Jesus Christ. I have said enough along this line. I am sure you can see just how foolish the greater percentage of man’s efforts are, without me going any further with it. Let me say this though, Regardless of all that is going on in the world today, that makes it look like God is failing, I want you to know, He has an element of people sealed with the baptism of the Holy Ghost, that love the true revelation of His word more than life itself; and before very much longer He is going to call them to their promised reward. Hallelujah! love Him. Amen. 111098765432112345678910SEEING THINGS JUST AS THEY AREDECISIONS THAT WE ALL MUST MAKEWHAT IS JESUS COMING BACK TO EARTH TO RECEIVE?HOW SOME SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS REACTS TO TRUTHEVALUATING THE ACCURACY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURESTHE PARABLES THAT SPEAK OF CONDITIONS OF THE SEVEN AGESPARABLES THAT POINT TO THE REFORMATIONSEVENTH PARABLE THE GREAT NETWHAT GOD SEES AS A TRUE CHRISTIANWHAT IS MEANT BY GATHERING THE GOOD INTO VESSELS- AND CASTING THE BAD AWAY?THINGS JESUS SHOWED THE APOSTLE JOHNLAODICEA’S DOWNFALLGOD IS NOT A BEGGAR!
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