Matthew 02 - Wise men seek for Jesus

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Jesus is the Truth. Wise men seek for Him in the revealed Word

Wise men sought Jesus 2000 years ago. Today, we have to search for Jesus in the revealed Word.

Do you understand the Bible mysteries when you read the Scriptures, or do you have to keep overlooking sections and verses that you cannot understand?

The search for truth continues.

MATTHEW 2:1   Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

Herod’s family came from Idumea, a territory south of Judea, that Joshua had not included in the Promised Land.

Idumea had been conquered by the Jews when they briefly won independence from the Greek ruler of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes. Idumeans were then forced to adopt the Jewish religion. The Jews would regret going outside Joshua’s Promised Land as Idumea produced Herod, who would become their cruelest king.

Herod’s father Antipater had helped the Roman Julius Caesar and thus gained favour with the rising power of Rome which had conquered Israel in 63 BC. Rome later installed Herod as a client king in Judea.

Herod knew he was not the proper king of the Jews. He did not come from the bloodline of David.

He was thus endlessly suspicious of any Jewish rival who might claim his throne. Brutally cruel, he was merciless towards any person who threatened his man-made position as king.

Church leaders who are forceful to protect their positions of authority are insecure. They seek to destroy those who can interpret the Bible better than they can.

Wise men. These travelers were wise. Their wisdom caused them to seek Jesus.

We are only wise in God’s eyes when we seek Christ and His deeper truth in the King James Version of the Bible.

MATTHEW 2:2   Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

Balaam, in the days of Moses, had made this prophecy.

NUMBERS 24:17   I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel,

When the wise men saw the supernatural Star then they knew the Saviour had been born.

MATTHEW 2:3   When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

Herod was paranoid. Eastern men coming who had followed a star. A star that had been prophesied.

A star that signified that a King had been born. A true King is born. He is not made a king by men.

Herod knew he was a fake king because Romans had put him on the throne. Just sheer luck that Julius Caesar had got into trouble on his way to Egypt and Herod’s father Antipas had been able to help him. Antipas was very shrewd as he suspected that Rome was the rising superpower that would dominate the Middle East. That guess was correct and it had opened the door to Rome’s valuable and powerful friendship. As the son of Antipas, Herod was rewarded by being made a client-king of Rome. Herod was very talented but plagued by insecurity as he was dead scared of a true king of the Jews being born. Herod would inhumanly destroy any rival who threatened his position.

This is the downfall of human leadership. Scared of a God-sent rival who understands the Bible better.

That is one of the reasons that the church world was so quick to reject William Branham.

For "all Jerusalem" to be troubled meant that the whole city was aware of the arrival of the wise men. That would not have been possible if there were only three men. They would not really have been noticed.

Robbers and bandits attacked travelers on the roads. Some historians claim that you needed about 150 armed fighting men to travel in a group if you were to scare off the robbers. We do not know how many men there were, but there were enough of them to travel safely on the bandit-infested roads.

There were enough of them to be noticed when they reached the city of Jerusalem.

What was the Star that nobody else saw? The Holy Spirit

The star. This has puzzled people.

There is no star or planet or constellation in the night sky that marches from east to west over a space of two years. Stars move from east to west for 6 months and then disappear around the back of the earth for the next six months. When they re-appear, they will be in the east behind the travelers for at least three months. They will then only be in front of the travelers for the last three months before disappearing again. Thus, if people travel from east to west, any star or constellation can only guide them for three months in the year.

Then the star disappeared while they were in Jerusalem. No actual star does that.

When the star re-appeared it then led them towards the south to get to Bethlehem. No real star moves south.

Then the star indicated a house (not a stable). No star, up in the sky, can indicate an individual house in a city.

This supernatural star had to come down and stand still over the house. Normal stars do not behave like that.

So, the only solution to this puzzle is to realize that the Star was actually the same Holy Spirit that guides us to seek and find Jesus in our day.

Taking the form of a star, the Holy Spirit only appeared to them at night. That made their journey very difficult and dangerous. Traveling at night is doing it the hard way.

Christianity is not a bed of roses. It requires courage and perseverance.

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

The Holy Spirit is the only true guide that can show us the truth.

The Holy Spirit can open your eyes to a Bible truth while the person sitting next to you sees nothing.

Our ability to see truth is totally dependent on the Holy Spirit anointing our spiritual eyes with eyesalve.

If you are able to understand the deeper mysteries of Scripture it is only because God has chosen to open your eyes. It is not your own wisdom.

The gift of wisdom to understand the Word is given to us by the Holy Spirit.

I CORINTHIANS 12:7   But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

:8   For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

The wise men had absolutely no idea where they were heading for. They followed the Star by faith.

Politics and religion combined, but never sought Christ

MATTHEW 2:4   And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

The First Coming of Jesus resulted in the getting together of the Jewish religious leaders and the politicians. They were scared of losing their positions and their corrupt financial benefits if the true Messiah arrived. Religious leaders and the king did not want a Messiah. They would sooner see Him dead.

This was a preview of the first four Seals in Revelation Chapter 6.

The white horse of religious deception and the red horse of political power in Revelation Chapter 6 would merge just before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The black horse of Big Money demonology steers the churches into this pale corpse-coloured merger in our money-obsessed and materialistic modern world.

The Pope is heavily involved in politics. So are many Protestant church leaders. Churches are Big Business.

MATTHEW 2:5   And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet,

The religious leaders knew the answers. But they themselves never went to Bethlehem.

MATTHEW 2:6   And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

This was the prophecy that they were quoting.

MICAH 5:2   But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Knowing that Messiah would come from Bethlehem, why were the religious leaders not there?

The answer was simple. The corrupt money changers in the Temple were making a lot of money for the corrupt religious leaders. That kind of income was not available in Bethlehem where there was no Temple. If you wanted to be rich, you had to be at the Temple head-quarters in order to collect your cut of the ill-gotten gains.

MATTHEW 2:7   Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

Herod knew that he had an opposition that needed to be eliminated. However old the Messiah was, Herod would kill all Jewish boys of that age and younger just to make sure that he eliminated the Messiah.

Herod then had a private meeting with the wise men. He wanted to know how long ago the star first appeared. He needed to know how long they had been following the star. That would give him the age of Messiah. That would tell him which children had to be destroyed.

MATTHEW 2:8    And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.

Herod was the ruler. He wanted the young child to be found. But here lay the deception. Pretending to worship Jesus, he would do everything in his power to destroy Jesus.

Religious leaders today re-translate the Bible to suit their own opinions. They have so criticized the Bible that even sincere Christians believe that no Bible translation is perfectly accurate. With over a hundred different versions of the English Bible to choose from, people are convinced that all Bibles are faulty and that no Bible version is the Absolute. Thus, while professing to worship God, church leaders destroy people’s faith in the King James Version of the Bible. Very few Christians are left today who regard It as the Absolute.

MATTHEW 2:9   When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

A star also symbolizes the Holy Ghost-filled messenger to the last church age of the Laodiceans. The age where the Laodicean people write their own Bibles and make up their own religious beliefs that suit them. They now accept abortion and gay rights. They believe they can interpret the unwritten seven Thunders. They believe that the seven Seals have been opened without ever first being revealed.

AMOS 3:7   Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

God will not open the Seals until the end-time messenger first reveals them.

The Seals actually open in Revelation Chapter 6 after the Bride has been caught up to Heaven in Revelation Chapter 4.

So, in this confused and turbulent age of people’s rights that enable them to believe whatever they want to believe, God has to send a star or messenger to guide us back to the King James Version of the Bible, which is Christ.

Jesus is the Word.

The true Word was written as the New Testament by the apostles. So the end-time messenger has to guide us back to the early church beliefs. He has to restore us end-time children back to the doctrines of the apostolic fathers.

The mistake the wise men made was to find the headquarters of the Jewish Temple worship in Jerusalem and then think that those religious leaders understood the truth about God’s plan for their day.

“Head-quarters” means only a quarter of their heads work.

Thus, message pastors are enmeshed in trying to interpret quotes, like Hillary winning the 2016 American Presidential election, and simply proving that actually, they cannot interpret much of the Bible.

So, the wise men did the best thing they could. They left the church systems and their human leaders and man-made interpretations of the quotes. An exodus out of man-made church systems.

REVELATION 18:4   And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Then the star, the end-time messenger, could guide them to the Word of God as they learned to track down his quotes in the verses of the Bible. Then they believed because the Bible said so, not because the star or messenger said so.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE SEVEN CHURCH AGES  CHAPTER 9  THE LAODICEAN CHURCH AGE

... for a true prophet will always lead one to the Word and bind the people to Jesus Christ and he won't tell the people to fear him or what he says, but to fear what the Word says.

62-0318  THE  SPOKEN  WORD  IS  THE  ORIGINAL  SEED.2

Now, that's why we got all the things that we've got. Now, all these things I've said, if they don't jive with the Bible, or dovetail with God's Word, they're wrong, they're wrong,

64-0823M  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS.1

But those who can accept the Word in Its fullness, not me preaching It, because It's the Bible says so. Those who accept that is free because they--the Word's already been judged.

Leaving the crowded city with its religious leaders enabled the wise men to start understanding the quotes in terms of the Bible verses. Proving something from Scripture makes us extremely happy. The stimulation of Scriptural revelation.

MATTHEW 2:10   When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

The fulfillment of the star or messenger’s ministry was to bring wise men to the Word of God.

How the wise men rejoiced because the star enabled them to understand the Word of God.

How happy they were to see that the message of William Branham blended into the Scripture and could be proven from the Scripture.

63-0323  THE  SIXTH  SEAL

We're too close for anything, any foolishness or any presuming, or halfway believe. I've got to see it first. And then when I see it, it's got to be in the Word too. And so far, by the grace of God, they perfectly... I've took it from all the way through; you know that; it's just blended right together.

It's got to be, THUS SAITH THE LORD, 'cause it's not only as to say it from me knowing it myself, but the Word of the Lord is THUS SAITH THE LORD. And here is the Word taking what He has give to me and blending it together and showing you, so you know yourself it's THUS SAITH THE LORD. See?

Following the star messenger led them to Jesus, the Word of God.

MATTHEW 2:11   And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

They went into a house, not a stable.

They saw a young Child, not a baby.

Joseph was not present.

They worshiped Jesus. They were wise enough to know that this Child was the mighty God in the Flesh.

Jesus was old enough to be aware that He was being worshiped.

ISAIAH 9:6   For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Your presents show Jesus Who you think He is

There were not three wise men.

But they did give three presents.

Their presents showed Him Who they thought He was.

Gold symbolizes God. They thought He was Emmanuel, God with us as a fellow Human being. A Kinsman Redeemer.

Frankincense is a hard gum obtained by cutting the bark of a tree until the sap oozed out and hardened.

Jesus would be whipped until His sinless blood oozed out of the cuts.

Burnt meat-sacrifices create a stench of scorched meat. Add frankincense to the flames and it emits a lovely odour or perfume. This makes the sacrifice an acceptable sacrifice.

Jesus was God in the flesh. The fulness of God dwelling in a Man.

COLOSSIANS 2:9   For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

The Man on the outside was the Son of God. The supernatural Spirit within Him was God the Father.

The Man Jesus, Who was sinless, had to perform an acceptable sacrifice for the redemption of mankind.

EPHESIANS 5:2   And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

He had to die on our behalf to pay for our sins.

Myrrh was a spice that they wrapped dead bodies in to reduce the smell of decaying flesh.

What we offer to Jesus actually shows Him Who we think He is.

He wants us to offer our total obedience to His Word.

He wants us to surrender our self-will to Him so that He can control our actions and thoughts.

We must learn to pray as Jesus did in Gethsemane, not for our own self-will but for God’s will.

MATTHEW 26:39   And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

After meeting Jesus they walked a different path. They changed

We go back to the wise men who were being warned to flee from Herod.

MATTHEW 2:12    And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

God spoke to the wise men in a dream.

They had met Jesus and how their lives would change.

They followed one path to find Him but having found Him they would from then on walk a different path. They would not go back to their old path that they had formerly traveled.

Jesus changes lives.

Once you accept Jesus as your Saviour, you find yourself walking differently.

MATTHEW 2:13  And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

God always has a place of refuge to save His truth.

When Roman Catholics were killing Protestants in Europe, God guided them to Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts in America. There they found freedom. No Pope and no English king could persecute them.

MATTHEW 2:14  When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:

It was dangerous to travel by night. But it was more dangerous to stay.

Christianity is not for sissies. Truth is accompanied by danger.

There is a spiritual war going on and when you accept Jesus you become a marked enemy of Satan.

Egypt is a symbol of worldliness.

So,  Jesus spent His childhood in a worldly environment but kept His standards high.

Geography changed when God cursed the ground as a result of Adam’s sin.

But it seems that the original Eden was where Egypt is now

65-0829  SATAN'S  EDEN

Finally, when He got it all made, and finally we... finally arrived with its headquarters, of the earth, in a beautiful spot laying east of Eden, called the garden of Eden. God made the world's headquarters in the garden of Eden, in Egypt, right at the east end of the garden was the headquarters.

The next Bible verse links Egypt with the garden of the Lord, which was Eden.

GENESIS 13:10   And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.

So, if Eden was in Egypt then everything started there.

Jesus thus went back to the very source of sin to begin His life that was dedicated to defeating sin and death.

There was also a testimony to Jesus down in Egypt, the Great Pyramid.

At about one million tons, it is the heaviest man-made structure (if we ignore the great wall of China).

There is no capstone.

A pyramid, with its flat top, waiting for its capstone is tremendously symbolic of the church or Bride of Jesus Christ waiting for His Second Coming.

The Great Pyramid is the only pyramid with internal chambers.

The red chamber in the diagram, called the King’s Chamber, holds an empty coffin.

The empty tomb is again tremendously symbolic of the First Coming of Jesus.

In blue is shown a Grand Gallery that has 7 overlapping layers of smoothly joined massive stones.

So the great pyramid testifies to the seven church ages where all the New Testament believers are based on the resurrection of Christ.

Isaiah speaks of a witness, an altar and a pillar in Egypt. At the centre and at the border.

The blue colour of this map of Egypt represents the Mediterranean Sea.

The great pyramid (pink square) is at the Giza suburb of the city of Cairo.

Lower Egypt is the Nile Delta which forms a curved arc (shown in red) as it meets the Mediterranean Sea. The great pyramid is built at the centre of the circle which forms this arc.

The Great Pyramid, being at the start of the Nile Delta, is also at the boundary of the Delta (Lower Egypt shown with a red line about it) and the rest of Egypt known as Upper Egypt.

ISAIAH 19:19   In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the LORD.

ISAIAH 19:20   And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.

Moses came to bring the Jews out from their Egyptian oppressors.

Then Jesus, Who is greater than Moses, came to save us from the oppression of our sins and unbelief.

It can thus be argued that the great pyramid, built by Enoch over two thousand years ago, was a faithful witness to the First and Second Comings of Jesus.

Jesus then came to the pyramid when He went to Egypt.

This symbolizes the fact that all those who remain faithful to the Word of God must possess their souls in patience. One day Jesus will Come and catch them up to be with Him in the air.

The Great Pyramid is the Gospel in granite.

The Zodiac is the Gospel in the Galaxy

The Zodiac signs have nothing to do with fortune-telling. That is a perversion of the Truth.

The 12 signs tell the history of Jesus and the church. From His first Coming when born of a virgin to His second Coming as the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

53-0403  THE  CRUELTY  OF  SIN  AND  THE  PENALTY  THAT  IT  COST  TO  RID  SIN  FROM  OUR  LIVES

The first Bible was ever written, was written in the skies, the zodiac. It starts out with the virgin; that's how He come first. It ends up with Leo the lion, the second coming. And He's writing His first Bible.

The second Bible was written, was written by Enoch, and put in the pyramid.

The third Bible was written, and the last one, is this One.

The Gospel in the Galaxy is the 12 signs of the zodiac.

12 constellations of stars that form a background to the circuit of the sun as it moves through the heavens.

Astrologers perverted these zodiac signs to try to be fortune-tellers.

But, they do not know what sign starts the zodiac.

The signs form a closed-loop so anybody can guess which sign they think comes first.

But, every 2000 years the spring sign changes.

This is the constellation that is visible due east, just before the sun rises on 21 March.

4000 years ago in Babylon, the Spring sign was Aires the Ram. Which is the Spring sign that astrologers still claim. But owing to the precession of the equinoxes, (a technical term that means that the earth wobbles on its axis due to the pull of the planets) the Spring sign has shifted to Aquarius the water carrier who is tipping water out of a container. So all the signs are out of synch for the astrologers.

But Enoch would leave us with the key to this riddle when he built the 3 pyramids at Gizeh that represent the three crosses at Calvary.

Enoch carved the statue of the Sphinx next to the pyramid. It is the world's biggest manmade monument.

It holds the mystery of the zodiac starting point.

The head of a woman, because it has no beard and the body of the lion.

The woman is Virgo, the virgin. Jesus came as the virgin-born Son. His First Coming.

Going around the zodiac, the last sign is Leo the lion. Jesus returns for His Second Coming as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

PSALM 19:1   The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

:4   … In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,

:5     Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

The sun runs through the 12 zodiac signs symbolizing the strong Man Jesus Who defeated death and then ran through the seven church ages to pull out His Bride.

Jesus is the Bridegroom looking for His Bride.

The word “zodiac” to the Babylonians meant the “circle of living things”.

But their problem was the scales, Libra.

This was seen as a pair of scale pans trying to balance each other.

But the scale pans were not a living thing.

So, the Babylonian priesthood was baffled. They never solved this problem.

Enoch’s Sphinx points to the start of the zodiac, the virgin birth of Jesus.

Jesus as the virgin-born Son of God seeking a Bride.

Then the next sign, Libra the scales, will describe the Jews having to weigh up and decide who they wanted. Barabbas the man of death because he was a murderer or Jesus the Man of Life.

Being typical human beings. They chose death.

The next sign is Scorpio the scorpion with his sting of death.

This was broken off at Calvary as Jesus conquered death, hell, and the grave.

I CORINTHIANS 15:55   O death, where is thy sting?

The sting of death was lost at Calvary. Repentant sinners can now die sinless and escape hellfire.

The next sign is the Bowman, Sagittarius.

The antichrist spirit of the First Seal of Revelation Chapter 6 is a bowman with a bow but without an arrow. That speaks of deception. Then he got onto the powerful horse of pagan Roman beliefs which absorbed the Babylonian mysteries when Julius Caesar became dictator and Pontiff.  When the pagan Roman Empire collapsed then the antichrist spirits resurrected as the Roman Catholic powerful denominational horse to conquer the church. The white horse speaks of religious deception. The wearing of a crown by the Popes for 1100 years from Pope Nicholas I around AD 860 to when the triple crown was finally taken off by Pope Paul 6 in 1963.

In 1963 brother Branham revealed six of the seven Seals and that intense Bible light killed the Pope and the Catholic American President Kennedy. The new Pope Paul 6 saw enough light to take off the unscriptural triple crown.

The next sign is the goat that leads sheep to the slaughter. Human leaders rose up as Bishops to be the head of the church and dominate the laity. God hated that. After the Reformation, they were called pastors. The same error, just under new management.

The fish represented the persecuted church pushed out of sight under the water in the Dark Ages.

The ram was Luther butting heads with the Roman Church by saying that we are saved by faith.

The bull was Wesley's strong influence of holiness and outreach where brotherly love launched the great missionary age.

Laodicea produced twins. The Pentecostal revival of spiritual gifts and brother Branham's revelation of the mysteries of Scripture.

The crab has two pincers to hold the Spirit and the Truth. It lives on land and water, where the Angel of Revelation 10 stands to raise the dead. The crab moves sideways to slip through the door that is closing for the foolish virgins, as they are doomed to be in the 3.5 years of great Tribulation.

What did they miss? The Second Coming of the Lord as the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

The stars in the galaxy and the pyramid in granite tell the story of the Gospel and the seven church ages.

Prophecy can have a compound fulfillment

We return to Joseph in Egypt.

MATTHEW 2:15   And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

All Joseph could do in Egypt was wait.

God alone knew when the time was ripe for him to return to Israel.

We must not try to run ahead of God.

This prophecy has been fulfilled twice.

The nation of Israel came out of Egypt as if the entire nation was one child of God. This was the first exodus of the Jews out of Egypt

Then Jesus, as the Son of God, also came out of Egypt. The second exodus as the church came out of religious Judaism with its worldly obsession focused on empty legal ritual, political involvement, and its compulsion for dishonest financial gain.

MATTHEW 2:16   Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.

Herod was mad with rage. The wise men had traveled for two years. He had carefully extracted this information from them. So, to make sure of killing the Messiah, he killed all the children of two years and under. As humans, we cannot understand God’s Will. Some have to die and some live.

But after this life is an eternity for the believers.

Then it will make no difference whether our lives on this side were short or long.

All that will count is whether we obeyed God or not.

Those who died for God will reap a rich reward on the other side.

REVELATION 2:13   I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

History has no record of Antipas except for God writing his name into the Bible.

A man killed for the Word of God. That seems sad. But what an honour to have his name written in Scripture.

Antipas died early but he will have our admiration forever. He has no regrets.

Dying for God is gain, however sad that death might be.

PHILIPPIANS 1:21   For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

When Christ came, Satan killed the little children

MATTHEW 2:17   Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,

JEREMIAH 31:15   Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.

Notice the slight difference between the Old Testament Hebrew spellings and the New Testament Greek spellings.

MATTHEW 2:18   In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

Rachel died when Benjamin was born.

Rama was a city in the land of Benjamin where Herod’s killing of boy children was fierce. As such, Rachel was the mother of Benjamin and thus the mother of all the children of the tribe of Benjamin.

Rachel knew what it was like to die early.

The arrival of the Messiah who was Life provoked an extreme reaction from the Devil who is Death.

Herod, a fake man-made king, desperately slew the boy children in order to eliminate Jesus Who was the true King.

As we approach the Second Coming of Jesus, we see over 50 million unborn babies killed every year, worldwide through the abortions of Pro-Choice politicians. Once again Satan is inspiring the killing of children.

The killing of children is a sign of the third Exodus. Moving out of the church systems back to the beliefs of the early apostles who wrote the New Testament.

The first exodus saw the Jews coming out of Egypt. Pharaoh gave the order to kill all the firstborn Jewish boys.

The second exodus saw the church coming out of Judaism. Herod gave the order to kill all the Jewish boys. Death struck the children.

The third exodus is for the children to turn back to the beliefs of the apostolic New Testament fathers.

Pastors oppose this by claiming that there are mistakes in the King James Version of the Bible. Thus it is no longer the Absolute. Message pastors replace the Scriptures with quotes by claiming that brother Branham is the infallible Absolute, despite the mistakes that he made in places.

The modern-day church system opposes this return to the infallible King James Version of the Bible with their unscriptural beliefs that guide end-time saved Christians towards their deaths in the 3.5 years of great Tribulation.

End-time Christians are regarded as little children who rely on pastors to restore the beliefs of the first church age. But pastors are not able to do this which is why we have 45000 different kinds of denominations and churches today. So the spiritual little children, the saved foolish virgins, will soon perish in great Tribulation when the beast is unleashed in all his ferocious violence.

MATTHEW 2:19But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,

God used dreams to speak to Joseph. All Joseph had to do was wait on God until God told him that it was time to move.

We can learn a big lesson from this.

MATTHEW 2:20   Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life.

Powerful enemies oppose the truth. But God knows how to hide His people until death removes those enemies. Then the march of truth continues.

Satan’s worst attacks are simply a temporary pause in God’s plan.

MATTHEW 2:21   And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

So, Jesus, having had to flee as a two-year-old Child from Israel, was now back as a young boy.

Herod’s cruel persecution had caused much suffering but had not killed Jesus.

Herod's cruel son Archelaus ruled Judah and that forced Joseph to move north to Nazareth in Galilee.

That is precisely where Jesus was to grow to manhood.

So, none of Herod’s murderous schemes, that look so bad to us, actually did any harm to God’s plan.

Forcing Joseph’s move to Nazareth, in reality, suited God’s plan. In other words, even the Devil, very reluctantly, ends up obeying God. But Satan gets no reward for this service.

We should not, therefore, fear the attacks of Satan. God limits the damage that Satan can do in the same way that the seashore acts as a limit to the waters of the seas.

MATTHEW 2:22But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee:

Galilee was the territory in the northern part of Israel near the Sea of Galilee.