Malachi 3:6, "I am the Lord, I change not".
Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever".
Ecclesiastes 3:14-15, "I know that, whatever God does is final—nothing can be added to or taken from it: God has made it so that men should be reverent in His Presence. That which is has been long ago; and that which is to be has been before; and God seeks out that which is past".
We have an unchanging God with unchanging ways. What He did at the first He will have to keep on doing until it is done for the last time. There will never be a change. The kind of man God chose as the angel to the first Church Age, and how God manifested in that man's ministry is the example for all other ages. As like begets like, the true Church will always be the one that tries to follow in the steps of her founders at Pentecost and her messengers will follow the apostle Paul, the first messenger to the first Church Age. It is that simple, and that wonderful.
As a guide to understanding Scripture we should follow the patterns of the natural as types that foreshadow and point to the Spiritual antitypes promised by the Lord. To illustrate:
Hebrews 8:5, "When Moses was about to make the tabernacle he was instructed by God, See to it that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain." Moses fashioned the earthly tabernacle after the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem whose dimensions, furniture and arrangement were emblematical of Eternity and the order of New Jerusalem, God's elect in the new heavens and new earth.
Matthew 16:1-4, "The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Jesus they asked that He show them a sign from heaven; but He replied, When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and overcast. You hypocrites, you can interpret the appearance of the sky; but you cannot read the obvious signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; and no sign shall be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonas. And He left them, and departed".
When these denominational people had asked Jesus to show them a sign from the Spiritual heaven He chided them for understanding only the natural world for He was Himself the Spiritual sign from heaven vindicating prophecy before their very eyes. He prophesied a sign typing Jonah's experience with His forthcoming resurrection, this He left unexplained since prophecy is understood by revelation from above; and He walked away.
The leaders of the Jews' organized religions were naturally-minded men bound by human traditions and not free to catch the vision of Psalm 16:10 and they crucified the Lord of glory. This spiritual blindness has overcome the denominational Christian world whose leaders likewise are bound by the traditions of organized religion and unable follow the mind of the Spirit expressed in His unchanging Word, and crucifying to themselves the Son of God a second time.
Matthew's Gospel was addressed to Israelites while Luke wrote his Gospel primarily for a Gentile readership. The latter part of Matthew 24 and Luke 17 employ the same natural types but their message to Israelites at the end of their dispensation and to us Gentiles at the end of our dispensation today, is quite distinct.
Luke 17:20-37: "Asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus answered, The kingdom of God is not ushered in with visible signs: neither will they say, Look here it is! Or, look, it has begun over there! For the kingdom of God is within you."
The Pharisees anticipated the Talmudic myth wherein Messiah would destroy Rome and with the riches of the Gentiles cast at their feet, we non-Jewish "dogs" would grovel before them. However, the kingdom of God is a manifestation of the Word of God that comes not with observation but by unseen revelation generating God's own Life within your soul, transforming and shaping the mortal life of the outer man into a lively stone fitted for its place in a temple not made with human hands, as explained in Ephesians 4 and I Peter 2, into the manifestation of the vision God showed Moses on Mount Sinai.
"And He said to His disciples, The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, Look, here He is; or, see over there: do not go after them, or follow them. For as the lightning flashes from one end of the sky to the other, so will the Son of man be in His day."
faithful would miss Him dearly, but Jesus was speaking primarily to His present-day disciples since from the day of Pentecost until the close of the Laodicean Church Age He was in the mediatorial office of Son of God, not in the prophetic office of Son of man. But here He was prophesying His second or 'parousia' Coming as Son of man through the revelation of the Seven Seals that would bring Him back to earth in W_O_R_D form in 1963. Our denominational cousins are anticipating a visible Coming of the glorified Man; however His physical return will be in the Millennium in the office of Son of David after the consummation of life. The fullness of the anointed Word is invisible and not a sign that can be observed but it was forerun by a visible sign whose import is understood only by revelation (Acts 1:9-11; Revelation 1:7). "But first must He suffer many things, and be rejected by this generation [descended from the patriarchs]. And as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be also in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all."
An extraordinary parallel exists between the characteristics of Noah's day described in Genesis 6 and its antitype in this day of the unseen return of the Son of man (Matthew 24:37). If we are children of God we will see the natural attributes and recognize in the parallel His promised sign of the time:
- An extraordinary increase in earth's population.
- A prosperous and scientifically advanced situation that could accomplish engineering feats beyond our present abilities.
- An increase in the beauty of women, especially Cain's daughters.
- Fornication, de facto relationships, adultery, "free love".
- Miscegenation (nowadays called "multiculturalism") between the sons of Adam and the daughters of Cain.
- Miscegenation multiplies the lineage of the Serpent's seed and is genocide to Adam's race.
- As God sent Enoch with warning and a way of escape before judgment, He has sent the prophet William Branham.
- The Lord enumerated a specific period after which Judgment would destroy life on earth: 120 years in Noah's day, seven years after the close of the Gentile dispensation in the end time.
- The Serpent's seed offspring became prominent leaders in the days of Noah as they have today.
- Enoch, who types Christ's end-time Bride, was translated before the consummation.
- Despite the warnings and witness of Enoch, Noah and William Branham, people live as if God had not spoken.
- Noah and his family type the non-elect remnant who will suffer the tribulation, among whom only those who endure to the end will be "saved".
- Noah and his three sons (who were not progeny of the Serpent's seed wife he took with him into the ark) and their wives were of the pure blood of Adam.
- As Adam's race had been corrupted by hybridizing, Earth also was corrupted and filled with physical and ethical injustice.
- All outside the ark, a type of those whose names are not in the Book of Life, are designated for destruction.
Another natural, historical sign has manifest by which those who are Spiritual will discern the fulfilment of prophecy in the hour in which they live.
"Likewise the [whole] world will be as it was in the days of Lot—people went about their customary business—they ate and drank, they bought and sold, planted and built; but on the day Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of man is revealed."
Like Noah and his family, Lot and his family type the non-elect who must endure the tribulation: many will be lost. Enoch like Abraham's separated group types the elect or wise virgin of these last days. If we examine the conditions of the days of Lot prior to the destruction of Sodom we see another striking parallel with today:
- Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain were ungodly Gentile civilizations as is the "global village" today.
- Homosexuality was an accepted predilection among the apostates in Sodom as it has become in today's wicked and adulterous generation.
- As God sent three messengers with warning and a way of escape in the days of Lot He has sent three messengers to our Sodom generation.
- As God veiled himself behind the flesh of a created Man and identified Himself to Abraham and Sarah by the Messianic sign (Hebrews 4:12), He veiled Himself behind William Branham, a sinner saved by grace and revealed Himself to His elect by the same sign.
- As God sent two messengers to minister to the non-elect in Sodom, in our day He sent Billy Graham and Oral Roberts to call the foolish virgin out of the churches in spiritual Sodom.
- As the Lord revealed His hidden mystery to Abraham, confirming His promise of the son, the time of his birth, and the destruction of Sodom, He has revealed the mystery of the Seven Seals to us.
- As Abraham and Sarah received new bodies before they could meet their promised son, and rejuvenated, eighty-nine year old Sarah was so beautiful, Abimelech king of Gerar took her for His harem, we shall receive new bodies before we meet our promised Son.
- As Abraham interceded for the righteous non-elect in Sodom and Gomorrah, Christ's end-time Bride testifies and intercedes by holding the Token over the righteous non-elect in this Sodom world.
- As the lewd men of Sodom imposed themselves upon Lot and the visiting ministers, today they haul righteous men before the courts charged with breaking "hate" laws drafted by the Jew's Anti-Defamation Commission of B'nai B'rith who champion sins condemned by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who through His prophet Moses, pronounced them an abomination, genocidal, and punishable by death.
- As God destroyed the cities on the plain by fire from heaven, He will shortly send fire from heaven to destroy all life on earth (II Peter 3).
"And as it was in the days of Lot, so will it be on the day when the Son of man is revealed." And when Titus besieged Jerusalem all who paid heed to Christ's prophetic warning fled the doomed city when they saw the sign. On that day one on the flat roof of his house did not stop to fetch his belongings from within, and those in the fields did not return to town. Jesus said, "Remember what happened to Lot's wife." Likewise today those who have heard the "midnight cry" of Matthew 25:6 have fled from Rome's doomed denominational "walled cities" (Revelation 18:1-4).
"Whoever seeks to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever loses his life shall preserve it. I tell you, in that night there will be two in a bed; the one will be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women will be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men will be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left."
"In response they asked, Where to, Lord? And He told them, Wheresoever the Body is, there the eagles will be gathered together".
In these verses Jesus is not cautioning His end-time Bride to physically flee as He warned the primitive Church to evacuate Jerusalem before the city gates were shut against Titus (Matthew 24:15-21). He is cautioning us not to be dilatory but to "receive the Word with all readiness of mind [as and when it is delivered], and search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so," lest as with Lot's wife the cares of this world, human reasoning or forgetfulness steal its Light. "For everyone who has a revelation will receive grace; and from him who has not received grace, what Light he has shall be taken from him" (Luke 19:26).
We are to give pre-eminence to God and His Word, losing our life in the revelation of His Word, rather than self-work. Our words will fail, we gather with God's eagles to feed on the unfailing Body-Word of the Son of man, which is the Message of this hour.
Clearly the conditions of the days of Noah and Lot have repeated. Within our immediate families and the world church system that self-righteous know-it-all spirit of organization that enticed Israel to physically crucify the Word, is causing nominal Christians to crucify the Son of God to themselves a second time, blaspheming the Holy Spirit and putting Him to open shame outside the churches that bear His Name. This could not have happened when Christ was a Mediator interceding for their ignorance of the Word, but since the revelation of the Seven Seals in 1963 brought the fullness of the Word back to earth as Son of man and Judge, He is indicting those who add to or take from "that which is perfect" (I Corinthians 13:10; Revelation 3:17-20; 22:17-19).
Matthew 12:32, "Whosoever speaks a word against the Son of man, will be forgiven: but whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, will not be forgiven, either in this age, or in the age to come".
Today every nation is guilty of the sin of miscegenation, called "multiculturalism," for which God destroyed the world in the days of Noah; of homosexuality for which He destroyed Sodom and the Serpent's seed cities of the plain, and for preferring a Barabbas of denominational traditions before the fullness of the Word thereby crucifying the Son of God afresh on a cross of Roman creeds, and condemning the earth to judgment by Fire.
The Gospel has been preached among the Gentiles of Adam's race. In fulfilling the Elijah ministry of Malachi 4:5-6 the Prophet restored "the principles of the doctrine of Christ, laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." Whereas once the churches were in error through ignorance, now they have been enlightened by tasting true revelation and witnessing the powers of the world to come; Those that apostatize will be unable to renew repentance as that would hold Him in contempt by nailing the Son of God to the Cross again (Hebrews 6:1-8).
The first crucifixion was at Jerusalem. Nailed to the Cross, naked as when He was born and with sinners gambling for His clothing, Jesus said "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Responsibility for their spiritual ignorance lay upon the heads of the denominational leaders who misled the people, "teaching for doctrine the commandments of men," and the people killed Messiah believing they were doing God a service (Matthew 15:9).
God allowed Israel's blindness so He could visit us Gentiles to call a people for His Name, a Bride for Messiah (Deuteronomy 32:21; Psalm 2:8; Isaiah 11:10; 49:26; 54:1-5; Zechariah 9:10; Malachi 1:11), leaving three and a half years in which to deal with an election of 144,000 Israelites "perfect in the genealogy" of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as Noah was "perfect" in Adam's genealogy (Genesis 6:9; Revelation 7:1-8; Isaiah 11:11; Amos 9:11). Today the Gentile denominations claim they are rich and in need of nothing when they are bankrupt, blind and naked spiritually as Christ was physically; like Israel "they know not what they do," crucifying unto themselves the Son of God afresh (Revelation 3:17-20).
Potentially individual Israelites, but not the nation, could have been forgiven for ignorantly crucifying the Son of man. The chemistry of the blood of the natural lamb no longer betokened forgiveness of sins, it had been replaced by the blood of the real Lamb of God, their kinsman Redeemer Jesus Messiah whose Spirit had returned to impart eternal Life in the soul of a penitent sinner. Furthermore, after His ascension He became a Mediator between God and men for their ignorance of the fullness of the Word so long as the Book was sealed.
With the exception of 144,000 elect Israelites, the whole world, like Esau, will find no place of repentance at the close of our dispensation since the full number of Gentile elect will be complete (Romans 11:25-27). His 'permissive will' was done away when "the mystery of God was finished" through the revelation of the Seven Seals; now as a Judge He will accept nothing less than His 'perfect Will'.
Although Brother Branham's ministry has restored the apostolic faith, Rome, her denominational daughters and most of the independent churches hold to their false baptism in three Titles when all of the saints from Peter on the day of Pentecost to the present day have baptizes in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And unless you are baptized in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ you have not been baptized in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The denominations continue to worship Rome's Babylonian trinity of gods, recite her unscriptural Apostle's Creed (so-called), thereby crucifying the Son of God afresh unto themselves which is the unforgivable sin.
Since the revelation of the Seven Seals, God no longer "winks" at men's ignorance of the fullness of His revealed Word and we must decide whether we are going to continue in error and crucify His Word in order to please the church hierarchy, or "rightly divide the Word of God to show ourselves approved by God" (II Timothy 2:15). Will we determine to serve man and the church, or serve God and abide in His unchanging Word? Like Lucifer who was commissioned to defend and lead man to the Word but directed them to Himself, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, denominations are leading people from the Word to human wisdom. Governed by committees of men they cannot be led by the Spirit and cannot repent; therefore God has been calling His people out from Rome and her harlot daughters to maturity in the unity of the faith for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the translation (Matthew 25:6; I Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 18:4).
The second crucifixion is at Rome, whose fraudulent Christianity impersonates Israel's temple worship and incorporates the pagan Babylonian gods of Rome and Judaism.
Galatians 4:25-31, "Mount Sinai corresponds to the present Jerusalem which is in slavery with her children. But Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all and no slave to Jewish laws. For it is written, Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; break forth with shouting, you who have no birth pangs, because more numerous are the children of the desolate woman than of the one who has a husband. Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of the promise. But as in that time, he that was born according to the flesh persecuted he that was born of the Holy Spirit, so is it today. Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? Cast out the slave girl and her son: for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman. So, brethren, we are not children of the [denominational] slave, but of the freewoman".
The allegory Paul applied to Jerusalem in servitude to the Law of sin and death and the human laws of the Talmud applies equally to Rome and her Protestant daughters bound by denominational creeds and man-made traditions when both could be free in Christ and have the promise eternal Life.
Our Jerusalem is the mind of God. There we were conceived in His image among an innumerable company of elect angels or theophanies of the elect in the appearance of our glorified form by His foreknowledge of our own free choice. Referring to Revelation 19:14, Brother Branham said, "Called, chosen before the foundation of the world, and then faithful to the Word by their choosing, all stimulated with new wine and oil just riding right along, coming down to meet Him." Thus new Jerusalem is expressed from God's eternal thoughts to the Logos and breathed into the flesh of God's elect as we yield to the infusion of His Spirit whereby we subdue and have dominion over that part of earth of which we are formed (Genesis 1:28; Hebrews 12:22-23). Heaven is empty for the space of about half an hour as the revelation of the Seventh Seal brings "those who sleep in Jesus with Him" (Revelation 8:1; 10:1-7; I Thessalonians 4:14). At the first resurrection these theophanies of the sleeping saints will put on glorified flesh while we manifest that we are the Sons of God. When our eyes see beyond the three dimensions we will recognize one of the saints and theophany will replace mortal spirit as our flesh is glorified, then we shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. After the Wedding Supper and Daniel's Seventieth Week we will come down from God out of heaven, prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband for a thousand year honeymoon on earth.
Rome will soon make the present Jerusalem which is allegorically Sodom and Egypt where our Lord was first crucified the capital whence she will rule Lucifer's totalitarian one world government—the empire Jesus refused (Revelation 11:8; Daniel 11:45; Matthew 4:8-9). As Israel's apostate church crucified the Man who was the Word because he contradicted her denominational creeds, Rome and her daughter churches are crucifying the fullness of the Word a second time by rejecting the revelation of Jesus Christ because it condemns their denominational creeds (Revelation 1:1).
When Jesus prayed that we might be one, He meant one in hope and doctrine, which is faith, one in charity; not one by organization (John 17:21; Ephesians 4:3-6, 13; Titus 1:4). If we study the Catholic church, which is "Babylon the great," the mother of organized religions, we find she regards the Bible merely as the history and traditions of the Roman church. She claims God is not in His Word, He is in the church. However the Christian Church is two or three saints together in agreement with His Word, not an organization.
The (once) Protestant churches have also organized: Jesus calls them the image of the beast and Rome's harlot daughters (Revelation 13; 17). If we place any one of these organized churches before a mirror, instead of the image and glory of her Husband the Word as we should expect, we see an image of Rome (I Corinthians 11:1-9). Instead of God's unchanging Word (and every one), we see the Bible-denying Apostles' Creed introduced some two hundred and fifty years after the death of John. Instead of the Person of one God we find three of them along with ancestor worship cloaked in the names of dead saints; instead of baptism by immersion in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ we see sprinkling and pouring in three of His many Titles, and instead of new birth we see a catechism.
The brainwashing of children is commonly attributed to the Jesuits whose motto, "Give me a child for the first seven years and I care not who has him thereafter" (brings to mind another Jewish organization whose motto is "By Way of Deception Thou shalt make War"). This is borne out by the daughter churches of the "great whore" that have the nature of their mother and are equally unfaithful to their espoused Husband, the Word. Each of them is returning to Rome in the second crucifixion of the Word and will soon unite with the state which will kill all that refuse to take Rome's mark of the beast whereby they would crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh.
Revelation 13:11-18, "And I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon. [This was the American buffalo symbolizing the United States which is the image to the beast of Imperial Rome as the apostate (once) Protestant churches are the image of Papal Rome]. It exercises all the power of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, who's deadly wound was healed. It works great wonders, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of men. By means of the wonders it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, [atomic and hydrogen bombs], it deceives those who dwell on earth, bidding them make an image to the beast [of Imperial Rome] which was wounded by the sword and yet lived [as Papal Rome]. And it was permitted to give life to the image of the beast [or union of apostate Protestant churches], that the image of the beast should both speak, and command that all who do not do obeisance to the image of the beast should be killed. Also it compels all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast, or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six".
The mark in the right hand indicates the obeisance of one who serves Rome's will; the mark in the forehead indicates the obeisance of one who has received Rome's Trinity doctrine. The number of the beast is calculated by adding the numerical values of the prime papal office which is Vicarivs Filii Dei, "Substitute for the Son of God" or "Instead of the Holy Spirit":