A man cannot be a podiatrist
and trim your toe corns without passing an examination to prove that he is
competent to provide this service. But, any fool can become a legislator, and a
lot of fools do become one. Consequently our laws, as a rule, are the products
of unskilled labor. In trying to draft a statute, it isn't too difficult to word
it so that anybody who is trying in good faith can understand it. The big
problem is to word it so that somebody who is trying in bad faith, to
misunderstand it, can't do so.
We have a somewhat similar
problem with the Bible. Somehow, no matter how plainly the Bible states
something, it is always possible for some little sect to pick some verse out of
context, and manage to completely misinterpret it and then make it a principal
doctrine and off they go. We are going to learn about one of these doctrines.
Today, some of our major
churches don't really believe in the return of Yahshua. They don't require their
ordained ministers to claim that they believe they believe Yahshua is actually
returning. Even those who do believe it, can get some surprising differences of
doctrine about this subject. As to what the return of Yahshua will be like,
there is a good deal about this subject in the Bible and it seems to me to be
pretty clear. I want you to learn what some of the churches have done with this
information.
Confusion has arisen because
in Revelation 16: 15 Yahshua says, "Behold, I come as a thief." When a
thief, or burglar, breaks into your house and steals something, ordinarily we
don't catch him in the act, he gets away without us seeing him. Because of this
short passage, some churches teach Yahshua is coming back but nobody will know
He is here.
From the word, "Behold I come
as a thief," there is the obvious inference that Yahshua's coming will not be
observed in sufficient time. This is very different from saying that He is going
to come and go, and nobody will know He has been here. If somebody tells you
that a thief can stand right in front of you and you can look right through him
because he is invisible, you wouldn't be fooled by that a minute. Yet, this is
what some of these sects teach, as to the return of Yahshua.
Some of these sects teach
there will be, not only a second coming of Yahshua, but even a third. They teach
He is really coming the first time just to collect His church, His elect, to
resurrect some of the dead and translating some of the living. Then Yahshua and
His church are going to flee from the world and leave Satan in triumphant
possession of the earth for three and a half years.
You might get this out of some
fiction story, but you can't get this out of the Bible, not if you honestly read
it. These sects know that Yahshua is coming back; He is going to collect those
who are worthy, the elect. He is also going to judge the whole world. These are
supposed to be two separate and distinct times.
One group even says that
Yahshua has already been here and gotten His elect. When they say this, they are
confessing they themselves are not of the elect because they are still around.
They also can't point to any sudden and mysterious disappearance of some of
their church congregation either. Apparently nobody in the group made it.
What does the Bible really say
on this subject? When we find this simile, of stealthily coming as a thief used
by Yahshua, He always uses it in such a way as to make it perfectly clear that
if you don't notice it in time, it is your own fault for not being on the alert
looking for Him.
Matthew 24:42-44 warns
us, "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour Yahshua doth come. But know
this, that if the good men of the house had known in what watch the thief would
come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to broken
into. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son
of man cometh."
Is there anything in these
Bible verses from which you could get the inference that His coming is going to
be invisible? Nothing that I can see. It is very plain, if you are on the alert,
you will observe His coming, if you aren't alert, it is your own fault. The same
emphasis upon the need to be watchful is found in the other verses where the
thief idea is used.
We come across this coming as
a thief idea, in the course of the messages to the seven churches. "And unto the
angel of the church in Sardis write, Be watchful, and strengthen the things that
remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before
Yahweh...If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and
thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee." There is always perfect
consistency. The only reason we wouldn't see the thief is, that we don't know
when to expect him and we aren't watching.
Revelation 16:5 is the
first verse I mentioned, the Judeo/ Christian churches usually only quoting,
"Behold I come as a thief." Let's quote more than this one verse. "Behold I come
as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk
naked, and they see his shame."
Then we come to II Peter
3:10, it states, ""But the day of Yahshua will come as a thief in the night;
in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein
shall be burned up." It doesn't sound quiet to me!
I Thessalonians 5:1-6
continues, "But of the times and seasons brethren, ye have no need that I write
to you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of Yahshua so cometh as a
thief in the night. For when they shall say. Peace and safety, then sudden
destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall
not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day overtake you as
a thief...Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be
sober."
There is a sentence in there
that ought to be required reading for all of our government officials. "For when
they say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them." No one
has ever trusted the communists in anything, not once, without being betrayed.
Why should we? It is the same old Jewish, satanic organization that has been
trying to destroy Israel for centuries.
There has been plenty of
warning in the Bible that, if we aren't ready, if we aren't watching, we may not
observe the coming of Yahshua until it is too late. What does the Bible indicate
that His return will be like? There are few prophecies in the Bible, all
relating to ancient times, where a date was set. It would say, within so many
years such a thing would happen. This is very rare; it is not the normal
procedure in Bible prophecy. Normally the Bible will give a sign that we are
approaching the date when a certain prophecy will be fulfilled, and it tells us
to look for a certain sign. When we see this sign, we know what is about to
happen.
This is the rule concerning
prophecies that deal with our own time. We are told of events which will happen
that will be indications the big event is near, and if we watch, we will see the
event happen. If we are watching, the prophesied event is not going to catch us
unawares.
Matthew chapter 24
tells of Yahshua and the disciples being near the temple in Jerusalem, the big
temple that Herod built.
It was a magnificent
structure. The disciples were commenting upon the magnificent building when
Yahshua said, "The time is coming when not one stone of this will be left
standing upon another." When the disciples got a chance to talk with Yahshua
about it later, they asked Him about what He had said.
Matthew 24:3 records,
"And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately,
saying, tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of the
coming and the end of the age." The King James Bible says, end of the world, but
in the Greek it says, end of the age. This planet is going to be around for a
long time yet.
Then Yahshua went on to list
seven signs. When we see these signs come to pass, we would know that Yahshua's
return would soon come.
Matthew 24:5,11 tells
us the first sign, false prophets and false Christ’s. Mark 13:6,21 & 22
and Luke 21:8 tells us the same thing. We are getting false prophets by
the carload lots in the National Council of Churches these days; there have even
been some false Christ’s. Some of you have heard of the Bahai sect. They say
that their founder, who is coming back, the high ruler, is the messiah of all
religions, including those religions, which don't have any messiah. Then there
is the young Hindu boy, Jiddi Krishnamurti; they tried to tell us was the
reincarnation of Yahshua. This has fooled nobody but the Theosophists.
Matthew 24:6-7, Mark
13: 7-8, Luke 21:9-10 give the second sign. There will be wars and
rumors of wars, nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom. At
this point Yahshua gave them an additional warning. Don't be deceived by this,
because there are going to be wars all the time. No ordinary war is the sign of
a return of Yahshua; it has to be quite an extra-ordinary one. Yahshua said
these are just the beginning of trouble, but the end is not yet.
The fourth sign, there would
be pestilence. Matthew 24:7, Mark 13:8 and Luke 21:11.
The fifth sign, there would be
earthquakes. Same verses as for the fourth sign.
The sixth sign is something we
have neither heard nor seen for a long time. Yahshua said the gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end
come. The Greek word translated as end, telos, means really and emphatically the
very end.
In the time of Yahshua and the
original apostles, they preached the gospel of the kingdom of Yahweh. Then, not
long after Yahshua was crucified, the kingdom gospel was forgotten and junked.
All that was preached after this time was the gospel of personal salvation. It
is only within our lifetime has there been any substantial amount of the
preaching the gospel of the kingdom of Yahweh. Note that Yahshua didn't say the
gospel of the kingdom would be preached to all nations to convert them. Quite to
the contrary, this gospel was only to be preached as a witness. This was so
nobody can ask why they weren't told about it. People will have been told and
refused to accept the message.
The seventh sign, the last
one. The abomination of desolate standing in the holy place. The holy place, if
there was ever one that could be called this, would be the site of King
Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. This site was under the control of the Jordanian
Arabs, until the 1967 war when the Jews seized the old city of Jerusalem
containing the holy places.
The Jews had been saying they
were going to demolish the Mohammedan mosque, the Dome of the Rock, which stands
on the site of Solomon's temple. They plan to rebuild a Jewish temple on the old
site, saying they are going to rebuild Solomon's temple. There have been many
shipments of high grade American marble stone, cut in Indiana and shipped over
there, ready for use in the rebuilding of the temple.
So far the Jews haven't quite
had the gall to start demolishing the Mosque of Omar, as this mosque is commonly
called. If and when they start the demolition of this mosque, the Jews aren't
going to be facing only a relatively small number of Arabs; they will be facing
the whole Moslem world. This is a very holy site to the Mohammedans, second only
to Mecca. The entire Mohammedan world will declare a holy war immediately and
this is about 450 million people, or more. The abomination that brings
desolation is certainly the Jewish control of the holy place.
In Luke 21:25-35
Yahshua goes into more detail. "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the
moon, and in the stars. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud
with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then
look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh...So likewise
ye, when you see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of Yahweh
is nigh at hand...And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, so that day
should come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that
dwell on the face of the whole earth.”?
How anybody can mistake the
plain meaning of these signs, I don't know. The signs are there if we will watch
for them. There are a lot of people who are going to find this time is suddenly
here, before they are ready for it, simply because they have not been watching.
There is no doubt the Bible
promise that Yahshua, upon His return, will gather His elect. The
Judeo/Christian churches like to call this the rapture of the church. Some of
the dead, those few who have been selected for this particular purpose, will be
resurrected. Some of the living who have been selected, without experiencing
death, will be given their immortal bodies just like the resurrected dead. It
says we will be caught up into the air to meet Him as He returns.
With their curious ability to
misinterpret the Bible, preachers have taken the seventy weeks period, 490 years
as Daniel prophesied, and teach that the seventieth week doesn't come after the
sixty-ninth week. But, there is a gap of over nineteen centuries between the
sixty-ninth year and the seventieth year. The Judeo/Christians garble what
Daniel prophesied, so it can't be recognized what was to happen in the
seventieth week.
Then they teach that upon the
return of Yahshua, who will come first for the rapture of the church, then He
will flee and let Satan take over, without opposition, for three and a half
years, some teach for seven years. Only after this will Yahshua come back for
the purpose of judgment on the wicked. How is this for convoluted thinking?
How the church could be taken
away before this period of tribulation can't be explained, if we read the Bible.
Read Mark 13:24-27 & 35-37, remember they are quoting Yahshua. "But in
those days, after that tribulation..." This refers to the great tribulation,
this period of war, and famine etc. that we would go through when the final
break up of the age comes.
Yahshua said it would be so
terrible, that if Yahweh had not shortened that period, that no flesh would
remain on the earth. "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall
be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light. And all the stars of heaven
shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall he
send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from
the uttermost part of heaven...Watch therefore: for ye know not when the master
of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the
morning. Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto I say
unto all, Watch."
The whole order of this is
going to be the catastrophic breakup of the age, terrible events, which don't
come until we have first seen those seven signs that Yahshua prophesied. Then
will come this terrible cataclysm and then, after that, there will be the return
of Yahshua. After we have observed His return, then He is going to gather His
elect, the real church.
In Matthew 24:37-39 & 42,
Yahshua gives another explanation of these events. "But as the days of Noah
were, so shall the coming of the Son of man be." This verse alone ought to
correct the preacher's errors. Was there a secret flood, which floated the ark
away, and nobody noticed? Then after the flood, was this the judgment? Obviously
not at all.
Therefore, when we are told
that it will be just as it was in the days of Noah, how can they come to this
curiously foolish doctrine of the secret rapture? "But as the days of Noah were
before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,
until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came
and took them away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Watch
therefore, for ye know not what hour your master doth come."
The Bible makes it very clear;
there will be no secret coming. The second coming will be accompanied by the
most tremendous phenomena the world has ever seen. This will be too great for
even the dullest to overlook, once it starts happening. The point is, when it
occurs it is going to be too late to get into the real elect, we have something
to do first. The return of Yahshua will be unexpected by those who have not
believed and haven't been on the watch.
Matthew 25:1-13 gives
us a pretty clear illustration of just exactly what is going to happen, in one
of Yahshua's parables. "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten
virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five
of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their
lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in the vessels with
their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept. And at
midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet
him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
And the foolish said unto the
wise, give us your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered,
saying, not so; lest there be not enough for you and us: but go ye rather to
them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the
bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and
the door was shut.
Afterward came also the other
virgins, saying, Master, Master, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I
say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor
the hour wherein the Son of man cometh."
Those who reject Yahshua as
their Savior and Redeemer, have no choice remaining to them but to face judgment
of their sins, because they have refused to accept the only way out. Of those
who do accept Him as their Savior and Redeemer, this is only the beginning; this
is not the end of the matter.
Salvation means only continued
life. Both the Hebrew words in the Old Testament and the Greek words in the New
Testament that have been translated salvation, mean only safety. If you find
somebody floundering around in deep water unable to swim, and you grab him by
the collar and pull him to shore, you have given him salvation, and he has been
given safety.
The word salvation is used in
the Christian religion with a further connotation. When this meat and bones that
we walk around in dies, our real personality will not also perish. Yahweh will
give us continued life with a new body of suitable form, so then we will have a
conscious existence. On what level will this be?
Some nominal Christians are
going to be very distinctly low man on the totem pole. They haven't fitted
themselves for anything better than merely continued existence. Most of the
churches don't try to teach you anymore than this. In those few who do try, we
don't find much enthusiasm, on the part of most of the congregation, to learn
what it is all about.
We have had experience, since
the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt, with a miserable botch of a government,
conducted by incompetent bureaucrats who don't know what they are doing. I can
assure you that the kingdom of Yahweh is not going to be anything like this.
Those who are going to have any part in it, those who will sit on the throne
with Yahshua and reign with Him, will only be those who have fitted themselves
for it. There will be many perfectly good saved Christians, as these churches
call them, in the kingdom of Yahweh. They will simply have to sweep the streets
and empty the garbage because they aren't fitted to do anything better, they
turned it down.
Those who wish the higher
calling, to become part of the administrative staff of the kingdom of Yahweh,
are the comparatively few who have studied for it. They know what it is all
about and they will be fit to carry out their duties.
In Luke 13:23-27 it is
pretty clearly indicated again. I am reading this particular passage from
Lamsa's translation from the Aramaic, as it is particularly easy to understand.
"A man asked Jesus, Are there only a few who are to be saved? Jesus said to him,
strive to enter in through the narrow door; for I say to you that many will seek
to enter in and will not be able. From the hour when the master of the house
rises up and locks the door, and you will begin to say, Our Master, our Master,
open for us; and he will answer, saying, I say to you, I do not know you or
where you come from. And you will begin to say, we have eaten and drunk in your
presence, and you taught in our streets. And he will say to you, I do not know
you or where you come from; depart from me, O you workers of iniquity."
What is going to happen to
many of the ministers in our churches today? They will say, Lord, didn't I teach
the people of my church that the Old Testament was all a mistake and had to be
discarded? Didn't I teach them your laws were wrong and were no longer in
effect? Didn't I teach them to violate your laws? Didn't I teach them that at a
church supper they should always have baked ham, one of the forbidden foods,
deliberately violating your law, to show that now we are not under the law but
under grace?
In Matthew 5:18,
Yahshua made it very clear His opinion of the laws. "For verily I say unto you,
Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the
law, till all be fulfilled." Can't be any clearer than this!
What was called jot, the
Hebrew letter yod, and the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, is just a
tiny little curlicue made with a pen. What they called a tittle was only a
little curlicue ornament on some of the larger letters. You have noticed where
you have seen old English letters, they are used today in Germany, and how the
letters have all sorts of little ornamental strokes added to them. Similarly,
they would put little curlicues on some of these Hebrew letters, purely as
ornaments, which weren't really any part of the letters. These curlicues could
be left off without changing the meaning of the letters.
So Yahshua said, "...one yod
or one little curlicue shall not pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."
Yahshua continues, "Whosoever shall break one of the least of these
commandments, and shall teach men to do so, he shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be
called great in the kingdom of heaven."
There are going to be a lot of
people who are going to be standing outside, knocking on the door and not being
let in. The warning is plain enough, but the truths of the Bible aren't taught
anymore in the churches. What is taught is man-made doctrine and the social
gospel that won't offend the Jews. Remember the prophecy there would be a
famine, not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the
word of Yahweh. This is exactly what has come upon us.
Somebody once said, "The more
it changes, the more it is the same." We have gone through these events before,
several times in our history. There is no record of any exception to this rule,
that an organized church sooner or later becomes a corrupted and apostate
church. If there ever should have been an exception to this rule, it should have
been in Jerusalem, for there they had the temple of Yahweh with the personal
appearance of Yahweh manifested there, and yet what happened? They not only
reached the point where the priests were not teaching the laws of Yahweh, the
priests were leading them into idolatry. Read the Book of Ezekiel.
Yahweh said, "Look what they
have done in my house in Jerusalem: you find in it altars to pagan gods set up
in the temple in Jerusalem." Look what happened after that. In the very early
days, the first century of the Christian era, there was a fairly sound church.
From the early 300s on, as the Catholic Church developed, look what happened.
What can you find of the old Babylonian paganism that is not part of the
official doctrine of the Catholic Church today? The Catholic Church has been
utterly corrupted.
Look at the Protestant
churches! True, they don't recognize the pope as being successor to Yahweh, but
they have a list of corruptions just about as impressive as the Catholic Church.
It is that period of apostasy, which the Bible prophesied.
The ministers and priests are
the people who are utterly unprepared for the return of Yahshua. If I am not
mistaken, the Methodist church of today does not require a student of the
ministry to swear he believes Yahshua will actually return, in order to be
ordained a minister. He can be ordained without this belief. The same is true of
some of the other major churches.
It is going to be rather rough
going for a good many people when Yahshua returns, because the signs are all
around us.
There remains nothing more to
be fulfilled but the tremendous catastrophe that marks the close of this age.
The Russian attack upon us that is set out in such detail in Ezekiel chapters
38-39 and some of the book of Joel. This and the accompanying hardships, is
all that has not yet been fulfilled.
When the Jews do demolish the
Dome of the Rock mosque, the Mohammedan world will go on a rampage.
Geographically the Mohammedan world includes the northern third of Africa, from
the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. It also includes most of western Asia,
including Turkey. Incidentally, those Turks are still tough fighters.
There was a contingent of
Turkish troops with the United Nation's forces in Korea, and everybody admits
those Turks were the toughest fighters on our side. The Mohammedan world
includes all the Arab countries, which are the source of most of the world's
oil, outside the American continent. It also includes much of the Malay
Peninsula and even some of the southern islands of the Philippine islands. When
we get all of these Mohammedans declaring a holy war against the Jews, things
are going to get hot really fast.
The man that the traitors have
already picked as a probable democratic candidate for president in 1972, Senator
Muskie of Maine, is over in Palestine now. He was quoted in the paper, as having
declared publicly that there was no need for a formal treaty of alliance between
the United States and this Jewish nation of so called Israel, because we were
firmly committed to the defense of Israel, no matter what it took.
Before World War II, Europe
didn't depend too much upon oil. All of her electric power plants, railroads and
industrial plants, used coal. Europe has enormous reserves of coal. Then
suddenly, following WW II, somebody saw to it that all the coal-burning furnaces
were dismantled and oil-burning furnaces installed in their place.
In Europe, if they shut down
all non-essential use of oil fuels, they might be able to continue operating at
the maximum, ninety days, no more on the store of oil they have there. All
Russia would need to do would be to mark time, just keeping up a threat against
the eastern front of the free world, but not actually getting into any fighting.
This would keep Europe on the alert, and by the end of ninety days, the armies
of free Europe couldn't put an airplane in the sky. In addition they couldn't
run a tank because there would no longer be any oil fuel to use in them.
As far as running their
factories are concerned, the large steam powered plants would also come to a
halt, for lack of fuel. Then Russia could move in and take everything with
practically no fighting at all.
As far as trying to supply
Europe with oil from the American continent is concerned, this would be an
impossibility. At the start of WW II, Germany had 65 submarines in operating
order, and some of these were just trainers. Never at any time during WW II, did
Germany have as many as 100 submarines in operating condition and Germany almost
conquered the world single-handed.
Russia starts now with an
estimated minimum figure of 350 modern submarines, diesel driven of the snorkel
type. She has nearly as many atomic fueled submarines as we have. Within the
next two years Russia will be ahead of us in the number of atomic fueled
submarines. A more probable estimate of Russia's submarine fleet would be as
high as 500. We couldn't possibly get ships across the Atlantic Ocean to carry
oil to Europe.
When an opportunity like this
comes up, it would be imbecilic stupidity, on the part of the Russians, not to
take advantage of Europe without an oil supply to keep their machinery running.
The Jews that are running Russia are out to conquer the world; they have never
even tried to disguise this fact.
Russia's atomic rockets will
come over the North Pole, to knock out our production centers. They will hit the
Puget Sound area, to knock out the big naval base and the huge Boeing aircraft
factory. Chicago will be a target because it is the most important center of
rail transportation in the country. Gary and Pittsburgh will be a target to
knock out the bigger part of our steel industry and one or two big centers of
machine tool production there. Russia's rocket carrying submarines
off our coasts will knock out our major port cities. Then, coming down from the
eastern Siberian coast, will come the invasion barges filled with troops. This
is all prophesied in the Bible and known very clearly to our military
intelligence. All of this is ready to happen on short notice.
You people are not in
darkness. You know what to look for to make yourselves ready to survive, during
this rough period. You should be ready to take your place in the kingdom of
Yahweh, shortly thereafter. The average types of churchgoers are not going to be
ready. Then they will wonder why nobody told them about this, but just try to
get them to listen now.
If you notice a sudden exodus
of Jews from an area, take it as a warning that they know something disastrous
is going to happen. I have always thought that when we pray, "Master, come down
and put the lid back on the garbage can, because the lid is off and it stinks".
This prayer might not be answered because Yahweh would say, "Why don't you do
it?" We are supposed to do a certain amount of these things for ourselves, then
what is beyond our reach He will take care of.
There is nothing we can do to stop the disaster that is coming. When the Babylonians captured Jerusalem, there were some of the people who were massacred by the Babylonian army, those who had it coming to them. The rest of the people, since they hadn't learned enough of a lesson, were taken into captivity in Babylon but Yahweh saw that they weren't hurt.