Introduction

We praise the Lord for His wonderful grace and mercy. He has given us this opportunity. It is better than anything the world has to offer. We thank the Lord for His blessings.  

Looking to the Future

 

Today, I believe that the two prophets are on the scene, they are well and are being acquainted with the conditions of the world without really realizing the call that is upon their lives. I doubt that they really know that now, but they will know it when the time comes. I do not want to crowd things in to mess up the picture. We know there is an order to these events. There will be a miracle war. The temple will be built and then there will be another conflict. Not a war, but an invasion by Russia and her Islamic allies in the Middle East. They be defeated. We see the way things are going in Israel. I do not know how much longer it is going to go on. Just any little spark there could set off a war. They have neighbors that are friendly with them, like Jordan, but if any little thing that goes wrong, and they are going to jump to the other side. Israel will inherit the country of Jordan. If you see where David and Solomon ruled, they went much beyond the Jordan River. As Bro. Jackson preached Showdown at Sundown many years ago, he explained these things. We believe that we are in that time. We know it is going to happen, but the Bible says when Jesus comes back you will not know the day nor the hour, but it said to be ready. That does not mean that He is not coming at just any time. There are specific conditions that will be present. I believe we will know the season, we just will not know the day or the hour. Whenever that time gets ready, whenever it is nearing that time, we are going to know that we are in that time. It is not going to happen just haphazardly. The coming of the Lord will not just randomly happen any day or any hour as they preach today, because God has a set time, just like He has a set time for the Armageddon war. He said in a day and hour, a month, and a year. The scripture foretold the season of time when Christ would come the first time. We know when He was born, and we will know when we are in the season of time when he will return. So, brothers and sisters, all I can say is let us get our lamps trimmed and burning. Because we do know that everything is planned out. The wedding supper is planned out. In the type of the wedding supper that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 25, we find out that He is talking about a certain time. He is talking about a time whenever the Bridegroom comes for the Bride in the natural, then He is gone seven days according to Jewish tradition. That works exactly along with the scripture. The Bride is gone seven years, thereabout, and then she will come back. As no explanation can explain her splendor, because she is coming back to rule and reign with Christ. Whenever you see Him in Revelation 1, you see splendor. You do not see somebody being whipped and somebody being beat, you see majesty. That is what it is going to be, it is going to be majesty.

 

I have some new scriptures here that really do not have a whole lot to do with Revelation 10, so I am putting a different subtitle on this message. I felt led to look at this subject after I saw Jonathan Cahn deal with. I know that people are not going to like it because I mention him, but I do not care, I am not preaching to you. I am preaching to the Bride. I am not preaching to people that have left truth and I am not preaching to people that are in disagreement with us. I am preaching to Bride people. I believe that they are in agreement. Across this world the Bride is in agreement, in Norway, in the Philippines, in Canada, in South Africa, in England, around this world. We are in agreement. We thank the Lord for that. We have not tried to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. All we have done is to preach truth and I believe we have. I believe we have preached truth and that we are preaching truth and that it is going to have its results. We have a lot to look forward to. There is a lot to look forward to. 

Birth of Christ 

I have a picture here I want to show you which will go with the scriptures I have. I want to go in the word now. In the book of John, John starts out saying, in the beginning was the Word. He does not deal with the birth of Christ, but he does deal with baptism, as all the rest of them do. But Luke goes into particulars about the birth of Christ. Matthew talks about the birth of Christ, but he does not go into the particulars about it like Luke does. Luke really goes into it in a way that is detailed. He explains the birth of John, and Zacharias, how he was dumb for a certain length of time, which meant he could not speak. He could hear but he could not speak. Things went on like that until Gabriel came to Mary. When Gabriel came to Mary, then he told her she was going to have a child. We understand this was a hard thing for Joseph, who she was espoused to be married to. But he was not going to put her away publicly, so everybody would know about it. He was going to put her away privately, which was a manly thing. That shows the nature of the man that was going to be the step father, let me put it that way. He was going to be the step father of her son. I want to start in Luke chapter 2, which will be concerning the manger.

My picture is of the Megiddo valley. Here is what you see if you go to Megiddo. Megiddo was a city of refuge. This was where Solomon built a great fortress to protect Israel and Jerusalem. From there he could protect this whole valley, because you can see for miles around because you have a flat valley there. There is a manger up there on that hill, where the fortress was. I have a picture of that here to see. A manger was a feeding  trough, which animals could eat out of.  I want to put it into my message to try to help us to understand why certain things were done in the way they were. If you look, you see these Christmas scenes that world puts together. Some of them were just pure wicked that some people made out this year. Those people have their reward, who make a mockery of the Lord. They got somebody to agree with them. You can always find people will agree with you, whatever you do. There are those that will agree with you if you are wrong. They will agree, and they will not change because they know they are wrong. But that is them. Everybody has their own idea about how things should be, without a revelation. A revelation settles things, how they really are. As I read this, I want you to be able to understand what I am talking about. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” He was not talking about the United States. He was not talking  about South America or North America. He was not talking about that. He was talking about the world which Rome ruled, which would have covered much of Europe, a lot of Africa, the Middle East, all the way into Iran. This is where he ruled. The decree went out to all of them which included Israel. Israel, at this time, was under Roman rule. Caesar loved taxes. He loved to tax the people. 

“And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city.” They had a certain city they had to go to, that is where they were born. This was really a census too, because each head of each family had to go and be taxed. All the family was known by the head of the house at that time. “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David.” That is the reason he was in Bethlehem. “To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.” I remember Bro. Jackson going over this. He said that Mary did not know exactly when her conception took place, so they were not for sure just what day to expect the child to be born. But she was great with child. “And so, it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” There is a reason for this. That is the reason I have this picture of a manger. Now I want to go John 6:48. “I am that bread of life.” This is the chapter in which he begins to deal with himself, the bread of life. He is speaking of it His body, because He explains that as we go on down. “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” In other words, they ate the manna in the wilderness, but they got nothing for their soul. That manna did not give eternal life. “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is the bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” Let me read that again. He repeats this three times. The last verse that I read, and this verse, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Alright, he said this is the bread which came down from heaven. His life is from above. Where was He born? In Luke it said He was born in Bethlehem. What does the word Bethlehem mean? The house of bread. And where did he lay? A manger. My picture here is the representative. He had to be born and placed in a manger for this to be fulfilled. Why? Because He is the bread of life and this is the feeding trough. Do you get it? His life came down from heaven. I did not understand this years ago. I asked Bro. Jackson about it one time, because it looked like Jesus had lived in heaven before his birth. But that is not true. His life was from the Father, which came down from heaven. An angel spoke it. Then the Holy Ghost, which is from heaven, overshadowed Mary and she conceived. That seed had come down from heaven. Then he was born in Bethlehem, “The house of bread,” and they placed him in a manger, which is a feeding trough. 

Life Is From God 

Let us know go to Micah 5:1-2. “Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” God had planned that he would go forth in eternity past. That that is the life of God which is a life that sprang forth from eternity. You have eternal life because you accepted the shed blood of Jesus Christ for your sins and received the gift of the holy spirit, therefore you are eternal. You and I also come from eternity. Before the foundation of the world ever was, you and I were in God’s being. That is the reason why you have accepted Him today. It is because of His eternal purpose before the world began. You were in His thoughts. That is why you will go right into the Millennium as sons and daughters of God to rule and reign. Then after that, into eternity because you are eternal beings. See what we were doing now? We were muddling around, acting like the world, but there was a seed in us. There was already an eternal seed in us that had to be accepted. It is something that builds and grows until we become expressions. We are an expression of God. We are an expression of His life. That is why Paul said, we are not our own. 

Sin was Placed on the Sacrifice 

Matthew 26:67, “Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands.” I wonder how come it said with the palms of their hands? We will go from this picture to our next picture. Jesus was the sacrifice for sin. The High Priest, or the priest, before the sacrifice is killed, had to place their hands on its head. What is that all about? They had to place their hands on its head because they are placing their sins on it. That transferred the sins to the sacrifice. The High Priest, once a year, places the sins of all Israel on that sacrifice’s head before it is slain. So why did they smite Him with the palms of their hands? They are placing their hands, their sins, on His head. They did not realize what they were doing, but they were fulfilling the scripture. When Jesus was crucified, they placed their hands on him, they smote Him with a reed. In the Bible, it is all fulfilling of the scripture. They smote Him. They placed their hands on His head. What happened?

Let us go to 2^nd Corinthians 5:2 for the answer. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, (What did they do? They placed hands on Him, they put a crown on His head. They placed our sins on Him. We had no alternative. There was no other way to be saved. Shaking hands with the preacher will not do it. We have to accept what He said and what He did, because our sins were placed upon His head. He knew no sin. That fit the type, because they had to take a lamb without blemish and they had to place their hands upon that lamb before they killed it. God accepted it, because it was representing what would come. So, mine and your sins were placed on His head. Then whenever He gave up the ghost, whenever He died, then He took our sins away. 

Let me go to the next picture, I will come back to this. See? What the Jews do, they place the blood upon the door post. One spot at the top, and one spot on each side. They had to look up when put the blood on the top. This is an animal sacrifice, it is not a human sacrifice. But it is a representation of the sacrifice that would come, because they are looking up. Let me read this again, For he hath made him to be sin, to take our sins upon himself, that is why we should be more reverent unto the obedience of Christ, because He took our guilt upon himself. When we are baptized in His name, we become dead. The pool of water symbolizes the grave and the death of the old man. We come up dead to sin; therefore, sin shall not rule over you. He became sin for us…) who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God (the Father) in him.”  God spoke to Moses, he was the first to tell them to do this. This became law. It was not law before that. Abraham sacrificed, but he did not know this part. He did not put blood on the doorposts. We can see how God progressively reveals more and more of the picture over time. 

Matthew 27:30. “And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.” It is all adding up in scripture. Jesus took a beating. What time was He crucified? The third hour of the day. What time did He die? The ninth hour. That was the time of the morning sacrifice and the evening sacrifice. Here they are fulfilling the scripture without knowing it. While they are offering the morning sacrifice in the temple he was being offered up on the cross. On what day? Passover. It had to be on Passover. It was Passover Friday. Then in the 9^th hour as they offered the evening sacrifice at the temple, Jesus died on the cross. Here they are, offering up a sacrifice of the evening, whenever their Lamb is on the cross. They are still taking a lamb and killing that little lamb because they cannot recognize this one that is hanging on the cross. Let us go to Galatians 3:13-14, where it makes it a little plainer here. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”  

Now when they put the blood on the doorpost, what were they doing? They took the blood of the lamb and brushed it on the top and the sides of the door. They put three bloodstains on the door. If we look at the cross we see three bloodstains there too, where they nailed him to the cross. It is just the opposite. Why is it? What is the difference? Because God is coming down to man. God came down through Him to us. He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. It types the Old Testament. The nation of Israel was God’s wife. You read that in the book of Hosea. What is did Hosea do? He married a prostitute. God told him to marry a prostitute. He has a son by her, and he has a daughter by her, but he names what is going on in Israel. He was showing how Israel strayed away from God and become unfaithful unto the living God, which was His wife. Israel was the Bride of God. Now we are the Bride of Christ. The life came down from above, the life came down from above to a manger. At one time I did not understand that because it looked like Jesus came from some other some place. He did not. But the seed of life that was placed in Mary was from above. He took their sins by them placing their hands upon His head. They were placing our sins on Him and He became sin for us. Is this hard to understand? In other words, He took our sins upon Himself. He became guilty that we might be made free. Jesus said, I am the water of life, the rain comes down from above. 

When Bro. Kevin ministered, he said he knew some that said they did not feel like they had been to church unless they could jump, dance, and shout. Now, where are they? Wearing little skinny britches. Sodomites. I do not know what they are anymore. Man or woman? I do not know which one they have accepted. A bunch of feminine men or masculine women. It is a disgrace. It is a disgrace to this nation. Now I hear they are going to make trouble for the governor of Kentucky because he is not going to accept it, men and women who do not know which restroom they should use. God will clean this nation up. He has to do something here if this is the nation that the Jews will flee to, they are not going to come to a reprobate nation. We could be on the verge some great happening in this nation in the next few months or years. Because God is tired of it. He is tired of a government that is pushing these things. They do not care because there are no morals in them. The morals are gone. I heard something Friday morning. There were a hundred bikers that got together to stand with Trump. They were interviewing the head biker, he said, “We are two hundred thousand and we are going to Washington to make sure he becomes president without trouble.” You have another side there. I am not saying this is right, but I am saying that we could be looking at something begin to take place. That is why I say, be careful. Be careful where you are at. It does not have to happen, but it could. The Bible said to be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves.

Let me go back to John. I will read this here in Galatians again before we go there. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse (because cursed is every one that hangs on a tree. He hung there with two transgressors. It had been prophesied that one would accept Him, the other would turn away. That is what happened. God knew that. He knew everything. He knew where we would be today. He knows what we are doing. He knows what we are thinking. He knows what you need. He knows that you are not satisfied. He knows if you need an experience with Him. Christ hath redeemed us, past tense. He is looking at the other side of the cross. He is looking at the other side of the cross, coming to the cross. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse.) for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” Now I will go back to John 6:48. Maybe you will understand this a little better now. “I am that bread of life.” See? His body is bread, that is why we take communion. We are taking a representation of His body. We take this first, then we take the wine which is a representation of His blood. Jesus said in John 13, this do in remembrance of me. In remembrance of what He did. “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” He means they are spiritually dead, they are laying there in the desert, but they are spiritually dead because they were troublemakers. They did not get to go across the Jordan. If they did, they would have gone into their rest. We go into the rest as recorded in the 4^th chapter of Hebrews, when we enter into the Holy Ghost, we have gone into His rest. “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.” We have our brothers and sisters who have passed on. Are they dead? No, they are asleep, they are not dead. The life has gone out of the body, but the life went to heaven. They are in paradise. Paradise was all rooted out when Jesus came out of the grave, He took paradise with Him. He took it and took it on high. There they are today, those that have gone on before us. There they are today, resting and waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting for us, that they may be made perfect because of the resurrection of their body. We can be perfect in spirit in this life, but we will never be fully perfect until our body is made perfect. Because there is something holding us here. Gravity is keeping us here. But one day gravity will no longer hold. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They did not understand. The disciples probably did not understand, but they were waiting. They were waiting on Him to see the explanation. “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” They thought he was talking about cannibalism. “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Whoso eateth, or partaketh of the body that was laid in the ground, and they partake of the blood offering for the sacrifice, has life. And because He lives, we shall live also. 

Gabriel Speaks to Mary 

I want to go to the book of Luke 1:26. “And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth.” This was all a type. Nazareth was not a very good place. That is where the troublemakers went. We find it was not all that way. There is a high ledge there, then there is a valley maybe three or four hundred feet from there. When Jesus goes back there to preach, that ledge was where they were going to shove Him over. So, you see the conflict there. He had trouble performing miracles that God had placed Him there to do. We find even though this was a rough place, Joseph was there, and Mary was in that area too. They were there because of one purpose, so Jesus could be called a Nazarene. The  Bible verifies that in Matthew 2:23. I want look at the picture of manger again. We have a separate picture that is after Jesus was born. You can see the animals. This was all planned by God. He started out as a lamb and suffered as a lamb because we read in Isaiah 52 that He grew up like a plant out of dry ground, which would have been Israel. Here in the next verse, “To a virgin (which would have been Mary, she was a virgin. That is what the Bible says. Being a virgin, God is picking everything. Everything in this is ordained of God. There is no mishap, because He knew who to pick and this was His pick from the foundation of the world. To a virgin…) espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, (He was getting her attention. That is what it is talking about. He is saying wait a minute, listen, I have something to say. Here he was. It looked as though he were a man, but he was more than that. He was an angel of the Lord that God had already spoken about in the Old Testament. The angel came in unto her and said, Hail…) thou art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” He had contact with Mary. She had not received the Holy Ghost, but He had contact with her because it said, you are highly favored. So, she had to have contact with Him. She knew no doubt that she had a purpose in life and that she was keeping herself clean to be that virgin she was to be. “And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, (See? She saw him.) and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.” Would you not question it? If you were a young lady and an angelic being started speaking to you. He was not somebody with a halo over his head, but there was a presence to him. She could feel the presence. She was highly troubled. She was bothered in spirit by his salutation or by his saying, thou art highly favored among women. “And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: (Now this is troubling. How did he know her name? How did he know her from anybody else, from any other young woman? See? God had all this planned. But she did not know it. She just had a strange feeling that she could not explain. The angel said unto her, Fear not Mary…) for thou hast found favour with God.” Now this is getting more personal. What I am saying this for is that God knows who you are, and He wants to get personal with us. Not just to give you a sensation, but to get acquainted with you. This is what the angel is doing. He is getting acquainted with Mary. It really does that when he called her by name. “And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.” Here he is going further. Now she is wondering, “What is this? What is going on?” He has already said, “You are highly favored,” but what is this conversation going to lead to? It is not a long conversation. He is not asking her, “Did you make biscuits this morning?” or asking what she had to eat. There is no way the word of God, if it went into specifics of everything, that you could ever carry a Bible that would contain it. But God gives us enough to where we have a hint of what He is talking about. Because there is a thought in each message that He gives. Mary is putting many things in her mind now. What is this all about? Especially when he goes further, and sometimes in our own life, whenever God would call you to preach, He does not tell you the whole message. He does not tell you how far you are going to go with this or what it is going to lead to, how you are going to be rejected. “Thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.” What is this? What is going on? Then he goes ahead to say, “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: (Now he is speaking something to her, He shall be called the Son of the Highest, which there is no higher than God because it goes on down and said, He shall be called the Son of God. Does that make Jesus God? I do not have to stand here and prove that because it is already proven. It is already proven in our minds.) and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.” All this is puzzling. It would be puzzling to you because here it is, an angel speaking. It is not an ordinary man. It is not somebody trying to get something going with a woman. It is not somebody bragging about it. God is facts. “And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; (This goes into the Millennium, forever, which is a period of time.) and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”  There will not be somebody else to take His place through that Millennial reign. We know that in the Eternal Age, that kingdom goes back to the Father. Jesus then becomes our elder brother. His kingship ends, but the kingdom goes on. We have preached that, we know that. “Then said Mary unto the angel, (Now she is speaking. She had been silent, now she is going to speak.) How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” She did not yet understand. Neither would we. We did not know at first, I did not, that God sent a prophet. All I knew was I was called to preach, but I did not know any more than that. “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost (What is the Holy Ghost? You know what the Holy Ghost is, right? I am asking you a question? It is the Spirit of God. The Holy Ghost…) shall come upon thee, (That is all it could ever do at that time.) and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” In this world, in type, He is the son of David, which we know He was only that because of the lineage of David. But here it really deals with who He really is, and she has not received this yet. Gabriel is telling it is yet to happen. He shall be called the Son of God, so with that, that is her introduction. He goes ahead to tell about Elizabeth to give her more understanding of what he is saying. That is the only reason he is speaking those things. He has proof. She does not know when this is going to happen. It said that the Holy Ghost shall overshadow you, it does not say when. It does say when the angel came in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. 

Bread of Life 

I want to go back to Luke 2. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” God is so precise. There they are, living in Nazareth. It said she is great with child. But she does not know just when. She could have known within a month, but she would not know when exactly. This decree that all the world should be taxed, was a purpose of God. God can take taxation and make a purpose out of it. He did, because He could not be born in Nazareth, this was not the place of bread. He had to be born in Bethlehem. “And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.” Or into his own nationality purpose, because this Nazareth is not a city of David. Nazareth is north, which would be in the opposite direction. It would not be near Jerusalem. A woman in her right mind would not get on a donkey to ride that far in her condition. But God does not use our right mind, He gives us the mind of Christ. We go completely out of this skull we are living in to serve the living God. All went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, (Galilee is some eighty miles from Jerusalem. This is north of Jerusalem. He went from Galilee…) out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, (See? It is two different areas of Israel.) unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (Remember, Bethlehem means “the house of bread”. We have been to that little place where these shepherds were at, which is controlled by Arabs now. This is not their land. The U.N. had another conference today. Think about it, a little nation over there that had the promised Messiah that was to come, now it is the hottest place on earth for man to deal with. God made it like a hot potato. They do not know what to do with it. Joseph went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judaea unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem…) because he was of the house and lineage of David.” This was where he had to go to pay his taxes. These Muslims have said he was a Muslim, and he was homeless.[1] Jesus was not a homeless Muslim. He went to be taxed, and the place was too crowded to find a room to board in. “And so, it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Everything is working together for the good of God’s kingdom. A manger is a feeding trough. This is where Jesus came to lay. They traveled all the way from Nazareth down to Bethlehem to be laid in a manger right after He was born, because He was the bread of life.  Go back to John 6:48. “I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.” Someone said to me, this is the plainest I have heard it about Jesus being the bread of life. Whenever I looked at it, it was the plainest that I knew about it. That little wafer that the Catholic Church takes, they said that Jesus comes back and dies every time they have communion. I never saw Him, I did not see Him come back every Sunday morning, because that is not supper anyway. They did not see Him either, because it said that He died once for all. That is not dying over and over again. “I am the living bread (He said it again) which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread.” He is talking of His body. You cannot eat of His body without accepting Him as your sacrifice. As they placed their hands on that little lamb before it was slain, it had to be pure. For God’s acceptance of Jesus, what did He come by? He come by virgin birth and He would have been a tiny micro-milligram seed placed in the body of a virgin. Why did she have to be a virgin? Because it had to be something that man had nothing to do with. She had nothing to do with it except accepting it. You have nothing to do with your new birth, it is only acceptance. These preachers on television, they will say to pray. They will start praying and they say if you accept this you are born again. You are not born again until you are baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. Acceptance is one thing, you can accept His death, you can accept His resurrection, but if you go no further than that, you have not accepted Him. Because whenever you take on the name of Jesus Christ, you have taken on His death, His burial, His resurrection when you come up out of the water, to walk with a newness of life. This is the bread which came down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. When we partake of Him, we will never die. Our bodies may expire. What did Jesus in the 25^th chapter of Matthew? He said they all slumbered and slept. What did Jesus say about Lazarus? His disciples came to Him and Jesus said, “We better go to Jerusalem because Lazarus sleepeth.” They said, “Well if he sleeps, he is doing good.” He said, “You do not understand, Lazarus is dead.” He had to put it in that way because whenever He stood at that tomb, He was talking to a body, not a man. The man’s life had to come back into that body. His spirit was still living, but his body was asleep. “I am the living bread, which came down from heaven, if any man eat of this bread…” That is His body, because you have to do that first. You have got to partake of the body before you partake of the blood. Because His body is what He gave as a sacrifice as that lamb, that lamb stands there, not knowing what is going to happen. Jesus knew, but it said He went as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before the ones that take the wool off of them. He went as though He did not know what was going on, but He did. What did it say when they questioned Him? He opened not His mouth. That puzzled them. They smacked Him in the face. They put their hands on Him. As a little lamb at first, before that lamb is slain, they have to place their hands on it. What does that mean? It means they are placing their sins on that lamb’s head. That is what they were doing. They were placing my sins, your sins upon the head of the Lamb, before He was slain. Your hands had to go there, because you had to take part of that sacrifice. Mary had a pure womb, but she was an imperfect woman. That serpent seed that runs through every one of us, and that could not be taken away. Why did it say on the day of Pentecost that a hundred and twenty were there? The apostles and Mary, about a hundred and twenty. Mary was not perfect, but the fruit of her womb was perfect. The life that came into her was perfect, so she had to be someone that had not known man. She could not be otherwise, she had to be pure in body. But that did not take away her sins. Mary, if she had died before Pentecost, you see then imperfection in her. You see it as well as His brothers. You see it in Matthew 12:47-50. They were opposed to Jesus ministry. They did not believe him, according to John 7:5. Family ties can be very dangerous if we do not watch it. Because we are a part of a bigger family. Your family, your mom and dad, if you are forty years, they knew you for forty years. But the family of God, the heavenly Father, knew you from eternity. He takes a part of His life to create us. That is what Gabriel told Mary. He shall be called the Son of God. That is what the angel was telling her, that He will be called the Son of God. Why? Because he was born of God and He was a part of God. Matthew 1:23 says “He shall be called Emmanuel because it is God with us”, that is the life in Him. After He was baptized, the life in Him, this is what you receive. The life was already there. Your life was already in God before there was ever a world. If you are eternal, you are a part of God. That is where eternal life comes from. Paul explains in Hebrews 10:7 how this works. Levi, who was not yet born, was in Abraham. Just as we, before we were born, were in God. Is this too deep?  

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: (You have to eat it first, you have to take part of it, of the life that came from this little baby, that come down into a manger, a feeding trough. He became our feeding trough by death, burial, and resurrection. Eat my flesh, drink my blood, He said. What was it? That flesh and that blood was a part of God. God could not die. God never did die. If Jesus is God, then God died. But Jesus is not God. He was placed here as the Son of God to taste of death for every one of us, as Paul went into it, as I went into it.) and the bread that I will give is my flesh, (That is the bread.) which I will give for the life of the world.” There Jesus begins to explain it. Jesus explains it more in John 17. He said “I and my Father are one,” and speaking of us, he said “that they may be one as I and my Father are one.” So it is, He is the head, we are the arms, we are the legs, we are the ones that carry Him. It makes us want to live a little better. We carry the life of God. Sure, we have made our mistakes and sins, but God came in. When Jesus took our place, then our sins were placed on the head of the Lord Jesus Christ. We become His body, and His body cannot die. We are the body of Christ. Do you understand it? “The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They did not understand anything. Here He is pouring His heart out to them to try to show them life, to show what it is to be alive, but the Holy Ghost was not yet given, and they were not going to receive it. Anybody with that attitude cannot receive the Holy Ghost. “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” You accept His body as your sacrifice. You accept His blood as something that you drink in, that gives you life. You cannot separate them, both of them together will give you life. What Jesus is saying, the Father will raise you up at the last day. We have got to wait. We have got to wait until that change comes, we cannot hurry it.

God is so gracious unto us, as the church of the living God, as we get closer—listen to me—as we get closer, we are going to know more and more and more about His coming. We will not know the day or hour, but we will know that it is within weeks, I will put it that way. I did not say months, I said within weeks. What we are doing? We are watching. The Bible said to watch. We are watching scripture, to see each step as it is being taken. We have just witnessed great changes in the politics of our nation. What is this week going to hold? I do not know, but it does not hurt to talk about it. The thing about it is, whatever comes, God will take care of us. You do not have to take months and years in planning, you do not have to get food for seven years. If you do that it shows you are not ready. That shows you are expecting to go through the tribulation period. 

The Multitude Rejects The Word 

Jesus was a little baby that looked like an ordinary little baby. He could not talk, He only cried when He needed nursing, or when He needed a diaper changed. They have a song which is so wrong: “Mary, do you know that when you touched that little baby you were touching the face of God.” That is wrong. I do not even like to think about it because it is wrong. He is exactly what the scripture says He is. He is exactly who He says He is. He is the Son of God. Do not make Him more, but do not make Him less. We are sons and daughters of God because of Him. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whosoever eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” What is He saying? It is that spirit inside you, the connection, whenever that time comes, the connection of the spirit in you will raise up the body, because the spirit that is within you is God’s spirit. You are a part of God. The Bible says “Now we are sons and daughters of God.” Why? Because we had a new birth. We went to the feeding trough, where He had to come down. His life came down, not His body, His life. See? He had to grow up as a lamb without blemish, without guile. But on the other hand, He could still rebuke the Pharisees. “You whited sepulchers! You serpent seed!” He was dealing with unbelievers. This multitude walked away. They began to say, “Who can hear this?” That was people had looked like they were believers before this, to some extent, because they came to His meeting. Some came to Bro. Branham’s meetings, but they rejected the message. They came to Bro. Jackson’s meetings, but then they rejected the message. Because the message was not William Branham, the message was not Raymond Jackson. The message is Jesus Christ. We are not the message, we are its carriers. You are the sons and daughters of God, why? The spirit of God has come to live inside you. “For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” Nobody understood it. The twelve did not understand it, but they had to hear the message.

The world had to hear the message. I am talking about the denominational people who heard William Branham. They had to hear the message. If they did not hear the message, they would have nothing to be judged by. Then the message people had to hear Bro. Jackson’s message, or they would not have anything to be judged by. See the falling away and how it happened? In swirls and droves, it came. Then it comes to us. As I said, we are not the message, but we are the carriers. We are, what does the Bible say? We are stewards of the mysteries of Christ. Why cannot people believe it? It takes life to believe it. That is why I have said two or three times and I say again, you are the sons and daughters of God because why? Because you have accepted, not just the message, but you have accepted the one that brought the message, which is Jesus Christ. Baptism is more than just getting wet. It is more than Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It is more than Jesus only. It is taking on the name of Jesus who is the Christ, the Son of God. We take on the Son of God, then we become sons of God and daughters of God. “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.” They could not understand it because they did not have it. The twelve could not understand that. Every once in a while, they would speak up. This happened before Peter ever said it. This happened when Nathaniel met Jesus in John 2. Whenever he met Him, he said “Thou art the Christ.” He knew He had to be, it was explained to him by the Holy Ghost. He did not have the Holy Ghost, but he had a revelation. This is what carried him through. The revelation is what is carrying us tonight. We are on the wings of eagles. We are being carried. I was driving near Salem the other day. I looked out in a field and here was a big eagle, about a hundred feet from the road, sitting there, eating. It makes me think of us. We are eagles. We have to eat. We have got to eat. We have got to take on His death before we can take on His life. We have got to be buried in baptism.  

“For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so, he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.” No explanation. He left it unexplained to them. He is not saying, “You are going to receive the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is coming back, maybe a year from that time, and you all are going to get a sensation, you are going to sit in an upper room and you are going to be baptized with the Holy Ghost, and you are going to come out of that room.” He did not tell them that. You have to accept the message before you can accept Him. I had to. Then that is when the ridicule comes. “This is the bread which came down from heaven.” See? Again, He is going back to His birth. This is the bread which came down from heaven. His life which came down from heaven and brought about conception in Mary. That baby grew and became a man. That man was baptized. Every sacrifice has to be washed. It said we must be washed in pure water. It was We go into a watery grave laden with sins. But whenever we are raised, we are raised in newness of life. The blood of Jesus Christ covers your sinful nature. Your original sin. The blood of Jesus Christ, by accepting that sacrifice, you have accepted that to take away your original sin. Then you are baptized, and this takes away the sins you have done in the flesh. You raise to newness of life, to live a life of Christ. I know that we make mistakes because we are still in this flesh. He made no mistakes. We have got to fight against that fleshly nature. We have to fight that, but God has given us weapons. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. You can put on helmets, you can put on this and that and the other, that is not going to protect you from the devil because he will penetrate them all day long. People have put on carnal armor, thinking this was going to be alright. The preacher says “Pray with me.” He offers a prayer. He says, “Now you are a Christian…” I do not think so. That is not how it works. There had to be conviction to bring about repentance. There had to be water to be baptized in Jesus name. I was convicted. I went to the end of my rope. I have said before, you go to the end of the rope and you hang on, but the rope I am talking about, you have nowhere else to go when you reach the end. You either sink or swim. I hope this is getting plain. It took a manger. It took a virgin. It took a little seed, as I said, micro-milligram, but it was a seed of God. The Holy Ghost, which is the spirit of God, placed that in there. She did not understand it, but we do understand it now. It is understandable. It took that, the life of God, to go in and place an element of Himself there. What did it say? God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. 

I am going to go back to Galatians 3:10. “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.” It was your faith that brought you to the cross. It was not just one day you said, “Well I think I am going to change my life.” No, it is not that way. As many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. So, you must first be led to the cross. “And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: (Being made a curse. I like what Jonathan Cahn had to say about that. He said when you take the cross and the blood over the doorpost and connect it, you have the six-point star of David. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us… ) for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. That the blessing of Abraham (He goes all the way back to Abraham. The blessing of Abraham is upon us. Abraham believed God and because he believed God, it was counted to him for righteousness. We, by faith, are the seed of Abraham. That the blessing of Abraham…) might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, (Do you get it? Not seeds, plural. It is seed, singular. ) as of many, but as of one, (Unto thy seed, one, which was Christ. He explains it here. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, He saith not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one,) And to thy seed, which is Christ.” The covenant God made with Abraham finished in Him. It was finished in Him, and what God did through Him, is finishing up in us. 

Inauguration of Donald Trump

I was proud the other day when I watched the inauguration, the words that were said and the family that knew how to dress that day, the women that had decent clothes on and men, even the ten-year-old boy, that had decent clothes on, nobody had blue jeans on. For that I am very happy. I know this morning, I am not looking at Donald Trump as a holy or righteous man, but I believe he can do something if he is given a chance, if he follows up on what he has agreed to do. You might say, well I could never agree with him, I could never vote for him. Let me ask you the same thing, would you have voted for David, king of Israel, think about it, would you have voted for him, the one that ordered a man killed, that took his wife, would you have voted for him? God said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. I am not comparing Donald Trump to David. But if there is a follow-through on what he said, I can see a nation this morning that is ready to go to war. All these women, what a vile bunch of street walkers, that is what they are. Seven different continents, even in Africa and Iran, they are on the streets today with their marching orders. Somewhere, somebody had to start this. They have their pink hats on, with the people that are speaking for them. This woman in Kentucky, I cannot think of her name right now, gets on a microphone and they have to bleep out her words. Madonna speaks for them and they have to bleep out her words. But they are not bleeped out to those little girls that are there in the crowd. Some of them are even up on their parents’ shoulders, they are so little. But they have them out there marching. I see something coming against America that is not going to be pretty. It could very well be a part of that flood, but the flood that become a flood to the world of destruction, the same flood became a blessing to Faith Assembly and those that would listen. That is why I wanted the song that was sung by Sis. Beth, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, because we are in a battle this morning. This nation is in a battle between right and wrong. Of course, they have more people marching today than what was at the inauguration. They have more in Washington, more in New York, more in Los Angeles. I believe they said there were seven hundred thousand in Los Angeles. One of these days they will get out to march and they will not be any more, because that vision Bro. Branham had has not happened yet. One of these days they will drop into the sea and as Bro. Branham was talking about it, he talked about the different things in the Bible, about Capernaum, thou that are exalted up to heaven shall be cast into the depths of the sea, he quoted that and then he said in the vision he had, Los Angeles, the city of angels, you will be thrust down to hell. That day is coming. This morning we are in safety as long as we are in the Lord. It does not mean nothing is coming our way, but somewhere the truth that the ministry stands for will prevail. We are waiting on whatever is next for us. It looked like there was a storm coming, then the blessing came from that, I was thinking about Bro. Mike sitting back there, the water getting up to his neck, but he was standing there with a glow on his face. Then it transfers to other people, in the dream our sister had. I praise the Lord for His wonderful grace. Young people, live for God and God will use you. It may not be often, but it will be something whenever it is, that will happen to you and will help somebody. What does the Bible say? Old men shall dream dreams, young men will see visions, upon my sons and daughters I will pour out my spirit saith the Lord, in the last days. The last days started in Acts, but they are ending up here because this is a part of the same thing. The ministry that is now, is more or less like they were in the days of the apostles whenever they were, they called them ignorant and unlearned, I will not say that. But that was what they said about them. We are not an educated ministry, we have not studied to be ministers. We did not go to college to be ministers. I remember in the Methodist Church, one of the main leaders in it said to the preacher, find some of your high school seniors, the best boys in high school, and teach them to preach. Well, I would not have made it out of school. I had all these books, sermon starters and everything when I was young, but I never did even look at them. People wanted you to be able to preach something that somebody else was after. There is no leadership of God in stuff like that. But here we are today, January 22, 2017. I saw some of it on the news this morning and a little last night, of this women’s march and everything, there is such a disgrace is all this, disgrace to a nation. Do you know what they are marching for? They are marching for abortion, they are marching for gay rights, that is what they are marching for. One of these days they will have their last march. One of these days they will give their last opinion. From then on there will be some heads that will be bowed. They are going to be ashamed of what they have taught their little girls. There are grandmothers out there marching with their daughters and granddaughters. What a sick, idiotic people, just because they want to live their lifestyle. As far as the gays and all that are getting married, they do not have to worry about having children because they will not have any. But on the other hand, it is a mixed society that we live in, a mixed group of people. Be glad you are not associated with something like that. 

I want to go to something else this, which is dealing with something near unto us all, which is telling you your future kingdom. Because there is a future in this. Go to Romans 8, which is one of my scriptures here. You go to Revelation, you go to Matthew 26, these scriptures I want to use this morning in this message to help us understand more of what our position is and what is really going to happen. Some of it is in the marriage supper of the lamb. I have some other things before I get to that. In the dream our sister had, there was twenty feet of water out here on the expressway and ten feet of snow on top of that, you see the floods, you see the cold, but when it came in here it was just the right temperature. Everything is going to be alright. Do not worry, do not fret, everything is going to be alright. Just hold to truth and your better days are on the way, your best days. because there is something good coming down the road. We are going to see it. Maybe every one of us will not be alive, but there are people here that are going to be alive. You are going to see it. It is going to be glorious when this really comes. You will not stay away from church because you will want to be here to be able to receive the blessings of God, because there is power in numbers. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, that goes for you brothers and sisters out there where there are not many. Like Bro. Phil James, Sis. Sandy and others. Bro. Jennings, I have not forgotten you, you and your family. I remember you most every day. There are saints scattered here and there. Bro. Jennings, I know you watch and would like to be here but circumstances, sickness and all, will not allow it to happen. May the Lord bless you where you are at. 

Take Eat; This Is My Body 

I want to go to Matthew 26:26-29. “And as they were eating, (The feast of Passover is a feast. It is not just wine and bread. It was a feast. Jesus teaches them something as this feast comes to an end. He is going to tell them about the wine and the bread then, which is His blood and His body. You find that in John 6, which I went over before. He said “except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” This is talking about His crucifixion and accepting His crucifixion as your anchor to salvation. Salvation is deliverance. As they were eating…) Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.” This is the same thing that He talked about in John 6. “And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it.” “Drink ye all of it” means let is sink in. He passed it around, the same cup. As He passed it around, He is saying to them, “Do not hold back, and drink all of it because this represents my blood.” He goes ahead to say… “And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” See? His blood here is for the remission of sins. His body, moreover, represents the word. “But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” What is He saying there? They have eaten their meal. It was a meal of bitter herbs. They did not know why they were eating them. The bitter herbs, the bread and wine, the lamb. Here they are, they have partaken of a decent meal, something that had been done ever since the days of Moses. For fifteen hundred years they have eaten this not knowing what it represented. But right here, He is telling them, this is what it really represents. It represents his blood and it represents his body. He says one thing, talking about the wine, because this is separate, this is after the meal is over, this is separate, what does He say that He does not say about the bread? He says something different here. “But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” This connects to the marriage supper, but I am not ready to go there yet. He is saying something here that He will not do until He comes into the Father’s kingdom. He did not say that about the bread. He said it about the wine. That lets me know something. He is talking about the fruit of the vine, He is talking about wine. At the marriage supper there will be real wine there. With the bread though, we find He ate bread after he was resurrected. Where do they eat? They ate at the Sea of Galilee. He takes fish and eats it there before all of them there after He is resurrected. He does eat after his ressurection, but the wine that He is talking about, He will not drink of it any more until He drinks it in the Father’s kingdom with them. So, as we look at that, He is explaining that one day there is going to be a marriage supper. 

The Wedding Garment 

We will go to Revelation 19, verse 7. “Let us be glad (That is now. Let us be glad…) and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.” See? Here He is saying to them, His wife hath made herself ready, which is now. You do not make yourself ready whenever the rapture comes. You make yourself ready now. That is the message of truth that you are hearing and that you have heard. “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen.” This is not until the rapture takes place that she has her final fine linen, she is arrayed in that, which now is the word of God. She is arrayed in the word. She is dressed in the word. At the marriage supper, that is when the culmination of all things happens. She has been acquainted with Him here. You see in John 13 the vine and branches are connected. On this side, before the rapture, His Bride hath (hath is past tense) made herself ready. Ready for what? That is why Bro. Jackson could say that a person just cannot be saved today and be a part of the Bride tomorrow. Because the Bible said to grow in grace. As you grow in grace, you are producing fruit. The fruit does not all come at one time. Longsuffering is not something you accomplish in one day. That is a part of the fruit. That is why Jesus would say that some, in Matthew 13, some are planted in rocky soil. In rocky soil, He said they endure for a while, but whenever trouble begins to come, when all this begins to come, then they fall away because they have no root. They have not listened. Jesus in that same place said, “He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear.” We all have ears, but do we have hearing ears? You may wear a hearing-aid, but that is not what He is talking about. He is talking about discernment. Everyone must have some sort of discernment to be able to choose the right. Some did not have that. They were just riding along until they hit a bump. The bump is in the word. God is going to derail whatever is not Bride material. He will take it away because it is not His. Maybe you as a brother or sister could have choose another route, another mate. But it was in your heart, that mate you choose was something about them that meets your criteria. That is the same way with Jesus Christ in choosing a Bride. They had to meet a certain criteria. It was not how tall they were, it was not how much hair they had or how little they had. Thank God for that, it may be that we are wrinkled up and dried up, but one of these days it is going to be different. The wrinkles will be gone. But going back to this, to her was granted, unto her was given. It was not something we merited, it was something that was granted. Forgiveness is granted unto us. The rapture will be something granted unto us, by election. That she should be arrayed in fine linen. What was it? It was granted unto her. It was given unto her. It was the acceptance. Jesus is teaching a lesson here. He will not drink wine again until we  are in his Father’s kingdom. So, we can connect Matthew 26 to Revelation 19. He said if you will open the door, I will come in and sup with you. That is the readying process and it could not happen until this endtime. You cannot take that statement that Jesus made in Revelation 3 and apply it to the days of the apostles, because you have done seen the failure of the churches of Asia Minor. You see their failures. All of them but Smyrna and Philadelphia, there was something against them. Revelation was wrote thirty years past the last apostle that is mentioned that died, which was Peter and Paul. Some of them might have lived longer, but these are the ones that we have chosen to look at because Peter was an apostle to the Jews and Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. He was the one chosen in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, a light unto the Gentiles. “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: (Which is being placed on her now. We are clothing our self by the word of God. That is our clothing. What is it? It is changing us from what we were to what He wants us to be. Some of you people that are here from just three or four years back, I could ask you this question, would you like to go back ten years? I do not have to ask you to hold up your hands. Some of them said to me this morning, I appreciate you so much. Why? It is not because of me, it is because of truth. We do not aim to change. Let the water and snow pile up. In a dream our sister had, the ministry did not change. They were not shook. I believe we have a platform this morning, a platform of truth to stand on. This is not something I am talking about, this is something that truth has come from and we are upholding that truth along with what God is dealing with us right now. It is not what the ministry said immediately after Bro. Jackson died. Some said they believed that all the mysteries have been finished. They were just going to go on what they had, teaching just what they already had, right down to the end, and then we will have seven thunders. No, it does not work that way. There have been new children added. I am not talking about little ones necessarily. I am glad for those young ones that have come in since Bro. Jackson has passed away, but then there are some grown people come to truth. They are counting on it to take them through. Are you counting on truth to take you through? We have got to. To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, there is no other garment like linen. Linen has a shine to it that you cannot get out of cotton, you cannot get out of any other garment. Linen is the only one that has that white glow to it.) for the fine linen is (What? What is it? Let’s make it personal. Let’s make it something that we can wear. The fine linen is…) the righteousness of (you) saints.” That is not Catholics. That is not priestly robes. That is not holy water. That is not all these little candles. It had nothing to do with the smoke that they make. The only smoke that God is looking for is the prayers of His saints. That what Revelation 8 says. What is it saying there? It is saying, we will look at it in a minute to get it right. “And he saith unto me, Write, (He is wanting us to know about it because He is telling John to write it. This is something important because He points it out to John, telling him to write it down. This is what He is telling him to write.) Blessed are they which are called (I cannot stop there, called. Many are called, but few are chosen. Blessed are they which are called, called now. Not which were called, but which are called…) unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.” You go from this setting, as Jesus is blessing the bread and wine, you go from this setting to the marriage supper. There were twelve there at the last supper, but when this wedding supper comes there will be millions there. It is not going to bother me if there are twelve apostles sitting up here at the head with Jesus. Wherever you are at, you are going to receive the same thing, all the way down the line, as far as you are away, you are not going to be left out. Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb, and he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. 

Go now to John 6:48-58. “I am that bread of life.” You do not get there unless you eat that bread, because that is life. He said, I am the bread of life. The bread that you eat is not life. But whenever you eat Him, you are eating the bread of life. What He is saying here is going to turn some people’s stomachs. “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” They will never be there in that kingdom. That whole generation from twenty years old and upward, they have no resurrection. They are still there in the ground. Their bodies, their spirits are in torment. Why? Because they did not believe the word. Every way they turned, there was a hang-up. Every step that Moses took there was a rejection. It was not until Joshua that they entered into the Promised Land because God raised up another generation that would hear. Now there is a generation that God has raised up here in the endtime that did not take the message of William Branham in the right way. Look at them today. Look where they have taken it. The only thing you see in the lives of these people is the way they dress. They got that part, but as Jesus said, the weightier matters, they rejected. There was enough there to tell them to go on. Billy Paul, he heard the dream of Bro. Jackson. Bro. Jackson drove all the way to Arizona and told him. Billy Paul heard it, but he did not listen. He heard it here in his ears, but he did not hear it in his heart. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us of his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, (He did not explain what he meant.) Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” You have no life unless you accept it.  Unless you be clothed with it, you have no life. Otherwise you are speaking to twice dead people. Do you know what I mean? That is what is happening today across this nation, they are speaking to dead people. Dead preachers with dead messages, talking to dead people. “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Here the disciples are sitting there, they do not understand it either because it is not time. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. He is talking about the Bride, the last day. There is not a bunch of last days, there is one last day for the Bride. “For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.” That goes along with John 17 where it says “I and my Father are one.” Then He goes ahead to say that you and He are one. “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.”  

Let us go to Matthew 19:27. “Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration (Part of that regenerations is when your body has been changed. You are regenerated; your body is changed from what it is to what it will be in eternity.) when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.” Many that are last shall be first, and the first shall be last. In other words what He is saying, the saints from the Book of Acts are not going to get up out of the ground before you do, except you be transformed from what you are, which comes five seconds after the resurrection. We have a lot to look forward to. Let us go to Romans, 8^th chapter, starting in verse 14. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” This is a distinction. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. You could say daughters also. If you are not a child of God, you are not going to be led by the Spirit of God. You will be led by something else. In the dream that was told by our sister, people were shook up. In the dream you could see that, but there had to be a steadiness in the ministry. There has to be. The ministry cannot be shaken. I do not know what it is, but I believe the dream. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; (What am I going to do? You may think you are not ready. Get ready. Get straightened out. Get your life under control. Listen to what my ministering brothers say. “Oh, it is just too hard,” you may say. Do not even think that way. I can take a hand, and I cannot hold water in it. But I can cup them together and then I can get a drink. I have done it at springs when I was a boy. If they are locked together, if we get locked together, we can get ahold of something. “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” There is something in feeling, because that Spirit will link up with your spirit. “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;  if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” If we suffer with Him, with His word. I was glad when they had the inauguration of Donald Trump, the people mentioned the name of Jesus Christ. Whenever George W. Bush was inaugurated, Franklin Graham, the same one that prayed there Friday, was indicted because He used the name of Jesus Christ. That shows how much of a Christian George W. Bush was. He claimed to be born again. Trump did not put his hand on a Muslim Koran to swear his oath. No. Neither did Pence. If it had not been for the other side, there would have been something to look at, but now here you have all these street walkers. It is not a good word, but it matches them. Paul must have been a southern boy, because he said, I reckon. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in (who?) us.” The sufferings of this present time, whatever you are going through, cannot compare to what will be. “Well you do not know what I am going through.” I can tell you there is something better coming. I remember Bro. Jackson had a shoulder operation. He could not play his fiddle or anything. When the song was sung, “There is a Brighter Day Coming”, he got so happy, he was moving that shoulder. It will make it move. The move is on. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature (which is our body) was made subject to vanity, not willingly, (It just happened that way.) but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” What is holding us here now is the flesh. One of these days this flesh will give way and glory will set in, then the rapture will take place and you will be going home. This world is not my home, I’m just passing through. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves,  waiting for the adoption, (Waiting for the adoption that we might cry, Abba, Father.) to wit, (or to witness) the redemption of our body.”  Not the redemption of your soul, that has done happened. Half of it is already done. The main part is already done, your soul, your mind, your heart has already been changed and you are just waiting for this flesh to be changed. That is the only thing that is holding us, that is the only thing that gravity has to do with it. Your thoughts are in heavenly places. “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience (With patience. That is where it is at.) wait for it.” Wait for it, wait for the change, wait for the time because we know it is coming. Usually when you get a little bit older, you know when it is going to rain. Older people used to say, “I feel it in my bones.” Can you feel change coming in your bones? There will be a lot of things changed about us. We must have our attitude changed now. The time is short. I believe we are right on the verge of something happening. Do you have a little feeling in your bones that the rapture is getting about ready to take place? We are not talking about this year, we are talking about when it comes. It said, wait for it, wait for it. Well, I wish it would hurry up and come on. Wait! It is coming! That is where hope sets in. 

… continued in the next edition.

50^th Anniversary Edition

In 1969, Bro. Raymond Jackson felt led to put some subjects into print in an effort to help deal questions different people were having at that time. The first edition published in March was titled “The Ancient of Days”. Inspired by the book of Jude, Bro. Jackson named the paper The Contender. Since then we have published hundreds of editions of The Contender on all the major subjects taught by Bro. Jackson. Bro. Jackson faithfully stood for the Word of God and carried a message of truth around the world on his many missionary journeys laboring to bring unity and understanding to the body of Christ. After the passing of Bro. Jackson in 2004, our readers desired for The Contender to shed light on the truths God is continuing to reveal to us by his spirit, and to continue to contend for the revealed truth. This has seemed good to us and to the Spirit, and God has blessed the work. We have labored to publish the sermons delivered by Bro. James Allen as we continue to stand for truth in this late hour. The Contender continues to be sent around the world and each edition is anxiously waited for by the many word-hungry souls who rely on it as a voice of truth. As we enter into the fiftieth year of The Contender we want to recognize the many saints who participate in creating and shipping the paper, and to Faith Assembly Church who so generously sends it around the world freely to the thousands of subscribers who have requested to receive the paper. Most importantly, we want to thank God for the truth he has given us and allowed us to share with you for these past fifty years. As we enter into this new year, let us all be prayerful and ready to receive what God may have for us. Wherever you are around the world, reading this paper and fellowshipping with us around truth, may God richly bless you and give you strength in these last days of time, as we all contend for this blessed truth delivered to us by the Holy Spirit.