The Silent Years Pt.4
ISAIAH 40:28-31 - We began this study around 5 weeks ago with some of these scriptures.
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength (Waiting here means to look forward expectantly with hope); they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Faint = become fatigued - to the point of passing out)
LAMENTATIONS 3:22-26 Jerusalem had fallen in 586 BC and Lamentations is a series of poems of lamenting’s, but along with that was also the promise of their return to Jerusalem after the 70 years of exile in Babylon would be fulfilled, and so this was the hope that they held to – but they had to wait.
22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. (Even thought they were in exile, the Lord kept them by His power and because of His great mercy)
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. (They had to wait for 70 years)
HABAKKUK 2:3
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
All the things that we have believed and talked about for all these years of following the 7th angel’s ministry of this hour – it will all surely come to pass, but we have to learn to wait for it, and God has a purpose for us to wait, because it is in that waiting that we develop and learn our character lessons.
The Silent Years Pt.4
Deserts are often depicted in the bible as times of bareness and struggle and harshness. And we all go through those periods within our lives of where we might feel like that God is silent during those dry times.
*But the reality is that it is during those times that God is developing the history of your life (your own personal life story) in order to shape you a certain way for a certain work.
*And so we have been speaking about this period of history between the book of Malachi and the book of Matthew of where God had been shaping History to set the stage in preparation for the New Testament.
And so during those 400 years, there had been many dry periods and struggles and harshness that the people of those times had had to endure during those 4 centuries between Malachi and Matthew.
*Wars had been fought, and nations had fallen, and new nations had risen up. * Alexander the Great began his conquest of the Persian Empire in 334 BC at age 22, and then he suddenly died at age 32 – he was born for that purpose and he finished that work and then his time on the stage of history was finished, and so his act was over and so he exited the stage.
*One of the results that came out of Alexander the Great conquering the known world at that time was that at around 285–246 BC the Old Testament Hebrew bible was translated into the Greek language called the "Septuagint" of which it was this Greek translation that Paul the Apostle of the New Testament mostly quoted from.
And so when we reach the last book of the Malachi and turn over the last page of the Old Testament and find ourselves one page later in the book of Matthew, there had been 400 years of intensive history that had taken place in between that time of what we saw how that it shaped and changed the entire scenery of history as a result of all that had gone on during those years of what we have come to know as the 400 silent years – but it was actually far from being silent. And this is why we can also be sure that God is shaping our lives by the history that He has designed for our lives also at this time.
**Look at all the history of Brother Branham’s life that shaped him in his younger years while God was preparing him for what his purpose in life would become – a lot of it didn’t look very pretty.
***And so we found out that God is very much in control of world events and history, because we saw how that He was able to arrange history with such profound precision and detail so that when the book of Matthew finally open in the New Testament, that the history of those previous 400 years had set up this completely different cultural and political and religious new world on which the prophecies of the Old Testament could now be acted out on the platform of this new stage and theatre.
PSALM 121:3-4
3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. (God is working every minute of your life without rest in order to guide you and to keep you during the ups and downs of your personal life’s history)
4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
And so God was not asleep during those 400 years, nor was He slumbering during that time, but He was constantly involved and in control of every little detail of history for the purpose of setting up the great stage for the New Testament actors to step out upon and so that the many prophecies of his word could be fulfilled.
**And so when it looks God is being silent (and this applies to us in our own lives) we can know for sure that He is not being silent, but that He is actually setting up the stage of our lives for the purpose that He has ordained for us.
**And this is why that we must not worry about all the problems and dramas that are taking place in the world today – because all of it is just God setting up the stage for the rapture to happen and for the Millennium to be ushered in.
ISAIAH 40:28 Opening scripture
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
PSALM 46:10
10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
*We know that with many of the bible prophets – they would mostly appeared out of nowhere, and then they would do their certain little work and act for God, and then they were gone off the scene again - Just like how we read in the play written by William Shakespeare’s called the "Seven Ages of Man"
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And on it goes…
WHERE.HAS.THY.STRENGTH.GONE.SAMSON_ LA.CA THURSDAY_ 59-0702
E-4 …God takes simple things to His--perform His great works. And it just common things... Sometimes we pass right over the top of the real thing that God wants to use, trying to find something great.
*In other words, we think that God is being silent with us because we are looking for something big and great to happen in our lives while it is actually happening all the time.
***And so because of this, for the major part of our own lives, it will seem to us that the history of our lives just seem to go on and on without what we may call super-duper “spiritual” events taking place – our lives seem to be filled with more disasters than anything else.
**But it is during this time of what we think that we are just living our ordinary lives, that God is actually shaping every single event of our lives for a purpose. *And so God is not being silent at all, but He is actively working in every detail of the history of our lives in order to set up the stage for us to be able to perform the act of the part that He has called us to flesh out for this hour.
***And this is what we began to look at last week with the life of Ruth, of how that God would shape and use her life as a prophecy that would show us the mystery of the end time gentile bride – and it was such a great thing, but from her perspective of her own life, it looked like just a whole lot of bad luck that was going on in her life.
And so from Ruth’s perspective, it felt to her that her life was just one big struggle of survival.
*And so as we follow along with the story of Ruth, we realise that we are caught up in that same vision and reality of the pattern of Ruth’s life in this hour because this is what the opening of the word has opened to us.
*We finished up last week talking about how that Ruth’s position changed after that Boaz had given her the six measures of barley.
Because after the midnight hour had passed and Ruth had been covered by Boaz’s garment (of which was symbolic from him as a promise of marriage to her) we see that it was coming towards the time of the rising of the SUN, and that was the time of when Boaz gave Ruth six measures of barley that would signified to her of His unfailing words of promise “I will finish the thing this day - All that thou requirest of me, I will do it”
*Boaz was actually the seventh measure of barley to her that was then giving out to her the other 6 measures.
***This time of after the midnight hour in the story of Ruth represents this Laodicean age of darkness, but we have now been given 6 measures of barley of the spiritual food in due season by the opening of the 6 seals at around the time of the rising of the SON, because it was Christ himself who was the 7th seal who was giving out those other six seals to the His gentile bride of this day.
**And so we know by this story of Ruth and by the opening up of all these secrets of the word in these last days, that by this we can know for sure and be certain of our true calling and position in this hour – and by knowing our position, it causes us to enter into a rest.
RUTH 3:17-18
17 And she said, These six measures of barley gave he me; for he said to me, Go not empty unto thy mother in law.
18 Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day.
*We have been talking about how that the prophecy of scripture is the most powerful thing in the universe, and how that it governs every little detail of our lives as well as everything else in the entire world and in all world events.
And this is because that it is the conscious thought and spoken word of God that is the fundamental of all things. Not atoms, not particles, not anti-matter, not even energy itself is at the base of what is at the bottom of the building blocks of everything that exists, but it the conscious thoughts of God that is the fundamental of all things – and that is why that nothing can happen by chance.
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145 … Nothing happens by chance; everything is ordained of God. No matter what happens, all things are going to work together for good.
HABAKKUK 2:3
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
*With us human beings, deep down at the very core of our human emotions and consciousness, because of our ability to reason, we are inclined to subconsciously question God’s love and purpose and care for us during certain times of our lives, especially at times of what seems like the prolonged delay of God’s deliverance (like with Job).
*But all of this of what it seems like the silent years of our lives of when God is not being very active in our lives, that is when God is actually being very active in our lives by creating all the history of our lives in preparation so that so that the prophecy of this hour will be able to become history in our lives.
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19 … In the days of the Nicene Council... many of you people that's read The Nicene Council of the Early Church, when they wanted to make an organization out of it and break up all the other churches, and come into one, when they had that Nicene Council, rugged man like Elisha come in there from the wilderness, eating herbs alone; great rugged man. But the dignitaries, the high-ups, under Constantine, and so forth, stilled their voice. Because those, being prophets, knowed that the corn of wheat of the Church Bride had to fall in the ground, the same as a corn of wheat in the Bridegroom had to fall in the ground. And there it laid for a thousand years.
(This is showing us something of a template and pattern of our own lives and of all the lives of everyone that we are associated with, in that there are times of when God has to let us go through the long-haul process of what takes place in nature – of life, death, and burial, before there can be a resurrection.
*Joseph had to go through this pattern in his life also before he could be resurrected from that condition of the darkness of the prison house to Pharos house.
*God had to first prepare the history of Joseph’s life in such a way as to get him buried in the ground by that prison house experience first before the resurrection could take place in his life. And so he had to go through his own personal “silent year” he had to go through darkness first. Ruth had to go through the darkness of the midnight hour first.
*Jonah was the same – he had to go down into the darkness of the deep in order to come up a new man in the resurrection.
*Job was the same - and we are the same.
*And all of this is because God is determined to bring us to an expected end by a resurrection into an everlasting light and life, but that end first requires this process of nature to be expressed in a person’s life)
20 That's why they write in the books today, "Where is that silent God that could stand and look, see little children murdered, and women tore to pieces by lions, and sit in the skies and say nothing about it?" They don't know the Word. That corn of wheat's got to fall in the earth. How could a righteous God stand and look at His Own Son die and be spit on, and so forth? But it's according to the Word, it has to be. And that's the way it is even to this hour.
*Ruth’s life had to keep going down for a while first, and then at harvest time she had to humbled herself in the darkness at the feet of the one whom the head reaper had introduced her to. And then she was covered by Boaz’s garment and given six measures of barley at the time of the rising of the SUN.
RUTH 3:14-18
14 ¶ And she lay at his feet until the morning: and she rose up before one could know another. And he said, Let it not be known that a woman came into the floor.
15 Also he said, Bring the vail that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And when she held it, he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and she went into the city.
16 And when she came to her mother in law, she said, Who art thou, my daughter? And she told her all that the man had done to her.
17 And she said, These six measures of barley gave he me; for he said to me, Go not empty unto thy mother in law.
18 Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day.
***When Ruth and Naomi first met Boaz, they were in such a poor condition and their hearts had been full of sorrow.
They were just two poor and broken widows who had just come back to their home town Bethlehem, and they had brought nothing with them but the sorrow of their past lives.
*Ruth was a Moabite of which had come from an incestuous race, and Naomi said, “don’t call me Naomi” (which means “pleasant”), call me Mara, which means bitter, because I have had a lot of bitterness in my life. God had chastened them because they should have never left Bethlehem.
*But when they found out that Ruth was in Boaz’s field, and that he wasn’t married yet… (Luther, Wesley, Pentecost, the Man (Christ) isn’t married yet), then we can see how this story fits the time that we are living in now and of how that it relates directly to our own personal lives.
Because after the second world war (the second woe which is the sixth trumpet), the chief reaper was commissioned and already in the field ready for Ruth to appear on the scene, and then Boaz (Rev 10:1) came to the chief reaper (the earthly angel – Rev 10:7) who was in the field.
**So then Naomi by revelation instructs Ruth of where to find Boaz at the time of the threshing of the wheat. She says to Ruth “Shall I not seek ‘rest’ for you? which means, “to bring you in the settled state of marriage”. “Because we have a law, that when a man’s brother dies and his wife has no children, then his brother is supposed to marry that wife and raise up the seed of the dead brother” (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).
And that is what Jesus has done for us in this hour, and this is the mystery that has been revealed to us for this day.
***Adam was like Elimelech, and Naomi was like Eve. And Adam had an inheritance as a son of God.
And so they were both in the Garden of Eden – Adam and Eve in Eden.
Then what happened? They left God’s Word, and they fell and their inheritance was forfeited.
Ruth’s husband died, and so it was her first husband that threw her into poverty, just like how that Adam threw the human race into poverty.
*But Ruth was redeemed when she came into union with the second husband Boaz – and all of the inheritance that was lost was then restored.
**And so we have a kinsman redeemer in this hour which is Christ.
And when Christ came, He had to come and raise up a family, because Adam was meant to multiply by the spoken word and bring forth the human race by the power of the spoken word, but he never brought forth the human race by that process of the spoken word seed. And so because of the fall, all that Adam could do was to bring forth children by sex – children that had bypassed their word image and bypassed their spoken word-body and that were now trapped under a fallen nature of their old birth.
*That is why Romans 7 is showing us a mystery for these last days in that the woman is loosed from the law of the husband the old nature which is this old Adamic nature that we all got trapped into by the fall.
*That fallen nature that we came into the world married to and marred with was an evil husband that abused us and caused all kinds of bad things to happen to us – and that was represented by this sick husband of Ruth who has no strength.
“Mahlon” means “sickness” and “Boaz” means “the strong one”, the “mighty one” which is the new husband Christ – and so as Ruth came into a marriage union with Boaz, and so we are in the process right now at this time of coming into union with Christ our second husband’s nature by marriage.
*And so the same way Boaz and Ruth went back into the redeemed inheritance, the second Adam and the second Eve also go back into the redeemed inheritance. And then Naomi (the 144,000), is with the gentile bride in the millennium in the restored Eden – that’s God’s threefold mystery.
**Notice here closely - Eve was the mystery that was in Adam sealed up.
She was the mystery that was hidden inside of Adam while Adam was walking around in the garden showing us that when Jesus walked around on the earth that we were in Him in mystery form then just like a man that carries the mystery of all of his unexpressed offspring within his genes also.
And so when Christ did all of the great works that he did on earth, then we were already in Him then just as the entire human race was in Adam in mystery form in Eden.
*Then when Jesus died, we died with Him, and when He was buried, we were buried with Him, and when He rose, we also rose with Him.
*That is why the prophet told us that in this day, that she is him in bride form.
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111 And as He, being the Groom, the Bride has to come forth, 'cause It's part of Him. And It can only be the manifestation of the fulfilling of all the revelations any others has spoke of the Bride; It can only manifest. If it does something different from the Groom, it isn't the Bride. Because, She is flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone; Life of His Life, Power of His Power! She is Him! As man and woman are one, and woman taken from his side; She had taken a Spirit, the feminish Spirit, from Him. The flesh from His side, made both Mechanics and Dynamics, the Wife. The Spirit of Him and the flesh of Him, and put it together, and made Mechanics and Dynamics.