Chapter 22

THE GOSPEL LIGHT SHINES BRIGHTER…

Talk about power, there’s power in this Gospel. I’m telling you, we have the message that this world needs today. It will bring life to this confusion: it’s a dead sea. He said the sea becomes full of fish---you know what they are, of every kind. He said the fishers (those are the preachers) could stand from Engedi to Eneglaim. Eneglaim was on the end of the sea and Engedi was on the other. When you have the Gospel, you can catch them, of every kind. Well, where can I preach? You can preach, anywhere from Engedi to Eneglaim. “The Board won’t let me go.” He didn’t say anything about the board. My Jesus said, “Go preach the Gospel to every creature and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned.”

Well, thank God for the water! So we see, that when the star fell, this light is breaking forth greater all the time. You can tell when it’s a greater revelation, because it will be clear, just the same as if I would bring a light bulb in here and turn all the lights out, and have a variable switch on it, and just keep turning it up, the brighter it would become, the better we could see. Even as we’re preaching the light shines brighter and brighter. God has “7 levels” on the variable switch and he has raised it to the 7th level. We have “seven candle power” and God cleared up these things and has given us understanding of His eternal Word. He is finishing the mystery; he has taken the mystery out of it and let us see the truths.

Well, you know what the fountains and rivers were. They were symbols of real experiences in the hearts of the converts during the Lutheran Age. They had fountains and waters. We see the water of life breaking out again. What happened? The fallen ministry: shining as it were a lamp, beginning to make the fountains bitter. Now I’m glad He gave us the name of the star or we wouldn’t get this pin-pointed to this age. Now, go with me to Amos the 5th chapter---the things we have to remember: the prophets got a picture of all this, but they just had a part of it. John received all of it. God prophesied about this very day through Isaiah. Isaiah 30:26

Some people try to fight the thought of seven periods of time through the Gospel day, but Isaiah 30:26 said in that day, (and He began talking about that day in the 2nd chapter) and talked about it all the way through, the Gospel day. He said, “…in that day the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains and all nations shall flow into it.” Now, come over to the 30th chapter, the 26th verse, and he said, “…in that day the light of the moon will be as the light of the Sun. What is the Moon? The Moon is that which the woman had under her feet---the Old Testament (the old covenant). The Moonlight is the shadow or the reflection of the Sun. If there were no sun, there would never, be moonlight. Even so, the Old law was a shadow or a reflection of the New Testament. Isaiah tells about this day and he said, “The light of the Moon will be as the light of the Sun.” Why, you know, there’s been Old Testament prophesies that we had to leave alone, because if we tried to use them, we would misuse them---some of them. But we’re living in a day, when he said the light of the moon would be as clear as the light of the sun, which would be seven fold. That’s what it told us; seven candle power---as the light of seven days.

A FALLEN MINISTRY AND AN APOSTATE CHURCH…

The light of seven days in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, so I pray that God will help us to see, that something happened here, to a fallen ministry, that had a bad effect on the people of God. Now, this won’t do us any good if we just jump on the Lutheran Age today---they’re all in their graves. Now, what’s the trumpet sounding for? People are taking the same attitude today as men did back then, and God is sounding the trumpet, warning of what happened that it might not happen to us.

What we do after we’re awakened, is up to us. Many people are like spoiled children when you awaken them---“Groan…let me be, let me be!” If we want to fuss around and go back to sleep, we have that privilege, but God is trying to get us to awaken to the conditions that we’re sleeping under.

A fallen ministry is causing our trouble today. A ministry that’s backed up on the truth: has lost the old time joy. In too many cases, they can find more pleasure on the golf course than they can, seeing a soul saved. They’re more interested in making par in a game of golf than, in having power in the pulpit. They’re saying, there’s nothing to do---and there’s calls everywhere.

God’s people are awakening. Just might as well line up, ministers, laity and everyone else. We see people rising up against truth, but they can’t stop it. When we were over seas, (after the war was over) we felt that we had been over there long enough. The president said we could come home, but just kept putting us off. We were tired of playing ping-pong and just sitting around. We wanted to come home to our families. We started to get together on the matter. When people get together on some matter, they’re able to get somewhere. So, quite a delegation went to the general, the adjutant general and second lieutenant. And he said, “You can’t come in here.” We just walked by him---about 500 of us. We didn’t wish to be disrespectful of those over us, but we must awake to the fact that something has happened. After we awake to that fact, something has happened, God expects us to do something about this.

In the fifth chapter of Amos, (remembering the Revelation said that the name of the star was wormwood) and if you look in the dictionary you will find that the word, wormwood, means bitterness. We’ll see what the Bible says. Amos 5: Hear ye this word, which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel. The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall rise no more.” The people that went down in the apostasy went down never to rise again. They are spiritually dead. Jude---“fallen angels”, and the Greek calls them fallen messengers or a fallen ministry.

No angels (as heavenly beings) ever fell (literally) out of heaven. The “side boards” of heaven are too high. Ministers are running around saying that angels fell out of heaven and the devil was kicked out of heaven. Jesus did say: “I beheld him fall as lightning from heaven.” In the tenth chapter of Luke, we read where the seventy returned and said: “Jesus, the devils are subject unto us through they name.” He had told them to go out and cast out devils, but still they were surprised when they found it possible to do it, even in His name. They told Him how the devils fled. Satan had held a high place in the lives of those people and had reigned over them and their will, until then. Then the Spirit of God undertook, and they were overcome and cast out. But when they told Jesus about these things he said: “I saw Satan fall from His “lofty position” that he held over men, just as lightning falls out of heaven.” Satan was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. In the beginning was God and you can’t go back any further. We have two lies that Satan tries to get across today, and one of them is as big as the other.

One of them is: the devil, was once in heaven and got kicked out. He would like to make us feel that he was up there. He tries to tell people what’s up there and the rest about it, but he was never there. The other lie is: Jesus went to hell and preached, and this is as big a lie as the other. Now, as to the first lie, let’s look into it. Let’s consider the lie about being cast out of heaven, for sinning. First of all, there’s nothing in heaven to tempt anyone to sin. Heaven is a holy place, and it could not be holy with sin in it. It would lose that title at once and forever. Jesus came to earth and taught us to pray: “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” Everyone does the will of God in heaven. When the rich man ended in hell, and lifted up his eyes and saw Lazarus on Abraham’s bosom, he said: “Send water to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” But Abraham told him that between them and the rich man, there was a great gulf fixed. “We cannot go to you, and you cannot come over here to us.” The virgin daughter of Israel is fallen to never rise again. It is indeed sad, but all too true. The people, likewise, that apostatized, went down to rise no more. They had rejected light.

When preaching in Columbus, we told them that what the Church needs is a good swimming party. Now don’t get excited or shocked. They’ve been playing around in ankle deep water and throwing mud at each other, and we need to get out where the water is deep enough to swim in. When we get out to where we can’t touch bottom, then, we go the way of the river, for then we can’t help ourselves.

Amos said: “The virgin daughter of Zion is fallen.” The trumpet sounded. Let’s look in the Revelation and see what followed the black horse. Remember, the black horse stood for apostasy. We find that the gray horse, (representing death and hell) always follows apostasy. People went down in that sea, never to rise again. Let’s turn now to Amos 5:3, and

read: “For thus saith the Lord God; the city that went out by a thousand, shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten to the house of Israel.” Now what does all this mean? Simply that although multitudes have gone into apostasy, the saints that went in will only come out in very small number and little by little. The great majority (by far) will never return to Zion. This is the burden, the awful sorrow of the heart that cares. They are lost in the great apostasy. What a terrible loss! They have gone down never to rise again. And their vision will get dimmer and dimmer and they will be blind and miserable and poor and not ever realize their true condition to the very end.

WHERE THEY FAIL TO PREACH TRUTH THE GLORY IS DEPARTED…

Men and women who once had a keen vision of Zion and the glory of God upon their hearts, cooled down and became lukewarm, lost their experience, and dying, stepped off the scene of action in that condition and without God. Thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, “Seek me, and ye shall live, Seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to naught; seek the Lord and ye shall live.” That puts us right here, where Martin Luther begins to cry out, “The just shall live by faith.”

God reached right down into Catholicism and found a priest that was bound with the power of it, and set his heart aglow and he started preaching. He said: “Seek the Lord and live.” Do no go to Bethel, Gilgal, or Beersheba. Why? And just what is this a type of or prophecy of? Jereboam had the golden calf at Bethel; Gilgal had idols set up in remembrance of the mighty way that God had done in the past. How does that sound? Do we have any of that going on today? Yes. The same thing happens today. The thing or person that God once used, with no thought of how they are or are not being used today, and worshipping the place of worship that they have and can’t tear themselves away from the prestige, property, or even people, for the pure Gospel. God help us, to awaken the saints, where there’s any spark of life left there; that may be alive and escape for their lives. If the Word of God is held up, and comparison made to the Apostolic Church, it will never stand clear. There’s no divine healing power left in her midst. If God is here in this place, where is He? If God is here, there’s still power to sanctify and to heal. He’s not on vacation. What’s happened? Very little, if any, of this is going on in these places. Can you, saints, remember the glory? This is holy ground.

Let’s go back to the burning bush. That bush caught Moses’ eye because it kept on burning and never burned up, so he went over to look at it. And God said: “Take off your shoes, Moses, this is holy ground.” So God gave him direction. The fire went out and when it went out, that which had been holy ground was just an old bush on the hillside again. We can’t worship the place that God blessed; we worship God. Man is going to worship something. Seek the Lord and ye shall live---lest He break out like fire, in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. 7) Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth.

That’s just what happened. They quit preaching truth; right here. They turned judgment on truth to wormwood and left off righteousness in the earth. The people have become bitter because of it. In the Revelation we read: “The water became bitter.” The scripture plainly says: “Ye who turn judgment to wormwood and leave off righteousness in the earth.” Men actually found the kingdom of God back there. They were born again through early reformers preaching. The Church started out of the wilderness there. Men were born again. But Jesus said: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” They left off fully consecrating. In doing this, they turned judgment to wormwood and left out Christ’s righteousness. Then what happened? The people became bitter. When you leave off holiness, you will become bitter. I realize that I’m in a state of a country where many ministers are leaving off holiness, but that doesn’t change things.

This is strait, but it’s true. “Seek the kingdom”; these people found the kingdom, but they left off righteousness. They turned truth or judgment to wormwood and the people became bitter.

Now, are we sure we’re in the right place in prophecy? Let’s read on, “Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth. Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion.” What and Who is Orion? The Bible dictionary tells us the Orion is the bright and morning star. Let’s read on, “…and turneth the shadow of death into the morning.” Now, who did it? Isaiah 9: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light, they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” That is, they that lived in the land of the shadow of death---the very valley.

In the 23rd psalm, David was going through a very hard place. We live in the valley of the shadow of death every day. The shadow of death hovers over every babe that is born. It may live minutes, hours, weeks; it may live years. Every living being is living with the shadow of death over them. This vale we live in, is the shadow of death. Isaiah said: Unto those people the light has shined.” He also said, “The morning cometh, and also the night.” Amos 5:8: “Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning and maketh the day dark with night, that calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is His name.” Amos is here prophesying the time of Martin Luther, when men following Him began to leave off righteousness, making the waters bitter, and the scripture says in the Revelation, “Many men died because of the waters being bitter.” What followed? When the bitterness got into this fallen religion, they began to build their own sects and creeds and got bitterness and through this fallen religion, many spiritually died. What killed them?

A thirty-year war followed, started by Bloody Mary; coming right on down through the years. Protestant organizations put their own armies on the battlefield to fight for their own creeds and many men died of the waters or of the people that were made bitter. Yet, these people claimed to be Christians. Is it the same today? While the religious world is out there shooting their guns at each other, the world is “dying and going to hell”. Bitterness, bitterness! And it’s getting right in the very camp of the saints. There’s bitterness, because some do not see just as they do; can’t love them---don’t want to fellowship them. The Bible tells us to try the Spirits, not the doctrine. They may have just as good a spirit as the others. This is one thing that’s different in the Church of God, than in all others. Join any of the sects and you have to come to their special creed or line of belief, to be one of them, but in the true Church, a man who is just born into the Kingdom is just as much one of them as an old member of many years. Try the Spirit, and see if it’s, of Christ. That spirit makes a bitter condition and it’s doing so, yet today. May God help us to see, it. The spirit that’s not of Christ is making a bitter condition.

Chapter 23

CARNALITY IS THE SEAT OF ALL DIVISION...

Hebrews 12:14, “Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Look diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness, springing up, trouble you and thereby many be defiled. (16) Lest thereby any fornicator… (he called this business fornication) as Esau…” What’s this spiritual fornication that Paul was talking about? It’s the out growth of this fallen star right here with the false doctrines that divide God’s people and put bitterness in their hearts against the rest of the children of God. They end up selling their birthright. Is that fornication? Why did He call Esau a fornicator? He sold out. What caused him to sell out? He didn’t have the flesh crucified. Ezek. 36:24-25: “For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out from all countries, and will bring you into your own land, (25) Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean, from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. (26) A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”

Carnality is the seat of all division. Get carnality out and God’s people will get together. What is carnality? Carnality is living after the flesh. Verse 27…”And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my statutes and do them.” Before you can get the Spirit of God, you will have to get a right spirit within you. We’ve preached on full consecration every day this week from a different angle, because if you don’t get a different spirit, (a right spirit) you won’t receive the Holy Spirit. There’s a need for it. The Gospel stands beside the prophecy.

John 14:16: “And I will pray the Father and He will give you another comforter that He may abide with you forever. (17) Even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him for He dwelleth with you and shall be in you.” In John 14, “if ye love me, keep my commandments.” The world has to get a right spirit before they can receive the Holy Spirit. The spirit of the world does not want the Holy Spirit. He knocks at their heart’s door, but they reject Him and turn Him away. The world cannot receive Him because they have the spirit of the world. What kind of a spirit is the world’s spirit? It’s a blind spirit. Jesus said they couldn’t see. How do they get blind? 2 Cor. 4:4, “In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. We have to get to where we can see Him before we can have Him.

Not only is the spirit of the world a blind spirit, but an ignorant spirit. It knoweth Him not. But you know Him. Not only a blind spirit, an ignorant spirit, but a disobedient spirit. Paul said in Ephesians: “You hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, where in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” We must obey God and keep His commandments before He will send the comforter to us. Psalm 34 tells us that the Lord is nigh unto them of a broken heart and of a contrite spirit. There are only two spirits---the Spirit of the Lord and the spirit of the devil. But John said there were many that went out. Let’s read Ezk. 36:26: “A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments.”

HOW TO KEEP OFF THE ROUTE TO WORMWOOD…

When you keep God’s judgments and do them, you will keep off the route to wormwood. Ezek. 2 and 2 Kings 2:19: (Jericho was under a blight of divine curse---God told Joshua back in the 6th chapter, when they brought Jericho down, which we proved to you already, was a type of Babylon.) It was the first thing they ran into after they crossed the River Jordan (a type of full salvation under the New Testament). The only one that escaped, was a harlot that owned her condition, put the scarlet colored thread in her window and came out when the message came. God said, “Joshua, the city must never be rebuilt. And if any man tries to build it he will lay the foundation in his oldest son and build the gates in his youngest. What did he mean by that? It would take him a whole lifetime to do it, and after he gets it done, there will be a curse on it. When God tears something down, He doesn’t want us building it up again. If we turn around and build the things we once destroyed, we become a transgressor.

The Bible lets us understand that the Bethelites took the job of building Jericho again. And he got it built. Elijah had passed off the stage of action; Elisha had received his mantle. We need the mantle of God if we’re going to be of God. Elisha was really tried and God will try people yet. He passed up three colleges. Elijah started on his journey and Elisha followed him. They soon arrived at the school of the prophets and the prophets came out and said to Elisha: “You know that Elijah is going to die. Stay here with us.” But he said: “Hold your peace. I’m going with Elijah even if he is going to die.” Then Elijah brought him around to another mountain where there was another school, and the prophets were just getting out. They tried to persuade him to stay there. But Elisha said: “Even if he is going to die, I’m still going to go with him.” Then, Elijah took him to another school and let him visit a while. The prophets said: “Better stay here a while, Elijah is going to die.” Again Elisha said: “If he is going to die, I’m going along with him anyway.” Then Elijah went down and they wanted to cross over the waters. He took his mantle off and waved it out over the waters and the water backed up and they went over on dry ground. Then he turned around and said: “What are you following me for? He answered, “I want a double portion of your spirit.” Elijah told him he had asked a hard thing. Just keep watching; God is going to take me away.

People talk about going into space. Enoch was the first man in space. Elijah went into space and his missile didn’t miss nine times. It went off the first time. Elijah said, keep your eyes on me. When the chariot of fire appeared and the whirlwind, Elisha looked up and said: “…Father, My Father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” Elijah shed his mantle and it fell on Elisha. He went back down to the water and waved the mantle over and the water again receded. He began his labors in the place of Elijah and he was called to serve as his master before him. When people see that God’s hand is on a man, they’ll be calling him and he’ll find plenty to do. 2 Kings 2:19: ”And the men of the city said unto Elisha, behold I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my Lord seeth; but the water is nought and the ground barren.” We have a good set up here, they said, but the water is bitter and not fit to use---so the ground is barren. Verse 20: “And he said: “Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein.” And they brought it to him. He started up the river and just kept going until he reached the very spring or fountain of it, then he threw in the salt and said: (21) “Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from hence forth anymore death or barren land.

That’s the message for our day. Jesus used salt as the symbol of the Holy Spirit. And he’s calling also, for a new cruse (as did Elisha) or a new vessel. He said, “Don‘t put his wine in old vessels.” That’s the reason we have so many failures, trying to put this wind in old bottles. We have to have a new cruse. We must be born again and be new creatures. Then we can put the salt in. It will sweeten the fountain and the waters will be sweet again. Then, the church can quit the miscarrying business and bring forth babes unto God.

Let’s turn to James the 3rd chapter, verse 2: “Does the fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?” Hebrews 12:14: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” Verse 15: “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness spring up, trouble you and thereby many be defiled.” Springs do not spring up unless there’s a root there. When any thing springs up and lives, there has to be a root there. Also the root was there before the thing sprung up. Let’s get the old root out.