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Posts Tagged ‘Tribulation’

The Time of Sealing

Posted in Time of the End, tagged , , , , on December 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 7:1-4

Every Christian should understand that THIS IS THE TIME OF THE SEALING. Every Christian should know that God is now sealing people in their MINDS and in their HEARTS and that there is a ministry of sealing. If we listen to a ministry that is not ordained of God to seal the church, then we will be automatically condemning ourselves to be foolish virgins. If we are involved with a body or a group that is not in the mainline of what God is saying at this hour, we will be decreasing our chances.

Of course, God is good enough to pour tribulation on us and to bring us in by tribulation, by suffering; therefore I am sure that many of us should be considering that we need to make sure we are listening to the right things and to the right people. Many voices are shouting from all directions, but your heart, your table of shewbread, is going to be feeding on Christ, and Christ in you will recognize the Christ in the speakers or writers. This is the hour and this is the time, and if you miss this time, you might well miss the coming of Jesus Christ.

In the time of Jesus’ first coming, all the Pharisees and the great men of the Bible were studying the Word and they knew that at that time something should happen. When the wise men came, Herod called them and asked them where this Christ should be born; so Herod heard, but the people missed Him because the theologians of that time were telling them that Christ would come as a king, that He would come and put down the Roman Empire, and that He was going to give them deliverance and exalt the Jewish nation to rulership. It was a wrong concept. The right word with the wrong concept, leading the people in the wrong direction, AND THEY MISSED HIM. They crucified Him, and most of them did not know until after they had crucified Him that He surely was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. To this day, many are still stumbling over the situation. They still do not know that they crucified their Messiah. Brethren, let us not be found in the same place as they were when Jesus comes back.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pages 143-144)

Thought for today: Many voices are shouting. Let us make sure we are allowing God to seal our minds and our hearts.

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The Five Wise and the Five Foolish Virgins

Posted in Time of the End, tagged , , , , on December 21, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Matthew 25:1-13

Matthew 25 tells us that there were ten virgins. The number ten speaks of Divine rulership. These ten were appointed to be divine rulers of God’s business, God’s work. Five of them were foolish and five of them were wise. The difference between the foolish and the wise was one little point. They were dressed alike and were clothed properly. They had oil in their lamps and their lamps were lighted. Oil in their lamps means the Spirit of God in their spirits, because the Bible says that the spirit of man is the lamp of God (Proverbs 20:27). That is where it is supposed to be. This Spirit power is supposed to fill the soul. If the soul is empty at midnight, it means that you did not store the oil in your soul, which is the place that God wants the oil anyhow. For the soul is the vessel and the vessel is the person and the person is his mind, his emotions, his will, and his desires.

If when you are in church, when you are reading the Bible, when you are among Christians, while things are all right, you have a lot of God and you can sing and pray and you can quicken people with the power of God, and yet HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR SOUL WHEN TRIBULATION HITS, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SURVIVE. This is what we mean by MIDNIGHT. At midnight, there was a cry made “Behold, the bridegroom cometh” and the virgins that were wise got up and trimmed their lamps, because at midnight people’s lamps are low. When you are in trouble, when you are in distress, your lamp is low and you need a resurgence of power coming from the oil you have stored up in your soul nature. THE OIL IN THE SOUL IS WHAT MATTERS. This the foolish virgins did not have. At midnight when the bridegroom came, they were left outside.

Matthew 25:10, “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.” Now remember, these people were there waiting for the bridegroom. They were patiently waiting and ready and well-equipped but something happened. They heard the following cry: “Behold, the bridegroom cometh.” They ALL heard it. That means the whole church is going to hear, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh” and THEY WILL BELIEVE IT. They will turn around to get themselves ready for the bridegroom for their lamps were out, their vessels were out, and they have to rush outside to the store to see if they can get oil to buy. “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.” A very sad note: “the door was shut.”

Verses 11 and 12, “Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” In other words, He was saying that He had not had intimate relationship with them. They are not known to Him. This word “know” here suggests intimate relationship.

The Lord concludes, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” God is telling us to WATCH. Whom do we watch? We need to watch ourselves. God wants every man, every woman, every child to begin to watch his own thoughts, his own mind, because only you and God know what you are thinking. Sometimes very weird thoughts come into people’s minds who are supposed to be sanctified and you had better know these weird thoughts (hidden from everyone else) should not be entertained. These thoughts will come to you and if you entertain them, because nobody knows, you will come back again and get into the same line of thinking. I want each of us to go to God and ask Him to take away these weird thoughts or else teach us how to handle them.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pages 141-142)

Thought for today: Let us be watchful with our thoughts in our mind. Let us store up oil in our soul so that we are of the wise virgins ready to meet our Lord at the midnight hour.

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The Mystery of the Man Child

Posted in Time of the End, tagged , , , , on December 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 8:1-6

Revelation 8:1, “And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.”

We must understand what is meant by “silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” It means, of course, that there were no angel movements, neither spiritual movements by men. Those whom God had anointed to preach had stopped preaching, the angels who were anointed to help them had stopped helping them, and those who were anointed to work, to do service, had stopped working.

What could have caused that? THE DEATH OF THE SONS OF GOD. In chapter 6, dealing with the fifth seal, the souls of those under the altar who called to God said to Him, “How long…dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” And He gave them “white robes” and “it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”

We see here a picture of what happens in heaven when the sons of God are slain. When Jesus Christ was slain, His work was cut short, there was no more healing of the sick, no more deliverance for a period of time, because the Son had died.

Coming back now to the sons of God, He said things ceased for “about the space of half an hour.” We have to look at this as a PROPHETIC UTTERANCE. A spiritual half an hour could be anything. We have to get the revelation. For a space of time there was no movement. None of God’s business was being done.

Matthew 24:29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” This is the time we are reading about in Revelation 8:1, a time when the sons of God will be slain.  “Silence in heaven” is talking about the death of the sons, even as it was the death of Christ Jesus. The sons will die. The sons of God will be dead for three and a half days.

The sixth seal is symbolic of the overshadowing. Now we are dealing with the seventh seal which is the church of the man child. God has always described the church as feminine, as a woman. The reason is because the church had no power in itself to give forth life. It had to receive life to give life, like a woman has to receive the life, or the seed, from her husband in order to bring forth a child. We the church were receiving life from God and bringing forth nothing.

The church has been described as a barren woman. Hannah, for instance, was a barren woman and she brought forth. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was a barren woman. God always uses the barren woman as the type of the church. This barren woman church has never brought forth anything but now she is being overshadowed by the Mercy Seat or the two angels on the Mercy Seat which is a symbol of God Himself. No man can overshadow and bring forth God. Man can only bring forth man. When a person is discipled to another human being, he cannot rise above that human being, because the master is greater than the disciple, but if we are discipled unto Christ, then we will bring forth Christ.

God has brought the female church to the point where she will bring forth a male church which is called the church of the overcomer or the man child-church. (The words “man child” will be described in other devotionals.) Let us really understand what we are writing about.

The child that this woman church will have (churches always bring forth churches) will be a life-giving being. The church will be a life-giving church. Why? Because the church will have Christ in it. Remember the picture we saw in the first chapter in Revelation with the Christ standing in the middle candlestick? This is the same picture that we are seeing through the whole Revelation, as we speak of this seventh seal. The seventh seal is the mystery of the man child.

This mystery of the man child therefore is a type of the ARK OF THE COVENANT.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pages 153-154 & 165-166)

Thought for today: As Hannah cried out for her barrenness and was delivered so also may we cry out to God that we may be part of the man child company.

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I Must Watch Myself!

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , , , , on October 12, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ephesians 4:26-27

Ephesians 4:26a says, “Be ye angry, and sin not.” I know what it is to get hit hard with words. You should quickly submit yourself to God. We must be under the control of God! The anger must never come to fruition, never show itself or manifest. We must be able to conquer right in the midst of the tribulation. This is what God is saying to us.

Every time I read about the coming of Jesus, I see the warning, “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” Watch! Watch! Watch! What is the meaning of watching? It means I MUST WATCH MYSELF. I must watch my mind, what I think, what I believe, and what I submit to. I must watch the thoughts coming from the outside. I must watch the bombardment. Bless be to God, I must be delivered from my besetting sin or my familiar spirits, the spirits my mother had, or my father had, which made them do things contrary to God. These I must overcome by the power of God, by the Spirit of God.

Your first move, brother, sister, is to believe this word! Once you believe it, you can receive it. If you do not believe it, you will never receive it no matter how much you read your Bible.

The four beasts mentioned in Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4 are natures that are planted in the human realm, within us. They are in our flesh and in our souls trying to destroy the soul. But praise God, “what is good for the goose is good for the gander.” The Spirit of God comes and bombards the soul with radiation, with lights of glory. He bombards the soul night and day, while you are asleep and while you are awake. You only have to leave your God door open. He sets a watch over you. There are guardian angels that watch over you. You should rise up in the morning and say to God that you are vulnerable and ask Him to see to it that you do not sin this day, to see to it that you think no evil or do no wrong this day! Then every time the incidence of evil approaches you, or you think to commit an evil act, or have an evil thought, SOMETHING WILL PRICK YOU, and you will remember that prayer. Sometimes we sin unconsciously. We are so accustomed to sinning that we do not have to think to sin. We just go right ahead and sin. We are not even conscious of it, but the God of heaven has set a watchman within you to make you conscious.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pg. 83)

Thought for today: Watch, Watch, Watch! Pray that you might not enter into temptation.

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God Is Stretching Us

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , on June 6, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Romans 5:1-5

One day I went down to the Ford factory. No place on Earth reminded me of hell more than that foundry where they smelt the metal. We walked along, watching the metal being changed, and I could imagine if I were that metal I would be complaining all the way. They put it in a terrible furnace; it was glowing so brightly that you couldn’t even look at it. Then they began to push it through rollers. One roller flattened it a little. I thought it was flat enough, but the other roller flattened it again. They kept on stretching and flattening that one small piece of metal until it was 3,000 feet long. It started at the length of about 20 feet, but they flattened it and stretched it to 3,000 feet. I said to God, “Lord, isn’t this what you are doing to us?” Some of the metal complained so badly that they had to discard it; it just wasn’t up to the mark. They had to take it off and throw it away. May God help us to realize that the circumstances of life which beat us, the ones that hit us hardest, are the things which are transforming us into the image of Christ. Every one of us has something that we hate. We would almost prefer to die than for some things to happen to us. But sometimes these are exactly the ones that happen to us.

One of the things that I feared most was my family being in want. When God sent me out on the mission field, I had no church behind me, no congregation behind me, and yet He commanded me to give up my profession, go out and preach to a people who I didn’t even know. I lived with people who never had a meal for a day; the area was so poor. They would boil a bush tea, take some sugar (sugar was easy to get in a sugar country of Jamaica) and give it to the baby. And that is what the baby and the parents lived on. We had to weed a field of about 10 acres with a hand hoe. There we were weeding all day so thirsty and so hungry that at about 2 o’clock we prayed that God would send us some food. Then we looked around the rocks and saw a little tray coming. It was a sister who said the Lord told her to bring us water and food. This is how those people lived. They really had a faith in God that was above the faith of those who had something. Sometimes they would eat one little dumpling and a little coconut oil for all day, but then  when we got home from the fields in the evening, we would go off to service and God would meet with us. God taught me to live with those people to learn what it was to really trust God and to know Him.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, February 1978)

Thought for today: May God help us to realize that the circumstances of life which beat us are the things which are transforming us into the image of Christ.

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