Bible Believers' Newsletter #146
"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 live in troubled times approaching the climax of man's day. And the day of the Lord following the Gentile dispensation, brings God's wrath upon the Earth. Be encouraged, the Christian has greater Light that at any time since God walked with Adam and Eve in the evening time. So keep your lamps trimmed and clear, shine them from the hilltops that some shipwrecked and weary brother may see and take heart. Always remember Who you are.
This newsletter serves those of like precious faith and whosoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ . . . Anthony
US Democracy R.I.P.
If you were not aware that Democracy in the US died at least a century ago, as of the current Presidential election US Democracy is dead.
When the thirteen colonies were still part of mother England, Professor Alexander Tyler wrote of the fall of the Athenian republic two thousand years beforehand: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage" (Alexander Tyler, Cycle of Democracy, 1770).
"All sails and no anchor" is how Brother Branham described democracy. "As we see the days darkening, as we see the shadows falling. . . I predict it's just a few more turns of the sun. This nation's gone. . ."
"Thomas Jefferson had signed the Declaration of Independence. . . the Liberty Bell rang, and we were declared independent as a nation. . . According to history, there has never been a democracy at any time last over two hundred years. And that was 1776, July the fourth. And we've just eleven years left. Will it make it? No, can't. Eleven years, and if it does, it'll break all history" (The Masterpiece 15:76).
In The Invasion of the USA he said, President Roosevelt established a "preliminary dictatorship". In The Third Exodus when President Kennedy called out the National Guard against civilians, he said, "I hope the nation can find out that we're not living anymore under a democracy, but under military dictatorship."
In Look Away to Jesus he said, " There's coming a time where this nation is going to exercise all the power that the beast had before (which was pagan Rome, when it become papal Rome) . . . Revelations 13 plainly explains it". In The Feast of the Trumpets (22:170-174) he did not say it in words but I believe he was contemplating a dictator rising up in the USA. See also The Third Exodus (112:5-113:7); Jezebel Religion (7:33-38) and Adoption, Part III (98:219). In Why Are We Not A Denomination, 29:136) he said that the Roman Catholic church will be the power behind the dictator. (Access these sermons from our William Branham On-Line Area).
(See also the prediction made by Benjamin Franklin in a "Chit Chat Around the Table During Intermission" at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787, and recorded in the dairy of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a delegate from South Carolina. http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/clilist.htm).
Third Term?
Already they've begun to float the idea that maybe Clinton should stay in the White House, and maybe that just wouldn't be too bad! Who has said that? David Letterman, Geraldine Ferraro, Jesse Ventura, to name just three. Their aim is to get people used to thinking about it. (Contemplation by the Rev. C. D. Thomson). Full story: http://www.insidetheweb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi?acct=mb1075995&MyNum=974939298&P=No&TL=974939298
System Designed to Destroy Individual Thought
If you have children you should read these facts on the carefully planned public school nightmare.
I want you to consider the frightening possibility that we are spending far too much money on schooling, not too little. I want you to consider that we have too many people employed in interfering with the way children grow up -- and that all this money and all these people, all the time we take out of children's lives and away from their homes and families and neighbourhoods and private explorations -- gets in the way of education.
"In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions of intellectual and character education fade from their minds, and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people, or any of their children, into philosophers, or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for great artists, painters, musicians nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen -- of whom we have an ample supply. The task is simple. We will organize children and teach them in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way" (John D. Rockefeller's 1906 General Education Board). Full story:
http://www.voicenet.com/~sakossor/ken4_11.html http://www.voicenet.com/~sakossor/index.html http://4brevard.com/choice/Public_Education.htm
Earth in Balance
In his book, Earth in Balance (page 342). Al Gore asserts: "Refusing to accept the earth as our sacred mother, these Christians have become a dangerous threat to the survival of humanity. They are a blight on the environment and to believe in Bible prophecy is unforgivable."
Selling Arms for a 'Disarmed' World
The West's three permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- the US, Britain and France -- account for 80% of weapons sales in the world, despite the fact that the UN has a full-scale programme for disarmament. The US accounted for nearly half the annual market of $53 billion, with Britain second at $10.5 billion. The report, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, added: "Much of these weapons systems were supplied to the Middle East, the world's biggest arms market. . ." (The Guardian Weekly, October 26-November 1, 2000).
The Divine Nature
Once we are born or placed into the Body of Christ the Law of Life is in us because our soul is united with His Word which is Spirit and Life, and will prosper and accomplish that for which It was sent (John 6:63; Isaiah 55:11). Inside that Word is the Divine Nature but to diffuse it through our soul we need to learn how to let go and let God. Still we strive to achieve by our ten natural senses of touch, sight, reasoning and so-on that contact the world, and that "hands on" approach will not work in the Supernatural realm. We must yield to the unseen substance of faith can not be heard or felt, and allow that Law of Life to produce its promise.
Brother Branham was the first mature son at Christ's "parousia" (I Corinthians 15:23). And as the first son under pre-eminence he set the pattern for every Son and Daughter of God in the end-time Bride who will manifest the Sons of God in the new wave offering of Leviticus 23:15-21. Brother Branham was a consecrated man under such pre-eminence to the Word that he veiled the fullness, and so yielded that when he spoke God answered because he had the mind of Christ in him.
I can't recall every instance in which Brother Branham spoke the creative Word but on two separate occasions he spoke squirrels into existence, shot, cooked and ate them. In the 1950's, one of his fishing companions tossed an undersize fish back into the water with its entrails pulled out through its mouth; the Spirit of the Lord came upon the prophet and said, "Little fish, Jesus Christ makes you whole." And that dead fish, that been floating on top of the water for practically a half hour, came to life and swam away just as hard as he could.
Later Brother Branham spoke salvation for Sister Hattie Wright's two sons. Then on a hunting trip he spoke a blizzard still. And he spoke the tumor from his wife's body before the surgeon's scalpel could touch her (William Branham, Look Away to Jesus, Vol.2 No. 17). These examples were for the edification of Christ's end-time Bride and show what every Son of God will do after the close of the Gentile dispensation. (You may do a Boolean search for these events by entering key words from "the Message" in our William Branham On-Line Area).
We learn from I Thessalonians 4:16 that Christ's Voice is in the end-time Bride bringing her to maturity so she can speak the Word in the manifestation of the Sons of God to build what the Prophet called "rapturing faith" for the body change. In that time, what we say, God will do. As We will be in harmony with the Word as Christ prayed in Gethsemane, asking only, "Thy will be done".
Brother Branham said that his gift was the ability to get himself out of the way, to let go and let God's Law of Life in Christ operate without human interference. That is, without any influence from the five senses of his mortal spirit -- imagination, reasoning, conscience, memory, and affection; or from the five senses of his body -- sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. So the natural world was brought under submission yielding pre-eminence to the Supernatural. This is in line with God's commission to man to subdue the Earth, including his body, and have dominion over every living thing, including his own spirit. For how can man rule this world if he cannot command his own being?
Now the Law of Life is in every one born into the Kingdom. And the attributes of the Divine nature are in that Word which is the Husband of our born-again soul. It is in there. You are fully equipped. Accept this as a fact and place your confidence in that Law until you know it will operate without you possessing the sum of all revelation or making any other contribution. Even if you are impure, unholy, sick and afflicted, the Law of God's Spirit by His Word will bring all of those things subject to Him.
A subscriber who wrote me last week, signed off, "Remember who you are". No, it was not a rebuke! But I took it as from the Lord to remember, I am Jesus Christ. Oh, not the Man from Galilee, but in Spiritual union with the Word, possessing the promise of doing the same works He did, and more.
God has a threefold purpose: Firstly, to have the pre-eminence in one man in whom He could reveal Himself to men. He accomplished that in Jesus Christ by becoming a Son of man Himself. This is why Jesus continually referred to Himself as the Son of man in whom dwelt the fullness of the godhead bodily.
Secondly, He wanted to bring the fullness of the godhead bodily into His Body of believers, that He might live in His born-again family and have the pre-eminence, even to the manifestation of the Sons of God at the time of the first resurrection, as we've been discussing. And thirdly, to restore the Kingdom to its proper place before the Fall.
God has expressed Himself in Jesus Christ, Who was both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost -- the fullness of the godhead bodily. Since the revelation of the Seven Seals, the fullness of the godhead dwells bodily in His Church. All God was, He poured into Christ; all Christ was, He poured into His Church -- the believer, not the denomination.
Brother Branham said, the revelation of the seven thunders under the Seals began "a relaxing time". In other words the fiftieth day of the Pentecostal Feast -- after the seven sabbaths or forty-nine days of the Church Ages where the Book was sealed and the saints worked, wondered and presumed at the meaning of the hidden things of Scripture. The saints born-again in this fiftieth day have entered a holy convocation in which they relax and do no servile work since the revelation of the Seven Seals has given us the perfect interpretation of the Word.
We feed our souls on THUS SAITH THE LORD of the Message: "the true sayings of God". Like Adam at the start we are fellowshipping our way to glory with the Tree of Life, the Mighty Angel Who descended with the Shout of the evening time Message (I Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 10:8-11; Genesis 3:8).
In order that we may relax and feed or souls on this seven course Spiritual feast we should simplify our lives, diminish our worldly responsibilities and separate from anything that would put itself ahead of Christ. Then having done all, stand expectantly on the promises so as not to hinder the Law of Life in God's Word.
Paul said that once we have regulated our lives according to our natural station: "Remember that your strength must come from the Lord's mighty power within you. Be empowered through your union with Him (Zechariah 4:6-7). Put on all of the armor God supplies that you may be able to stand safe against all the strategies and deceits of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood of this physical realm, but against persons without bodies -- evil rulers of the unseen world, spirit forces of wickedness in heavenly places. Therefore put on God's complete armor, that you may be able to resist and stand your ground in the evil day, and having done all, to hold your ground. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, (not fig leaves), and having on the breastplate of integrity and moral rectitude before God; have your feet shod in preparation to face the enemy with the firm-footed stability, promptness and readiness of the Gospel of reconciliation with God; lift up over all the covering the four- cornered shield of faith upon which you can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword the Spirit wields, which is the Word of God: praying constantly in line with the Spirit, and watch with strong purpose and perseverance, praying earnestly for all Christians everywhere" (Ephesians 6:10-18).
Paul is talking about growing to maturity, not by human might nor by manpower, but by the Law of Life in the power of the Spirit.
The armor of God clothes our soul from within as we apply and rest upon His Word. We "put on the whole armor of God" or mature as we become adept at using the Law of Life to discern both good and evil (Hebrews 5:14). We prepare ourselves for spiritual warfare in the might of the Lord by practicing discrimination between moral good and what is evil and contrary to Divine or human law. When we allow the Spirit leadership, victory and glory are assured.
How does society assess people? Reputation is determined by one's behavior or characteristics which reveal the inner man, not by the beauty of his attire.
Like the lilies of the field and the animals, man is meant to be clothed from within by the character of his soul shining through the earth of his body. We are to be clothed with the inner beauty of holiness that is one with us. "Henceforth we know no man after the flesh: not even Christ. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; all things have become new" (II Corinthians 5:16-17).
Those who see us should not know us after the flesh but see Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). On this side of the translation Christians should be recognized for their Christ-like character, not external, artificial put-on like the "changeable suits of apparel" worn by the daughters of Zion before conversion.
Animals are born with natural coverings of fur or hair, the birds have feathers, and fish scales or shells. But they are just a body and spirit with no conscience or soul. They are not in the image of God and do not create or devise progressive new developments nor manage a dominion beyond their own subsistence and are ever the same. Their goal is simply to feed and procreate.
Human beings are born covered in sin. Once born-again, they put on character as they mature so the dress seen by the spiritual eye is not "changeable suits of apparel", but the unchangeable character of Jesus Christ. So we see why our Lord preferred the robe of the humble lily to all the magnificence of Solomon (Matthew 6:29). For the splendid array of the Israelite king was put on from without; whereas the beauty of the lily develops from within the plant as the Divine nature blossoms from Christ within us.
The fullness of the godhead is Christ's "parousia" incarnating the Bride by the "Shout" of her new birth and blossoming into maturity as the "Voice of the Archangel" speaks from within her heart in the cool of the evening, unfolding and confirming the Message from Genesis to Revelation. So if we are the Bride of Christ we are the Body of our Lord. And since the mystery of God is finished, we are one with the Word and therefore require no Mediator.
Therefore it is not improper in this day to say, "Remember Who you are"! For if I am the Omega Bride, I am also Christ Who is Alpha and Omega, the Word at the beginning and the same Word restored at the end. However He was not the Church Age saints in between as they were only PART-Word, and because the Book was sealed, they needed a Mediator to intercede for their error in order that they might be redeemed.
If Christ is in me I am His Bride and the Life of Christ should live in me at all times, not only when someone is watching; God is ever watchful. The Life of Christ is not like a clean shirt we can put on for the occasion. Like the beauty of the lily It must proceed automatically from within regardless of our situation, because that is what we are.
If Christ's Life is not on display the worldly senses of our mortal spirit and flesh are not under pre-eminence to our soul. This means that either we are spirit babes, or that we have never been born-again. We must come to maturity, under pre-eminence to the Word, not the flesh and mortal spirit, so God has confidence to place us in authority by His Word for the manifestation of the Sons of God.
God didn't want sacrifices and offerings, He wanted to live in the Body of His glorified Family (Hebrews 10:5). But His first children broke that relationship and His holiness cannot abide sin. Anything unclean or unbecoming must be destroyed for His glory. The Hebrew word is "cherem".
Man is a slow learner. Unbelief has made experience his harsh but most common teacher. It has taken God six thousand years to instruct him to distinguish clean from unclean, holy from unholy; four thousand years before He could tabernacle in man; and He's been building that tabernacle for 2,000 years since.
Revelation 21:2-3, "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God."
God once lived alone between the Cherubim who covered their faces and their feet in humility. His holiness is such that when He came down to speak with Moses, if even a bullock touched the mountain, it must be killed. This was why the resurrected Jesus told Mary, "Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father" (John 20:17). Mary would have defiled the atoning sacrifice.
Our holy God could not condone sin and he continued to dwell alone between the Cherubim in the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle and later the temple where only the high priest could enter once a year. Then He became flesh and dwelt among us in the tabernacle of Jesus Christ, His Son, His creation. That Son gave His life, and the Blood of God was shed that the Life might come to us.
God's only cleansing, healing stream is the Blood. The spirit of natural life flows through the bloodstream to empower our body, while the blood cleanses the body of impurities, guards, protects and heals it from sickness. So "the life is in the blood". Because of the Fall all natural life came through the sexual desire of our parents and not by the Word, as Adam and Eve did not wait for the Word of faith and Life to be revealed, but followed the Tree of Knowledge to certain death.
After Justification by grace through faith in who Jesus Christ is and what He has accomplished for us, Sanctification by the Blood is the "second work of grace" because when Christ's Blood was shed His eternal Life was released to reveal any unholiness in us and wash it away by revelation of His Word (Ephesians 5:26). Sanctification corrects our ways, making us a fit, holy place for God to dwell. Next He baptizes us with the Spirit, taking residence in the temple of our body and changing our character to the Divine nature of God. Not instantly, but as we yield and mature.
God is building the individual Christian the same way He has built the Church through the Ages. Writing to those who have already obtained the common faith, Peter (II Peter 1:1-12) explains how we mature from spirit babes to the full stature of Christ by adding to faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity. This Scripture has been expounded in The Stature of the Perfect Man. In an accompanying diagram, the Great Pyramid represents the Body of Christ of all Ages, illustrating how the elect Church has even been the diminishing minority, whereas the nominal and false church has been increasingly in the majority until today it is almost a monopoly.
The Great Pyramid was God's second Bible, written in stone before the Flood by the prophet Enoch. Like the Pyramid, the true Church was broad at the base and became narrower through the first three Church Ages after it "fell from its first love", the Word, in Ephesus. The Roman Catholic church organized in Pergamos, and martyred millions of Christians through Thyatira (the Dark Ages). And through the three Ages of the Reformation of the Roman Catholic system of worship, as God restored the Word, line upon line, the ratio of elect to nominal Christians continued to decline drastically.
Finally in this present Capstone Age of the fullness of the Word the Church is very few in number. Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches. I will prune off every branch that claims to be in Me but does not bear fruit" (John 15:1-2). Whenever the branches denominated, He pruned them off. When the next Church Age denominated, He pruned it off. But the heart of that tree kept growing for the Life was in the Roots. Finally Christ, the Head of His Church, the Holy Spirit Himself, descended in the Light of the evening time Message to manifest Himself in the Bride, bringing her to perfection in the Divine nature (Zechariah 14:7; Matthew 24:27-28; I Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 10:1-7). And He will resurrect the Church as one perfect Body.
Peter prays, "Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ, as His divine power has bestowed upon us all things necessary for a godly life, through the knowledge of Him that has called us to share His Own glory and virtue. By these means He has bestowed upon us exceeding great and precious promises: that through them, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, we might be partakers of the Divine nature" (II Peter 1:2-4).
These virtues are all in the Seed that quickened the soul of the end-time Bride because that Seed is the fullness of the Word. The Law of Life will bring forth after Its kind. We need to learn to let go and let God, and the virtues will manifest.
Now many people with a measure of knowledge, wisdom, patience don't even profess to be Christians. And some have the fruit of the Spirit without the Spirit. These virtues are naturally given, and though this is to be desired, without faith in a new birth they can not please God.
The Capstone is Charity, God's Own Love. It incorporates all seven virtues and represents the fullness of Christ's character incarnate in His end-time Bride by the seven thunders which were the revelations contained in the Seven Seals that give the new birth in this day.
The promises of God in Christ are only to the overcomer. We must overcome the senses and distractions of our mortal tabernacles by the Word of God and prayer so that the beauty of holiness in the fullness of the Word united with our soul can express the Divine nature.
The new birth is an irrevocable Spiritual marriage between our soul and the Word. And the natural marriage types the Spiritual. We have to yield Headship to the embrace of Husband of our soul so that the fruit of our union, the Divine nature, may be seen in us. nl146.htm
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Brother Anthony Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister. He has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in various countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to minister in your church.
For Further Information Contact:
Bible Believers' Church
Currabubula, NSW 2342, Australia
e-mail: ags@biblebelievers.org.au
URL: http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/