End Time Message – Part 3 (End-Time Scenario)
Our age today is well-identified in the Bible as the Laodicean Age, the very last Gentile Church Age wherein God is calling out a Bride for Jesus Christ just before Jesus returns back again to earth and reveal Himself to the 144,000 elect Jews. In Revelation 3:15-17, God addresses our age:
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”
“Our age claims to be “rich in goods”, “spiritually wealthy”, and had “need of nothing”. Truly, we can see that the world church today in general is wealthy. There never has been such a show of wealth today as compared with other past generations. Our beautiful sanctuaries are multiplied in number as never before. The various denominations vie with each other to see who can build the biggest and the loveliest. They build education centers worth unestimated millions, yet those buildings are used only an hour or two a week. Money has poured into the church until different denominations own stocks and bonds, factories, oil wells, and insurance companies. They have poured money into welfare and retirement funds. But it has become a snare to the ministers, for if they decide to leave their group for more light or the love of God, their pensions are lost to them.
Religion today is known to be a big business. It is an absolute fact that they are placing business managers in the churches to take care of finances. There are radio programs, television programs, and numerous church endeavors that are costing millions and millions of dollars. Wealth pours and pours into the church, the membership increases along with the money, yet the work is not being done as it was done when there was no money, but men rested solely on the ability given them by the Holy Ghost. There are paid preachers, paid assistants, paid ministers of music and education, paid choirs, paid custodians, programs, and entertainment – all costing great sums, but for all that, the power is decreasing. Yes, the church is rich, but the power is not there. God moves by His Spirit, not by the amount of money or talent in the church.” (WMB, 342-5 LAODICEAN CHURCH AGE – CHURCH AGE BOOK CPT.9)
Yet God saw our age otherwise. He said, “You don’t know this, but you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” When a people are that way, especially naked and don’t know it, there has to be something awfully wrong.
Reverend William Marrion Branham further described our age as follows:
“This age boasts of its tremendous stores of worldly goods, but the people are less happy than ever. This age boasts of its spiritual attainments, but the people are less sure of themselves than ever. This age boasts of better moral values and it is more corrupt than any age since the flood. It talks about its knowledge and science, but it is fighting a losing battle in all fields, for the human mind and soul and spirit cannot comprehend or keep abreast with all the changes that have come upon the earth. In one generation we have gone all the way from the horse and buggy age to the space age, and we are proud and boastful about it; but inside is a dark void cavern that is crying out in torment, and WITHOUT A KNOWN REASON men’s hearts are failing for fear and the world is so darkened that this age could well be called the age of neurotics. It boasts, but it cannot back it up. It cries peace, and there is no peace. It cries that it has a great amplitude of all things, but it keeps burning with desire like an unsatisfied fire! “There is no peace,” saith my God to the wicked. TWhat God saw was entirely different from what our age is proclaiming.
The whole world’s in neurotic condition. The world has become so neurotic that even the psychiatrists themselves are having nervous breakdowns. The great men of science don’t know what is taking place. They are staggering under the evil influences of war nerves that is taking place in the universe. Every city, every farm, every street, and every place, you encounter the same evil atmosphere of darkness that is relentlessly enveloping the earth. But the Spirit-filled child of God is aware of what is going on. He knows the answer – the Lord is coming soon. And the Word of God is fulfilling Itself with such rapidity that only the true born-again Spirit-filled, Spirit-led Christian can keep up and above board in this hour.
It is strange; but in this age of plenty and opportunity, when everyone has so much and there is so much more to be had, what with all the inventions to do our work and so many things to give us pleasure, SUDDENLY, we find mental illness taking such a toll as to alarm the nation. When everybody ought to be happy, with really nothing to be unhappy about, millions are taking sedatives at night, pep pills in the morning, rushing to doctors, entering institutions, and trying to drown out unknown fears by alcohol.
The world is dilly-dallying along, knowing something is wrong but seeing no solution because they have no light to lead them to a solution. So they rock and roll it out in one grand time in order to forget and to escape the nervous tensions that encumber them. Rather than praying to God to remove the evil that plagues the world and be free of it, they would rather endorse relaxing and watching TV, have suppers and sewing parties, run to swimming beaches and places of worldly gatherings, preach sermons on flowers and bluebirds, and totally lay aside the real issues and the blessings of God – that He can heal and perform miracles and raise the dead, and all other truths they have stopped preaching.” (SOURCE: As the Eagle Stirreth Her Nest & The Laodicean Church Age)
Our age is also described in Zechariah 14:6-7 as a gloomy and dismal day – “And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] the light shall not be clear, [nor] dark: But it shall be one day that shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.”
“The prophet Zechariah promised that there’d be a day come, that it wouldn’t be neither night nor day, be a dismal. But said, “In the evening time, it shall be Light.” What happened? Geographically, the sun raises in the east and sets in the west. Civilization has traveled with the sun. And the Holy Spirit, the Son of God, His goodness fell on the Eastern people first. That’s the rising of the sun. Now, there’s been a day that’s passed over, that it’s not dark; it’s dismal. We’ve had enough knowledge of the Word in God to get people saved, join the church, so forth. But it said, “In the evening time it shall be Light,” on the Western people, just like it was on the Eastern people. The same sun that raises in the east, sets in the west. We’re at the closing of the Gentile age. This is a Western people. And the same Holy Ghost that came in a Man called Jesus Christ, and performed miracles, promised that at the setting of the sun, that He would return back, and would do the very same things that He did when He was here with the Eastern people. And the same Son of God that manifested and appeared in the east is appearing in the west now at the evening time, evening Light to the Church that’s called out and filled with the Holy Spirit. He’s done come through justification, Luther Age, Sanctification, Wesley Age, Pentecostal Age, done placed His gifts into the church, and now, appeared to us in our flesh as Jesus said He would.” (AS THE EAGLE STIRRETH UP HER NEST;59-0815 / FORGOTTEN BEATITUDE; 61-0425E)
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