Hi, I'm Brother Anthony, welcoming you to 'Bible Believers', where we focus on the present Truth - what Jesus is doing now. A special 'Hi' to all of our new listeners.
Last week we spoke about prayer, and the way our Savior taught us how to pray.
God is more interested in our holiness than our comfort. He more greatly delights in the integrity and purity of His Church, than its material well-being. He more readily shows Himself to men and women who enjoy and obey Him, than to folk whose horizons revolve around good jobs, nice houses, and health. He's building a temple in which His Spirit dwells, not preserving our reputations.
God's more disposed to display His grace, than to flatter our intelligence. To stretch our faith, than to extend our popularity. He wants us to pursue daily death, not self-fulfillment. For the latter leads to death, while the former leads to life.
These essential values of the Gospel must condition our praying, as they shaped Paul's. Indeed, they become the ground for our praying. And a wonderful comfort, a marvelous boost to faith, to know that we're praying in line with the declared will of Almighty God.
Many ask: 'Why not leave other faiths alone? Don't all worship the same God in different ways?'
No! Christianity is the only faith. All others are false trails, which don't lead to God. Jesus said, "I am the way to God, the only sacrifice. No one comes to the Father except through the Me" (John 14:6).
Peter said "Salvation is found in no one else" (Acts 4:12).
Jesus commanded His disciples "to go into all the world and preach the Gospel", Mark 16:15. However the end-time evangelism is not to those who know they're heathens, but to heathens who think they're Christians. The call in this day is, 'Come out of Babylon, and be filled with the Spirit' (Revelation 18:4).
Since the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the foundation of the church, Christianity has continued to spread throughout the earth. In the first century it spread through the Mediterranean world, (including England, parts of North Africa and India). The false church organized at the First Nicea Council, and became the official religion of the pagan Roman Empire in the fourth century. In the eighth and ninth centuries, it spread to northern Europe at the point of a sword, killing any and all who refused to submit.
By the 15th-16th centuries, the Light of the Reformation, began to shine through the darkness of the false church, and spread from Europe to America, which was settled in part by godly people seeking to escape the religious oppression of England and Europe.
The modern missionary movement began about 200 years ago, with William Carey. Since then a quarter of a million missionaries have gone to almost every country on earth. Yet today, only 30% of the world's population is nominally Christian, up from 20% in 1900. If Bible types are any guide, and Jesus applied them to our day, less than one in a million of the nominal Christians are born-again and therefore, genuine Christians who'll be in the first Resurrection, the Wedding Supper and the Millennium.
In the days of Noah, one man was translated from a whole world of people. Enoch was a type of the end-time Bride, he was translated without death. Noah and his family represent the 'saved', without the Holy Spirit, who stand before the saints at the White Throne Judgment. Of those carried over in the Ark, five were saved: three were lost. Ham, sin, was still in there, showing that after the millennium, there must be a resurrection and judgment.
In the days of Lot, Abraham and Sarah typed the end-time Bride. We receive new bodies, before we meet our Promised Son, just as they were renewed in the atoms, before Isaac came. Like Noah's family, Lot and his family represent the saved, going through tribulation. Mrs. Lot was ultimately lost along with every soul in that gentile civilization. And when God burns this Gentile civilization at the end of Daniel's Seventieth Week, all life on earth will perish and earth will be renewed for the Millennium
One in a million. There'll be very few translated at the end of the Gentile dispensation. And very few will be 'saved'. God ends both the Gentiles and the Jews in UNBELIEF.
SECULAR HUMANISM is now the fastest growing religion. It might be described as 'designer religion' because one makes up the rules to suit oneself. Of the remainder, 20% is Muslim, the fastest growing older religion in the world, having almost doubled this century; 13.5% is Hindu, and 11.5% Buddhist. Of the remaining 25%, 0.025% are Jewish, over 90% of whom are Ashkenazi Jews and not related to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by blood - or by faith. The remainder are animist, spiritist or other minor religions and sects, plus 18.5%, or one billion people, who have no religion or are atheist. These would include many secular humanists.
Of the 30% NOMINAL Christians, half are Roman Catholic, one third Protestant and a sixth evangelical. Evangelicals are growing twice as quickly as other nominal Christians. I wonder what percentage of these nominal Christians are in fact secular humanist?
These statistics were contained in a publication of the 'Church Missionary Society'. It adds, that there are 6,500 language groups in the world, yet portions of the Bible are available in only 2,000 of these.
And it's later than we think. We're living in the end of the last generation, just before the close of the Gentile dispensation, the end of God's grace.
Jesus stated emphatically, 'that the generation that saw Israel restored to the Promised Land, is the last generation, before the destruction of all life on earth'. This generation is no more than atomic fodder.
Campaigning against French Atomic tests in the Pacific is, as the Ambassador correctly said, 'irrational'. Muroroa Atoll is twice the distance from Australia than the Indian, or Chinese tests, further away than the Russian tests, and they're underground and under the ocean. It'll only raise the profile and revenues of Greenpeace, and of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition parties.
Now, I'm not advocating nuclear warfare, but its time to get REAL, and stop wearing God on our shirt sleeves. IF you want a SAFE PLACE for yourselves and your loved ones, the ONLY way you'll find it is to 'get INTO Christ' - then you'll partake of the glorious Millennium reign. That's where the kingdom's restored to Israel. But UNTIL the Millennium, wars ARE determined.
With or without the French, this world is headed for Armageddon and the nuclear annihilation of all life on earth.
Well, Jesus was quite certain that the generation which saw Israel restored to the Promised Land would not pass away with the natural passage of time before this takes place. And the true Church will be translated seven years before that time, for in the last seven years God deals with 144,000 true Israelites, IN Israel, pours out His WRATH in the plagues, and LOOSES the nations for the Battle of Armageddon. Just look how Australia and the once Christian world, is preparing the way of the kings of the East as Jesus prophesied.
Sure, we have no time to waste. God's grace turns to judgment after the end of the Gentile dispensation. Even the 144,000 elect Israelites will be martyred. And anyone who imagines himself to be an Israelite, claiming the Covenant of Moses, yet living outside the Promised Land, is OUTSIDE that Covenant.
There is only ONE way: recognize YOUR day and ITS Message. Search the Scriptures to discover what God said He'd do now, in THIS day. When you see THAT part of the Word manifesting through YOUR life, you KNOW you're born-again. A written epistle. Christ IN you willing and doing His Own good pleasure.
God is known by simplicity and a revelation of Jesus Christ in the most illiterate person. See? NOT your theology. It's a revelation of Jesus Christ. "Upon this rock, I'll build My Church" - no other rocks are accepted; no other things accepted; no other Roman rock; no other Protestant rock; no other school; no other nothing; but the revelation of Jesus Christ in a new birth. He's born in there, and injects His Own Life, and your life is gone, and the Life of Christ is projecting Itself through you because you're under preeminence. And people see the very life, and works and signs and wonders He once did. Only now He's doing the same things through you. Outside of that, the rest of it's not even called to at all.
Watch God's great revelation unfolding. Lack of this revelation is the reason we have so many divisions among us and so much mockery. The divisions are because the people lack that revelation. See? They lack that revelation because of the teachers. Their ministers must first be partakers of the revelation God's unfolding for this day, before they can feed their flock. without that revelation, all they can do is repeat a history of what Jesus did in the past.
In a moment, we'll continue with our review, of how god unfolded His revelation, to His elect, through the Ages since Pentecost. If we can see what Scriptures He's already fulfilled in the past, we can see what remains to be fulfilled, and recognize ouR day and ITS Message.
You'll remember when we reviewed the First or EPHESIAN Church Age, we encountered the DEEDS of the Nicolaitanes, which established a HIERARCHY within the clergy, between God and man. In the Third or PERGAMEAN Age these 'DEEDS' were entrenched into law, by the FALSE vine church. In the revelation, Jesus no LONGER calls them DEEDS, but the DOCTRINE of the Nicolaitanes.
The THIRD Age revealed by the Spirit of prophecy, that the WORLDLY church would adopt Nicolaitanism as a DOCTRINE. The separation of the clergy from the laity grew from the Biblical truth of the ELDERS - (shepherds of LOCAL flocks) ruling the flock by the Word, to the 'DEEDS of Nicolaitanes' wherein the clergy set themselves in ranks, one over the other; and this unscriptural formula then evolved into a priesthood that placed the clergy between man and God, giving the clergy certain rights, all the while denying the laity their God-given rights. This was usurpation. In this Age it became a DOCTRINE. It was established in the church as the ASSURED Word of God, which indeed it was NOT. But the clergy CALLED it the Word of God, and therefore the doctrine was ANTICHRIST.
Because HUMAN government, is POLITICS, pure and simple, the church became involved in politics. This involvement was welcomed by a dictator-emperor, who joined church politics with state politics, and by force established the false church (Satan's FALSE religion) as the true religion. And through several edicts by various emperors, we find the false church, with state power, destroying the true vine even more avidly.
Sad to say, the true vine was not exactly immune to this doctrine. By that, I don't mean to say that the true vine ever did establish Nicolaitane ideas as a doctrine. Far from it. but that little worm of death kept sucking at the true vine, hoping that it might fall. Even within the true church, men whom God had called as overseers, were holding that title to mean a little more than just a local responsibility. It was not the clear understanding of Paul, that existed in the church at this time. For Paul had said, "And they glorified GOD in me." No matter what authority Paul had, he kept the people looking to GOD, from Whom is ALL authority. But the clergy were always looking to Divine Leadership PLUS human, and thus, in giving honor where honor was NOT due, we find the TRUE church was spotted with HUMANISM. With Nicolaitanism established. APOSTOLIC succession, PLACED ministers, pastors VOTED in, etc., it was only ONE step for the FALSE church to proceed to BALAAMISM.
The SECOND step to the 'depth of Satan' was now in full progress.
This SECOND step was the doctrine of Balaam, (described in Revelation 2:14), wherein Balaam taught Balac to STUMBLE the children of Israel by a 'united meeting.' There the guests would do two more things contrary to the Word of God. You'll recall that Balac needed help to keep his kingdom. He called on the most dominant spiritual figure of his day, Balaam. Balaam gave the advice that trapped and destroyed Israel. It was first of all, to suggest that they all get together and 'talk things over, and eat together' and get things ironed out. After all, understanding each other, goes a long way. Once you accomplish that, you can go from there. The next step would be worshiping together, and of course, a little pressure from the host, usually makes the guests go a lot further than they intended.
Now that didn't only happen back there to God's church of the Old Testament, it happened to the church of the New Testament, for there was an emperor, who, like Balac, needed help to secure his kingdom. Constantine invited the nominal Christian, First Church of Rome, to help get the Christians behind him, as they were a very large body.
The outcome was the Nicene Council of 325. There, the Christians, both true and nominal, came together at the invitation of Constantine. The true Christians had no business even going up to the meeting. In spite of all Constantine could do to unite them all, the real believers knew that they were out of place and left ... before the Council sat.
To those who remained, Constantine gave of the state's treasury, along with political and physical force. The people were introduced to idol worship and spiritism, for statues with the names of saints were placed in the buildings, and the people were taught to commune with the dead, or pray to saints which is nothing more nor less than spiritism. For the food that man truly needs, even the word of god, they were given creeds, and dogmas and rituals, which were also enforced by the state; and above all, they were given three gods with the triple compound name of the One true God, and water baptism in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ gave way to the PAGAN baptism of three TITLES.
The REAL believers ought not to have gone there. They had already lost much truth, and now they, too, would lose the understanding or faith of godhead and forfeit names for Titles in water baptism.
Now watch this doctrine of Balaam most carefully. Notice above all, that its the deliberate maneuver of a corrupt clergy, to bind the people to them, by leading them deliberately into unbelief, or sin. The Nicolaitane doctrine was the corruption of the clergy, as they sought political power amongst themselves, while Balaamism is the subjection of the people to their system of creed and worship, in order to hold them.
Now watch this carefully. What was it that bound the people to the nominal church, and thereby destroyed them? It was CREEDS and DOGMAS formed into church tenets. It was the DOCTRINE of the Roman Catholic Church. They were not given the true Food, the Word. They were given the food that came from idol worship, Babylonian paganism, wrapped up in Christian terminology.
That very same spirit and doctrine is right amongst all Protestants and it's called denomination. Nicolaitanism is organization, humanizing the leadership of the church, and thereby deposing the Spirit. Balaamism is denominationalism which takes the church manual instead of the Bible. And right to this hour, many of God's people are caught in the snare of denominationalism, and God is crying to them, "Come OUT of her, My people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not her plagues." You see, they are IGNORANT. But if the rapture should take place at this moment, ignorance would be no court of appeal, from the judgment of God for being in the wrong ranks.
For the clergy to organize themselves, with one rank over another, until they're finally headed up by a president, is a manifestation of the antichrist spirit, regardless of how wonderful and necessary it may seem. It's nothing but human reasoning taking the place of faith in the Word. And any person who's in the organized denominations, is right in the midst of an antichrist system. Now let me say this, and make it very plain. I am NOT against the PEOPLE. I'm against the SYSTEM.
With a state and church union, the stage had been set for the DARK Ages. And indeed for about 1000 years, the church went into the depth of blackness, knowing the depths of Satan.
When a religious people embrace both Nicolaitanism and balaamism, and have the political, financial and physical power to back it up, there's only one direction they can go. That direction is right into the Jezebel doctrine. But that would take us into the THYATIRA Age, and we'll leave that historical review for another day. radio023.html