January - February, 2001

Word of Prophecy

NEWSLETTER

THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS

V

INSIDE:

THE

DEPRESSION YEARS OF THE 1930'S AMIDST DUST BOWLS,

EPIDEMICS OF

INCURABLE

DISEASE, TERRORISM, AND

HUNGER ARE

RETURNING SWIFTLY. MATTHEW 24:6-8

Thus saith the Lord, "Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" Ezekiel 18:30-31. The cry of a true prophet of God.

A HISTORICAL

PROFILE

I was born in 1921 and brought up in the nurture and admonition of God's Word during the Roaring 1920's, the 1929 Stock Market Crash, and the subsequent Depression years of the 1930's amidst Dust Bowls, Hunger, Epidemics, Bread Lines, Widespread Unemployment, Hopelessness, and Suffering. God humbled haughty and arrogant Americans for their excessive pride and greed _ for their excessive sins of gluttony, drunkenness, immorality, intemperate exotic pleasure, and money madness.

I saw the members of the Church of Jesus Christ humbled and brought to their knees in fasting, prayer, and true repentance. And as a result, God raised up prophets with a red-hot Holy Ghost anointing, preaching Hell is hot and Eternity long, and Repent or Perish in Hell fire! And God saved me to bridge the gap between that victorious church of our Lord, and the lukewarm, backslidden one of this endtime generation.

DID IT WORK?

Revivals began to spring up all over our demoralized Nation as Americans repented and straightened up their lives. Old-Time religion and Holiness began to prosper everywhere as the Fear of God fell upon this nation. There was hardly any money to be had, and little food, but the preachers were true men of God and didn't preach for money like they do today.

I remember the epidemics of flu, smallpox, diphtheria, typhoid fever, etc., that many died from. There was no Medicare, no free clinics, few doctors, no Social Security and little welfare, so Christians had to fast and seek God for body, soul, and spirit, for themselves and for their families' survival. In our family, when the cows, the chickens, the hogs, or the children got sick, my mother and dad _ and the other saints around us _ fasted and sought the Lord to heal them. There would be no milk, no eggs, no ham or bacon, no chicken unless God gave the victory. And He did _ again and again. God healed us children as well as the chickens, the cows, and the hogs!

There was no instant tea or coffee, no microwave, no instant money or Medicare _ but they had Instant Faith and Prayer, because they lived sincerely and simply _ they lived close to God, obediently and holily and blamelessly! The church I was brought up in was triumphant over all sins, and the devil.

OUR EXCESSIVE SINS

Today's church of Jesus Christ is not even a shadow of what Christ's church of the 1930's and 1940's was. Today's church is dead and spewed out of Christ's mouth as He declared in Revelation 3:14-19. Our whole society is sick, and degeneracy is effecting its disintegration. We're like Sodom and Gomorrah which perished by God's judgments because: "The men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly [excessively]." Genesis 13:13.

God has warned all nations thusly: "When the land [any nation] sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it … and will send famine upon it … and sword [terrorism] upon it … and send pestilence [incurable diseases] upon it ... saith the Lord." Ezekiel 14:12-21.

A NEW THING BY GOD

God has promised to do a new thing in our Laodicean church age, foretold by Isaiah the prophet: "Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43:18-19. God led His people out of Egypt's bondage by a prophet, and by a real prophet He will lead His chosen people out of the wilderness of formality, and the desert of carnality they are now trapped in _ misled by hireling preachers and prophets.

THE VOICE OF ONE WILL LEAD THEM

The phony religious leaders in the church of Christ's generation were sent to ask John the Baptist, "Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias [Elijah]? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias [Isaiah]." John 1:19-23. This one man, a voice, not an echo like the other preachers, was anointed of God with the spirit of Elijah, with a heaven-sent message that was a fiery rebuke to that church of old _ crying out and showing them their mighty sins and transgressions against God.

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JOHN'S MISSION

Before John's birth, God's angelic messenger declared to Zacharias, his father, "He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink … And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers [parents] to the children, and the disobedient [among God's own people] to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke 1:15-17. What a mission! What a responsibility laid upon one man _ a true prophet sent from God. He came to set things in order _ in the church, in the family, in the individual _ to prepare a people for Christ's First Advent.

GOD MUST DO IT AGAIN!

In anticipation and preparation for Christ's Second Advent, another true voice must arise _ a prophet sent from God with God's anointing, prophesying in the spirit and power of Elijah. Why? To turn a lukewarm and backslidden church back to true repentance and true holiness _ to make ready a people prepared for Christ's Second Advent.

A TRUE VOICE _ HIS QUALIFICATIONS

In Noah's Day, God had a voice to warn the disobedient sons of God (Genesis 6) _ Noah! God had a voice and prophet to lead Israel out of Egypt's bondage and for 40 years through the wilderness _ into the Promised Land _ Moses! There was one voice who spoke for God, and who led Israel across Jordan and to possess Canaan _ Joshua! There was only one voice who spoke for God in Israel's apostasy _ Elijah! And one was anointed to continue and complete his ministry _ Elisha! II Kings 2. Elijah was taken to heaven alive before that ministry was fulfilled.

These voices, as John the Baptist, were products of the church of old, who kept themselves separated from the idolatry of the backslidden church, and were chosen and sent by God to prophesy against their abominations. God never raised up a prophet to be a voice to reprove, correct, and instruct His erring people who was not raised up from among them, disciplined by the church and its elders, and identified with their sins and rebellion. God's people must know the voice and prophet, his background, his parents, his immediate family, his lifestyle from a child, that he is qualified by his knowledge of God and his integrity, so God's people and Christ's church will believe that he is truly sent of God!

GOD'S VOICE THROUGH ONE _ HIS RESPONSIBILITY

God commands a true prophet of God: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob [the church] their sins." Isaiah 58:1.

A true Voice of one crying in the wilderness of our formality, and in the desert of our carnality, will lay the blame of the malaise and rebellion and idolatry in Christ's church where it rightfully belongs: To the door of today's preachers! This is why God has raised up a Voice of one, to rebuke, correct, and instruct preachers! Secondly, that Voice of one must be a Restorer of paths for God's people to walk in. Isaiah 58:12; Jeremiah 6:16-17; Isaiah 9:17.

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"My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace." Jeremiah 50:6. There is a rest, and there is a refreshing! Isaiah 28:12. Restoration!

Also: "And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none." Ezekiel 22:30. But God has found a man to be a Voice of one, to warn God's people, to rebuke foolish preachers, and to restore the Beacons, Guideposts, and Landmarks that Playboy Preachers and Hollywood Christians have destroyed.

A VOICE TO BE TRUSTED

In the rising deafening fury and spiritual darkness of the Gathering Storm of God's judgments upon a Sick Society and Laodicean church, a Voice of one must be trusted above the din of voices that cry out and have claimed to be sent from God. There cannot be many true voices because it produces confusion.

That Voice and the message it brings forth and has published must be thoroughly tested before the storm _ to be true, doctrinally and prophetically! There must be also raised in the Gathering Storm, the voices of thousands of individuals who can attest to the power of that Voice's message that led them to victory over the World, Sin, the Flesh and the Devil _ and a Restoration of children and their parents back into Divine Favor!

MY PRAYER!

As God's prophet of old prayed, so do I, daily: "O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come." Psalm 71:17-18.

I was born in 1921 during a terrible hurricane in South Florida. My mother and I were barely saved by a divine miracle of deliverance. My mother was a true saint of God, my father a Christian also. I was brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord in the Church of God during the late 1920's and 1930's when the members were God-fearing, and they lived simple, faithful, steadfast holy lives _ I saw Christ's church triumphant!

I also experienced the extreme poverty, severe persecution, debilitating hardships, and deadly epidemics of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowls, and the Bread Lines. I witnessed preachers and God's saints fasting and praying in great travail. The church members lived "Holiness unto the Lord," and the pulpits were aflame with righteousness. I desire to live long enough and be that Voice to lead the church of our Lord back to Repentance and True Holiness! I can truly declare: "O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid." Psalm 116:16.

RESTORATION

The Church of God, Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal Holiness churches and most Full Gospel churches have backslidden into pagan idolatry and rebellion against God's Word and True Holiness. I have been cast out, but I still identify with these for I am truly a watchman and a Voice God has raised up to cry out against this idolatry, and lead them back to Reconciliation and Restoration to Divine Favor through old-fashioned Repentance.

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THE GREATEST PROBLEM

Most preachers today are moral cowards. They are more concerned about what the overseer approves of than God. They seek popularity; they are men-pleasers, money lovers, pleasure seekers _ and most of them are ruled by their wives and family! Amen! I know this to be true; no matter what the preacher says or even if he denies it. The greatest problem for God in His effort to Restore Christ's church to true Divine Unity, their First Love, the Fear of God, to True Holiness, is to change the attitude of preachers, for they are responsible for the mess God's people are in.

Preachers are going to be rejected of God who do not hearken to God's reproof and rebuke. They just do not want to change! Their vain ideas and beliefs and wrong attitudes speak only of defeat for them and their family _ and even destruction!

A CHANGE, OR ELSE!

Preachers often want their wives to change their ways or lifestyle or attitude _ they want their children to change _ they want the church members to change for the better _ but not the old boy they see in the mirror whom they primp and shave each morning.

Preacher, if your attitude is right your wife and children's attitude will be corrected _ your church members will also get right with God! You are the leader and the head God designated as the example and teacher! It's your responsibility, old boy!

WE'RE STRIVING TO DO IT!

"... We preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." Colossians 1:28-29.

God's people must be un-learned and re-taught the uncompromising truth of God's Word. However, a Voice of one must bring them into the knowledge of the truth. II Timothy 3:7. There are too many voices that do not speak the Whole Truth faithfully.

God commands us: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." I Corinthians 1:10.

God's Voice of One must strive to bring God's people, especially preachers, into the unity of the Faith _ that is, to speak and preach the same Doctrine and Prophetic message. Notice however, the Holy Ghost is not working to bring all Christians into Unity, but into the "Unity of the Faith." Ephesians 4:11-13. Faith in God's uncompromising Word!

A VOICE AMONG YOU

God has raised up this ministry and messenger to be a Voice of One in these desperate days of a sifting of God's people. A free Voice has arisen to speak out against the spiritual bondage of God's saints, to show them the way back to Restoration _ their broken homes, and broken hearts healed!

This ministry is a Lighthouse, set solidly in the Rock of God's Word _ a light to penetrate the arising spiritual darkness, and a voice to penetrate the violence of the Storm, and to be trusted in the fear and panic of the Stygian darkness arising.

IS THAT VOICE APPROVED OF GOD?

Is this Voice of One approved of God and trusted by God's saints? This servant of God is as the Holy Scriptures exhorts: "Blameless, the husband of one wife [only one], having faithful children [and grandchildren] not accused of riot or unruly... a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just [he rules his own house and the Calvary Chapel Church of God], holy, temperate; Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." Titus 1:6-9.

THE OLD TIME RELIGION

THE GREAT NEED OF OUR DAY

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." II Chronicles 7:14.

Let us go back to the days of the Old Time Religion when folks went to church in overalls and calico dresses and worshipped the true and living God (not clothes). The people were not too proud to kneel in prayer in those days at the altar, the mourner's bench, and to shed tears.

THE LORD NEEDS HELP(S)

God needs help(s) today as never before. Most preachers and their messages are leading God's people into worldliness and living in the flesh _ away from godliness and holiness. God has raised up this ministry to lead God's people back to old-fashioned Holiness, Repentance, and the Fear of God _ warning the church of Counterfeit Bibles, Phony Christians, False Prophets, and False Teachers. Also, to warn the church of a rising Gathering Storm of great violence and persecution coming upon the church. We must get these messages and warnings of the Holy Ghost to our blind and apathetic brethren _ and for doing this, God will remember us and our families in the Gathering Storm. God needs your help(s) for this ministry _ NOW!

The End

A TRIBUTE

-- TO THE ELDERS & SENIOR CITIZENS --

Remember The Days Away Back When?

The dipper wasn't just a pattern of star formation. It had a long handle. We dipped water and drank from it.

A modern house didn't have running water but did have a pitcher pump in the kitchen.

A calculator was not used in school. Children learned to add, subtract, multiply and divide; not to push buttons.

A shower was a bucket hung high overhead with holes in the bottom.

When Junior got spanked at school, Mom and Dad didn't threaten to arrest the teacher. They spanked him again when he got home.

Except in winter, the laundry was done outside in the shade, rubbed on a washboard, while clothes boiled in a boiler and hung on the line to dry.

The School Board was a paddle, for correction.

We opened classes by singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and saluted the flag and had Bible reading and a prayer.

There were no certain brand names of hand lotions. The neighbors or relatives went together to the druggist and he mixed rose water and glycerin and another ingredient the recipe called for. And we all lived through it.

— Bro. Ray Pringle

NO RETIREMENT FOR A TRUE SERVANT OF THE LORD

You can never be put on the retired list. The retired list of life is death. A Christian must see from the very beginning of his walk with the Lord that life is a battle you must fight for yourself. You cannot buy a substitute. This is not shutting his eyes to the kindly word and sincere expressions of true friendship. But true friendship is rare when old age comes; its greatest value is in a crisis like a lifeboat. But many a boastful friend has proved a leaking, worthless "lifeboat" when the storm of adversity might make him useful. In the great crises of life arising with aging, a saint of the Lord is only as strong as he is from within. Then in our old age, we still can have our "Finest Hour" by our very presence, as we become a tower of strength to the hungering souls around us. We can be an inspiration to the children and youth of this generation of rebellious parents and children.

Here is God's sure word of promise to us grandparents and elders of our sick society: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing." Psalm 92:12-14.

Amen.

— Bro. Ray Pringle

AGE AND DECREPITNESS NOT NECESSARILY

SYNONYMOUS

Michelangelo painted the ceiling of Sistine Chapel on his back on a scaffold at near 90.

George Santayana said at 82, "I have never been happier in my life than right now."

Daniel Auber wrote his "Dream of Love" in his 80's, and said, "I'm not 80: I am four times 20."

Paderewski at 79 played the piano superbly.

At 88 John Wesley preached every day.

Tennyson published "Crossing the Bar" at 83.

Booth Tarkington wrote sixteen novels after 80 _ some of them when he was almost totally blind.

Of Benjamin Franklin, Walter B. Pitkin said: "Men have forgotten the first half of his life. The world will never forget the second." Franklin went to France in the service of his country at 78, and wrote his

autobiography at over 80.

Add to these the more illustrious and notable Moses whose eye was not dim, and whose strength was not abated at 120 (Deuteronomy 34:7), and Joshua who, well in excess of 80, "drove thence the three sons of Anak" (Joshua 15:14) as Israel came into possession of the promised land.

It seems to me that the elderly of our land need to be encouraged to be industrious and God-glorifying in their mature years, even though there is much to discourage it all around them.

— Selected and Abridged

OLD AGE IS NOT

AFFLICTION

(Senior Citizens' Lament)

Thought I'd let my doctor check me

`Cause I didn't feel quite right:

All those aches and pains annoyed me,

And I couldn't sleep at night.

He could find no real disorder

But he wouldn't let it rest,

What with Medicare and Blue Cross

It wouldn't hurt to do some tests.

To the hospital he sent me

Though I didn't feel that bad,

He arranged for them to give me

Every test that could be had.

I was flouroscoped and cystoscoped,

My aging frame displayed,

Stripped upon an ice-cold table

While my gizzards were X-rayed.

I was checked for worms and parasites,

For fungus and the crud,

While they pierced me with long needles

Taking samples of my blood.

Doctors came to check me over

Probed and pushed and poked around.

And to make sure I was living,

They wired me for sound.

They have finally concluded

(Their results have filled a page)

What I have will someday kill me,

My affliction is Old Age.

(Author Unknown)

A GREAT DIFFERENCE

MAX JUKES lived in the state of New York. He did not believe in Christian training. He married a girl of like character. From this union they have studied 1,026 descendants. Three hundred of them died prematurely. One hundred were sent to the penitentiary for an average of thirteen years each. One hundred and ninety were public prostitutes. There were 100 drunkards, and the family cost the state $1,200,000.00. They made no contribution to society.

JONATHAN EDWARDS lived in the same state. He believed in Christian training. He married a girl of like character. From this union they have studied 729 descendants. Out of this family have come 300 preachers, 65 college professors, 13 university presidents, 60 authors, three United States congressmen and one vice-president of the United States. The difference in the two families: "Christian training in youth and heart conversions." The Bible-based Sunday school offers this to the youth of our nation.

— The Christian Herald

AN ALERT

The Word of Prophecy Radio Broadcasts were cancelled by KBLE Radio in Seattle, and by KNEA in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Our Radio Agent is trying hard to get us other stations in these areas. Please be patient and continue your support.

Word of Prophecy Newsletter

Published by: Word of Prophecy Fellowship

P O Box 10200, Jacksonville, FL 32247

Editor Bro. Ray Pringle, a prophet of God

and an ordained minister of the

Calvary Chapel Church of God, Inc.

Associate Editor ... June Carpenter

Copyrighted - All rights reserved