Bible Believers' Newsletter #098
"We focus on the PRESENT Truth -- what Jesus is doing NOW . . ." ISSN 1442-8660
We greet you in the wonderful Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and appreciate your fellowship.
We follow the ministry of the prophet of Malachi 4:5-6 and Revelation 10:7, the late Brother Branham, who warned those following the countdown to the catching away, "Watch, not just the carnal church, the one out there, the regular routine carnal church, the Esau group."
"We got now the Judatarian group, which is far more treacherous, far more treacherous, coming right up into the very hands of the blessing. Just like in Hebrews 6 and 10, how he said, "Having once made partakers, and tasted the powers of the world to come, and done all these things of -- and if they have received the knowledge of the truth and then willfully turn away" ("willfully," what is that?) "counting the Blood of the covenant, wherewith they were sanctified, an unholy thing" (Hearing, Recognizing, Acting on the Word of God, 14:103).
So with Judas on the scene, plenty's a-happening among those who claim to follow God's prophet. You'd better keep a close eye on me too because one minister wrote saying, "I believe you're a Jesuit Priest pretending you are a Message believer". That might make me a Marrano.
You just never know, so prove all things personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ . . . Anthony
Spooks Authorized to Hack the Net
CANBERRA, November 25, 1999 -- New legislation gives the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization (ASIO) the right to hack into computers on the 'net and to change data (ABC Radio National).
China nextdoor to Hometown USA
WASHINGTON, November 23, 1999 (AP) -- Admiral Thomas Moorer, Ret., former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Nixon, said China is preparing to take over the Panama Canal once the US relinquishes control. He warned of possible Chinese use of the area to launch a nuclear attack on America.
Moorer said China plans to seize control through Hong Kong company, Hutchinson Whampoa, which won the right to operate ports on both sides of the canal and has close links to the Chinese military.
Moorer commented at a news conference sponsored by the John Birch Society, a rightist group opposed to the treaties which require the United States to surrender control of the canal and remove all U.S. troops by December 31.
(Foreign treaties are the SUPREME LAW of the land --ags).
Administration officials have previously dismissed allegations of an eventual Chinese takeover of the canal as baseless. Moorer spoke as US and Panamanian officials met to discuss canal security and other issues once the transfer to Panamanian control takes place.
Moorer said China's missiles can carry "a nuclear or an explosive payload" and are mounted on a truck making it difficult to keep track of them. "Consequently, we have a situation where the Chinese are in a position today to secrete these kinds of missiles... and use Panama as a launching point for missiles to attack the United States," he said. "And no one seems to get exercised over that and the media doesn't ever mention it" and that the Chinese threat "is more difficult to handle" than the Cuban missile crisis was.
(Do you recall the seventh in a series of visions God showed Brother Branham in 1933? -- ags)
Moorer also disputed the administration contention that the United States retains the right after surrendering the canal to use force to ensure free passage in the event of a takeover by hostile forces, insisting President Carter gave up that right in a secret agreement with Panama under which the US would be allowed to use force only with Panamanian consent. (By George Gedda)
(Rockefeller banks made loans to the Panamanian dictator Torrijos. President Carter restored the bad loans by giving Torrijos our Panama Canal. The stakes were high: "It is important to remember that 'of the 30 or so banks that had made rather shaky loans, one-half of them had at least one Trilateral on their boards of directors. Had Panama defaulted on these loans, some major international banks would have faced financial ruin.'" "It is also revealing that fifteen of the sixteen senators in the U.S. Senate who had either been a member of the CFR or were currently a member, voted for the Treaty." "It is very revealing that, under the terms of the treaty that gave the Canal to Panama, the United States paid the Panamanian government millions of dollars so that the Panamanian government would take the canal". And meet their obligations to the private banking houses.
In 1977 when it came time to acquire the Panama Canal, the national debt of Panama had grown from $160 million in 1968 to $1.4 billion. Charles Bartlett, a columnist, wrote that the Torrijos regime "has put the small nation so deeply in the red that the canal treaty has no supporters more fervent than the American bankers whose hopes for payment rest on a revival of faith in the Panamanian economy." About 39% of the national budget of Panama was required to perform debt service on its loans. The U.S. gave Panama millions of dollars to take the canal. Creditor U.S. banks included Chase Manhattan Bank, First National City Bank, Bank of America, Banker's Trust, First National Bank of Chicago, Republic national Bank of Dallas and Treaty negotiator Sol Linowitz's Marine Midland Bank --ags).
For Jews, It's Time to Come Home
ISRAEL, November 21, 1999 -- A new Israeli-based organization, Operation Homeward, is calling on Jews throughout the world to make haste and "come home to the Land of Israel before it is too late." "Homeward" claims that Jews in the Diaspora might soon find themselves in grave physical danger.
Their 48-page magazine, which is being widely distributed to both Jews and Gentiles, contains a number of warnings from biblical and Talmudic sources together with contemporary news items that seem to corroborate their predictions.
"The Jewish homeland" says the magazine's front page, will be the place "where the Jewish People ultimately find refuge and salvation -- and gain Divine protection."
"We are not proclaiming `the end of the world,' nor are we predicting the arrival of the Messiah," said Operation Homeward's 42-year-old director, Avraham Sheinman.
"What we are saying is that classic Jewish sources indicate that during the Jewish Year of 5760 (which began on Rosh Hashanah - September 11, 1999), natural disasters, man-made catastrophes and international conflicts could occur throughout the world in an unprecedented manner. If the stability of society is undermined, the innate hostility that many Gentiles hold towards the Jews will burst forth, and the Jew, in his non-Jewish Diaspora `homeland' will become an endangered species."
Sheinman was born and raised in Philadelphia and became a citizen of Israel in 1983. Today he lives with his wife and children in the Samarian community of Har-Bracha, located atop the biblical Mount Gerizim next to the city of Nablus. Like himself, he expects and demands, that every Jew make aliyah to Israel. According to Sheinman, "the decision to live in Israel, or remain in the Diaspora is a fundamental obligation binding upon every Jew, and the `Final Redemption' of all mankind is dependent upon the Jewish
People living in Israel while observing the laws of the Torah. He is concerned that, "the fifty-year grace period which Diaspora Jews had since the establishment of the Jewish State in 1948, may soon be coming to an end."
Although the gates to Israel are still open today, Sheinman believes this "window of opportunity" will close and many Jews may become trapped in the Diaspora. Moreover, he asserts that religious Jews who willingly remain in the Diaspora and believe their commitment to religious observance will evoke Divine mercy and save them from physical destruction are "misreading God's plan. It didn't save them during the Holocaust, and unfortunately, it won't save them now," he added.
Not only Diaspora Jews, but also Gentiles, are targeted in Operation Homeward's controversial magazine. In its "Special Section for Gentiles" Homeward calls on all Gentiles to recognize the Jewish People's unique divine mission as "a light unto the nations" (Isaiah 42) and to "turn towards the true path of serving the Creator" by abandoning many of their "pagan beliefs"... (By Andra Brack, Weekend News Today).
Israel's Redemption
In Isaiah 49:1-6, the prophet speaks in the first person, as if he were Jesus sharing a conversation He has had with God. "Listen to Me; all of you in far-away lands. (That's we Gentiles). The LORD called Me before My birth; from the womb of My mother He called Me by My Name. He has made My words of judgment like a sharp sword ("with which I shall cut down the heathen" -- Revelation 19:15). He has hidden Me in the shadow of His hand (like a punch), like a sharp arrow hidden in His quiver."
(In this prophecy, Jesus speaks to we Gentiles, promising us grace through faith in Him by the Messages of seven earthly angels under the first four Seals, or judgment under the Seven Vials).
God said to Me, "You are My servant, a Prince of Power with God, and You shall bring Me glory." (Jesus is Abraham's Royal Seed of Promise, true Israel Who enables the destiny of His natural type).
I replied, "But it seems to Me as if I have labored in vain, and spent My strength for nothing (because Israel rejected Messiah): yet surely My judgment and My reward are with the LORD."
"And now," said the LORD -- Who formed Me from the womb to serve Him and commissioned Me to restore Jacob (the Twelve Tribes) to Him in order that Israel (the elect 144,000 overcomers) may be gathered, and Myself honored in God's sight through His strength: "It is too trifling that You should be My Servant only to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved (144,000 elect) of Israel: I will also make You a Light to the Gentiles, to extend My salvation to them also."
Natural Israel -- the man Jacob, and the nation that grew from his loins, is a type of Spiritual Israel -- Jesus Christ and the true Church, begotten again by faith in God through Him (Isaiah 8:18; 53:10). Natural Israel were to be separated to God from the carnal ways of the nations, however individual Gentiles or "strangers" pleased to live among them, and seeing God honored by His Word living through them, could come to the Light of Israel's God (Exodus 12:48; Isaiah 56). Jesus Christ, Abraham's Royal Seed, was also to "be a Light to the Gentiles" (Isaiah 46:6; 49:9).
So we see that all Scripture has a compound meaning. And because spirits don't die, mortal man repeats the experiences of earlier generations in the long cycles of history. Thus God concludes the Gentiles in unbelief as he did Israel.
Israel was God's son (Exodus 4:22), and Jesus (whose organic connection is marked by the designations, "Seed of Abraham" and "Son of David"), was what Israel was: God's Servant, and His Son. So what referred to Israel can be applied to Messiah. The natural types the Spiritual.
Speaking of natural Israel, Hosea 11:1 says, "I called my son out of Egypt". What referred to Israel in the type foreshadowed what was again fulfilled in the antitype following the death of Herod when it became safe for Jesus to return to Israel. Matthew 2:14- 15, "Joseph took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 'Out of Egypt have I called My Son'."
Isaiah portrays both suffering servants. Firstly Israel, "Who is blind but My servant? Or deaf as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is in covenant with Me, and blind as the Lord's servant (Israel)?... Who gave Jacob for plunder, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the LORD, against Whom they have sinned... Therefore God has poured upon him the fury of His anger and the strength of battle..." (Isaiah 42:18, 24-25).
The type looks forward to the antitype. "...for the transgression of My people was He stricken... Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him... By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities" (Isaiah 53:8, 10-11).
Both servants have suffered the wrath of God: Israel for his sin, Christ by bearing the punishment for Israel's iniquity.
Isaiah 51:22-23, "Thus saith your Lord (to Israel),... 'I have taken out of your hand the terrible cup of My fury; it is gone at last. But I will put it into the hands of those who afflicted you and trampled your souls to the dust and walked over you".
Jesus fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but Thy will be done." And being in such agony of spirit, He broke out into a sweat of blood, with great drops falling to the ground as He prayed the more earnestly" (Luke 22:44).
Following Daniel's Seventieth Week, which is the Tribulation, both overcoming servants will be glorified together. The tribulation is the time for purging the 144,000, the foolish virgin and the whole earth, which is to be cleansed for the Millennium "honeymoon" of Christ and His Bride. She was purged by the baptism of the Holy Ghost or new birth, and will be translated shortly after Israel's Seventh Trump (I Corinthians 15:52).
In the Old Testament, a Hebrew slave could go free when he heard the trumpet in the year of release. But if he chose to remain with his master, his ear was marked with an aul, and he would serve him forever. The trump sounded on the annual Day of Atonement. Every seven years there was a release when debts were repayed and Hebrew slaves were freed without price. After seven releases, in the fiftieth year, the Jubilee Trumpet would sound a whole year's rest when even hired servants, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, could go free.
That Trumpet was sounded by Messiah Isaiah 61:1-2a; Luke 4:18-19), and on the Day of Pentecost, freedom became reality to the elect of Israel and subsequently to the Samaritans and the Gentiles who heard and answered its call.
Millions since have gathered into the Pentecostal Jubilee with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Throughout the Gentile dispensation or Seven Church Ages that followed, seven Gospel trumpets sounded release to those in denominational walled cities, offering liberty to the overcomer and freedom from sin by a new birth. Those who heard and rejected the Message for their day, preferring unbelief, were marked in the ear with an aul and can never hear the Gospel Trumpet again. Having sealed themselves outside the kingdom, they will serve their master, Satan, forever (Exodus 21:6; Leviticus 25; John 3:18; Revelation 3:22).
Blinded by the Pharisees' theology, of which Moses knew nothing; they also knowing nothing of him, for they keep not one passage in Moses (much like the indifference of Catholicism to the Words of Jesus), Israel rejected the Pentecostal Jubilee, and will remain blind until the fulness of the Gentiles comes in. Being blind Israel heard not the Gospel Trumpets and has suffered Seven Trumpet judgments. Israel's Jubilee is preceded by an Atonement of MOURNING the rejection of Messiah by their kindred for 2,000 years (Isaiah 61:2b-3).
The Jubilee Trumpet is Israel's Seventh Trump. It calls the Bride to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in the Sky, and gathers Israel by the ministry of their two witnesses to the Feast of Trumpets where the Seven Trumpet mysteries -- the natural judgments with which God punished the nation for rejecting their Messiah, the real Passover Lamb. (Of course the nation could not hear the Gospel Trumpets of His angels -- Paul, Irenaeus, Martin, Columba, Luther, Wesley and Branham -- during the Seven Church Ages and join the Pentecostal Feast because they had rejected their Passover Lamb).
Israel had to present themselves three times before the Lord in the annual cycle of Levitical Feasts which was a type of the complete redemptive cycle of Adam's fallen race. It was absolutely compulsory that every adult male present himself before the Lord at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits and the Feast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16:16).
They have already rejected the Unleavened Bread from Heaven which typed Messiah and will miss the Feast of Pentecost, which is the firstfruits of the harvest of souls redeemed by faith in Messiah, (the True Church). Their last opportunity of presenting themselves before the Lord is the Feast of Tabernacles. To qualify, Israel must mourn the rejection of the true Atonement on Calvary's Cross, 2,000 years ago.
Had Israel followed Moses and the calander he instituted by God's authority, many more of them might have understood the shadows and types in the annual cycle of worship and made their Atonement at the commencement of God's antitype in Nisan, rather than on Tishri 10 at the close of redemption.
Three and a half years after the Seventh Trump, 144,000 elect will recognize the Message of their two witnesses, and be released from sin by a new birth, thus fulfilling Israel's Day of Atonement. The revelation of the Seven Trumpet judgments explain why God made Israel drink the cup of His fury during the Gentile dispensation. And as the destruction of Babylon heralded Israel's release from natural Captivity, Rome's destruction will signal their Spiritual release.
Israel's jubilee will lead to the fulfillment of the six-fold purpose of Gabriel's instructions to Daniel, bringing-in "everlasting righteousness", which is the Millennium and antitype of the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles. After the thousand years, the general resurrection and the eighth day complete the Levitical cycle, returning the saints to Eternity.
"Returning" the saints to Eternity?
Yes, for we were all foreknown in Christ, the Eternal Word or Logos that came forth at the foundation of the world.
But we were only in His thinking. We each had to be born here on earth and by our own free choice receive and become the manifestation of His Word for OUR day. This brought us redemption in our part of the cycle through time-space. We now look forward to our physical redemption in glorified form at the first resurrection and translation, and eventual return to live on this earth in full fellowship with one another and with God throughout Eternity. (Extract from bb981205.htm)
For Further Information Contact:
Bible Believers' Church
Currabubula, NSW 2342, Australia
e-mail: ags@biblebelievers.org.au
URL: http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/