Firstworks and the Temple of the Living God

Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Not much to comment upon this week, except to ask you to remember the Church and our work in your prayers.

This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whosoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life, confirming everything personally in your own Bible.

Without a Doubt

October 17, 2004 — The faith-based presidency is a with-us-or-against-us model that has been enormously effective at, among other things, keeping the workings and temperament of the Bush White House a kind of state secret. The dome of silence cracked a bit in the late winter and spring, with revelations from the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and also, in my book, from the former Bush treasury secretary Paul O'Neill. When I quoted O'Neill saying that Bush was like "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," this did not endear me to the White House. But my phone did begin to ring, with Democrats and Republicans calling with similar impressions and anecdotes about Bush's faith and certainty.
Full story: nytimes.com

Comment: I suggest you read this lengthy article from the New York Times bearing in mind the Message of God's Prophet.

Depleted Uranium: Observatory laments Denial

Rome, October 19, 2004 — According to the Italian Military Health Observatory a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. The observatory stressed the fact that 41% of active personnel casualties relate to disease. According to Domenico Leggiero at the Military Health Observatory, "The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents . . . and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium". Full story: agi.it tomflocco.com

Vote Fraud: What they aren't telling You

October 22, 2004 — "How can tens of thousands of these independent voting machines in tens of thousands of separate locations possibly be manipulated without involving tens of thousands of people? . . . hidden modems are accessible by remote cell phone technology. In other words, these voting machines can be accessed and manipulated from a central super computer without a phone line connected to the wall, and without the local precinct workers knowing . . .
Full story: newswithviews.com

Congress to legalize the Torture of Canadians

On the heels of the wildly popular USA Patriot Act (passed with a little help from anthrax that was traced back to the US Army), followed by the Homeland Security Act, there is now new totalitarian legislation being passed under the guise of implementing the 9/11 Omission's recommendations.

These measures include the legalization of the practice of rendering Canadians (and other Aliens) to countries that practice torture, as was done to Maher Arar when he stopped in NYC on a flight back to Canada

The legislation explicitly revises US law to remove the applicability of the United Nations "Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment," to anyone John Ashcroft decides is a terrorist.

American citizens may also want to consider the case of Yaser Hamdi, who until recently was a US citizen; in post-Orwellian America, any US citizen can be jailed almost indefinitely with no charges, and then may be let out if he or she renounces his or her citizenship and agrees to be deported. And if the 9/11 Ommission Act passes, the US government will decide what country he will be deported to, and who his torturers may be.

Ex-Guantanamo Detainees sue US

October 27, 2004 — The Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in Washington, which represents many detainees at the US naval base in Cuba, filed the suit on Wednesday along with a Washington-based law firm on behalf of Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmad and Jamal al-Harith . . .

The CCR said the action was being brought under the US Alien Tort Claims Act, the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the US Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Full story: aljazeera.net

New International Campaign of Sanctions against Israel

October 20, 2004 — More than 150 human rights organizations and North American solidarity groups met at the UN building in New York on 13-14 September in an International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People as mandated by UN resolutions 58/18 and 58/19. In London the European Coordinating Committee of NGOs on the Question of Palestine . . . came together and adopted a unified policy of sanctions against Israel. The results of the meetings were presented to and adopted by the European Social Forum, in which thousands of people from all over Europe participated.

Anglican and Presbyterian Churches in America have also called for divestment campaigns . . . these decisions are not targeted at Jewish or Israeli people. Sanctions will specifically target the Israeli government . . . The campaign includes:

With this regime of sanctions against an aggressive Israeli government, we hope to end the moral and physical suffering of Israeli and Palestinian people. Full story: palestinemonitor.org

Firstworks and the Temple of the Living God

Let's press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ. The race is nearly over, and darkness is falling over the whole world, so the goal of today's ministry is to preach Christ's Bride into the rapture.

The rapture is a three-fold process of a shout, voice and trump (I Thessalonians 4:16). The "shout" is a prophetic Message to waken the wise and foolish virgin: "Come out of Babylon and be filled with the Spirit" (Matthew 25:1-13; Revelation 18:4). The "Voice of the Archangel," is Christ in the heart of the Bride, placing the Message from Genesis to Revelation, to bring her to maturity in the unity of the faith (Ephesians 1:17-20; 4:13- 16). The "trump of God" will call the resurrection of the Church Age saints into glorified bodies, and the end-time Bride to the manifestation of the Sons of God for the great translation (Romans 8:19; I Corinthians 15:50-55). Then we will meet the Lord in the Air for the Wedding Supper, while on earth, two Hebrew prophets call 144,000 elect Israelites to their atonement and new birth.

Jesus promised us a prophet in the Spirit and power of Elijah to restore the apostolic faith, finish the mystery of God, and call God's children out of Babylon. Our faith is based upon this ministry of restoration back to God's unchanging Word. We share the revelations God has unfolded in these last days to help us to recognize our day and its Message so we can find our place in His Word and fulfill our position in the Body (Revelation 10:8-11).

Without a clear revelation of our identity in Christ we will receive Satan's "strong delusion to believe the lie," leading us to presume that because we follow the denomination of Christian parents, we too are Christians. No Way! That would be impersonating the Word for a day gone by. We must recognize our day and its Message, and see that part of the Word living through us.

Do you see that?

Our Christian parents or grandparents walked in the Light God shone for their day. But that day is past. They were written epistles of what Jesus was doing then. We can only be written epistles of what is He doing now! The only part of His Word God can fulfill in my life is the Word He has predestinated for this day. That is, the present Truth.

When a builder constructs a house he first lays a strong foundation. He digs down to bedrock, sets his formwork and ties his reinforcing iron before he pours the concrete. The Great Master builder is building Himself a habitation, a city called "New Jerusalem," which is Jesus Christ, His Bride, and the glorified saints of all Ages.

Let's see how God founded His House. I Corinthians 3:11-15, "No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But there are various kinds of materials that can be used to erect a structure on this foundation. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble; each one's work will be manifest: for the day will declare it, because it shall be revealed by Fire; and the Fire will test every man's work of what sort it is."

"If the work he's built on it endures, he'll receive a reward. If his work is burned, he will suffer loss: but he himself will be saved; yet like a man who escapes through a wall of flames".

Here we see a distinction between the born-again elect and the "saved," such as the wise and foolish virgin. Each laid the foundation of his salvation firmly on God manifest in Jesus Christ, our kinsman Redeemer. Some built the edifice of noble stones like granite and marble which are valuable for building. Gold and silver signify Deity and redemption and were lavishly used for adorning ancient temples. As such, they are appropriate symbols for pure doctrine.

God's House is built on the doctrine of the apostles and prophets—transformed into character in the stature of the perfect Man—reproducing Christ in the many-membered Body of His Bride of all Ages.

Wood, hay and stubble are the perishable materials out of which ordinary houses were built. Wood for the doors, windows and posts, hay mixed with mud for the walls, and straw for the roof; materials unsuited for the house of God but appropriate symbols for imperfect faith and false doctrines.

At the sound of the Seventh Trumpet that marks the close of the Gentile dispensation of grace, every man's work will be publicly manifested for what it is. Then everyone who has built on the foundation with the Word for his Age will be rewarded by glorification. If his work is burned he will miss the Wedding Supper and the Millennium, but since he has built on the foundation of Christ the Word, he is "saved," and will be granted into eternal Life by the saints at the White Throne Judgment. However, those of the "saved" who enter the great tribulation will be cruelly martyred by false Christians who claim, but have forsaken the foundation.

It is not sufficient to simply love God, or even to be completely sincere. The high priest and Pharisees killed Jesus because they loved God. These men were deadly sincere, calling the curse of His innocent blood upon themselves and upon their children, where it has been ever since. So it's possible to love God and be sincere, but without the faith, sincerely wrong. Enoch walked with God and God translated him: for before his translation he had the testimony that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:5-6).

Paul could not impart deep spiritual truths to the Corinthians, as they were carnal, contending for their favorite teachers who like every minister, were nothing more than workers for God, to Whom they must give account of their stewardship in the day of Fiery judgment, for among their listeners are God's elect, His temple, which they must not defile with the ministry of man's wisdom, but with that which is THUS SAITH THE LORD delivered in the right spirit and in truth.

Don't be proud of following the wise men of this world or deceive yourself into imagining you have come into the possession of a profound insight into the truth and ways of God and man's wisdom. But count yourself a fool in your own estimation that you might be endued with the mind of God. Surely those who say, "I follow Brother So and so," or "I believe Brother Thingamajig has the best revelation in the Message," are like those who said, "I am of Paul!" or "I am of Apollos," whose behavior Paul called "carnal, causing envying, strife, and divisions."

Apollos, an Alexandrine Jew "eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures" (which had been translated into the Septuagint at his birthplace (Acts 18:24-25), was "Instructed in the way of the Lord," so far as John the Baptist could instruct him; for John's commission had been, "prepare ye the way of the Lord" (Isaiah 40:3; Matthew 3:8). Apollos was "fervent in spirit;" and so when he came to Ephesus, "he spoke and taught diligently the things of Jesus," as John had pointed to Jesus as the Messiah. But Apollos knew only the water baptism of John; he did not yet know that what John had foretold—"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He [Messiah] shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire"—had actually come to pass, and that graces and gifts were now being bestowed on "living stones" creating "the temple of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 3:11; Acts 19:1-6).

How many Apollos' are there in the circle of this Message, who recognize William Branham was the Elijah sent to forerun Christ's second Coming, and know all of his quotes but don't realize that the Laodicean Age ceased in 1963 and know nothing of the 'parousia' Coming of our Lord Jesus just days later?

On hearing him preach Aquila and Priscilla "took Apollos aside and privately expounded the way of God more perfectly." And having received new Light, Apollos went forth to Achaia, watering the seed Paul had already planted there (I Corinthians 3:4-6), and "greatly helped those who had believed through grace" (Acts 18:27). His deep knowledge of the Old Testament gave him especial influence among the Jews, "for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly, showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ" (Acts 18:28).

Whilst Paul condemned the party spirit of natural and immature believers, he commended Apollos and wrote, "I strongly urged our brother Apollos to come to you Corinthians with the brethren, but he was quite unwilling to come at that time," probably to give no occasion for party zeal (I Corinthians 16:12).

Those who made his name their party cry were attracted by his rhetorical style acquired in Alexandria, as contrasted with the absence of "excellency of speech and enticing words of man's wisdom" and even, in their estimation, "the contemptible speech" Paul exhibited (I Corinthians 2:1-4; II Corinthians 10:10).

The last Bible reference to Apollos is where Paul charges Titus, then in Crete, "bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey with haste, that they may lack nothing" (Titus 3:13). Jerome tells us Apollos remained at Crete till he heard that the divisions at Corinth had been healed by Paul's epistle; then he went and became their bishop.

Apollos' main excellency, and the lesson for us, was as builder-up, rather than founder, of churches. His humility and teachableness in submitting, with all his great learning, to the teaching of Aquila, by taking the Spoken Word back to the written Word; his fervency and his power in Scripture, and his determinedly staying away from where his well-deserved popularity might be made a handle for party zeal, are all lovely traits in his Christian character.

"Let no one glory in men." Ministers "are your helpers. God has given you the whole world to use, and life and even death are your servants. He has given you all of the present and all of the future. All things, are yours, and you, being Christ's" (I Corinthians 3:18-23; Romans 8:17; Hebrews 1:2).

Every minister in this Message is essentially engaged in one and the same ministry; therefore we ought not to be too lavish in our commendation of ministers lest we snatch away the grace that is God's, and transfer it to men. Paul rebuked partisanship as it is our sovereign God who alone gives the increase, whose servants we are. Although in our service we are essentially "one," each minister is individually responsible for "his own work," and "shall receive his own reward, according to his own labor" (I Corinthians 3:6-9).

This reward is something over and above personal salvation because each man is "saved" by choosing the foundation which is Jesus Christ. This reward is completeness in glorification by election with personal commendation at the judgment seat of Christ (II John 1:8). Matthew 25:23, "Well done, you good and (not successful, but) faithful servant, enter into the joy of Your Lord." Furthermore, the reward for the wise builder or elect minister of God is the product of his labors—what he has built—his converts to Christ who abide the fiery trial. "You shall be our rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus" (II Corinthians 1:14; Philippians 2:14-18).

He shall be rewarded not according to his success or the amount of work done, but "according to the quality of his own labor," that is according to faith and his faithfulness at the post of duty, for he has been working as a servant with and under God (Luke 19:17-27).

I Thessalonians 2:19-20, "What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? It is not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His 'parousia' Coming? For you are our glory and our joy".

Although we are alike in our office and services, Paul concedes the unique merits and separate worths of individual ministers but means to counteract all rivalry and exaltation of men without excluding their diversities in labor and corresponding recognition of these labors by the Lord.

What Paul's admonition to ministers whom he calls "God's building," applies equally to the layman whom the Holy Spirit is building through their ministries.

Since we now live beyond the days of Christ's mediation and have the fullness of the Word, it is not possible that one who is elect and born-again should continue in error once Scriptural correction has been delivered (Matthew 24:24; John 10:1-5). So teachings like Two Souls, the Seven Thunders being seven virtues, Deity doctrines and Eighth messengers, will be burned with testing Fire of God (Matthew 3:11-12).

Every building is a product of teaching and every soul a "written epistle" of thoughts expressed as words transformed into beliefs and actions. Not only do false doctrines fail the Word test, but those built of such chaff will suffer loss with the unwise builder. Such teachers of error will forfeit their special reward, and their pupils likewise, but "as a brand plucked out of the fire" they will retain the free gift of salvation (Zechariah 3:2; Jude 1:23), for though the building is consumed, the foundation is not destroyed (Malachi 3:1-6; 4:1).

I Corinthians 3:16-17, "As you know, you are the temple (singular) of the Living God, the Body of Christ, and individual living stones (I Peter 2:5), and the Spirit of God dwells in you. If any man defiles God's home, God will destroy him for God's home is holy and clean, and you are that home".

To defile or to destroy, the Greek verb is the same in both cases, will earn righteous retaliation in kind. In the opinion of the Hebrews, the temple was corrupted or "destroyed" when anyone defiled or in the slightest degree damaged anything in it, or if its guardians neglected their duties. Thus, to lead a congregation or believer in Christ away from that state of knowledge and holiness in which they ought to abide; was to corrupt or destroy them (John 15:7) and the destroyer shall himself be destroyed.

As temporal death was the penalty of marring the material temple (Leviticus 16:2; Daniel 5), marring the Spiritual temple is the unforgivable sin. These "destroyers" are distinct from the unwise or unskillful builders; the latter held fast the "foundation" (I Corinthians 3:11), and thus although they lose the work they have built and the special reward, they are themselves saved. The "destroyers," on the contrary, assailed with false teaching the very foundation, subverting the temple itself, and are therefore 'cherem'. We know but one group who boast of themselves they are "the Destroyers".

All members of the Church are "priests to God" (Exodus 19:6; I Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6). And as the Aaronic priests were doomed to die if they violated the old temple (Exodus 28:43), one who violates the sanctity of the spiritual temple, that is, of a Christian, is guilty of destroying the Body of Christ which is the elect Church of all Ages and will be eternally separated from God (I Corinthians 3:17; 12:12, 14; Acts 5:1-10; Hebrews 10:26-31. Also see Numbers 16:1-35; Deuteronomy 29:16-21 with I Kings 12:25-30 and Revelation 7:4-8; Judges 7 and John 6:49 where Jesus points to the fact that all of the adult Israelites who came out of Egypt were eternally lost with the exception of Moses, Joshua and Caleb; Malachi 4:1-3; and Psalm 69:28 with Matthew 27:24-25).

The want of holiness is a violation of the temple which cannot pass with impunity. Hebrews 12:14-15, "Abstain from quarrels and seek to live peaceably with all men, for without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Look after one another so that not one of you will fail to the grace of God, and watch out that no root of bitterness takes root among you, and springing up causes deep trouble whereby many are defiled."

The Hebrew temple was God's dwelling place where He alone placed His Name, for He will not share His glory with another, whose glory you are under submission to Christ (Genesis 1:26-27; I Corinthians 11:1-14). Which is why the Bride of Christ is named Lord Jesus Christ (Psalm 2:8; Amos 9:12; Isaiah 54:1-5; Malachi 1:11; Acts 15:14; Ephesians 1:20-23; Ephesians 3:14-15). The temple was the house of sacrifice, rather than of prayer. Prayers in the temple were silent and personal (Luke 1:10; 18:10-13), not public, We Christians, as the temple of God are to "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service of worship" as the antitype of Jerusalem's temple (Romans 12:1).

The Bride of all Ages is God's temple built of "lively stones" and each saint is a spiritual priest having entered the very Presence of God through the vail of Christ's riven flesh. He is our High Priest and substitutionary sacrifice by virtue of which He has washed us and cleansed us and offered us back to God (Malachi 1:11; Matthew 18:20; Colossians 1:22; I Peter 2:5; Jude 24).

The synagogue, not the temple, was the model of the Christian house of public worship. There the believers assembled to offer joint prayer and praise, to read Scripture out loud, and to hear men preach.

God is building His House from faith—Word upon Word, precept upon precept, line upon line. Jesus told Peter, flesh and blood—Bible schools, books—man has not shown you who I am, but My Father who is in Heaven has revealed it to you, and on this rock of the revelation of the Word, I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against Spiritual revelation, which is faith.

So when we come together to talk about Jesus, we focus on the Word for our day, the present Truth—what Jesus is doing now! We're building our part of the House of God from faith, not reasoning, emotion, or the traditions of dead men. For without faith it is impossible to please God—and since we live in the raptured Age, our testimony must match that of Enoch—if we're to be changed in the atoms like Enoch was.

Jesus chastened the saints of the Ephesian Church Age, saying, "I have this against you, that you have left your first love, the Word. So remember whence you have fallen, and repent, and do the firstworks" (Revelation 2:4- 5). The Message of Malachi 4:5-6 is, "Return to the foundation".

It's important that we begin our fellowship with the firstworks to ensure we lay the foundation of Christ the Word by faith, not by tradition, because the promise of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, which is the new birth, is given to all who are obedient to do the firstworks, and who keep on walking in the Light, one step at a time, watching for more Light to unfold.

The firstworks have not changed since the day of Pentecost and remain the same for every Christian. Firstly, they require a clear revelation of the true Oneness of the godhead. Secondly, comes repentance from dead works. And third: baptism by immersion in the Name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, for the remission of past sins, and as a public witness that your repentance was genuine.

Baptism in three Titles has no Scriptural basis and there is no historic record of anyone being baptized this way until shortly before the First Nicaea Council—almost three hundred years after the death of the original apostles.

In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus said, "All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth." Then if all power is given to Jesus in heaven and in earth, where's this Big Fellow, the All-Mighty God? Unless of course Jesus is the one Person of Almighty God manifest in virgin-born flesh, as Paul and his fellow apostles and prophets knew Him to be, and not some other second or third person (I Timothy 3:16)!

Jesus continued, "Because all power in heaven and in earth is given to Me, go and teach all nations in the confidence of My authority, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, [even in you] to the end of the world".

Luke 24:47 reports this "great commission" saying, "Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem".

His Name is LORD JESUS CHRIST, not Father, Son or Holy Ghost. In obedience to the Angel's command, Mary called the Name of her firstborn "Jesus," which means 'Jehovah-Savior' (Matthew 1:18-25), for that is who He was, and what He would be and do in fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. Jesus is Emmanuel, which means "God with us." Not a second, third or any other fraction but the fullness of the nature and character of God expressed bodily in Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:9).

"Father" is not a name but an office or Title God received when His first Son, Adam, was formed from the dust of the ground. Previously He was only "potentially" a father, just as you and I are only "potential" fathers prior to the birth of our own child. In Genesis one, God spoke the whole of His creation, except for the new creation, which He spoke into the womb of Mary just 2,000 years ago (Luke 1:26-38). This was the beginning of God creating Himself in the flesh of His glorified Family, among whom Jesus Christ is the firstborn and Head of every creature (Colossians 1:15; Revelation 3:14). We've each had a father, but not one of those men was Named "Father".

"Son" is not a name but an office or Title God received when He manifest in the virgin-born Jesus, the first of ten thousand times ten thousand, and millions of Sons (Daniel 7:10; Hebrews 2:10-12).

"Holy Ghost" is not a name. Holy Ghost is what God is. "God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man that He should repent: has He spoken and not done what He said He'd do (Numbers 23:19)?" God is a Spirit—not two Spirits and one Man. You, your soul is a spirit, I am a spirit, and Satan is a spirit, but God is the Holy Spirit.

So in Matthew where Jesus commanded the believers to baptize converts in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, there was a revelation connected to His command. Luke 24:47 explained the revelation as does Ephesians 4:5-6, which states, "There is one mystic Body of Christ, or true Church, and one Holy Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, not two or three, one understanding or faith, not two thousand different denominations, and one water baptism for the remission of past sins. One God and Father of all the born-again, who is above all, and through all, and in all who are born-again".

There is no such thing as a God the Father, a God the Son or a God the Holy Ghost in any Bible, for these would be three gods, and that would make us pagans. II Corinthians 5:19, "God was in Christ." Colossians 2:9, "In Jesus dwelt the fullness of the godhead bodily." Jesus is the Son of God, not "God the Son." Jesus is not the Father of the Son; He's the Son of the Father. And if you are born-again, you are another Son of the same Father.

In Acts 2:38-39 Peter spoke by revelation from God above, not education from "flesh and blood" below (Matthew 16:13-19). On the day of Pentecost he turned the "key" of faith that unlocked the kingdom of heaven or new birth to the Hebrews. Realizing they had murdered their very Messiah, they cried out in desperation, "Men and brethren, what must we do to be saved?"

Peter replied, "repent, and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (or new birth). For this promise is to you Hebrews, and to your children, and to all who are afar off—we Gentiles—even as many as the Lord our God shall call—both Israelites and Gentiles".

It was revealed to Peter that the compound redemptive Name (singular) of the Titles, Father, Son and Holy Ghost is LORD JESUS CHRIST. And if you are not baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ you have not been baptized in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And without this clear understanding of God's Word, which is faith, your past sins have not been remitted and you have not received the Holy Ghost—no matter how often you speak with unknown tongues.

It was "Those who say they are Jews and are not, but lie" (Revelation 2:9; 3:9) who started the false church that began baptizing in three Titles according to the "letter without the Spirit, and were spiritually dead" (II Corinthians 3:6). This unscriptural baptism was forced following the Hegelian dialectic of the First Nicaea Council where the Babylonian Trinity worshipped by pagan Rome was introduced into Christendom. But it was not until millions of Christians had been martyred that this dogma was forcibly recognized.

The few Christian ministers who traveled to Nicaea went with the express purpose of trying to persuade followers of the heretics Athanasius (Trinitarianism), and Arius (Unitarianism), to repent and go back the Word. Their mission did not succeed and they departed before the Council sat. The president of the Council was Emperor Constantine who was never a Christian. He kept the assembly waiting one month to show his own importance. The Council's first decision forbade laypersons below the office of bishop to vote. This is "nicolaitanism which Jesus hates" (Revelation 2:15).

As Athanasius was the more eloquent speaker, Constantine decided God is a Trinity. He commanded the Council to organize the Roman Universal church, over which he was head since he was head of all religion. Returning to Rome, he murdered his wife and eldest son. Then, deciding he had made a mistake and that Arius' heresy was right after all, he alternated between these two false doctrines for the remainder of his life, and on his deathbed he was baptized for regeneration—another false doctrine.

Since the Tower of Babel, every nation, tribe and tongue has worshipped the Trinity under different names. Trinitarianism is the mark of the beast because it is reasoning against the mind of Christ, which is faith. It was forced by Rome for almost 1,000 years of Dark Ages. During the tribulation it will be forced by Rome and her (once) Protestant image as foretold by Jesus in Revelation 13. Daniel and Jesus clearly state that the New World Order is to be ruled by the false church, after the true saints have been translated without death—so few we won't be missed.

After the close of the Hebrew dispensation, apostate Jewish denominations killed the new Christians. After the close of the Gentile dispensation the apostate Gentile denominations will martyr 144,000 Hebrew converts to Christ, and all of the "saved".

If you're a born-again Christian, you are perfect and cannot fail the Lord (Romans 8:14; I John 5:18). Your unredeemed body and mortal flesh will make mistakes, but your born-again soul is sealed to the day of your physical redemption, and cannot sin or unbelieve the revealed Word of God (I John 3:9).

For two thousand years, Christ's Church has been building upon the foundation of the doctrine of the apostles and prophets, adding line upon line, precept upon precept, as God revealed a further portion of His Word to each Age. Thus the evidence of the new birth expressed in a different virtue of Christ's character as God reproduced the stature of the perfect Man in His Body, the Church.

II Peter chapter one explains how these "great and precious promises" have been built upon the foundation of this faith once delivered to the apostolic saints. The start of the edifice manifested faith in the Ephesian Age, to which virtue was added in the Smyrna Age. The saints of the Pergamean Age added knowledge, and God added temperance in the Thyatira Age. In the Reformation, Luther's Message produced patience in the Sardis Age; John Wesley's Message added godliness in Philadelphia and in Brother Branham's dispensation of Laodicea the Pentecostals added brotherly kindness.

We live in the fiftieth and closing day of Israel's Pentecostal Feast, which types the Gentile dispensation. All seven Church Ages are history. Christ's end-time Bride is being called out of their apostate remnant, into maturity in the unity of the faith and the fullness of the Word, to manifest the Life of Christ in the Caagsone that completes the House of God.

I pray this clarification is helpful to you because some claim that Brother Branham's teaching on the Stature of the Perfect Man was describing how God was building the individual saint, adding virtue upon virtue. And in one way He is. But the Prophet was following the teachings of Paul and Peter may be seen from Scriptures he noted on the diagram he drew to illustrate how God was building each dispensation or Church Age of the Body of Christ of all Ages. Each virtue was the most prominent character and the evidence or Token of the new birth of the Bride in one particular Age. These virtues are cumulative in the Body, as it grew, but not in each individual member of the Body. We are now making up the Caagsone that will complete the Body and have "the" Token of the fullness itself.

I Corinthians 12 Paul explains how Christ's Bride is one Body with many members, each having unique gifts and callings yet dependent upon and indispensable to every other member. This principle also applies within the nine dispensations or divisions of the Body. Ephesians 4:15-16 explains how the Body reaches maturity in the Caagsone Age, "growing up into the stature of the perfect Man, Who is the Head: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes the Body grow and prosper to the edifying of itself in . . . 'the love divine'."

Thus we all grow up into the dwelling place of the Living God, the true temple built upon the firstworks of the foundation Paul laid, where Christ our High Priest and King has pre-eminence. nl347.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 2380