Bible Believers' Newsletter 330
"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 appreciate your fellowship in God's unchanging Word.
Please read all of the links in this issue and write should you have any questions and suggestions. In a world of liars and cutthroats, we desire the Absolute Truth.
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
Yid Irony has Goys chasing the "Toilet"
Have the Elders of Zion pulled us Goys by the toe to the tune of millions of dead and billions of dollars . . . again?
Kawther Salam writes:
A very common and widespread use of the word "Al-Qaeda" in different Arab countries in the public language is for the toilet bowl. "Ana raicha Al-Qaeda" is colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet".
The CIA is using the terrorist actions of its proxy Al-Qaeda in order to give the US an excuse to extend their power into and invade the Arab countries, first countries with rich plunder (Oil) like Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and second any country which is a "threat" to Israel, or more exactly which Israel dislikes for whatever reason. The third objective for which the CIA is using its proxy Al-Qaeda is to engender fear and hate of Islam and Muslims worldwide . . . to slander and denigrate the target population so that it is acceptable and even called for to commit genocide against them . . .
What purpose is the US pursuing in Saudi Arabia with the decapitation of Paul Johnson? Is this crime related to their plans in the region in any way, or is it just one more sideshow related to the upcoming elections in the US designed to distract the American public from some very embarrassing information leaks which could endanger the reelection of President Bush? Will there be a new decapitation every time something embarrassing or dangerous for the Bush administration leaks to the media, in the same way as there was a very well-timed suicide bomber in Israel every time Sharon would have otherwise been forced to make peace with the Palestinian side?
The pictures of Johnson's decapitation were widely shown in the mainstream media. At the same time, last Thursday, two American officers testified before the Commission investigating the 9/11 crime according to the article by Tom Fiocco. Full story: Kawther Salam: a 'must read'
Noahide Laws
Talmudic Law is being implemented today in the US, recognized even into the US Supreme Court, and in all nations which are 'harmonizing' their laws to fit the International scheme. It is the basis of International Law.
Noahide Laws, at first glance, innocently appear to be a takeoff on the Ten Commandments. Their defining feature though, is the fact that among the Seven is one which is not a 'thou shalt not' but one which commands that courts be established to punish those guilty of breaking one of the other Six. The punishment is death by decapitation.
Jehovah, the giver of both the Talmudic and Noahide Laws is not our Heavenly Father/Creator. [This] Jehovah is the god of ZION; a symbolic satanic force that drives the plan and its unGodly, evil intentions. Full story: sweetliberty.org
Comment: Decapitation as a means of ending life was practiced among the Egyptians (Genesis 40:17-19), Babylonians (Daniel 1:10) and Hebrews (II Samuel 4:8; 20:21,22; II Kings 10:6-8). It is mentioned in the New Testament in connection with Jews and Romans (Matthew 14:8-12; Acts 12:2; Josephus; Strabo). The Catholic church, English and European monarchs employed this form of capital punishment as did "Jews" under the French revolutions where an estimated 40,000 were executed. The last state use of the guillotine in France was in 1977.
In light of Revelation 20:4 (which speaks of the Church Age saints) and the fact that Talmudic "Jews" are now pushing for this form execution, one is led to speculate as to who might employ beheading today. That recent beheadings in Iraq and Saudi Arabia were orchestrated by the Mossad and CIA in order to incite world hatred against innocent Islam, which forbids such atrocities, thereby hastening the 'hot' phase of World War III before the collapse of the US dollar and economy, appears likely.
Certainly the "Jew" Nicholas Berg was long dead before his cadaver was decapitated by non-Iraqis in Abu Ghraib Prison. And since fundamentalism is increasing within major world religions, is it possible these atrocities were staged to conjure dread specters in the imagination of millions of dumbed-down denominational Christians familiar with this unusual verse, implanting subconscious FEAR of decapitation as cover for "FEAR of the Jews"? Such timid ignorance should be broken.
Likewise the executions and executioners of Paul Johnson and Kim Sun-Il were decidedly non-Islamic. The Guantanamo orange jump suits puts one in mind of clumsy 'evidence' of a Jumbo flying handbook left in the car by 'Arab hijackers,' and the Arab passport miraculously found in the street near the WTC on 9/11.
"Truth is the most deadly weapon ever discovered; capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere, possession is normally punishable by death" (Author John Gilmore, 1935-). Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:33).
Commentary in Newsletters 176, 244, 263, 269, 295, 314 is worth reviewing in light of the emphasis rabbis place on mandatory decapitation of Christian worshippers under the seven Noahide Laws Bush I signed into US law on March 26, 1991. Recent events are training out minds to "FEAR the Jews" and obey without thought or prayer.
Mrs. Saddam says Saddam is not Saddam
Confused? Now ask yourself why George Dubya Bush suddenly blurted out, "I want to make sure when sovereignty is transferred, Saddam Hussein stays in jail."
There is little doubt that the International Red Cross really screwed the White House last week, when demanding that America release "prisoner-of-war Saddam" when "sovereignty is returned to Iraq at the end of June." The possibly catastrophic results of handing an impostor back to the Iraqi people, all of whom can tell the difference between President Saddam Hussein and one of his body doubles at close range, had American Administration officials wringing their hands in panic, while seeking a less-than-lethal compromise. Full story: joevialls.altermedia.info
Comment: The "Saddam Hussein" who was hanged had an underbite while the real Saddam Hussein who was not hanged had an overbite.
G8 backs HIV Vaccine Plan
Montreux, June 11, 2004 — The world's leading industrial powers have given their support to a US proposal for an international alliance to accelerate HIV vaccine research, US President George Bush announced yesterday (June 10) at the conclusion of the G8 meeting in Sea Island, Georgia.
The idea is to create "a virtual consortium" based on a joint strategic plan, Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a briefing yesterday. "When other nations decide they want to align their own resources or put new resources into vaccine development, there will be a strategic plan framework with which they can synergize," he said.
Scientists gathered here in Switzerland at a vaccine development conference warmly welcomed the support for the new "Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise," a concept developed by Richard Klausner and colleagues at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Jose Esparza from the Gates Foundation said: "The G8 statement is major political recognition that prevention is a major objective of the international community and that vaccines will be the best long-term hope. . ."
Full story: biomedcentral.com
Comment: Not content with infusing our militaries with life-threatening experimental cocktails, the 'hidden hand' is now set to inject civilians. Read the teaching sermons entitled World Depopulation and Slavery and Murder by Injection.
According to Reuters Health (May 10, 2002), scientists have grown genetically modified carrots that contain the vaccine against hepatitis B. Soon we will be getting our vaccinations at the grocery store. Maybe we already are.
Who controls the food controls the people. This is a fact well known by the minions within the United Nations, as Catherine Bertini, Director of the UN World Food Program boldly announced at the Beijing Woman's Conference (September, 1995): "Food is power. We use it to change behavior. Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize".
Bertini's credentials precede her UN position, as a former Confidential Assistant to New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller. In The Next Million Years, (1952) by Charles Galton Darwin, grandson of evolutionist Charles R. Darwin, the objective is made quite clear:
"It is in the biological sciences that the most exciting possibilities suggest themselves. . . I will only speculate on a few among these possibilities which might have great effects on human life. I have already referred to the possibility of quite new sources of food and I need not enlarge on that further.
. . . hormones, those internal chemical secretions which so largely regulate the operations of the human body. The artificial use of hormones has already been shown to have profound effects on the behavior of animals. . . might have similar effects on man . . . might be a drug, which. . . removed the urgency of sexual desire, and so reproduced in humanity the status of workers in a beehive.
To produce effects of these kinds there must be a master and the master must be above and not subject to the procedure he is enforcing on his subjects."
Do you believe the elite are consuming genetically modified food? England's Prince Charles is an avid natural food advocate. No genetically engineered and irradiated food for the masters. No way!
Could the rush to forced vaccinations—one of the powers itemized in the states' Emergency Health Powers Acts, among other motives—be a step in reducing humans to the status of worker bees?
"But you yourselves perfectly well know that to produce the possibility of the expression of such wishes by all the nations [UN] it is indispensable to trouble in all countries the people's relation with their governments so as to utterly exhaust humanity with dissension, hatred, struggle, envy and even by the use of torture; by starvation; by the inoculation of diseases, by want, so that the people see no other issue than to take refuge in our complete sovereignty in money and in all else." Protocol No. 10
From USrael with Poison
June 4, 2004 — Federal agricultural inspection services of Russia decided to send back 80 tons of American poisoned corn back to the US and 649.5 tons of potatoes back to Israel.
According to head of federal services Sergey Dankvert, the dangerous corn has been sent from the United States to the Krasnodar region of the Russian Federation to "Avers" company.
The certificate issued by the US department of agriculture claimed that the product was absolutely safe. However, lab tests revealed that the seeds were all contaminated with viral agents, reports "Interfax".
The 649.5 tons of potatoes that arrived at the sea port of the Russian city of "Novorossisk" from Israel turned out to be contaminated with potato moth. More so, tubers contained traces of soil. Full story: english.pravda.ru
Outdoor Advertising
I Timothy 6:6-7, "Godliness with contentment is great gain".
Sometime last century my Home Church was Spoken Word Tabernacle in Wichita, Kansas, and my pastor, the late Brother Walter Higgins. Whenever Brother Walt spoke of the beatitudes he would add, "Which means, let this be your attitude." Be known under all circumstances as one who is supremely blessed with the happiness of heaven.
Brother Branham sometimes spoke of a Negro who conducted himself in this manner because in Africa he was the son of a king, and although he was now enslaved, he remained the son of a king. How much more should our lives display the fact that we are sons and daughters of the King (Acts 4:13)?
Christ's Sermon on the Mount announced the high calling of His disciples in the beatitudes. The first seven beatitudes like the seven virtues of II Peter 1:4-12 represent the completeness of the attributes of a perfect man and the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Each of these beatitudes builds on the character of the attribute that gave off the fragrance of the preceding beatitude. As we follow in the footsteps and faith of the apostles and prophets, Jesus' instructions apply to every Christians in every Age.
In this sermon Jesus taught us both the motive and objective of the righteous must reflect the mind of God. The ends do not justify the means, and neither do the means justify the ends. Jesus was pragmatic only insofar as the cause and effect both coincide with the spirit of God's Word.
Facing the multitude, Jesus defines the deportment of those whose inward nature is disposed toward eight specific attitudes, and He explains how our outward behavior is governed by our inside life with Christ. The last beatitude describes our unjust persecution by the world for righteousness' sake stemming from 'outdoor advertising' with the Token on display.
God wants us to develop a Christ-like character that comes through suffering. We are all tried and chastened as sons. The church that is not suffering, and is not being tried is not of God. Hebrews 12:6, "Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. But if you are without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then you are bastards, and not God's sons."
Jesus says our demeanor in persecution should be joyful for this is a vindication that the Life you are living is not your own but Christ in you. Luke 6:22-23, "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you from their company, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers persecute the prophets".
Philippians 4:4, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice".
Recently I mailed "The Reverend Left Behind," a booklet by Brother Morris Ungren, to five local ministers and last Sunday I attended the 8.30 a.m. service of one of those men. He told me he receives almost daily mailings of a similar nature and boasted, "I am Reverend Left Behind". He might just as well have said, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." To which Jesus has already said, "And know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked".
These accursed attributes of the Laodicean nature are opposed to the "blessedness of the humble in spirit" who realize that although we ain't what we ought to be, and we ain't what we want to be, we sure ain't what we used to be, and are utterly dependent upon the grace of God in Christ. Those who in their deepest consciousness realize their entire need must be resourced from Christ's riches in glory already possess the Kingdom.
Luke 17:20-21, "The kingdom of God comes not with observation. Neither shall they say, See here! Or, over there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." The kingdom of God consists of the Word of God. By faith it was already in Christ's disciples before they were born-again. Those poor in spirit but rich in the knowledge of their insufficiency are made rich in revelation through God's grace. Without Him we can do nothing.
"Blessed are those who mourn" for comforts this world is no longer capable of satisfying: a heartfelt reaction to the realization that stems from total reliance upon God's grace to assuage their Spiritual poverty. Their consolation is to be absolute (Romans 8:18; II Corinthians 4:17-18; John 14:3). It includes the forgiveness of sin, and eventually, the erasure from memory of all past hurt and remorse. You know, memories of past regrets—like Paul's compliance in the murder of Stephen—that return to mind and cause you to cry out, "Oh no, Lord! Take it away!"
"Blessed are the meek" who suffer in love or love in patience, bearing injustice and thereby conquer, for they shall inherit all things.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." Our objective is the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, not as a work of our own but as a gift of God's grace. Those who give priority to this objective will be filled with righteousness which is the evidence of the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy".
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." This word "see" means to understand and speaks of inward vision or faith, I John 3:6, "Whoever sins has neither seen Him, nor known Him." III John 1:11, "He who does evil has not seen God".
II Corinthians 3:18, "When the veil of ignorance is removed from our spiritual eyesight we see as in a mirror the glory of the Lord because revelation changes us into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord." But the full and beatific vision of God is reserved for the first resurrection and translation of the saints. Revelation 22:3-4, "Then His servants shall serve Him: and they shall see His face; and His Name shall be in their foreheads." I John 3:2, "They shall see Him as He is".
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." Once Christ has made peace by reconciling us to God's Word that Word of reconciliation is committed to us as ambassadors for Christ that we might mediate peace between other men and God by the same Word (II Corinthians 5:18-20). Thus displaying the nature of our heavenly Father we are recognized as His children and mature "Sons of God".
As the Christian matures towards this completion of character, or grows into the measure of the stature of Christ he may expect the world to regard and treat him as it treated Christ. II Timothy 3:12, "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution".
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when men revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: (Luke 6:23 adds, Leap for joy) for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you".
Not only is persecution an evidence of righteousness but Christ was showing His disciples that the struggle between themselves and carnal believers had been carried on in the days of the prophets, and from the time of Cain and Abel (Matthew 23:34-38; Acts 7:51-52). So He places them on the same level as the seers of old, and ourselves on the same plane as the Church Age messengers and martyrs in their struggle against Jewish fables, Roman Catholicism and the formal man-made religions of her (once) Protestant harlot daughters.
John 3:20, "Every one that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." John 7:7, "The world cannot hate you; but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its works are evil." John 15:19, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own: yet because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." II Chronicles 18:7, "There is one more man (said wicked Ahab to good Jehoshaphat) by whom we may inquire of the Lord: but I hate him, because he never prophesies good concerning me, but always evil".
The seven characters described in the beatitudes all run counter to the nature of the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. So it pays to advertise as you are blessed when men abuse you to your face, for "great is your reward in heaven".
An advertisement is a public notice or announcement of news, goods for sale, calling attention to oneself or urging certain merits or claims to the recognition of others. The world pays to advertise its wares in newspapers, on television, over the radio, on the back of buses and on billboards, Jesus said, "I have come that they may have (true and absolute fullness of) Life, and that they might have it more abundantly" with green pastures and fresh water (John 10:10).
While the world loudly promotes its wares to our ten senses, God advertises eternal Life by quiet presentation of that Life in His saints. His prospects are 'closed' on the strength of His still, small inaudible Voice impressed upon the soul. Oh, though we shout the virtues of His Life from the hilltops like Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, only the predestinated, like the demoniac, Legion, can hear and receive. The multitude will send us away.
Not quite as eye-catching as sandwich boards saying, "Repent, for the end in nigh!" but each Christian is a free outdoor advertisement with the Token (or evidence) of the Life of Christ on display. God's Message written in our lives is read and known of all men. The Life is "without money and without price," being prepaid by Himself (Isaiah 55:1).
Here is our call to advertise: Matthew 5:13-16, "You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost its savor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under a bushel basket, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven".
Salt which is quite pure cannot lose its savor unless it is corrupted by some foreign matter. Likewise, if humanism is hybrid with our spiritual life we become apostate from the faith and the salt of our witness loses its power to arrest the corruption in denominational teachings and to impart a fresh and eternal savor. And without the unspoken witness of Christ in us we are left "as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal" to debate and disputation.
When the children of God remain steadfast under persecutions, they prove "good salt;" but if they give way, "the salt has lost its savor" and while attempting to avoid persecution shall all the more expose ourselves to it. Part of our witness is to "forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, but exhort one another"—even if we attend a denominational church—so the world may recognize a visible church and we may witness to one who is hungering and thirsting after righteousness around that dry water hole in the desert.
When Brother Branham was asked, "My husband and I don't see alike on the Bible, like this truth that you preach. He doesn't understand. Should I go with him to churches when I don't believe their teaching? I'm very troubled about this".
He replied, "Yes. If you are a wife to this husband, and he doesn't condemn you, you mustn't condemn him, because the husband is sanctified by the wife. And I believe if he goes to some denominational church or something like that, he wants you to go down there with him. . . You see? . . . there's nothing there can harm you, 'cause you're not going to listen to what they're saying anyhow, 'cause you done said here you don't believe their preaching. See? So it ain't going to harm you, but you're just showing respects to your husband. You're yielding yourself to him, and maybe in doing so . . . If they teach and do the things down there. . . You're taught much higher things than that; you'll be salty; he'll see and come to the Lord. I believe I would go ahead" (William Branham, C.O.D., p. 1102:Q344. See also p. 950:Q245; Q246; Q256).
Jesus attended denominational synagogues although they disagreed with Him. If there's no Church near you that preaches this Message, don't stay at home, go fishing or tidy the garden on a Sunday, honor the resurrection somewhere.
Another sister asked, "Will my husband hear the Word, and what am I to do?"
The Prophet replied, "Just be salty: "You are the salt of the earth." Your husband will watch your chaste life, and the husband that's an unbeliever will be sanctified to the Lord by the believing wife. Just seek the Lord, stay humble, and pray all the time, giving God praise, and be kind to your husband as long as he's willing to live with you that way" (ibid p. 1012:Q287. See also p. 1086:Q330).
If we are billboards under Christ's sponsorship we had better live the Life we are promoting, watch our speech, shun the very appearance of evil and keep our garments unspotted by the world. And if we are ministers we must wait upon our Sponsor to give us Spiritual Food in due season to feed His children. Something that will satisfy their hunger and quench their thirst; real soul food, not just something reheated to fill another Newsletter or make one more dreary and irrelevant Sunday sermon.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." They can only be filled if they feast on the Holy Spirit by the present Truth—what Jesus is doing now. The Bible prophesied of the days when God would "send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the Words of the Lord" (Amos 8:11; II Timothy 4:1-4; Revelation 3:17-20). And here we are.
Stephen's final sermon was the undiluted Holy Spirit. It tore the hide off Israel's self-deceived, dishonest rabbis (Acts 6:8-15). He didn't preach skim milk but traced Israel's history from God's promise to Abraham, through the unbelief of the Fathers and the nation, to their rejection of God's Promise by the crucifixion of His Messiah.
Thousands of fundamental "Jews" and Hebrew fanatics, "zealous of God but not according to knowledge," may have attended his stoning. Their hunger and thirst was not for righteousness but blood, in order to justify their unbelief in God's unchanging Word. Of all those present, the Bible speaks of only one convert from that fateful meeting, and he did not accept the Message until years later. That convert was the fanatical Pharisee, Saul, who consented to Stephen's death and held the coats of those who were his murderers.
Like Abel, Stephen's voice has continued its witness long after his death and through Paul's ministry led millions to Christ, for Paul wrote the New Testament. So hold your testimony and watch your witness, because somewhere, someone may be watching to see whether you truly are a written epistle of God's Word, or if all who call themselves Christians are no more than the world with God's Name on it.
God did many miracles and wonders before the people through the ministry of Stephen and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. But on the day of his last sermon Stephen simply presented a sanctified life and those who sat in the Council looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.
It is possible to be sanctified to such a degree than sinners pass out in your presence. It was not unknown in the days of Smith Wigglesworth and his companions in ministry for travelers on the same railway platform or passengers sharing their carriage to collapse or break out in tears of repentance in the sanctified Presence that attended these men.
When His disciples had been unsuccessful in casting a demon out from a deranged young man, his believing father implored Jesus' to cure the lad. Jesus told His disciples, "Unless you have fasted and prayed you cannot cast out this kind of demon." Or in plain English, your lives are not sufficiently sanctified (Matthew 17:14-21). God is sovereign. Our lives must be changed into His image, we cannot transform God into our image so that He obeys our will, however noble, whereby we use Him but must attain to the mind of Christ before the Holy Spirit can use us.
He only asks that we "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). God does not need us to do anything but what He leads us to do. Unless otherwise called He requires only our "reasonable service." Just live the Life and He will do the rest.
Like His early disciples we are "the light of the world" directed to shine our Light prominently like an advertising billboard so that all men may see the Token of His Life on display, as a proof that it is real and for whomsoever will. God can hardly be glorified if we hide our Light beneath a bushel basket of denominational traditions that make the faith of no effect.
Right now there is a famine for hearing the revealed Word of the hour. Gross darkness is upon us Gentiles as our dispensation nears its end like it was at the end of Israel's dispensation. Now is the time to shine your Light for this is the last time. Jesus said, "No man can come to Me except My Father draws him." And the Father can only attract His predestinated by the Light of sponsored billboards. "We are the Light of the World" so long as men see Christ living in us.
Since self-praise is no recommendation the personal testimony and recommendation of others is the most effective advertisement. It is candid, and it is free. Whether it was Jesus' doctrine that astonished the Scribes or His miracles, the common people with neither social prestige, professional standing nor pecuniary interest to guard received Him gladly. While priests and others with prejudicial interests were generally reticent to believe whatever might jeopardize establishment traditions and the status quo.
Wherever Jesus went and whatever works the Holy Spirit performed through His yielded Life, the faithful were blessed and the unbelievers were cursed, but both the believer and the unbeliever became walking advertisements. When Jesus came down from the mountain He cleansed a believing leper, and he became a walking billboard, telling no man but showing himself to the priest and offering two live birds with cedar wood and hyssop. The priest was then committed to advertise and confirm this Work of the Lord (Matthew 8:1-4).
Back in Capernaum a centurion responding to an advert asked Jesus to heal his servant of the palsy. This Gentile had faith such as Jesus had not found in Israel for he believed the authority of Jesus' Word would heal the servant sight unseen. 2,000 years later his advertisement is still being published (Matthew 8:5-13).
Next Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law (Matthew 8:14-15) and after lunch cast demons out of many and healed all who were sick. Then as He was about to escape the crowds by sailing to the other side of Galilee his departure was delayed by unpaid advertising which brought fresh inquiries from potential disciples (Matthew 8:16-22).
Exhausted after two hectic days of campaigning, Jesus fell into a deep sleep on board ship but before they had completed their passage a tempest threatened to destroy the vessel and He was aroused to still the storm. More advertising blurb! (Matthew 8:23-27).
No sooner had they reached yonder shore than he was approached by the demoniac, Legion. Jesus cast out the demons which entered into a herd of pigs and the crazed beasts, rushing headlong over a cliff, drowned in the sea. This caused Jesus to be expelled by the local citizens so he returned to the ship, but before they could depart the demoniac now clothed and in his right mind, desired to go with Jesus who told him to return to his own home and testify. So he went his way and advertised throughout the city what great things Jesus had done for him (Luke 8:26-40).
The account of the legion of 6,000 demons being cast into the swine reminds me how Brother Branham, when casting out demons would often instruct the congregation to bow their heads in prayerful reverence to God's Word, because the demons cast out of a patient would enter into any disrespectful persons. Many an irreverent smart aleck has left the auditorium smitten with epilepsy, TB, or cancer.
When this man was possessed, the legion of demons caused him to strip himself naked. Today we find women and even little girls immodestly dressed, three-year-olds wearing foundation garments, women dressed in clothing that pertains to a man or almost completely undressed, with bare midriffs, in topless bathing costumes, and breast-feeding in public. Brother Branham taught that the natural woman types and illustrates the condition of the church. Jesus said the Laodicean churches would be naked of the blood, blind to His Word, spiritually bankrupt, wretched, miserable, "and know it not." In other words they are insane and demon-oppressed like Legion and those women who follow the dictates of Hollywood fashion.
Embarking from Gadara, Jesus sailed home to Capernaum where unpaid outdoor advertising had raised a group of men to such faith they would later carry the bed of their friend stricken with the palsy up to the flat roof of the house in which He was teaching before Pharisees and doctors of the Law who had gathered from throughout Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem (in a not uncritical spirit)—the highest testimony yet borne to our Lord's growing influence (and effective advertising)—and lower his bed into the court of the upper room (Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26).
Here we see two demonstrations of Hebrews 4:12. In the first instance Jesus discerned that the palsy was the consequence of the sin of the sufferer. But seeing the faith of his friends, Jesus said to the sick youth; "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you."
In the second instance, "when certain of the Scribes and Pharisees said within themselves, "This man blasphemes." Jesus, discerning their thoughts said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?" For in fact it was the heart-thoughts of these ecclesiastics that were blasphemous.
Jesus next confounds them by asking, "Which is easier, to claim this power to forgive sins, or to claim that power to command away disease? To say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Arise, and walk?"
And then He proceeds, "This is easier, but I will do what you can see, thereby you will know that I have done the other which you cannot see and that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, which is the harder" (Philippians 2:6).
He said to the paralytic, "Arise and take up your bed, and go to your house." And he arose, and departed to his house. Thus proving the completeness of the cure and that healing of the body is also the forgiveness of sins (Isaiah 53:5). Now when the multitudes saw it they were afraid—the Spirit of Christ contending in their hearts with the unbelief of the ecclesiastics, and they glorified God who had given such power to men" (Matthew 16:13-19; I Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4:11).
This power to forgive sins which had previously been enthroned in the holy of holies as the prerogative of Jehovah, now stood embodied before them, as it were the Shekinah incarnate. Hence their joyous expression, "He has given such power unto the Son of man and therefore to mankind." Without fully understanding the import of what they had declared, they rightly felt that what was given to one man, to the Man Jesus Messiah, was indeed given for the sake of all, and ultimately to all because as Messiah He was the true Head and Representative of Adam's race and therefore these gifts to Him were a cause for rejoicing and thanksgiving for every member of the race.
Once again the mighty God has been unveiled before us—in the ministry of Brother Branham, the firstfruit of those who are His at Christ's 'parousia' Coming (I Corinthians 15:23). And His Voice commands we, "Take the open Book from the hands of Christ, unite with its Message, and advertise Its revelation concerning many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings". nl330.htm
Homework: Please read The Beatitudes in Revelation.
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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 Bible Believers URL Bible Believers' Website
PowerPoint presentation The Second Coming of Christ
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