Bible Believers' Newsletter 389
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The revelation of the Seven Seals in 1963 brought Christ and the New Testament saints back to earth in Word form. "Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied of the wheat and the fate of the tares when he said, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness, and of all the harsh words which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (I Corinthians 13:10; Matthew 13:37-43; Jude 14; John 5:27).
As Brother Branham described the opening of the Seventh Seal, "Jesus comes from heaven with ten thousands times ten thousands of His saints, and the Bible said that the heavens were empty for the space of a half hour. Where is this big fellow, God then? Uh-huh. See, He's in Christ. Sure" (Matthew 16:27; Revelation 8:1).
Paul explained, "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we can also believe that those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. This is THUS SAITH THE LORD for we who are left until the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first" (I Thessalonians 4:14-16).
Brother Branham said, "Three things happen, a shout, a voice, a trumpet, have to happen before Jesus appears. . . Jesus does all three of them when He's descending. A "shout," what is a "shout?" It's the Message going forth first, the living Bread of Life bringing forth the Bride" (Matthew 25:6; Revelation 18:4).
Enoch was called out of the seventh generation from the first Adam and translated because he had the mind of the Lord; even so we have been called out of the seventh or Laodicean generation from the last Adam, and He is preparing us by grace for translation faith.
Christ has come to incarnate His end-time Bride and bring her to maturity in the unity of the faith, for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the translation. At that time we will be so few in number we will not be missed amidst the great catastrophes that will cause this earth to quake and sway like a drunken sailor when Satan is cast down from the heavens. Already his demons are taking possession of godless men, driving them insane. Business leaders are worshipping mammon, military and police forces are killing innocent people around the globe in a war against an abstract noun; denominations are apostate and know it not. The world is going insane, having rejected its unknown God.
Demon-possessed men intent on ruling the world by misuse of psychology, mind-altering drugs, hybrid and mineral-deficient foods, deadly vaccinations and medicines made possible by Rockefeller's franchise on education, that has brainwashed the minds of five generations until the majority is conditioned to react like automatons to unreal suggestions, because our alien-controlled media in the best Jesuit tradition declare windmills to be terrorists.
Brother Branham said, "Through science, and hybrid food, the whole human body has been perverted till we become a mass of corruption. Well, if the physical being is corrupted, isn't the brain cell in that physical being?"
"Now, watch the spirit following it. There'll come a time in the Name of the Lord, that people will go completely insane. The Bible said so. They'll scream and holler: great hideous things in their imaginary mind. . . The radio or television programs are producing it. There'll be such things as ants raise up on the earth that'll be as high as fourteen trees. A bird will fly across the earth with wings four or five miles across, and people seeing them; they'll scream and holler and cry for mercy; but it'll be the plague".
Like multiculturalism or the terrorists employed and financed by intelligence (sic) services and conjured up by an alien-controlled media, it's all in the mind. Satan's synagogue is working to paralyze the world with fear. Demon-possessed men displace harmony and peace by creating chaos as a pretext for usurping totalitarian power with which to establish Lucifer's New World Order (Matthew 4:8-9).
But God's love is real. The greatest power in the world is not the atomic bomb but a Believer in contact with his Maker. So love casts out fear: no atomic bomb is as powerful as prayer.
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.God bless richly you;
your Brother, Anthony
Bank for International Settlements calls for Global Currency
Basel, Switzerland — The Bank for International Settlements released their 75th Annual Report on June 27 to commemorate its founding in 1930. Most countries today have a central bank that is a private corporation that handles its monetary system. Bi-monthly, central bank ministers from 40 countries meet at the BIS to review ways "to promote the co-operation of central banks and to provide additional facilities for international financial operations." Once a year the world's central bankers meet in Basel to take a closer look at the status of the world's central banking system. Besides the annual review, this year's Report considered the need for "new mechanisms" to keep the financial system more in balance...
The BIS Annual Report cited three such cycles of highs and lows. The first began in the 1970's when the dollar was taken off the gold standard. . . The second cycle began in the mid-1980s, ending in a property bust; and the current cycle began in the mid-1990s. All Americans should be concerned about this report for the world's bankers are signaling the end of the third cycle which can only mean higher interest rates as money is taken out of the market. . .
Interestingly enough, the BIS cites household debt being at historic highs. In a way they created it. Of course buyers would seize the opportunity to trade up their home for a bigger one since they can afford more because of lower interest rates. As a result, Spain, the UK, France, the US and the Nordic countries have had huge increases in property values with household debt-to-income ratios at unprecedented highs . . .
The Bank's Economic Advisor, William White, explained, "The time has come for a measured withdrawal of the stimulus that has been put into the [economic] system." What Mr. White is saying is that it is time for the Fed to withdraw money from the banking system that created low interest rates and corresponding high property values and a high stock market. With the Federal Reserve's ninth interest rate increase, we can see the direction of the economic cycle.
In a world of floating currencies ruled by the rich and powerful, we will always have external imbalances creating an evolving system of global economic imbalances which leads to feudalism. Global feudalism is created as the rich and powerful continually skim off the top of the world's economic imbalances to even it out—for them.
Full story: newswithviews.com
Comment: The writing is on the wall for the currency crash and world depression foretold by Brother Branham at the end of the Gentile dispensation.
Bombing Mastermind Aswat Works for MI6
The July 29 edition of FOX News Channel's Day Side programme revealed that the so called mastermind of the 7/7 London Bombings, Haroon Rashid Aswat, is a British Intelligence Asset. Former Justice Dept. prosecutor and Terror expert John Loftus revealed that ". . . back in the late 1990s, the leaders all worked for British intelligence in Kosovo. Believe it or not, British intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosovo. That's when Al-Muhajiroun got started" . . .
Full story: prisonplanet.com infowars.net British Authorities impose "free speech zones"
Comment: The objective of this black psyop is to strike fear into the hearts of men to entice them to surrender liberties for chains of bondage controlled by faceless men whose goal is world hegemony and massive depopulation. The "bombing mastermind" is neither Arab, nor Muslim, nor Semitic but the International Banksters of 'the City of London.' Fortunately, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love" (I John 4:18).
London Bombings: No Terrorists
Bristol, August 4, 2005 — Victims of two of the three London tube explosions say the bombs went off under the trains. Their eyewitness accounts appear to contradict the theory that suicide bombers were responsible for killing 39 passengers on London's tube network . . .
The Guardian's Mark Honigsbaum spoke with several eye witnesses to the Edgware Road tube bomb on July 7th. He reported "an explosion this morning under the carriage of the train" and went on, "some passengers described how tiles, the covers on the floor of the train, suddenly flew up, raised up." Victims also told him the train "had been derailed by this explosion," again suggesting the bomb was under the carriage. A man caught by the blast was reported to have "very, very bad injuries to his legs".
Bruce Lait, injured by the Aldgate East tube bomb was interviewed on the 11th July by a reporter from the Cambridge Evening News. Mr. Lait explained that as he was being led to safety, "The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was.' The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag". . .
Full story: guardian.co.uk nineeleven.co.uk cambridge-news.co.uk
Israel Security Company Prime Subway Bomb Suspect?
July 31, 2005 — I am not saying shoot-to-kill whenever you see an employee of an Israeli security company, but would the inspectors of Scotland Yard please examine the alibis of the private safety personnel who regularly roam the London Underground?
They have the opportunity. They have unsupervised access to trains and tracks at all times. They also control the CCTV.
They have the means. As experts on security, they have had explosives training. And they have the motive. . . Israel would benefit from a clash between the West and Islam. . . Also, access to military explosives is no problem for them. Israeli security companies are usually manned by Shinbet or Mossad ex-agents. . . Full story: rense.com
Mossad and the Russian Mafia Plutonium Connection
I can also confirm the deeper and more sinister motive for outing Plame: Dutch Intel-1 have reportedly nailed the Mossad for taking delivery of plutonium at the Port of Amsterdam that was stolen by the Russian Mafia from former Soviet nuclear stockpiles in the Ural Mountains. Full story: disc.server.com supremelaw.org supremelaw.org
Eisenhower's Holocaust: His Slaughter of 1.7 Million Germans
"God, I hate the Germans. . ." Dwight Eisenhower in a letter to his wife in September, 1944.
One month before the end of World War II, General Eisenhower issued special orders concerning the treatment of German Prisoners and specific in the language of those orders was this statement, "Prison enclosures are to provide no shelter or other comforts."
Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose, who was given access to the Eisenhower personal letters, states that he proposed to exterminate the entire German General Staff, thousands of people, after the war.
Eisenhower, in his personal letters, did not merely hate the Nazi Regime, and the few who imposed its will down from the top, but he hated the German people as a race. It was his personal intent to destroy as many of them as he could, and one way was to wipe out as many prisoners of war as possible.
Of course, that was illegal under International law, so he issued an order on March 10, 1945, verified by his initials on a cable of that date, that German Prisoners of War be predesignated as "Disarmed Enemy Forces" called in these reports DEF. He ordered that these Germans did not fall under the Geneva Rules, and were not to be fed, given water or medical attention. The Swiss Red Cross was not to inspect the camps, for under the DEF classification, they had no such authority or jurisdiction. . . Full story: tinypic.com google.com
The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb
Control of atomic energy had now given the New World Order clique enormous power, and Eisenhower, in his farewell speech to the American people on leaving the Presidency on January 17, 1961, warned, "In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist" (In Review, Doubleday, 1969).
By failing to name the power behind the military-industrial complex, the International Bankers, Eisenhower left the American people in the dark as to what he was actually warning them against. To this day they do not understand that he was trying to say that the International Bankers, the Zionists and the Freemasons had formed an unholy alliance whose money and power could not be overcome by righteous citizens of the United States. . .
During his trial, Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo's lawyers stated to the International Tribunal for the Far East, the Asian version of Nuremberg Trials, that Tojo's war crimes could not begin to approach the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The prosecutors immediately objected, and censored their statements. That was the last time there was any official recognition of the atomic bomb massacres in Japan. Japanese officials have been effectively prevented from taking any stand on this matter because the American military occupation, which officially ended in 1952 with the Treaty with Japan, was quietly continued. Today, 49,000 American troops are still stationed in Japan, and there is no public discussion of the crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Full story: whale.to
Comment: "As you sow, so shall you reap" (Galatians 6:7). The seventh of seven consecutive visions God unfolded to Brother Branham in 1933 showed "nothing but debris, craters, and smoke all over the land of America." Recently, Stan Deyo has warned of increasingly strong earthquake and volcanic activity, and it is time for earth to demonstrate her birth pains.
Depleted Uranium, Anthrax Vaccine and the Gulf War Syndrome
My initial reaction to the 1993 Gulf War was that it was all about oil which we desperately needed. . . My impression currently is that there may be a more insidious and sinister aspect to the invasion of Iraq. Could we be using this nuclear war as a way to lower the population of an Arab nation? Exposing all the citizens in a nation to a daily dose of radioactive uranium dust would be certain to produce very premature deaths and inability to reproduce.
The new book The High Priests of War documents how Henry Kissinger planned an attack against the Arab world in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This nicely coincided with a Middle Eastern oil crisis and the development of DU war capabilities.
Mr. Kissinger had been previously involved in plans (later implemented) to lower the population of blacks in Africa by using bio-warfare programs (vaccines contaminated with HIV virus). This CIA plot was code named PROJECT MKNAOMI. . .
Full story: newswithviews.com newswithviews.com newswithviews.com newswithviews.com
Global Holocaust-Deniers Bill Passed in Knesset
August 4, 2005 — Legislation that would make Holocaust-denial committed overseas an offense under Israeli legal jurisdiction was approved unanimously . . . The passage of the measure would enable Israel to demand the extradition of Holocaust-deniers for prosecution.
The bill was drafted by MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) as a move against former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) for his doctoral dissertation 20 years ago in which he estimated that the Nazis killed less than a million Jews.
It is likely to serve as a deterrence against Holocaust-deniers visiting Israel, although the possibility of countries consenting to extradition on the offense is unlikely. The legislation expands the territorial jurisdiction of the Israeli law against Holocaust-denying outside of its borders. Full story: rense.com
Comment: Hubris of the First Degree – Isaiah 28:17-18.
Forgiveness
We attend service to worship God together and hear what He has to say to us through His anointed minister. We do not come to Church to socialize with the Brethren, although we yearn to be with those of like precious faith and to encourage one another.
Broadly speaking, there are two forms of ministering God's Word. Firstly there is preaching, and then there is teaching.
Preaching is for correction and cleansing by the Word of God. Ephesians 5:25-27, "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, (or faith) that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish".
Faith is a clear revelation of God's will, unfolding His Word to disclose the conduct, order and Doctrine required of His saints. It exposes our shortcomings, ignorance and errors and is the Absolute by which we must measure our lives in order to reflect Jesus Christ before the mirror of God's unchanging Word.
As water washes our body without and blood cleanses our natural life within, the revealed Word washes our soul of whatever is opposed to God that we may walk all-pleasing to Him; it corrects our mistakes, enlightens our ignorance, and when we repent and conform to its precepts, it remits our transgressions.
Teaching shows us our position in the Body of Christ, so we can recognize our day and its Message to know who we are and what part of God's Word we are predestinated to live. In this way a true teacher tries to bring the Church into agreement with the Spirit so that they might recognize God. He sits under the anointing and is able to take the Words and put them together by the Holy Spirit in such a way that the pastor or evangelist cannot.
Drawing our context from three Scriptures, we are going to study forgiveness and the iniquity of covetousness, which is idolatry.
Isaiah 53:5, "Christ was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed".
Iniquity is doing something you know you should not do, or neglecting to do something you know you ought to do. Although He was completely innocent, Jesus Christ was broken and crushed when He took the penalty for our iniquities upon His own shoulders.
Now that we know what iniquity is, let us search our own hearts to see whether there is any iniquity in us—not in our brother or sister. Recognize and repent, like Israel will, to restore the sweetness of love and fellowship in the Word. If we recognize and confess our wrongs, God will forgive and release us from Satan's authority. Without iniquity we are without fear because Satan has no accusation, no lawful claim he can bring against us.
We might be unaware of iniquity, hidden perhaps as disapprobation, recrimination or unjust blame against someone who has wronged us in the past, but having repented and made restitution should be forgiven. Unforgiveness can become iniquity, turning our righteousness into injustice, self-righteousness, and sin. We must make reconciliation for God to forgive us.
The sixfold purpose of Daniel 9:24 illustrates this point, "Seventy weeks are determined upon Israel and upon Jerusalem, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy".
Israel must make reconciliation for their iniquity of killing Messiah before God can atone the nation of its sins. When Messiah fulfilled Isaiah 53:5, He made reconciliation for Israel's iniquity, but as the nation has steadfastly refused to receive His propitiation it has not been applied to them or to their children who have died in their sins without atonement these past 2,000 years, like the adults who followed Moses out of Egypt (Matthew 27:25; John 8:24).
Last week I wrote to one of our Jewish subscribers who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and has been debating with unbelievers who refused to recognize the prophetic and historic fact that whoever He was, the Messiah of Daniel 9 was killed by their forefathers; and rather than recognize this prophet they have held to the vacuous interpretations of rabbis. All parties to the discussion exhibited that infuriating Jewish persistence in fruitless debate, like the Jew who approached a Chinaman to ask, "Are you a Jew?" And although the Chinese denied he persisted, repeating his question over and again, "Are you absolutely positive you are not a Jew?" Eventually out of desperation the Chinese replied, "Yes, I am a Jew." To which the Jew responded, "That's strange, you don't look at all like a Jew".
I advised the Brother to ask those who dispute Daniel 9, "By what authority do you speak?" And if they mention some Rabbi, "By what authority does he speak?" God never has and will never interpret His Word first hand through a rabbi or minister, and certainly not through any theologian. It was theologians who nailed Him to the Cross. The Word of God comes only to a vindicated prophet like Abel or Zechariah whom their forefathers killed, or Daniel whose THUS SAITH THE LORD they denounce.
These Russians are playing roulette with their potential for eternal Life which is determined not by biology but faith, a clear understanding of THUS SAITH THE LORD that comes only to a vindicated prophet (Deuteronomy 13:1-5; 18:15-22; Amos 3:6-8). But the last prophet Israel recognized was Jesus of Nazareth, the Prophet of Galilee (Matthew 21:11; Luke 24:19). Him they subsequently denounced as they had denounced John, the prophet before Him, and fell back to Malachi who, like Isaiah, foretold both Jesus and John (Malachi 3; Isaiah 40).
The testimony of Israelites and so-called Jews is that God has not spoken with the nation for almost 2,400 years, yet they regard themselves as His Chosen People and the rest of us as beasts on two legs! 2,400 years is a long time between chats with "the apple of one's eye." They claim God been silent, but could it be that He has sent many prophets (Matthew 23:34), even coming in the form a Prophet Himself, yet they shut their ears to them all and murdered Him as foretold by Moses and Daniel? Is it possible that their unbelief has blinded them from recognizing God's Word as prophesied by the prophets their fathers rejected or killed (Isaiah 29:9-12; 42; Jeremiah 5:21-24; Matthew 23:37-39; Romans 3:25)?
God said, "I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not; and I called you, but you answered not" (Jeremiah 7:13). Why would God hide Himself from those He has chosen? Have they excluded themselves by their sin? Has their unbelief in His Word closed their ears and eyes so He could reveal Himself to Goiim who can see and hear as He promised Abraham and the prophets of Israel?
After 2,400 years silence these headstrong reprobates overflowing with arrogant iniquity, still imagine they can force God's blessing upon Israel by killing, maiming, cheating and destroying innocent Semitic Palestinians, Iraqis and Syrians; Persians and all they deem "human cattle," in unlawful association with we Gentiles via the United Nations in violation of God's prophets (Numbers 23:9; Isaiah 8:9-20; Amos 3:3)! God fulfills His Word by grace, not treachery and murder (Zechariah 4:7)!
God is still speaking through these prophets Israel claim as their own, whom they choose not to hear in order that they may continue building Israel as a "city of refuge" for murderers and international criminals. Consider the ignoble leaders of modern Israel: can you name one who has obeyed or even believes the Torah? Or one who was not a murderer, terrorist and thief?
Examine the conduct and character of the "peak representative bodies" of Jewry and Israel, and contrast their leaders with the shop front of decent Jews they claim they represent when in fact they stand in opposition. The Talmud contains numerous disparaging references to us natives: "It is better to feed one's daughter to lions than to let her marry a native," a maxim repeated by Avrum Burg, a Labor leader and speaker of the Israeli parliament when he said: "Palestinians are not the people you would like to marry your daughter to." Rabbi Yohanan said, "It is permitted to tear a native like one tears fish." Rabbi Eliezer the Great said, "It is good to pierce and stab a native even on Yom Kippur coinciding with the Sabbath".
His shocked disciples tried to correct him, "why don't you say 'slaughter' a native, dear Master?" and he replied, "Slaughter demands a benediction while piercing does not demand a benediction." An animal should not be slaughtered without a benediction to pacify his soul, but Rabbi Eliezer did not want to waste a benediction on a Goyim. He was not even willing to deal with us as with animals. (These sayings were censored from the Talmud and have been reprinted in full only recently in Hebrew. Previously they were printed separately for scholars as Hesronot Shas. The quotes are from Pesahim mem tet 13 bet, in Hesronot p. 8).
What decent Jew would like to marry his daughter to one of the notable leaders of modern Israel or its "representative bodies?" They do not wish to hear God speak in His prophets; they prefer their own will and way. The mighty prophet Daniel spoke in the Name of the Lord, further unfolding the prophecies of Moses, warning Israel 600 years in advance of their great sin. History has vindicated his prophecy to the hour, day, week, month and year, yet Israel's sin-laden religious and political leaders refuse to believe God's living Word. That is iniquity.
Israel refused these vindicated prophecies once because they listened to the lies of rabbis and priests. 2,400 years later they continue to declare Moses and Daniel lying prophets who presumably they would have stoned . . . without a benediction . . . and listen to their rabbis.
God has sent many prophets, and not in vain, for while Israel refused them and was damned, an election of Gentiles heard them gladly and was blessed, for Abraham means "Father of the Gentiles." God sent us the Elijah of Malachi 4:5-6 in these last days, and today there are two Hebrew prophets in Israel gathering a following of believing Israelites to receive a Message when the iniquity of we Gentiles is full and God returns to Israel to fulfill Daniel's Seventieth Week. At that time He will anoint these witnesses of Zechariah 4 to deliver a Message.
How can Israel recognize their prophets and receive God's Message if they do not believe in the first sixty-nine weeks of Daniel's prophecy? Any man who claims Daniel's Seventy Weeks were fulfilled centuries or millennia ago is deceived as the sixfold purpose of Gabriel's visit to Daniel is not yet fulfilled. And the kingdom has not been restored to Israel, which will be ruled by Gentiles, as it is today, unto the consummation of life on earth (Daniel 9:27; Luke 21:24).
Wake up, Israel! Jesus likened present-day Jerusalem to Sodom and Egypt; your California and Florida He will sink beneath the seas (Revelation 11:8; 18:21-24).
Were he present today, Elijah might parody I Kings 18:26-29: "Israel took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of their god from morning even until noon, saying, O god, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or perhaps he sleeps and must be roused. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass 2,400 years later, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded."
Wake up Israel, the evening Sacrifice has been offered. It is the same Word you crucified as your morning Sacrifice (Malachi 4:5-6; Matthew 17:11; Acts 3:19-21). You have lived in iniquity for two and a half millennia. We are well into the "third day" prophesied by Hosea. Zechariah prophesied the Mount of Olives will soon be divided by earthquake. "Arise, shine, for the Evening Light restored to us Gentiles will soon arise upon Israel" (Isaiah 60:1-2).
In the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week, the elect of Israel will denounce the idol shepherds who rule their Knesset and the rabbis with their false prophecies. In Zechariah 13, we read of a false prophet who is detected and seized by some zealous vindicator of the Law; he cries out, "I am no prophet. I was enslaved to a herdsman from my youth."
The interrogator still suspects him and questions, "If you have never pretended to be a prophet, whence come those wounds between your hands?" His hands, naturally upheld to ward off the blows, were "thrust through" (Zechariah 13:3). While stoning was the usual punishment; "thrusting through" was also a fit retribution on one who tried to "thrust Israel away" from the Lord (Deuteronomy 13:10); and perfects the type of Messiah, who was condemned as a false prophet, and pierced with "wounds between His hands."
"Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends"—an implied admission that he had pretended to prophesy, and that his friends had wounded him for it in zeal for God (Zechariah 13:3). The Holy Spirit in Zechariah alludes indirectly to Messiah, the Antitype, wounded by those whom He came to befriend, who ought to have been His "friends," who were His kinsmen (Mark 3:21; John 1:11; 7:5; Romans 9:5), but who wounded Him by the agency of the Romans (Zechariah 12:10).
God regards sin in such a fearful light, He spared not His own Son when He was bruised for the sinner's iniquity. Verse 7 is expounded by Christ as referring to Himself (Matthew 26:31, 32). Thus this is a resumption of the prophecy of His betrayal (Zechariah 11:4, 10, 13-14), and the subsequent punishment of Israel. It explains the mystery why He, who came to be a blessing, was cut off while bestowing the blessing (Daniel 9:26).
When Israel receive the faith in the midst of Daniel's Seventieth Week fulfilling Zechariah's prophecy, they will repent and "make reconciliation for iniquity" according to Daniel 9:24, and the nation will be born-again in one day (Isaiah 66:8).
Isaiah 53:5, "He was wounded for our transgression, He was bruised for our iniquity; He bore the chastisement required to obtain our peace and well-being with God, and with the stripes He received on our account we are healed and made whole".
Our second Scripture is Ezekiel 14:1-11, "Certain of the elders of Israel visited me to ask me for a Message from the Lord. And this is the Message of the Lord that came to me to give them. Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts, and have set the stumblingblock of their iniquity before themselves: should I let them ask me anything at all?"
These elders are stumbling over the devices and desires of their own sinful hearts and these temptations have become idols which they serve in place of God and His Word.
God replies, "THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD; Everyone of the house of Israel who harbors idols in his heart and is bent on the iniquity which trips him up, and yet comes to the prophet seeking My help; I the Lord will personally deal with him because of the multitude of his idols, so that I will take hold of the house of Israel in their own hearts and thoughts, those who are estranged from Me through their idols."
In other words God will answer a fool according to his folly, making the sinner's sin his own punishment. Put away your idols before you make pretense of consulting God. II Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith; prove your own selves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless you are reprobates?"
These elders of Israel were hypocrites like their elders today who dispute the truth of Daniel's THUS SAITH THE LORD and accuse God of acting dumb for over 2,400 years. He will overtake them with punishment for turning iniquity to idolatry, and it will be they who are speechless on the Day of judgment.
"Therefore say to the house of Israel, THUS SAITH THE LORD: Repent and turn from your idols, and turn your faces from all your abominations. For everyone of the house of Israel, and any alien resident in Israel who abandons Me, setting up idols in his heart, and placing the temptations of his iniquity before himself, yet coming to the prophet to consult Me through him, I the Lord will answer him Myself; and I will set My face against that man, I will make him a sign and a proverb, and cut him off from the midst of My people; and you shall know that I am the Lord."
God will destroy the hypocrite so as to make him a sign and a proverb like Lot's wife, Korah or Judas Iscariot, to be pointed to by all as an example and warning.
"And if a false prophet gives him a message it is I the Lord who has deceived that prophet. His prophecy will not come true and I will destroy him from among My people Israel. And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike."
God permits false prophets and ministers to delude hypocrites as a righteous judgment on their willful iniquity. This is what we see in denominational circles today. II Thessalonians 2:10-12, "Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie [Satan told Eve]: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (Deuteronomy 13:3; I Kings 22:23; Jeremiah 4:10; Revelation 13:1-8; 17:8).
As they have dealt deceitfully with God without obtaining His grace—taking the Lord's Supper and footwashing without a revelation of the true oneness of the godhead, repentance, water baptism, sanctification and new birth. "For which cause," said Paul, "many are spiritually weak and physically sick among you and many are spiritually, even physically in the grave because of sin" (I Corinthians 5:5; 11:30).
Christ is our Head and true Christians are his body. We must discern the Body of the Lord. Communion is a two-way conversation between parties who are in agreement (Amos 3:3). So before we take the Lord's Supper we must ensure that we are in agreement with God's Word. Thus we wait upon brethren who need to put right any disharmony they feel toward another. If one feels he may have brought reproach upon the Word or upon the Body of the Lord, he will declare the matter and ask forgiveness from the saints.
In worldly churches we find men who drink and smoke, women with painted faces, covered in jewellery and with cut hair, and even children who cannot possibly have a revelation, taking communion. These people are not at one with the Word and Spirit of God as we affirm when we partake the elements of unleavened bread and wine, but spiritually dead. This is unholy communion the kind of long distance, one-way conversation with God Israel has conducted for 2,000 years.
As in the days of Ezekiel, God permits those who are in iniquity to be dealt with deceitfully by the false prophets they consult. As they have rejected the safe directions of a true light, He would send the pernicious directions of a false light by false prophets who should re-echo the deceitfulness already wrought in their own bosom for their ruin.
Few would leave the church of a pastor who winks at their sin, never discomforts the women by explaining how it is abomination for them to wear clothing that pertains to a man, to paint their faces, or cut their hair. When we covet ideas counter to the revealed Word of God we are taking the mark of the beast, by the iniquity of idolizing our thoughts above His will.
Love is corrective always. Chastisement may be uncomfortable for the present but it bears fruit unto God and blessing to those who receive it (Hebrews 12:11; Revelation 10:8-11).
The existence of deceivers among so-called believers is a sign of God's judicial displeasure. The deceivers and the deceived being dupes of a common delusion, should be involved in a common ruin (II Corinthians 6:14-18).
"The punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike so that the house of Israel may go no more astray from Me, nor defile themselves any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be My people, and I may be their God, says the Lord God".
Israel types the Church and God's purpose in their chastisement is their correction, as it is ours. Love is corrective.
Our third Scripture is Colossians 3:1-5, "Since you became alive again, so to speak, when Christ arose from the dead, seek the treasures and joys of heaven where He sits on the right hand of God."
Our Head being quickened and seated in the place of all honor and power, we are quickened with Him by baptism of the Holy Ghost, which is our new birth, and seated in heavenly places, which is the believers position in the Word. That is, we are manifesting the Word for our day and hour.
We were formerly alive to the world and dead to God. Now we are alive to God and dead to the world, for God is living in us. We are the true Temple of the living God. Therefore "Set your affection on things above, let heaven fill your thoughts, don't spend your time worrying about things down here." What we set our mind upon is our idol, so it will either be a cross to us as believers or a curse to us if we are unbelievers. In point of fact, since we are foreknown and predestinated, we are already accounted glorified, and that is how God has seen us from the foundation of the world (Romans 8:28-33; Revelation 5:8-14).
"For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
II Corinthians 5:14, "The love of Christ now controls us, because we conclude that one died for all so that they all died." On Calvary we died in Christ the Logos or fullness of the Word because we are Attributes of the Word, so when Christ arose we rose in Him. And now we are seated together in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2:5-6).
"When Christ, who is our Life is manifested, then shall you appear glorified with Him and share in all His glories. Put to death therefore the evil desires that lurk in your members which are upon earth: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry" (Philippians 3:21; I Thessalonians 1:10; I Peter 1:11).
Will we offer our soul to Christ as a living sacrifice, holy, free from worldliness and self-will, or sacrifice it on the altar of lust and indulgence, which is covetousness and idolatry?
Romans 6:19, "I speak using the metaphor of slaves and masters for as you used to be slaves to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; now you must let yourselves be slaves to all that is right and holy" (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:24-26).
Covetousness is a greedy self-idolizing grasping spirit which is idolatry.
Ephesians 4:19, "past feeling"—like Pharaoh and Caiaphas, hardened in heart, having "given themselves over to intemperate self-indulgence to deliberately make it their business to work uncleanliness of every kind in greediness for gain"—or covetousness, a self-seeking, perhaps through self-pity. "Oh, I've been hard done by. Poor me"!
Covetousness deifies self and mammon in the heart rather than God. Ephesians 5:5, "Be sure of this, the kingdom of Christ and of God will never belong to anyone who is a fornicator, or unclean, or one who is covetous, for a covetous person is really an idolater".
Do you worship an idol in your heart? Matthew 6:24, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will pay heed to the one, and treat the other with contempt. You cannot serve God and mammon."
In Matthew 6:5-15 Jesus was instructing His disciples in the manner of praying. He was not rehearsing a form of words for "vain repetition after the manner of heathens who imagine they will receive a blessing for their verbosity." It is not what we say, but how we "pray." Christians do not "say prayers," we pray. So Jesus says, "Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors . . . For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses".
If someone has sinned against you and then repented and confessed their sin, asking your forgiveness, then you are duty bound to forgive them. If on the other hand, you have sinned against some person and asked God to forgive you without first asking that person for their forgiveness, He cannot forgive you because your sin was not against Him but against that person. Only after you have made yourself right with the person you have offended can you ask God's forgiveness.
Insensibility to our own failings breeds indifference to others. This can cultivate a root of bitterness that kills affections, divides the brotherhood of believers and quenches the Holy Spirit. This was God's accusation against the Smyrnean Church Age where the Jews claimed preeminence over the Gentiles as God's Chosen People and therefore elected First Class. But Jesus declared, "You are blasphemers, neither chosen of God nor Judahites or even Semites, but impersonators, and of the synagogue of Satan" (Revelation 2:9).
Smyrna means "bitterness" and is derived from myrrh, which is a resinous gum obtained from the Arabian Myrtle, bitter in taste and strongly aromatic, it was formerly used for incense and for embalming the dead. Smyrna was a bitter age filled with death. The two vines within the framework of the church were drifting further apart with an increased bitterness toward the true vine on the part of the false.
Hebrews 12:14-15, "Strive for peace with all men, and for holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God; that no one cultivates a root of bitterness causing trouble whereby many become defiled".
A bitter root, if it is allowed to grow, will bring forth bitter fruit, defiling your heart and your relationships with others. In Hebrew the word is also translated "gall," "hemlock," and the venom of a serpent.
What we ask God for ourselves, we ought freely to pass on to others without conditions, "freely have you received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8; Luke 17:4). Ephesians 4:32, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ has forgiven you" when He raised Jesus from death for our justification (Romans 4:25).
Joseph was a type of Christ and he forgave his brethren who sold Him as Judas sold Jesus (Genesis 45:15). Jesus forgave His killers as did Stephen because their eyes were blinded by a false ministry (Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60). Even so, unless they repented of their murders and believed in Messiah, His forgiveness was not applied to them for the grace of a pardon is not a pardon unless it is received as grace. Thus in Revelation 6:9-11 we find that not until after the close of the Gentile dispensation when God turns to Israel are the Torah-abiding Israelites martyred from Calvary until that time acknowledged by God and promised remission of sins and eternal Life at the White Throne Judgment.
Colossians 3:13-15, "Be gentle and ready to forgive, and if one has a quarrel against another, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all let love guide your life and so bind everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ to which you are called in one Body rule in your hearts, and be thankful". nl389.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 Bible Believers URL Bible Believers' Website
PowerPoint presentation The Second Coming of Christ
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