The Unity of the Faith
Christian greetings to all Bible Believers hungering and thirsting after righteousness, knowing you'll be filled as the Word is revealed to you, for righteousness is imputed by a clear revelation of the Word of God. We know we are the generation that will share Enoch's testimony, that we "please God: for without faith it is impossible to please Him." This is the golden age, when darkness and evil are taking over the world, and the Lord Jesus is incarnating His Bride.
Let's take two Scriptures for our text today. First in Ephesians 4:11-13, "And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
Studying these verses earlier we learned how Paul is teaching us that God has ordained five different types of minister to bring the saints to maturity so the individual saints in the congregation can:-
(1) Live the Life,
(2) Overcome by the Word, and
(3) Be ready always to share the faith with those outside the Body.
These five Offices will be in the Body until the saints ALL express the same revelation in the unity of the knowledge and understanding of the Word (I Corinthians 1:10; Ephesians 4:13). In other words the five-fold ministry will be in the Body from Pentecost through the rapture and the going up of the Church. Clearly the time of "the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God" to which Paul refers is after the Seven Church Ages, when denominations have served out their purpose as carriers of the Life, finally rejecting God's revealed Word for their own creeds, and gone into apostasy.
Paul founded the church at Ephesus about the middle of the first century. This enables us to date the beginning of the Ephesian Church Age in about AD53. Paul was the angel to this Age in which the falling away from the Word began and would continue until "the revelation of that man of sin, the son of perdition," and total apostasy in Laodicea (II Thessalonians 2:1-5; Revelation 1:4). Paul was not anticipating "the unity of the faith" in his day.
Faith is a revelation into which Christians "grow" or mature. Until the seventh century, the Church was comprised mostly of Jewish converts even though the Gospel had turned to the Gentiles who had no background in the worship of the One True God. So amid the enthusiasm there was a certain disorder, and with the passing of the first generation of saints and those faithfully taught by them, the church began its inevitable decline from the purity of apostolic faith (I Corinthians 14:26; Galatians 1:6).
By the Pergamean Age, two major schools of thought had emerged in the followers of the heretics Athanasius and Arius, whose doctrines were both false. At the First Nicaea Council of AD325 the Roman Catholic church was organized around the false teachings of Athanasius. Faith was abandoned in favour of reciting a statement of belief—the false "Apostles' Creed," so-called. But God is known by revelation or faith, not learning, and the true Christian ministry whose sole objective was to persuade the followers of the heretics to repent and return to the Word, departed before the Council sat. The bloody history of the church of Rome, the Dark Ages, and the Protestant revivals record what followed.
In his reference to "the unity of the faith," Paul was looking two thousand years into the future to the brief period of time after the prophet of Malachi 4 had restored the faith. This interval, which follows the Seventh Church Age, is typed in the Pentecostal Feast of Leviticus 23 where it is described as "an holy convocation." It is absolutely imperative for all true Bible believers to recognize this brief space of Grace in the Scriptures, for it is here in the secret place of this generally unrecognized dispensation that God prepares Christ's Bride for the translation. Here, unseen by the world, She ceases Her self-works of probing into the Scriptures and enters into the unity of the faith God has revealed by His prophet. It is the Message of this prophet that "finishes the mystery of God," and calls Christ's Bride out from denominational confusion into the oneness of the faith in answer to Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 25:6-7; John 17:21-26; I Corinthians 13:10; I Thessalonians 4:14-17; Revelation 3:14-22; 10:1-11; 18:1-4).
Our second Scripture is in Ephesians 1:9-10, "Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself: that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him."
God, long suffering, not willing that any should perish, has delayed the day of wrath until all who are coming are baptized into the Body. When all Seven Church Ages have passed by, "time (or delay for mediation) shall be no more" because redemption is over (Revelation 10:6); and "there is silence in heaven for the space of about half an hour." God restrains judgment, allowing "He that is unjust to be unjust still: and he who is filthy, to be filthy still: and he who is righteous, to be righteous still: and he that is holy, to be holy still" while Christ gathers His end-time Bride (II Thessalonians 2:7; Revelation 8:1; 18:4; 22:11) and all of His Children, the New Testament saints. Over the past two thousand years He has already gathered most of the saints by faith and the grave; but without the end-time Bride, there can be no manifestation of the Sons of God and without us they cannot be resurrected in bodies like His own glorious body, or "made perfect" (Hebrews 11:39-40). The tiny group born-again in this holy convocation will not die but be "changed".
There is to be another offering waved before God—the end-time Bride must be waved in the manifestation of the Sons of God. At that time, God will acknowledge She is mature, in the stature of the fullness of Christ under complete pre-eminence to the Word, and ready for the full adoption. What She says He will do, because her word will be His will. After this short and powerful "waving" of the Spirit in the Bride, this little hunted and persecuted group will be translated bodily into His Presence without death.
Do you remember our studies on Leviticus 23 when we discussed the Feast of the Pentecostal first fruits of the wheat harvest? We discovered that the harvest of the Pentecostal feast represents the saints from the whole of the Gentile Dispensation. It commenced on the sixteenth day of Nisan with the waving of the first fruits of the barley harvest. A sheaf of the first ripe grain was "waved before the Lord by the priest." God's acceptance and blessing of the first ripe grain was accounted to the whole of the grain harvest which would be gathered in over the remaining forty-nine days.
"Except a corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone"—that's the economics of farming. One grain is planted to the intent it will reproduce itself many-fold. Christ was that Corn of wheat who fell to the ground and died for His Bride. As Daniel foretold "He was cut off, but not for Himself," waved before the Father and raised for our justification to become the first fruit of them that slept. God will never be alone anymore, for when Christ was accepted all in Christ were accepted, and those that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him at the first Resurrection.
Seven Sabbaths followed the sheaf wave offering, typing the Seven Church Ages which followed Christ's waving. The priest then offered a new wave offering of two loaves made from wheat flour from the Pentecostal harvest, baked with leaven to represent the Gentile Bride who unlike Christ, was born in the leaven of sin, shaped in iniquity and comes into the world speaking lies. He is Alpha and Omega, the pure Word at the beginning and the pure Word at the ending of the Gentile dispensation, reproduced in the two loaves of the Bride from Pentecost who fell and went through the Dark Ages, revived in the Reformation and is restored to the same faith in Christ's end-time Word Bride. Thus His many membered Bride is symbolized by these two identical loaves prepared from the same Corn of Wheat.
"But now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that slept (the Old Testament saints—Matthew 27:50-53). For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His Coming. (This is His 'parousia' Coming, or His "arrival and subsequent Presence," and not His glorified physical return). Then comes the end . . . for He must reign, till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (I Corinthians 15:20-26).
Paul goes on to explain the mystery of how Eternal Life comes through death concluding with the first fruits of those who receive His parousia or fullness of the revelation which is His Presence before which death cannot stand. "We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed . . . when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (I Corinthians 15:27-57).
What brought death upon the first Adam and his race? Mixing Light with Darkness, hybridizing the Word with wisdom. Adam's wife fell by hybridizing and he followed to redeem her.
What defeated death? The unadulterated Word, in the form of the last Adam. Like the first Adam, Christ's Wife came out of His side, only in the form of the Holy Spirit when He fell asleep on Calvary. (The Church is made by the Holy Spirit as Eve was made from Adam's rib). So the True Church at the end of the world will be Word of His Word. She will have to be a WORD Bride with THUS SAITH THE LORD in order for Her to defeat death and change from this corruptible flesh into a glorified body.
The first Resurrection could not have happened through the Church Ages because the saints did not have the Word. They had only part of the Word because the Bible was sealed with Seven Seals, and Christ interceded for their ignorance of the whole. Since the revelation of the Seals we now have the fullness of the Word, and part-Word and a Mediator has been done away so that death can be swallowed up by Life, and Christ presented with a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.
In Ephesians chapter one, Paul speaks further on the subject of spiritual redemption through faith and the temporal Seal or earnest of the new birth, how Christ gathers His Body for the first Resurrection at the consummation of the Age, and of resurrection faith which will glorify the end-time Bride and put death beneath her feet (Ephesians 1:10-22). The resurrection of the Church or Body of Christ—in particular the translation of those who do not see death—will be a further token of the complete triumph of Life and the banishment of death which is to follow after the Great White Throne Judgment (I Corinthians 15:26; Revelation 20:11-15).
Paul ministered "the gospel of God, so the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost" (Romans 15:16). The revelation of Paul's gospel—there is no other—regenerated the early saints and made them holy. God will judge the secrets of men's hearts according to Paul's gospel (Romans 2:16; Galatians 1:6-10).
There is only one Gospel and one faith or understanding of God's Word. God is not the author of confusion. He could not, for instance, tell Moses, Jesus, Paul, and all His holy prophets He is one God and one Lord, then subsequently declare two more! This would make Him a liar, and they would fail the test for a prophet. We know however that during the Church Ages the saints wandered so far from the faith of Paul's gospel they ultimately lost the faith. And although God did not accept their error, in grace He overlooked their ignorance and place it in the sea of His forgetfulness when they offered the measure of faith allotted for their day. Only that revelation expressed in their lives could baptize them into the Body when Christ was a Mediator.
As both loaves must be identical, the SAME faith Paul preached to the Bride in the beginning of the Gentile dispensation must be restored to the Bride at the ending of the Gentile dispensation. After "the dispensation of the fullness of the [seven] times," Christ promised He would fulfil Revelation four and five, redeeming the Book and all those whose names that were written therein, then open the Seven Seals to reveal how He redeemed them and who is written within.
Wouldn't you like to know that your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life? "O Bible believer, I am now come forth to give you skill and understanding—I'm come to show you; FOR YOU ARE GREATLY BELOVED: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision" (Daniel 9:22-23; Ephesians 1:10-23). "Greatly beloved!" That's Christ's Bride. Wouldn't it be encouraging to know that you are that Bride? It would give you grace for translation faith. The time in coming when God will vindicate His Bride and She will know. This will raise Her faith to a plane where She will be able to change in the atoms.
"Seal not the prophecy of this Book: for the time is at hand . . . when the Spirit and the Bride speak the same thing and let he who hears the revelation of the Book, come, for every man that hears the revelation of this Book and hybreeds it with wisdom . . ." (Revelation 22:10-19). There it is again, Christ will reveal His secrets to His beloved Bride and they will come into the unity of the faith, "In the days of the Voice of the seventh angel, the mystery of God should be finished" (Revelation 10:7).
"Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are mature in the faith the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory" (I Corinthians 2:5-7).
It is the revelation of "the mystery of God" given to the end-time saints through the Message of the angel to Laodicea that places us in the Body. God will receive nothing else because "that which was in part has been done away" and Christ is no longer a Mediator. We do not require a Mediator because we offer up in our lives the perfect interpretation of the Word of God. Not another gospel but "the" one and only faith once delivered to the saints (Galatians 1:8-9; Jude 3; Revelation 8:1-4). We know that the saints of Paul's day were accepted by the faith he delivered, and because the Angel to Laodicea restores the same faith, we who receive and become written epistles of his Message are also accepted (Romans 15:16; II Corinthians 3:1-6).
Paul wrote, "in the dispensation of the fullness of times He will gather together IN ONE—IN AGREEMENT OF THE UNITY OF THE FAITH—all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, [the Church Age saints], and which are on earth, [His end-time Bride], even in Him."
Let's concern ourselves with this little Flock who won't see death, those who are "on earth." If we are to be "gathered together in Christ," we are going to be gathered into the Anointed Word. "Christ" means the Anointed Word. God will only gather His people together by "faith" or a clear understanding in the revealed Word.
We know from Bible prophecy and history that the faith was lost through the Dark Ages and never fully restored through the Reformation; had the Reformers restored the faith, then would Christ's mediation have ceased for the saints would all be "at one" with the Word. However, as every denomination vainly imagines He is still a Mediator today, they testify to the imperfection of the faith they espouse. Did you catch that thought?
Go back over that in your minds. Christ's mediation is over.
We know also that the Gentile churches end not in revival but apostasy, and that the Bible promised God would RESTORE the faith. Therefore the RESTORATION and revival must be OUTSIDE the denominational systems. Did you catch THAT thought?
The RESTORATION of the faith will be OUTSIDE every denomination, because they all end in apostasy. In fact by the end of the Gentile dispensation, both the wise and all of the foolish virgin will have left the denominations (Matthew 25:1-13; Revelation 18:1-4).
Although we seldom consider the possibility of a genuine prophet, as it is the revelation of "the Word"—"all things spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began"—which God promised to restore, He must send a prophet to we Gentiles because "the Word comes only to a prophet" (Acts 3:21; II Peter 1:20-21). Which denomination has ever received correction in the Word? None, because they are led by men and not God. If they cannot receive correction on their teaching, they cannot receive a prophet of God, and therefore cannot receive his Message (Matthew 23:29-39; Revelation 18:4).
The Message of this prophet IS Christ. The second Coming or "parousia" is not the Man Jesus, it is the Word. The Seventh Seal brought Him back to earth—in Word Form! This prophet revealed the Seals and finished the mystery of God. What he said is Absolute, and "every soul who will not hear that prophet, shall be cut off from among the people" (Acts 3:23).
The last Book of the Bible has been closed through the Ages but once the Seals have been opened it is THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST, and Jesus Christ is the Word. Since God can only gather the end-time Bride into Christ by faith which is a clear understanding of His unchanging Word, He must reveal the mysteries under the Seven Seals to unveil or reveal Christ (Genesis 49:10; Daniel 12:4,9; II Thessalonians 2:1; Revelation 10:7). Notice I said nothing about gathering the Church Age saints: they fell asleep and are "in heaven" at this time. Because the Book was sealed, they had a Mediator. God is now gathering the end-time saints together in the fullness of the faith—without a Mediator.
The Bible said that after the Seven Church Ages, God would gather the end-time Bride together "in ONE" or agreement "in the unity of the faith." This is the fulfilment of Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, "that we might be ONE exactly as He and the Father are ONE" and you will have noticed there was no Mediator between them. And why not? Because they were in agreement (John 5:19) they are at-ONE in the Word, they both share the same mind, the same faith.
"How can two walk together except they be agreed on the Word" (Amos 3:7)? How can we walk with God and disagree with His Word? He is the Word. Speak with two or more denominational Christians and you'll see that after 2,000 years there is no agreement between them in the Word.
In any telephone directory you will find hundreds of the many thousands of different denominations, each with a different understanding on the Word of God, yet Jesus said emphatically "the Spirit of truth will guide those who are Christians into all Truth." Clearly these are not "all taught of God" and they cannot all be the children of God (Isaiah 54:13; John 6:45; 16:13).
Once you have faith on any part of the Word you can NEVER lose it (I Peter 1:23). "These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. [Ministers and men with false doctrine]. But the anointing which you have received of Him abides in you, AND YOU NEED NOT THAT ANY MAN TEACH YOU: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, AND EVEN AS IT HAS TAUGHT YOU, YOU SHALL ABIDE IN HIM" (I John 2:26-27; 3:9).
"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are Spiritually discerned. BUT HE THAT IS SPIRITUAL JUDGES ALL THINGS, YET HE HIMSELF IS JUDGED OF NO MAN. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may INSTRUCT Him? But we have the mind of Christ" (I Corinthians 2:11-16). The "all" who are "taught of the Lord" are His "children," the elect and born-again who have the "faith of Jesus Christ" and are in agreement in the faith (Isaiah 54:13).
Before there can be a Bible question there must first be a Bible answer. Yet ministers just ignore their denominational differences instead of searching for truth and facing the fact that "if they don't understand the Word, they do not have the Holy Spirit." Is it any wonder outsiders can't understand "Christianity?"
The denominations just fail to keep on walking in the Light as God has continued to reveal it. In every Age the Holy Spirit has led the saints into the Word revealed for their day. That was how they were born again. Denominations, like the ruins in Egypt, Greece, or Rome, are memorials to an age gone by. Men don't live in those ruins today, and neither does God's Spirit live in the denominations. Jesus spoke poorly of them, rebuking the denominational ministers of His day for garnishing the tombs of the prophets whom their fathers rejected. By acknowledging the ministries of these men long after their death and the denomination of their revivals they are men-pleasers like their fathers before them, who refused the prophets God sent them in their day and garnish man-made organizations bearing their names. They missed John, Jesus, Peter and Paul because they were not walking in the Light as God was in It. Spirits don't die, the Devil takes his man but never his spirit, it just moves to another sinner.
That's right! They also missed Luther, Wesley and William Branham.
Enoch "walked with God" and held the testimony that he pleased God. By faith he became "one" with God, and without a Mediator he was in such perfect agreement—loosed from sin which is unbelief—that God took him from this dimension without death (Genesis 5:21-24; Romans 6:23; Hebrews 11:5-6). Enoch was the type of the end-time Bride, and like our type we will not experience death.
Through the spirit of wisdom and revelation in Himself, Christ will impart faith to this end-time group for rapturing Grace. We understand who we are by knowing our Part of the Word, and seeing those promises of God for this hour coming to pass in our lives. When we see the Word living through us we know what is the confidence of His calling, and own the earnest expectation of the manifestation of the Sons of God (Romans 8:14-23; Ephesians 1:17-18).
"Faith" is not blind, faith is real, and faith is KNOWING THAT YOU KNOW THAT YOU KNOW YOU KNOW, understanding the revealed Word which cannot fail. That's why the Book had to be opened in the end-time. Enoch was translated by faith not psychology, and the Bride will have to have the same testimony, She will KNOW who She is. She won't be trying to impersonate John Wesley's Age, or the Pentecostals, She will know Her position in the Body and be 100% in the Word God is fulfilling NOW.
By revelation and experientially manifesting the Sons of God the Bride will personally know the greatness of His power for Her translation (Ephesians 1:18-20; Philippians 3:10-21). How was Jesus resurrected? By what power were the Old Testament saints resurrected? How were Enoch and Elijah changed in the atoms? Since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, the resurrection and translation of the New Testament saints will be by the same power. The Bible said we would KNOW what it is and how it is applied.
How are we going to be in the translation if we follow the Baptist form of water baptism? It is anti-Word and antichrist. How can we say we have faith when we declare we believe in the Nicene or Apostles' Creed? It speaks against everything the Bible teaches. How can we say the evidence of being a Christian is speaking with other tongues when Jesus says that it is "HEARING what the Spirit is saying to the true and to the nominal churches in our Age?"
The Bible said false prophets would be so close they would almost deceive the very elect. A literate Buddhist could correct the denominations on these errors. Anyone who can read and comprehend common language can know these things are unscriptural error, and therefore WITHOUT the Holy Spirit which guides into all truth. Why does such ignorance persist to this day? Because selfish men—never called to the ministry—love position and the approval of men more than they love God. When Light is revealed, they reject it because they would be dismissed by their organizations; it would destroy their careers. But to reject the Word is to reject the Spirit, to have your ear drilled through with an awl so you can never hear the Word of God again, off the Book of Life, and LOST. Conversely, those who are born of God always receive correction by the Word.
We will be in the translation if we know that we know that we know. Look at Hebrews 11 where Paul mentions many of the Old Testament heroes of faith for our example. Every one of these knew by faith who he was and what God expected of him. It was because God had revealed to Abel what the original sin was that caused the "fall" that He understood God's requirement and offered a type or symbol of the Antidote. There can be no guesswork in faith. Faith is a revelation of the mind of God, and the end-time Bride must understand the Word and know what He wants Her to do with It.
Remember God is unchanging, and as spirits don't die, men tend to make the same mistakes generation after generation. "History appears to repeat itself" and we see how God could establish types in the Old Testament which would represent events in the future.
Christ's First Coming was preceded by a prophet with the Office or anointing we call "Elijah." It reproduced his nature and ministry each time it was sent. In the days of John the Baptist, who was the third Elijah, the ministers expected "every valley to be exalted, every mountain and hill to be made low, and all the trees to clap their hands." They were indeed expecting Messiah at that time because Jeremiah and Daniel foretold when He should arrive. Regrettably, those ministers rejected John's ministry and consequently could not receive the Word He introduced.
They expected the high places to be made low and Zion to be lifted up for the descent of the Heavenly City as we read in Zechariah. If only they had listened to the prophet God sent them. Instead they followed their own theologians who were looking for Messiah to destroy Rome and restore the Kingdom of Israel, but that's the Millennium—His THIRD Coming. Jesus interpreted these texts and told those ministers THEY were the proud "high places" which were to be abased, and that the "low places" represented the meek with contrite hearts who will be exalted and inherit the earth.
Have you ever read John 1:19-28 where the denomination called "Pharisees" sent to ask John whether he was Messiah or the Elijah of Malachi 4? John KNEW precisely who he was, and though he corrected them by Scripture they could not receive his assurance that he was the Elijah of Malachi 3 because their theologians had taught them to be looking for the Elijah of Malachi 4 who was to forerun Christ's second Coming and the "great and dreadful day of the Lord." Knowing only the interpretation of men, the disciples asked Jesus, "Will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
TODAY all the churches are quoting what the Bible says "The Lord Himself shall descend with a SHOUT, with the VOICE of the Archangel, and with the TRUMP of God . . ." But the same spirits that deluded ministers of Jesus' day by "the lie" are upon ministers today. And as it was then, the denominations KNOW Messiah should come at this time and once again they have rejected God's prophet in favour of the educated guesses of educated men—theologians. By interpreting the Word, they make themselves prophets and the Word of God is of no effect to them. In looking for the THIRD or PHYSICAL Coming, they are missing His Second or "parousia" Coming.
They imagine a "shout" will split the heavens, followed by angel trumpeters, and Jesus will visibly descend from heaven with all His saints to gather the Church Home. But what are the "shout," "Voice," and "Trump?" Surely the interpretation belongs to God and will be revealed through a prophet, NOT a theologian or scholar of ancient Greek.
The "shout" of I Thessalonians 4:16 is the Message of the prophet of Malachi 4:5-6 and Revelation 10:7 RESTORING the faith which was lost and calling Christ's Bride OUT from Rome and her denominational harlot daughters into oneness with the Word (Matthew 25:6; Revelation 18:4).
Christ is "the Archangel" whose "Voice" in the heart of the Bride confirms every Word of the Message with the Bible, thus bringing the Bride "into the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a mature Christian, unto the measure of the fullness of the Word, that henceforth they are no more tossed about by denominational error and sleight of hand" (Ephesians 4:13-16).
The "Trump" is the dispensation change, marking the end of the Pentecostal Feast and the time of the harvest when Christ gathers His Bride into the Garner and reveals Himself to Israel through the ministry of the NEXT "Elijah" and "Moses." It will be known by a massive upset of nature sinking Los Angeles, a 1,500x300-400 segment of earth's crust and much of California as well as Florida on the east coast, causing great tidal waves and loss of life as outlined in Revelation and the Gospels. This will signal the end of the Gentile dispensation, and three days later, the start of the first resurrection and the manifestation of the sons of God, culminating in the translation of the living saints.
So you see, Christ's precious feet won't touch this earth at this Coming. We meet Him in the air, immortal. Didn't He say His Coming would be "as a thief in the night?" Like a thief He will steal away His Bride without the world realizing He has come and that She is missing.
I read a magazine today called "THE HERALD OF HOPE" in which one of the writers referring to the living Bride claimed "the Lord Jesus Christ said . . . thousands of people all over the world would suddenly disappear." He said no such thing. The living Bride is few and there will be such distress at this time, She will not even be missed. And blind denominations will go into the tribulation still preaching their false salvation messages.
Are you beginning to see that "the Rapture" is a revelation? The "rapture" is a PROCESS of coming into Oneness with Christ the Word by receiving the "shout" of the Message, and the "Voice" of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him—consciously coming under pre-eminence to the Word like Enoch did so long ago. The Rapture takes time, this PROCESS has been going since March 1963—fifty years already—and it will end with the "Trump" of the dispensation change and the physical translation.
Because the church has rejected Christ the revealed WORD (not Jesus of Nazareth the MAN from history) they cannot understand these things. How can God "RESTORE ALL THINGS" to them when they reject His prophet (Matthew 17:11; Acts 3:21)? The second Coming is NOT the Man from Galilee, the churches didn't lose Him, they lost the Word. The second Coming is the fullness of the W_O_R_D, and as the Word comes only to a prophet, the second Coming of Christ is through that prophet's mouth!
If we are to be in the rapture and translation we must be RESTORED to the unity of the faith. The Church is built upon faith or understanding in the Word. Enoch resurrected by faith, KNOWING who he was, so did Jesus.
Let's briefly look at the resurrection or body change before closing. It is by faith; God's Word only operates by faith. Paul said, "The mighty resurrection power which God wrought in Jesus when He raised Him from the dead" will only respond to faith. If DEATH came by one Word misplaced, LIFE can only come by the faith in pure Word, and EVERY one.
God's Word is creative. The Word of God will produce what was spoken, providing it is spoken under pre-eminence. It must be in its season, in context, and under pre-eminence (i.e. used under inspiration), in order to manifest what was said.
How did Jesus resurrect? In Ephesians one and two, Paul taught it was by faith that Jesus was resurrected. JESUS KNEW WHO HE WAS, He knew it was Himself of Whom David spoke in Psalms 16:10, "For You will not leave My soul in hell; neither will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." Jesus knew He was the subject of this prophecy, and as David was a vindicated prophet his Word could not fail. It is common knowledge that corruption sets into a dead carcass after three days. Jesus knew God would necessarily have to resurrect His body within that time, so by this understanding and the surety of David's prophecy, His faith boldly declared, "Destroy this temple and within three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19).
How did Jesus resurrect? By faith in the Word of a previously vindicated prophet. Firstly, He knew who He was, that He was the "Holy One" of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit. His faith caused that Word to manifest what had been spoken. Had He not been certain He was that One, the Word would never have operated.
From John 1:19-22 we see John the Baptist knew exactly who he was. What about Abraham? Abraham knew who he was and he waited for the promised son. All the heroes of faith knew who they were. See Hebrews eleven. Take Martin Luther. Had he not known who he was he could never have withstood the terrible might of Rome. The saints who have suffered and died for their faith through all ages could not possibly have overcome had they been in any doubt as to their spiritual identity.
Now the end-time Bride will be changed in the atoms to glorified bodies without seeing death through the manifestation of Her faith, not Her psychology. She will be in no doubt as to her identity. Like Enoch, She will have perfect faith or understanding of the mind of God. The Seven Seals were revealed, to place the New Testament Church in history. If She can see fulfilled history identified in the Bible She will know what parts of the Word are already fulfilled and without one doubt know what God promised to do in Her day. With a revelation of the Promises of God's Word for HER day, and seeing them coming to pass in Her life She will know without doubt "who" She is.
She will know the things that are to come to pass in Her day. She will know the end of the Gentile dispensation will be signified by a massive earthquake sinking Los Angeles. And that three days later, the first Resurrection will commence. She will be prepared for the persecution to come upon the Bride during which She will manifest the Sons of God, "speaking the creative Word." She knows God will do what She says, because She will be under pre-eminence. And that this will raise Her to greater heights of faith and at the end of fifty days some of the Glorified saints will appear to Her, raising Her faith to receive a new body. Then She will know that in the twinkle of an eye She will be changed.
So the translation, like the beginning of our Christian walk, is by faith. There is but one faith and we must come into unity with God through this common understanding. If we meet Him by perfect faith in the Word we shall be gathered to that Meeting in the air.
God bless you all as you prove these things from Genesis to Revelation and receive the faith of God's Word. And God bless you and your testimony as you pass it on to others who love the Lord Jesus and are hungering and thirsting after righteousness. bb920313.htm
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