Birth Pains, Part 2

Rev. Raymond M. Jackson

WE ENDED LAST ISSUE SPEAKING OF HOW GOD WORKED MIRACLES ON BEHALF OF ISRAEL IN THE WARS SHE HAS FOUGHT, AND OF THE TESTIMONIES THAT FOLLOWED, BUT AS WE GO INTO THIS NEXT PORTION OF THE MESSAGE I WILL ASK YOU TO OPEN YOUR BIBLE’S TO JEREMIAH CHAPTER 30.

This is a prophecy that has lain here in the Bible for centuries with very little attention being paid to it. I am going to begin reading in the 4th verse. I went to the Lord in prayer. I do not like to say very much about how the Lord deals with me at times, when I am in prayer, but I read this chapter and was praying afterward. After a while, when I had got finished praying. I felt led to write a certain thing on a piece of paper, and I will read it to you later. Notice now, “And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah.” Notice, He did not separate the tribes in this verse. He speaks of the two southern tribes which are known by Judah, he speaks of the ten northern tribes which are spoken of as Israel, or sometimes as Ephraim. “For thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. As ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! (This is a word that describes how terrible it is. There is no other word that can describe the horribleness, the terribleness, the catastrophic and devastating sight. It is all wrapped up in the word. Alas) for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; (This time of Jacob’s trouble is not speaking of Israel in her dispersion, this is speaking of Israel in the end time, after God has purposed to bring her back into the land) but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke.” We studied this earlier, that the yoke means, From now on no other nation will be able to arise above the supremacy of Israel, and not other nation can come in and conquer Israel and make Israel bow to her dictates. No. Never again: the yoke is gone, Now let us move on down to the 20th verse. This picks up a little further on in the time process that God is speaking of here. “Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress.” You can see that once the yoke is gone, keep your hands to yourself. “And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him (This is interesting) to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? Saith the Lord. And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, a continuing whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return, until He have done it, and until He have performed the intents of His heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it.” I don’t know how to make this sound any more dramatic and forceful than how it is worded right here in the Bible, but we can see the final words. No matter how nations and politicians may boast, they are not going to change what God has said. From now on it will all go God’s way. I am going to read this now. This is what I wrote. We have all seen the tragedy of all the refugees this week. There was a slight occurrence on the last weekend. It had not built to this magnitude. 

“Birth pains, a Time of Trouble, the time of trouble is the beginning of many problems that shall develop in the world, in order to put nations and the political picture of things in the proper order it is supposed to be in, so that the word of God can be fulfilled. This time of trouble shall affect economics in some nations. Domestic and social problems shall break out in many places. (We have already seen that in Africa. Look what happened in Somalia. That nation was divided between different factions of those Somalian people. War lords kept food from reaching the areas it should have gone to. Those war lords just sit back and manipulate everything the way they want it. They could not have cared less how many thousands of Somalian people died, just as long as they got done what they wanted done. Look what has happened in Rwanda, and in Zaire. The news covered some sections of those kinds of racial problems, but the main thing is, a lot of it is motivated by political power grabs. If there is one element that is absolutely opposed to the other factions, the one faction that considers themselves the most powerful will make their move. They do not care how many lives they destroy. They will show themselves to be the most powerful if they have to kill and destroy every stop of the way. They have some of the most cruel means to execute their plans. When thousands of people out of Rwanda tried to escape for their lives, while trying to get across the border they were met, turned back, and then slaughtered by the guerilla fighters. We did not hear the fullest extent of what a lot of those conflicts turned into. Keep in mind though, when we see these thousands of people in different sections of the world just tossed about between conflicts, it lets us know all these things are the beginning of many other things that will grow into far more devastating circumstances than any thing we have ever heard of read about before.) Racial tensions will develop and arise, which will be the beginning of Matthew 24. There shall be distress of nations. Nature will explode into giant earthquakes. Torrential storms will bring the loss of much life and property. Thousands of people will become displaced and become refugees to wander from place to place.” That is what I wrote down when I had finished praying. (Preached 4/8/99) 

This is a Newsweek Magazine, that I am holding up. This shows where there was a refugee lineup three miles long, forced to this fence. I will hold this up so the camera can pick it up. That is only one of the many pictures that has been shown this week, of what has developed in Kosova. It tells about three children, as well as many other things. This line of refugees was three miles long. The sad part is, in most of these areas where the refugees have fled, when they got there and the officials on the other side of the border tried to take charge, a lot of the people became separated from their children, even their small babies. Old people that had been cared for by their younger children, were separated from those that cared for them. Men have lost their entire families. They showed in Macedonia, one five year old girl that had been completely separated from her parents and other family members. Here she is in a mass of refugees being herded off to who knows where, and she is helpless in the matter. This five year old girl, when they finally did find out what her name was, was spending her time trying to tell other children to cheer up, that everything will be alright. We in America have taken a lot of things for granted. You know we have. We take our life and circumstances for granted. I want to describe something to you, concerning God saying He saw all men bent over with their hands on their loins like they are in pain. That is not a picture of a man that has been injured in a way that has brought pain on him. Every time I watched the news this week, it would take you to one of those areas where twenty to twenty five thousand refugees are crammed together, and tell how eventually some become lost from one another. I saw different scenes of old men with their handkerchiefs in their hands. They were undergoing such remorse, such terrible heartbreak. They have not only lost the place where they were born and raised, but now they are headed somewhere, they do not know where, nor what will be their fate once they get there. The families that had lived together have been separated, and many of them will never get back together as a family again. I want you to know, they are not weeping because they lost their pet dog. They have been unwillingly brought to a place in life that they have lost everything. It looks like there is no hope for many of them. They have no future to look to. It is a terrible situation to be caught in. I have to say, that is exactly what God is looking at in Jeremiah. Do not think that is just a coincidence. There was a reason for Jeremiah wording that verse like he did. God has a remedy for every bit of this, but how many will ever recognize God in anything that takes place? I have done quite a bit of reading this week. A lot of this is politically motivated, but behind the political motivation there is a deep root of religion that will forever be a problem between those people. The refugees that we see over there, are basically Moslem in belief. They cannot understand why such a fate has befallen them. Why us, why us, why has this befallen us? We have to accept certain things the way the Bible portrays them. We cannot allow ourselves to give into sentiment and express it to the point of saying, Well I don’t see why that has to be like that. We are a generation that definitely see things different than people saw those same things six hundred years ago. We have got to look at it that way if we are going to keep our thinking in line with the scriptures. When I read here, I have to believe that we are entering into a time prophesied in the scriptures to be as it is, and I am not necessarily saying this is the initial beginning of that time of trouble, but I am saying it is just one of many things that are going to start rising upon the scene and from now on, whether they are a year apart or six weeks apart, or what, they are all going to add together into a time of trouble that will never allow us to return back to what we might refer to as the good old days. They, are gone forever. Only the coming of Jesus can change the trend. We are not going back that way. We are going this way, where everything is heading for an end. Let us look at this thing we are referring to, this time of trouble. Is it necessary? One way you would look at it, you would have a lot of people say, Oh no, Bro. Jackson, I don’t believe in violence. There are a lot of people especially in this United States of America right now, that are totally ignorant when they try to analyze the condition of society and the political picture. The Bible is a fixed book. It gives you a graphic picture of how to recognize the end of Gentile time, and how to view the time leading up to the end. That is why it says there shall be a time of trouble such as there never was before. When you read history, going back to find out how many chapters indulge in times that have been extremely bad, the Bible tells us there is a time coming up that will beat all of them. I think back, of the depression years, how bad they were for many. The starting of that was in October 1929, when the stock market crashed. In a matter of weeks, wealthy people that had trusted in their investments were jumping from windows, or shooting themselves. That does not mean all of them did, but some did, because they could not deal with the reality that suddenly, overnight, they had lost everything they trusted in. On top of that, just when the depression was in full effect, maybe in about a year’s time, out in the Midwest, in Oklahoma, Missouri, and in part of Kansas, and Iowa, they began to be affected by a dust bowl. It just seemed to stop raining. People that had settled there seventy five to a hundred years beforehand, and had raised their families on those homesteaded farms and ranches, all of a sudden the land was too dry to cultivate and grow anything; so dry that not even dessert grass would grow. As long as that depression lasted, the dust bowl lasted. (There were films made, showing how bad it was.) They all heard how things were flourishing in California; and as many as could, some in horse drawn wagons, some in Model A’s, or Model T’s, or in anything that would run and pull a load, began to load up their families and travel in that direction. They had already put out seed where they were, but it did not grow. Tumbleweeds blew against the fences. Sand also piled up against the fences. Places where there was a standing became just a bar across the prairie; with the fence buried under everything that blew against them. Buildings became dilapidated, barns began to lean, the clapboard on houses came loose and everything spoke of despair. All across that dust bowl people left their homes, never to return. When they got to California, they too were living in tent camps, much like the Bosnian people are right now, but at least most of them had their families with them. I just bring that to your attention because, as pertaining to America, that was one of the most terrible times of trouble that America has ever had to deal with economic wise. The wheels of industry had almost stopped turning. Little boys and girls born across this land, grew up to hardly know what an ice cream cone was. As along as they could get hold of a potato, and some beans and flour, they survived from day to day. I remember how, in the area where I lived as a little boy, there were three large families. Those parents went to certain farms around the area and would ask the landowner, Will you take one of my children in, to live and work with you? I can name the families. I am just bringing this into this message, because of what some of the highly educated politicians are saying today; and what they are teaching in our schools; that poverty is the cause of crime. It is not. That is absolutely a lie. They have never proved that to me. They shove that idea off on our school children, but they have no proof of it. It is what they tolerate on the streets, that causes crime to be so prevalent. At Borden, Indiana, there was one boy about my age, the son of some people that had a very large family. When he was about fourteen, his daddy asked a certain man that did a lot of logging, if he could use the boy. He said, I can use him, but I can’t pay him any wages. His dad replied, If you could just give him a bed to sleep in and food to eat, that would be appreciated. He said, I can do that. Those three cases I knew of, the boys went into those other homes and worked for them until the war years came along and they were drafted into the service. I do not want any educated character trying to convince me that you have to give all these kids this and this and that to keep crime off the streets. That is a lie of the devil. Back in the 1930’s, during all those years, up in Washington County, and in Clark County, and whatever other county you can think of, there were teenagers that grew up into decent citizens, but if they could have had just one pair of jeans that looked decent, they would have felt like they were dressed up in a suit. I had a cousin that went to the same one room schoolhouse I went to. He did not even have a complete high school education, but he was drafted into the army. He went into the Air Force and became an M.P., and was sent over seas. When he was discharged, he went to Salem, Indiana and joined the police force. They did not send him to police school. He started out as a rookie and when he retired he was chief of police. He came out of poverty, eating beans and potatoes, biscuits and cornbread. They lived back on a ridge road, and during the summer when the strawberries were ripe, when he was between six and seven years of age, his mother sent him to the garden to pick strawberries. He stuck his left hand into the leaves of the strawberries and a copperhead snake bit him. By the time they got him out of there, which was about a mile and a half to the main road, and got a neighbor to take him to Borden, which was eight miles, his wrist was terribly swollen. Doc Stocker gave him a shot of something that took care of the situation. That place left a scar that he still carries even today. I am saying these things mostly to you young people. You have never been hungry. Yet every one of you have probably done more than your share of complaining, I don’t like this, I don’t like that. You are very blessed and do not realize it. There was an era of time in America, when people did not complain about anything they had. They were just thankful to have whatever they had. That is why I do not need to have any professor telling me that poverty makes young folks mean, and makes criminals out of them. It is just simply not the truth. The generation I am using for an example, was the generation that did not even wait to be drafted into the armed forces when the draft came into effect because of WW2. They joined up voluntarily. Others, when they became eighteen, they had to go regardless. I have to say, from one end of the country to the other, there was a generation of men that died on the beaches of foreign lands, giving their lives for a country that at that time had not given them anything yet. Those same boys, no matter where you would find them, would say, I will be so glad to go home to Mom and Dad. Others, some of which were in their later thirties when they were drafted, and maybe had a wife and two or three children, would say, I will be so glad to get home to my wife and children. Some of those older fellows would talk about how it was in their part of the country, how poor the people were. Somehow though, they were able to work a little and would work all day just to get a nickel or quarter to buy a few morsels of food. I am saying this, when this time of trouble hits, it is going to be just like that, in some places. Somewhere on this globe, it is going to be just like that. Why? Because we can say, that for the past fifty or sixty years, God has given the human race the best opportunity they could have had to make something worthwhile of themselves. 

WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS GENERATION? 

I saw something the other night and just thought to myself, that bunch of educated idiots that will teach the young people of our day all about sex, ought to have to pay some kind of bill for what they have done. They started it back in the sixties, but I have to ask, What does a twelve year old girl need to know about that. She ought to still be playing with dolls and enjoying her childhood years that way. From that time until now, they have had to deal with all these pregnancies in young girls and they still do not confess that they have created a problem. Then, here comes AIDS on top of all of that. The Christian world did not bring these conditions upon our society. I say to those who did, You are going to face hell as sure as the world, because you are influencing a generation of people that cannot find their way home, when they are within a mile of it. Let me go back and show you a little background of the conditions we see going on all around us today. Christianity started in the first century. By the time the second century of Christendom had come about, all across North Africa, Christianity had been embraced by different races of people, by different segments of mankind, on down into Saudi Arabia and even on into the third and fourth centuries. Many of the Jews that had been Christians in Jerusalem, after the fall of Jerusalem, which was brought about by the Romans in 69 A.D., escaped and went into regions of the desert country, which was Saudi Arabia, across the Jordan. Jewish Christians took up their abode among the Arabis people. The Arabic people were very friendly with them. As Christianity spread northward, right in the area where all the problems were, while the apostle Paul was still alive, in that one area which is called Macedonia today, the whole area was Macedonia back then. They got that from the Greeks. Paul was the one that established Christian churches there. That became a flourishing ground where Christendom could grow and prosper. By the third century, Russia, which was people by nothing but a bunch of unbelieving pagan type people, totally uneducated, began to be affected. Out of the other churches that Paul had established, missionaries began to arise and go to Russia, preaching and teaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and also starting churches and schools. It was those people, that brought education to Russia. By the time we come to the fifty and sixth centuries, Christianity in the regions of the Arabians, as well as in Egypt, was becoming cold and dormant. 

A LOOK AT THE HISTORY OF THE MOSLEM RELIGION 

By the time we come into the 600’s A.D., a man named Muhammad was on the scene. This man, if you read his book, tells how the God of Abraham dealt with him. I have to say at this time, There is no doubt there was some kind of god that dealt with him, but it was not the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and those whom we look back to. Nevertheless, the devil sure shot him with a lot of experiences. He was supposed to have been taken up into heaven and shown the virgin Mary, as well as Joseph and all the patriarchs of the Old Testament. He believes in the Old Testament prophets, but he also taught that he was the last of God’s prophets. All of this is because he came from Ishmael’s line, and naturally he teaches that the promise of Abraham did not come through Isaac, but that it came through Ishmael. Muhammad did not last many years, but the next leader of Muhammad’s teaching picked up the hostile side. His followers took up the sword. By the time we come to 700, wars began to arise in the Saudi Arabian areas. Basically it was in the desert countries. This kind of conflict continued until we reach 800. There was another man born in that area. He took the name Muhammad the Great. History tells you that in 800 something, he came out of Saudi Arabia with a massive army of Islam people. He was going to convert the world to this religion. He crossed into Egypt and threatened to do away with Christendom. According to the histories, thousands of Christians were beheaded. Others were spared. Some churches were demolished, others were spared. When Muhammad the Great got through with Egypt, Christianity as it had been in the second century was no longer the thriving faith that some people have lived by. Let us go back now and pick up another point in history. The great pyramids that were built hundreds and hundreds of years before the era of Christ were condemned by the Catholic Church. As she spread her teachings and influence all over the Roman world, by the time we come into the fourth century, the Catholic Church began to teach that all these ancient sights, the pyramids, the sphinx and all such sites are devilish. When the whole world had spent hundreds of years coming from far and near just to view those wonders of the world, the Catholic Church condemned them. In the fourth century, they were closed to the general public, to all visitors and tourists. They were not opened for four hundred years. That is where there is the missing link in recording history. However in Muhammad’s hour, when he came into Egypt, he was so mystified by those things he was going to defy the Catholic dogma. I have the history that tells what man he put in charge. They had lost the actual stone that pivoted on a rod, and they had even lost the place where it was, because it had been closed for four hundred years. He started in, they dug and chiseled until finally he came up inside the chasm that went to the temple top. (I have the book.) From then on, that army of Muhammad went across north Africa conquering. When we come to the tenth century, in Europe, the Catholic Church has heard about the Holy Land, Jerusalem, having been taken over by this great Islamic army, so an army of volunteers including women, children, husbands, all volunteered to go in this massive army to Jerusalem and help free it from the Islamic hold. I was reading today, that in 1099 Jerusalem fell to the first Crusaders’ army. In other chapters I have also read that along the miles they traveled from different segments of Europe to go down and around through the Dardanelles Straits and down along the line of Syria, grave yards spring up, because disease and all kinds of sickness and hardships of every description had taken a toll. They lost a lot of their horses. By the time they got to the Holy Land, the horses that the medieval knights rode, the big Belgians and Clydesdales, with a hundred pounds of armor weight, were so cumbersome the Crusaders found it impossible to defeat the little knight on the fast Arabian horse. They showed us where one of the last battles took place, when we were there one time. The little Arabian knight could ride circles around that European horse and shoot the rider in the back. Nevertheless the Crusaders were successful in the first wave. Then there was another, and then another, but it was never a complete success. By the time we come to the twelfth century, the Islamic faith was completely under new leadership and is breaking out, so they expelled the Crusaders from the Holy Land. Keep in mind, Christianity started with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and with whosoever will, let him be saved, but it was not long, until it was a war between people that basically were harboring some kind of religious idea in their heads. Right on into Turkey where the seven churches of Asia were located that we read about in Revelation, chapter 1-2, right there is where they hit. They not only regained the Holy Land, they stamped out the foothold of Christendom. As they entered this area of Turkey, Christendom had gon into apostasy. Those armies, as they hit into those regions where the seven churches were located, did some terrible things. I read about one battle where the head of this Islamic army lined the people up, and then the soldiers took out their swords and cut their head’s off. They piled their heads in the streets, tore down their church buildings and did their best to wipe out any traces of their existence. The idea was, we are a religion that is more powerful than yours. From the rest of the twelfth into the thirteenth, the fourteenth, and the fifteenth centuries, even on up to WW1, that was the general picture. I remember, in one of Bro. William Branham’s meetings, Bro. Demas Shekarian made a statement that he was thankful to be in America. He came from Armenia. When Armenia was freed from a certain rulership, it was the Muslims who began to take over. He told of an incident that took place in his own village, (when he was a small boy) how this Muslim army was rounding up the people and executing them in the streets, but because his mother and their associates that were Christians, and their relatives were grouped together in the street praying for God to deliver them, their prayer was answered. He said one Moslem officer got off his horse and walked around them, looked at them, then he motioned to the rest of the army under his command and said, Leave them alone. Otherwise they would have been treated just as the rest. I am saying this because I want it to go on record in this message what I am saying to you, Histories that are written today, are not even written to give the true facts about these kinds of things. I just have to thank God, because I have some old histories that most historians today would not even recognize as anything you could believe. I have to say to them, you poor educated people actually know so very little. Take those books of the era you are talking about, I will put more confidence in what those men said, than this new breed we have today. They are not historians, they are just writers, being paid a big salary to smooth things over. We are all supposed to get along together and respect each other, regardless of the atrocities of the past. I am saying all of this to try to establish a point, how the whole world for hundreds of years, has lived just fighting back and forth. Only God Himself knows the thousands of people that have died, just been slaughtered by domineering people who assumed the right to do such things. As for the Islamic people, to live close to certain families of them, you would probably like them, because many of them are probably lovable people, but when you look at the religious side of it, there is no way they will ever denounce their religion to come your way. What we have going on over in Bosnia, Kosova, and those places is basically a conflict between religious factions. Those poor refugees that we see in the News are Islamic people. They used to be the majority. They used to have the advantage over the others, but now it is a different story. All of that is right in the same area where Christianity was established by the apostle Paul. It runs right straight on down the peninsula, through Greece and into Turkey, and I will not even endeavor to say what percentage of the people in Turkey are Muslim in their belief, but I do know there are more Muslims than Christians; even though it is right where Christianity started out, by the ministry of the apostle Paul. When we look at this and just think that in 69 and 70 A.D. came the beginning of the second exodus of the Jewish people, the two southern tribes of the Jews, which was Benjamin and Judah, it has taken all these years for their offspring to finally gather back into the land. When they were taken out of there, a very disheartening event took place. When you look back at that picture, just imagine what took place that night; the night when the city of Jerusalem finally fell to Titus’ army and the Roman soldiers built fires in the temple to heat the rocks above them; and that was done to melt the silver above, so that it would drip down on to the cobblestones below, and then the soldiers would gather it up. Every guide will tell you this is what happened that night. When those soldiers saw that mass of silver and decorations overhead they built huge fires down below. That silver would melt and fall onto the cobblestones, and some would run into the cracks of the cobblestones, which brought about more fulfillment of the scriptures, for, What did Jesus say? He said, There will be a day come when there will not be one stone left upon another, but they shall all be uprooted. For many hours, the Roman soldiers did nothing but melt the gold and silver. If it fell between the cracks of the bottom rocks, they would stick their spears in between and pry it out. It all worked together to fulfill the prophecy of Jesus, and to prove what greedy people will do for that stuff call gold and silver. Just think of the scene there; with those Jewish people lined up, little babies tossed here and there and husbands and wives separated from each other, and from their other family members. It is a historical fact that those thousands of Jews that were led away by the Roman army were sold on the slave markets. Some were taken to Cairo, Egypt and sold, some were taken to Constantinople, which was the eastern center of the Roman empire. They were sold on the slave market there. The rest followed Titus up the main roadway into Rome. They were part of a triumphal march honoring him for his victory. Hundreds and hundreds of Jews led as victims of whatever their captors chose to do with them. Some of these men were very old, but some were also very young. I can see them wiping the tears from their eyes as they follow along. They were being taken out of the land of their nativity, never to return again. They were going to another country and had no idea what their particular fate would be. They did not even know what country they would end up in. Every man had his own thoughts. Here goes a man who had a loving family, but now his wife is gone, his son is gone, his little girl is gone, he is all alone, even though he is in a huge crowd of people. How do you think that makes a man feel? Not only has he been taken out of his homeland, he is in a world without a place he can think of as home. It is like the old saying, He is a man without a country. The Jews have been like that for almost two thousand years now. I have to say, the world had better wake up, because God has a remedy for all of that. God says His vengeance, and His anger will not stop until He has executed all of His intentions. Is this the kind of picture we will see going on in every nation? Not necessarily. Think of it, last night in the News, the man that headed the weather department, the meteorologist of the western hemisphere, said, Get ready for an era of some of the most terrible storms we have ever seen. He stated what month, which is the normal season for hurricanes to develop, so he made the prediction, and I believe it was as many as ten terrible hurricanes in the Atlantic and Caribbean this year, plus a lot of little ones. When you see two little countries in South America, Nicaragua and Honduras, devastated like they were last fall, do you see what that can do? They do not have to have big wars down there. Nature is just disrupted. What we see taking place over there could be the beginning of what we know is coming. God has a plan to perfect, and it will include many of these things we have witnessed already. 

HOW A JUST GOD REACTS TO MERCILESSNESS 

When I read in Zephaniah and when I read in Zechariah 12, and then what it says here in this 30th chapter, how God will cause the governor, the leader to draw nigh to him, that lets me know, God has His way of getting your attention. Yes, you to Mr. President. He will draw nigh to you, but you may not like the outcome. Read the 12th chapter of Zechariah. I have to say, that 12th chapter hangs over this world just like the 1999 calendar hangs on your wall. That is the next important point this miserable world is going to be faced with. What will you do with Jerusalem? Many of you pious Gentiles are going to get a big surprise when you see what God does FOR them. It tells me in that chapter, that the governors of Judah will say in that day, in their heart. What does that mean when it says a man says in his heart? He gets an idea. He does not make it known, but he gets an idea. He will say in his heart, When we see that Jerusalem is peopled by Jews, then God will be our strength. Read it. The world will say, Oh, but you can’t do that! Stick around a while and you will see whether they can or cannot. I have to say, when God begins to tap on the Heart’s door of the governors of Judah, and they begin to realize, God is speaking to me, and God begins to tell them, Get this bunch of Palestinians out of here and send them home, back where they belong, you are going to see some action. That country belongs to the Jews, but I can just hear some North American big shots, But they can’t do that! Oh yes, they can. Just stick around a little while and watch what happens. I will make the governors of Judah like a fire in a rick of wood, like a torch in the sheaf of grain. And they shall devour them around about. Everywhere, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, they will devour them. That old Islamic spirit is going to go forth from them. By what means? By what they witness, when God shows Himself fighting for Israel. Read the 25th chapter of Ezekiel. There is a place in there where it says what God is going to do. He is going to visit that Edomite tribe, just across the river Jordan, and His sword will be thrust into Dedan. Look, and see where Dedan is. It is in Saudi Arabia, right in the hot bed of where Islam started. My point is this. That Islamic spirit has shed blood and crucified people by the thousands and over the last four, five and six hundred years. When the Moslems crossed the straits of Gibraltar into Spain, the Moroccans brought the Islamic religion with them. They advanced northward and the Spanish, Catholic army could not hold them off. Out of southern France, came reinforcements to help bring this to a halt. The ancient capital was old Toledo, which I believe is approximately 80 miles south of the present capital of Madrid. They retreated and there in the ancient capital of Toledo, the walls that encircled the city, some of the gates have archways designed with the Moslem design. Other gates have the European Christian design. Inside that city there is the Moslem sector and the Christian sector. From the time they came into Spain, which was between the ninth and tenth centuries, until the year 1492, the Moors stayed. The Islamic religion was in Spain. When you study the histories, you can see from where Islam started in Arabia, by the time we come to the Middle Ages, they are making inroads to come into Europe. Spain was far as they could go. They came into Austria, but a famous German general defeated the Moslem army. That kept them back in the areas of Yugoslavia. The point is this, this world has not been free from the bloodshed those Moslem armies brought, because their aim was to control the whole world. They fell short of that goal. They can brag about their holy wars, they can brag about where they have been, they can brag about how many lives they have slaughtered, and even that they are a fast growing religion, but wait until God gets through with His end time plans for them and see if they are still bragging. Talk to me then, and tell me who is the biggest and the best. When God does this, it will not take Him ten days to convert that Moslem religion. You read the affects of it. What does it say in the 19th chapter of Isaiah? Here is what it says, (16) “In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it. (17) And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt, every one that maketh mention thereof, shall be afraid in himself, because of the counsel of the LORD of hosts, which He hath determined against it.” God will make Judah to be a terror; and I will take you back to Genesis 49:1, where Jacob, old in years, is down in Egypt. He is too old to go home, so he stayed in Egypt. His family is down there. His sons are all married. He is a grandfather of a big tribe. He said to his children, Gather around me: I am going to tell you what is going to befall you in the latter days. When he came to the tribe of Judah, he said, Judah, you will be a prince that your brethren come and bow to because you are a leader, and out of you will come one they will call Shiloh. (Read it for yourself in Genesis, chapter 49, verses 8-10) You will be the means of my people being restored. Judah, you are a nail in a sure place. Yes God said, I will make Judah a terror to Egypt in that day. All those Egyptian men will faint, they will act like women, oh I don’t want to fight that bunch of Jews. It says Israel will subdue them, will conquer them around about, and he is not talking about England, Germany or France. He is talking about all the Arabs that have made the Jewish people so miserable for such a long time. Keep in mind, that whole Middle East was given to Abraham and his seed. One part of it is called Canaan land, so I have to say this, when Judah heads south and east, you just as well pull your chair up to the tube and get ready for some action. You are going to see a show like you have never seen before; and you are never going to see one like it after this one is completed. When it is all over, of those poor Egyptians that are left, some are going to be scared half to death. They are going to cry and weep. They are going to look at one another and say, I can see right now that there is no Allah. It is Elohim. I have called on Allah all I am ever going to. From now on it will be Elohim, the God of the Hebrews. I want to learn to speak the same language they do, so that I can sing praises to their God. That is what all of this language adds up to. It says five cities in the land of Egypt will learn to speak the language of Canaan. That is not referring to the language of the people who will have just taken possession of the land of Canaan, the Hebrews. I will have to say. Take a good look, because that is only the beginning of the whole process, because there is not a place in the Middle East that the army of Israel will not go. I am saying this. It is not because the Jews are bloodthirsty people. It is because that bunch of people, once God had begun to chasten the Jews, took a hard hearted attitude toward them, thinking, Now that land that was theirs, will be ours just for the taking. That was the attitude they had; and they have been there ever since. They have had it all this time, and they have fought over it for so many years, they think they will continue on just like that. That is what Yasser Arafat thinks; that all he has to do is sign a piece of paper and Jerusalem is his. When Israel gets through with Egypt and Iraq, and especially with old Saddam Hussein, the Middle East will never be the same anymore. You are going to see Palestinians lined up waiting for army trucks, because it plainly tells you in Isaiah 49, concerning the Palestinians that have lived inside this old city, that they that made thee waste shall be far removed. Twice it says that. The rest of the world will say, Well, they can’t do that! Who will stop them? By the time this takes place the U.N. will already be torn to pieces. I am saying this, when God lets this time of trouble start, it has to be like that to make world leaders grab their head and say. Where are we? You are right where God wants you. You are doing just exactly what God wants you to do, because He is going to make fools out of you. The end result is, that this will not be the way Bill Clinton and the secretary general of the United Nations wants it to be, but it will be just exactly the way God’s word says it will be. There is no doubt in my mind, that when Israel makes her swing through the land, there will be dead bodies all the way through Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. Though the world will say, Yes she can! There are a lot of professing Christian people going to a little cathedral close to their home and sitting there every Sunday morning, that do not know a bit more about God’s plan than a fly on the church house wall. They think just because they are a member of that dead institution, that gives them the right to say those things. They are not Christians at all. They never have been Christians. They are just club members. They do not even want to be Christians. They just want something in name only, something that can pacify their guilty conscious. That is why God has to deal with the world like that, because they are not even concerned about being righteous and living a God fearing life. As much as I hate to see a little baby neglected, and as much as I hate to see a mother like I saw yesterday, that somehow had got separated from her small child and had no idea whatsoever where it was, I cannot help but think about it being exactly like that with the Jews ever so long ago; and who cared what happened to them? The fact that God was whipping them is immaterial, so why did no one have compassion for them? That is the way you have to look at a thing like this; when those Edomites rejoiced at that which had come upon the Jews. God did not overlook their attitude, and neither will He let them go unpunished. That is why Obadiah prophesied about Edom like He did. How you stood on the other side and boasted. You should have kept still in that day when I brought the enemy in, to lead Judah and Israel off into captivity. But no, you waited until they were gone and then you came rushing in ransacking everything. You said, Now this land that was theirs shall be ours. So it is turn about fair play. God has a score to settle with all that Mideast world over there. Let us read what it says in the 25th chapter of Ezekiel. Starting in the 12th verse, “Thus saith the Lord God; Because that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended, and revenged himself upon them; Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I will also stretch out mind hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman: and they of Dedan (Teman is a city in Dedan, but Dedan is in Saudi Arabia) shall fall by the sword.” By who? “And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel: according to mine anger (not according to theirs) and according to my fury;(Brother, God is not only angry, His hair stands up, so to speak) and they shall know my vengeance, saith the Lord God.” No wonder it says in Micah, and I will execute vengeance in anger upon the heathen. Do you wonder who the heathen are? Is that the poor, naked little thing on some south sea island? No. It is this half naked bunch of educated know-it-all politicians in Washington D.C. WHAT DO THEY KNOW? They have diplomas hanging on the wall, yet have no principals. Wait until God makes this alive in the leadership of the Jews. Wait until this becomes more important than making a dollar. Wait until this becomes more important than the fact I am a seed of Abraham. When they begin to realize there is a piece of ground over there that God gave to Abraham and his seed, and that it is not for them to play with, it will be too late for them to repent. I get excited when I think about the fact that God never forgets a promise, whether it is for blessing or curses. From the natural standpoint, it is sad to see all those people in so much pain, but do not forget. This is just the beginning of a lot of other things that are going to be so devastating, so heart breaking it will cause much agonizing. When you see it you cannot say, Well it could be worse. The world is being thrown into an era from which it will never return to what it was. I watched a documentary last night, on the History Channel. It was about gigantic waves that earthquakes set in motion. They are called tsunamis. They showed two different ones that had hit the Hawaiian Islands. One was in 1946 and another in 1948. I am going to use the one in 1948, because of the specific story behind it. The school in this one particular village was down on sea level. It was a beautiful spot, with a wonderful view of the ocean. The man they interviewed about it was just a boy back then. He said, on that particular morning the bay, where th shoreline came in, people began to notice that the water had left. They began to say, this is strange. They estimated the bay had sunk at least twenty feet. Young people were beginning to run to the ocean, there were fish caught in little pockets of isolated water. They began to catch those fish. Then someone said, there is danger in this. Then it told the hour, from way out at sea, that this giant wall of water came toward the coastline. There was nobody to send a warning until it was too late. They began to see the water gradually rising in the bay. Then came the wave. They said the first wave was not so bad, but the second was worse, and the third one took everything. It hit the village picking everything up and ripping it all to pieces. People perished without a chance of survival. It told how many lives were lost in that giant tidal wave. Out in the depths of the ocean earthquakes take place. They do not have to occur just on land. If one takes place in the ocean, all of a sudden yo have a wall of water coming toward you while the sun is still shining. All of this that we see taking place now just lets me know this planet is getting ready for an overall shaking. God is just gearing everything up for the windup. 

LIVING IN THE DAYS OF DANIEL, CHAPTER 12 

I have something here, that I want to bring into this message. It is a few excerpts from these books I have with me. It is not because I have to preach from books, but because I believe this is relevant. In the last few weeks since this situation started over there in Bosnia, (They call it Bosnia one time and another time it is Kosova, but you know the place we are referring to) politicians have been in a spin. Around the mulberry bush it goes, so to speak. We are absolutely living in the days of Daniel 12; when God is getting ready to wrap up the whole ball of yarn. Some of you may say, Bro. Jackson: How do you know that? Well saints, I assure you, it is not guesswork. First of all I have my Bible, in which all of this is spelled out very clearly. Then to, I have a bookcase at home that I have had ever since my wife and I were married. It came from the home place where I grew up. It was a bookcase that belonged to the original owners of the farm. The father of that family used to be the surveyor for Clark County. There was a son in that family that became a minister as well as a school teacher. The daughter in that family was also a school teacher. Therefore there were several books in that little book case that have been very helpful to my studies on certain things. When my mother and father bought it during the war, the bookcase came with the house. I did not realize back then, just what I was getting when Mother told me to take it. After my father passed away, mother said, Junior, I have no use for this, you take it. There are booklets in it of various descriptions, that people would read years ago. I went to that bookcase yesterday, to look for a book that I knew would contain other things I wanted to read about. All of a sudden my eyes fell on this book. I did not know who it was written by, but it had been in the bookcase all the time. “A World in Perplexity.” I opened it up; and to my surprise, what did I read? WW1 started when Austria invaded Serbia. I thought to myself, Is this just a coincidence? I went ahead and read through it. I remembered then, that years ago another book was given to me which was titled, “The Vatican’s Holocaust.” About a year before the Germans entered into the war, the Vatican had a plan that was designed to purge Yugoslavia of traitors to the faith. The Croatians, most of them were staunch Roman Catholics, but the Serbians were Greek Orthodox. The Albanians and others of them were Muslims. There had always been conflicts between those factions of people. As I read further in here, I found out that WW1 was ended and the Vatican had her fingers stuck in the whole settlement. The part that is called Yugoslavia, it was decided to turn it over to a federation fo states, which was those little places that made up the whole of Yugoslavia, after the WW1 era, once again these factions fell to squabbling. As we come near the WW2 era, I remember, there was a film made about Mussolini a few years ago, I saw it on TV. It showed where Mussolini was going into Ethiopia. He had success. He did not know what would follow a few months later. He had victory, so at the instigation of the Vatican, (The film did not show this, but we know it from other sources, that something inspired him) he wanted to go east into Yugoslavia. It was when he got into the east, into Yugoslavia, and things began to get bogged down, that the Catholic church sent her militia in there and they were killing Serbs by the thousands. The pictures are right here. This man investigated all of this information. As he printed the book and made it known when the book would be available, the Catholic Church fought him with everything they had. It was printed by Ozark Books, Springfield, Missouri. It would make you shudder to think that a religious system like the Catholic Church, could be as blood thirsty as they have been. Also, it was in the year 1939, that Germany crossed the border into Austria. As she took over Austria, this put Germany right in line, so she automatically put troops in Serbia. This so called ethnic cleansing went on for several months with the Germans, and even some of the Italian troops that were there, turned their heads when the militia of the Catholic church would go from village to village of the Serbians, rounding them up, taking them out in various ways. It tells of all the atrocities. Therefore, from that period, as Germany entered the war full fledged, when we get done, it leaves Serbia, Kosova and Albania to be overrun by the Communist takeover by those that took over all the Baltic areas east of the Iron Curtain. When the Iron Curtain fell on that part of Europe and central Asia, all communication was cut off. The point is this, what we are seeing now is not a coincidence. Why is there a third episode with Serbia? Before I read anything from the books, I want to point you to something on the map. Right here, is the country of Germany. Here, is Austria. Austria lays next to Yugoslavia. All down through there, is little states. In the WW1 era, the world was divided in the commercial trade by two major powers, Germany and Great Britain. Great Britain was the major power of the world. She had a maritime fleet that surpassed any other maritime fleet in the world. Here, is the British Isles. When WW1 started, Britain was in control of the Suez Canal. Because of her maritime fleet, she had access to the Far East trade routes into India, and anywhere in this area. Germany was limited, as to how much sea coast she had. Russia, most of her ports are closed in the winter season. It was known that Russia was trying her best to work her way south; to take over the Black Sea, and have access to the Mediterranean. That would be the only way they could enlarge some of their trade and exports. However as they had the Bolshevik revolution and went under Communism, it tells in this book, that some said at that time, that it looked like Russia had gone crazy. Which I have to say, it is now evident that they did go crazy. They thought when they were confiscating land, homes, entire farms and properties of every description and turning everything over to a Communistic state, and a certain element of people that were alive at that time, thought Utopia was coming. Little did they realize they would only be paid so much for whatever type of work they were capable of doing, regardless of how much more they thought they should have. It is a known fact, after Communism was in effect for at least fifty years, the newer generations became very discouraged. It was evident that there was no way anyone growing up under Communism could ever better himself and improve his way of life. If anyone invented anything, it belonged to the state. They did not get one dime of royalty from it. It was like that until just right before the Iron Curtain fell. It was evident, especially among the farm families that had to take care of corporate farms, that the Russian leadership thought this type of ideology would lift them into a standard of living far above the rest of the world. Well, one mistake they made was that they never thought they needed to improve anything in the way of storage, transportation, or anything like that. In the last two or three years, just before everything collapsed, I read different articles in different magazines, stating that their grain elevators that had already been in use for many years were outdated. Their storage capacity was not sufficient to store large amounts of grain. Therefore in harvest season, if they would have an abundance of harvest and they managed to harvest it and bring it to these elevators, they had no capacity to take it all in. They dumped it on the open ground and covered some of it with plastic. Other loads were dumped into open box cars. There was a group of American farmers that had a chance to take a trip over there. They said, as they were taken to the agricultural area to watch and observe, all along the railroad tracks there were those grain cars with rows of sprouting grain. It described those rows of sprouting grain, that if they would go from fifty to one hundred miles, you would have many bushels that had begun spouting and growing. It all adds up to this. Everybody was under communism, looking to the state for a handout, looking to the state for a pay check, looking to the state for this and that; and no one was looking ahead. Everybody lost interest in doing any more than they had to. Everybody was going to college, but nobody was learning how to invent anything to succeed in life with and establish something for himself. That is why, in 1964, I believe it was, when Kruschev was in the corn fields of Iowa, as he looked the situation over, he made the brag. One day we will bury you. The man saw something in America though, that changed the way he looked at things. He went back to Moscow and told the government officials, we will never succeed by just doing things in agriculture as we are doing right now. He got the idea that they should take each family that works in these farm communities, and allocate a certain piece of ground to that particular family. In other words, here is an acre, whatever you grow on it is yours. Those families began to do rather well like that. When we went there in 1990, the streets in Moscow had a market area. Those families were bringing in watermelons, cantaloupe, and all kinds of farm vegetables they had raised on those allocated acres. They were having vegetables left over to sell. The Moscow people were enjoying being able to buy those fresh vegetables. I only told that to try to bring in this point, that since the Iron Curtain fell, since the government of communism completely collapsed, they have been trying their best to bring everything back to a capitalistic system, free trade, but they are not succeeding. They are all very poor. I heard a man not too long ago, on a tape, that said the Russian soldiers, many of them are two or three months behind in being paid. It is not unusual to go into some of the towns throughout Russia, and at an intersection where there is a stop light, find soldiers standing there begging for alms. They know, if they go back to the base, they will only get skimpy grub, but if they can get a few alms, a few coins, at least they can go to a confectionary and get a hot dog and coffee, which is something they do not get very often. I have seen a News program, where in certain schools their teachers have not been paid for a long time. All of that adds up to one thing, after eighty years of communism, it is not paying off with anything sufficient for their needs. This book tells us that there have been college presidents, professors of different walks in American life at that time, that wrote their comments and ideas as they viewed the war. I am just saying this to let you know, It is not by chance, that WW 3 is starting right in the same spot where the other two World Wars started. 

WHAT ABOUT WORLD WAR THREE? 

Now when I say WW3, please try to understand what I mean. WW3 will be Armageddon. How many understand that? Armageddon, is fought at the end of Daniel’s seventieth week. It is a conflict with the whole world involved, the east and the west. Have you noticed what the United States and this president has been doing in the past few months? He has China on his mind. It is not a coincidence, that this man has maneuvered things behind the Americans’ backs, and behind the backs of those in Congress and the Senate. It is a known fact, that he has sold out some of our technology to China, who will in turn put so many million dollars in the reelection program of the Democratic party, because he wants to keep the Democratic party in power. Two years ago they discovered that these fellows that came from the Orients, and are putting in so many hundreds of thousands of dollars into the coffers of the Democrats, also have an even great concern back home. It is also known that the Far East countries are in a race with each other, each one trying to build a missile that will surpass the others. Just this week, India tested one. She told, that she would be able to deliver a war head to such and such a spot with what she has already. You know what the Bible says? Well, something woke up the kings of the east. All of the east today, is wanting in on the western world’s technology and communication, warfare, and everything else. This is not idle talk. We have to begin to realize, if we are approaching the end of time, that there has got to be a spirit that works on politicians, world leaders everywhere, causing them to give over to that eastern realm of the world, the technology that they need. God will see to that. We can say this, It looks like world leaders ought to have more sense, but we do know that the bible says God will put it into the heart’s of men to fulfill their prophesied role when the time comes. We have politicians today, that seem to be void of common sense. They think they are going to build a bridge to the twenty first century and everything will be just dandy, but the truth is, they are ignorantly building it with match sticks. That is just about what all of their efforts wind up being worth, a bridge built out of match sticks. Well let me read to you some of what I have been referring to. I am not going to read an awful lot of it, but I do want you to hear what the author of this book says. 

READING 

“The wild onrush of events in a world at war, the sudden and startling change in finance, in commerce, in industry; the quick movement of armies and navies by which the hopes and ambitions of two generations are gretified; the dazed perplexity of the world’s most trusted leaders, all these are characteristic of the days through which we are living.” Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University. 

“The world is in perplexity. To all the sufferings incident to human experience in normal times has been added, by the most terrible of all wars, distress of nations with perplexity. (See how he goes in a picks up a section of Matthew 24) Austria’s declaration of war upon Serbia the 28th day of July 1914, seemed a small event I this world of many and widely scattered nations, each bent upon the pursuit of its own interests. But that act set the world on fire.” 

It seemed to be a small thing. What did they do it for? Now he picks up the year 1918, when the war actually came to an end. 

“The year 1918, opened with twenty three nations at war. Ten more had severed diplomatic relations. The population of these nations is fifteen hundred million, more than seven eights of the human race. Engulfed in war, nation after nation has been swept by the terrible tide of destruction. Neither hemisphere has escaped. Armies march in Europe, Asia, and Africa. No seas are without their mines, their battleships, and the submarines. All skies are speckled with armored craft. The fourth year of th war found fifty million men under arms, notwithstanding the loss of thirty million by death, wounds, and capture, during the first three years of the conflict. And while this appalling waste of manpower has been going on, the money loss has likewise been enormous. Conservative estimates place the costs of the war for the first three and a half years at (This would seem like very small figures compared to today’s standards) one hundred and twenty five billion dollars. These figures stagger the human mind. (It does not seem that way today; the way they spend it in this day and hour) There are fewer than a billion minutes in nineteen hundred years. The expenditure of a million dollars for this war represents a dollar for every minute that has passed since the birth of Christ to the close of 1900.” 

We have this map up here, that might be of help to some. There was one major thing that seemed to set this off, it would seem to be small, and very incidental. Before I read any more I want to show you something here. There, is Germany, there is Austria. It opens up right here into Serbia and all those little states, coming right down to the main part of Yugoslavia. Just before this episode opened, Germany signed an agreement with the country of Turkey, and Germany was going to build a big railroad all the way through here, across the Dardanelles, through Turkey, down through Syria right on into Baghdad. It was called the Baghdad Railroad. The railroad would terminate at the head of the Persian Gulf, at the city of Basra. It is all right here, in these writings. This seemed to put things in an uneven balance, because it says later, this used to be the overland route of trade and commerce back in the olden days when stuff was brought the hard way from the Far East. If it was brought overland, that is the route it came into Europe by. When Napoleon left France, that is the way he went to the Middle East. That is the shortest route. Germany did not have ports, but she figured if she could build a railroad, it would be over two thousand miles long, and she would have access to the Persian Gulf, where ships would have access to the commerce trace from India and all eastern areas. It tells all of that right in here. No sooner did this war begin to get started, Britain is already in the Middle East. She is in Egypt, and she is in control of the Suez Canal. Turkey is in control of Jerusalem, and has been for a considerable length of time by them. Britain knows, in order for her to be successful in her maneuvering, she will have to come in and boot the Turks out. There was a Moslem prophet that prophesied. I remember hearing Bro. William Branham mention it. This prophet said that, when General Allenby enters Jerusalem and the waters of the Nile flow in the streets of Jerusalem, we Turks will know it is time to leave. This book has a picture of British troops on the march, moving toward Jerusalem. It shows General Allenby coming through the Damascus gate on horseback. The reason was, in that prophecy it said, and the waters of the Nile flow through the streets of Jerusalem. Well when General Allenby left the country of Egypt heading that way, it shows how they had the wagon wheels fixed to follow the sea coast part of the way, and then cross the desert. They hauled water in water wagons, all the way from the Nile. That followed the British troops to the streets of Jerusalem. The water wagons set in the streets of Jerusalem, dripping water from the Nile. Some of these things may seems small and insignificant to some people, but it is very strange, how God will allow somebody to say something somewhere that sounds so impossible, and even ridiculous for such a statement to be uttered, yet when something is fulfilled, it suddenly seems to be so practical. I want to read to you what was said concerning the onset of this war. 

READING 

“In the quotations given in the preceding pages, frequent mention is made of the Baghdad Railway, and the inference is plainly given that this enterprise is one of the prominent factors of causes of this conflict between the nations. It is worthwhile to give this project careful study. Dr. Jastrow, Jr. Who has devoted years to archaeological work Asiatic Turkey, has published an excellent book entitled, “The War and the Baghdad Railway.” In his preface he says, “The purpose of this volume is to elucidate an aspect of the war which was the most significant single factor contributing to the outbreak of the long foreseen war of 1914, and will form one of the most momentous problems when the time for the peace negotiations arrive. Ever since the announcement was made toward the close of the year 1899 that the Turkish government had conceded to a German syndicate the privilege of building a railway to connect Constantinople with Baghdad through a transverse route across Asia Minor, the Baghdad Railway has been the core of the eastern question. In the body of the volume, we read, “In our own days we are witnessing what promised to be the reopening of the old historic highway, the bridge uniting Europe to Asia, to western control, through the project of a great railway stretching along a distance of nearly 2000 miles from a point opposite Constantinople to Baghdad, and then to Basra, (That is the head city of the Persian Gulf.) And to the Persian Gulf. That project, which was well under way at the time of the outbreak of the war, is thus marked through its historical background as one of the more momentous enterprises of our age, more momentous because of the issue involved than the opening up of the two other world highways, the Suez and the Panama Canals.” 

I could go on and read more, but to think, even back then, 30 million people were killed, imprisoned, starved, wounded and left maimed for life. If we had the total picture of WW2, we would probably really see something. Twenty two nations was involved in that. Take a look today. The same nations that started WW1, was the same nations involved in the starting point of WW2. Are we going to be naive and set this aside and say, Oh there is nothing to this? Why does it always have to be the same place, dealing with the same people? The issues at the time are different, but the point is, it is always the same place. We cannot say that is just coincidental. There has got to be a reason for it. When I finish this message, which I hope to do this week, we will better understand the statement concerning a time of trouble. Try to look at it this way. You would not think, no larger than Serbia is, and no larger than her army is, that this could evolve and go into a long war. I have to look at it in this way. If for some reason this conflict is a beginning of eventually the whole world becoming involved in some kind of turmoil, I feel like somewhere, something has to hit the United Nations body and blow it all to pieces. Preachers have preached about that thing as being the beast for so many years now, and you have to wonder why intelligent men do not know better than that. You and I every one know that New York City is not the capital of the beast of Revelation 13. But we can say this, look who is involved in this conflict. It is not the United Nations. Of course they have observers over there, but NATO is fighting this one. That is who is involved in this conflict. Every nation that was originally a part of the old Roman head in Europe is where you look to for that beast. I realize Greece is now included but that does not change the prophecy one bit. When we read about the beast of Revelation 13, the body of it, we know where the ten horns are; and that is Europe, but what about the body? That is the territories of the old Grecian Empire. When you go into Serbia, you are starting into that area that used to be part of Alexander the Great’s empire. It also says in here, that Alexander the Great traveled this road. Well those things are not something that happened by chance. With that in mind, when we come to WW2, again you must ask, who started it? It started with the same countries. The issue at the time was a little different but the territory, the beginning point, is still right in the same area. I just have to say once again, That is not just a coincidence. That is something God’s plan included. We can say this, NATO is the military power of the European beast that will continue right straight on through the week of Daniel. That is absolutely going to be the beast power that is going to try to deny, that is, prevent the coming of the Lord. Yes, she is going to fight the battle of Armageddon, when the Orientals come by the millions into the land of Israel. God will gather them into the place for the battle of Armageddon, which is called the valley of Megiddo. What a conflict! What a war! Needlessly fought, because God’s wrath is executed at the end of it. The blood will flow to the bridle of the horse. It so happens there has to be a winner of that battle and that is the army that will take a stand to try to prevent Jesus and the Bride saints from coming back to earth. When you read the last few verses of Revelation 19, you will realize that the armies fo the beast of Europe, is the winner of the battle of Armageddon. The very fact that she is the one standing in the place with the false prophet, ready to make war with Him that sits on the white horse, tells you who the winner at Armageddon will be. We can say, Yes, she is the super power of that hour, but her glorying will be short lived because she has to turn right around and watch Jesus descend from heaven with all the armies of heaven with them. What does she do then? She engages in a losing battle with that army from heaven. There is not one thing said about the United Nations in any of that. The United Nations is already out of the picture way before then. It was in Newsweek, that this coming month marks the 50th birthday of NATO. Clinton was planning some big shindig to celebrate. General Motors and Chrysler are going to provide the automobiles to haul those dignitaries around during the three days of celebration of the existence of NATO. Of course all that was planned before this conflict arose. I cannot help but believe, if at that time the next war, which was WW2, when this war got to full swing, it was not limited to Europe alone, it swung all around the world and has involved all the major people of the Orient. If the Japanese, who were the first ones that rose to military power in the Orient, had not been conquered, we could say that Japan would likely be th power to lead the Orients to Armageddon, under the rising sun flag. She was already in China. She was already in Burma. She had the Malaysian peninsula, all the way down into New Guinea, as well as all the isles of the South Pacific. She had reached out that far while she was moving. However it was not meant for the little country of Japan to be in that position. The Chinese have been asleep for centuries, but now she is coming wide awake. She is begging for technology, and I might say. She is getting it. Last week, one of her emissaries was over here trying to work some kind of trade deal, trying to lower some barriers, to see if they could get some of our technology on things like polluted air and such like. All of that will add up to this. By the time the Armageddon war is to be fought, China will have advanced to where she will think she is capable of fighting her way through. With their numbers of people increasing like they are, it is hard to imagine the kind of power she will be by then. I remember hearing it said when I was a small boy, that the birth rate of the Chinese people is such, that if you were to line them up four abreast and start shooting them down with a machine gun, the line would never end. They would just keep coming. They put in birth control, and they have limited their families to one or two children, but who knows where that puts them? If they go beyond that, they are cut off from the standard of living and the paycheck from the government. Most of the time the women are taken and the child is aborted. I have to say, that is a sad thing, but it is also a very common practice anymore. I am glad God is the ONE keeping score on all of this. I am going to read something to you again at this time. In case you would doubt any of what I am reading, just take a look at some of the most terrifying atrocities and assassinations. There, is one of the political men in a casket. He has been assassinated. It tells who it is. It is also a known fact, that when WW1 come to an end it was the Catholic Church that asked the Baltic states there, and finally they were forced to become a federation. That is why it was called Yugoslavia, but it has not always existed under a concrete federation. Only when Communism came in the and entered Berlin, then Communism swung over that part of the world and locked it up. The Serbs the Croatians, and these others, they all stopped their fighting then, because Communism would not tolerate it. However the minute that bind of Communism ceased, what did they do? They picked up that same old spirit again. The title of this article is “New Nations from Old Ones.” Mainly it is pinpointing the area of Serbia. It picks up right where WW1 ended. 

READING 

“When in 1917 during the First World War, the Papal Nuncio in Munich, E. Pacelli, secretly negotiated with the central powers to accomplish the pope’s peace without victory, in order to save both Germany, and Austria-Hungary from defeat, he had already made his first attempt to strangle a nation as yet unborn; Yugoslavia. If the Vatican’s attempt was directed at preserving its most useful Hapsburg lay partner, it simultaneously had another no less important goal; to prevent a motley of nationalities from springing out of the empires ruins as sovereign states in their own right. In such states, Poland excepted, Catholicism would have sunk to the level of a minority. Worse, it would have been dominated by heretical churches and their political allies; for example, the Protestant and liberal in Czechoslovakia, by the Orthodox in Yugoslavia. With its last attempt to save the Austria-Hungarian empire, the Vatican therefore struck a final blow against the yet unborn Hussite Czechs and the Catholic Slovaks on one side, and the Orthodox Serbs and the Catholic Croats and Slovenes on the other, the fulfillment of their dreams lying as it did in the disintegration of the Austria-Hungarian colossus.” 

There is quite a bit more that could be read: I have certain areas marked to read, as we try to complete this message. Here, it shows one Serb being beheaded with a cross cut saw. The Serbs are Greek Orthodox. They refuse to go along with the Catholic Church in Rome. The Croatians are pro Catholic, leaning with Rome. The other is Muslim. That is the reason it has been a conflict between the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and the Muslims. Some of these pictures are pretty gruesome. Here, is a picture of German army officers in Serbia. They watched the whole thing go on. There is one picture in here where it shows men hanging by a rope. It is ghastly. Here, is a picture where people have been shot. They are lying on the ground while some of the troops are walking around. Here, are two scenes where they have been slaughtered by machine guns. In the writing here, all this has taken place in the early years of 1940 and 1941. All during the years when the war raged in the main continent, this was going on. Part of it is, it was going on secretly, undetected, unreported, and the world did not even seem to care. When this conflict started in Serbia a few years back, it was mainly between the Serbs and Croatians, Greek Orthodox and Catholics. But as pressure was put on them, they finally bent down and submitted to trying to get along together. Then the Serbs turned on the minority which were Muslims. It all adds up to one thing. Everything serves more than just one purpose. Go back to WW1, and you will find that the major cause was, Austria went into Serbia. That was the beginning of it. However since that was the beginning of the European conflict, that really reached out and embraced a lot of the world. At that same time Turkey had been the empire that had ruled the Holy Land for years on end. Finally the time came that Great Britain, for some reason, felt like the Turkish empire needed to be run out of there. When Great Britain went in there, they took the land of Israel over from Turkish rule and kicked the Turks out. Britain became the colonial ruling power. Slowly, there were a few Jews that began to migrate and go back there. In that period of time the Rothschild brothers immigrated from Russia back into this land. Settlements began to spring up all down through that era of time. Not many Jews were allowed to come in at one time. Then when Britain did decide to give up her mandate and colonial control over the land of Israel, who did she put in control of it? She made a nation called Jordan and placed it under their control. If she would have done the right thing, she would have made provisions so that Israel would have had the beginning of a statehood right then. As soon as the British moved out, the Jordanians moved in, in full military force. The first conflict was in 1948. Out of the war torn areas of Europe, displaced Jews held in detention camps, finally the nations began to say, What will we do with them? In the month of May, 1948, the United Nations voted to form a state within the land of Israel. As soon as that was made known, after being declared on the night of the 8th of May, the Arabs started their war. The war of 1948 found the Jews isolated, cut off from much of the western world. They would not give them arms to fight with. If anyone did give them any, what they got was just old obsolete stuff. I have a book that tells how the Jews outsmarted the Arabs almost every step of the way, even having only obsolete weapons to fight with. It just goes to show, when the time had come for God to look upon those people with some favor, He gave them wisdom and insight. The Arabs got beat at their own game. The reason I brought this into the message is to show you, it is not by chance that both these conflicts we have been talking about started with the same people, and in the same area. Yes, it reached out and affected a lot of other areas of society, because WW2 affected the whole world. But what did WW2 do that was not done in WW1? WW2 established this thing, the ten nations of Europe, that had trough previous years, gone to different parts of the world and taken control of outlying territories. That was called the era of colonialism. Britain’s colonial period started years in advance, but as time went on, France was in equatorial Africa, Belgium was in the Congo, Britain in South Africa, France was also in Kenya. Most all of the powers in Europe had a colonial territory somewhere, but when WW2, started, for some reason or other, it just looked like it was time for the clock to strike. One by one, as they became engrossed in a conflict on the continent of Europe, those powers began to realize they could not hold on to territories in the rest of the world. They had to come home and get ready for the end time. Therefore by the time a few years passed after the close of WW2, Britain had lost India and had lost control fo some of the South Sea islands. It was not long until Belgium was out of the Congo, and France was out of equatorial Africa. One by one they all began to relinquish their holdings and come home. Why? Because, as it says in the 17th chapter of Revelation, verse 12, “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.” That of course, means within the continent of Europe. Oh how they fought through the centuries, France and England. Joan of Ark had visions and told the military men how to win the conflict against the British. We have people today that do not believe that. That is because they did not live back then and do not want to believe such a thing. When the time comes, if man does not have back bone enough to look the issue right in the face, he will get a lot of surprises. Joan of Ark did play such a role and the Catholic Church burned her, then later made her a saint. What a conflict of thoughts! That is the way they do things though. Let me say this, WW2 did something among the eastern nations that brought them into a certain time factor. They were awakened you might say, out of primitive years of existing. They had shut the rest of the world out. The Oriental people were proud people. They did not think anyone else was as good as they were, especially the Japanese. They soon found out it was not as they had always believed, when a western power ran them off of every island. When they thought they would take Midway, they realized they lost some of the peak of their navy. I will never forget back on the hill where I grew up. There was a family that moved in behind us; and when the draft came along their son did not want to be in the army, so he joined the navy. They immediately sent him to California. That is where he took his training. The next we heard he was at sea. He was in the Coral Sea battle. That was the second time the Japanese brought their navy out to try to deal with the American navy. They lost some of their prize ships right there. Of course we lost some of ours too. That young man lost his life in battle on one of those ships. The Coral Sea battle ended. Then there was the battle of Lahti. That is when George Bush got shot down; in the battle of Lahti Gulf, and that was the last time the Japanese brought their navy out. What she had left, when the war was over, she took back to Japan and hid along the beaches, under camouflage. She knew she was licked. It has been the United States that brought ingenuity to the forefront. I heard some people talk one time, that before WW2 we set up assembly plants. Ford Motor Co. Had assembly plants. They would cast the part here, and then send them to Japan to be assembled on their assembly lines, because their labor was cheap. The product was sold in the Orients. General Motors had theirs there also, as well as Dodge. When the Japanese started the war, she knew she would get no more parts, so what did she do? She took the motor of a Dodge and put it in the frame of a Ford, and it might even have a Chevrolet cab on it. I saw many like that. That was the type military equipment the Japanese had during the war. She had no four wheel drive vehicles. Neither did she have any six by six, or anything like that. When our airplanes caught them out on a muddy road, most of the time they were stuck in the mud and our aircraft would riddle them to pieces and set them on fire. L When traveling some of the roads like in the Philippines and New Guinea, their trucks would just burn out because they were not able to function in the mud. Back home, when the war was over, General MacArthur once again taking mercy upon the people, wanted the industries here to renew some of their trade agreements with Japan. It was not long until we were sending radio parts, this or that. The Japanese were assembling them. It was Germany, that made the first tape recorder. The Allies found it. The Allies discovered how it could be, that they could hear Hitler making a speech one day in a certain city, but in a few hours he was making a speech in another place, and they could not understand how he could be in two places that far apart the same day until they learned of the tape recorders. The tape recorder was much more accurate than the old gramophone record. The tape recorder made his voice talk like he was actually at both places. With this in mind, when we began to make a few of them, we began to send the parts to Japan for assembly. Now, they make more tape recorders than America ever thought about making. We sent our products over there to help them stabilize their economy. The first thing you know. Here came the Japanese over here on their tourist trips. Our people took them through the Ford Motor Co. Plants, and many others, and they were snapping pictures everywhere they went. They went back to Japan, looking at the pictures of all the things they had seen. Then, when they had studied the plans, the diagrams of all this, they went downtown and set up a shop of their own. They started designing certain things from our products. We used to manufacture more motor cycles here than anywhere else in the world. Who makes them now? Japan. That is the way Japan has survived. My point is, this helped to bring Japan up the ladder with our technology, where in the electronic field she is our number one competitor. We cannot deny it. Here, is North Korea, and South Korea. Most of our clothing is either made in Taiwan, or South Korea, or China, and of late, some is made in Mexico. It goes to show, the Orients are being shaken wide awake. Now, North Korea is working hard, trying their best to get caught up with us in the technology of rocketry. I have to say, The world is preparing the stage for Armageddon. Let me say this also, when I said that in all probability, this is the preparatory stage for Armageddon, please keep in mind that the third World War will be the last one this planet earth will ever have. That does not mean there is not going to be any more conflicts, but the only other war that becomes an all out world war, will be Armageddon. It will involve all the armies of this earth. That is where God is going to deal with them for the last time. He will pour His wrath out upon them. There will be no miracles in the Armageddon war. Yet you wonder how some of these preachers can preach that Ezekiel 38 is Armageddon. Ezekiel 38 is a miracle war. Israel will not even have to fire a shot in it. In fact, when you read it, you can almost see everybody in Israel, it is night time and they are sound asleep. This great armada comes rolling in on them. That is when God says fury will come up in my face. When God gets mad, somebody is going to get their face slapped. My point is, we are caught in a conflict we ought not be involved in, and now they are wanting to call up some of our reserves. For how long, only God Himself knows. I feel like it is going to last long enough to occupy us, get us hemmed in a corner, then when God wants to turn Israel loose to do her part, we will be in the corner with our hands tied, and Israel can clean up the ground over there. I have always felt like, when the time comes, that from a military standpoint it looks like, how could this be? We must keep in mind, that as you get closer to a major event that is supposed to be the way the Bible wants it, it will come about just the way God has planned it. Therefore I have to say, The U.N. will never succeed, but NATO will be the thing that lasts straight on through. It will be the beast’s army in the seventieth week of Daniel period of time.