John's Gospel only has 7 miracles, part 2

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The Fourth Miracle Represents the Fourth Church Age, the Darkest Age.

The emphasis that Jesus laid on this miracle of feeding 5000 men was not the actual feeding of the masses. Although that was a great miracle.

Speaking about this great miracle of feeding thousands from a schoolboy’s lunch, Jesus put the emphasis on how many baskets of rejected scraps were picked up by the disciples.

People reject the Bible truth for their day. That is a great concern that Jesus has.

Then those who believe in the Bible will be rejected by the church.

So the key issue is rejection.

MARK 8:19   When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve.

:20   And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven.

:21     And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?

This miracle was to convey a deeper message.

The numbers 7 and 12 held a hidden meaning that Jesus expected the disciples, and us, to understand.

Bread is a symbol of Scripture, which is good. Because Jesus is the Word.

JOHN 6:35   And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life:

Leaven or yeast is a symbol of the rottenness of the man-made doctrines of religious leaders such as the Pharisees.

MATTHEW 16:12   Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

For the Passover feast, God demanded unleavened bread.

We must only obey Bible beliefs from the written Word without any church-leaders’ unscriptural opinions. Religious leaders corrupt the Word of God to suit their own agendas.

The common people gladly praised Jesus when He rode in on Palm Sunday. Then the Jewish religious leaders poisoned their minds so that they were demanding His death within a week of praising Him.

The greatest enemies at the end of the First Coming of Jesus were the Jewish religious leaders.

Jesus preached to the Jews for 3½ years but He knew that they were going to reject Him.

So, the Gospel that the Jews rejected was going to be gathered up by the disciples and taken to the Gentiles as the New Testament.

The New Testament would direct the true church through the seven church ages that last about 2000 years.

But after the apostles died, human leaders were elevated to dominate the church and lead the church away from Scripture.

A turning point would be when the Roman Catholic Church would inject the Trinity into the church in the third church age and mainly reject the New Testament beliefs in the Dark Ages.

This fourth church age was the depth of corruption to which the church sunk thanks to adopting paganism and political involvement.

The elevated leaders, Popes, Cardinals, and bishops, lived in luxury while the masses suffered in poverty and superstition because of their ignorance of the true Word of God.

Then there would be three ages of restoration of the truth before the church world again rejected the truth in the form of the end-time revelations of William Branham.

He revealed the mysteries of the Word in order to restore us, children, back to the beliefs of the apostolic fathers who established the first church age.

MATTHEW 17:11    And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.

Restore all things. This finalizes the restoration of truth that began with Martin Luther.

You can only restore what has been lost.

John the Baptist did not restore.

He introduced a water baptism that the Jews had never had before. Then he introduced Messiah which was a brand new event.

Martin Luther in Germany restored salvation by faith in the 5^th church age.

This was when the King James Version of the Bible was developed. First printed in 1611 it was checked and corrected for over 150 years until it was finalized in 1769.

John Wesley in England restored holiness and outreach which prepared the people for the great missionary age in the 6^th church age. Missionaries based their faith in the King James Version.

Pentecost in America restored the gifts of the Holy Spirit in 1906 to start the 7^th church age. Then they denominated and split up by 1917 and thus lost direction.

William Branham in America then revealed the hidden mysteries of Scripture between 1947 - 1965. This gave focus to the 7^th church age so that the Bride could return to the beliefs of the apostles in the first church age.

Then, after Jesus will catch the true church up to be with Him in the air, the Gospel will return to the 12 tribes of Israel during the Tribulation.

Let us return to the miracle of feeding the masses.

LUKE 9:10   And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they had done. And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida.

“Privately into a desert place”.

When God teaches a man, it is a lonely experience. We do not find God in the crowds. We have to search hard to establish a personal relationship with Jesus.

Popularity is not part of this experience.

Bethsaida is the “House of Hunting” or the “House of Fishing”.

It is a city at the top of the Sea of Galilee.

It was far away from Jerusalem and its self-exalted religious leaders. Far away from the religious money-makers in the Temple.

In this Darkest Age, the Devil was using the denominational church system under its human leadership and dictatorial Pope to hunt for souls by making them submissive slaves of the denominational church system.

They thought that the church leader was the door to Heaven.

Thus they did not dare to argue with the church leaders.

They believed that they would go to Heaven if they huddled safely in their churches. Regular church attendance was the key to salvation.

GENESIS 10:9   ...wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.

Nimrod was the original rebel against God.

He hunted wild animals in the natural but hunted souls with his man-made religious doctrines in order to drag them down to hell with him.

“The mighty hunter before the LORD”.

People put the sayings of Nimrod before the sayings of God.

They believed what Nimrod said, not what God said.

Nimrod got the majority to forsake God and follow himself. Then other individuals just got swept along by the tide of collective blindness.

ISAIAH 17:12   Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

The sea thus represents the flood of popular opinion that threatens and drowns out any individual’s freedom of choice.

Fear of the church leaders was emphasized.

Especially as they gained political power and could thus persecute people who opposed them. This forced people to flee to remoter areas.

But God was using His true church, a minority, to fish for souls and pull them out of this turbulent sea of man-made beliefs. The true church, like the Waldenses, were forced away from the city of Lyons in France and had to live in the rugged and dangerous wilderness of the Alps. Only then could they survive the Roman Catholic armies that sought to kill them all.

Waldenses parents never gave their children birthday presents. They told their children that they faced certain death if the Roman Catholics found them. So the parents trained their children to live a hard life which would better prepare them to face their future death for the Gospel’s sake. If you owned or read a Bible, you were marked for death.

The Albigenses in southern France were not so fortunate. They had nowhere to hide and were annihilated in a 20-year crusade of death and terror that Pope Innocent III not-s0-innocently demanded.

In the Dark fourth church Age, the Devil was very successful in dragging people away from Scripture. The people were spiritually starving.

The people were also good at rejecting many Scriptures and throwing them away, preferring to follow church traditions.

Bread represents the Word of God. People just rejected the parts of the bread that they did not want. Church-goers today also just reject or ignore the portions of Scripture that do not suit them.

This is because they believed the man-made doctrines of their corrupt church leaders.

MATTHEW 16:9  Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?

:10   Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?

:11    How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?

:12    Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

Pharisees and Sadducees were the Jewish religious leaders. They were actually the enemies of truth. Satan had infiltrated the Temple worship.

In the Dark Ages, Satan had taken over the church leadership.

The crowd of 5000 men was in the vicinity of the green triangle near the city of Bethsaida. They were getting hungry.

There were seven items of food. Five loaves and two fish.

The bread symbolizes God’s Word. Five loaves meant five church ages that fed on truth.

Church ages 1, 2, 5, 6, 7.

Fish symbolized the persecuted church from ages 3 and 4, going out of sight, under the water.

The early church used the symbol of the fish as a sign of the hidden or underground church.

The third and fourth church ages of the Dark Ages saw Bible truth being systematically withheld from the people.

JOHN 6:9   There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?

Five is the number of grace. God on His throne surrounded by four spiritual beasts around His throne in Revelation Chapter 4. This is the protection that God uses to guide His church through 2000 years of church history.

The most powerful rocket ever built, Saturn V that took men to the moon had 5 massive engines.

American engineers unknowingly copied God's Heavenly plan when they wanted real power.

The seven food items also speak of the seven church ages.

JOHN 6:10   And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So, the men sat down, in number about five thousand.

The men were sitting down. Jesus did not trust them to find food for themselves. They would just produce denominational traditions.

Bread and meat represent doctrine.

JOHN 6:11   And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.

True doctrine starts with what Jesus says. He passes this on to the disciples who wrote it down as the New Testament. We then get the truth from the disciples as long as we run our beliefs through their written Scriptures.

Different groups of Christians, at different times in the church ages, and in different places around the world, would all have to rely on the New Testament which was written by the apostles, for their spiritual food.

JOHN 6:12   When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

“Nothing be lost”.

God’s big problem. Humans so easily and carelessly throw away the Scriptures that do not suit us. God is determined that no Scripture should be lost.

He wants the truth restored so that all the Scriptures can be understood and believed.

The Jews were careless. They threw away and rejected many scraps.

The fourth church age was very careless. They ignored or knew nothing about most of the Bible. Again, they rejected and threw away all the Scriptures that they did not like, as well as all the Scriptures that they could not understand.

JOHN 6:13   Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

The 5 loaves and two fish represent the seven church ages.

When the church ages are over, the Gentiles will reject the end time revealed truth of Scripture.

That is why Jesus stands outside the church in the last church age of the Laodiceans.

The Laodiceans have made up their own unscriptural church traditions and beliefs.

Then God will gather up all those rejected scraps and return to the 12 tribes of Israel in the Tribulation.

There the 144000 Jews will be reconciled back to their Messiah.

The head is attached to the body by means of the backbone.

Jesus is the Head of the Gentile church and the Jewish tribes.

The Head, Jesus, is attached to His earthly body by means of the seven church ages and then by the 12 tribes of Israel when He turns to the 144000 in the Tribulation.

EPHESIANS 3:5    Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ )

There is a great mystery concerning Christ.

EPHESIANS 3:5   Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

This was not known to the Jews as they traveled through their six Old Testament ages until John the Baptist came to them to announce the seventh and last age to the Jews.

But the Jews rejected this seventh age of Messiah.

EPHESIANS 3:6   That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

Then God turned to the Gentiles to also make them part of His Body during the seven church ages.

We learn the same theme from the Jewish Tabernacle that was laid out in the form of a cross.

This showed that Jesus died for two special groups of people.

A seven-branched candlestick representing the seven church ages and a table with 12 loaves of shewbread that had to be eaten in the holy place. Symbolizing that the Jews, the 12 tribes of Israel, must be back in the Promised Land to meet Messiah in the Tribulation.

The 7 Gentile church ages and the 144000 Jews play a key role in the salvation plan.

The Fifth Miracle that Represents the Fifth Church Age.

The fifth church age was Martin Luther starting the great Reformation movement in 1520 in Germany.

This was one of the greatest revolutions in history. People began to think for themselves and have a personal salvation experience with God. No longer was the church considered essential for salvation.

In the Dark Ages, the Pope had the power of life and death over the people.

Kings and emperors had power over the church too.

Luther, one of the bravest men in history, had to start breaking down the power of Popes, kings, and emperors. They, in turn, would be very happy to kill Luther if they could.

JOHN 6:16   And when even was now come, his disciples went down unto the sea,

The sea represents the restless multitudes of people. A good illustration of the teeming masses of Europe during the Dark Age.

JOHN 6:17   And entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them.

Capernaum can mean Chaos or Protected by being Sorry.

The Roman Catholic church was in a state of chaos. The Pope was selling indulgences. That meant you could buy forgiveness of sins. The church had lost the name of God. They spoke of the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost but had no idea what that name was. The Bible never asked us to celebrate the birth of Jesus. The Pope had made 25 December the birthday of Jesus. This date was copied from the birthday of the pagan sun god.

The church needed a change in direction.

It was dark. A dark age of colossal unbelief under the tyranny of the Pope.

Jesus had not come to them. There was hardly any personal salvation experience with Jesus. All they knew was bondage to church rituals.

They set off from the shore near Bethsaida, aiming for Capernaum. There they hoped to get a night's rest before heading for Gennessaret the next day.

But then a contrary wind started that would blow them off their course.

Martin Luther, amidst much strife and trouble, was going to knock the church off its course whereby it was in submission to the Pope.

Martin Luther brought back salvation through faith. Sincere repentance and turning away from sin.

If we are truly sorry for our sins then God will forgive us and protect us from the evil plans of Satan.

JOHN 6:18    And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.

John gives us God’s viewpoint.

The sea is the restless masses of people. Wind represents war and strife. There was a great spiritual war that easily became natural wars as the Catholic church fought to oppose Luther.

Much tumult was stirred up by the Pope’s lust for money to build St Peter’s church in the Vatican. The Pope invented Purgatory as a form of punishment when you die. Then he invented Indulgences so that you could pay for your sins and get out of Purgatory. Luther met this deception head-on. The Pope, losing both money and members to the Protestants, produced a vicious Counter-Reformation of extreme violence.

In this last verse, there is no mention of the disciples struggling as they rowed. There is no mention of the wind being against them.

From God’s viewpoint, those were the conditions that were needed for that age. So, all was good.

The disciples were struggling to row. The strong wind was against them. The waves were boisterous and big enough to scare anyone. They had aimed for Capernaum and a night's rest but were being blown off course. But John does not mention those details. From a spiritual point of view, everything was happening just the way God wanted it to be.

God never promises to remove the wind and waves. He just promises to make us stronger so that we can endure and win a victory against the odds.

Mark, however, gives us the Gospel viewpoint of Jesus as the suffering Servant.

MARK 6:48   And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.

Mark gives us the human point of view. It was tiring. The disciples struggled to row. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction. Every watch was three hours, beginning at sunset which was 1800 hours. The second watch was from 2100 to 2400. The third watch ended at 0300 just after midnight. The last watch or fourth watch was the most tiring as they had been rowing all night. It was somewhere between 0300 and 0600 when the sun would come up.

There was much strife in Luther’s day. He had to break the dictatorial power of the Pope over the people. The Pope fought back viciously. There was a counter-Reformation where the Catholics murdered millions.

There were vicious Catholic crusades against the Muslims and against the non-Catholic Albigenses in southern France who were destroyed. The Catholic murderers claimed all the possessions of the Albigenses. Crusades were just a very brutal way of getting rich by murdering and robbing your neighbours.

It was a dark night for Christianity until Martin Luther restored the Gospel light around 1520.

William Tyndale was burned for translating the Bible into English. He had to continually contend with cruel and eventually overwhelming demonic forces in the church world.

The Reformation changed Europe and set it on a new course.

Waiting for the sun to come up, the disciples had survived a long night when they finally saw the Son of God walking over the waves. This showed that Jesus has authority over the events that are giving us a hard time.

Thus He gives us faith and strength to overcome our challenges.

JOHN 6:19   So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid.

The viciousness of the Pope’s cruelty and the Counter-Reformation was enough to make anyone afraid.

There are 8 furlongs in a mile. So, they were about three or four miles into the sea.

The Sea of Galilee is about 7 miles wide.

They were approximately at the mid-point.

The darkness of the Dark Ages was now going to give way to the restoration of truth. The mid-point or turning point of where the light was replacing darkness.

MARK 6:47   And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he [Jesus] alone on the land.

Evening time. It was dark. They rowed hard and would have made it to Capernaum before it was too late. That was their human intention. A night's rest and then sail on to Gennessaret the next day as that was their actual goal.

But one aspect was missing. Secure in their knowledge of the sea, as some of the disciples were expert fishermen, they had left Jesus behind on the land near Bethsaida.

Thus the wind blew them off course. God's way is always different from our aims.

Then when they got to the middle of the sea fairly quickly, the wind blew against them and the basically stood still despite their strenuous rowing efforts.

They got nowhere all night, despite trying their hardest.

So we fail dismally when we try to serve God in our own strength and with our own talents.

We may think we have got somewhere. But all we are really capable of doing in our own strength is getting out of God's will.

They were rowing hard and the wind blew against them to cancel out their efforts.

This continued all night.

Things only changed, just before the dawn, when Jesus came to them.

They had left the green triangle area on the map where the 5000 had been fed. They thought they were going to Capernaum. But they were about where the black cross is, in the Sea of Galilee.

JOHN 6:20   But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid.

Luther must not be afraid to separate from the Catholic church. He must not be afraid to be isolated in Wartburg castle where he could translate the New Testament into German. The Christians who accepted salvation by grace through faith must not be afraid of the violent and cruel reactions of the Popes.

We all face the same fear when we realize that our churches are led by human leaders with their personal agendas. They have certain sound doctrines but also have errors and unscriptural opinions.

Leaving a church fills us with fear because we have always bowed down to human leadership and elevated a man to stand between us and God.

But now I have to accept Jesus into my own vessel, my own heart. A personal relationship between myself and Him that involves no other human being. A relationship that makes Him my Head. A relationship that makes the King James Bible my Absolute. I believe no man if he contradicts this Bible.

JOHN 6:21   Then they willingly received him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.

As humans, they had toiled and got nowhere fast. That frustration made them so happy to hand over to Jesus.

Failure is a wonderful glue that makes us want to join up with Jesus.

Difficulty and defeat develop our characters. Making us better people.

Suffering and getting nowhere in life help us to decide to accept Jesus.

John never mentioned that the conditions were bad because the contrariness of their circumstances made them accept Jesus willingly into the ship.

Anything that makes you accept Jesus into your heart is good, not bad.

Now comes an extremely puzzling Scripture.

Why were they immediately at the other side?

This does not agree with our human viewpoint. They were still in the middle of the sea.

But John gives us God’s viewpoint.

Once you have genuinely repented and accepted Jesus as your personal Saviour, then your sins are forgiven and you are immediately a child and citizen of Heaven. The rest of your journey on earth cannot affect your salvation from hell because we are not saved by works.

From the moment of your repentance, you have arrived in Heaven spiritually.

Life’s journey is really to prepare us for Heaven.

Once you are saved, your soul is in Heaven even if your body is still on earth.

Accepting Jesus as your Saviour involves a two-way transfer.

Your sin flows onto Him which forces Him to have to go to hell (which He did in AD 33) so that He can dump your sin on the Devil. Then His innocence flows into your heart, and you are immediately cleansed from sin and able to enter Heaven at that moment, if you died. You do not have to wait until you die in order to find out if you can enter Heaven. From that moment of repentance, you know that you are saved. The spiritual battle for your soul is over and Jesus has won.

That was Luther’s great revelation. We are saved by grace through faith alone. This faith comes from believing the Scriptures. It has nothing to do with a human leader, nor anything to do with a church. It all depends on your personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Matthew mentioned that Peter had walked on the water until he took his eyes off Jesus. Then he began to sink.

The mistake of the Reformation was to take their eyes off Scripture and keep the Roman Catholic doctrines of Trinity, political involvement, and State help for the official Lutheran church. They also kept pagan ideas like Christmas and Lent. Like Peter, these Catholic errors and traditions that they kept would help the Reformation to sink after their promising start.

Mark describes the service of a servant. By faith, our salvation is immediately secure.

But physically we still have to complete life’s journey in our service of God. When we finally die, then we move on to Heaven’s shore.

MARK 6:5   And when they had passed over, they came into the land of Gennesaret, and drew to the shore.

Gennesaret means the Garden of the Prince.

Our Heaven will be the Paradise of the Garden of Eden restored.

Accept Jesus as your personal Saviour and immediately your ultimate destination has been achieved.

Heaven is your new home.

John does not see the struggles on this earth. John sees eternity. The few years we spend on earth is such a small speck compared to the eternity that it is not worth worrying about.

So once you accept Jesus as your Saviour, your eternal life is secure.

Eternal Life, the great Holy Spirit, immediately takes you up into heavenly places. You have arrived spiritually.

EPHESIANS 2:5   Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

:6   And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

The Sixth Parable Representing the Sixth Church Age.

Opening the eyes of a man who was born blind. This happened in Jerusalem.

This is a lovely description of the holiness campaign of John Wesley in England and the great missionary age.

JOHN 9:1   And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

Natural blindness is much the same as spiritual blindness.

Spiritual blindness means you cannot see the meanings of the symbols and patterns in Scripture. Spiritual blindness makes people believe that there are mistakes and contradictions in the King James Version of the Bible. Spiritual blindness stops people from seeing that Jesus Christ is Almighty God.

JOHN 9:5   As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

But Jesus is the Word of God.

JOHN 1:14   And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us

PSALM 119:105   NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

If the Word of God is our light, then spreading the light of the Word is the aim of the missionary age.

JOHN 9:6   When he [Jesus] had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

Man is made from the dust.

Jesus anointed his eyes with moist clay. Whatever the man’s eyes were missing, it was made up from the dust. All it needed was something from the mouth of Jesus (from where the Word comes) to the lowly dust, then to the eye of the man.

Dust is where we walk. Humility. The emphasis on the feet. The mention of clay.

Feet of clay and iron in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the Gentile image.

The legs represented the unyielding iron of the pagan Roman empire that changed their form to become bits of iron in the feet as the spirit of pagan Rome became the Roman Catholic church. The Catholic church was described by one historian as baptized paganism.

The feet were made of iron and clay.

DANIEL 2:43   And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay,

But it was “miry clay”, wet clay in the feet.  Why wet clay? What is that telling us?

Back to the miracle of the blind man seeing.

Then the Lord mentions washing.

JOHN 9:7   And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

Washed. Seeing.  Sent.  These keywords have a profound meaning.

Washing speaks of holiness.

HEBREWS 12:14   Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

Peace and holiness enable us to see God.

Siloam means sent. This refers to missionaries that are sent out into the world in holiness to spread the light of the Word.

That way the unsaved heathens could see the light of truth.

In Nebuchadnezzar’s Gentile image, salvation was of the Jews and outside the Gentile image. Then at the Cross the salvation crossed over and left the Jews and entered the feet of the image to produce the seven church ages.

The clay represented the true believers, the Bride. The only part of the metal image that can grow a seed of life is the clay.

When Jesus did the foot washing He made a deep statement to Peter.

JOHN 13:6   Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?

:7   Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.

What was Peter to learn later?

That the Gospel had to go to the Gentiles.

God showed him a vision three times of a sheet full of “unclean” animals that he had to eat.

When Peter preached to Cornelius, the Holy Ghost fell on the Gentiles.

Peter said:

ACTS 11:15   And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.

:16    Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.

:17   Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?

So, Peter realized that God had used him as a fisherman to also pull in the Gentiles. Just as Peter had pulled in the Jews on the Day of Pentecost.

What then did Jesus mean with the foot-washing?

EPHESIANS 5:26   That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

Again, the washing. The holiness.

Not just with natural water but with the water of the Word.

The wet clay in the feet represented the Gentile Bride in the seven church ages washed with the water of the Word.

The apostles would be responsible for the New Testament with which they would wash the Gentile church clean. That is what the foot-washing represented.  Only the feet of the Gentile image, representing the seven church ages, would respond to the Gospel.

The older Gentile kingdoms had faded away in history.

Peter said:

JOHN 13:9   Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

The hands of the Gentile image were the Medes and Persians, long gone in history. They had been conquered by Alexander the Great.

The head was Babylon which had been conquered even much earlier by the Medes and Persians.

JOHN 13:10   Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.

The iron legs of the pagan Roman empire would launch at least 10 persecutions against the Christian church. Pagan Rome was the first brutal enemy of the church before those demons changed tactics and infiltrated the Roman Catholic church under the emperor Constantine. This happened at the  Council of Nicaea held in AD 325. 

Only the feet of the future church ages remained to be washed in the Gospel.

But Judas was a sinner who would betray Jesus. Thus, despite the washing with water he was not clean. The water washing was thus symbolic.

The real washing was to cleanse human hearts from sin and unbelief by believing the Word of God.

During the last meal that Jesus had,  He used broken bread to symbolize His Body broken for us as He died. But none of His bones were broken. His flesh was torn by the whipping of 39 lashes.

The wine represented the Life in His Blood. The great Holy Spirit that would enter our hearts to give us the stimulation of revelation due to our undeserved salvation.

The water of the foot-washing would speak of holiness and spreading the seed of eternal life amongst the Gentiles who are all vessels of clay shaped by the Potter.

ACTS 2:38    Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Baptism involved the Gentiles getting wet as they take on the name of Jesus Christ in water baptism.

That is the way that the Bride can take on the name of her Husband, Jesus Christ.

ACTS 2:39   For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

This water baptism will wet the “miry clay” down to the end of the ten toes when the Gentile church ages finally end.

And those who have been wet with the water of baptism in the name of Jesus Christ will then receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

JOHN 16:13   Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:

Guided into all the truth of the King James Version of the Bible is how we are washed clean from error and unbelief by the water of the Word.

The Seventh Parable Represents the Seventh Church Age.

The resurrection of Lazarus.

God's Will versus our self-centered will.

The seventh church age ends with the resurrection of the dead saints from all seven church ages.

The Pharisees and Sadducees hated Jesus. Religious leaders find that the Word of God contradicts their beliefs.

It is shocking to hear so many church leaders criticizing and condemning the King James Version of the Bible. They would like to get rid of this version of the Bible. But it remains the world's best seller.

JOHN 10:39   Therefore they sought again to take him: but he [Jesus] escaped out of their hand,

:40   And went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; and there he abode.

John began his baptizing near the city of Bethabara.

MATTHEW 3:1   In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,

JOHN 1:28   These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Bethabara means the place of the crossing.

This is where Joshua and the Jews had crossed the river Jordan into the Promised Land.

This is where Jesus had to cross over Jordan to find safety in the wilderness from the Jewish hatred of Him in Jerusalem.

Then Jesus had to cross Jordan again to go back to Bethany where Lazarus had died.

The resurrection of Lazarus made Jesus emphasize His ability to raise the dead.

Thereby He tried to convince His disciples that He had power over death. But they failed to realize that.

As far as the disciples were concerned, events had run out of control.

Thus at the time of the resurrection of the dead from the seven church ages, we will also feel that events have run out of control. We will need to check carefully with Scripture to see how God is moving.

For example: people thought that Donald Trump was a bad guy and would thus lose the 2016 presidential election. But his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would fulfill prophecy. So this was the most important issue. Moses, who led the first exodus, was a murderer.

We need to be able to discern what God is trying to do instead of worrying about who God works through.

ISAIAH 55:8    For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

But, when Jesus resurrected, the disciples began to realize that the Gentile church could receive the Promise of the Holy Spirit.  This would give them a revelation of the true Land to dwell in, which is the Bible. In Scripture, the New Testament is a fulfillment of the Old Testament.

But Jesus had to cross over the River of Death to win that victory for us. Then He resurrected to show that He had conquered the River of Death and returned back across the same River to tell us that the victory was His.

Our Promise is the Holy Spirit. Our Land is the Word of God.

The resurrection of Jesus was the glorious sign that the victory had been won.

So, Jesus, just before His own death and resurrection, puts an emphasis on the resurrection of Lazarus.

JOHN 11:1   Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.

Bethany means House of affliction.

Lazarus means, “Whom God helps”.

The lesson is that when we are afflicted then God will help us, even though He seems to be ignoring us at times.

JOHN 11:2    (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)

Martha worked hard but put her trust in her good works which made a name for herself as a reliable worker.

But Mary preferred to focus on hearing the words of Jesus. She was more spiritual. She knew that the feet were significant, even though she did not know about the death and resurrection of Jesus nor about the 7 church ages which were represented by the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s Gentile image.

Thus, she anointed the feet of Jesus with perfume while He was alive which symbolized His victory march over death. The other women later went to put spices on His dead Body symbolizing that they thought that Death had won.

Mary wiped His feet with her long hair. Long hair is the glory of a woman.

I CORINTHIANS 11:15   But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.

Long hair indicates the submission of a woman to her head, her husband.

Mary as a woman, symbolizing a church, in submission to Jesus Christ the Word. Bowing at His feet.

A message was sent to Jesus for help. But Jesus stayed for a further two days in the wilderness at Bethabara.

JOHN 11:6    When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.

This delay meant that Lazarus would surely die. God often tests our patience. And answers our prayers in a way that we are convinced is the wrong answer. We need to be careful and spend more time seeking God's Will, not our own. Our will is usually based on self-gain.

Mary and Martha did not want Lazarus to die. Self-will.

Jesus wanted to show the world His power to perform the resurrection from the dead. God's Will.

JOHN 11:7   Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.

:8     His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?

Then there was the very real danger of the Jews in Jerusalem killing Him.

This predicts that serving God will be dangerous at the time of the resurrection of the dead saints.

Denominational churches and message churches will all oppose and suppress the true Bride.

JOHN 11:9   Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.

“Day” means the will of God which is the light that we should walk in. When we are in the will of God then dangerous situations can be survived during the last church age of the Laodiceans.

This incident clearly teaches that as we approach the time of the resurrection it is going to get more dangerous for true believers.

JOHN 11:10   But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

We can think that we can be safe now by ignoring the end-time revelations of William Branham that are to reveal the mysteries of the written Word. But soon the Tribulation, represented by the darkness of night time, will strike. And then death will be rampant.

JOHN 11:11    These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

The parable of the ten virgins represents all the saved churches as virgins are clean women. But they were all fast asleep at the end, even the Spirit-filled ones with oil, and much in need of a wake-up call.

The power of Jesus is so great that the resurrection from the dead is to Him little more than waking a sleeping person.

JOHN 11:14   Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

JOHN 11:15   And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.

Jesus is going to use Lazarus to demonstrate His power over death.

JOHN 11:16   Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.

Thomas, who we readily criticize for doubting the resurrection of Jesus, here showed that he was one of the bravest disciples. He certainly did not lack courage.

At the end of the seventh church age, there will be such opposition to Bible truth that only brave people will be able to stand for truth and face the rejection of the church-goers.

Those who want acceptance or popularity will stumble.

JOHN 11:17  Then when Jesus came, he found that he [Lazarus] had lain in the grave four days already. 

Jesus delayed His return trip to get there when Lazarus was dead four days.

After three days corruption sets in.

PSALM 16:10   For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Lazarus lived a holy life. If Jesus raised him before three days, then people would believe that Lazarus fulfilled this Scripture. But Lazarus, when he died, would not have gone to hell as he had kept the Jewish Law.

The fourth day symbolizes the four stages of the restoration of the truth.

1. Martin Luther, in church age 5, in Germany restores salvation by faith and not by works.
2. John Wesley, in church age 6, in England restores holiness and outreach. This was the foundation for the missionary age.
3. In 1904 the Welsh revival and in 1906 the Azusa Street Pentecostal revival in Los Angeles restored the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, at the start of church age 7.
4. Between 1947 and 1965 William Branham in America restored the Bible truths of the early church by revealing the mysteries of Scripture and tape recording his sermons.  Thus the spiritual children of church age 7 return to the beliefs of the apostolic fathers of church age 1.

We are now in the days of the tape-recorded voice of the seventh church age messenger as we run his quotes through the Bible in order to understand the mysteries of Scripture.

REVELATION 10:7    But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

This is the end of the restoration back to the Bible truths of the apostolic church.

The next event that lies ahead for the true church is the resurrection of the dead saints from the seven church ages

In that sense, the church is like the women Mary (spiritual church focused on the Word) and Martha (natural church focused on good works), just before the resurrection of Lazarus (the righteous dead).

JOHN 11:18   Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off:

Eight furlongs make a mile. Bethany was almost two miles from Jerusalem.

JOHN 11:19    And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.

This suggests that it will be a turbulent and sad time just before the resurrection, with people needing comfort.

JOHN 11:20    Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.

Martha, ever zealous with her works, rushed off to meet Jesus.

This seems to be a good example for us. Her zeal to meet the Lord was great, but her lack of knowledge would let her down.

Also, she displayed impatience. She moved under her own will, not at the call of Jesus.

Mary, ever spiritual, did not try to find Jesus by her own efforts.

Compare this to people who make up their own interpretations of the Bible mysteries to show how zealous they are.

But Mary sat still, waiting to hear from Jesus.

JOHN 11:21   Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

Despite all her zeal to find Jesus, Martha foolishly criticizes Him. (The foolish virgins, fast asleep and totally unaware of what is actually happening)

Jesus is the Word. Whatever we say about Scripture, that is what we are saying about Jesus.

Today Christians say that they love the Lord Jesus and are zealous to serve Him. But what they say about the Bible is their true opinion about Him. They say the King James Bible is full of contradictions, mistakes, and bad translations. By criticizing the Bible, they criticize Jesus.

JOHN 11:22  But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

Like the modern church, Martha criticizes Jesus but also shows faith in Him.

The church today has faith in Jesus but criticizes the King James Version of the Bible. But Jesus is the Word. So, the church walks on unequal legs. They rely on a perfect Jesus but also on what they claim is an imperfect Bible that cannot be properly translated. Thus they say that the Bible has faults and flaws).

JOHN 11:23   Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.

:24     Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

Martha is strange. She believes God can resurrect Lazarus at the end of time when there is almost nothing left of him. But she can’t believe that he can be resurrected now that corruption has started since the third day.

JOHN 11:25   Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

:26   And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

Jesus clearly states that faith in Him can make the dead live because He is the resurrection.

:27   She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

Martha does not profess faith in the resurrection. She just acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God.

The foolish virgins today acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity.

Their knowledge of the Godhead is thus wrong. They also know almost nothing of the seven church ages. Their knowledge of prophecy is so full of errors that they will miss the resurrection of the dead.

The resurrection will be a real test of faith.

Those who can match the Scriptures to the events of today.

Message preachers who claimed Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 American presidential election have already shown how far out of tune they are with God's thinking.

Martha believes in Jesus but is not too sure about a corpse that is starting to rot being brought back to life.

So just before the resurrection things will be so different from what we expect that we will be unable to follow what God is doing. We will end up believing that things have gone wrong.

Then, if we are not very careful, we will end up believing the wrong things.

Like Hillary winning the 2016 election.

JOHN 11:28   And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee.

She spoke secretly.

At the time of the resurrection, the truth will be so badly spoken of that true believers will often only be able to speak to each other in secret.

So many people condemned Trump in 2016 that one was scared to say that he would win the election.

We see an example of truth not being able to be spoken openly by the banning of prayer and Bible reading in schools.

There is also the suppression of Christians in Muslim nations who persecute and kill them.

An Australian rugby player was banned from playing for his country because he publicly quoted a Scripture.

JOHN 11:29   As soon as she heard that, she [Mary] arose quickly, and came unto him.

JOHN 11:32   Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

Mary, the spiritual woman, symbolizing the spiritual church believers, also criticized Jesus.

Today it is almost impossible to find somebody who does not criticize the King James Version of the Bible. They give many learned reasons as to why the Bible is flawed and faulty. Their higher education has merely developed their unbelief.

Message believers develop doctrines based on interpretations of quotes that end up contradicting Scripture. But they believe the interpretation of the quotes rather than the Bible.

Thus, people make up doctrines that are not written in Scripture. Then they use unscriptural words to “prove” their unscriptural beliefs.

Even the spiritual wise virgins (symbolized by Mary) are so surrounded by everybody's unbelief in being strictly Scriptural, that even she doubts Jesus Who is the Word.

It almost seems that nobody can be strictly Scriptural anymore.

JOHN 11:33   When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,

Human emotions have taken over. Loss has been magnified. Death is too much to bear.

The whole mob is sad. So Mary joins them in sadness.

Jesus is coming to raise the dead and they are so out of tune with God that they can only cry for their own sadness and loss.

Wrapped up in their own little worlds, their own self-will, they simply cannot see the Big Picture which is God’s Will.

So at the end of time, the Bride will be so entangled in her personal loss and self-sympathy that we will miss what God is doing unless we are very careful.

That is why the Bride needs a serious wakeup call. Anything to pop our obsessive self-centered bubbles.

JOHN 11:34   And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.

“Come and see” is what each of the four beasts around God’s throne said in Revelation Chapter 6 as they guided the church through the seven church ages.

REVELATION 6:1   And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

REVELATION 6:3   And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

REVELATION 6:5   And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see

REVELATION 6:7   And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

The “voice” of the fourth beast came from brother Branham’s tape-recorded sermons.

Each of these revelations was simply staggering as they opened up how the church had been completely fooled by the antichrist spirit. Yet in each church age, God had believers who were guided by the revelations of truth that these four beasts around the throne had revealed.

“Come and see” means that we will get an amazing insight into how God and Satan have fought each other down through 2000 years of church history.

But Mary as a spiritual woman and also the Jews who all used this expression, did not say so in order to reveal a dazzling revelation but to point to a stinking corpse.

JOHN 11:35   Jesus wept.

Jesus was so saddened by their ignorance of Scripture. He was distraught because they focused on their circumstances instead of putting their faith in His Word. Today His Word is our Bible.

Our physical situation and circumstances are just a distraction to tempt us to take our eyes off God's Big Picture.

JOHN 11:36   Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!

These Jews could not get anything right. The Jews were so ignorant of Scripture that they made a serious psychological mistake when they tried to analyze His actions. Their analysis of His emotions was completely wrong.

JOHN 11:37   And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?

Again, we come to this deadly criticism of Jesus.

God’s plan just does not fit in with our human expectations.

So we are convinced that God has made a mistake.

Jesus is the Word. Christians today feel that they are so clever that they can find faults and mistakes in the King James Version of the Bible.

Yet they believe that God is all-powerful.

So, they wonder how an all-powerful God could not produce a perfect Bible in our day. Didn’t God know all about the mistakes that they think they have found in the Bible?

JOHN 11:38   Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

The main enemy that opposes Jesus is our unbelief.

The biggest cause of grief to Jesus is human unbelief.

MATTHEW 13:58   And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

“Come and see” did not enlighten their eyes. It just led them to a grave.

A dead denominational church system. Their leaders train in a seminary which is actually a spiritual cemetery.

A huge stone of man-made error keeps the people in their spiritual grave.

To belong to the church you must believe various errors like

the Trinity,

a seven-year Tribulation,

the pastor is the head of the church.

Message churches also claim that the seven Thunders have uttered and that the mighty Angel of Revelation Chapter 10 has come down way back in the past.

They have unfortunately forgotten that they once believed that the Lord was coming in 1977.

Many message-believers believed that the Lord was coming in 1970,

and many still believe that the Lord or the Angel came in 1963.

Many message-churches believed that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 American election.

They also sadly believe that the supernatural Cloud that was photographed on 28 February 1963 north of the city of Flagstaff in Arizona was created by the seven angels when they left brother Branham on 8 March 1963 when he was 200 miles south of Flagstaff near Sunset Peak. There are 8 days and 200 miles of difference between the two events. But Message churches are not too concerned to let facts spoil a good story.

The hunting season for javelina pigs only opens on 1 March. So brother Branham was not hunting on 28 February.

Especially as he preached "A Absolute" on 4 March 1963 in Houston Texas, which is 1000 miles from Sunset Peak.

Jesus will not come in the desert.

MATTHEW 24:26   Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth:

Sunset Peak or Sunset mountain is in the great Sonoran desert.

So Jesus could not have come there.

The supernatural cloud was only visible for 28 minutes and was never seen below a height of 42 kilometers.

Thus the cloud never came down.

The following poster, which is a photostat, not the original photograph, is thus fake news.

A further point, which does not fit their theory and thus gets left out, is that there were two clouds.

A supernatural cloud formed by angels' wings and a smoke cloud from a rocket explosion.

This photograph was taken from Winslow which was in the path of the clouds.

The two pillars of smoke are seen at the back, a bit to the right of the triangular roof.

JOEL 2:30    And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

The pillars of smoke fulfill Joel's prophecy.

The supernatural cloud was the sign in the heaven of the Son of man.

MATTHEW 24:29   Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

The tribulation of those days was Hitler's Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews. The darkening sun is all the fault-finding with the King James Bible that people believe is flawed. The moon is the church that no longer believes or reflects the true light of the King James Bible because they believe it has faults and there is much Scripture that the church does not understand. The stars are the preachers who have fallen from their heavenly calling of being strictly Scriptural and now preach man-made ideas.

The powers of heaven are the scientific laws of atmospheric physics that were shaken as they were totally unable to explain two high altitude clouds because there was only one rocket explosion.

MATTHEW 24:30   And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven:

The supernatural cloud was a sign that the Seven Seals were about to be revealed.

65-0718  TRYING  TO  DO  GOD  A  SERVICE  WITHOUT  BEING  THE  WILL  OF  GOD

And then in that great observatory, so that the world will be without, they're still wondering what happened. In Tucson, them big observatories took the picture of it up there; still wondering what happened. What is it? They still put in the paper, "Does anybody know anything about what, how it could have happen?" There is no fog up there, there's no air, there's no moisture; thirty miles high in the air. Oh, my!
"There shall be signs in the heaven above. And when these things take place, earthquakes in divers places, then shall appear the sign in the heaven, of the Son of man."

JOHN 11:39   Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

There is only one hope. Remove the stone of unbelief that has been built up by numerous exalted human church leaders and pastors. If these wrong beliefs remain as a dead stone on people's minds then it simply means that the people will remain in their spiritual church grave. They prefer the church to the Bible. They place the pastor before Jesus.

As Martha would say today, “Their unscriptural beliefs stink to high Heaven”.

This stink of human error will be manifest when the dead rise and these church-goers miss the fact. The resurrected dead will only be interested in the written Scriptures.

They will avoid human opinions and interpretations.

Jesus preached a chilling parable about the time of the resurrection.
LUKE 16:31   And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

If we cannot believe the written Scripture then we will never believe what the resurrected dead have to say.

That shows how successfully the church pastors will brainwash and indoctrinate the church-goers into unscriptural error.

The mighty Angel of Revelation 10 actually comes down to raise the dead saints from the seven church ages who are buried either on land or at sea.

64-0119 SHALOM

And when the great Director comes down and bears that stick down, then, "time shall be no more." When that Angel, of Revelation the 10th chapter, puts one foot on land and one on the sea, and a rainbow over His head, He swore, "time shall be no more." When that time comes, you'll rise up from among the dead. While the rest of them lay there, you'll go in.

Only then do the seven Thunders utter their mysterious voices.

The Message churches that have been brain-washed by the Cloud doctrines and the Thunders doctrines will then oppose the Truth. They will then move into the Tribulation.

No New Testament Scripture puts a pastor in charge of a church.

No Scripture says a pastor is the shepherd, as if he is a superior being to the sheep.

But in the real world, a Judas-goat leads the sheep to the slaughter.

JOHN 11:40   Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

“If thou wouldest believe” in what is written in the Bible instead of parroting what your church leader said.

All this parroting of human quotes without having a real understanding of what the quotes mean simply means that church-goers and message-believers cannot prove their beliefs just by using the Bible.

JOHN 11:41   Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.

:42   And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

:43     And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

“cried with a loud voice”.

This is exactly what the mighty Angel of Revelation Chapter 10 did.

REVELATION 10:1   And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:

:2   And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,

:3   And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth:

The sea and the earth are where the dead saints from the seven church ages have been buried.

So, when this Archangel “cried with a loud voice” then it would be time for the resurrection of the dead church ages saints who form the Bride of Jesus.

This is the victory roar of the lion, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Jesus Christ, as the Archangel Michael, raises the dead saints to openly show His power over Satan.

As the Archangel, Jesus can come down to earth without it being a Coming of the Lord.

But raising the dead is the definite preparation for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus.

REVELATION 10:3   And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

After He cried, after the dead saints were resurrected, then it was time for the seven mysterious Thunders. They are not written in the Bible but they will be hidden in the Bible in such a way that when they happen, the living saints at the end of the seventh church age, will be able to identify and follow them.

These seven Thunders will show us how to get our bodies transformed into glorified bodies.

Once we are in those new bodies, then we will be able to receive rapturing faith. While we remain in these present bodies, we cannot be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

JOHN 11:44   And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

Lazarus had to make a complete break from his graveclothes.

We have to make a complete break from the man-made church systems and their numerous unscriptural doctrines that they have wrapped around our minds.

JOHN 11:45   Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.

There are many who want to believe in Jesus and the Bible.

JOHN 11:46   But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.

But Church-goers tend to rush back to their church leaders. They feel enslaved to their elevated leaders.

“Your pastor will see you through”. There is no such Scripture.

And there are so many different Message interpretations, so who is the pastor with the full truth?

Does any pastor have the full truth?

The word “pastor” is only mentioned once in the New Testament but condemned six times in the Old Testament.

JOHN 11:47   Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.

The church leaders consult together.

JOHN 11:48   If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.

If people just believe in the King James Version of the Bible we will lose our place or position of being head of our church. Because the New Testament does not make the pastor the head of the church.

Our favourite “Message doctrines” will be taken away because we cannot prove them just from the Bible.

"But it is essential that we stay in charge", say the one-man-leaders of the churches.

They will fight to the bitter end to maintain their position and power and income.

Church leaders rely on the unscriptural statement that all the tithes belong to the pastor.

If the pastors do not stay in charge, they lose their income. That thought horrifies them.  And too many of them have no other way to earn a living, except for those pastors who have already accumulated millions.

"Pastor plus son" or sons, is a good way of keeping the business in the family.

This is reminiscent of Africa where dictators do not hand over power. And Africa is the poorest continent. But the dictators are not poor.

JOHN 11:49    And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,

:50     Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

:51     And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;

So, Jesus was to get the death sentence.

JOHN 11:52   And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

Today people are condemned if they only believe what they can prove in Scripture.

We are supposed to take the quotes and run them through the Bible until we can prove what brother Branham taught from the Bible.

JOHN 11:53   Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.

The Word must be destroyed so that people must not base their beliefs just on Scripture.

But the church pastors cannot prove many of their beliefs from Scripture. Otherwise, they would not be the head of their church if they were Scriptural.

So, the condemnation of those who want to be Scriptural gathers pace.

Church-goers and Message-believers no longer are required to prove their beliefs by linking up Bible verses up.

JOHN 11:54    Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.

Being Scriptural causes much opposition to be raised up. People do not want to know you.

One ends up in a social wilderness, unwanted and rejected.

But Ephraim means “fruitful”.

So here comes the real blessing of being Scriptural.

MATTHEW 13:12   For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

If you insist on Bible truth God will open your eyes to more of the Scripture until you know enough to recognize the mysterious seven Thunders when they finally utter after the resurrection.

But if you do not want to prove your beliefs from Scripture, because you believe things that are unscriptural, then God will cloud your vision so that you understand even less of Scripture.

You will be happy to believe what you cannot prove in the Bible.

The separation will come when you can neither recognize nor follow the future mysteries of the seven Thunders. Then you will be left behind.

MATTHEW 24:12   And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Iniquity means we know it is wrong to believe things that we cannot prove from Scripture, but we do it anyway because of pressure from our church leaders who are the modern-day Pharisees.

Phar-i-see.  Far-I-See.

They say, "Look at this fantastic opinion that has been built upon a whole bunch of quotes".

They desperately want people to think that they are clever.

But they cannot run their beliefs through the Bible and prove what they believe just from the Bible.

So, the love of Scripture fades.

MATTHEW 24:13    But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

You must endure and keep on being Scriptural.

Then only will you be saved from the Tribulation.