I'm Brother Anthony, welcoming you to another 'Bible Believers Program', where we zoom-in upon the PRESENT Truth of what Jesus is doing NOW. A special 'hello' to all of our new listeners.
The Gentile dispensation commenced on the Day of Pentecost, when the 120 original members of the Church were born-again in an upper room. Yet few who call on the lovely Name of our Lord Jesus today, realize that the Gentile dispensation was typed by the Jews' Feast of Pentecost, in Leviticus 23. And like that Feast, it has within itself, nine separate and distinct dispensations.
Christ's building a temple, a house in which God can dwell through eternity. And there are several turns in the walls of the house, so that they'll eventually meet and enclose the living space. Most people, however, forget He's building a house, and when He makes a turn, they ignore the instructions in his plan, the Bible, and keep on erecting their wall, as if He were building a fence.
At the end of each of the Seven Church Ages, in Revelation 1 to 3, there was a turn. Once God completed the last saint predestinated to an Age, He began to unfold a further revelation of Jesus Christ through the ministry of another earthly 'angel' or messenger. The people predestinated to this further part of the Body of Christ, or house of God, heard the Message for their day; and their faith, baptized them into this continuation of the Body. Those imprisoned in denominational walled cities, kept impersonating the Word for a day gone by; extending the line of a wall that's already complete. Building outside the plan for God's House. And outside the Body of Christ.
Picture a house with nine walls, and the workers laying bricks in seven different directions at once - beyond the dimensions of the plan? If each Church Age represented a corner, or turn, in the walls of God's House, they'd be outside the boundaries of the land. If they failed to follow a turn at the dispensation changes of the past 2,000 years, they'd be building on the Devil's land.
That's a picture of the church today, (so-called). Denominations! They can't agree among themselves; all of them disagree with God's Word for this hour. Yet the last part of the wall must meet up with the first part. The Omega faith of the end-time Bride must match the Alpha faith of the Apostolic saints. In Revelation 1:8, Jesus says He is Alpha and Omega. The SAME Gospel Light that shone in the morning of the church is RESTORED in the evening-time. He's the Word. Not what was in between: that was ERROR. Paul calls it 'that which was in part'. As a Mediator, Christ interceded for these errors taught in His Name. He is NOT a Mediator now.
Do you see it? The Great Master Builder had to send us a prophet in these last days, to restore the Apostolic faith, to give us the same interpretation of His plan, His Bible, as was once delivered to the saints. That's what Joel, Malachi, Jesus, Matthew, and Acts promised. Elijah truly shall come before the end of the Gentile dispensation, and restore all things God has already spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. And he came. His name was William Branham. His ministry did restore the faith.
Oh, how we should search the Scriptures, God's plan for His dwelling Place. That City not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. The only way we can become the living Temple of the living God, is to recognize OUR day, and ITS Message, and see THAT part of the Word manifesting through us. We CAN'T be a part of the Sardis Age in THIS day. The Lutherans, Anglicans, and Presbyterians made up that part of Christ's Body hundreds of years ago. Neither can we become part of the Philadelphian Age in this day. That part was completed by Methodist, Baptist and other holiness groups in 1906. And we can't be baptized into the Pentecostal or Laodicean part of the Body, which was completed before the revelation of the Seven Seals, in 1963.
Oh, my Brother or Sister, search the Scriptures. Find out what God is doing now. All seven Church Ages are over. Christ's mediation has ended. He's sent His prophet in our day. The mystery of God IS finished. Christ is calling His Bride OUT from ALL man-made teachings, into oneness with His Word, for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the translation.
Today, we're going to review another of the Seven Church Ages. And we'll be looking at the Thyatira Age which lasted from 606 - 1520, and is more generally known to historians by the descriptive title of 'the Dark Ages'.
A little later in the program, we'll comment on a very challenging question posted in the computer network by a BBS user from Tahoe City, California. I believe that's just off Highway 80, up in the mountains. And very pretty country too.
With a state and church union, the stage has been set for the Dark Ages. And indeed for about 1,000 years the church went into the depth of blackness, knowing the depths of Satan.
What did Jesus say produced this apostasy? What but NICOLAITANISM and BALAAMISM. Nicolaitanism was the establishment of a HIERARCHY within the clergy wherein men exercised authority over each other. And standing between God and His people, they usurped the laity of their God-GIVEN liberty. This, Jesus HATES.
Balaamism is SUBSTITUTION. As Balaam substituted his OWN will and teaching for the clearly revealed Word of God, the FALSE vine church usurped the faith of Jesus Christ with their creeds and man made traditions.
When a religious people embrace both Nicolaitanism and Balaamism, and have the political, financial and physical power to back it up there is only one direction they can go. That direction is right into the Jezebel doctrine. Now why do we say this? Because as we learn in a study of the FOURTH Age, Jezebel was a Sidonian, the daughter of Ethbaal, who was king-priest to the goddess Astarte. And he was a murderer. This woman married King Ahab of Israel for POLITICAL expediency. She then took over the RELIGION of the people, and murdered the Levites, and erected temples wherein she caused the people to worship ASTARTE (or Venus), and BAAL (the Sun god). She FORMULATED the teaching, and made her priests TEACH it, and they in turn, made the people accept it.
There, you can see exactly what the nominal church was in the Dark Ages. They'd left the Word of God entirely, except for names and titles of Godhead, and a few Scriptural principles. They bent what they did take out of the Bible, by changing its meaning. Their college of bishops wrote huge essays. Their popes declared themselves infallible. Saying they received revelation from God, they spoke as God to the people. All this was taught to the priests, who made the people believe it through fear.
To dissent was death, or excommunication, which might be worse than death. It was now the church with the assured voice that took over, and wild with power, they drank the blood of the martyrs, until the true christians were all but exterminated, and there was hardly any Word left, and little manifestation of the Holy Ghost. But the true vine struggled and survived. God was faithful to His little flock, and in spite of what Rome might do to their bodies, Rome could not kill the spirit within them, and the Light of the Truth shone on, backed by the Holy Ghost and power.
This is a good place, to make an illuminating observation:
Look. The deeds and doctrines of the Nicolaitanes, the doctrine of Balaam, and the teaching of the false prophetess, Jezebel, do not constitute three spirits or make three spiritual principles. These three are but the various manifestations of the same spirit, as it goes from depth to depth. What it all is, is the antichrist spirit of organization in its three various stages.
Once the clergy separated themselves and organized themselves they oppressed the people by leading them into, and binding them to organization. Organization based upon creeds and dogma, which they taught the people, instead of the pure Word of God.
Ritual and ceremony was given an increasing part in worship. Soon this whole system, was a militant and diabolical power, that did its best to control all - through the persuasion of discourse, or literal force. It received its energy from its own false prophecies, and not the Word of God. It was now absolutely antichrist, though it came in Christ's Name.
After what seemed an interminable time, wherein Truth must surely die, men began to protest the vileness of the Roman Catholic Church, because by no stretch of the imagination, could God be in such teaching and such conduct. The protests were disregarded, and died from failure to arouse attention, or were quashed by Rome.
Then God in His sovereign grace, sent a messenger, by the name of Martin Luther, to start a reformation. Next week we'll speak about the Reformation of the Roman Catholic system of worship that began with Luther in the Sardis Church Age, was continued by John Wesley in the Philadelphian Church Age, and ended in the Laodicean, or Pentecostal Church Age. Then, the Message of the prophet-messenger to Laodicea, restored the apostolic faith, to bring us into agreement with the fullness of the revealed word, and to call his end-time Bride out from Rome, and her Protestant daughter churches, for the manifestation of the Sons of God, and the translation.
The Reformation was fine as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. Through the Dark Ages, the faith (or understanding of the Bible) was lost. The faith had been in the hearts of God's saints, the true Church, and It went to the grave with them when they were martyred by the false church. So the Reformers sought only to take the church back to the First Nicea Council, where the Roman system of worship was introduced. They failed to take the church back to Pentecost, and to the one and only faith of Jesus Christ.
Christ only established one Church, and He only recognizes one Church. That's the Church He founded on the Day of Pentecost. NOW can you see why God had to send us a prophet? The Word of God comes only to a prophet, not to reformers, or theologians. And the Fullness of the Word had to be restored, to bring His end-time Bride under pre-eminence to the Word, for the manifestation of the Sons of God. And to condemn the world and bring it to judgment for rejecting that Word.
So long as the Book was SEALED with Seven Seals, we were IGNORANT of the PERFECT faith. Remember, no man was worthy to open the Book or even look thereon. And until Christ opened the Seals, and revealed their mysteries through a prophet, He had to remain a MEDIATOR for PART-Word. What was He mediating for? The IGNORANCE of the saints. So long as the Book was closed, the saints were ignorant, and men guessed at the meaning of much of God's Word.
God would be unjust to bring judgment while the book was sealed. But now the Book is open, and the mystery has been revealed through his prophet in this day. The world and the worldly false vine church is indicted, and is uniting together against Christ.
By their works, the world and this worldly false vine church will go to the tribulation, and the nuclear holocaust of Armageddon. By her faith, Christ's Bride will change in the atoms, without death, and go to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in the Sky.
Let's review a few comments from Bible Believers' web site.
Anyone on the 'Net, can call Bible Believers', 24-hours a day, seven-days a week. Teaching sermons, freeware Bibles, Concordances, Books, Bible games and much, much more is available for download. Users may participate in Conferences with other believers across Australia and throughout the world, for the cost of a local call.
Now the FIRST message we're going to look at was posted by a user from California. His subject is: 'Are Jews the Chosen People'? He writes:
| $1,000 R E W A R D
| I, Hans Stueven, offer to anyone
| who can find any scripture in the
| Old or New Testament of the King
| James Bible, that states that the
| Jews are God's chosen people.
| Send your claim to:
| Circle Bible Study
| P.O. Box 313
| Tahoe City, California 95730
I don't know if you can find it in your Bible, but anyone willing to make so bold a claim needs all the publicity he can get. Does he have deep pockets? Will he need them? What do you think'?
Dear Brother, I responded, you will not find it in any Bible. His claim is not bold, it is Scriptural. But it certainly does deserve to be publicized, because it may encourage some people to study God's Word for Truth, which refutes this propaganda of those false or self-styled jews who are themselves gentile and unrelated to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob by blood, and certainly not by faith.
And no, he will not need 'deep pockets'. It's a safe bet.
Israel (as distinct from Jewry) was Chosen for a (ONE) task. They were to live holy lives and evangelize the Gentiles. They did neither, and continue to do the opposite to what God commanded Israel under the Old Covenant.
Our second correspondent comes was South Australia. In a message to someone else, I'd paraphrased Revelation 10:7 thus, 'Before the seventh TRUMPET angel sounds the END the Gentile dispensation, the Mystery of God will be of finished by the seventh Church Age angel or last messenger to the Gentiles'. He wrote:-
To which I responded, 'The only thing that matters, is what it means! The Word without the Spirit is death. We must have faith.
The Seventh trumpet sounds the end of the Gentile dispensation. It calls the first Resurrection, the manifestation of the Sons of God, our body change, and translation to the Wedding Supper in the Sky, it calls 144,000 elect Israelites to the Feast of Trumpets by the preaching of two prophets.
But before any of this can take place, the angel to the seventh Church Age must 'finish the mystery of God'. God cannot return to Israel until, first He finishes dealing with the Gentiles. And He can't finish with the Gentiles until He's RESTORED the faith.
When the Seventh angel sounded his Message of RESTORATION (Malachi 4:5-6), the Seven Church Ages were OVER: and Christ's ministry of Mediation for ERROR and IGNORANCE was fulfilled. That was in 1963, when Revelation 4, 5 and 10:1-7 were fulfilled. Since the revelation of the Seven Seals we now have the perfect interpretation of the Word. Christ is HERE NOW in WORD Form. The revelation of Seals is the FULLNESS of the Word - It is Christ. radio024.html