The Kingdom of God

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we’re so thankful Lord to be at the Bible study tonight God, and Lord you hear the many requests of the Saints, God, and those that were here at the funeral today Lord, and for souls God that that have left you Lord but Lord God we ask that you be in our Bible study tonight. Help Brother John, Lord God; help us learn what you’d have us to learn to tonight, God, and we’ll be so thankful Lord give you the praise, Father. We just want to invite you into our meeting tonight. And Lord we’re expecting good things; in Jesus name we pray.

Thank you for the prayer. So I studied for about two and a half hours after the funeral and now I feel wore out! But I do want to try and go slow. Tonight I want to try and teach and get done with my lesson. I know because I’ve studied for two and half hours it’s all fresh in my mind. I have all these things that I want to talk about; I’ve got four pages up here. So I want to go slow and really try and get through this but I also want to finish this lesson out tonight so I will have to move kind of fast. If I go too fast for you, go back get the podcasts whatever you want to call it. And then just another thing; I said this last week and I’ll say it again. I do want to try and keep us on topic so if I feel like we’re getting now off in left field I might reel us t back in. It’s not that I don’t want anybody to talk; I want to I want to hear all your thoughts and I’d be more than happy to sit with you after class and listen to what you have to say or whatever we’re talking about, but just for the purpose of the Bible study we want to try and keep it on the lesson.

It would be nice if my clicker would work! Ok so to review we’ve gone over this like five weeks in a row. But we did the introduction and we’re going to finish a prophecy. Next week we’ll start on the battles of the beast,Lord willing, and then how it pertains to us.

Ok. The Church of God. Look at prophecy, that’s all we’ve been working on. Last week we covered the wall of separation we started out with. We went over the temples starting with the tabernacle; Solomon’s temple; Herod’s Temple; and then Christ established a more perfect tabernacle.

We talked about counterfeits last week so those were our main points last week. Here’s a revelation. Sure we’re going to look a lot at that tonight. OK. A long separation of temples like we talked about last week.

This week we’re going to go over the image of the image and the Beast. They kind of run together and I’m going to use them rather interchangeably. What do you mean? So the image of Daniel, and we’ll get to all that in just a second. But there was a dream and Daniel interpreted it. All right, there was prophesied to be an everlasting Kingdom; God would bring his people through the dark day; there’s prophecy on that and there’s prophecy on God bringing his church from the scattered condition.

The image of Daniel here we see the image of Daniel is found in Daniel the second chapter. So if you would take your Bibles to Daniel’s second chapter real quick. I just want to start out here Matthew 16:18: “But I say unto thee that art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So this is the church we’re looking that the prophecy of. So Daniel the second chapter; you might want to put your Bible marker in Daniel 2. We’re going to reference that several times for the first little bit. So up here we (and we’re going to read it here in a second) but we find four kingdoms.

The Babylonian kingdom, the head, the Medes and Persians, the belly and thighs of brass, which is the Grecians, and then the legs of iron. Feet of iron and clay. And those are all going to correlate to beasts as well which we see on the chart. I don’t have it all right. So what we wanted, let’s go to Daniel 2:31. Yes.

Daniel 2:31: So thou, O King, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and arms of silver, and the belly thighs of brass, his legs of iron and his feet part of iron and part of clay.

So here you have got the Book of Daniel. We’re dealing with the chapter two and Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon at the time. He had this dream and he went out and got all his magicians to try to interpret this dream and none of them could. Only Daniel. So Daniel was summoned into the palace and here God gave him the revelation of what this dream meant. So that’s the dream we’re talking about in that. So that was the image, and then Daniel the seventh chapter is gonna kind of correlate with that. We’re going to see the beast and they both all line up so they’ll each have a part on the body and then a beast they correlate with. So Daniel the seventh chapter and for the first piece we’re going to read verse four and it says “the first was like a lion and had an eagle’s wings. I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked and it was lifted up from the earth and was made to stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given unto it. Ok, so can you give us a little context? All right, so the beast that we’re looking at now is another . . . I’m not sure if that’s the same king or not, but this is from a dream from the king of Babylon and Daniel gave that interpretation also. Right. And you’re going to show how the two dreams have a correspondence, right? So, yeah, I use them as a correspondent that the head represented Babylon, as well as this piece that we’re looking at. Did you have another one?

Ok. So Daniel 2:31 and Daniel 7:4 we read this as balance. This is the Chaldean Empire it was from 626 to 538; the lion had wings that signify rapid expansion. So we saw it had two wings and that signifies its rapid expansion. Then the lion had its wings plucked and it was given a man’s heart, so it signifies a weak and faint heart, and it was defeated by Persia. And so Persia under Cyrus in 538, right, Babylon was defeated by Persia under Cyrus. So this is just going to be some just real basic history here and then we’re going to because I want to get to the point where then. So here’s the Medes and Persians, so Daniel 2:32 references again the very start from the top [Side conversation]

OK so there on the left hand under B.C. fourteen ninety one on the left side of the chart there at the bottom you see the 4 beasts and they go in succession. We have the times on each other. So those are the four beasts we’re going to cover. They’ll correlate to the image, so they’ll each have an image. Have a piece on the image and they will be represented by one of those beasts. The lion is Babylon, the bear will be the Medes and Persians; the leopard will be the Grecians, and the little beast, the beast there, the red will be the dragon. So what it’s going to come down to is they’re going to be destroyed. It’s going to be destroyed by a stone, and that’s good.

Are you going to use this? I don’t want to have to, I was just wondering if you were going to tell us what the Beast how they relate to us in this. Right. So they’re going to relate to us; there is some significance to them, like such as them having a man’s heart; they were weak like a man’s heart and that’s about as deep as we’re going to get into.
Good. All right.

So you’ve got those four beasts that you’re showing here in the corner of the chart under 1491 and 453 BC up to AD 33, and there’s two dreams and these primarily represent the political kingdoms, right, where earthly kingdoms and the images are. I don’t want to confuse the images with the image that’s the statue, right. But what we’re using to represent these kingdoms we’re looking at a span of time from 491 BC up to AD 33. We’re looking at it from different angles by investigating these two dreams. They do have some significance to kind of how things played out such as they had wings. That was for the rapid expansion. But I wouldn’t say that there’s really a whole lot of significance that we’ll draw for today so to speak. If that makes sense.

There’s spirits behind those things [side conversation] There’s spirits behind all of them. I’m not going to really get into too much of that but there’s all that as well.

All right, he had a head and arms of silver so the Medes and Persians this correlates back and I should have put the image there again so we could keep referring back to that. But this would be the breast area. Daniel 7:5 will tell us about the beast here:

Daniel 7:5: And behold another beast, a second like a bear and it raised up itself on one side. And it had three ribs in its mouth and between the teeth of it and they said thus unto it, arise and devour much flesh.

So the second beast was as a bear. It was raised up on one side and had three ribs in its mouth. It was raise up on one side because it was a mix of two nationalities. So there was the Medes and the Persians. The Persian side came up later but it had more of a controlling influence in the grand scheme of things. And you know somebody might ask how do you know that. How do you know what beast came after war, and what sequence. We know that by history. We know Babylon. And then the Medes and the Persians and the Greeks and then the Romans so all these beasts correlate to history.

So really you read in the dreams and Babylon is where they’re starting out at Nebuchadnezzar was the king. You can use it all time’s up with history. You got one more guy. And the reason why we care about this is because there’s a kingdom that’s going to overcome all these other kingdoms. Right. It’s the kingdom of God. And that’s really where we’re going. And that’s what I’m really trying to drive for.So this is just kind of some background knowledge to give us a foundation to really talk about the Kingdom of God and show us that it’s going to be an everlasting Kingdom, to show us why it’s not going to be left to man. And it’s really going to flow out a lot like the temples did. The temples–God used them there for a while. But there were there were flaws and it couldn’t be–I’ll say depended on–it was left to man, and God said he was going to build a kingdom that wouldn’t be left to man. And we’re going to get there.

And what’s so important about this lesson is it teaches us when the Kingdom started; it’s not out in the future somewhere. The kingdom was started when Jesus came, and I know we’re going to talk about that and the kingdom is within you. So this is important because there’s no millennium. You know the kingdom has been established and we’re going to talk about that.

Ok. So the Medes and Persians. So I had said the three ribs in the mouth represented the three provinces that were oppressed by the Persians and that was Babylon, Libya and Egypt. Here the Mede and Persian empire was from 538 to 330 B.C.. So now we have the Grecian, Daniel 2:32 talks about it. So Daniel 2:32 says “his belly and his thighs of brass.” His belly and thighs of brass, Daniel 7:6 gives us the image in the beast:

Daniel 7:6: And after this I beheld and lo another like a leopard which had upon his back of it four wings of a fowl, and the beast also had four heads, and Dominion was given to it.

So Daniel 7:6 was where that was found, so it was a unified kingdom until the death of Alexander the Great and then it was split before tween his four generals, so Cassandra, I’m thinking is how you said it, was the Medes and Grecians in the West parts of Asia, Egypt, Lydia, Arabic Palestine, and Syria. [Indistinguishable] Syria and the rest of the Eastern domains.

The horns represent, so we could read there, and it talks about three horns and these are . . . I’m sorry the wings they signify the rabbit. So there was what six, eight wings, represented the rapid expansion of Alexander the Great and then the Grecian empire was 330 to 146 B.C..

Ok so next we’re talking about the Roman. It’s the one we got circled there.

So Daniel 2:33 talks about the clay and the iron. This was his feet and his legs, iron feet mixed with clay so Daniel 7:7-8 says:

Daniel 7:7-8: I saw a vision and I saw in the night visions and beheld a fourth beast dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth, it devoured and brake in pieces and stamped the residues with the feet of it and was diverse from all other beasts that were before it, and ten horns. I considered the horns and behold, there came up among them another little horn before him. There were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots and behold in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things.

So we know that the beasts’ ten horns it represented ten minor kingdoms. I didn’t put the ten minor kingdoms on here. We could go back and study history and find those little horns,. I do want to make this distinction, the little horn represented the Pope. So the Pope (and we’ll get to the rain here in just a second). The plucked horns represent three kingdoms that were subdued. Again I put this on here we go back and study history and find those of the Roman Empire was 146 BCE to AD 1453 the Roman (the pope horn in particular) persecuted the church and we’re going to get into that a little later down the road; there’s a lot to that.

So now that we’ve covered the beasts, anybody got any questions on that? I know I kind of raced; I was just trying to give us the history so that we could really get to the Church of God.

So here I have the chart up here just showing kind of where the Pope was that horn where it affected us. And it’ll tie to that beast. 1453 was around the demise so all right it says the stone cut out without hands. Daniel 2 and–Brother Bob–Do you want to read 31-40.

Daniel 2:31-39:

(31)  Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

(32)  This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,

(33)  His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

(34)  Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.

(35)  Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

(36)  This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

(37)  Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.

(38)  And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.

(39)  And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

(40)  And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

And he’s talking about the Medes and Persians and the Grecian kingdom there and the next verse, verse thirty is talking about the Roman Empire:

Daniel 2:40-42:

(40)  And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

(41)  And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

(42)  And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

That’s talking again about the Roman Empire.

Daniel 2:43: And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

And here’s the best scripture of all:

Daniel 2:44: And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

and that’s the Kingdom of God.

Daniel 2:45: Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.

So there we did a little study there before just on each of those four kings. And really that was the point of it because all of those . . . They’re all going to come and they’re all going to go, but Christ’s Kingdom he said it would destroy all those and they will stand forever. Okay.

The Stone meant damage and a crushing to pieces. The God of heaven will set up a kingdom and the Kingdom will not be left to other people but it shall consume all kingdoms, so it won’t be just one nation that will be able to be saved, but it will be open to all nations. He said it would consume the whole Earth, so God’s kingdom just isn’t in one country or one continent like it was with the Jews–it was just for an excluded nation–but now He’s opened it up to all people. It’ll be an everlasting Kingdom, too.

All these kings and kingdoms had a starting point and an ending point, but the one that God built has a starting point, but it will last forever. The stone was cut out without hands; it was Christ’s, it was not manmade. It wasn’t made from earthly things, it was divinely built; man can’t destroy what’s divinely done! All right, Daniel seven so we’re going to just tie these two together here and then see. Daniel 7 and Brother Bob if you don’t mind reading for me again 13-18 start when you get there.

Daniel 7:13-15:

(13)  I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

(14)  And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

(15)  I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me.

Okay, so he constantly reaffirms that it’s going to be an everlasting Kingdom and it’s going to be given to the Saints. We read it in multiple places. He says in verse 17 “these great beasts which are four, are four kings and which shall rise on Earth but the saints of the most high shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and forever, even ever and ever,” so God’s going to give His kingdom to the saints.

That verse 17 really ties this together; it shows that and also we looked at a historical context, but also the kingdoms were all in line right and here you have the stone that’s going to demolish all those kingdoms, and it’s a kingdom of God set up, and Jesus’.

Yes. And so that’s where we’re driving forward. All of it prophecy we kind of looked at last week and then we’ll start getting into the beasts hopefully next week. So the kingdom will never be destroyed. All right see we were here. So it was prophesied to be an everlasting Kingdom. Let’s look at Isaiah 2:2 getting out of the image now and just looking at some other prophecies. Isaiah 2. Does anybody have any comments or questions about the beasts and the image? That’s just one proof we could have looked at the 70 weeks; there’s so much you can look at, but I thought the image and the beasts tying them together really puts a good strong view on it, and the 70 weeks can be kind of long to do. That’s a whole nother study in itself, but let’s go to Isaiah 2:2. Brother Bob if you can go over to Micah 4:1 and I’ll have you read that as soon as I’m done here.

Isaiah 2:2-3, “And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountain and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow into it, and many people shall go and say Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” And then Brother Bob if you want to read Micah 4:1 “But in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the House of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and the people shall flow unto it.”

So the mountain that the Lord is going to establish it will be for all nations so it’s not going to be for black or white; it’s not going to be for Americans or Hispanics; it’s not going to be divided that way, but it’s going to be for all nations to flow into it. We’re just going to have one nation, but it’s going to be all nations coming together to make God’s nation, for Whosoever Will. That’s right, it’s going to be higher than all the other hills, so he said that it would be exalted above all the other hills and we could look at the other hills as other churches, so other denominations, other religions–it’s going to be higher than all that. God’s church is above all other churches!

When you come to Mt. Zion you will learn to follow the ways of what the Lord teaches; no more will you be doing your own thing, and we could read that at the end of verse three; it says “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word from Jerusalem” and so we’re going to have to pick up and it says even again earlier you’re going to have to pick up what the law is here and you’re going to have to abide by it.

Isaiah 9, we’re going to read six through seven: “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, Counselor, The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and under the kingdom to honor it and establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever; the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.” What do you mean by government? What’s government now? And I was thinking about that when he says government, and I thought about our government and they are the ones that set the rules, are the one that sets the laws, sets things in order; so Christ being the head is going to set his church in order. Could you compare that with the law givers like we have in our country? You know, Congress, right, and maybe you could say that Christ has his laws, and he’s the head. He’s the head of something, yes he’s the head of the church, right, and he gives pastors; he sets the government in order just like he’d want to.

He gives pastors, he gives evangelists, the whole deal. I’m not sure here, but in Luke Chapter 1:31 it says “And behold thou shall conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus, and he shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest, and the Lord God shall give him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.” So that’s the fulfillment; that’s when Christ begins to build his church and you know I was thinking about this: our government today has the power to accept others, to bring others in and I thought about it the same way with Christ; Christ has the power to bring others in, but our government would also not I wouldn’t approve for us to go out and become part of ISIS or wouldn’t let ISIS come in our borders and it’s the same way. God’s not going to let foreign substances come into his church, and we’re going to talk about spiritual adultery here in a little bit. Because some people say they want to go out and they worship with another church, but then they want to come in here and say I’m part of you and it’s just like committing spiritual adultery, and I’m getting ahead of myself so I don’t want to do it. I want to stay on my notes. So God gave us this child to rule over us and when he would grow up we’ve known Him as Jesus; he would be the ruler over us; the government would be on his shoulder. The government of his church has never been left to any man. So Christ never gave his government to man!

I thought about Catholicism: they have man government in their church; the pope is their government. You know, it’s really any of the religions; any religion that’s got a headquarters here on earth–they’ve put the government on some man’s shoulders. Christ is still the government of the Church of God! I grew up in a Presbyterian church and that’s what it’s all about is the presbytery. This is the governing body, and having a pastor is not man government. That’s God-instituted government, and there are scriptures that could prove that there should be no end to the government, but it will be everlasting.

Let’s get Isaiah 26:1-4 “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city. Salvation will God appoint for walls, and throw open the gates that the righteous nation which keep the truth may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth. Then they trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.”

We do have a strong city: Zion, the Church of God is a strong city. God’s people are not a weak people; the walls of salvation keep the city strong. Walls are made for exclusion not inclusion. Walls are made to keep people out. Keep people, keep objects out of something, and that’s what the walls of salvation do for us.

If you’re going to enter into this kingdom you must keep the truth. Truth is everything contained in the Word. Jehovah will be our everlasting strength. Isaiah 33:20 says, “Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities; thine eye shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down. Not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.” The tabernacle of Christ is built is to never be taken down. God’s Tabernacle is a peaceable place. Sin brings unrest in God’s house; sin can never enter in; none of the stakes or cords will ever be removed or broken; truth never can be removed from Christ’s Church!

All right, let’s go to Psalms 48. If you have comments, feel free. Psalms 48:1-14. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. On the sides of the north the city of the great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge, for lo the Kings were assembled, they passed by together; they saw it and so they marveled; they were troubled and hastened; fear took hold upon them there, and pain as of a woman in travail; they’ll break us the ships of Tarshish with an East wind. As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. God will establish it forever. We have thought of thy loving kindness, O God, in the midst of thy Temple according to thy name. Oh God so is high praise unto the ends of the earth; thy right hand is full of righteousness; let Mt. Zion rejoice. Let the daughters of Judah be glad because of thy judgments. Walk about Zion and go round about her; tell of the towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks; consider her palaces that you may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God forever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death” So I like how it starts out in verse two; it says “Beautiful for situation,” and everything about the Church of God is perfect; there is nothing imperfect about the Church of God!

Another point I wanted to draw from this again we see that God will establish her forever so it wasn’t going to be left to man, but God was going to establish her. We find it’s the city of the great King. I want to draw a couple thoughts from the end of the chapter there. It talks about telling it to the generations following, to show them the same truth as we have been shown; if we fail to do that from one generation to the next we can lose a lot of truth.

[Side conversation] When Joshua died he warned them. But they didn’t listen. They set up a king and you see where that got them; it got them nowhere got them into trouble.

All right. And then God will be our guide. So he says God will be our guide forever and ever. God is still leading the church. All right. Let’s go to backup for a second. So what we want to look at now is, so we have 530 to 1530. It’s known as . . . we could call it the dark day. So what we want to look at is, some would like to make the proclamation that the church became part of the Catholic Church. And then they join arms together. And so what I want to look at is prophecy or writings that talk about that in the noon day and I want to show us through the Old Testament that God was going to bring his people through. And then here in about two weeks we’re going to actually look at that time and we’ll find that God’s people came through.

So let’s go to Song of Solomon 1. I like these scriptures here in Song of Solomon. I think they’re real good strong scriptures. We’ll start in 1:7, it says, “Tell me Oh thou whom my soul loveth where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon, For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the thoughts of my companions?” So here we find that the flock are going to feed at noon; Christ is going to feed the church during the dark and . . . Ah I’m sorry; during the dark age. God’s people weren’t at the Catholic Church eating their bread, and God’s church remained separate from the Catholic religion. The Catholics were known to prosecute or persecute the church, not to help the church; they didn’t join hands; the Catholics were after the Christians.

Let’s go to Song of Solomon 6:9: “My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother; she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her and blessed her. Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.” So here we find that Christ’s church is undefiled. It’s the choice one of our mother. There are no two churches of God. She was only one of her mother. There wasn’t two; there was only one. There is only one bride. Revelations 12 talks about the one bride, and we’re going to go there in just a second. Then in 17 it talks about the harlot. There were two different women there.

So they say that we went and became part of the Catholic Church or joined up. To say that we went and became part of the Catholic Church or joined up with any Protestant church is to call the bride of Christ a harlot. So if Christ’s Church went and joined up with the Catholic Church, it became a harlot and committed spiritual adultery against her one husband. And it’s just the same way if we come in here and we claim to be part of the church of God we want to say we’re with the church of God. But then yet we go out and we go to the Baptist church on Sunday morning or we are in the Nazarene Church or we go to the Methodists or the Presbyterian Church and then yet we want to come in here and we want to say Well we’re part of the Church of God on Sunday night. Well, where were you Sunday morning? You were out being an adulteress with the world, with Babylon. There’s some that to do that; there’s some come and sit among us right and here they run off somewhere Sunday morning. They know, they’ll admit that this is where the truth is. But yet they go somewhere else.

When I first started coming here, I would go to the Presbyterian Church in the morning because it’s where I grew up; it’s where you know, is where my family went and it was only across town. And you don’t think why do I need to go all the way out to Manasses yet after I hit it. I got invited out here for a revival and I wanted to see well what’s it like on a Sunday morning. And I came on Sunday morning and it was about the same. But I was involved in the Presbyterian Church. They have church on Sunday night so I’d go to the press tour in church in the morning and I’d come here Sunday nights. But I was getting fed here. I wasn’t getting fed at the Presbyterian Church and I eventually I realized that and I heard the come out message “Come out of her my people.” Not only that, but I wanted to be what God wanted me to be. And I found salvation here where I got delivered from sin, which never happened in the Presbyterian Church, and they don’t they don’t teach it that you can have a practical deliverance of practical holiness that they just didn’t teach it. So I went in the morning so I came here at night and got called out and I don’t want go on and on, but I want to just put this thought on real quick: when you really get married to Christ and you’re really saved, you’ll stop flirting around with all the other men out in the world and you will sell out; you’ll stop going to other churches and you’ll become part of us. Until you’re really ready to get saved, until you’re really ready to get married to Christ, you’ll go out there and you’ll flirt with other men.

Go ahead. Well, there’s a big difference between brother Charlie coming in, in you might say spiritual ignorance of the truth and the people that our brother John’s talking about still doing it after years of it. It is honesty and humbleness. That’s very key that if you’re honest and humble you think God will show you just like he did brother Charlie and you’ll see what’s right and what’s wrong.

Yeah that’s right. Honesty and humility. If you’re not honest and you’re not humble you’ll never get married to Christ; you’ll always be out there, you’ll always be searching, you’ll always be trying to find the one you really got want to get married to but you’ll never get married because you can’t see it. Once I got saved and sanctified and I started reading the Scriptures differently than I did before, and I struggled in the beginning with some of the some of the things because of my ignorance, but once I realized that what was being preached and what was being taught lines up perfectly with God’s Word, and then I got it settled in my heart that this was the very church that we’re saying it is, that the ministry has said, that everyone’s saying. You know the Saints, the people who are here are saying it is; when I realized that it is the true church. I have no desire to go back out and I started watching and listening to other churches preaching teaching and doctrine and some of the things that John point out you know. And it just goes from church to church and they don’t line up with God’s word. Right. And I’m glad I’m here. You know this is the truth that I . . . there’s so much I don’t know, I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to . . . But I do know that I’m in the right place.

And you just you just start looking and I’ll tell you how you pick it off really easy if you’re going to a church that teaches you can still live in your sins and go to heaven you’re in the wrong place. And you know what ninety-nine percent will teach it to you and you might say well they won’t come right out and say that, well, you start really drilling them down their doctrines, you really take them to task on it, and I’ll promise you they’ll tell you you’ve got to sin. And every one of them will tell you that you have to have a repenting every day. Well, why would God go to the cross if he could only give us enough to where we could repent every day. Why did Christ bother to come? It was really as good as the Old Testament. If we can’t live free from sin, it was really just as good as the blood of bulls and goats; it did nothing for us if we can’t live free from it and that’s how you’re ruining it. No, God’s church is in holiness. Let’s go to Ephesians five and twenty seven.

We’ll come back to Song of Solomon. These aren’t in my notes but I think the scripture goes well. Ephesians 5 and 27. Once you really get sold out you won’t be . . . It’s like Brother David said, you won’t always be looking for Christ’s Church; you can find it. Ephesians 5:27 says, “That he might present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.” And if we’re going to be part of the Church of God, we’re going to have to be without sin. If you really want to get entrance into God’s Kingdom you’re out to really get saved. You’re going to have to stop sinning and you’re going to have to cease to sin or else you won’t be a part of God’s church.

All right. Let’s go back to Song of Solomon and get back on my notes. Song of Solomon 8:5-7. “Who is this that cometh up from the Wilderness leaning on her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree; there thy mother brought thee forth; there she brought thee forth that bear thee; set me up as a seal on thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death. Jealousy is cruel as the grave; their arms are the coals of fire which have a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; a man would give all the substance of his house for love; it would utterly . . . [indistinguishable]” OK, so God brought his people through and out of the wilderness with no help from any other power. God did not have to use the Catholic religion to bring his bride through the wilderness. Water cannot kill love. Revelations 12:15.

Right, well, the wildernesses would be essentially the dark age where where Christ’s Church was oppressed by the Catholic religion. We’re going to really read Revelations 12; it talks about his bride fleeing to the wilderness. Right. Yes sir, Revelation 6:12 and 17 if you want to know more of the top right. And work. So revelation 12:6-12 and 17 and we’ll probably end up looking at all those. Revelations the 12th chapter. I want to read verse 15. Start out with it talked about this scripture.

So Revelation 12:18 “Then the serpent casts out of the mouth water as a flood after the woman that might cause her to be carried away of the flood.” So here we find that love in. So here this dragon, he spit out this water and in Song of Solomon we just read about how water can’t quench the love, and water couldn’t quit.

So this flood that the dragon sent it couldn’t quench the love that the Saints had. Let’s go to eleven; it says, “And then they overcame them by the blood of lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto death.” So they loved Christ more than they loved earthly things, more than they loved anything, they loved Christ number one. They overcame, they didn’t give in; they didn’t join up with the Catholic religion; they didn’t recant; but they held on to what they believed. Revelations 12:17 “And the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, and with those that keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” The Catholic . . . keep is the key word there. The Catholic Church doesn’t keep the commandments of Jesus Christ; the Catholic religion in 530 wasn’t keeping the commandments of Christ, they were way off base; they were anointing popes; they were doing their own thing; they were selling indulgences, and we’ll get into all that here in a couple of weeks, but they weren’t keeping it. They couldn’t be one with the Church of God; in the Catholic religion couldn’t be one and you’re going to find the Protestants came out, then they’re no better than the Catholic religion!

I was raised Catholic, and John’s been talking about 500 A.D. and so forth. Constantine built the first church on the same grounds of St. Peter’s Basilica and I went to visit this church and it’s really an amazing place. There’s no doubt about it, but I studied a little bit after I came back from Rome and I found out that this church was built upon indulgences, and what are indulgences? They are offerings so that basically people could pay money to the pope and they would pray their loved ones into heaven or out of Purgatory. I should say so there’s no way the Catholic Church. There’s no place in the Bible that talks about if you give somebody a certain amount of money that you can pray them out of Purgatory and pray them into heaven and get them out of hell because that proves right there that the Catholic Church was not the Church of God. And you know I witnessed that in person.

Right. OK. And you go along with that. So we’re in the same time period. I believe I got the chart here. So around where that red circle is again we’re looking at that same period. Let’s go to Revelations 12:6, “And the woman fled into the wilderness.” So it would be the start there at 530 and she has a place prepared of God. It wasn’t prepared by man, it was prepared by God. And they show that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score years and if you do the math (and I’m not going to get into all that) but it equals out to about a thousand years and there’s math for all that and if you really want to get into that we can get in that later, but so Christ fed his church all the way through that time period. It wasn’t being fed from the Catholic religion and even after it came out, Christ was still feeding his church all the way from 1530 on and all the way from 1530 back. Christ has always fed his church! Read verse 14, “And to the woman were given two wings as great eagle she might fly into the wilderness into a place where she is nourished for a time, times, and half a time from the face of the serpent. So she wasn’t nourished by the serpent; she was nourished from God.

All right enough, on that subject. Ezekiel 34.

One more thing on that subject. Yeah. I’m not sure where the scripture is; I couldn’t find it real quick. Actually I think it’s first Corinthians 6:16 says that that which is joined to a harlot is one body. So when you go to the church back in the dark ages, the Catholic Church was the prominent thing in the public’s eye. But we know that the Saints were persecuted and were I’ll say driven out of the public eye. They were still there. God always had people, but they weren’t joined to that harlot of a Catholic church.

You know first Corinthians 6:16 the reason I think that’s what that was. “What? Know ye not that they which be joined to a harlot is one body for to say that he shall be one flesh.”

[00:59:51] So if the Church of God went down and joined up with a Catholic base, it’s forever tied to that Catholic beast, you can’t undo what’s already done. You can’t undo. So if you go down and you commit adultery with that, you will be linked to that. You go around saying you’re guilty. Right. And you know, if Christ couldn’t keep his church from going into the into the Catholic Church, it does away with everything. You can’t preach. You have to loose him free. He can’t hold divorce and remarriage. You can’t hold anything; you can’t hold unity; you do away with all the doctrines of Christ. You destroy the temple, you do away with everything when you say that the Church of God joined up with another religion. And that’s right. And you know what. It’s the same thing today, brother Bob. If you go out and you commit spiritual adultery, you do it. You don’t have a leg to stand on. You see what I’m saying.
All right. I need to get back to my notes. Ezekiel 34. Try and finish this up. I’ve got two more points to make and then I’m done. Yes, I’m two minutes over.

Ezekiel 34:11-16, there do you wanna read that good both of you there.

Ezekiel 34:11-16, “For the Saints the Lord God, Behold I even I will I will both search my sheep and seek them out, as a shepherd seeks his flock in the day and he is among his sheep that are scattered, so will I seek out my sheep and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day, and I will bring them out from the people and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them to their own land and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture and upon the high mountains of Israel shall there fold be, and they shall lie in a good fold and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel I will feed my flock and I will cause them to lie down sayeth the Lord God.”

Yeah that’s good. So here we find God’s people we know from studying the Catholic that dark period they were caused to go into hiding and they were caused to have to go into hiding because if you didn’t you’d be . . . you also have the Inquisition, right, as well and that’s when the lot of Spanish, the Spanish Catholic churches and over and I just want to stick with the Spanish. They are the only ones I really know about but if you would not become a Catholic, it was become a Catholic or die. So they persecuted Christians. Persecuted all manner of people you know in a . . . Both of them. And I keep going, I can’t get away from the subject, but there were still people getting saved and in the dark day there was still people coming from the Catholic religion. You know brother Todd Wilcoxon told a real good one about the Catholic soldier. He was going into the catacombs and he was going to go get these Christians that were down in there. And so he got in there and they were worshipping or praying and he started taking off his armor and he joined in with them and God was still calling every honest soul to the Church of God. He wasn’t calling his people to go join up with the Catholic religion but he was still calling people out of the Catholic religion and into the Church of God.

One more comment on that, read Fox’s Book of Martyrs. Find out for yourself what the Catholics did to the Christians.

“I will seek that which was lost and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick. But I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them with judgment.” So here we find that Christ’s Church . . . and we could go reading John 10 and it talks about it being a scattered condition. And because of the Catholics, because of that dark time they were forced to go into hiding and they were scattered all about. So God’s call to them was to come back to one, not that they ever weren’t. They were in his scattered conditions who God wanted him to call come back to unify body. They never were destroyed. They were always one body but God want him to call come to a local unity if that makes sense.

Chances are even as we speak over in China and North Korea and Mideast there are souls that are truly saved from sin and because of oppression . . . sometime back there was thirteen Christians beheaded over in Egypt and they must have been standing for something they’d be willing to give up their lives for.

Yes so we know that the Protestant religions, they came out of the Catholics. And no doubt many of them looked good at first, and maybe some of them really had truth there for a while, but when they would go off and a lot of them would start to pick up names, I think of like Martin Luther and John Wesley. Different ones like that. Maybe at one time, and maybe they even died that way and people picked up their names afterwards. But as long as they were holding all the truth they were part of God’s church. And when they would begin to pick up all their doctrines, when they would begin to try and set a man I’ll say as equal with Jesus Christ, then they would be departed from the Church of God. God wanted to bring them back to unity. And then we know that he’ll take us through our day. So that’s all I’ve got for tonight. Next week we’ll start on the Protestant beast. I do have the revelation chart here.

You can see the woman just under that we’re going to look at that big long red dragon that goes through there where the red square was, where we were just talking about the dark and cloudy day here looking at the chart is a very good illustration of what we were talking about before where we see the four beasts under B.C. 1491 and 453 and then we also looked at the same time period in parallel with that using another I’ll say picture, we saw the statue that had the four different compositions. So here in in the chart from AD 33 on it’s the same concept as you have all these series of symbols used in the Revelation, you have the beasts, you have the trumpets, you have the angels, you have the horses, you have the time periods. I don’t know if I said the trumpets, the vials, all these things all show God’s revelation of his church through history using different I’ll say methods or angles to bring out different characteristics of those time periods that we could that we could see what was going on with the church.

So in again where they’ll all kind of tie into something, and we’ll look at the . . . now paganism and that’s really idol worship and stuff like that unbelief next week.

Anybody else have any thoughts before we close out questions?

So Jim you want to close this out? Thank you for the truth that went forth and we do love it. We do appreciate it and help us ever keep it near and dear to our hearts and live by the Lord and love it and learn more about it and bless every one of the needs of the Saints, and we thank you again for everything in the name of Jesus, Amen.