Here's a poem for you ... If you listen carefully you'll recognize wisdom in these cynical remarks. And because spirits don't die, and we tend not learn from the mistakes of past history, history repeats, and repeats, and repeats.
The poem's called - "The Gods of the Copybook Headings". It was written by the famous Rudyard Kipling in 1919.
| As I
pass through my incarnations In every age and race, I make my proper prostrations To the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. |
| We were
living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in our turn That Water would certainly wet us, As Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas, While we followed the March of Mankind. |
| We moved
as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne, Like the Gods of the Market Place, But they always caught up with our progress, And presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, Or the lights had gone out in Rome. |
| With the
Hopes that our World is built on They were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; They denied she was even Dutch; They denied that Wishes were Horses; They denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market, Who promised these beautiful things. (Like a Goods & Services Tax). |
| When the
Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, (Like GUN control and DISARMAMENT). That the wars of the tribes would cease. And when we disarmed, They sold us, Delivered and bound to our foe, (The Pharisees of the UN), And the Gods of the Copybook Headings Said: "Stick to the Devil you know." |
| On the
first Peminian Sandstones We were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour, And ended by loving his wife) Till our women had no more children (Abortion and birth control), And the men lost reason and faith, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings Said: "The Wages of Sin is Death." |
| In the
Carboniferous Epoch We were promised abundance for all, By robbing selective Peter, To pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, There was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings Said: "If you don't work you die." (Economic rationalism, level playing field, NWO). |
| Then the
Gods of the Market tumbled, And their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew, And the hearts of the meanest were humbled And began to believe it was true That All is not Gold that Glitters, And Two and Two do make Four -- And the Gods of the Copybook Headings Limped up to explain it once more. |
| As it
will be in the future, It was at the birth of Man -- There are only four things certain, Since Social Progress began:-- That the Dog returns to his Vomit And the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's finger Goes wabbling back to an infernal Fire; |
| And that
after this is accomplished, And the brave New World Order begins When all men are paid for existing, And no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, As surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings With terror and slaughter return! |
| Be sure YOUR sins will find you out! |
As Christians, we see by faith and not by sight. We don't focus on the symptoms of natural circumstances we can see with our eyes or feel with our hands, but upon the Supernatural promises faith sees in God's Word. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is more real than the material world that can be contacted with our senses. The material world will fade away. Faith must come to pass.
I'd like to encourage you by comparing man's too-often negative thinking with God's Promises which are always positive.
Man says, "It's impossible". God says, "All things are possible" (Luke 18:27). "I'm too tired". . . "I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28-30).
"Nobody really loves me". . . "I love you so much I gave my only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him may have eternal Life" (John 3:16).
"I can't go on". . . But "My grace is sufficient" (II Corinthians 12:9). "I can't figure things out". . . "I will direct your steps" (Proverbs 20:24). "I can't do it". . . "You can do all things through Christ" (Philppians 4:13).
"I'm not able". . . "God is able to give you sufficiency in all things" (II Corinthians 9:8). "It's not worth it". . . "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).
"I can't forgive myself". . . "I forgive you" (I John 1:9; Romans 8:1). "I can't manage". . . "I'll supply all your need" (Philippians 4:19). "I'm afraid". . . "I haven't given you a spirit of fear; but of authority, and of love and of a sound mind" (II Timothy 1:7).
"I'm always worried". . ."Cast all your care on Me" (I Peter 5:7). "I haven't enough faith". . . "I've given everyone a measure of faith" (Romans 12:3). "I'm not smart enough". . . "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God" (James 1:5). "I feel so alone". . . "I will never leave you or forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5).
-oOo-
We're watching the ending of history, and also the ending of time.
Great men through the ages have longed to see this hour we're now approaching. We live in the glorious setting of mortal sun and the breaking of the Eternal Light. We're living in one of the grandest ages man's been permitted to witness, because it's the closing out of time and the blending in of eternity. History only records what has been. The future in the hand of God was foretold in His Bible.
There's not much history being written today, and I doubt if it'll ever be used. Time and history are nearly finished. It seems like no nation knows just what to do. There's turmoil everywhere. Communism is sweeping the world. Yet we're told Communism's dead.
Jesus prophesied a time when there'd be distress among nations. Russia's Prime Minister sacked his government after the Pharisees of the WB and IMF destroyed their economy, collapsing the currency so they can enslave their citizens and legally steal their assets. They did the same in Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Japan and China will follow soon. Australia fell years ago. So did once Great Britain and the US. We were defeated by pride when the Pharisees encouraged us to make a show of Christian principles at taxpayer expense, and citizen's lives. But our form of godliness was without faith, and our pride caused us to believe the Devil's lie and be damned by it. He said "All men are created equal". But all men are NOT created equal. Not all men are God's creation. He told Thomas Jefferson the same lie. God separated Israel from the nations as He separated us from the nations and the denominations.
Look at us today, we joined a League of Nations and a UN and we're under the curse of God for intermarrying with the people of God's curse, and for mixing God's Word with their religions. "As it was in the days of Noah", we're fulfilling the prophecies of our Lord Jesus.
I believe we're near the end of the Gentile dispensation. And if we're so close, where should the church be? It's a great crisis!
And there's a home life crisis. It used to be that father was head of the house. He'd speak with his family, and they'd read from the Bible, all gather 'round the table, and have prayer. You don't see that today. When day was done and the dishes were washed, they'd gather, and read some more, then pray before going to bed.
Juvenile delinquency was unheard-of in those days. The boys all went to the fields to work, and the girls helped mom with the washing. Today, we push a button and the dishes are all done; Mum's in the car and gone to the club, or she's ratting around the streets. The work's done by a tractor and we're nothing but lazy, idle people. And home life is so neglected, they'd have to hunt for a hour to find the Bible in many homes today.
Some folk go to church on Sundays for twenty minute's of religion. And if the pastor takes thirty, he's called up before the board.
It used to be that father and mother loved, honored, and cherished one another. And when she was old, and gray, and wrinkled up; her little face drawn up and her glasses hanging down over her nose, Pop loved her as much as he did when she was young and pretty.
But today when she gets a little old, he just swaps her for a new model. Like trading-in the old Ford! It seems as if real family love doesn't exist much any more. Home life is running out. Jesus said, the love of many would grow cold.
Friendship's also running out. It seems we don't have the friends that we used to have. And the friends that we do have aren't loyal like friends used to be. Once, when someone in the neighborhood got sick, everybody came around and helped them with their work, and anything that needed to be done. Sat up with them all night. Nowadays we hardly know the neighbor's dead until we see it in the paper.
Dad has a key to the house, mother has hers. They're both out half the night; and they don't know where the children are. The little ones are with the babysitter, and that's how life is lived.
You know, the Bible predicted all these things. So we're standing, watching them acted-out.
Let's take church life. That's where Life begins. Church life is running out. The people treat the church almost as an idol, like a totem pole. They sit in church for five minutes and, "I've done my religion," put a little something in the plate to pay the pastor, instead of tithing, and if that's not enough they have a supper. And if he's not satisfied, he hauls off somewhere that'll give him a better wage. Seems the pastor's not Divinely called anymore and it's just his meal ticket. He'll go wherever he's offered the most money. It shouldn't be that way.
It should be that a man's called of God to a community. And if he had to wait there like Elijah, on top of the mountain at the brook Cherith, and expect the crows to feed him, he should stay till his Divine mission's fulfilled. Whether he gets a penny or nothing, it should be the call of God, first.
But it seems to have changed to the call of money, or a bigger position, or to become a more popular person in a bigger church. It's just fulfilling the Word of the living God.
It points to the running out of time, and the end of the Gentile dispensation. The Holy Spirit said that in the last days, churches would be heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, and despisers of those that are good. So if the Bible predicted such things, how can we expect anything else? But "a form of godliness and denying the power thereof."
Go through this nation today, and find a handful of believers that believe, I mean, real believers that believe that Jesus Christ really lives. They use the church as an idol. And some of them go just once a year, and that's at Easter.
A minister said, "I told all my people on Easter morning, 'A merry Christmas,'" because, "I won't see you any more till Christmas or next Easter. So, 'A merry Christmas.'"
We know something has to happen, it just can't go on like this. No one has time to stop for five minutes. They're just pushing, and shoving, and hurrying through the streets.
The roads are like a race track. Where are they going? What's the matter? They're in such a rush because men and women have become lovers of this present world. Whereas their desire ought to be to go home, to read the Bible, and to make time to pray.
We have one solid foundation, and that's God's blessed, holy Word, "For heavens and earth will pass away, but God's Word shall never pass away. And upon this rock..." God said, "I'll build My church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it."
What a privilege it is to be able to reach over and get God's good old Bible, turn the pages back, and know that we're reading Truth, and to see that these conditions happened in days gone by, for it speaks of a historical God. And the only way that we're ever going to cope with them, is to lift that historical God out of history. For through all days, from the Flood, to the time of Lot, and the Exodus before the coming of Christ, and throughout Church history, He never fails when called upon. He's always there.
When Israel was in Egyptian bondage, life was hard and they served the Egyptians with rigor. It seemed as if everyone had grown cold, like Laodicea. Did you know Israel was in Egypt twice as long as Australia's been settled? They were four hundred and thirty years in bondage.
But when it seemed like all hopes were gone, one man and his wife had faith in the historical God, Who spoke to Abraham in his time of crisis, and they believed He would answer their prayers.
Amram was perhaps one of the few, who regardless how tired he was, each night he'd call on the God of Abraham. And surely if He was God in the days of Abraham, Job, Isaac, and Jacob in their time of distress, He'd be God in his day. And if He was God in Moses' day, He's God today. He just needs to be called up out of history, onto the scene of action.
Amram prayed night after night, no matter how tired, proving his faith in that God. But today, if people don't get everything they ask for the first time they pray, they seem to think He's dead.
What we need today is prayer warriors. Men and women who won't take "No" for an answer but determine to hold on, until they see a God Who really lived, come into action.
-oOo-
If someone's sick, and the doctor's said they can't get well, yet something within them tells them they're going to be well, hold on no matter what takes place.
Are you so bound to the denominational world that you've used all your strength walking from place to place, without finding relief? There is a God Who still answers prayer and saves from sin.
And as we can see Amram, on those wearying nights, back bleeding, praying until two and three in the morning, it seemed like he was just talking to the wind. But in his heart burned a faith that no winds of doubt could ever blow out. That's the kind of men and women we need to rise on the scene today. If God doesn't answer tonight, He will tomorrow night. If He doesn't answer this year, He will next year, for He is God.
That's the way every Christian ought to feel tonight, not waiting for somebody else, but take the front ourselves and go through.
We believe the Bible to be history, but it's also a prophetic book that tells us the same God shall rise in the last days. And it's time for Him to appear on scene. Amram knew, that Abraham had been given a promise by this God of history Who hadn't answered a prayer on the record in four hundred years. But He promised that He'd bring them out.
And It seems we've had a silent God for a long time. But He's risen on the scene crying, "Come out of Babylon and be filled with the Spirit". And the people know it not.
According to the Bible God promised three Exoduses. In the first Exodus, He raised up Moses to call Israel out of Egyptian bondage. In the second, He raised up Paul to call the Church out of Israel, who were in bondage to the Law and their own carnal works. Today we're living in the days of the third Exodus. God raised another prophet by the Name of William Branham to call His people out of the bondage of Roman creeds and traditions into the glorious Light of the fullness of His Word, and into the unity of the faith for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the translation.
The fullness of the Word is Christ's second or "parousia" Coming. Some people are looking for the glorified Jesus to drop out of the sky like Superman. But that's not the promise of God's Word. Jesus said He'd come as a thief, and that no one would realize that He'd been and gone, taking with Him the Bride of all Ages. The living Bride in the end-time are so few they'll not be missed.
Oh, they say the Catholics'll go, and the Methodists, the Baptists and Anglicans. But how can they imagine such a vain thing as the denominationals going to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in the Sky? In Matthew 25 and in Revelation 18, Jesus said He'd call His elect out from all of them because the denominational churches are apostate, and know it not. Their end in the Lake of Fire. radio113.htm