Mar. - April 2000

Word of Prophecy

NEWSLETTER

-- OUR GENERATION --

THE TIME OF THE END

To what source shall we now turn for the answers to our probing and pleading questions? There is no other source -- not astrology, not palm readers, not sorcerers, not false prophets, not theology books! Only the Bible! We don't even need self-appointed Greek scholars of the Bible to reinterpret and give us so-called better renderings of the original! We have a source book, and when rightly divided (II Timothy 2:15) without specious logic, or a twisting of the scriptures (II Peter 3:16), light and understanding will prevail. Here it is: "Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept [i.e., scripture] must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little [i.e., here a scripture], and there a little [i.e., there a scripture]...[Then this warning; note it carefully] But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken [i.e., into the devil's trap and captivity]." Isaiah 28:9-13. The King James Bible is the true English translation out of the original languages, and we don't need to go to the Greek (or Hebrew) for clarity -- we don't speak or understand Greek -- God's saints must cling to this English version of God's Word as an infallible guidepost and beacon. Remember the Holy Ghost warning; "They that are unlearned and unstable wrest [i.e., twist], as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction!" II Peter 3:16; Isa. 29:9-14.

WHO SHALL WE BLAME?

Who's to blame for the depravity, the profaneness, the violence we're suffering from? Is our President, Congress, and the Supreme Court? No! The preachers of this generation are to blame -- pantywaist, fun-loving, weak-kneed ministers who don't preach about our responsibility to God -- responsibility to keep the Ten Commandments, to live a sanctified, holy life; to overcome sin -- to fear God! Already now, God's hand has written on the wall that our society has reached the Point of No Return -- and preachers who won't preach Holiness, Repentance, and the Fear of God are to blame. Politicians, parents, children, and our youth would not be so adamant in their rebellion against God's Word if pastors and evangelists had been preaching God's righteousness and judgment over the last thirty years. This Sick Society with this disgusting permissiveness toward sin and perversion would not be possible if this generation had produced a few real men of God who had fearlessly preached righteousness, temperance (self-control), and God's judgments during the last three decades. Acts 24:25. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Romans 3:18. The way of peace we have not known. Romans 3:17. "There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. [And] By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out [i.e., break God's laws], and blood toucheth blood."

Hosea 4:1-2.

THE TRAGIC RESULTS

What are the results of these abominations we're committing against God? Answer -- "Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish [i.e., wither, fade, and lose our strength], with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away." Hosea 4:3. In the same revelation God warns: "My people [i.e., the church] are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee ... seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children." Hosea 4:6.

GOD'S HANDWRITING ON THE WALL

In the ancient kingdom of Babylon which had degenerated into a drunken, immoral, and totally depraved society, Bible history records: "Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem ... and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them .. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another." Daniel 5:1-6. The party was over as the hand of God writing on the wall terrified the drunken revellers -- they were all sober in one shocking moment of divine intervention! Party's over! The terrified king cried aloud to bring in his ministers -- the astrologers, the Chaldeans [sorcerers], and soothsayers! My, my, this sounds like the church's ministers of today! These theologians stared at the writing left by the hand of God on the palace wall, but alas, they could not read the true God's handwriting! "Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords [also] were astonied." Daniel 5:9.

BUT WHO CAN READ GOD'S HANDWRITING?

Who can read this strange message, cried the king and his counsellors? Enter the queen: "O king, live forever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee" quietly advised the first lady of the empire, "There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father [Nebuchadnezzar] light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him ..." Daniel 5:10-11. Praise God! God always, in every crisis, has a man, a holy man -- often Bible history reveals that it was only one, as in Noah's day -- to whom He can impart His message, wisdom, and gifts, who will dare stand alone to rebuke and reprove sin and rebellion against God.

Daniel was a prophet -- he did not just read and interpret the message from God's handwriting on the wall -- he rebuked this dissolute, pagan monarch before his thousand drunken revellers: "O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor: And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him ... But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him: And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses:

they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. And thou his Son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven ...Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written .. Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin ... God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Thou are weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." Daniel 5:18-28. Daniel, the lonely prophet, a holy man of God was forgotten by a decadent society and a profligate king until this mighty empire had reached the point of no return!

WRITTEN WITH THE FINGER OF GOD

Who can read the handwriting of God today that is written against this perverted and violent society that is crime-ridden and corrupt to the core? Ministers of today's church are not interpreting it correctly and it's leading the church into a tragedy. As God's prophet cried, "To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it." Jeremiah 6:10. Also in the warning of the Apostle: "[In the last days man will be] Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." II Timothy 3:7.

When God's finger writes, and men and nations ignore God's message, God has no other choice but to send severe divine judgments. God's divine laws and word were written by His hand. "And he [God ] gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God," the Ten Commandments. Exodus 31:18. Why do preachers of today's sick, worldly church and sick society negate and abrogate the law of God by their publicly professed rejection and unbelief? If a person is really born-again, God's finger writes the Ten Commandments upon that person's heart and mind so he can live holy: "Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant [i.e., of grace] that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Hebrews 10:15-17. A major difference between the covenant of the law and the covenant of grace is that God's finger writes His laws on the fleshly tables of our hearts, not on tables of stone. II Corinthians 3:3; I John 2:3-6.

GOD'S WARNINGS ARE IGNORED

Right now, the finger of God is busily writing His warnings to God's people about the consequence of their worldliness, sins, and abominations -- and, the church is going into great tribulation for chastening and purging! Only holy, anointed, God-called and God-fearing men can read God's handwriting accurately on the wall of today's fun-loving churches, and give them God's warning. Others look at these warnings with apathy, or with bewilderment as did the ministers to Belshazzar in Babylon. "Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." Amos 3:7. To His prophet, God charged: "Thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me ... And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them." Ezekiel 33:7, 33. "And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets ..." I Corinthians 12:28.

No proverb of theologian or philosopher could be more truly written about America in this end-time generation than, "as America goes, so go all nations of the world." As our sick, decadent, pagan society plunges recklessly forward into the terrible, rising judgments of God, other nations emulate our methods and follow our life-

styles of moral perversion and spiritual decadence. The price is too great, and the road back is too long for our society to return to Bible morality and old-fashioned repentance to God -- we'd have to give up our sins and selfishness and pride!

TIMES OF THE GENTILES

This generation will soon come to the end of God's greatest dispensation of mercy to men -- the age of grace, Ephesians 3:2 -- but just before the end of God's period of grace (at that junction), we will enter a transition period of seven years called "the time of the end." Daniel 11:35, 40. Also, "Go thy way Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." Daniel 12:4, 9. "The times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24), i.e., from the cross of Christ until His return, will be fulfilled completely during the Time of the End, the last seven years of this age -- commonly called the Great Tribulation Period. A week in prophetic symbolism is a period of seven years. Daniel 9:24-27.

During the rising Gathering Storm, an age of great moral corruption and spiritual darkness, on stage one, enter the antichrist and false prophet. For one half of the last seven years of the Time of the End, Antichrist will lead the masses of earth's billions into one last wild, mad fling of exotic pleasure, idolatry, sex orgies, sadism, drunkenness, gluttony, and world travel. The antichrist and false prophet will challenge God and His Word successfully for 3 1/2 years, "Casting down the truth to the ground." Daniel 8:12. The false prophet through deception of lies and miracles will lead the world into worship of the antichrist's image. Revelation 13:8, 14-15. These master deceivers will agitate the world's deceived masses into violently persecuting God's true saints for 3 1/2 years: "And it was given unto him [antichrist] to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations [even America]." Revelation 13:7. Also, "Power was given unto him [antichrist] to continue forty and two months." Revelation 13:5.

God, in mercy, will intervene with two greatly anointed prophets in one last effort to stop man's maddening rush into hell. These will testify God's last message to a totally corrupt and perverted society -- a message of mercy and reconciliation -- but, the antichrist will overcome and kill them after 3 1/2 years of their prophetic ministry. Revelation 11:3-12. The god of pleasure, through the beast out of hell, will prevail!

THE HIGH COST OF THE PARTY

Slogans that suggest excessive individual freedom without a corresponding responsibility flourish in our fun-loving, affluent social order -- Travel now, pay later! Easy credit! Have fun now, months to pay! It's fun to be a Christian! Something good is going to happen to you, etc.! Our nation is bankrupt by every standard -- we're living on deficit spending which won't work for long! God has written, "Whatsoever a man [or a nation] soweth, that shall he also reap." Galatians 6:7. "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." Hosea 8:7. To the youth of our nation who have gone into rebellion and utter rejection of God's commandments, God has warned: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes [i.e., not in God's ways]: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." Ecclesiastes 11:9. The church has lost nearly all the youth of this generation because it has not taught young boys and girls that God has demanded (not requested) that they live a holy and sanctified life -- and, to fear God. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. This genera

tion has sown their wild oats and they are going to reap a bitter harvest.

PARTY IS ALMOST OVER

This last day's party -- an orgy of drunkenness, dope addiction, cigarette smoking, sex perversion, abortions, gambling, and all types of permissiveness in sinful indulgences, has a terrible price that we all are going to help pay -- and even now we're paying! This partying costs the revellers of America over fifteen billion dollars annually for cigarettes -- over ten billion for booze -- other billions of dollars are wasted on gambling, dope, and illicit sex. We, the taxpayers, are paying for their abortions, treatment of social disease, illegitimate babies, and medical care for the victims of these perversions whose sins have caught up with them. These sins cost taxpayers billions of dollars in taxation!

Broken homes and broken hearts are the most terrible part of the reaping -- reaping what we've sowed! This represents vividly the high price of sin and rebellion against God's commandments.

But that is only the beginning of the cost of this pagan revelling! God's hand has written: "Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity [i.e., rebellion] shall not be your ruin ... For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye." Ezekiel 18:30-32. Sin and rebellion are bringing ruin upon our once great nation.

THE BEGINNING OF SORROWS

God's terrible judgments are already beginning to fall upon us and will increase swiftly in their fury! What judgments, the skeptic scornfully demands? Answer: God has warned us by His prophet: "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom [i.e., any nation], to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit [i.e., bless] them." Jeremiah 18:9-10! God, Yes, God Himself, is going to punish America for our sins, perversions, and abominations that are defiling this great land of plenty. Each successive winter now becomes more severe, coupled with heating shortages, food shortages, and power failures. Can we not read God's handwriting on the wall? Our "bread belt" is becoming dust bowls, and crop disease are increasing, thus diminishing our food supplies. Floods will contribute greatly to the projected famines in the living prophecies of that great prophet of Nazareth, Jesus Christ: "And there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." Matthew 24:7-8. Tornadoes and hailstorms will greatly multiply our sorrows in the rising Storm of God's judgments. The Lord gave, and the Lord will take away. Job 1:21.

TOO LATE TO CRY

The fulness of the Gentiles is rushing to a climatic ending -- Gentile nations are plunging ahead recklessly into their wild, insane orgy of exotic sex and perverted pleasure, mingled with their acceptance of exotic religion, studiously ignoring the warnings of God's Word and prophets. Saints, don't cry about these sick, depraved, hell-bound apostates -- homosexuals, lesbians, women's lib, and Bible-haters! Some of Jesus Christ's last words to the godly women of His dying society were, as he in agony bore His old rugged cross: "Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare,

and the paps which never gave suck." Luke 23:27-29. We have reached the point of no return -- we are weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. (Daniel 5:27).

WEEP FOR YOUR CHILDREN -- PARENTS

Beloved in the Lord, our hearts must mourn for our family and God's elect before it is too late. We have only a few short years of religious liberty in which to have our finest hour for our Lord -- then, persecution and harassment will fall upon us with severity. Will God's saints suffer with the unbelievers in the rising judgments of God? Yes! It is already beginning! But, God will bring us through these sorrows victoriously if we'll obey and fear Him. Psalm 33:18-19; Jeremiah 15:11. Hunger will soon cause many in this nation to panic as God's finger has written upon the wall: "Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it: Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God." Ezekiel 14:13-14. It will soon be too late to cry over America, and even our own families. God's hand continues writing, magnifying his message of repentance, and warnings of His terrible judgments, upon the walls of our minds and consciences -- the delicate barometers of our souls -- seeking desperately to stop, or at least slow down, this maddening, toboggan slide into His escalating judgments, and hell!

HEAR GOD'S MESSENGER

The church of Jeremiah's generation had God's censure: "Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love [i.e., the love of the world]? therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways." Jeremiah 2:33. Did you hear that indictment of the church by the Lord? "You have taught wicked people your ways!" This is the awful truth of today's church, and it is shocking! God sent to this church His messengers, the prophets, in a near abortive attempt to turn His people and their preachers back to His holiness and the fear of God. "Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved," cried God's messenger. Malachi 2:11. "The chief of the priests [i.e., the ministers], and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord." II Chronicles 36:14. But in mercy, "The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy." II Chronicles 36:15-16. When God's own people refuse the message of warning, contemptuously, of God's true prophet, God's wrath will come upon His own people.

GOD'S PEOPLE MUST REPENT

There is yet time for God's people -- the church and its ministers -- to turn away from their worldliness and ungodliness. Rebellion against God's holiness without the fear of God has all but ruined the church and our whole nation. God promised His people centuries ago, "If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts [pestilence] to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; 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 7:13-14.

Thousands of God's people are going to mourn and repent in the rising sorrows that Jesus our Lord has

foretold of. However, the prophetic message and warning must precede the Gathering Storm and the turning back of the church -- that is why this is an absolutely essential, vital ministry to the church as we obey the Lord to: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob [i.e., the church] their sins." Isaiah 58:1. Also as the apostle declared: "Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine [i.e., to the church]." II Timothy 4:2. Christ warned the church, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." Revelation 3:19.

ANTICHRIST'S KINGDOM ARISING

In a few brief years these predicted sorrows will come upon our nation and church with sore travail. Computers and electronic detection devices, ingeniously devised to regiment society into a faceless and classless mass, will soon be used upon God's saints to curtail our religious liberty as the kingdom of the antichrist arises during the early 21st Century. Jesus forewarned all of His true followers: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy."

What will God have to send upon America to get her on her knees in repentance? God is going to break the pride of our power -- militarily, economically, and materially! God warned Israel and all nations: "And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits ... And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times [i.e., seven times worse] for your sins." Leviticus 26:19-24. Can we survive when God turns our prairies into dust bowls [brass], and the clouds of the heavens become as iron? Well, we will survive, but barely, as God brings America low in His severe judgments.

In closing, let me repeat again that the cause of this wretched, spiritual bankruptcy, and massive rebellion against God's laws in every facet of our corrupt and sick society, even the church -- bringing down upon us swiftly the thundering judgments of God -- is weak, apologetic preachers; moral cowards, who will not preach old-fashioned repentance and holiness, with the judgments and the fear of God. Do you know such a preacher? There are many near you!!!

YOU ARE GOING INTO THE GATHERING STORM

While our society, our national institutions of home and church, and our economy decay and collapse about us, what will you do -- you and your family? You and I [ i.e., all Christians] are going into the fierce Gathering Storm -- but, is your house built upon the Rock or on the sand? U.S. currency is failing fast. God asks, "And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory." Isaiah 10:3.

In the rising age of spiritual darkness, the beginning of sorrows, God's hand has written that, "They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold [i.e., money] shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels [i.e., their money won't buy food]: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity." The party will soon be over! Our wild spending spree on luxury and pleasure by our government and citizenry will very shortly end in agonizing bankruptcy for both -- our nation and each individual.

A VOICE -- NOT AN ECHO!

Money and pleasure combined is the god of this generation -- the god of mammon! Matthew 6:24. Beloved, our time is coming to its end swiftly -- the times of the Gentiles, for we are now entering the Time of the End. The final chapter to our biographies, God's record of our last hour in this age, is now being penned by God's angels. There is no better way for you to have your Finest Hour recorded in God's book than to help us get this essential, vital message and Holy Ghost warning to God's elect everywhere. Don't save your money -- invest it in the coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ. You don't have to be especially smart, or sensitive to God's Spirit to discern readily the difference between this message and ministry from others. This message and ministry is totally unique among many -- this is a true voice, not an echo! God's people must get these warnings that are from the Lord -- it's a matter of life and death -- a matter of defeat or victory in the rising persecution and sorrows that with severity will cause great panic and shock among Chiristians everywhere.

May God catch your heart in the grip of divine power and persuasion -- May your ears be opened to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches, and understand and ACT! NOW! Amen!

The End.

DEMON

POSSESSION

Are demon possession and being mentally controlled by demons one and the same thing? If so, why didn't Jesus cast the demons out of the scribes and Pharisees?

"Being mentally controlled by demons" is a rather nebulous phrase not used in the New Testament.

Demon possession was especially prevalent during the time Jesus was here in the flesh. It is described in terms which indicate that startling personality changes occur in this state. The person so afflicted may actually struggle against the demonic forces acting through him.

While in a very loose sense all evil action may in part be due to demonic suggestion, there is no indication that the scribes and Pharisees were either demon-possessed or "mentally controlled by demons." What they did, they did on their own.

An article in "Personal Christianity", by C. S. Lovett, argued that "Christians" may actually be controlled by demons.

The proof he cites was a young mother who was "truly saved", yet tried to kill her baby, and went from man to man inventing stories to cover her escapades. She, he says, is a "Christian" who is controlled by demons. His difficulty here is his doctrine of unconditional eternal security.

I do not deny the demon control. I deny that a woman who tries to kill her baby, who lives in adultery and lies, is in any New Testament sense of the word a Christian. John describes this woman's situation in unmistakable terms: "He that committeth sin is of the devil." I John 3:8-10.

Christians may be tormented by Satanic powers, tempted, accused, and assaulted by demons, but never controlled by demons. The house that was swept and garnished, if left empty, may be repossessed by demons (Matthew 12:43-45; Luke 11:24:26). But it does not in any way picture a Christian personality.

I have no doubt that demon possession occurs today. It will probably become more prevalent as the second coming of Christ draws nearer, just as it became more prevalent in connection with the first coming of Christ. The use of hallucinogenic drugs can be an open door to demonic possession.

But no Christian, born of, led by, and filled with the Spirit of God, need fear either demon possession or being "mentally controlled by demons."

THE END

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