Matthew 19 Part 2 – 10 Commands 7 church ages

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The last 7 commandments reveal the church history

The first 3 Commandments stress one God and His name

Commandment 1.   There is only one God.

A one-God-in-three-Persons comes from Greek philosophy, not from the Bible.

I JOHN 5:7   For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

The “three are one”.

The Bible never says “three-in-one”.

The word Trinity is not in the Bible.

Commandment 2.   Do not make any man-made image or idea of God, as God dwells outside that image.

God made an image of Himself in the form of the Man Jesus Christ. But the Man Jesus is not God.

NUMBERS 23:19   God is not a man

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

The fulness of the supernatural Spirit of God dwelled inside the body of Jesus. That is what makes Jesus God. You are everything that is inside you.

But the words and deeds of the Man Jesus on the outside make the nature of the invisible God within Him visible to us

Commandment 3.   Do not take God’s name in vain. Do not misuse the name of God in any way. Treat God’s name with the highest respect. Never swear in His name.

But the churches have lost the name of their Trinity God. They cannot find one name for three People.

They say, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" but they have no clue what that name is.

In the Old Testament, God’s name is a mystery. The Jews never actually knew God’s name. They had various names. El. Elah. Elohim. Adonai. Jehovah. JHVH. Yahweh. YHWH. Jealous. The Lord. I AM.

EXODUS 34:14   for the LORD, whose name is Jealous

“Jealous” is not a name, it is a characteristic.

EXODUS 15:3   the LORD is his name.

“The Lord” is not a name, it is a title.

All these names hid a mystery. Why was there not just one name for God?

Another mystery is that none of these names of God appear in the New Testament. Why have God’s Hebrew names disappeared for 2000 years?

As soon as the name of Jesus is mentioned in the first verse of the New Testament, none of the Old Testament names of God are mentioned.

MATTHEW 1:1   The book of the generation of Jesus Christ,

Jacob wrestled with God and asked for His name. God replied that it was not the right question to ask.

GENESIS 32:29   And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.

:30     And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.

They never had one name for God. God’s one name was a secret.

Samson’s father asked for the name of God but found that it was a secret.

JUDGES 13:18   And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?

JUDGES 13:22   And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

The Jehovah of the Old Testament became the Jesus of the New Testament.

The human name of the Lord God Almighty is the Lord Jesus Christ.

The last 7 Commandments describe the 7 church ages

The last 7 commandments tell us about the seven church ages that have covered the last 2000 years.

Commandment 4.  (Church age 1)  Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Sabbath means rest. Not just rest from your own work. Sabbath really means rest from your own works of sin.

This started with the Holy Ghost baptism on the Day of Pentecost when they spoke with other tongues that people from different countries were able to understand.

ISAIAH 28:11   For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

:12     To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

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

The Holy Ghost-filled apostolic fathers wrote the New Testament which guided the church into all truth.

Every born-again Christian was part of the royal Priesthood.

Thus it was a brotherhood of equality because no priest is above another priest. Only the High Priest is above a priest. Jesus is our High Priest.

I PETER 2:9   But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,

The Aaronic Priesthood had ended when Caiaphas tore his robe as that broke the Law. All Christians were equal as a brotherhood.

God set up the church at the beginning the way He wanted it. The first church age was the only true church.

Commandment 5.   (Church age 2)   Honour your father and mother.

The Christians in the second church age were supposed to copy what the first church age had believed and written as the New Testament. God did not want the church to change as years went by. The apostles who wrote the New Testament were the fathers of the church.

The portion of the Holy Ghost which gave birth to the first church on the Day of Pentecost is the mother of the church.

All the second church age had to do was to be the same as the first church age. But they made the big mistake of elevating a holy man as the head of each church, calling him a Priest.

This was the spirit of the Nicolaitans. Then a Bishop was elevated to be in charge of the Priests in a City. A man-made church Priesthood now was elevated to stand between the people and God. God hated this idea.

Commandment 6.   (Church age 3)   Do not kill.

With the emphasis on elevated human leadership, the church now allowed a brutal politician Constantine, who was Roman Emperor, to force the church to accept the Trinity doctrine at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Any dissenters were persecuted or exiled.

(Which is how pastors treat people who disagree with them today. Character assassination and expulsion).

The unscriptural word “Trinity” began the process that would kill the Bible’s truth.

More and more unscriptural expressions followed.

God the Son. Eternal Sonship. Father and Son are of the same essence (whatever that means). Father and Son are of the same substance. Jesus is in the Godhead. Second Person of the Godhead. First Person of the Godhead. God the Holy Ghost. Christmas. Good Friday. Hot cross buns. Easter eggs. Easter rabbits. Christmas tree. 25 December. Lent. Rosary. Pope. Cardinals. Archbishops.

Constantine gave the Pope the beautiful Lateran Palace and huge amounts of money to ensure that the Pope would always be loyal to him. Being the head of the church became a well-paid job. Ambitious men were desperate to become Pope. In AD 366, Damasus won the election as Bishop of Rome after his thugs murdered more than 300 followers of his rival Ursinus. Around AD 382 his nephew, Emperor Theodosius, gave the title of Pontiff (High Priest of the Babylonian Mysteries) to Damasus. Thus, the Mysteries of Babylon from the days of Nimrod entered the Roman Catholic church, which became Mystery Babylon. Bible Truth was killed as Satan infiltrated the Roman Catholic church with pagan ideas and man-made traditions as he took over the leadership of the church.

Commandment  7.   (Church age 4)  Do not commit adultery

The evil woman Jezebel ruled Israel in their “Dark Age” as the wife of the wicked king Ahab. She symbolized the evil Roman Catholic church that ruled Europe in the Dark Ages and forced the kings and emperors to accept her unscriptural doctrines as they committed spiritual adultery with the Roman Church whore which banned the Bible.

Jezebel killed Naboth to get his vineyard. The Roman Church killed tens of millions of dissenters to establish their rule over Europe. They sent vicious Crusades to rape and kill Jews and Muslims.

Jesus said that when truth was rejected we should brush the dust off our feet and leave peaceably.

Commandment  8.   (Church age 5)   Do not steal

Germany’s heroic Martin Luther restored salvation by grace through faith. He opposed the Pope and split a huge portion of the Roman Church away from the Pope as they formed Protestant churches. He attacked and corrected many of the Roman Catholic errors.

When Jacob and Rachel left her father Laban, they stole some of his idols which gave him the excuse to pursue them.

Luther’s big mistake was to steal certain Roman Catholic errors as he tried to leave the Roman Catholic Church.

He stole the unscriptural Trinity and the unscriptural idea of a man being the head of a church. This man was now called a Pastor, despite the word “Pastors” only being mentioned once in the New Testament and being condemned six times in the Old Testament. Luther also stole the church-State plan of the Catholics whereby the State politicians supported the church. For the church to keep in with the modern politicians today, the churches have to condone gay rights and same-sex marriage. By believing in Trinity and having a human head, Protestant churches cannot be fully restored to the beliefs of the first church age. Saved Protestants of today thus become part of the foolish virgins who will miss the Coming of the Lord because they were fooled by the unscriptural church traditions of their charismatic preachers.

Commandment 9.   (Church age 6)  Do not lie or bear false witness

John Wesley in England restored holiness and outreach and this led to the golden missionary age. Their good works were so impressive that it gave rise to a big lie. Many began to believe that salvation depended on grace as well as on good works. We also tend to think that grace alone was not enough to save us, as we also think that to be saved we have to go to church every Sunday and never argue with the pastor who rules the church. It was difficult for them to separate their good works from their faith for salvation. Saved people also had to go to church on 25 December for a Christmas (unscriptural word on an unscriptural pagan date) sermon on 25 December. This was an essential requirement. Missing a Christmas service was a major offence. Even though the Bible never asks us to remember Christ’s birth. People also must do the good work of paying money if they expect to be prayed for.

Today we have a better understanding. By grace through faith we are saved from hell. That applies to both the wise and the foolish virgins. Virgins are clean women, representing saved people in the churches.

But our good works and obedience to the restored mysteries of the Bible enable us to be prepared for the return of Jesus Christ at His Second Coming. This is the only way whereby we can be saved from the awful horror of the oncoming great Tribulation.

DANIEL 12:10   the wise shall understand.

The wise virgins will understand the revealed mysteries of Scripture and be caught up by the Lord and taken to Heaven.

The foolish virgins are saved from hell but they wake up too late from all the errors that their unscriptural pastors-in-charge-of-a-church have taught them. They are saved people who have been fooled by clever preachers. So, they miss the Lord’s Coming and perish horribly in great Tribulation.

10.   (Church age 7)   Do not covet

We must worship God in Spirit and in truth.

Churches enjoy the supernatural benefits of the power of the Holy Ghost, but they do not accept the obligations of puzzling out an understanding of the revealed mysteries of Scripture.

Bible teachers have to search the revealed mysteries to find out how to restore the Bride back to the beliefs of the first church age of the apostles.

The pastors who usurped the unscriptural position of being the one-man head of the church are dependent on this position to allow them to take the tithes. They covet the headship of the church in order to secure the tithes as their income.

Pastors covet the ministry that will enable them to teach the deeper revealed mysteries, as they want to be in charge.

But they do not have the insight to understand the deeper Bible mysteries, so they regard the Bible teachers, who have this insight, as enemies.

Pastors cannot teach just from the King James Bible. So, they lure the people away from the Bible by inventing doctrines that are based on certain very carefully selected quotes.

The message-churches become bound to a specific interpretation of certain quotes and thus become increasingly Bible-illiterate.

Pastors bind their people to certain quotes. They are not interested in the deeper mysteries as they cannot prove them from Scripture. They prefer to prove their own doctrine from quotes. Then they want their church-goers to echo what they say like parrots. Their mode of operation is to intensely oppose the Bible teachers who prove their beliefs from Scripture.

Christ, Who is the Word, is the Head of the church. As soon as a Pastor declares himself to be the head of the church, Christ has to move outside the church. No body can have two heads.

Christ stands knocking outside the church. But He only appeals to individuals, not to the whole church who have been fooled by the Pastor.

A rich man symbolizes 6 church ages

A woman represents a church because the true church is the Bride of Christ.

The rich man represents the elevated man-made head of the church. This is caused by the Nicolaitan spirit that God hates.

The Pastor of the church declares himself to be the head of the church and collects all the tithes. This is a good business proposition.

Jesus leaves out the tenth or last commandment which represents the seventh church age. The seventh church is left out because the seventh church age of the Laodiceans (people’s rights) rejects Jesus as the revealed Word of God. Thus Jesus vomits the last church out of His mouth as these foolish virgins become great Tribulation fodder. There will be so few wise virgins who understand the revealed mysteries of God at the end time that they will not even be noticed.

A rich man came to ask Jesus an important question.

MATTHEW 19:16   And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

A vital question. What can I do? What good work or labour of mine will get me into Heaven?

Remember the two sisters Mary and Martha.

Martha did all the hard work to feed the people but Jesus never complimented her. A woman symbolizes a church.

The good works done by a church are to be expected. We must do that. But that is not the key to eternal life.

Martha types the foolish virgins. Saved church-goers who try to impress people with their good works.

But Mary sat at the feet of Jesus to learn from Him. The wise virgins search the Scriptures to understand the revealed mysteries of the Bible at the end time. God regards these end-time revelations of Scripture as being very important. The church world ignores them. Martha, the foolish virgin, criticized Mary for not doing enough good works.

Jesus however, only complimented Mary. What Mary learned from Him, the Word of God, was more important than the good public works that Martha did.

DANIEL 12:9   And he said, Go thy way, Daniel:

for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

Learning the truth which will enable us to understand the mysteries of Scripture at the end time is far more important than doing good works. But we are obviously expected to do good works. It is just that understanding the Bible is far more important.

So, Jesus is going to shift the focus away from the doing of good works to the understanding of truth.

The emphasis moves from the deeds of the hands to the understanding of the mind.

DANIEL 12:10   Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand;

but the wise shall understand.

We cannot be part of the wise virgins unless we understand the mysteries of the written Word.

But the rich man had one thing right. He called Jesus, “Good Master”.

Only God is good.

MATTHEW 19:17   And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good?

there is none good but one, that is, God:

but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

Thus, the rich man was recognizing that Jesus was God in the flesh. He understood the Godhead.

Only the fifth Commandment is something we must do

All the rest of the commandments tell him what not to do.

The rich man wanted to know what to do to get into Heaven but only the 5^th commandment is positive, telling him what to do. He must honour his father and his mother in order to have a long life. So, this commandment must have a very special spiritual meaning.

1.  One God. Have no other gods

2.  Do not worship images

3.  Do not take God's name in vain

4.  Remember the Sabbath day. Do none of your own works

5. Honour your father and mother

6.  Do not murder

7.  Do not commit adultery

8. Do not steal

9. Do not lie or bear false witness

10. Do not covet

Jesus mentions only five Commandments and changes their order. So, Jesus obviously has a much deeper spiritual insight into the Ten Commandments.

The ministry of Jesus on earth (as God with us) was to lay the foundation for the ministry of Jesus (as God in His church) during the seven church ages.

His First Coming was to die for His church so that He could build up the church over the 7 church ages and then receive all His Christians up to Heaven at His Second Coming.

But during the church ages, church-goers would be fooled into making serious mistakes in their beliefs which would disqualify them from being invited to the Wedding Supper at the end. So Jesus mentions the commandments where the churches made big mistakes.

The rich man asked Him what he should do and Jesus then listed commandments 6, 7, 8, 9 which all tell him what not to do. So Jesus is taking the emphasis off works as the way to Heaven. Something deeper is involved.

Then Jesus mysteriously leaves out commandment 10.

Then Jesus unexpectedly goes back and finally mentions commandment 5. That is something the man can do.

But the first 4 commandments are also left out. Why?

To make sense out of the answer of Jesus, we need to realize that Jesus is actually talking to the end-time church by means of the advice that He is giving to the rich man.

There are two key points in life. Our relationship with God and our attitude towards mankind.

We must love God and then find our place in His Body, the church that formed during the 7 church ages.

MATTHEW 22:36   Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

:37     Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

:38     This is the first and great commandment.

:39     And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

:40     On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The first 3 commandments reveal the Godhead

Our relationship with God depends on understanding the Godhead. Realizing that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are the three manifestations of God as He deals with humanity.

The first 3 commandments refer to the Godhead. That is why Jesus could leave them out as the man recognized Him as God.

1. One God, Jesus. As the Father, He was ABOVE the Jews in the Old Testament.

2. No images. God comes down to earth as a Man, called the Son of God to dwell WITH the Jews.                                                    I TIMOTHY 3:16  God was manifest in the flesh.

We are not allowed to make images of God. But God was able to make a human image of Himself.

The rich man recognized Jesus as God living with mankind. That was as far as any person could see in his day.

3.    Do not take God's name in vain. The human name of Almighty God is Jesus.

The 3 Titles Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not a name.

The Old Testament name of Jehovah is never mentioned again in the New Testament once the name of Jesus is announced in Matthew 1:1.

The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God IN His church throughout all seven church ages.

Do not take God's name in vain. Do not replace His name with three Titles. You must know the name of Almighty God.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost mean God above, God with, and God in mankind. That is the only way that God could prepare His church for His Second Coming.

The last 7 commandments then refer to the 7 church ages

God indwelt His people to guide the church into all truth. Jesus died for this church at His First Coming and He will collect this church at His Second Coming.

1. Sabbath day was the rest of the Holy Ghost baptism on the day of Pentecost. The inner rest from sin and unbelief.
2. Remember the church age of Ephesus. The apostles are our spiritual fathers who had the truth. The early church that they established was our mother church. Honour the New Testament of the apostles and the example of the first church age. Don’t put Bishops in charge of the churches like they did in the second church age.
3. Do not murder the Truth as they did at the AD 325 Nicaean Council when they introduced the unscriptural Trinity. Then the churches became more unscriptural and more pagan as Christmas entered on 25 December around the year AD 350. The Bible never asked us to celebrate the Lord's birth.
4. Thyatira, a dominating woman. A woman is a church. Do not commit adultery with the Roman Catholic Church that rose up to dominate Europe in the Dark Ages or Middle Ages. The 4th age is the middle of the 7 ages.
5. Do not steal. Luther brought in salvation by faith alone and left the Catholics but took with him the Catholic beliefs of Trinity, Christmas, Good Friday, the church being involved in politics, and having a man as the head of each church. These unscriptural beliefs undermined the Protestants and led them to invent even more unscriptural beliefs.
6. Get saved and live holy. But their stress on holiness became distorted as they claimed that you had to live holy and do good works in order to be saved. Faith in Christ was not enough, it was faith and good works. This was a false witness.
7. Coveting material things made this age rich. But Jesus as the Word gets rejected from the church. Thus, Bible teachers are also rejected by the pastors who now dominate the churches with quotes. The elevated pastors covet the teaching ministry to establish their control over the laity. Being the head of the church means that the pastor covets and collects all the tithes. He pays his yes-men and refuses any church money to be paid to his critics.                                                                                        Thus, he uses his power over the money to maintain his power over the money. Unable to understand the deeper Bible mysteries, pastors focus on their own interpretations of quotes and the church becomes more Bible-illiterate. More spiritually blind.

MATTHEW 19:18   He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

This list in verse 18 refers to the most serious mistakes that the church-goers made during the church ages 3, 4, 5, and 6.  This is when Bible truth was at a low ebb in the churches.

Church Age 3 was able to murder truth with an unscriptural Trinity at Nicaea in AD 325.

Church Age 4 was to be intimidated by ruthless Roman Catholic harlot until they committed adultery with her by being dominated by her pagan and political beliefs.

Church Age 5 saw the Protestants leave Rome but take many Roman Catholic ideas with them.

Church Age 6 (the second-t0-last age) saw salvation by faith alone being replaced by salvation plus good works SUCH AS HOLINESS OR REGULAR CHURCH ATTENDANCE.

This brings us to the point where the rich man was asking which good work he could do to make Heaven. But if salvation by faith and good works corresponds to the second-to-last commandment about a false witness, then the Lord is giving the man his answer. No good works are good enough to make Heaven.

Of the two sisters, Mary and Martha, Martha did the hard work but Jesus gave her no credit for this.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and learned the truth. That is the response that Jesus valued. Learning the truth.

Honour the first church age beliefs of the apostles

Returning to the rich man. He asked for what he could do and has been told what he should not do.

Church ages 3, 4, 5, and 6 also teach us what the 7th church should not do today. Now we learn what the church must do.

MATTHEW 19:19   Honour thy father and thy mother:

and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

So, in verse 19 Jesus finally gives him something that he can do. Honour his father and mother.

What does this mean for the church?

This commandment represents the 2^nd church age. This was the fork in the road in church history.

Either they would return to the beliefs of the first church age or invent new beliefs.

We must honour the apostolic fathers who wrote the New Testament by going back to what they believed. Do not change anything that they wrote. They never put a pastor in charge of a church. They put a group of elders in charge of each local church.

Honour the mother church which is the New Testament church that was established by the apostles at the beginning of the first church age. We must get back to the beliefs of this first church.

The big mistake of the second church age was to appoint Bishops to be in charge of the churches.

After the Reformation, this spirit continued when a pastor became the head of each church.

Having a Bishop or a pastor as head of the church was unscriptural and deviated away from what the first church age did.

MATTHEW 19:19   Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Everything about the seven church ages is summed up in an attitude, rather than a specific work.

Love your neighbour. That would extend to loving your enemy.

This is an essential foundation for the seventh church age where the angry rejection of the Word by the church will happen until the Word stands outside the quote-filled Bible-illiterate church. Ambition and error will fill the churches so that the rejected Christians must learn to love everyone even though they are not wanted.

MATTHEW 19:20   The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

The rich man felt that he had kept all these commandments. Yet he knew that something was missing. That is the problem of relying on good works. We can never do enough good works. We will always be unsure about whether we have been good enough.

MATTHEW 19:21   Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

Now finally, Jesus gives the rich man a work that he can do.

He loved money more than he loved truth. He wanted money more than he wanted the truth.

Get rid of his wealth.

Get rid of everything that keeps you away from finding the truth of the revealed Bible mysteries.

This is the stinging rebuke that Jesus gives to the seventh or last church age. The antidote to covetousness (which is the last commandment).

REVELATION 3:14   And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write;

:17   Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;

As soon as people are rich, they assume that they are right with God.

Finally, and almost unnoticed, Jesus addresses the last commandment of coveting that refers to the apostate and wealthy seventh church age.

Obsessed with money they lost the desire to understand the deeper Bible mysteries.

They no longer can prove what they believe just from Scripture.

How interested is Jesus in the wealth of the Laodicean churches?

He says: The church is wealthy but has rejected the Word of God that has to stand outside the church door knocking.

Go outside the church to find Jesus

To follow Jesus, go outside the church as that is where He is.

MATTHEW 19:21   … and come and follow me.

Following Jesus through the pages of the Bible requires us to be strictly Scriptural.

When money is more important than being Scriptural then the only wise advice is to get rid of the money that stops you from being Scriptural.

MATTHEW 19:22   But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

He was more interested in physical gain than in understanding the revealed Word of his day.

The biggest mistake in Laodicea is to suppose that people are right with God because they are rich.

I TIMOTHY 6:5   Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds,

and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness:

from such withdraw thyself.

“Follow Me” means to be Scriptural. That is what counts, not whether you are rich or poor.

Stay away from church-goers who think that godliness depends on getting rich.

MATTHEW 19:23   Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

The 7^th church age is rich but apostate. The last church age is when the rapture happens and the church is caught up to Heaven to meet the Lord in the air. But very few will make it from our age.

MATTHEW 7:14   Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Why few? The church was more concerned with money and obeying a one-man-is-boss human leader. People are not concerned with revealing what they know just from the Scriptures.

MATTHEW 19:24   And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Getting a thread through the eye of a needle takes a lot of concentration.

People no longer concentrate hard on being Scriptural.

They lazily and complacently just follow what the pastor says or some idea that they read in some book or see on YouTube.

MATTHEW 19:25   When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?

Can anyone in our churches get saved? Saved from hell? Yes. You just need faith and repentance.

Saved from great Tribulation by going up in the rapture? Very unlikely.

Because you have to know what the Bible verses mean in order to find the narrow way. And Jesus as the Word stands outside every church.

He gave us a warning when all the churches were closed down by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The medical staff beat the virus, not the churches.

What does that tell us about how useless the churches are in the face of a sudden and unexpected disaster?

MATTHEW 19:26   But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

No man can save another. Only God can save.

No preacher in the 7th church age is infallible

Human systems like the churches could not stop the virus and will also not save anyone from the oncoming Tribulation.

Man-made church doctrines and traditions, like calling Brother Branham infallible as the Voice of God will not help any saved Christians to escape from the soon-coming great Tribulation.

62-1007  THE  KEY  TO  THE  DOOR

…    and they're preaching that men should leave their wives and hunt for their spiritual mate,

and that I am perfectly infallible. That there's nothing... And, oh, some of the awfullest things you ever heard.

But God will raise up people that are outside the churches to gain an understanding of the revealed Bible mysteries. God will drag ruffians in from the highways and hedges and give them a desire to be strictly Scriptural.

64-0614  THE  ODDBALL

That's what the Angel told me, "Get the people to believe you."

And if I tell the Word of God, it ain't "believe me," it's "believe the Word."

Only the Bible is the Voice of God

63-0630   THE  THIRD  EXODUS

... for they can hear plainly the God's Voice, calling, through His Word

...  Listen to the Bible, the Voice of God calling to you in this day.

The Bible is the Voice of God, William Branham is the voice of the seventh angel.

Do not deify brother Branham by calling him the Voice of God. He is not Jesus Christ, he is only one of the seven stars in the right hand of Jesus Christ.

MATTHEW 19:27   Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?

Peter now reflected on the fact that in following Jesus they had given up everything and were rejected by the Jewish religious leaders.

MATTHEW 19:28   And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

This is important.

Their reward is due in the next life. Their reward was not wealth and luxury in this life.

The apostles had no father and son nepotism

The early church did not start with a son taking over from the father as the pastor. (This is called nepotism).

The apostles never declared that a pastor was the head of the church.

The apostles focused on spreading the truth, not on money-making.

With the exception of the apostle John, they would all be executed for their faith. But John was twice imprisoned on the prison island of Patmos. For the apostles, this life was one of trials and sufferings. They travelled a lot and did not have too much in the way of family life.

This life of hardship ensured that not all the apostles were married and

none of the married apostle’s children took over from them.

They did not set up a "father and son" money-making business and call it a church.

MATTHEW 19:29   And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

However, everyone who has suffered any loss of any sort on this side will gain tremendously on the other side.

The emphasis here is not on what the person has done for God.

The emphasis is rather on what they have lost or forsaken for God.

Sacrifice is more important than good deeds.

God is more impressed with our being rejected as we lose friends and family and possessions because of the truth.

MATTHEW 19:30   But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.

The seventh church age has to return to the beliefs of the first church age that forsook much for Christ.

The church went badly wrong in the 3^rd church age of Pergamos when it began to accumulate wealth and church buildings. The first evidence of a church building comes from around AD 220 in the 2^nd church age.

We have no evidence that the first church age had church buildings. They never used the term Good Friday as Jesus died on a Thursday. They never celebrated Christmas as that was only invented by the Pope around AD 350. The early church never had a pastor as the head of the church.

So we have to get rid of all that baggage if we are to get back to the first church age.

If the last are first and the first are last, then there is no difference between the first and the last church ages because they are interchangeable. We, in the last church age, have to believe exactly what the first church believed before Jesus can come.

So, the secret of getting into Heaven hinges on what we believe.

Can we understand the Bible verses? Do we believe what the early church believed?

Our works must be good, but good works do not open the door to Heaven.