Bible Believers' Newsletter 319
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; we are happy to see you.
In this issue of the Newsletter we answer two excellent questions on paradise, the millennium, and the renewed earth from one of our subscribers which should be of interest to every reader. Our main Article is "Relationships in Paradise".
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith and whosoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ,
Anthony Grigor-Scott
America commits Suicide in Iraq
Now think about this people, think about it very carefully. Dick Cheney, leader of the Tikrit mega-scam trio, has been an obsequious Zionist doormat for more than two decades, and as Vice President of the United States of America he also has direct access to all strategic and tactical data on Iraq, as do Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld.
It is therefore impossible to believe that these three conspirators could have been unaware of the deadly danger posed by Moqtada al-Sadr's vengeful million-man Shi'ite Mehdi Army, which has the easy ability to cut large chunks of the American military in Iraq to bloody ribbons, thereby severely "undermining US military resistance" to the Zionist conquest of the Americas.
Put simply, the US political leadership is deliberately undermining the US military, in order to assist in the subordination and partial destruction of the American people. Full story: joevialls.altermedia.info informationclearinghouse.info
Cooking the Books Part II: US$71 Trillion Casino Banks
March 26, 2004 — This article is an update to Cooking the Books: US Banks are Giant Casinos reported in Newsletter 314.
Derivative holdings by US banks increased nearly $4 TRILLION in just 3 months to now total over $71.1 TRILLION. JPMorgan-Chase accounts for $3.1 TRILLION of this increase. The first 7 banks listed account for 96% of all commercial bank derivative holdings, with 90% of these derivatives in extremely risky over the counter contracts.
Full story: worldvisionportal.org
Small Comets are pelting Earth
A series of spectacular images produced by state-of-the-art cameras on NASA's Polar spacecraft have confirmed that Earth is being pelted by thousands of small comets each day. These never-before-seen images establish the physical reality of the house-sized "snowballs" that weigh tens of tons, break up as they approach Earth, and deposit large clouds of water vapor in the upper atmosphere.
These Earthbound comets, however, represent no threat to either people on the ground or in orbit as these objects disintegrate far above the Earth's atmosphere. . . Full story: uiowa.edu (Be sure you follow the links on this article).
Comment: Grant Jeffrey writes in his book, The Signature of God: "The Bible declares that God separated the waters below from the waters that were above (in the heavens): 'And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so' (Genesis 1:6-7).
This biblical statement declares that God created a large amount of water which He placed in the heavens or outer space. . . astronomical discoveries have proven conclusively that massive amounts of water do exist in space, just as the Bible claimed. Naturally, because of extreme temperatures, the waters in space are frozen into permanent ice. Recently our satellites discovered large quantities of ice in the ice caps of Mars as well as in the rings of Saturn. In addition, we now know that the huge comets that travel through our solar system are composed of massive amounts of ice.
"A massive block of ice from space collided with the earth at the beginning of the 20th century at a point in northern Russia: 'In the morning of 30 June 1908, a fantastic explosion occurred in central Siberia. . . Witnesses described an enormous meteoric bolide visible in the sky for a few seconds. Other witnesses from a distance of 60 kilometers (36 miles) from the point of impact were knocked over. . . Seismic shocks were registered over the whole world. . . this event was due to the collision with the earth of a block of ice weighing 30,000 tons which. . . released energy equivalent to that of a thermonuclear bomb of 12 megatons.' (J. Audouzze, The Cambridge Atlas of Astronomy, [Cambridge: At the University Press, 1985], p. 219). Researchers found that this Siberian explosion was caused by a small fragment of the comet Encke that broke away during its passage through our solar system. The latest scientific research has revealed that massive amounts of ice also exist at the outer edge of our solar system.
The Ort Cloud at the edge of our solar system is a vast region of space that is estimated to hold as many as a trillion large comets composed of ice and rock. Each large comet is calculated to contain as much as one trillion tons of ice. The vast amount of water in our oceans is less than a fraction of the quantities of water that exist in the 'firmament above' in the heavens as reported in the Book of Genesis. A passage in Job also refers to the ice and frost in the heavens: 'Has the rain a father? or who has begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who has gendered it? The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. Can you bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?' (Job 38:28-31)."
Revelation 16:21, "And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: (a talent of silver weighed about 100 pounds, of gold, 200 pounds): and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
Paradise
Question: Brother Branham said that paradise was "taken away" or "emptied out." He also explained that there are seven dimensions. Paul reported in II Corinthians 12 how he had been caught up into paradise or the third heaven. The Book of Revelation speaks of "paradise" again. Brother Branham said when a Christian dies he goes to the sixth dimension. May I ask you: Is the sixth dimension the same as paradise, the third heaven, or what is the explanation for this?
Answer: Paradise was that division of Hades or Sheol occupied by elect souls pending the resurrection. It was separated from the souls of sinners in the deepest parts of Hades who had to look up in order to discover the condition of the blessed, for the gulf of predestination was irrevocably fixed between them according to God's foreknowledge of their lifetime decisions freely made. These suffer in torments of anguish waiting the great day of God's judgment.
Both realms are described in Luke 16:19-31. The rich man, like the Roman Catholic church, had dressed in purple and fine linen, wanting for nothing which taste and appetite craved and money could procure; while crippled Lazarus, full of open, running sores, was daily carried and laid at his gate to beg alms; and would have gladly fed on scraps from his table but these were given to the dogs which showed more kindness than the rich man in that they licked his wounds.
When Lazarus' died his burial was too unimportant to mention; while "the rich man died and was buried." His carcass was carried in pomp to its earthly resting-place while Lazarus' soul was carried in theophany into Abraham's bosom, signifying that he was elect and heir to the blessing of Abraham. And when the rich man in torments on his side of the gulf lifted up his eyes, he saw Lazarus as it were reclining next to Abraham at the heavenly feast.
The rich man knew Abraham and recognized him as his ancestor, and although Abraham addresses him as one of his sons, his natural relationship did not avail him anything, "for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children" of God (Romans 9:6-7). From the day of Pentecost all born-again children of Adam are "Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Thus true and Spiritual Israelites are primarily non-Semitic Gentiles (Galatians 3:29; 4:26; Psalm 87:5; Zechariah 8:23).
The gastronome feels himself now severely punished, precisely in that part of his frame with which he has so long sinned. He had received his rewards in life, but they were sensual and fleeting like the 'instant gratification' demanded by worldly people today. Noticeably, even in death he still imagines himself able to direct Lazarus, whom he had lightly esteemed all his life, and afterwards despises Moses and the prophets also, showing that death does not change our character, only our geography and external situation.
Paradise was "taken away" or "emptied out".
Once Jesus' substitutionary death had atoned for the elect of all Ages, He visited Abraham, Lazarus and the Old Testament saints waiting in faith for their kinsman Redeemer to bring consolation that the "Work" God had given Him "is finished." Next He vindicated Himself and themselves before the sinners, and returning to the tomb, re-entered and revived his physical body to a glorified state then ascended to heaven where He presented Himself to God and cleansed the heavenly tabernacle of the sins of the righteous accumulated over 4,000 years under the covering blood of bulls and goats. Finally he descended into paradise and led the saints captive of eternal Life in bodies like His own glorified body.
The word 'paradise' nowhere enters into the public teaching of our Lord, or His intercourse with His own disciples. Associated as it was with the thoughts of a sensuous happiness, it was not the most appropriate word for those whom He was training to rise out of sensuous thoughts to the higher regions of the Spiritual Life. For them, He spoke of the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Heaven. The blessedness of the pure in heart is that "they shall see [or understand] God" (Matthew 5:8). For "unless a man is born again, he cannot see [understand and heed] the kingdom of Heaven" which consists of manifested Word or Logos (John 3:3). Faith is not sensual speculation but a clear understanding of the revealed Word of God. Faith is the mind of Christ in us to instruct us and our hope of glory (I Corinthians 2:16; Colossians 1:27).
If language borrowed from the vernacular is used at other times, if they hear of the marriage supper and the new wine, it is not until they have been taught to understand parables and to separate the shadow from reality. To this day the Roman and Orthodox churches, like Islam, continue to look for a sensual paradise.
In the case of the thief dying on the cross we must assume that he possessed only the most rudimentary form of popular belief. Jesus' answer to his prayer, "Today you will be with Me in paradise," gave him what he needed most, the assurance of immediate rest and peace. The word 'paradise' spoke to him, as to other Hebrews, of repose, shelter, joy?the greatest contrast possible to the thirst, and agony, and shame of the hours on the cross. So this was the word most fit for the comfort of his soul in reply to the reverence, sympathy, repentance and hope expressed in his prayer.
Question: Brother Branham also explained that there are seven dimensions. Paul said in II Corinthians 12 that he had been taken up to Paradise or the third heaven. The Book of Revelation speaks of "paradise" again.
Answer: The word 'paradise' is absent from the language of the epistles and occurs only in passages that are apocalyptic, and therefore it is almost necessarily symbolic there as it is when signified in the Old Testament by words such as garden.
Brother Branham, Jesus, John and the Old Testament prophets all spoke of the new heaven and new earth where the elect of all Ages will be restored back to Edenic perfection. "The [manifestation of] the restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21) will be the realization of the Spoken Word and our restoration back to the original Seed Word made manifest as the two wave loaves manifest the end product of the wave sheaf (Leviticus 23).
The paradise spoken of in Revelation 2:7 (22:1-2, 14; Isaiah 51:3; Joel 2:3) is not the same as the dreamland dimension in which the Old Testament saints dwelt pending Calvary. The same word once employed to describe that temporary place is here used to describe the heavenly condition of a different and eternal place.
Revelation 2:7, "He that has an ear, let Him hear what the Spirit says to the churches; To him that overcomes I will give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God."
We will return to Edenic innocence in the new heavens and new earth in permanent fellowship with the Tree of Life Who was in the midst of the Garden of Eden in the theophany we know as Melchisedec and later manifest as Emmanuel in the virgin-born Jesus Christ.
Whereas Adam and Eve lived and ruled their garden paradise Eastward in Eden, our heavenly home on Earth will be a city, New Jerusalem, combining all the excellence of the first Eden, with Divine government over all the Earth resting on Christ, the chief cornerstone, into whom "the whole Body as lively stones fitly joined together" has grown up in symmetry, grace, power, and the beauty of holiness (Ephesians 4:15-16; I Peter 2:5), for "the government shall be upon His shoulder" which is part of His Body, the Church. "The saints shall judge [and govern] the world" according to the Genesis commission (Isaiah 9:7; I Corinthians 6:1-3; Genesis 1:28).
Whereas when the Old Testament saints arose they entered "Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children" by servile allegiance to "the letter without the Spirit," and by rejecting Messiah who is the end and fulfilment of the Law, became bondservants (Galatians 4:24-26); it foreshadowed that City of glorified flesh "whose builder and maker is God"? the City Abraham sought wherein God has chosen to place His Name. "Jerusalem that is above is free, and is the mother of all the elect," always existed in God's foreknowledge; it is the centre of the Kingdom of Spiritual Israel as old Jerusalem was the centre of natural Israel. Now it is the elect Church or Messianic theocracy but when finally it materializes it will be "the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven from Messiah's God" (Revelation 3:12).
The city entered by the Old Testament saints was patterned after the heavenly, but it was natural like Solomon's temple, built of stone by human hands and governed by wicked men. We are the elect precious stones with which New Jerusalem is a-building, hewn and shaped by God's Word (Exodus 20:25; Hosea 6:5). The City of God was founded by Christ in the form of His Church whose first foundation was laid in literal Jerusalem (John 12:15; I Peter 2:6). The elect is the earnest of that eternal City. In the Millennium it will rule the perfected Messianic kingdom, and after earth is renovated by Fire "the New Jerusalem" will visibly descend from heaven as the eternal abode of the blessed and the focus of worship for the "saved".
Whereas now God dwells in His Spiritual temple (Gk. 'naos') of our soul (I Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19); in the renewed heavens and earth we will dwell in Him: "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb is the temple" (Revelation 21:22; John 17:21-23).
Brother Branham said, "We're going to work; we're going to enjoy; we're going to live; we're going to Life, to a real Eternal Life. We're going to a heaven, a paradise. Just like Adam and Eve worked, and lived, and ate, and enjoyed in the Garden of Eden before sin came in, we're on our road right back there again. That's right, right back. The first Adam through sin taken us out; the Second Adam through righteousness brings us back in again, justifies us and brings us back in" (Things that are to be, p. 14:42).
"This is the future reward to all overcomers of all ages. When the last call to battle has been sounded, when our armour has been laid down, then we will rest in the paradise of God and our portion shall be the Tree of Life, forever" (An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages, p. 97:2).
"And now to these Sons of God, who by Him overcome, are given the privilege of the paradise of God, and the constant fellowship of Jesus Christ. There will never more be any separation from Him. Whither He goes His Bride will go. What is His, He shares with His beloved on a joint-heir relationship. The secret things will be revealed. The dark things will be made plain. We shall know as we are known. And we shall be like Him. This is the heritage of the overcomer who has overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of testimony to Jesus Christ" (ibid p. 108:2).
"Adam took a paradise and turned it into a waste howling wilderness; but this One is coming back to turn an earth rocking and reeling with destruction into another Eden. Adam took a life of fellowship and joy with God and turned it into a desert of spiritual darkness that brought forth all sin, moral decay, pain, suffering, delusion, and corruption that wars within men's souls. But this One, from all the tragic death and degradation that fills mankind, brought forth a life of righteousness and beauty, so that as sin once reigned unto death, even so might men now reign in righteousness by One, Christ Jesus; and not as the offense was, though terrible indeed it was, but now much more is His gift unto eternal life" (ibid p. 114:3).
Question: Brother Branham said when a Christian dies he goes to the sixth dimension. My question is: Is the sixth dimension the same as paradise, third heaven, or what is the explanation for this?
Answer: There are seven dimensions. In "Redemption Revealed ? II" we said, "Just below the realm of mortal life are the souls of the unjust in Hades, under the altar of sacrifice as it were. Here the ghosts of dead men who never repented are awaiting judgment. They only know folly and what they did. The Lord Jesus preached to the souls who were imprisoned here (I Peter 3:9). Next is Tartarus or Gehenna, the realm of demon power and the domain of Satan which will one day become the lake of Fire.
"Going up, above kitchenware, furniture, electrical merchandise and the dimensions we mortals can contact with our ten senses: light, matter and time, we have the Holy Spirit. Next are angels or the souls of the just saints under the altar of incense awaiting the first resurrection. Above them is God Himself. (All this can be typed to the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place, the outer court of the Temple, and the place of removal without the city. God is of course in the Most Holy Place within the veil, which is our Lord Jesus Christ Who was prefigured by the Ark of the Covenant. (William Branham, The Entombment, 65:77-86; Demonology, 71:191-198)".
When a Christian dies, he goes into the sixth dimension as patterned by the Temple. That is, under the golden altar of incense situated in the Holy Place but belonging to the Holy of Holies. Therefore he is resting in the Presence of God, waiting for the completion of Christ's mystic Body, for without the end-time Bride, the Church Age saints can't be glorified to meet Jesus personally in the flesh. Jesus is with God in the seventh dimension.
The third heaven is the Supernatural; I believe it embraces each one who is born-again, or under the altar of incense, spiritually within the vail and therefore in the Presence. This was where Brother Branham met the saints of Pentecost when he was translated "beyond the curtain of time" (William Branham, Beyond the Curtain of Time, Volume 33; No. 5). All who will live in the Millennium and in the new heavens and new earth have 'membership' but at a further stage of the realization of prophecy for we will change in the atoms to glorification without death.
Although Brother Branham identified his experience "beyond the curtain of time" as the first heaven, I believe he used this term in order to avoid criticism and division that would detract from His Message, because he taught us that the first heaven is the clouds, the second is the starry firmament, and the third is the realm of the Supernatural.
Relationships and the Millennium
A subscriber writes: Will there be people born in the Millennium? Will couples live as husband and wife there or will they be just brothers and sisters? What of statements Brother Branham made that if you have the wrong companion here you will have the right one there, because all wrongs will be made right? Also explain what Jesus said that in the Kingdom of heaven they neither marry nor are they given in marriage but are like the angels? This is confusing to me. Please help me.
Question: Will there be people born in the Millennium?
Answer: No. There will be no young or old people. Every saint will be at the prime of life, and being immortal can neither corrupt nor grow old. Like all good ANZACS, "Age shall not weary them, nor do the years condemn".
Question: Will couples live there as husband and wife or will they be just brothers and sisters?
Answer: Everybody will be "just good friends"?Brothers and Sisters of and in the Lord Jesus?but doubtless there will be particular friendships.
Brother Branham explained this while ministering the Sixth Seal when he recounted a Spiritual dream in which he was advancing to the bema judgment when his first wife, Sister Hope took one arm, then his second wife, Sister Meda, took his other arm (The Revelation of the Seven Seals, 450:5 ? 455:3).
Question: What of the statements Brother Branham made that if you have the wrong companion here you will have the right one there, because all wrongs will be made right?
Answer: Since we will all be "one" (or in agreement) in Christ the Word as He and the Father are at one in the faith, our companion/s will all be the right ones. We will all live in harmony?no arguments, no jealousies, no sicknesses, no poverty, etc., no problems.
Question: Also explain what Jesus said that in the Kingdom of heaven they neither marry nor are they given in marriage but are like the angels? This is confusing to me. Please help me.
Answer: The purpose of marriage is to bring forth life or reproduce after our own kind. Marriage is ordained of God to maintain a pure social/moral and genetic order, to continue His creation without hybridizing. God hates hybridizing because His manifested Word is Life. When we add to or take from His Word we generate death. Hybridizing with the Serpent was the result of the original sin (or unbelief). Hybridizing between Adam's race and the Serpents' hybrid race of Cain resulted in the genocide of Adam's race. This so grieved God that he sent the Great Flood that destroyed all human life outside the Ark. Jesus said this sin would repeat today when instead of being called miscegenation, it is called by the deceptive euphemism, 'multiculturalism,' which is a lie. It is multi-racialism.
Australia once had the Scriptural and common sense policy of not permitting diverse races and inassimilable religions and cultures to immigrate but in the 1970s the 'hidden hand' that controls the major political parties in all of our sham democracies arranged an undemocratic 'bipartisan' meeting to circumvent the rights and override the will of the people, with the object of changing that law and encouraging people of all races and creeds to occupy and pollute the nation. As a consequence, Australia, like the USA, Britain, Europe and the rest of the once Christian West can have NO future and is under the curse of God, "as it was in the days of Noah" (Genesis 1:11; 6:1-4; Matthew 24:37).
Angels do not and cannot reproduce because they have no glands and are spirit not matter. The angels are primarily the theophanies of the saints. When we have been glorified we will be the same in stature as we are in our present masculine or feminine appearance. However, internally, there will be a difference in that the sex glands (or organs formed of cells secreting the constituents of blood and transforming them into fluids which are excreted or ejected to perform many chemical functions essential to health, nutrition, or reproduction) will be absent from our glorified bodies as their function, which was to produce babies, is no longer called for.
There will be no further propagation since God has only a certain number of souls foreknown as elect, and at this stage they will all be complete and glorified. Therefore in that state there will be no (sexual) sensation and we will be "like the angels".
You will recall that when Brother Branham was translated "beyond the curtain of time" the Brothers embraced him with a "God bless you," then the Sisters embraced him with an "Our precious Brother!" He said that although they were all rejuvenated to the prime of life, there was no sensation because internally their reproductive glands were no longer present, and Brother Branham was in his theophany.
You will also recall Brother Branham saying, "The baby is always the blood of its father, never of its mother. We all know that. . . And you know that the baby has not one speck of its mother's blood in it, not a bit. No, nothing does. It's always the blood of the male".
"A hen can lay an egg, but if it isn't fertile, it'll never hatch. No matter how pretty the egg is, and how well she warms it, it'll always be unfertile. It'll lay right there and rot. (That's right.) Unless the male bird has been with the female bird, and the germ of life comes from the male".
Now many people became confused when Brother Branham said this, knowing that we do not share the same blood type as our father. However, the Prophet was not implying that we do. What he was saying is that "the life is in the blood," and the constituents that our glands secrete into sperm come from the blood of our father. Our mother provides the ovum or "egg," but it has not one speck of the mother's blood in it and is infertile until germatized by the product of the father's blood?his sperm?causing the ovum to produce a body. nl319.htm
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Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations overseas. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
Bible Believers' Church
Gunnedah NSW
Australia 2380e-mail e-mail Bible Believers
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