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The Basis of Christian Unity . . . . . . Page 66
The “Anti-cleansing” Heresy . . . . . . Page 73
Introduction
In volume two ofMind the Little Things, we will delve into another chapter of church history. As we have seen in volume one, when the Gospel Trumpet publishers of Anderson, Indiana conceded to the innovations of 1913 to 1917, the changes they made in doctrinal stance and teaching during those years was generally accepted as “new light.” It was thought to be a move toward “progress.” But few comprehended just how far that “progress” would go! Any progression that is not led by Jesus Christ, the Captain of the Lord’s host, is bound to end in disaster! It only takes a few seeds sown to “the flesh” to produce a bountiful harvest of “corruption!” The end result can never be known until the seed germinates, grows, and brings forth its fruit.
Before the end of the following decade of the 1920’s, many were becoming alarmed at just how far they had “progressed” into worldly conformity. Although they had accepted and approved the initial changes, such as the wearing of neckties, the use of musical instruments in worship, ministerial titles, etc., they did not feel comfortable with the ever-progressing trend toward the likeness of the denominational world around them.
In the late 1920’s, a Church of God minister of the Anderson, Indiana fellowship, known as W. S. Goodnight, began to study a new method of interpreting the prophecies of the book of Revelation. The concepts he endorsed did not agree with those taught by F. G. Smith and others who had taught and written on the book of Revelation. In his own book, Goodnight explains that he began to receive this new understanding of Revelation interpretation in the year of 1928. By the year 1930, he believed he was ready to teach, preach, and promote this “new light,” or new method of interpreting Revelation prophecies. He said that, in that year, he went to the North Carolina State Camp Meeting of the Church of God and there presented his new teaching to the brethren and to the church, and it spread from there.
Again, it often only takes the sowing of a little seed to produce a great harvest. The quality of the seed sewn becomes more fully known when the harvest is reaped than when it is first sown. Jesus said, “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.”Matt. 12:33.
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A New Seed Is Sown – Origin of the Seventh Seal/Trumpet Doctrine
Mr. Goodnight says, “In the year A.D. 1930, I wrote and mailed a small booklet, ‘Chart Explanation of the Revelation,’ to the ministry of the Church of God for their consideration, asking that they might study the line of thought contained therein with me. Some gave the booklet some study and consideration, and through their cooperation and the help of the Lord, deeper thoughts regarding the Revelation have been arrived at. Sixteen months past I conceived an idea of having a hand-painted chart made covering the entire book of the Revelation. This I did, then took the chart to the North Carolina state camp meeting, gave a short explanation of my line of thought on the Revelation to the ministry in attendance at the camp meeting, and it was generally accepted as in line with truth. Next, I attended the Virginia state camp meeting, giving the ministry in attendance there the outline in short, which was accepted by them as in line with truth. Since that time, I have been out in the work in a number of states, busy practically all of my time. By the help and cooperation of the ministry I have visited in their congregations, and also by the help of the Lord working with us all, we have been able to arrive at many more truths in line with what we already have had as given from the beginning for consideration, insomuch that in all the places I go I have many calls for my lectures in print. Some errors have been culled out and many more truths added.”
– W. S. Goodnight, Chart Explanation of the Revelation, page 3.
Notice that Mr. Goodnight himself acknowledges that there were “some errors” involved with his “line of thought” from the beginning! If there were some, then does that not suggest the possibility that the entire “line of thought” itself could have been an error? Take notice also that this “line of thought” originated through one man and, through his instrumentality, took root amid a people who had already progressed at least 15 years into compromised teachings and practices. Furthermore, none who endorsed Goodnight’s line of thought seemed interested in completely forsaking those elements of compromise in which they had become involved already and returning to ALL the original teachings and practices of the “evening light” reformation. But they were united in their desire to see the compromise not progress any further than it had up to this point of time.
On pages 89 – 90, he says, “The first angel herein mentioned (Rev. 14:6-12) is spoken of as having the everlasting gospel to preach to every nation and kindred and tongue and people and is seen as another angel. In chapter 18 an angel came down and the earth was lighted with his glory. Now this one comes with the everlasting gospel. … The everlasting gospel must mean in the full light of all the truth. We did not have it in its fullness in the sixth seal age, as in the seventh. So, this angel starts … beginning with the year 1928 (at this time I began this study), with this line of thought, and will continue to pour out till the end. People will be receiving this light to the end of the seventh seal, just as they did in the sixth, in regard to the church divine. One may say, ‘What light?’ The light in full regarding the Revelation, and in regard to the true and false powers in combat spiritually throughout the gospel day. Much more light is brought with the seventh seal age.”
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On page 4 of the same book, Mr. Goodnight says, “Many books have been written, both long and short, explaining the last book of the gospel of Christ, the Revelation. Many interpretations have been placed upon this book. Some have tried to twist the symbols to mean things altogether literal. Some make them symbolize things political and spiritual; while others bring them out as political, literal, and spiritual. I am persuaded to believe that the truth of the book will never be arrived at with anything other than a line of thought altogether spiritual.
Let us compare this with what F. G. Smith taught in his book, The Revelation Explained, under the heading, “The Nature of Symbolic Language,” page 24. He says, “The department of human and angelic life is chosen to set forth the spiritual affairs of the church, while the department of nature and of animal life represents the political affairs of nations.”
So, we see that W. S. Goodnight’s “line of thought” was quite different than F. G. Smith’s. Mr. Goodnight felt that the truth of Revelation could ONLY be arrived at through a line of thought altogether spiritual. Does this not exhibit extremism and a state of being unbalanced? Was the purpose of the Revelation to foretell events in the spiritual realm only, having nothing to do with things political or literal? Obviously not! Was Jesus speaking altogether spiritually when He said in Revelation 2:10, “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life?” No, He was speaking both literally and symbolically here. These saints were literally going to be cast into prison and tried and have tribulation for ten prophetically symbolic days, or ten years, which F. G. Smith traces in history. But the Lord gave this church the promise that, if they would be faithful unto death (literally), He would give them a crown of life (spiritually). Here we see clearly the combining of both literal and spiritual language. The book of Revelation was not intended by the Lord to be understood through a line of thought “altogether spiritual.” There must be a balance to it. I would never promote the idea that F. G. Smith was absolutely correct in every detail of interpretation, but I do see balance in his interpretations of the prophetic Scriptures.
Goodnight taught that a new “church age,” the seventh and the last, began with the year 1930. He believed that the 1880 reformation represented the opening of the sixth seal of the book of Revelation and that, by the end of the 1920’s, that era had come to an end. The “sixth seal age” was from 1880 to 1930 A. D., a fifty-year period, according to his teaching. The seventh age of the church was to begin in the year 1930 (the year he began teaching the “line of thought” he began studying in 1928), and it was to be the “seventh seal age,” the final age for the Church of God. It was to last another 50 years, until 1980, then the Lord was supposed to come and take the church home. This final 50-year period was to be a “second harvest,” or a second gathering of the Lord’s people into one body.
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As we can readily see from Mr. Goodnight’s own writings, he was very zealous to spread his new line of thought around the United States, wherever he could find an open door. And, as with most any new idea, or line of thought, it soon began to take root. A great number of people soon rallied to his new message. Among them were G. W. Pendleton, C. S. McAlister, J. F. Lawson, P. D. Turnbow, and D. W. Rogers. All these men began zealously promoting this “new light.” Church of God congregations (of the Anderson, Indian fellowship) in various locations across the United States began accepting the new doctrine and method of interpreting Revelation. As we observed in Goodnight’s own writing, the state of North Carolina was the first place he began to teach and promote it. To this day, North Carolina seems to be the state where Goodnight’s “line of thought” holds the greatest sway.
But did this line of thought fully originate with W. S. Goodnight? A brother who has researched church history quite extensively presented me with the following historical information regarding the “seven church-age” theology. I here present what he wrote for whatever it may be worth.
“Most folks don't realize the Seventh Seal/Trumpet message traces its roots to C. I. Scofield who produced the Scofield Commentary Bible in 1909. To support his theological agenda, he [Scofield] modified John Nelson Darby's seven dispensational ages and joined them prophetically to the Seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation. His personal mantra was ‘Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth,’ and because his ‘Scofield Commentary Bible’ used the framework of the most commonly used version of the time (King James Version), it became the singularly best seller, known as ‘The Student's Bible,’ eliminating the need to pray, study, think, and seek God for wisdom and revelation.
“Scofield claimed to interpret the difficult-to-understand scriptures, ending with pretribulation rapture and the 1000-year age of the Millennial Kingdom, coining the phrase: ‘We have favored spectacles upon our eyes, to see what others cannot see, and if you don't get on board, you'll be left behind!’
“In 1930, W. S. Goodnight, a Church of God minister in North Carolina, again adapted the seven ages of Scofield to represent what he perceived to be the history of compromise by the 1880 Church of God Evening Light Reformation.
“… It appears that each of these [Scofield and Goodnight] used second-handed information, originating with Darby, who is known as the ‘Father of Dispensationalism’ and founder of ‘Church of the Brethren.’” – Kenneth Probst
Although the Seventh Seal/Trumpet message, initially proclaimed by Goodnight, was supposed to produce a second gathering together of the people of God, it wasn’t long until the followers of his line of thought began to have disagreements among themselves and, as a result, they split up into quite a variety of factions. I do not know just how many factions have actually developed over the past 90 years, but I have become acquainted with several of them in my lifetime. Some retained the doctrine of
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sanctification as a definite second work of grace, as it was taught by D. S. Warner and the original “evening light” reformation movement, while others chose to endorse the “anti-cleansing” doctrine of 1897-1898 and to incorporate it with their Seventh Seal/Trumpet message.
[Note: The anti-cleansing doctrine, or “anti-cleansing heresy,” as it came to be called, was a line of thought which began to be introduced by a few as early as 1896, the year following D. S. Warner’s death, which implied that the fullness of Christ is received in the primary work of regeneration and there is no need for any subsequent cleansing or sanctifying work of the Spirit relative to the Christian. In the Gospel Trumpet publications of 1897 – 1898, especially, much can be read about this “new light” that was spreading like wildfire among the people of God. The new line of thought was thoroughly scrutinized by the ministry and its fallacy exposed and refuted, but not before it wrought great havoc and division among the Church of God. The propagators of the “new light” sought to undermine the faith of the saints in the very experience of “entire sanctification” that brought forth the “evening light” reformation in the beginning. Many who fell for it did, however, repent of their heresy later. For more information regarding this, see the last chapter of this book.]
During my lifetime, from the time I was a boy, our family received different publications from different factions of the Seventh Seal/Trumpet movement. Even as a young teen-ager, ignorant about the origin and nature of this doctrine, I can remember feeling an awareness in my own soul of a “strange” spirit that accompanied each one of these publications. I was saved at age 10 and later sanctified at age 11 and had found a very deep experience and personal relationship with the Lord. The “unction” of God’s Spirit was resting on my soul, and that “anointing” taught me many deep and heavenly things, even in my youth. In my spirit I sensed something “foreign” about the spirit of this Seventh Seal/Trumpet doctrine. Although there was a lot of truth connected with it, yet I could sense an underlying “something,” not so easy to pin-point, but that just didn’t seem quite right. After growing up and getting out on my own, I continued to receive, from time to time, publications from various “Seventh Seal/Trumpet” groups. I have filed many of them, just for my own information and reference purposes. For the information, benefit, and enlightenment of my readers, I will here list a few.
1. THE GOSPEL TRUMPETER, published at Newark, Ohio. This, I understand, became one of the larger of the original Seventh Seal/Trumpet factions and this group also incorporated the “anti-cleansing” doctrine of 1897-1898 with its message. This was one of the main seventh trumpet publications that we used to receive when I was a boy.
2. THE SEVENTH TRUMPET, published at Mountain Home, Arkansas, originated by G. W. Pendleton in the year 1932 (according to its editorials). G. W. Pendleton was a former associate of W. S. Goodnight. This publication retained the doctrine of sanctification as a second definite work of grace, in theory at least. It also proposed to be proclaiming the “last days message of Revelation – The Seventh Trumpet.” Its founder, G. W. Pendleton, passed away in the year 1988, but his--
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--widow, Martha Pendleton, continued to publish the paper with the assistance of others for many years thereafter. I had the opportunity to meet and visit with her on at least one occasion. Mountain Home, AR is only about 80 miles from Myrtle, Missouri, where I live, and she attended one of our camp meetings here at Myrtle at least once.
3. THE GOSPEL TRUMPETER, published by the Church of God of Ashville, North Carolina. I only received one copy of this publication in June 1991 and, since I did not request any further copies, I ceased to receive it. I do not know if it is still being published. That publication also claimed to be “SOUNDING FORTH THE SEVENTH AND LAST TRUMPET,” and to be standing for “Justification, Sanctification, Unity and Truth.”
4. THE GOSPEL TRUMPET, published by the Church of God of Ontario, California. I received this publication for several years during the 1980’s. It also claimed to be sounding forth the seventh and last trumpet and proclaimed a so-called “seventh seal” message. This paper was edited by Brian Duff, a personal acquaintance of mine, who was very educated in the seventh seal/trumpet doctrine. He had quite a lengthy series of articles in this publication concerning the “Seventh Seal Message” during the late 1980’s, which was later printed and made available in book form. (Note: Brian Duff was also a personal acquaintance of Danny Layne and, during Danny’s early ministry, he received permission from Brian and his congregation to use their meeting house for church services. Whether, or not, Danny Layne received a portion of his seventh seal/trumpet indoctrination from Brian Duff, I cannot say, however, the possibility seems likely.)
All the various factions that have resulted from W. S. Goodnight’s “line of thought” are very sincerely devoting themselves to the proclamation of what they believe to be the final message for this gospel age. Although divided on various issues, they all agree on one thing – that we are living in the “Seventh Seal Age,” or seventh and final age of the church, and that they are obligated to sound forth a special message for the church – a message which they believe is portrayed in the prophecy of Revelation11:15-19.
In December of 1995, I had the privilege of visiting with Bro. O. C. Porter in his home in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Brother Porter was an elderly minister of the Church of God who was in his 90’s at the time (born just 7 years after the death of D. S. Warner) and who lived to be over 100 years old, I believe. His memories of church history encompassed almost the entire 20th century. During our visit, he gave me two books and a chart which he had had in his possession for many years, explaining the doctrines of the Seventh Seal/Trumpet movement. One of them was written by W. S. Goodnight himself, titled “Chart Explanation of Revelation.” The other book was titled “The Revelation with Gospel and Prophecy,” and had J. F. Lawson, P. D. Turnbow, and D. W. Rogers’ names as the authors.
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In visiting with Martha Pendleton later, the widow of G. W. Pendleton, she told me that her late husband actually wrote the book that Lawson, Turnbow, and Rogers ascribed their names to. She said they removed his name and put theirs in its place. He just let it go and never did anything about it, she said. Whether this is true, or not, God knows.
There ARE two books that bear the title The Revelation with Gospel and Prophecy. One of them is attributed to “W. S. Goodnight, assisted by G. W. Pendleton & C. S. McAlister,” printed in 1936. The other book is attributed to “J. F. Lawson, P. D. Turnbow, & D. W. Rogers,” revised 1955. This may explain why G. W. Pendleton’s widow, Martha, said that her husband was actually the author of the book but these other men forged their names to it. It is very likely that they slightly “revised” the 1936 edition of the book and then published it as their own, not giving credit to the original authors. The wording in both books is very similar.
If I remember correctly, Brother O. C. Porter knew all these men personally. He gave me their writings and wanted me to read them and educate myself regarding their erroneous teaching and then use the knowledge to refute it.
After examining the contents of the books, I was struck with the realization of the subtlety of the error involved in the lines of thought they promote. To give the reader some idea of that which I speak, I will quote from their writings later in this book, but first, I want to give some consideration to the real significance of the opening of the seventh seal and the sounding of the seventh trumpet. I ask the reader to lay aside all preconceived ideas and prejudices and let us approach this subject with an open mind.
The Opening of the Seventh Seal
“And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were give seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.”Rev. 8:1-6.
In my personal reading and studying of the book of Revelation several years ago, the understanding opened up to me that the contents of the seventh seal include ALL that is written from chapters 8 through 22 (the rest of the book). In consulting the writings of F. G. Smith, I found that he understood it the same way it was revealed to me. Here is what he wrote (I have added the words in brackets for greater clarification):
“The remainder of the book [chapters 8 – 22] is embraced in the contents of the seventh seal. This may appear a little singular at first, being so much larger than the
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preceding ones. But it is easily understood when we consider the [first] six [seals] as being a synopsis of the whole book, containing a history of the church apostate to the final consummation, and also the contemporaneous history of the true church of God; while the seventh [seal] gives in detail the account of these great persecuting powers, civil and ecclesiastical, and the trials and triumphs of the saints in the New Jerusalem – developing more fully the events described under the [first] six [seals].”
– The Revelation Explained, page 131
This was the same conclusion I came to in my personal studies. For years I was puzzled how anyone could perceive a special “seventh church age” described in the seventh seal. There’s nothing about the language or symbols that naturally suggests such an idea. The opening of the seventh seal takes us back to the beginning of the gospel dispensation and picks up beginning events. The contents of the seal then follow the events of the gospel dispensation from beginning to end through several series of prophetic visions that run parallel to each other, each series ever broadening the view of what was introduced in the first six seals.
The first thing that is stated concerning the opening of the seventh seal is that “there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” F. G. Smith says, “Whether this interval of silence is intended to be symbolical of any event on earth I do not know … ‘a half hour,’ according to prophetic time would signify only about one week, … whether it has any special signification, I am unable to say; perhaps not.”
I personally believe it does have significance. Let’s turn our minds back to the beginning of the gospel dispensation for a moment. This is where the seventh seal themes begin. We find in the Scriptures that Jesus stayed on earth 40 days after his resurrection, before He ascended back to Heaven and took His place at the right hand of God. Before ascending, He instructed His eleven remaining apostles to return to Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit, which He said would come “not many days hence” (Acts 1:5).They were not to engage in any preaching or evangelistic efforts during this time but wait for the promise of the Father which would endue them with “power.” It was to be a short period of “silence.”
On a Thursday, 40 days following His resurrection, Jesus led His eleven Apostles out to Bethany, to Mount Olivet (not far from Jerusalem), where He ascended back to Heaven and out of their sight (see Luke 24:49-53; Acts 1:1-12). In obedience to His command, His Apostles returned to Jerusalem and went into an upper room where they “continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren”(Acts 1:14), and with other disciples, numbering about 120 in all. On the day of Pentecost, just 10 days following Jesus’ ascension back to Heaven, the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, came and the silence was broken! The Holy Spirit set the church in order and the gospel message began to be sounded, its message destined to reach all nations. But 10 days of silence (“about the space of half an hour,” or about one week) preceded this glorious manifestation of the power of God that brought forth “voices” (the gospel proclaimed to many nations by the gift of tongues?),
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“and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.” Think about it. “And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.”Rev. 8:6.
The Trumpets
W. S. Goodnight’s Revelation theology has led many people to believe that the opening of the seventh seal and the sounding of the seventh trumpet somehow parallel and coincide in representing a seventh epoch, or time period, for the church of God. But an unbiased and careful examination of the scriptural context reveals, to me, no foundation for such an interpretation. The interpretation is nothing more than a figment of human imagination. The first series of prophecies introduced by the opening of the seventh seal, following the breaking of the silence (which I believe signifies Pentecost), is the sounding of seven trumpets that portray events that are going to take place chronologically, from the morning of the Gospel Day, up to the evening time and final consummation of the church at the end of the age. There can be no time parallel with the sounding of the seventh trumpet and the opening of the seventh seal, for the sounding of the seventh trumpet is merely the final phase of the first of the several series of prophecies brought to view after the opening of the seventh seal. Mark well, the seventh seal age covers the entire gospel dispensation.
It is also folly to presume that the sounding of each trumpet represents some special “church age.” There is nothing in all the Word of God that so much as hints at such a thing. Without delving into the signification of the symbols brought to view following the sounding of each trumpet, let us observe that the last three trumpets are special “woe” trumpets, and signify terrible woes that must come to pass “to the inhabiters of the earth” (Rev. 8:13).The fifth and the sixth trumpets have prophetic time periods allotted to the woes that they bring to the earth’s inhabiters. The time period of the fifth trumpet woe was five months (Rev. 9:5), or 150 prophetic days, which equal 150 years. The time period of the sixth trumpet woe was “an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year (Rev. 9:15) which, in prophetic time scale equals 391 years and 15 days. This conclusion is reached from the Biblical method of prophetic time calculation spoken by God Himself: “I have appointed thee each day for a year” (Ezek. 4:6b). The days are calculated according to Jewish calendar: 360 days per year, 30 days per month, etc. One hour equals 15 days out of a prophetic year.
Regarding the second woe, signified by the sixth trumpet, F. G. Smith says, “With these specifications before us, we shall have no difficulty in identifying the power intended – the Turkish, or Ottoman, empire. Its agreement with the symbolic representations of the vision will be manifest from a statement of the facts of history.” – The Revelation Explained, page 165. After proceeding to show by quotation from history how the fierce conquests of the Ottoman Turks fulfilled the prophetic symbolism to a tee, he continues:
“Calculating now the time during which these horsemen were prepared to extend their conquests – ‘an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year’ – we find according to prophetic, or symbolic, time – thirty days in a month, three hundred and sixty in a year –
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that it signifies three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days. This is exactly the period of time that elapsed between their first victory in A. D. 1281 and their last conquest in A. D. 1672. I cannot verify the fifteen days, because no history at my command states the exact days of the month on which these victories occurred.
“One more point of importance must be considered … that is the continuance of the Ottoman power. The first, or Saracen, woe [of the fifth trumpet] had power to torment men ‘five months,’ or one hundred and fifty years, during which time they continued their ravages. The second woe [of the sixth trumpet] began when the command was given to loose the four angels, or [four Sultanies, the heads of which were at Bagdad, Damascus, Aleppo, and Iconium at] the beginning of the Ottoman conquests. ‘An hour, and a day, and a month, and a year,’ or three hundred and ninety-one years, marked the time during which they were ‘prepared’ to extend their conquests. But it is not stated that the woe itself, or the Ottoman power, would then cease; for it is not represented as ending until after the death and resurrection of the [two] witnesses (chapter 11:14), immediately following which the coming of Christ and the general judgment, or the third woe, is described (verses 15-18). … It furnishes us a waymark by which we can determine our position along the pathway of time; for when it [the Ottoman empire] falls, we may rest assured that the coming of Christ is imminent.” – The Revelation Explained, pages 170, 171.
F. G. Smith wrote this in the year 1906. At that time the Ottoman empire was still intact and had not yet fallen. But in 1922, following World War I, it fell and passed out of existence forever. That marked “the second woe is past,” Revelation 11:14 Take special note of this, as this is a point of great significance and marks just where we are right now in the onward stream of time. The second woe of the sixth trumpet ended in 1922. And immediately the announcement is made, “Behold, the third woe cometh quickly.” The third woe will be ushered in upon the inhabiters of the earth with the sounding of the seventh trumpet! But before we focus on that, let’s go back and focus on what the Revelation shows happened during the sixth trumpet woe period, between 1281 A. D. and 1922 A. D. Within the same time frame there came also a complete triumph for the two witnesses, the Word and Spirit of God!
In reading from the ninth chapter of Revelation on into the tenth, the scene changes from the 391-year time period of Ottoman conquests portrayed in the second woe, or sixth trumpet woe, to something beautiful and glorious, which would also take place BEFORE the second woe would completely pass. An angel comes down from Heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow upon his head, and his face as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: AND HE HAD IN HIS HAND A LITTLE BOOK OPEN! (See Rev. 10:1-2.)
What does this represent? It represents a glorious revival and opening of the truth of God’s Word to mankind. Following this 391-year period of the Turkish Ottoman (Muslim) scourge that God used to punish apostate Christians throughout Europe, there was going to come a world-wide revival of true Christianity! (Read the entire 10th chapter of Revelation.) The “little book,” the Word of God was going to be prophesied
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(preached) “again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.” This great revival should not be misconstrued by endeavoring to apply it to any particular “movement,” “reformation,” or “group” of people. This is where some have made a great mistake. God is not interested in that. He’s interested in seeing the “little book open” – the complete prophesying of His Word.
Now, here is where it gets really interesting! The rainbow angel brought to view in this chapter “set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,” and cries “with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth,” and seven thunders utter their voices. John was about to write what they uttered, but he was then commanded to seal those things up and write them not. Why? My speculation is, had he written them they would have revealed TOO MUCH DETAIL regarding the remaining history of time. It would have made the time of Christ’s second coming too obvious.
Instead of allowing John to write those things, the angel lifted up his hand to Heaven and sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever “that there should be time no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets” (verses 6 & 7).
For a clearer understanding of this passage, it is necessary to consult the original Greek text. In consideration of the clause that says, “in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound,” the direct translation from Greek to English says, “in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he may be about to sound.” In other words, the message is this: in the days when the seventh angel is “about to sound” the mystery of God is going to be finished, or wrapped up, as it was revealed to God’s servants, the prophets. The text is not necessarily teaching that the sounding of the seventh trumpet will be what finishes the mystery of God, but that the mystery of God is going to be finished “when he may be about to sound.”
Now, what is the mystery of God? The Apostle Paul speaks very clearly in the book of Colossians about it. Let’s take a close look.
“And he [Christ] is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church: Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from--
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--ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” Col. 2:17-23. (Emphasis is mine.)
Here we have it spelled out plain and simple – the mystery of God, the precious Word of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His fullness now made available to all mankind by its proclamation to all the world. This is the mystery that was to be “finished,” or completed, when the seventh trumpet “may be about to sound.” This is the whole focus of the tenth chapter of Revelation. It is letting us know that the gospel is once again going to go forth in its fullness. It is going to happen BEFORE the second woe is past – the woe signified by the sixth trumpet. Despite the terrible woe, all “peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings” are going to have an opportunity to eat and digest the “little book,” the Word of God. The “little book” will taste sweet in their mouth but, when they digest it, it will become bitter in their belly as they, in obedience to the Word, enter into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings for His body’s sake, which is the church.
Some have implied that the vision revealed to John in the tenth chapter of Revelation is specifically significant of the “evening light” reformation of 1880 and the gospel in its fullness being proclaimed to the world during the great revival that swept the world at that time. Although that is definitely included, to so interpret the prophecy of Revelation chapter ten is, in my opinion, a far too narrow view. In this way, some have mistakenly applied the sounding of the sixth trumpet to D. S. Warner specifically, and the “evening light” ministry. W. S. Goodnight interpreted the entire sixth trumpet era of time as beginning in 1880 and ending in 1930, a period of only 50 years. He sought to interpret all prophecy as signifying things “altogether spiritual,” which has greatly misled many well-meaning people in their basic understanding of the prophecies themselves. The prophecies were never intended by God to signify things that were “altogether spiritual.” As we have already observed, there is a 391-year prophetic time period related to the second woe introduced by the sixth trumpet. Neither does the second woe of the sixth trumpet have any particular relevance to the opening of the “little book” in chapter ten, or the spreading of the gospel to all “peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.” This was something that was to take place within the same time frame – between the beginning and the ending of the second woe of the sixth trumpet. In consideration of the evidence that the second woe began in 1281 A. D. and ended in 1922 A. D., we must look for the fulfillment of the opening of the “little book,” and all that is relevant to it, within this period of time. Since 1880 is very late in the stream of time, we must begin our search much earlier than that.
We will do well to turn our focus back to as early a time as the life and labors of John Wycliffe, who translated the Scriptures into English so that the common people could read the Word of God for themselves. Consider these facts from Wikipedia:
“John Wycliffe (/ˈwɪklɪf/; also spelled Wyclif, Wycliff, Wiclef, Wicliffe, Wickliffe; c. 1320s – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical
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translator, reformer, priest, and a seminary professor at the University of Oxford. He became an influential dissident within the Roman Catholic priesthood during the 14th century and is considered an important predecessor to Protestantism.
“Wycliffe questioned the privileged status of the clergy which had bolstered their powerful role in England and the luxury and pomp of local parishes and their ceremonies. Wycliffe advocated translation of the Bible into the common vernacular. In 1382 he completed a translation directly from the Vulgate into Middle English – a version now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament. Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.
“Wycliffe's followers, derogatorily nicknamed Lollards, followed his lead pondering ideas such as theological virtues, predestination, iconoclasm, and the notion of caesaropapism, while questioning the veneration of saints, the sacraments, requiem masses, transubstantiation, monasticism, and the existence of the Papacy.
“From the 16th century, the Lollard movement is sometimes regarded as the precursor to the Protestant Reformation. Wycliffe was accordingly characterized as the evening star of scholasticism and as the morning star of the English Reformation. Wycliffe's writings in Latin greatly influenced the philosophy and teaching of the Czech reformer Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415), whose execution in 1415 sparked a revolt and led to the Hussite Wars of 1419–1434.”
Wikipedia has this to say regarding the execution of Jan Hus (or John Huss):
“When Alexander V was elected as a pope, he was persuaded to side with Bohemian Church authorities against Hus and his disciples. He issued a Papal bull that excommunicated Hus; however, it was not enforced, and Hus continued to preach. Hus then spoke out against Alexander V's successor, Antipope John XXIII, for his selling of indulgences. Hus' excommunication was then enforced, and he spent the next two years living in exile. When the Council of Constance assembled, Hus was asked to be there and present his views on the dissension within the Church. When he arrived, he was immediately arrested and put in prison. He was eventually taken in front of the council and asked to recant his views. He replied, ‘I would not for a chapel of gold retreat from the truth!’ When he refused, he was put back in prison. On 6 July 1415, he was burned at the stake for heresy against the doctrines of the Catholic Church. He could be heard singing Psalms as he was burning.”
It is also said that the last words of John Huss were, “O, holy simplicity!” And as his executioners were about to burn him, he told them that they were now getting ready to roast a goose (that was what his last name meant in Bohemian) but that, in one hundred years, there would come a swan that they could neither roast nor boil! This was a prophetic utterance of the coming of Martin Luther and the sixteenth century reformation.
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The Catholic Church tried to do away with Martin Luther also, but the providence of God did not allow them to succeed.
There were thousands in the course of history who laid their lives on the line as well as literally laid their lives down to eat the “little book.” Like John Huss, they “would not for a chapel of gold retreat from the truth!” The “little book” became bitter in their bellies, but they loved and ate it anyway. Among these were a great number of what came to be called “Anabaptists.” They were so called by their enemies because of their rejection of infant baptism by the Catholic Church and their obedience to the Word of God to be “baptized again” in answer to a good conscience toward God which they received through a real “born again” experience. This was considered a criminal offense by the authorities of the day and was punishable by death. Many gave their lives for simply obeying God’s Word on this line and rejecting the tradition of the Catholic Church. These people were real saints, members of the church of God by spiritual connection with Jesus Christ. They were our brethren.
The opening of the “little book” of Revelation chapter ten includes a progressive series of events (great spiritual revivals and reformations) that began as early as 14th century and culminated in the 19th century, just prior to the passing of the second woe of the sixth trumpet. The “evening light” reformation was merely a climax of the entire series.That reformation alone is NOT singularly portrayed by the sounding of the sixth trumpet. Consider well this quotation from the late church historian, Charles E. Brown:
“As a matter of historic fact, D. S. Warner stood rather in the historic tradition of radical [fundamental] Christianity, extending from the dissidents from Roman Catholicism in the eleventh century down through the Anabaptists into the radical Christianity of modern times. It was with this school of historic Christianity that Warner had deepest affinity. …
“Actually, as the historian of theology can show, every doctrine save one which D. S. Warner taught had been taught in large groups of Christians at one time or another throughout Christian history. … Men like Luther, Wesley, and other reformers did not introduce novelties into the church’s theology. They set old and neglected truths in a fresh, new light. They changed the arrangement of some themes and placed fresh emphasis upon old and forgotten truths. This is what Warner did. …
“In a foregoing paragraph we reserved one point of Warner’s teaching as a novelty. This was his doctrine concerning the identity, or at least the possible identity, between the visible and the invisible church. When we say that the doctrine of the identity of the visible and invisible church is a novelty, we mean in modern theological thinking. IT WAS THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH DURING THE FIRST CENTURY THAT THE NORMAL CHURCH IS BOTH VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE AT THE SAME TIME. … It is easy for the historical student to verify this assertion by study of the ancient patristic literature.
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“Numerous authorities concur in the statement that Augustine was the first authoritative writer in the church who drew the distinction between the visible and the invisible church, and this he did to contrive a defense against the Donatists, a widespread sect of his time and country who said that the Catholic Church could not be the church of God because it was composed so largely of sinners. Augustine countered this attack by the defensive claim that there was a visible and invisible church, and many false professors had found their way into the visible church.
“When the Protestant reformers were accused of dividing the church they fell back upon the arguments of Augustine and maintained that they had divided the visible church only but had done no injury to the unity of the invisible church of Christ. From that time forward the doctrine of a visible and invisible church was prominent in Protestantism, being regarded as one of its foremost dogmas, since upon it rested the primary defense against the charges of Roman Catholicism concerning dividing the church.
“In the beginning of the Friends movement under George Fox there was for a short time a vision and acceptance of the principle of the identity of the visible and invisible church, and the Quakers practiced this doctrine for a short time. It was not long, however until the exigencies of their struggles with the courts, their persecutions, and their efforts to hold property and carry on Christian work caused them to drop this doctrine. Warner preached this doctrine assiduously from the first issues of The Gospel Trumpet throughout his life.
“While D. S. Warner spent a great deal of time in a fresh study of Christian doctrine from the Bible direct, it must be repeated that he was not a technical theologian, neither was he a dogmatist. If fact, the chief accent of his preaching was not dogmatic and didactic, but evangelical and evangelistic. In other words, he was more interested in getting people saved, sanctified, and healed of their afflictions than in any other aspect of his work. He was concerned about the doctrine of the church and the great principles of Christian living, not because he was obsessed with a theory, but because he believed that the doctrine of a pure church intelligently preached and earnestly practiced would actually tend to the salvation of souls and the increase of the kingdom of God.”
– When the Trumpet Sounded, see pages 83 – 87
The one thing that gave the “evening light” reformation its special unique character was, as C. E. Brown said, the emphasis it placed on the “doctrine concerning the identity, or at least the possible identity, between the visible and the invisible church.” The reformation message proclaimed it was time for the uniting of all Christians into one body in Jesus Christ, led, directed and controlled by the Holy Spirit, to the exclusion of all ecclesiastical systems led, directed, and controlled by men. This message had never been maintained by any other body, or group, of Christians since the original apostasy. D. S. Warner saw this unity, or gathering together unto Christ alone, as the ultimate desire of Christ for his followers and that it is only made possible through the Christian’s receiving of the “fullness of Christ,” or the grace of “entire sanctification.” We will focus more on that later.
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Now, in the eleventh chapter of Revelation, John is given “a reed like unto a rod” whereby he could measure “the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.” Again, this reed represents the Word of God. It is by the Word of God that the temple, or church, of God is measured, including them that worship therein and the sacrifices they offer to God. (See also Eph. 2:18-22.) Revelation chapter eleven focuses on God’s “two witnesses,” the role they play in the operation of His kingdom work on earth, and their treatment by apostate ecclesiastical powers. By comparing what the prophet Zechariah says about these two witnesses in Zechariah chapter 4, we have conclusive evidence that they signify the Word and the Spirit of God.
In Revelation chapter eleven, verses 11 – 12, we find life from God enters into these two witnesses and they stand upon their feet, then ascend up into the ecclesiastical heavens in the sight of their enemies. THIS HAPPENS JUST PRIOR TO THE PASSING OF THE SECOND WOE OF THE SIXTH TRUMPET! (See verse 14.) In the resurrection of the two witnesses is where the “evening light” reformation comes into the picture – the reformation that gave the Word and the Spirit of God complete and full right-of-way to operate unhindered by the straps and yokes of men’s creeds and organizations.
Contrary to the misperceptions of some, this reformation was NOT the result of the leadership or thought processes of any individual, such as D. S. Warner. It was rather the result of a world-wide moving of the Spirit of God upon Christendom. It was the result of a spiritual awakening that took place because of the moving and enlightening of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the Word. As one songwriter of that era put it:
“There’s a sound of a going in the mulberry trees, [2 Sam. 5:24]
News of nations awaking borne upon every breeze.”
One has but to read the literature of that era of time to get the big picture of what was taking place. D. S. Warner happened to be a brother in Christ upon whom the Holy Spirit moved to publish a paper called The Gospel Trumpet, which God used mightily to spread His light and truth around the world. That publication proved, in the long term, to be the most effective one, no doubt, but it was not the ONLY one! There were others that D. S. Warner himself advertised and recommended in The Gospel Trumpet for his readers to subscribe to and read. Take note of this:
“The Sword”
“We feel it our duty to recommend to all our readers The Sword, a solid, pure and straight, 16-column monthly, published by T. P. Dolan. 50 cents per year. 142 Eighth St., Washington, DC. Each Sword has a cut designed for the paper, and strikingly illustrating the popular sins and living issues of the day.
“The Sword is jousting steel, something that really cuts – hews Agag to pieces before the Lord. From its present unsparing sweep, we think it will yet deal definite blows upon
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sectism, the root of all church sin. The editor says, ‘There is not a denominational journal in the world that dare publish all the truth that its denomination need to know.’ The Sword needs and deserves help, and we hope many of our readers will send in their names.
– The Gospel Trumpet, November 15, 1881
“We Praise God for The Sword”
“It cuts better and better. May the Lord continue to send Bro. Dolan hundreds of subscribers. God bless the Sword. We rejoice in its prosperity, and in its cutting and slashing upon the works of the devil.”
“The Radical Christian”
“On most all points of present needed reform and radicalness is true to its title. We recommend that paper to our readers as good solid food. God bless Bro. Sims. Send for the Radical, Galt, Ontario.”
“Alluding to the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, the Vanguard (another publication) says, “a sword cannot be used for the purpose of whitewashing.” That is true, but a sword is an excellent thing to knock off old whitewash scale.”
– The Gospel Trumpet, December 15, 1882
The spirit of the Evening Light Reformation, as it came to be called, was by no means a “we are it” spirit, but it was altogether a “Christ is it” spirit. The message was not, “come out of Babylon and be gathered unto us,” but “come, let us be gathered together unto Christ.” “Now IN CHRIST we’ve found a freedom, which eternally shall last.” “Quickly sound the proclamation of the glorious jubilee.” It was a glorious time in the history of God’s people! The jubilee proclamation was welcomed by thousands of God-hungry souls world-wide. They came out from Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Mennonites, Adventists, Cambellites, Winebrennerians, and many other backgrounds and all found their identity in Jesus Christ through “entire sanctification” – complete abandonment of themselves to the Holy Spirit. They wanted the whole world to experience the love, the joy, the peace, the freedom, and the oneness that they found in Jesus Christ simply by drinking into His Spirit in its fullness. Think about this good article:
“That They May Be One”
“It is very manifest that God wants His people to be one. Such was the prayer of Jesus, and such has been, and is the desire of all good men. But there has been a good many mistaken efforts to bring about this result. One of the most common blunders that has been made on this subject is that of trying to unify God’s people by making them one sect who accept one creed. A rallying cry has been made of some dogma or
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of ecclesiasticism, or yet again of some ritualistic observances. But all these efforts, instead of securing unity, have only resulted in division.
“It has been manifest in every age that the efforts to unite God’s people on dogma, or on rites, has been futile and divisive. How zealous some have been about baptisms, close communion, and apostolic succession. But alas, what bigotry and division has this zeal ‘but not according to knowledge’ begotten. All efforts to unify on this plane have only resulted in adding another sect to the many existing divisions, and unity has been really hindered by those who professed to promote it.
“But God proposes unity. Shall it not come to pass? What then of the existing isms? Must they not pass away? Must there not in the nature of the case come in a new order of things? Our beloved ism must be set aside.
“That God never intended unity on the plane of the rudiments of Christianity is manifest from the fact that He commands, ‘Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection’ (Heb. 6:1). We are to ‘LEAVE’ them and ‘go on,’ because unity is one of the chief elements of perfection and that [unity] is not in these rudiments. How many, instead of obeying God and leaving ‘the doctrine of baptism’ and ‘going on,’ have halted; just halted right there and begun to wrangle over into and out of. Had all who came to these rudiments, after meeting their demands according to the light God gave them, left them, and gone on to perfection, what divisions and heart burnings might have been avoided.
“On this advanced line God has provided ‘for the perfecting of the saints;’ and it is to result in our coming to ‘the unity of the faith,’ and ‘the knowledge of the Son of God’ (see Eph. 4:11-13). This unity is reached only when the saints, having begun in the Spirit (Gal. 3:3), ‘go on’ until they reach the unifying baptism of the Holy Spirit(1 Cor. 12: 13). This baptism comes when the believer is sanctified wholly (Rom. 15:16).
“We have attended holiness camp meetings where four kinds of Methodists, two kinds of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, United Brethren, Catholics, Quakers, and Christians [also known as ‘Disciples,’ or ‘Campbellites,’ or more commonly today as ‘Church of Christ’], have been worshipping together as one. They had been baptized by one Spirit into one body and were drinking into one Spirit. The fact that they belonged to different sects, and not to one, was unknown until called out by someone who desired to show, to the glory of God, how holiness united the children of God and destroyed all sect lines and isms.
“Now it is just here we come to ‘the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God; unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’ Now what would the multiplication of such meetings be but the destruction of sectism and the unifying of the body of Christ? Well, that is just what holiness does. And it is destined to increase in its influence and power. If people say holiness will break up the churches, meaning the sects, we say, “yes.” But it will save THE CHURCH.
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The divisions, the tall-steepled ecclesiasticism, the pride of our beloved isms, must pass away; they ‘shall not be remembered nor come into mind.’”
Written by the editor of Good Way, another anti-sectarian holiness publication.
Published and shared in The Gospel Trumpet, November 15, 1882
When God’s two witnesses, the Word and the Spirit, stood upon their feet, and then ascended to their rightful place in the ecclesiastical heavens, as a result of the great holiness movement of the latter 1880’s, it drew great attention from Christendom world-wide. It was not something that merely happened in a corner and went unnoticed. It got the attention of friends and foes alike. God confirmed His Word with signs following. Great grace was upon all those who set themselves apart to God in entire sanctification. Many miraculous healings took place in answer to their prayers, such as the opening of blind eyes, and healing of many incurable diseases. At this time, God restored all the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, to the church and manifested His great power through His people in a mighty way. The earth was lighted with His glory! It was the light of the evening time! This manifestation of God’s glory must needs take place just prior to the passing of the second woe of the sixth trumpet. (Rev. 11:11-14.)But there is one more great event that must also take place before “the second woe is past,” and it is portrayed in verse 13. Let us now take a close look at it.
“And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.”Rev. 11:13
Notice that this is the last great event to take place just before the second woe passes away (verse 14). Also take note that the symbolism here is drawn from both the realm of nature as well as human life. This indicates that it has both a political and spiritual significance. Where shall we look for a great world-wide upheaval (earthquake) that produced both political and spiritual ramifications just as the Word and the Spirit reached the height of their testimony in the ecclesiastical heavens, or church realm? I believe we find it demonstrated very clearly when we turn our focus on the decade of 1910 to 1920 A. D.
What happened in this remarkable decade of world history? The first great World War took place! World War I was a world-wide political upheaval that shook governments and nations out of the places they had held for centuries! (World War II was no doubt an aftershock of this great “earthquake.”) Now, observe carefully this quotation from Wikipedia:
“The Ottoman entry into World War I along the Central Powers occurred on 11 November 1914. The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I ended with the signing of the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918. The Occupation of Constantinople by British, French and Italian forces occurred on 13 November 1918. … The abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) on 1 November 1922 ended the Ottoman Empire, which had lasted since 1299. On 11
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November 1922, at the Conference of Lausanne, the sovereignty of the GNAT exercised by the Government in Ankara over Turkey was recognized. The last sultan, Mehmed VI, departed the Ottoman capital, Istanbul, on 17 November 1922. The legal position was solidified with the signing of Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923.”
Now, let’s read what F. G. Smith wrote in 1906:
“At the time the witnesses reach their greatest exaltation, a great earthquake takes place upon earth, and the tenth part of the city falls. The nature of the symbol would point us to some political upheaval. Since the great city of Babylon is composed of different divisions … it is a matter of doubt as to which part of the city is here referred to; but most probably that of the hierarchy as embraced in one of the ten divisions or kingdoms. Since the fulfillment of this prediction is yet future [he didn’t know in 1906 just how close it really was!] I speak with hesitation and wait for the event to make all clear. It is probable, however, that either in this political revolution, or about that time, the Ottoman power will be overthrown … .” – The Revelation Explained, pages 209, 210.
It was the great earthquake of World War I that brought about the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire which led to its complete dissolution in 1922. Notice the very next announcement that followed the description of the great earthquake in Revelation11:13, is, “The second woe is past; and, behold the third woe cometh quickly.” Rev. 11:14. But before we proceed to consider the third woe, which is ushered upon the inhabitants of the earth by the sounding of the seventh trumpet, let’s take a closer look at the details of the great earthquake that ended the second woe. The following quote is again taken from Wikipedia:
“World War I (or the First World War, often abbreviated as WWI or WW1) was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously known as the Great War or "the war to end all wars," it led to the mobilization of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated 9 million combatant deaths and 13 million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the related 1918 Spanish flu pandemic caused another 17–100 million deaths worldwide, including an estimated 2.64 million Spanish flu deaths in Europe and as many as 675,000 Spanish flu deaths in the United States.”
Now, here is where this subject gets extremely interesting to me! With the “great earthquake” (a phenomenon from the department of nature) described in Revelation 11:13 came also the slaying “of men seven thousand” (objects from the department of human life). “Slain of men seven thousand” would naturally signify a massive, wholesale slaughtering of men, “seven” standing as a symbol of completeness. Obviously, there was a literal historic record of unprecedented destruction of human life during World War I. But this symbol, being drawn from the department of “human life,” may also signify a massive spiritual slaying of souls! It signifies, to me, that something takes place at the same time this great political upheaval transpires that affects the state of
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affairs in the ecclesiastical heavens, or church realm! There comes with the great earthquake, a slaying of the spiritual lives of men. In looking back on history, we find that this was EXACTLY what happened.
World War I took place during the years 1914 – 1918. What else took place during those same years? The Gospel Trumpet Company, the greatest voice and influence in the earth for radical Christianity was shaken out of its place also! These gospel publishers compromised their fundamental teachings during the very time World War I was taking place. Not only was the Gospel Trumpet publishing work affected, but the entire realm of Christendom was affected. The second decade of the 20th century not only changed the course of political affairs and nations, but it also changed the course of spiritual affairs and churches. Nothing was ever the same after that. That decade set the course for the ending of the gospel age.
In the year 1999, Time-Life Books released a series of ten books covering the major events of each decade of the 20th century. How would you suppose they titled the book that covered the events of 1910 to 1920? It was titled, “The End of Innocence.” While that decade brought an end to political establishments (which included the overthrowing of the Ottoman power – the second woe of the 6th trumpet), it also brought an end to established landmarks, standards, and sacred Biblical traditions that had been held in the ecclesiastical realm for centuries. The spiritual course of religious institutions was altered in that turbulent decade, as well as the political course of nations. This set the stage for the liberalization and moral corrupting of society in general. In other words, the way was opened for the moral decline and decay that Jesus prophesied would take place just before His second coming, when conditions would become “as it was in the days of Noah” and “as it was in the days of Lot” (Luke 17:26-30). Who cannot see the steady progress of moral corruption that has taken place throughout the world ever since the time of World War I? It has progressed steadily from then until now. This is bringing about the quick approach of the third woe, the sounding of the seventh trumpet. Referring to the state of affairs He foresaw would be prevailing at this time, Jesus said, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8.
An anonymous writer from China very accurately pinpointed the time in which we now live in an article titled, “Just Before Jesus Comes.” Think about this:
“It would be noticed in the scriptures that the apostasy is not concerning education or fine churches or able ministers or large congregations or the progress of intellectual and material prosperity. But it would be a breaking down of faith and a denial of the power of God in Holy Ghost experience. There is at present well-nigh a universal landslide toward higher criticism which is lower infidelism. There is also a denial of the supernatural working of God in regeneration, definite answers to prayers, and the revelation of divine things to the soul by the Holy Spirit, which make up the religion of the apostles and their successors.
“We are then to expect great deceptions and delusions, deceiving if it were possible the very elect. We may also expect great advances in forms of godliness in the last days.
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Faith will not become low through worldliness and the denial of the Scriptures only, but also through the remarkable imitative faiths which will work on in their deceptive power. These movements will become an unseen influence in the air around us and the atmosphere will be peopled with evil spirits and heavy with the depression of hell. These evil spirits will do their utmost to injure, mislead, confuse, and depress the children of God. Our bodies will be afflicted. It will press in on our minds and becloud our souls. All kinds of strange feelings and new and peculiar trials will come to us, a surprising lack of desire and energy Godward, a spiritual deadness, a mental heaviness, a lethargy of soul; an alarming desire for forbidden things and a peculiar delight and fascination in any of the world’s pleasures we dare to taste.
“It will be very difficult to preach the Word in liberty and power. It will be very difficult to give attention to the Word when it is preached. It will be very difficult to get real earnest and continue in prayer. This is the atmosphere in which we must battle as the last days darken around us. Oh, let us be strong in the Lord, for Satan will no doubt bring a mysterious power to bear on our minds and wills which will make it exceedingly difficult to walk closely with God and very easy to live in the flesh.
“We will be amazed at the power he can use against us, and it will become very hard to serve God faithfully and to pray earnestly for it will seem as if everything without us and almost everything within us has conspired to keep us from following Christ all the way, and to influence us to compromise. We will be surrounded by a worldly atmosphere that will draw us away from God, that will render prayer half-hearted and that will deaden our spiritual senses to the realities of heavenly things and the glorious presence of our Lord. It will become very easy to slip out of communion with God, and harder than ever to keep communication open between our souls and Heaven.
“Already we feel the beginning of the influence of the inrush of these things upon us. [This was written several decades ago!] Worldliness in various forms weaves the ever-expanding power over many congregations. Things are not only allowed but are unblushingly organized, yes, organized now, which would not have been possible a generation ago. The craze of the drama and the exciting round of pleasure is catered to in connection with many places of worship to the destroying of deep spirituality and bringing to an end of revivals and also the furtherance of the spirit of compromise with doubtful things and associations.
“There is a terrible decline of faith and true religion all over the world at this moment. We do not deny that there may be here and there a few exceptions. But looking at Christendom as a whole, it presents a sad picture. Reviewing these matters, do they not constitute a loud call to the servants of Christ to arise and seek during the intervening short period to make the most of this the day of opportunity before their Lord and Master summons them to give an account of their labors at the Judgment Seat of Christ?”
What solemn truth this anonymous writer from China has set before us! Apostle Paul prophesied of this very time, saying, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,
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blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”2 Tim. 3:1-6. “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Tim. 4:2-4.
We are now in the time when the preaching of the unadulterated Word is “out of season” as far as society in general is concerned. Fabulous religion is what most people are attracted to today, if they are inclined toward any religion at all. When it comes to the true religion of Jesus Christ, which involves denying oneself, taking up the cross daily, following in His steps, and sacrificing all that pertains to one’s own life for His sake and the gospel’s (Luke 9:23-24), you can scarcely find one among ten thousand who is interested in doing that. But what brought our society to this place?
During World War I, women found themselves moved out of the place they had traditionally held as “keepers at home” (Tit. 2:5) and taking their place in the work force to replace the men who had gone to fight the war. The “long hair” that had been for centuries traditionally esteemed as a woman’s “glory, given to her for a covering” (1 Cor. 11:15), began to be regarded as a nuisance in the workplace. So, they cast that old godly tradition aside and began to cut off their long hair. But that was only the beginning! By the next decade, the 1920’s, women of the world, in general, had taken on a completely different look. Departing from traditional standards of “modest apparel,” they began to expose their flesh in a bolder manner than previous generations would have dared. (Remember, women are the sex model, and “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world!”) There was also a fashion trend in the 1920’s toward apparel that exhibits the pride of life and promotes the lust of the eyes. The popular attitude toward past traditions became: “Those were merely cultural standards of an older society – we have progressed and advanced beyond that now – those old customs were just merely “traditions of men.”
The fact is all men endorse traditions of some sort. There are good traditions and bad traditions – godly traditions and ungodly traditions. In the beginning of the gospel age, Apostle Peter told the Gentile converts that they were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ from the vain conversation, or conduct, they had received by tradition from their fathers (1 Pet. 1:18-19). Salvation through the blood of Jesus introduced a new manner of life and new traditions to them. The new Christian traditions were wholesome, godly ones, that encompassed all aspects of their lives, including their manner of dress, as Peter states in chapter three of this same epistle. It takes the leadership and guiding light of the Holy Spirit to direct a Christian into behaviors and practices that are pleasing to the Lord and in harmony with the spirit of holiness and the principles of the Word of God.
But what manner of spirit is it that causes people to cast aside wholesome, godly traditions based on godly principles in exchange for traditions that give license to the lust
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of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life? We can be sure it is NOT the Spirit of Christ! The Spirit of Christ always directs men and women to “make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:14). As I have said before, I say again,it only takes a little sowing to the flesh to reap a bountiful harvest of corruption!“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Gal. 6:7-8.We are now reaping the harvest of seeds that were sown to the flesh a hundred years ago when professed Christians made compromises regarding those “little things” the Holy Spirit had given them a sensitivity in their consciences about.
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.”1 Tim. 4:1-2.
Who would have thought in 1915 that a hundred years later such a thing as “gay marriage” would be made legal in the United States of America, a nation founded on, and that once practiced, “Christian” principles. The consciences of men and women have become “seared,” “Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”Eph. 4:19. “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: … And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient [not proper].”Rom. 1:24, 28.
The corrupt tree has taken deep roots and is now loaded with ripened fruit. Times have indeed become “as in the days of Lot!” The corruption and moral decay of our present-day society seems to be getting just about as “full-blown” as it can get, or as God has ever allowed it to go in the history of past societies. The cup of iniquity is very near full to the brim! Not only have the “nations” been shaken out of their original places; so have the so-called “Christian” denominations. Some denominations are even condoning homosexuality now to the point of allowing those who practice this gross sin to officiate in positions of church leadership! How much farther will God allow things to go? We don’t know. But this we do know: “ … now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven (the ecclesiastical [church] heaven). And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made [all denominations are man-made], that those things which cannot be shaken [the real, faithful followers of Jesus Christ] may remain.”Heb. 12:26b, 27. Jesus also said that before His second coming “the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” (Matt. 24:29). Thank God, there is still a faithful “remnant” who, though “affrighted” by the shaking, are remaining steadfast and holding on to the faith that was once delivered to the saints, giving glory to God.
We are now at the time when, as portrayed in Revelation 20:7-9, the hosts of Gog and Magog are gathered together, “the number of whom is as the sand of the sea,” and have gone up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about on every
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side. We are now passing through that little, short span of time just before fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours them.
Now, just as it was in the days of Noah, few souls are responding to the wooing call of God’s tender Spirit. God said then, “My spirit shall not always strive with man.” And, as then, God is seeing now that the wickedness of man is becoming GREAT in the earth. The thoughts and imaginations of men’s hearts in general are only evil continually. The earth is corrupt and full of violence, and the end of all flesh is coming up before Him (see Gen. 6:1-13). Television and Hollywood’s movies are hastening the process right along! The time is fast approaching when, as in the days of Noah, God’s Spirit will no longer be able to strive with man. Fornication, adultery, lasciviousness, multitudes of children being born to parents out of wedlock, with no one to teach them anything about morality or righteousness; no one to lay any basic foundation in their hearts or minds for God to work with – these are the things that have created a society of morally calloused, spiritually insensitive souls; seared consciences that God’s holy, tender Spirit cannot penetrate or work with. And it is because of these very things that God’s wrath comes upon the children of disobedience (see Eph. 5:3-6). As God looks on the rapid corruption and violence that is now filling the earth, time is winding down, and He is finishing the mystery of His redemptive plan for mankind; getting ready to wrap things up very shortly! Just as when, in the days of Lot, God could not find enough righteous people in Sodom to justify sparing the city any longer, so it will be throughout the whole world at the ending of this gospel age. Think once more about the words of Jesus: “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8. Indeed, the seventh angel is “about to sound!” When he does, time will be no longer, and the last of the last three woes will come!
“And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” Gen. 6:13.
The Seventh and Last Trumpet – The Third and Final Woe!
“And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth.”Rev. 11:15-18.
The third and final woe comes with the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet, at which time the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, who will dispose of them all according to His righteous judgment. He will resurrect the dead of all ages in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump (I
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reaction toward Him in the dispensation of time wherein He took unto Himself His great power and reigned. What dispensation of time was that?
After His resurrection, Christ said to His disciples, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you … .” Matt. 28:18-20.“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Mark 16:16. David also prophesied in Psalm 110:1, “The LORD (Jehovah) said unto my Lord (Jesus Christ), Sit thou at my right
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” In Ephesians 1:17-22, Apostle Paul speaks of the great and marvelous power that God gave to Christ when He “set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places” and “put all things under his feet.” And in Eph. 4:8 he says, “When he (Christ) ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.” This is speaking of Christ’s redemptive reign – the time when He became Mediator between God and man, and the gift of salvation and all the benefits that accompany salvation (seePsa. 103:2-5for insight to those benefits) became freely offered to the entire world. It is in the present dispensation that all men have the privilege of being made “complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power”(Col. 2:10). In reference to this wonderful dispensation, Paul says, “For he (Christ) must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” I Cor. 15: 25-26. Jesus Christ proclaimed to His servant, John, on the isle of Patmos, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” Rev. 1:18. Jesus Christ is the only King in history who ever gained control and power over hades (the realm of departed spirits) and death, and holds their “keys” in His own hand. And He will sit and reign triumphantly at His Father’s right hand until the appointed time for the last enemy, death, to be destroyed.
The sounding of the seventh trumpet marks the destruction of this last enemy. It also marks the end of the redemptive reign of Christ and His office as Intercessor and Mediator on behalf of man’s salvation. It is the time when all who despised His gospel and free offer of salvation that was extended to them during His redemptive reign will be subdued and made his “footstool.” He will leave His seat at the right hand of the Father and will come to judge the world at that time. The gospel dispensation will be over. Opportunity for repentance and hope of mercy and forgiveness of sins will be forever past. All who refused, or neglected, to “kiss the Son” (Psa. 2:12) in this present day of grace will then fall beneath His awful wrath (the entire 2nd Psalm actually parallels with Revelation 11:15-18). The Stone that the builders rejected will then fall with fury on every soul who refused to fall on Him and be broken, and “will grind him to powder” (Matt. 21:42-44). Those who heard the gospel message, but responded in their hearts, “we will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14, 27), will then fall prostrate before Him, pleading for mercy, only to hear Him say, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”(Matt. 25:41). So shall Christ, the
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Judge of the whole earth, put all His enemies under His feet as He ushers in the final and GREATEST WOE ever known to humanity since the beginning of creation!
Thus, committing all His enemies to eternal destruction, “according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” (Phil 3:21), “then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” I Cor. 15:24. This delivering up of the kingdom to God, the Father, will take place when Christ, the Son and the King, returns from His “far country” (see Luke 19:11-28) to take account of His servants and receive the kingdom His Father gave Him during His redemptive reign, while seated at His right hand. This is the kingdom that men have been pressing into since the days of John the Baptist(Luke 16:16)– the one of which Jesus said to Nicodemus, “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter …” (see John 3:3-8). All who thus did enter and, like the apostle John, were faithful “in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:9), He will deliver up at this time to God, even His Father, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.” And, at this same moment all His enemies, and all who refused to allow Him to reign over them, will be instantly subdued for all eternity! As surely as all opportunities for entering Noah’s ark ceased at the moment God shut the door, so will all further opportunities for entering into the kingdom of God cease at the moment Christ returns to this planet earth. “… Behold, NOW is the accepted time; behold NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION” (II Cor. 6:2), while Christ is yet seated for a little while at His Father’s right hand, interceding for the lost, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”(II Pet. 3:9). Friend, if you are still outside the kingdom, will you not hasten and enter by being “born of the Spirit,” before the redemptive reign of Jesus Christ ends? If you wait until He leaves the right hand of the Father and comes in the clouds of heaven, it will be too late!
So just where are we in the stream of time right now? The second woe of the sixth trumpet passed in 1922, when the Ottoman Empire was totally abolished. We are now passing through that little, short space of time just before the seventh trumpet sounds and the third woe comes. Could the third woe follow the ending of the second by approximately one century? Other great prophetic and historic events have followed one another at century intervals. This is a sobering thought to ponder! The times and seasons are in God’s hands, but He has warned us that the third woe (the sounding of the seventh trumpet) will come “quickly,” after the second woe is passed.
“Lo! The angel now is standing On the sea and on the land;
How his voice the air is rending, As to God he lifts his hand! [Rev. 10:5-7]
What an awful, awful message! Help us, Lord, this truth to see:
When the seventh trumpet thunders, Then shall time no longer be.
“One more trumpet yet to summon Us before the judgment seat;
Then the time of our frail planet Will be said to be complete.
How the wicked will be wailing, And the righteous overjoyed,
When with fire the heavens are burning, And the earth shall be destroyed.”
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– W. G. Schell, Evening Light Songs, #398
“We tread upon the awful verge Of judgment’s great and dreadful day;
It’s flames shall all the world submerge, And sweep the sinner’s hope away.
“In all the earth, and in the sky, The hand of God His tokens writes;
The coming of the Lord is nigh, O sinner, wake while love invites.
“If God commanded men of yore, Behold, He cometh; watch and pray,
To us He speaketh much the more, As we approach the solemn day.
“We hear the rumbling of a crash, The crisis of eternity;
The instant of that lightning flash Will fix fore’er thy destiny.”
– D. S. Warner, Truth In Song, #125
Darkened Counsel and Perverted Interpretations
“Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” Job 38:2.
I doubt there has been any ideology in modern history that has better served in diverting the focus of professed Church of God people from the true basis of Christian unity than the introduction of Mr. W. S. Goodnight’s “line of thought” regarding dispensationalism, or seven church ages. The original proclamation of the “evening light” reformation was:
“We are in the evening of THE DISPENSATION DAY,
And the gospel light has scattered all the night away … .”
– B. E. Warren, Evening Light Songs #14
What “dispensation day” was the songwriter talking about? The same one that Apostle Paul wrote about in Eph. 1:10:“That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things IN CHRIST, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even IN HIM.” (Emphasis mine.)
There is ONE dispensation day – the Gospel Day. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Gal. 4:4-5. The entire Gospel dispensation marks “the fulness of times.” Don’t ever forget that. God’s purpose throughout the entire dispensation, from start to finish, has been to gather together all things on earth and in heaven IN CHRIST. Jesus proclaimed, “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”John 10:16.
God’s whole purpose in extending His providential hand toward the evening of the Gospel Day and bringing His Word forth once again from the rubbish of apostate religion was that He might once again gather together all things in Christ – that He might gather
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together His sheep from all places where they had been scattered by the cloudy and dark centuries of oppression by false shepherds. And He did gather them together, not to a movement, but to Christ, through the proclamation of His gospel in its fullness once more “by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven” (1 Pet 1:12). This is how “the mystery of God should be finished” when the last trumpet “may be about to sound” (Rev. 10:7). As Colossians 1:17-28 clearly reveals, the “mystery of God” “is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach … that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” This is the message of the evening of the gospel dispensation day. This is the “reformation glory” in its completeness.
But the simple message got perverted by some and counsel became darkened by dispensational fables. These fables served as a smoke screen that have dimmed and obscured the truth and simplicity of the Gospel to many minds. Let us take a look now at some of these fables.
I will now quote a few passages from “The Seven Churches of Asia,” by J. F. Lawson. Lawson was one who endorsed and helped to promote W. S. Goodnight’s “line of thought.” He says:
“The gospel day, from Christ to the end of symbolic language, which, no doubt, is near the time of His second coming, is divided into seven candlesticks or church ages. The first ended about 270 A. D., the second about 530 A.D., the third about 1530, the fourth about 1730, the fifth about 1880, the sixth about 1930, and the seventh about 1980. The day and hour of the coming of our Lord is not known, but surely we can see the ‘fig tree budding,’ and can know the end is nigh even at the door.
“I see a spiritual application, of the conditions and surroundings of each city, in which the church was located, which fit the spiritual conditions and surroundings of the church, in that particular age of time. A more detailed explanation of some of these points touched on in this booklet are given in our book, ‘Revelation, With Gospel and Prophecy.’”
He then proceeds to focus on each of the seven churches of Asia in Scriptural order and to show how he believes they each one symbolize a particular church age. After endeavoring to show how the “Philadelphia” church symbolizes a church age from 1880 to 1930 A. D., he says, “Near the end of this Philadelphia candlestick age, which ended 1930, some began to depart from the faith and slip from the standards of the Word of God which were being taught.”
That backsliding actually began about 20 years prior to 1930, but some were too blinded by the subtle spirit of compromise to understand what was going on until its fruit began coming to a ripened head around 1930. Mr. Lawson then endeavors to show how, in 1930, the church entered into the “Laodicean age.” He says:
“We are now coming to the last candlestick age. We are told in Rev. 1:20 that the seven candlesticks are the seven churches of Asia. We are told that those who overcome
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in the Philadelphia age God would make pillars in His church in the Laodicean age. There is new truth to be revealed in this last age which will never be accepted by those who are not victorious in the truth of the previous age. …
“Now let us notice the city of Laodicea which is located southeast of Philadelphia and due east of Ephesus, the church of the apostles’ time. This would mean the spiritual climate is getting warmer and more light as it has moved east from Philadelphia. The seventh candlestick age carries light on the Revelation and prophecy that the Philadelphia church age did not have. Its site being located on seven hills would mean that the light of the seven candlestick ages is revealed. We are told in Rev. 10:1-3 that a mighty angel (the ministry of the seventh candlestick age) ‘set his right foot upon the sea (Catholicism), and his left foot upon the earth (man-made earthly institutions), "and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth, and when he had cried seven thunders uttered their voices.’ This is the ministry who came out of the Philadelphia age with victory in all the light they had, who now have received the accepted the light of the seventh seal age, whom God is making pillars in His temple. The voice of the seven thunders is bringing the understanding of the seven ages corresponding to the seven mountains on which the city of Laodicea was located. Only a few accept this message, consequently only a few will become ‘pillars in the temple of our God.’
“This city on seven hills was drained by two brooks. In this seventh seal age, there are two streams which drain the city, the true church, keeping it clean and removing those who will not walk in the light. One is, those that say, ‘What I have is good enough for me, and I am not looking for anything else; I am with a group whose prestige and honor I will not sacrifice.’ There are a great number who have accepted the light of the sixth candlestick age, but who will not have the light of the seventh. They fall into a stream of spiritual stagnation, ‘drawing back,’ refusing and fighting the truth of God. This is one of the streams that drain the spiritual city, and many are drowning in its waters of fearfulness. I am personally acquainted with many preachers who accepted the light of the Revelation message of this seventh candlestick age, had it preached to their congregations, and said it was the best thing they had heard. As time went on, they found the group they held to had rejected the message. They decided to recant rather than to lose their prestige and standing with the group. This proved conclusively that they loved the applause of the group of old association more than they loved light and truth.
“The second stream, which is draining the Laodicean candlestick age and causing the unstable ones to fall, is the stream of compromise. About the closing of the Philadelphia candlestick age (1930) many, who called themselves Church of God, had slipped from the practices of the standards of truth they claimed to stand for. The standard of holiness was lowered so as to tolerate worldliness, movie-going, and such like. Some ministers scarcely mention divine healing and, of course, they do not practice it. Jesus is the head of the church ONLY IN NAME. The governing power, that Jesus should have, is now vested in the ministerial body, who meets annually at a certain headquarters, with all minor details and schedules working out of that. All local pastors and preachers, in order to be in good standing, must center all things toward this centralized movement. I say this to show how some have compromised the truth once preached in the sixth
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as a part of what the seventh seal brought to view. Therefore, the seventh seal content covers the entire gospel dispensation. Also, the sounding of the seventh trumpet clearly symbolizes the consummation of the kingdom of Christ at the ending of the gospel age. The efforts of dispensationalists to spiritualize it and make it fit some special “church-age message,” just prior to the end, has only served as a perversion of the actual context. Any unbiased mind can easily perceive that no such thing is even hinted at, much less symbolized, in the context of Revelation 11:15-18.Unfortunately, W. S. Goodnight taught his followers “to believe that the truth of the book [of Revelation] will never be arrived at with anything other than a line of thought altogether spiritual.” Surely, such an unbalanced line of thinking was not in the mind of Jesus Christ when He “signified it by His angel unto His servant John.”
I would now like to quote from an article written by Lawrence D. Pruitt many decades ago, titled “The Meaning of the Seven Churches of Asia in Revelation.”
“… The entire universal church throughout the gospel age is symbolized by the figure ‘seven.’ The scope of the prophetic feature of this symbolization is not derived from the churches themselves as such, or the messages to them, but rather from the symbolic number ‘seven’ alone.
“Any congregation of the church in any period of the Christian dispensation is subject to the same condemnation or commendation as any one of the seven churches if it is found in a similar condition. One authority has rightly said, ‘Many expositors have imagined that these epistles to the seven churches were mystical prophecies of seven distinct periods, into which the whole term, from the apostles’ days to the end of the world, would be divided. This theory, though very old, has arisen from imagination, and finds no basis in reason or fact from the Scriptures.’
“Adam Clarke writes in A. D. 1831: ‘I do not perceive any metaphorical or allegorical meaning in the epistles to these churches. I consider the churches as real; and that their spiritual state is here really and literally pointed out; and that they have no reference to the state of the church in all ages of the world, as has been imagined; and that the notion of what has been termed the Ephesian state, the Smyrnian state, the Pergamenian state, the Thyatirian state, etc., is unfounded, absurd, and dangerous; and that such expositions should not be entertained by any who wish to arrive at a sober and rational knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.’
“F. G. Smith writes, ‘These churches can scarcely be symbols of chronological epochs for the reason that they are themselves the object of symbolization. We know that type and antitype cannot be united in the same things, that they are mutually exclusive; and I
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fail to see how a particular church can be a direct object of symbolization and at the same time a symbol of something else. ‘The seven candlesticks which thou sawest ARE the seven churches.’ (Rev. 1:20b.)
“Again, Smith says, ‘Some have assumed that the seven were selected in order to set forth seven successive historical epochs in the Christian church. The record shows, however, that instead of the seven being symbols, they are themselves the objects of symbolization. Furthermore, the actual facts of ecclesiastical history, in their successive order of unfolding, do not agree with the messages as given to these churches.’
“… Brethren, let us endeavor to hold fast to sound doctrine, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
– Lawrence D. Pruitt
As we have noted on page 3 of his book, Chart Explanation of the Revelation, W. S. Goodnight made the statement, “Some errors have been culled out and many more truths added.” But oh, what a wonderful thing it would have been if he had simply “culled” the entire error and returned to the original “truth” that brought forth the “evening light” reformation! Goodnight stated, “We did not have it in its fullness in the sixth seal age, as in the seventh.” But let us now examine the “basis” of the truth that was taught at the beginning of what Goodnight calls “the sixth seal age” and ask ourselves how much “fuller” it can get.
Those who have accepted Goodnight’s seven-church-age theory often refer to the early saints of the “evening light” reformation as the “sixth seal people.” Although some of those pioneers, it is evident, believed that the shakings and awakenings that were taking place world-wide at that time are portrayed under the symbolism of the sixth seal of Revelation 6:12-17, that was far from being their identity or their message. Their identity and their message was Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and the great necessity of us entering into the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming crucified with Him, and filled with His Spirit. The gathering together into one body was all about being gathered together UNTO HIM; not a call for people to gather themselves TO THEM or to some special view of interpreting prophecy. CHRIST WAS THE FOCUS! The message was all about people being “woven together by His Spirit.”
This, dear reader, is absolutely what the “evening light” reformation was, and is, all about. Christ, and the fullness of His grace offered to mankind through the administration of the Holy Spirit, is the message of the church of God. When the focus of any group of people becomes anything other than that, or if the message becomes diverted to “seals,” “trumpets,” and “church ages,” that people have entered a by-path of error. Inevitably, when people go down that road, the focus becomes themselves and their “special message” for the church, rather than Christ, Whose substance alone creates the church. It becomes a form of idolatry! Their special message becomes their god, and to it and to themselves they seek to gather the people. A “look on us” mentality never fails to accompany the message, and the “preachers” of the special message begin to view themselves, more or less, as mediators between God and man.
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Preacher exaltation has obviously characterized the seventh seal/trumpet message since its beginning.
Jesus said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” John 12:32. An old
song, written by Johnson Oatman, Jr., says:
“Don’t exalt the preacher, don’t exalt the pew,
Preach the gospel simple, full and free;
Prove Him, and you will find that promise is true,
‘I’ll draw all men unto me.’”
– Echoes From Heaven #5, verse 3
When the focus of the people whom God uses, or who are involved in any particular reformation movement, becomes “the movement” itself, instead of Christ, the glory of the reform departs from those people whose focus becomes thus diverted. This was basically what happened during the decade of 1910 – 1920 to many who were involved in the “evening light” reformation movement. The pure gospel message, which God had been honoring and blessing for 30 years was taking effect worldwide. Christ was being lifted up and the results were exciting – all men were being drawn! My grandfather, who was born in 1899 and remembered the marvelous events that were taking place in his boyhood days, said it looked like the Gospel Trumpet movement was going to take the whole world for Christ. It was, at that time, one of the fastest growing religious movements on the face of the earth. It was a Christ-oriented movement bearing a Christ-oriented message. But the devil went to work to divert the focus and get many of the leaders “movement-minded” instead of “Christ-minded.” And that was where the “reformation glory” began to depart from those who allowed their focus to became thus diverted! As the song says, Lord, “Keep me, lest diverging, I should miss the goal!” To avoid “diverging,” we must never find our identity in anything else but Christ, the living Vine. It is only through the sap of His Spirit that those fruit-bearing branches who abide in Him are identified. They alone are God’s church.
In Numbers 21:8-9, we find that God directed Moses to make a brazen serpent and put it on a pole for the people to look at and be healed of their snake bites. This serpent was actually a type of Jesus Christ being lifted up on the cross (see John 3:14-15). But in 2 Kings 18:4, we find that the very brazen serpent God used to bring blessing and healing to the children of Israel became a stumbling block and an object of worship, or idolatry. Their focus became diverted from what the serpent was meant to represent to the serpent itself, and they worshiped it. This very thing has happened regarding “reformations” of the past that God has used to bring blessing and spiritual healing to mankind. Some have allowed their focus and their admiration to be turned upon “the reformation” itself instead of what it represented. In so doing, they lost the essence of what the reformation was about in the first place.
God is a jealous God. His glory will He not give to another. He intends that men should never glory in anything but “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (See Gal. 6:14.) It is His Son Jesus, the Savior of the world, that He wants to see glorified and lifted up.
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“Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, [or John Wickliffe, or Martin Luther, or Menno Simons, or John Bunyan, or John Wesley, or D. S. Warner], or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” 1 Cor. 3:21-23. When anyone’s “reformation glory” becomes anything other than “the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” “through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thes. 2:13-14), they are glorying in the wrong thing, and their glorying is not good.
In his book, “Birth of a Reformation – Life and Labors of D. S. Warner,” A. L. Byers says, “The great movement is in the world, and any attempt to ‘corner’ it or to limit it to a particular body of people could only result in making that body a sect, or faction, while the movement itself would proceed independently. [Note: That is because Christ was, and is, the animating force of the movement, and Christ cannot be cornered or limited.] The true spirit of the reformation will be, however, with those who measure to its standard, whether they be few or many, and God will manifest himself accordingly. … Many are the counterfeit movements today. One must ignore every influence of man and then rely on the witness of both the Word and the Spirit in order to be guided aright.”
– Birth of a Reformation, pages 28, 29
W. S. Goodnight said that people did not have the light in its fullness in what he called “the sixth seal age.” But they had “Christ” and had obtained the glory of Christ “through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” They were “strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man,” Christ was abiding in their hearts by faith, they were “rooted and grounded in love,” and “filled with all the fulness of God” The fullness of God within them caused them to “be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (See Eph. 3:16-19).
This doesn’t sound like they were lacking any spiritual illumination to me! God’s Word says in 1 John 1:5: “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” Whenever people get filled with the fullness of God, in Whom is no darkness at all, His saturating presence in them dispels all their darkness too!
In Colossians 2:8-10 we read, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” What light is fuller than the discovery of completeness in Jesus Christ? Notice the words of this song, written by one of those old brethren whom Goodnight would have us to believe was a “sixth seal” man:
“In Jesus Christ I am complete, My soul is cleansed from sin;
His love in me is ever sweet, His grace abounds within.
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“In Jesus Christ I am complete, My sins are all forgiv’n;
To do His will, it is my meat, My name’s enrolled in heav’n.
“In Jesus Christ I am complete, My needs are all supplied;
In Him I have a safe retreat, My soul is sanctified.
“I’m in the living Church of God, In Christ I am complete;
Supported by His precious Word, I’ll worship at His feet.
Chorus:
“Complete, complete, I’m all complete, Oh, glory to His name!
Redeemed, redeemed, just now complete, His love I will proclaim.”
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– S. L. Speck, Songs of the Evening Light, #15, published in 1897
On page 116 of The Revelation with Gospel and Prophecy, attributed to Goodnight, Pendleton, and McAlister, Isaiah 30:26 is quoted: “Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.”
The authors go on to say on page 117, “The moon, the Old Testament, is to be bright as the sun, and the sun, the gospel, seven times brighter in this seventh seal and seventh trumpet age. All six of the past ages are to be understood in the fulness, making light clear in the gospels, Revelation, and prophecy.”
But D. S. Warner, whom these men declared to be living in the sixth seal age, when they supposedly did not have truth “in its fullness,” said:
“We stand in the glory that Jesus has given,
The moon as the Dayspring doth shine;
The light of the sun is NOW equal to seven,
So bright is the glory divine.”
– Evening Light Songs #2, verse 2
D. S. Warner perceived no need for a seventh church age to usher in the fullness of light for him. He found the light that was “equal to seven” (complete) by simply walking “in the light with Jesus, He shines in the narrow way.” He found that Christ was his “perfect light.” That does not mean that the path of the just is not as a shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day (Prov. 4:18), but it does mean there’s no need for the opening of some new “church age” to bring men to the light. The light has always been here. As Apostle John said, the truth “dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever.” 2 John 2. The focus of “reformations” has simply been about returning to the light of that
So, how is it that Mr. Goodnight and his associates assumed that those they thought to be in the “seventh seal” church age, following 1930, had more completeness of light than those before them? What was the “light” that those before them lacked, or what completeness did they lack? Their deficiency of light, obviously, was not Christ or His Word! So, what did they lack? Ah, it was merely that they lacked their “line of thought” – their understanding and interpretation of prophecy!
But Jesus said, “Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.”Luke 11:35. There are some kinds of light that people will do well to never accept or walk in! Goodnight light is one of them!
Someone recently took issue with me for referring to the original seventh seal/trumpet doctrine as a “heresy.” He said a different view or interpretation of the prophecies of the--
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--book of Revelation does not constitute heresy. I agree that a differing interpretation is not necessarily a heresy. But when such interpretations divert the focus of the people from the real substance of the church, which is Jesus Christ, then it does become heretical. The Greek word for “heresies” is “hairesis,” which comes from “haireomai,” meaning “to take for oneself, i.e., to prefer: choose. A choice, i.e. (specifically) a party or disunion: heresy [which is the Greek word itself], sect.” Any doctrine that is promoted in such a way that it compels those who subscribe to it to make “party” choices can be rightly classified as a “heretical doctrine.” Is this not exactly what some who have promoted the seventh seal/trumpet doctrine in the past have done? Let us allow them to answer for themselves.
In the 1955 version of the book, The Revelation with Gospel and Prophecy, which is attributed to Lawson, Turnbow, and Rogers, reference is made on pages 213 – 215 to Gideon’s army and to Zechariah 13:8:“And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.” Their comments on this go as follows:
“The first part cut off would be the compromise element of the church [the Anderson, Indiana group]. Many are rejecting the truth that would restore the sixth seal standards of holiness and a divinely organized church. … We notice in Gideon’s army the ‘Fearful’ were the largest group. They were the 22,000 of Gideon’s army that chose to turn back. …”
“We notice the second group cut off would be typified by the 9,700 of Gideon’s army, who were put to a test and failed [the Guthrie, Oklahoma, or Faith and Victory group]. There are many today who are contending for the standards of the sixth seal age of truth – do not fellowship the compromise group, who will not have more light and truth on the Revelation message. God does not condemn them for standing for the truth they have, but for refusing more truth. Like the second group of Gideon’s army, they are tested with more light and truth; then to refuse means to be cut off. There are groupstoday, calling themselves Church of God, earnestly contending for the sixth seal standard of truth, as revealed unto Warner and others, who refuse to accept the Revelation message as revealed in the seventh seal age. This is the second group that will be cut off, for when Jesus moves out they are no better off than the compromise group. He will move out with the rejection of new light.
“Two groups having rejected light and been cut off, God has a remnant typified by the 300 left of Gideon’s army. … God took 300 and defeated the 135,000 Midianites; in like manner God can today take a small remnant, who will stand for this seventh seal message of revealed TRUTH and defeat all the Babylonian forces combined.”
Here we can discern clearly the heretical spirit of the doctrine! According to its earliest proponents, even those who were “standing for the truth” that was revealed under what they refer to as the “sixth seal age” were going to have to either “choose” to accept their “new light” on the prophecies of Revelation or else Jesus (the truth and the light) was going to move out and leave them for rejecting this new light.
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Now, what about that? Remember, the original Greek definition of the word “heresy” meant “to prefer, choose; a choice, i.e., (specifically) a party or disunion; sect.” These men were clearly saying that saints must choose to join their seventh seal Revelation message party or Jesus was going to leave them and cut them off! This is clearly a “heretical” message! Should we be surprised at all that now, that 90 years have come and gone, there are more splits and divisions among the adherents of this seventh seal message than any one of us could count on our fingers and toes combined? Instead of being a united remnant defeating “all the Babylonian forces combined,” it has become one of the worst mazes of confusion in all of Babylon combined!
Lawrence D. Pruitt’s Dream
In March 1967, Lawrence D. Pruitt, who was at that time the editor of the Faith and Victory paper, published by Faith Publishing House of Guthrie, Oklahoma, had a dream that seemed very strange to him, but significant – so much so that he published it in the May 1967 issue of the Faith and Victory. He then wrote as follows:
“The prophet Jeremiah wrote: ‘The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.’Jer. 23:28. All dreams are not from the Lord, but in the Bible are accounts where God frequently revealed His will or future events in dreams.
“In the early morning of March 29, 1967, this writer had a dream, and now he records it as dream. It seemed that I was with Bro. C. E. Orr, a pioneer minister of the Church of God with whom I had been well acquainted in his last years, but he had gone to Glory in September 1933. In the dream I could see that familiar form kneeling in prayer and hear him praying very earnestly. He was greatly burdened for the unsaved world in generaland for a number of souls in particular. In his earnest petition before the throne, he uttered these words: ‘Lord, you know that in about twelve years something very tragic is coming to pass, …’ With the hearing of these words, I awoke instantly, and the dream was deeply impressed on my heart and mind. The meaning of the dream, if any, I do not know. Whether this tragic event about 1979 A. D. is another global war or the end of the world, I cannot say. Obviously, it is a warning.”
Bro. Lawrence Pruitt had this dream just 8 months prior to my conversion and entrance into the kingdom of God by a heavenly birth, November 24, 1967. He republished this dream in the February 1975 issue of the Faith and Victory paper. As a young Christian, I pondered Bro. Lawrence Pruitt’s dream deeply in my heart. I wasn’t sure, but I felt in my heart it had a meaning. However, the year 1979 came and went and nothing of any significance happened; or so we thought. But hindsight is always clearer than foresight! Now that years have come and gone, and I look back on events as they began to unfold about 1979, or shortly thereafter, I believe I see the “something very--
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--tragic” that came to pass. This, I believe, is what Bro. Lawrence Pruitt’s dream was warning us about.
In my meditations and ponderings of events as I saw them unfold, I have become very much aware that, around the year 1979, something very tragic did indeed begin to happen among the remnant who were endeavoring to maintain the purity and integrity of the original “evening light” reformation truths. But it happened so stealthily, so subtly, and so underhandedly that hardly anyone, if anyone, realized what was happening until it was too late. It took the incremental process of 10 years for the enemy of souls to conceive and develop what he had in mind, but he successfully accomplished his purpose.
Just as the birth of a child is preceded by a secret conception, just so the conceptive element which brought forth a full-blown heresy and the birth of a new Seventh Seal/Trumpet sect in the year of 1989 was hidden and generally undetected in its embryonic stages. It was around the year 1979 when the subtle leaven of the Seventh Seal/Trumpet doctrine that originated with W. S. Goodnight began to work in one of the congregations of the “evening light” saints in the state of Ohio. It worked to such an extent that, by late 1980, the young Sister who was ministering in that congregation defected and took her stand with one of the old factions of the Seventh Seal/Trumpet movement located in Springfield, Ohio. This threw the congregation in Dayton, Ohio, where she had been ministering, into a state of turmoil, as well as causing doctrinal instability among some of its members. They too, began to entertain W. S. Goodnight’s “line of thought” regarding the “seven church ages,” etc.
In October 1981, Bro. O. C. Porter, of Guthrie, Oklahoma made a trip to Dayton, Ohio to hold a series of Revelation studies for the benefit of that congregation. Bro. Porter, being an elderly pioneer minister of the Church of God, born just 7 years after the death of D. S. Warner and possessing a broad field of knowledge regarding history and prophetic interpretation, explained to the congregation the significance of the rainbow angel of Revelation, chapter 10, and the meaning of the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15-18. He also included in that study a history of the origin of the seventh trumpet
doctrine founded by W. S. Goodnight in 1930 and advocated by his followers. He was personally acquainted with many of those men. He also gave a firsthand report of the behavior in which they were involved and the agitations and problems their followers caused in the Guthrie, Oklahoma congregation and elsewhere some decades before. I later received a copy of a cassette-tape recording of his discourse regarding those things. (Unfortunately, the recording was not a good quality, but was understandable.) Bro. Porter truly presented the information in all humility and meekness.
As strange as it may seem, even after all the facts Bro. Porter brought to light concerning the history and origin of the seventh seal/trumpet doctrine, there were still some members of the Dayton congregation who were not willing to relinquish their view which they had acquired through their exposure to that teaching. Instead, they began to share their views with others among the church beyond their local congregation. Among them was a young convert and zealous new preacher from California named Danny Layne, who had been converted from a life of drug addiction in May 1980.
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Also, about this time, another element began to work in our midst! A prominent evangelist among us, who was somewhat young and had not been in the ministry for a great number of years, began advocating the idea that there needed to be a reviving of the zeal and fervor of the 1880 reformation. He envisioned 1980 as a proper time for a great moving forward of what the 1880 reformation movement represented. He even started publishing a little paper, around 1982, called “The Evening Light.” He was in hopes that this publication would rally enthusiasm for the “moving of the Spirit” that he was envisioning among God’s people.
It was the combining of this ideology with the seventh seal/trumpet ideology (and all the spirits that accompanied each of those lines of thought) that ultimately produced a movement that came to be called Church of God Restoration. In the following pages I’m going to share my memories of how it all came about.
I was a friend of this Brother who was pushing for an 1880 reformation revival and had supported and traveled with him in some of his evangelistic endeavors. His idea and vision seemed great to me as I too was zealous to see the truth of the gospel that had so blessed my life spread far and wide. So, in my zeal to do something for the Lord, I decided that I would move down to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he was located at the time, and join him as his co-editor of his new paper, The Evening Light. If I remember correctly, he had invited me to come join him and take that position. I thought it was a great opportunity to work for the Lord.
I was making plans and intending to move to Hot Springs when I received a phone call from my maternal grandparents, Bro. Murphy and Sis. Natalie Allen. They had heard, through my mother, about my plans. They expressed to me that they loved me and appreciated my life and my zeal for the Lord, but they wanted me to know that they had a heavy burden to admonish me to wait regarding my move to Hot Springs and do some earnest praying and seeking the Lord about it. They said they were not trying to direct my life or tell me what to do, but they did not feel good about my prospective move an also did not feel good about the objective behind the publishing of the new paper, The Evening Light.
What a blow! I did not know what to think about it, but I had enough respect and confidence in my dear grandparents that I knew I would be foolish not to heed their advice. I had grown up under my grandfather’s Holy Spirit anointed preaching and I knew he was a man who lived and walked in touch with God. He made no decisions nor gave any advice lightly. So, I canceled my plans to move to Hot Springs immediately. The following weekend I drove to Hot Springs and met with this minister Brother and explained to him that an older minister had counseled me to wait and pray about the move and my plans to be his assistant editor for the paper. He seemed quite disappointed, and I felt bad about disappointing him, but I knew I had to wait.
In the summer of 1983, Bro. Danny Layne made his first appearance at the national camp meeting of the Church of God, Monark Springs, Missouri. What a camp meeting --
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-that was! Danny seemed to be floating in a cloud of ecstasy. Several times he broke out shouting and/or leaping for joy during the song services. It seemed so refreshing just to see one who had such a great testimony of deliverance from a life of drug addiction rejoicing so in his salvation. Of course, God’s people have never been opposed to outward expressions of joy and praising the Lord.
But about that same time, an element began to work that seemed to be just a little foreign to the true Spirit of God. The zeal and enthusiasm for promoting a revival, or a repeat, of the 1880 reformation was beginning to take root among us. It especially took root with those members of the Dayton, Ohio congregation who were entertaining the Goodnight theology of a seventh and final “church age.”
Although the idea of a revival and repetition of the 1880 reformation seemed like a good thing to me, at first, as I was thoroughly convinced that reformation was moved by the Spirit of God and no harm could come from promoting what it represented, I can see now that the “repetition concept” was actually a working of the enemy of truth to subtly divert our focus from what the reformation was really all about – the interweaving and unifying of God’s people through His Spirit – to a “movement” or “group” mentality. The 1880 reformation happened as a spontaneous result of the moving of God’s Spirit; not the efforts of a group of people trying to stir up or create a movement.
Any time the focus of any people becomes an effort to mimic the works that Christ has done in the past through others who walked with Him, instead of simply following Jesus Christ Himself and conforming to His likeness, they place themselves in an unhealthy spiritual environment. Christ, our Shepherd, wants to be the direct focus and the Leader of every one of His sheep. “Tell me, O 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 flocks of thy companions?” Song of Solomon 1:7.
This diversion of spiritual focus was what I observed take place among the people of God from the year 1979 to 1989. The minister who started printing The Evening Light paper, especially, would often encourage the saints to express themselves by leaping and shouting in the services. He believed there needed to be much more outward demonstration in our services than what we were used to seeing. He and Bro. Danny Layne
Bro. Danny Layne made a trip to Dayton, Ohio in the early 1980’s. If I remember correctly, he held a revival meeting while there. Bro. Donald Sharp, who had been our pastor here at Myrtle, Missouri, had moved to Dayton and was pastoring there at that time. He was endeavoring to guide that congregation back into proper doctrinal perspectives following the chaos and confusion that arose when their previous minister had defected and taken her stand for the seventh seal/trumpet doctrine. While Bro. Danny Layne was in Dayton, he visited with Bro. Donald Sharp, and during their visit, Bro. Danny Layne talked with Bro. Donald Sharp about the seventh seal/trumpet
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doctrine. He told Bro. Sharp that he did not know much about it. (This information was relayed to me by Bro. Donald Sharp himself.)
Although Bro. Danny Layne confessed that he knew very little about the seventh seal/trumpet doctrine at the time, it became evident that he began receiving an education in the theology through his close friendship and association with those members of the Dayton, Ohio congregation who were seeking to promote that ideology. This proved to be a great snare for the feet of this young minister, who was a novice, having only been saved for a short time himself from a life of drug addiction. He went from knowing little about the doctrine in the early 1980’s to being a full-fledged propagator of his own new version of it by the year 1989. And worse than that, he led his followers to believe that the doctrine was given to him as a revelation from God regarding a new age and message for the church that commenced about 1980, the year he was converted. He even borrowed a Revelation chart that belonged to someone from one of the older Seventh Seal/Trumpet groups, and modified the chart, changing the date 1930 to 1980. Thus, he used that same “line of thought” W. S. Goodnight had promoted more than 50 years before him to promote his new modified version of seventh seal/trumpet theology, starting the seventh church age at the year 1980 instead of 1930.
But I would like to rehearse some more of my memories of how the devil worked during the process of time that led up to this gross error that resulted in such awful spiritual calamity, disillusionment, and destruction of souls. I want to focus on some of the “undercurrents” that led up to what surfaced in 1989.
As already mentioned, Bro. Danny Layne also became a close friend of the minister who was pushing for an 1880 reformation-like revival. It seems highly probable to me that Danny may have received a portion of his idealism from this minister. At the time he was publishing The Evening Light paper, I remember this minister mentioning on one occasion (and I believe he stated this to me personally) that he believed he could have a following of about 800 people if he wanted to. Whether, or not, he ever mentioned that to Danny Layne, I don’t know. When I heard the Brother say that it didn’t ring right to
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me. Why would anyone even think that way? Why would anyone seeking to build up the kingdom of God even consider getting himself a following? As it turned out, about two years later, this dear Brother fell from grace and from the ministry. He was a divorced man and ended up getting into an unscriptural remarriage. It was a great disappointment to all of us who knew and loved him and a hard blow to many who had gotten saved through his ministry. But it was an especially hard blow to those who were rallying to the enthusiasm and emotionalism that was springing from his push for an 1880 reformation revival. On one occasion, I heard Danny Layne say, “We need him!” I also noticed that, after this minister fell, those who had been rallying their religious zeal and enthusiasm around his ministry immediately transferred that to Danny Layne. “Brother Danny” became their “special preacher” and rallying force instead.
As the 1980’s progressed, it became evident that there was a “special group” forming in our midst who had a definite agenda. Their presence in the camp meetings was accompanied with much shouting and demonstration. There was also among them a
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spirit of exaltation or superior spirituality. To be a part of this special “spiritual” group you almost had to become a “shouter” or a “leaper” or engage in outward demonstration of some kind. On one occasion, I truly felt inspired to jump up and shout, so I did so, not to impress anyone, but because I wanted to glorify the Lord. However, that was not my normal or natural mode of expression in worship. After the service, one of the “special group” (from Dayton, Ohio) came to me and told me she appreciated my “freedom” in the Spirit. I was free in the Spirit alright and felt no obligation to make that mode of expression my practice. But the push of this “special group” was that you need to make this a practice or normal mode of worshiping.
It has often been said that history repeats itself. On pages 154 - 157 of his book, Life Experiences, under the heading “In Contact with False Doctrines,” E. E. Byrum says:
“The enemy generally makes his attacks on the church under the plea of ‘advanced light,’ or superior spirituality and power. In the year 1906 something somewhat different was started, which was afterward sometimes called the ‘shouting’ or ‘jumping spirit.’ A few evangelists decided to show greater demonstrations in the camp meetings by not only doing more leaping and shouting themselves, but to have the congregations participate.
“At first they were almost alone in their extra demonstrations, then they began to teach that it was a command of the Bible to ‘shout his praises’ and ‘leap for joy.’ Others began to leap and shout, and at times it spread like wildfire.
“At first the demonstrations did not seem to be actuated by a false spirit. Some doubtless were moved by the Holy Spirit in their manifestations, but the majority leaped and shouted of their own accord because others were shouting or because they were told to leap and shout.
“Such self-exertions do not often continue to be repeated in such a general manner without the enemy’s taking advantage of some by pushing them into extreme measures bordering on fanaticism, which unless properly held in check bring reproach.
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“These happenings occurred at two or three places where camp meetings were being held at the same time. At one place, after a sermon was preached, about four hundred people were on the floor at one time leaping and shouting. That of itself perhaps could not have been considered objectionable as they were rejoicing and having a good time in the name of the Lord. But it began to draw near the danger line when a few ministers under a spirit of harshness began boldly to command those to arise and shout who had not been leaping and shouting.
“There were a number of old fathers and mothers in Israel who had been faithful for many years, who were of more quiet dispositions. They did not feel led to leap and shout and did not do so. Then they were told if they did not it was because they were not right in their souls and that their place was at the altar to get an experience of salvation. Some of them went to the altar, thinking that perhaps something might be wrong with their experience, as they could feel that there was something wrong somewhere.
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… Upon my arrival at the camp, just at the close of that unusual shouting service, I found there were quite a number of good brethren who were not in full accord with the trend of things. Several brethren and sisters assembled in a tent that evening and entered into an agreement of prayer that the power of that spirit of extremism be broken. At the night service a good brother while preaching tried to leap and shout and create a similar demonstration in the audience. He could not lift both feet from the floor at the same time when he would try to leap, neither could he get a demonstration started by the audience. He did not know the source of his difficulty, but those who were praying knew. The power of extremism was broken.
“… There had been many people saved at this camp meeting, and those who were leaping and shouting were not just a set of ignorant people, but were good, intelligent, and most of them true, faithful followers of Christ. The enemy took advantage of a few whom he undertook to push forward into extremism by their leadership but was defeated.
“I would not decry any good that was accomplished, nor any unusual manifestation of the Holy Spirit even by way of leaping and shouting, but I detest the operations of the evil one, even through good-meaning people.
“The enemy has made a special effort to undermine or destroy almost every fundamental principle and doctrine of the church within the last few years and would discard the Bible altogether if possible.
“… The church which Jesus said He would build(Matt. 16:16-18; Acts 20:28) includes every Christian, and excludes none, and will stand forever despite false teachers, false doctrines, and the creeds of men. The work of the reformation in the church at the present time is the preaching and practice of all the Word of God, to bring God’s people into the unity of the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3) in fulfilment of the prayer of Jesus (John 17:20-24).” (End of quote.)
Division is never the result of people preaching and practicing ALL the Word of God in precept and principle. It is most often the result of people placing some private interpretation, wrong slant, or wrong emphasis on some portion of God’s Word. This is always the result of carnality and not being led by the Spirit of God. The Spirit leads all who become truly filled with Him and follow Him into ALL TRUTH, not just partial truth. It takes the Holy Spirit to put all truth into proper perspective and balance for each of us as we, through drinking into Him, assimilate “the mind of Christ.”
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On pages 197 and 198 of his book, The Cleansing of the Sanctuary, D. S. Warner, commenting on Exodus 30:9 and Leviticus 10:1-2, wrote: “The ‘strange incense,’ we see was caused by ‘strange fire.’ This represents prayer or praise that is moved by some other spirit than that of the true fire of God, the Holy Spirit; some unseemly devotion arises from the spices of unholy desire, and the wild-fire of will-worship, self-righteousness, or fanaticism. Upon all who are led of Satan to thus offer wild incense by means of wild-fire, the true fire of God goes forth and devours them. Then let us be honest in the sight of God, and guard against every hypocritical prayer, and every worked-up shout of empty praise; for ‘God knoweth all hearts and understandeth the imagination of the thoughts.’ Only fire that comes down from heaven can burn the incense of prayer and praise that will ascend to heaven.”
In October 1986 I attended a revival meeting held by Bro. Danny Layne at Nowata, Oklahoma. Upon arriving at the place of the meeting, I was met by a sister from the Dayton, Ohio congregation who spoke her greetings to me with a big smile, saying, “Brother, this is the old-time reformation glory!” I thought, “How strange! She speaks as if it were something new!” I had been experiencing the old-time reformation glory ever since, on the night of November 24, 1967, at Hammond, Louisiana, heaven came down and glory filled my soul after I bowed at that old altar and gave my heart to God. I also received a definite experience of sanctification and infilling of the Holy Spirit in July 1968, so glory was nothing new to me! I was used to daily living in the presence of the Lord and drinking of the living water, and there’s nothing more glorious than that!
As far as the meeting went, the truth was preached. Yes, I heard the same truth I grew up hearing, but there was something different about it – some kind of strange spirit seemed to be in the air. As far as the old-time reformation glory was concerned, I had certainly experienced it to a much greater degree in many gatherings of the saints that I had been in in the past.
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Then, something else caught my attention. There were a lot of folk staying in the same home of the saints in whose home I was staying during the time I spent at that meeting. I slept in the basement where a few other brethren were also staying. In the upstairs area of the home many of the women would gather and talk. From my bedroom area in the basement, I could sometimes overhear some of their conversations. And oh, what conversations! I had never heard anything quite like it! If ever I got to listen in on a series of female gossip sessions, surely that was the time! The conversations went something like this: “Did you hear what Brother _____ did?” “Did you hear what Sister _____ was wearing?” “Did you hear how _____ has compromised?” “I just don’t have any confidence in Brother and Sister _____ anymore.” Then I heard a familiar voice from the Dayton, Ohio congregation say, “I believe we’re living in the seventh seal age.”
This alone was enough to sound an alarm in my soul, and it did. I left that meeting pondering many things in my heart. “Lord, what is going on among us?”
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About this time, this seventh seal/trumpet leaven began to take affect in our midst. Congregations in California, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and British Columbia, Canada began to become affected by it. There were many new converts among us at that time, and they seemed to be the most vulnerable. Most of them had never heard of this teaching and knew nothing about its history or origin. How true the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 5:6,“a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” And how important that we be not in darkness or ignorance concerning these things! Through cunningly devised fables Satan deceives the hearts of the simple, or unenlightened. And he will deceive the very elect if possible.
As the seventh seal/trumpet doctrine began to take root in our midst, the same kind of spirit that Bro. O. C. Porter described in his discourse to the Dayton, Ohio congregation in 1981, as he had observed it in past decades among the earliest promoters of the doctrine, began to manifest itself again. I had been among pure and holy saints of God all my life, had received a genuine born again experience myself at age 10, after which I had developed a close personal relationship with the Lord, and I had never observed this kind of behavior or manifestation in any of the saints I had grown up around. I had grown up around several of the old “evening light” reformation pioneers whose personal experiences and knowledge went back to the beginning of the 20th century, prior to the compromise era of 1910 – 1920. I knew their spirit and manner of life. It carried with it a gravity that always drew me to the Lord. But this new spirit that was manifesting itself among this “special group,” who seemed to think themselves more spiritual and more enlightened than everyone else, was foreign to me. I tried to overlook it, have confidence in all, and hope for the best, but my heart told me there was something wrong with certain individuals.
I believe it was after I had attended the revival meeting held by Bro. Danny Layne at Nowata, Oklahoma, in October 1986, that I attended the Loranger, Louisiana, Assembly Meeting in November of the same year. While there, something else happened that flashed a caution light across my pathway. One night, after service, I was casuallyvisiting with Bro. Danny Layne. While we were visiting, some of the members of the Dayton, Ohio congregation came walking up to the area of the chapel where we were. They were his special friends who had been educating him in Seventh Seal/Trumpet theology. When he saw them walking up, he quickly excused himself from our conversation and walked over and joined them. Then something happened that really caught my attention! They gathered in kind of a little huddle and began to talk in low voices one to another. Then I overheard Bro. Danny Layne say, “I believe the Lord is giving us just a little more time.”
Immediately an alarm went off in my soul! The thought flashed into my mind, “A little more time to do what?” As bad as I hated to acknowledge it to myself, my heart told me from that hour on, “These people are conspiring to defect and pull away from the general body of saints!” But I still tried to hope it wasn’t so. Later on, I heard, however, that Bro. Ostis Wilson (one of the most senior ministers among us) made this statement from his observations: “It is definitely a defective movement.”
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Evidently, the Spirit of God was faithful, however, to deal with Bro. Danny Layne. He did not enter into all of this without checks and pleadings from the Holy Spirit. On one occasion, he came to Bro. Ostis Wilson personally and told him God was dealing with him and that he saw himself. He wanted Bro. Ostis to pray with him. Bro. Ostis said to him, “I’m on your corner,” and they prayed together as Danny acknowledged his faults before the Lord. But later, for whatever reason, Danny turned aside again and went back to basking in the vain glory of those who were exalting him and revering him as their leader. When he finally did completely defect, he even used Bro. Ostis’ own words against him, telling his followers that Bro. Ostis had told him that, “I’m on your corner,” and then later he wouldn’t support and stand behind what he was doing. So, we see there a deceptive spirit working as well. Danny knew full well when and why Bro. Ostis was “on his corner.” It was when he was humbling himself and repenting of the path of error he had entered. But he later led his followers to believe it was Bro. Ostis who had changed, not himself. Bro. Ostis Wilson relayed this information personally to Bro. Donald Sharp, who later relayed it to me.
Obviously, it was not altogether Danny Layne’s fault that he got side-tracked. Of course, every man is responsible for his own choices and the destiny of his own soul, ultimately, but sometimes others are partly responsible. The Word of God commands us, “Let no man glory in men.” 1 Cor. 3:21. The people who gave Danny Layne an intoxicating dose of “great praise ointment,” and set him up on a pedestal are partly responsible for his errors. On one occasion, when in the company of some of his special friends, Danny said, “I may be another D. S. Warner!” One of our older ministers, who discerned what was taking place, spoke to us on another occasion words after this fashion: “Ministers, if anybody tries to give you praise or lift you up, don’t you accept it! That is dangerous and will prove detrimental and damning to your soul!” It certainly proved to be so in poor Bro. Danny Layne’s case. The spirit of exaltation so possessed him and the movement he led that I just recently heard his successor, Ray Tinsman, arrogantly say, “I believe I’m due some honor!” Nothing but a delusive spirit from the pit of hell could cause any professed minister of the gospel to even think such a thing, much less say it! Such thinking is completely foreign to the spirit of any of the apostles, prophets, or ministers of the church Christ founded. Those who knew D. S. Warner said he was one of the humblest men they ever knew. Listen to this testimony of one who knew him:
“One of the most striking examples of true humility that I ever saw was on the day I first met and became acquainted with Brother Warner. With his company of workers, he came to the place where I was expected to preach that day. … He insisted that I should preach and did not seem to care to take the pulpit. I plead with him to do so, and said, ‘Brother Warner, I simply could not preach in the presence of such a great man as you are.’ He came up to me and placed his arm around my neck and his head on my shoulder, and said, ‘God bless you, my brother, I am only one of God’s little ones.’ This action seemed very strange to me, as I was not acquainted with such a spirit in a man of such reputation. … I was greatly helped to try to sink into deeper humility, and through the grace of God find my place in the body, the church. This impression of humility has
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remained with me these years and has often been a protection when at times there would be presented temptations to self-exaltation.” – J. W. Byers.
Oh, that Bro. Danny Layne had indeed been “another D. S. Warner” in this way, but alas, he imbibed quite the opposite spirit – not a spirit of humility but a spirit of religious pride.
In the process of watching this spirit take root in our midst, I often pondered what my former pastor, Bro. Donald Sharp, said to me on one occasion, when we were visiting and discussing this “special group” that was forming under Danny Layne’s leadership. Bro. Donald said something along this line: “I perceive in them a real lack of sanctification.” I perceived it too. Although they seemed to think themselves above others in spirituality, there were many manifestations of carnality in their attitudes and in their actions. A relative of mine, who was also closely observing what was going on, commented to me that the devil doesn’t care how he gets people to promote “self;” whether it’s through a love of the world that pursues the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, or whether it’s in a religious, self-righteous way. It is the fruit of carnality, pride, and a lack of sanctification whichever side of the pendulum it may swing. Both compromise and fanaticism spring from carnality.
As time progressed on into the years of 1987, 1988, and 1989, it became clearer and clearer that a false spirit was at work in our midst. It became evident in the camp meetings. Little clannish groups could be seen banding together. Special meetings began to be held by Danny Layne here and there across the country, announced by telephone or through correspondence, but NOT through the Faith and Victory paper. Variances, strivings, and contentions began to be raised. Sisters who one time possessed sweet, meek, and quiet spirits took on bold, brazen, and excessively forward dispositions after attending these special meetings. I said very little but observed very closely. One thing I did observe was that most of the older, more spiritual established saints had nothing to do with these special meetings. Neither were their spirits affected by this new element working in our midst. They just remained the same old solid pillars they had always
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been. I marked who it was among us that was really doing the changing in doctrine and in spirit. It was not the ones whom they were accusing of “compromise,” but the change became evident in the accusers themselves. A definite manifestation of carnality, the lack of a Christ-like spirit, and the absence of true humility (which is the seat of all true holiness), became clearly obvious among those who were raising the contentions. At the same time, they envisioned themselves breaking a supposed “silence” and beginning to sound the seventh trumpet.
There was just something about the spirit of it all that did not blend with the spirit of true holiness. The precious Holy Spirit with whom I had been so intimately acquainted from my youth bore witness in my heart, “This is NOT the way; don’t walk in it!” Every time I happened to be in a meeting where that spirit was working, the Holy Spirit in my bosom would raise a “red flag.” Thank God for His precious Spirit which guards and keeps our souls in an even path if we will heed His gentle, still, small voice. I’m so glad I got to know Him intimately when I was very young! He has been my Guide
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through the years, and the Protector of my soul. I pondered all these new and strange things that were taking place among us during the 1980’s and wondered just what the final outcome was going to be.
A High-spirited Horse Pulling a Cart!
Sometime around 1987, I believe, I was kneeling in prayer one evening, or perhaps had just knelt to pray, when a quick panoramic vision flashed before my mind. In the vision I saw what seemed to be a rather large group of saints walking together up a narrow, dusty road on an incline that was leading upward. They seemed happy and contented as they walked along together at a steady pace. I only recognized one person in the group. That was Bro. Mart Samons, from Green Bank, West Virginia. He was walking along in the middle, toward the front. Then, all of the sudden, there was a big stir, and a commotion, and out of the group came a white horse, harnessed to and pulling a small cart. He pulled to the front of the group and stopped. Then, it seemed I could hear a cry rending the air, “All aboard for the old-time reformation truth!” Immediately, a bunch of excited people came running out of the group and began piling onto the small cart. As soon as the cart was full of people, the horse took off with the cart at a high speed. As the horse and the cart took off, I saw one person on the cart whom I recognized. It was the Sister from the Dayton, Ohio congregation who had met me upon my arrival at the Nowata, Oklahoma revival meeting held by Bro. Danny Layne in October 1986, who said to me, “Brother, this is the old-time reformation glory!” As she was smiling and waving good-bye the scene faded from my view. But my first impression was, “That horse is going to wreck that cart and its passengers, and we are going to have to come along behind them and try to bind up the wounded and save the dying!”
As I pondered this vision, I couldn’t help but feel that the horse I saw represented Danny Layne. The cart that was harnessed to the horse represented the movement Danny Layne was leading, and the people piled on the cart represented his followers. The one woman I recognized on the cart who was waving “good-bye” as the cart took off was one
of his main supporters at the time. Then, as I thought about the group they left behind, our elderly Bro. Mart Samons being the only one I recognized in that group, I remembered the slogan he so often repeated: “STEADY AS YOU GO!” It’s not the rabbit that wins the race, necessarily, but the steady-paced tortoise.
I have often been amazed at how the body of Christ operates so much like the natural human body. Any time anything enters the human body that is foreign to the body’s natural organic structure, the body automatically rejects the foreign element. So it is with the body of Christ. Whenever any type of spiritual element that is foreign to the body’s natural organic structure makes an inroad into the body, the body automatically rejects and expels that element by natural process of elimination. God, in His great wisdom, made the human body, as well as Christ’s spiritual body, that way for its own benefit and protection. For example, in the human body, sometimes when foreign material invades the body, the body’s natural processes somehow bring that foreign element to a head and, when the process is ripe, with the application of just a little pressure the foreign
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substance, or infection, erupts and spews out. This is true in the natural sense, and it is also true in a spiritual sense. The body of Christ will relieve itself of anything that invades the body that is not of the body – anything foreign to the Spirit of Christ.
By the summer of 1989, this foreign element of which I have been speaking had come to a fully ripened head among the body of Christ. The ministry felt it was time to apply the pressure to the ugly, infectious boil. And when they did, it erupted, and the corruption came spewing out! In June 1989, Danny Layne told his followers it was time to come out and separate themselves from those among whom they had been worshiping. Of course, this “special group” had been separated in spirit for quite some time, but now, at Danny Layne’s command, they withdrew themselves from the general body of the “evening light” saints to form a distinct body of their own. They named their group Church of God Restoration and, around the same time, launched another publication called The Gospel Trumpet in effort to insinuate they were restoring the truths and the spirit of the 1880 reformation, just as other Seventh Seal/Trumpet groups before them had done.
Thus, in 1989 a new and zealous Seventh Seal/Trumpet sect was born; one whose roots can be traced to its earliest stages of conception and development beginning about 10 years prior to this – 1979. Could this have been what Bro. Lawrence Pruitt’s dream in 1967 was about? In that dream he saw Bro. C. E. Orr praying, “Lord, you know that in about twelve years something very tragic is coming to pass.” Whether your answer is “yes,” or “no,” when I think of the many precious souls who have been thrown out-of-balance, disillusioned, and had their spiritual focus diverted away from Christ, the truth, the life, and the way, by the “spirit” of this movement, it is indeed a TRAGEDY!
Danny Layne and his followers, as men of past decades had already done, claimed they were sounding the seventh and last trumpet, that they had the final and last message for the church. But the seventh and final age of the church, they said, began in 1980, instead of 1930, as W. S. Goodnight originally thought. Also, according to this new seventh trumpet doctrine, the half hour of silence, after the opening of the seventh seal (Rev. 8:1), was supposed to represent a period of time from 1910 to 1980, the latter date supposedly being when the seventh trumpet began to sound through God’s angel, Danny Layne, and thereby the true Church of God began to be restored.
Listen folk, this entire message is built upon mere “fables” – vain imaginations of men of corrupt minds. Satan, through them, has darkened counsel by the injecting of fables with truth and concocting a mixture to allure and deceive the very elect, if possible. It is like rat poison, which contains enough good food to entice the rat but includes enough poison to kill him! It is a perversion of spiritual focus and a delusion! Run for your life and “cling alone to Jesus, as did the saints of yore.”
The Incredible Fruit a Delusive Spirit!
I must say that, in writing these things it is not my purpose or intention to malign or hurt anyone. I have no malice toward anyone named in this writing. I only have a love--
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--for the truth as it is in Christ Jesus and as His Spirit has revealed it to my understanding. Therefore, I am willing to speak plainly and without fear of men or devils. There are persons involved in the errors of which I write whom I dearly love. Some of my own relatives have been included. Yet, I do not hesitate to say that they have been deceived by the cunning craftiness of the adversary of their souls. They are promoting a doctrine that is wrong and associated with their wrong doctrine (as with all wrong doctrines) is a wrong spirit. My continual prayer is that God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. I would welcome any and all of them into my fellowship again with open arms if they could but recover themselves from this awful error and the spirit of it. It is not the people, but the false doctrine and the false spirit that carries it, that we take a firm stand against. Oh, that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened to comprehend the truth concerning the issues in which they are involved! Oh, that the true spirit of revelation might be imparted unto them through a more perfect knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ! Oh, that in His light we might all see light! (Psa. 36:9.) Only as we walk in the light as He is in the light can we have fellowship one with another and experience the cleansing of His sanctifying blood, Word, and Spirit from all carnality and divisional elements.
Apostle Peter said, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” 2 Pet. 2:1-3.
Apostle Paul said, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”Rom. 1:25.
The church is God’s “new creation” in Christ. But God never intended the church (the creature) to be worshiped. The Creator alone is to be worshiped. When men enter a pathof “church exaltation,” or extoling the church above the Creator, they inevitably change the truth of God into a lie. This was exactly the plan that was devised by Satan in the 10-year scheme of his workings that led up to 1989. He was concocting something by which he could bring a reproach upon the cause of Christ such as had not been known in modern times – something by reason of which the way of truth would be evil spoken of. What better way could he do it than to mix a lot of God’s truth with a few fables and a spirit of error?
When Danny Layne made his departure from the general body of the “evening light” saints back in the 1980’s, all whose hearts were tuned to the Spirit of God knew he was operating under a delusive spirit. But few would have imagined that spirit would have carried his followers as far into deception as it has carried them today! But the working of a false spirit never draws men toward or into truth. It always leads farther and farther away from truth. And thus it led Danny Layne and the “special group” that piled onto his cart. Of all the seventh trumpet groups born up to this point, the leaders of this one have
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become the most mean-spirited, harsh, cruel, and controlling. Danny Layne built himself quite a little empire of ecclesiastical hierarchy, pope-like authority, and rigid man-rule before his death. To my knowledge, he never repented before his death. His soul is now in the hands of a just God who will render to every man according to his works. His position as “chief apostle” of his so-called Church of God Restoration was assumed by his friend and close associate, Donald Ray Tinsman, upon his death.
Tinsman grew up under the religious leadership of another impostor and dictatorial-type preacher, Victor Orr of Farmland, Indiana. So, the spirit of harshness and authoritarianism was nothing new to Donald Ray Tinsman. His boyhood pastor, Victor Orr, a son of C. E. Orr, rose up in variance and strife against the general body of the “evening light” saints back in the 1950’s, some 30 years before Danny Layne came along. The spirits of Orr and Layne, however, were very similar. My grandmother, Sis. Natalie Allen, who lived to observe each of these two impostors rise up and gather their followings, said concerning Victor Orr: “A bunch of ‘silly women’ [2 Tim. 3:6] just went crazy over the man! They would say things, like ‘He’s another D. S. Warner!’” A sister in the Lord, who was for a while involved with the so-called Church of God Restoration, but later saw their error and came out, told me that she heard another woman in their fellowship say, “Who wouldn’t want to follow Ray – he’s so good-looking!’ Obviously, people follow such men for reasons beyond spiritual ones!
The same spirit of man-worship cropped up when Danny Layne came on the scene as that which accompanied Victor Orr’s heretical group and movement. Interestingly, both Victor Orr and Danny Layne incorporated, with their similar extremisms and authoritarianism, doctrines that had been proposed as “new light” to the “evening light” saints some 50 years before them. Victor Orr adopted the “anti-cleansing,” or “one work of grace” doctrine of 1897 - 1898 as his special emphasis. [See the last chapter of this book for greater detail.] But Danny Layne adopted the “seventh seal,” or “seventh trumpet” doctrine of 1930 as his; even stealing some of W. S. Goodnight’s Revelation chart information and changing Goodnight’s date for the beginning of the seventh church age from 1930 to 1980. Danny Layne began promoting the seventh trumpet doctrine asthough he had received it from God by revelation, thus misleading his followers to think so. It was, however, nothing more than a modified version of Goodnight’s doctrine which he concocted to fit his own agenda. But other than the differences in their doctrinal accents, the spirits of Victor Orr and Danny Layne were very much the same – legalistic, harsh, didactic and dogmatic.
Danny Layne told me personally, not too long before he launched his new movement, “Victor Orr is wanting to see me really bad. I don’t know why.” Later, I thought to myself, “It’s probably because he discerns a kindred spirit!” Bro. Salvatore Dideo told me that, after the ministers had a special meeting with Victor Orr at a Monark Springs camp meeting in the mid 1950’s, dealing with him regarding the “issues” he was agitating among the “evening light” saints, he (Bro. Salvatore) pled with Victor thus: “Brother Victor, whatever you do, don’t leave the saints.” Victor’s reply was: “Let the division come – the sooner, the better!”
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When the ministers had to deal with Danny Layne in the late 1980’s regarding the “issues” he was agitating, he took a like attitude as did Victor Orr. And, like Victor Orr, he led away with him “a bunch of silly women!” Within a very short time he succeeded in separating one of them, whom I had been acquainted with from childhood, from her husband of approximately 50 years. This trend of separating wives from husbands (and vice-versa) has followed the movement he initiated until this present day. The numbers of separations, divorces, broken family relationships, and the grief, the sorrow, and heartache that has accompanied the movement Danny propagated is known only to the all-seeing eye of God.
Naturally, Danny Layne became an attractive figure to some of Victor Orr’s followers. By the way, Victor died about the time Danny was launching his movement. I don’t know if his desire to meet Danny was ever granted. But young Donald Ray Tinsman was a prime prospect of Danny’s zealous proselytizing efforts, and Danny wasted no time spreading his umbrella of influence over the young man, eventually making him his right-hand man and closest associate. The fruit that is now being produced under Tinsman’s leadership is utterly appalling! I seriously doubt that Danny Layne himself would even approve some of the things that Ray and his associate “apostles” are now promoting!
Mr. Stephen P. Hargrave, one of Ray’s chosen apostle associates, who is now considered to be #2, or next in prominence under Ray, made these shocking comments on Revelation 21:14 in a sermon he delivered in recent months:
“I want to share with you real quickly, that the names of these apostles of the Lamb are not talking about Peter, James, and John, and the original twelve. It’s not talking about that. It’s talking about a different twelve! It’s not disconnected, because there’s one ministry, one church, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. So, there is no disconnection, and we don’t do wrong to refer to the original twelve. But in context it’s not talking about the original twelve. This is talking about another twelve! Do you want to know the names? One of the names is THE ONLY NAME, THENAME THAT IS ABOVE ALL NAMES ON THIS CREATURE EARTH, OF GOD’S CREATURES – THE GOVERNOR OF THE WORLD, THE JUDGE OF ALL THIS WORLD, IS THE CHIEF APOSTLE, OUR VERY OWN, BROTHER D. RAY TINSMAN!!!”
In November 2020, a few hundred of Ray’s followers were gathered in a convention at Oklahoma City, OK. The main focus and drive of the speakers at this convention seemed to be:
(1) Honoring the leaders, the main one being their chief apostle, Donald Ray Tinsman, who now presides over ten other so-called “apostles.” (There were eleven, making a total of twelve, including Ray, but one defected in recent months. They also refer to these “apostles” as “fathers.”) Ray himself stood before the crowd and said, “I believe that I’m due some honor.”
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(2) Insisting that all the followers pool their finances and “lay them at the apostle’s feet.”
This drive was forceful and, obviously, persuasive. In a message titled, “The Great Reset,” preached by chief apostle, Donald Ray Tinsman, Tuesday evening, November 24, 2020, he tells his deluded followers that “It’s time to go for broke!” It’s time to empty their IRA’s, their 401k’s, their savings accounts, etc., and come lay it all at the “apostle’s feet.” He tells them that, if they don’t, Bill Gates is going to get it all anyway, so it’s not going to do them any good if they do decide to hold on to it. He insists that we are getting ready to enter into a time when the government is going to take all our wealth, therefore they, as a church (it has actually long become a cult), need to pool all their money together and plan for being self-sustaining in the future.
In a message Saturday night, Nov. 28, 2020, apostle Stephen Hargrave enthusiastically backed Tinsman, appealing to the people to begin turning their IRA’s, 401k’s, and savings over to the apostles as early as Monday morning, Nov. 30, 2020. He went so far as to say, “What are the apostle’s going to do with your money? It’s none of your business!” The prophet even told the people that, after the soon-coming calamity befalls the world, people in general are going to be flocking TO THEM (the Church of God Restoration)for sustenance, just like they now flock to Wal-Mart for the things they need!
This is one of the most foolish things I’ve ever heard in my life – a completely delusional and fanciful dream! Even if they were preaching “sound doctrine” and had something of value to offer the world, God’s Word itself testifies that, in the last days, men’s hearts and minds will be turned away from the truth in preference of fables (1 Tim. 4:3-4). Therefore, no one should expect any great congregating of the masses even where there is an expounding of truth and sound doctrine. But alas, fables are what these “blind guides” are offering the people, and you may rest assured, they are not the kind that are going to appeal to the masses! They have now made their folly too glaringly obvious before all men!
Tinsman then got up, following Hargrave’s sermon, and confirmed that this is right, and people everywhere are soon going to be realizing how right they, the apostles, are. He even went so far as to assure them that there is NOBODY who has spiritual and prophetic insight and vision such as he, Steve, and Randy Hargrave have! Interestingly, in the announcement portion of his closing comments, he asked who had the oversight, or control, of a certain task that needed to be performed relative to the present meeting. But he then had to “clarify” his question by saying, “I’M IN CONTROL, but I mean, who has control of this particular task?”
The display of pride and arrogance is almost unbelievable! I’ve personally never seen anything like it! Below is an excerpt from the sermon Mr. Tinsman preached on Monday night, Nov. 23, 2020. One brother who read it, said, “If SELF was left out, it would be very short!” It would indeed! The spirit of the sermon reminds me of Apostle Paul’s--
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words: “For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face.” 2 Cor. 11:20.
Excerpts from Apostle Ray Tinsman’s sermon on “Change,” Nov. 23, 2020, Oklahoma City, OK
“It is not possible that the Apostle Paul and his writings can meet all your needs. … It’s not possible that the entire Bible in its written form fully suffice your needs. You say, ‘Brother, that sounds bad!’ No, because the Bible itself says it can’t. It says there’s A MINISTRY that will perfect you, and who will cause you to be at one, and will help you.
“I’ll even tell you that you don’t have the opportunity to pick and choose what you fellowship or whom you fellowship with. You fellowship whom THIS MINISTRY, THIS APOSTLE BODY fellowships with – that’s who you fellowship with. … I would further say that some of the things in which we have experienced as change has been changed from a temporary status from the beginning, and that we are more presently in line with the holy Scriptures today than we’ve ever been in the course of the entire Restoration. … Somebody recently told me, talking about some situation which I won’t make clear to you, ‘don’t you realize that there are some brethren who have some struggles with that?’ And I said, ‘Well, I could assume so. I hope they’ll come through. But, if they think that because so and so has a struggle with it might deter the way I think about it, they’ve got another thing coming, because it don’t mean anything.’ Not to me. It does to you. What you think about it means a lot to you, but to me it don’t mean anything. [Ha! Ha! Ha! – he laughs.]
“Might be some of you who feel like you have some insight and that some changes are needed. And let’s assume tonight that you are correct. It’s not likely that you are, but let’s assume that you are. If you want to hinder that change, you could do so by trying to force that change over on me. Those of you that know about horses, you know them back haunches when they sit down? … I’m good at that. I’m good, and ain’t little either. I need to be littler in some ways. But I ain’t little, and in this way, I need to stay big. … You’re not making any changes. I don’t care how much you have fasted, I don’t care how much you have prayed, I don’t care how spiritual you might be, you aint’ making no changes. I don’t care if you’re right! If somehow in your perception and in your deep spirituality you was able to surpass ME in vision (if that were possible, I don’t know, but if it was), if you were able to pass ME and you could see where we need to make the change, brother, you open your little lips about it, brother Ray’s sitting down! … Now, don’t you think, any young people, that you’re going to tell me what to do! I love you, and you know I love you, but don’t you think you’re going to tell me what to do. There’s only a few people who would dare to make some suggestions. Not even all the apostles! I’m just telling you. Bro. Steve might look at me, say, ‘Now Brother Ray, we got to talk.’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah brother, we better talk. Yeah brother, come on, what do you have to say to me?’ I’ll walk over, we’ll sit down – ‘Yeah brother, I see that.’ Don’t you think YOU might try that! That would be a suicide mission!
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But having said that, there ought to be some comfort. By the time that you hear a little bird peep, and you hear that Bro. Ray feels like that we need to make a little change, by the time that you have heard it, you can rest assured it’s been through the fire, it’s been through the flood, and it’s been through the blood, and brother, it’s been thought in every way, and then the Holy Ghost, through the help of a few brethren WHO GET IT THROUGH MY HAND, I say, Amen. And by the time you hear, it’s way too late! In fact, it ought to be a little embarrassing to say, ‘Brother have you considered?’ Look, I’ve considered LONG! … ‘Well, can I not even say anything?’ I’m not going to say you can’t say nothing. If you dare, go ahead! But, I wouldn’t advise it!
“I remember the time when camp meetings were always filled with one kind of singing. … Bro. Danny said that we need to have some other kinds of music. And there was a small little move, like … rather than having the southern gospel sound, they had a little bit of black gospel, maybe. And there were people that left us, and are gone till this day, because they said we went worldly. I can name them to you – they couldn’t deal with the change – who now might be listening and be happy they left. And we’re happy they’re gone! …” [Note: They’ve now taken up Michael Jackson style music!]
“So we have taken up sensitive subjects. One of them is about your money! In the beginning of the days of the Restoration, we used to brag about not preaching about money. We ain’t bragging that no more! We’re preaching about your money. … And don’t tell me that’s a deviation from the Bible. …
“We’ve talked about sensitive issues that are very real in the world today, that have been crushed and suppressed, and hidden, and put down – the issue of racism. … That’s why it took a Baptist preacher to deal with the civil rights and the Church of God folks did terrible. Brother, there’s somebody out of Anderson, Indiana that should have went out on the streets of Washington DC and stood beside our brother in the flesh … and preached with him when he preached, ‘I had a dream,’ but where were they? Martin Luther King did what Church of God folks should have been doing. And Church of God folks got out of it by saying, ‘That’s just the world, we don’t have to deal with the world.’ Brother, that wasn’t the world, that was their brothers. And they actually cried, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper’ in their heart and in their spirit, and they divided and joined the worldly system. I say, Church of God folks joined the world. Had to cancel the Hammond, Louisiana camp meeting because too many black folks were moving into town – I’m talking Church of God!”
[Note: the fact is, the Hammond, Louisiana camp meetings were canceled and moved to Loranger because those residing in the neighborhood were causing problems and vandalizing the campground; not because the Church of God congregation there was against black people. One little black boy living in the neighborhood, named Lewis Kimble, who was peeking through the bushes and observing the congregants, ended up being converted and became a prominent minister of the Church of God, greatly loved and highly respected. How nice it would have been if Ray would have told the whole truth about the matter instead of insinuating “racism” was the issue.]
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We’ve never involved ourselves into politics. What are we doing? We’re doing what we should have been doing. … It’s the church that ought to have the voice in everything that happens in the society that we live in. From Washington DC to every municipal, wherever we go, it ought to be Church of God folks who are out crying ‘holy, holy’ in the streets. You say, ‘We’ve never done that.’ You’re right, we never have, but we are now!
“Well, I hope it’s been a help to you. … I trust that I’ve helped you that you don’t think that maybe the Lord’s talking to YOU about changes that are going to be made that you’re going to be the leader in. Because the Lord’s not! You say, ‘Brother, you can’t say that.” Yeah, I can. … ‘Well, if they can, I can.’ No, you can’t! ‘Well, why can’t I?’ Because I said so! And that’s good enough! That will make you happy. It ought to make you happy! Say, ‘Well, thank the Lord, it’s not out of control!’ No, it’s not! It’s very controlled. …”
An Excerpt from a Sermon Preached by Apostle Addison Everett February 2, 2021, at Greenville, Ohio
… But what I want to say next is that, really, THIS IS ONE MAN’S GOSPEL! THIS DISPENSATION BELONGS TO ONE MAN! … He’s smarter than you are, he’s got a bigger deeper burden than you do, he’s better at prayer than you are, he understands the Bible better than you do, he cares more about the standard than you do, he’s more in love with holiness than you are, he has a better burden for souls than you do, he’s sacrificed and given up more than you have, and more than you probably ever will. I’m right tonight! Say, ‘Why are you preaching this, brother?’ Because you need to know it, if you don’t. You need to have it clear – THIS IS ONE MAN’S GOSPEL! I’m thankful that there is a Peter and a James and a John, and I’m thankful for the others, and I’m thankful for everybody in the room, but I want to tell you tonight, I’m especially thankful – I owe my life, I owe my soul, I owe my salvation to the ministry of one man – someone who has poured out their life in utter abandonment, made personal sacrifices that you cannot number, that you have not numbered, who’s prepared not only to be bound, but to die also for the gospel. … Brethren, there is a father of the gospel whose shoulders are big enough that we can all piggyback, and by whose gospel we are saved. So [you say] ‘I got saved by the Bible.’ Lord bless you. You got saved by Bro. Ray’s ministry! Well, ‘I got saved by what John wrote in first John, and I read the scriptures in first John.’ I’m telling you about the one that went to John and started expounding the prophetic deep things of God to John the apostle! [Note: They believe and teach that the rainbow angel of Revelation chapter 10, who gave the little book to John the apostle represents Ray Tinsman!] It’s a miracle, it’s a marvel that someone can come at the end and hold the message from the beginning. Stop thinking of Paul the apostle as greater than Brother Ray. Stop it! You’re wrong when you think like that. You’re wrong! You’re wrong about that! I love Paul, the apostle and, God willing, he’ll be one of the first people I’ll talk to when I get to heaven. Oh, I love Paul, … but brother, I’m telling you something, and some of you all don’t get this tonight,there’s someone in this room whose ministry is greater, whose ultimate--
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understanding is greater, whose prophetic significance is greater than James, John, Peter, and yes, Paul, the apostle.
“I said to Sister Tamara [Brother Ray’s wife] one time (I believed it then, and I believe it now), ‘Sister Tamara, what’s it like being married to the most important person in the history of the world except for Jesus Christ Himself?’ You don’t have to say ‘amen,’ I’m right anyway. You don’t have to say, ‘amen,’ I’m right! I’m so right, I’m going to say it again for my own sake – it makes me feel good to say it, it makes me feel safe to say it: Sister Tamara, what’s it like being married to the most important person whose soles of their shoes, or sandals, or bare feet ever touched the soil of this earth, EVER, from Adam to Isaiah, to Moses who parted the Red Sea, to all the minor prophets to John the Baptist himself, and everybody else, save only the man Jesus Christ? I believe that. I’m convicted about it. And I’m in love with the idea, and I can follow someone like that. And I want to exhort you to understand that, and to have the same heart. … Ultimately, everything that we except, everything that we believe, everything that we know, filters through the person of one individual human being. If he don’t say it, we don’t believe it. If he says ‘no,’ the answer’s ‘no.’ If he says ‘yes,’ the answer’s ‘yes.’ And, you know what, IT’S RIGHT! I know you didn’t understand, and you didn’t see all the things that got us there, and you haven’t worked out this scientific equation in your brain for why it should be that way, but I’m telling you, it’s right! And here’s how you know – because of who said it! … Ultimately, it’s one man’s word. Just one! … And I’m so happy about it. And I feel so safe with that. Because I’m going to get wrong sometimes, but there’s someone that can keep me right. And I’m going to get down sometimes. There’s someone that can lift me up. And I want to tell you, I live utterly free from the concern and the worry that this Restoration is ever going to go off the deep end. That is utterly void from my mind and heart. … I live utterly void of that concern, because of one man – one man to whom is committed the dispensation of the ages. In one man’s gospel is validated the ministry of Paul, and Peter, and Moses, and Elijah – in one single man.
“And I want to tell you something else (I’m about to close). Well, if one man were to pass away, someone else raise up? Not in this case. Not in this case! Because not just anybody can do what that one man does. In fact, NOBODY can do what that one man does. Nobody can – NOBODY! … And I, for one, am happy about it. And I want to throw in a little bonus before I sit down. And this is me speaking, not the Lord, but it might be the Lord, because I have also the Holy Ghost. I think that Brother Ray is a perfect human being. I know somebody knows I’m right. … It’s amazing that God gave us somebody that doesn’t have the same struggles that you have – I mean, yes, he can be moved with the feeling of your infirmity, but brother, he’s not messed up like some of us are. I don’t know how God preserved it and worked it out and called him and saved him – I don’t know how all that worked out, I just know I’m glad He did. Because he’s not messed up like me, and he thinks clearer than I think, and he has better judgment than I do, and his person is capable of doing what my person is not. And on this I stand, and I’ll stake my everlasting soul until I split the sky with you and leave these vile bodies behind. God bless you, love you, and Brother Ray, God bless you.”
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After this, Chief Apostle Ray Tinsman arose and stood before the congregation amid shouts and cheers and confirmed that what Apostle Addison Everett had preached to them was right.
Any true minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, with a heart tuned to the Spirit of God, would have done as Paul and Barnabas did inActs 14:11-18.“Which, when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein” (verses 14-15).
In reply to Addison Everett’s statement, “I live utterly free from the concern and the worry that this Restoration is ever going to go off the deep end:” it obviously went off the deep end A LONG TIME AGO! Surely this is sad enough to cause angels to weep! How can mortals become so blind? They have received in themselves the “mark of the beast” – the very spirit and identifying characteristic of Roman Catholicism – the spirit of exalting, worshiping, and following a man. The apostle Paul (and Addison Everett declares Ray Tinsman to be the validating force of Paul’s ministry) said, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. … And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”2 Thes. 2:3-4, 8-12.
This prophecy was fulfilled to a tee in the Roman Catholic system of popery, and it is being fulfilled again in the so-called Church of God Restoration (COGR). Just as the Catholic Church has its headquarters at Rome, Italy, so the COGR has its headquarters at Greenville, Ohio. And just as the Catholic Church has its “vicar of the Son of God,” so the COGR has its “vicars.” In fact, in the same message from which I quoted above, Addison Everett said that the difference between them and the Catholic Church is that they have “twelve” apostles as their ruling head. Yet, he went on to admit that even the edicts that come from the other eleven must be filtered through ONE MAN, their chief apostle, Donald Ray Tinsman. And he thinks this system is infallible, that “Brother Ray is a perfect human being,” and further says, “on this I stand, and I’ll stake my everlasting soul!” What a sandy foundation! May God somehow have mercy on his soul and lead him to the Rock that is higher than Ray!
The fact is, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one and only Potentate, is going to consume this COGR spirit and system “with the spirit of His mouth” and destroy it “with the
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brightness of His coming,” along with the Roman Catholic system and all other “man-ruled” religious systems. The devil who deceived them will be cast, with the deceived, “into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and [they] shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”Rev. 20:10. May God have mercy on every deceived soul and help them to flee to the one and only refuge, Jesus Christ, before it is eternally too late! You will find the headquarters of the God’s church are neither in Rome, Italy, nor Greenville, Ohio, but in Heaven, where its Head resides. The members of this church are “ALL taught of God” (John 6:45) through a direct spiritual connection with the Head, known as “anointing” (1 John 2:27). This “anointing” operates independently of human headships.
The Constancy of the Divine Church
On page 2 of the booklet, Catholic Answers, it says, “The Catholic Church is the only universal Christian Church that has existed since the time of Jesus. Every other Christian group is an offshoot of the Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox churches broke away from unity with the pope in 1054. The Protestant communities were established during the Reformation, which began in 1517. (Most of today’s Protestant groups are actually offshoots of the original Protestant offshoots.)”
This is a good example of how men tend to view and trace what they perceive as “the church,” or “churches,” or “church groups.” Their discernment seems to go no farther than human institutions, organizations, groups, and who split away from who, etc.
Obviously, whoever wrote those words above, regarding the Catholic Church and her offshoots, did not discern Christ’s body, the real church! And there are multitudes of others just like that author. I once read another book titled, “Baptist Churches in All Ages.” In it, the author tried to identify the church from the time of Christ until now within the parameters of so-called “Baptist” congregations and their theological dogma. Similarly, the so-called Church of God Restoration is now endeavoring to identify the one and only true church by a measuring rod that extends no farther than themselves and their established hierarchy of ecclesiastical authority. [Note: They have even boldly declared that that authority comes directly from Greenville, Ohio, where their head, their Chief Apostle Ray Tinsman, issues the edicts. They believe that he is receiving his edicts from God, just as the Catholics believe their pope is receiving his from God. Any time any church acknowledges an earthly headquarters it thereby acknowledges that it is of earthly origin, is under a human headship, and is, therefore, a “man-made” church – a sect.] It is sad that mankind tends to become so foolish and narrow-minded. But that is just a natural outcropping of man’s carnal nature. The natural man naturally perceives not and receives not the deep things of God but tends rather to identify what he perceives as righteousness according to his own religious orientation and experience. And this he will often do in preference to identifying righteousness based on the manifestation of the spirit and the “fruit” of a thing.
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The real church that Jesus founded, built, organized and established in the earth, and then sent the Holy Spirit to administrate the functioning thereof, is a divine and spiritual institution. It is, in fact, the very “habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22), and it is “builded together” through the Spirit. Being such an institution, and only receiving its structure, and existence, through the operation of God’s Spirit, it, like all other things divine, can only be “spiritually discerned.” Therefore, in order to discern and understand the true church, we must allow the Holy Spirit to bring us personally into alignment with what makes it the church in the first place! There’s simply nothing that can be identified in all the New Testament that even resembles an institution such as the Roman Catholic Church is! Her humanly controlled, hierarchical government is most certainly not endorsed in the New Testament, neither the priestly mediation that she claims between God and man! Neither can there be anything identified in the New Testament that resembles any of her “offshoots” within the so-called “Protestant” realm or any other realm of religious practice directed by man, the Church of God Restoration included! It remains then, that none of these groups, or bodies, are a representation of the body of Christ, the true church. The divine church is not an “offshoot” of any humanly controlled, humanly governed institution, but she stands clearly identified with Jesus Christ Himself. She stands side by side with Him – His holy Bride – one with Him in spirit and in substance, having received into herself His own life and holiness through the Holy Spirit. She consists of all those in whom Christ’s Spirit dwells, and who submit themselves to the working of that divine Spirit. As Anabaptist, Peter Riedemann, accurately stated 500 years ago:
“The children of God become His children through the unifying Spirit. Thus, it is evident that the church is gathered through the Holy Spirit; the church has its being, and continues to exist, through the Spirit. … The church of Christ is a pillar and foundation [ground] of truth and continues to be that. Truth itself is expressed, confirmed, and put into action in the church by the Holy Spirit. Thus, whoever endures and submits to the working of the Spirit of Christ, is a member of this church. Whoever does not want this and allows sin to rule over them, does not belong to the church.”
Peter Riedemann clearly discerned what the church, the body of Christ is. It can hardly be more clearly defined than in his above words.
One important fact that some restorationists have overlooked regarding the divine church is the fact of its constancy.While men may find themselves in a state of needing to be “restored” to a spiritual condition that will qualify them as members of Christ’s church, or they may find themselves entangled in, and needing to come out of, an “ecclesiastical system” that is not governed and led by the Holy Spirit, as the true church is, yet the church itself has NEVER needed to be re-formed or restored. The divine church has had constant existence throughout the Gospel dispensation within the parameters of that system God set up on the day of Pentecost, whether its adherents were few or many. The true church still existed even when the adherents to its Holy Spirit-led system were forced to go “underground,” or hidden from general public view, when the Word and the Spirit had to prophesy “clothed in sackcloth” for 1260 years, as was the case during the papal “dark ages.” The same Holy Spirit that baptizes true believers into
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the body of Christ today, has faithfully done so throughout the entire Gospel dispensation, wherever and in whomever He was allowed the privilege to operate in conjunction with the Word. Wherever you find the joint operation of the Word and the Spirit, unhindered by the usurpation of human authority, there you will find Zion – “the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, … God the Judge of all, and … the spirits of just men made perfect” (see Heb. 12:22-23). “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”Rom. 8:14. “… And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”2 Cor. 3:17b.
“Zion of God, thou home of the free,
Washed in the blood, I’m dwelling in thee;
Glorious home, oh, gather us there,
Church of the firstborn, thou art so fair.
“Glorious things divinely complete
Within thee are found – thy love is replete;
Down through the ages, spotless and pure,
Thy God hath preserved thee, thou are secure.”
– B. E. Warren, Evening Light Songs #26, chorus & verse 4
There never has been a need, and it is impossible, for fallible man to reform or to restore the “rock” upon which Jesus Christ builds His church, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail (Matt. 16:18), and never have prevailed. But, while that foundation stands unmovable, men have often needed to be reminded how to properly build on it – how to incorporate gold, silver, and precious stones, and omit the wood, hay, and stubble (read 1 Cor. 3:9-15). Because they incorporated wood, hay, and stubble (human wisdom and organization) into their efforts to build for Christ, many sincere Christians have suffered great loss. They forgot that “Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” Psalm 127:1. Through the generations that have come and gone since the day of Pentecost, A.D. 33, there has often arisen the need for those principles of truth that make the church the church to be restored to the minds of men and re-formed in their hearts. Even before the decease of all Christ’s apostles, the mystery of iniquity was already at work (2 Thes. 2:3-7) and there was a “falling away” among many congregations (see Revelation chapters 2 – 3). The apostle Paul said concerning the Galatian congregation, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed (re-formed) in you.”Gal. 4:19.
There is no Christian group or movement that holds or owns any patent on “the church.” God, the Father, has safely and securely established “the church” within the substance of His own dear Son. Anything outside of that, or foreign to that, He just simply doesn’t recognize or accept. And, He freely extends the substance (life) of His Son to us, through the Holy Spirit. That substance, when accessed through the Spirit, will certainly make us a part of the church He owns and recognizes. We can count on the Holy Spirit to always do things right, and to always lead us aright. He never baptizes anyone into anything but Christ. While men baptize converts into various groups and
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denominational bodies, the Holy Spirit faithfully baptizes souls into Christ, and only into Christ. And herein we discover the true, divinely functioning church. No man can take us into it and no man (including Ray Tinsman) can exclude us from it or put us out of it. Christ Himself is the door. And it is He Who writes the names of His members who overcome by His grace, through faith, on the great membership roll of the church – the Lamb’s Book of Life in Heaven. He is also the One who blots out the names of those who do not overcome (see Rev. 3:5; Exo. 32:31-33).
There has never been a need for any man to restore the church. There has only been a need for men to measure themselves to the “plumbline” that identifies the parameters of God’s church. Here, and here only, can true restoration be found. “The Lord is my Shepherd … He restoreth my soul” (Psalm 23).
Return to the Plumbline
“Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more.” Amos 7:7-8.
We sometimes hear people say, “There needs to be another great reformation, or another great revival!” As appealing as that may sound, the fact is there’s not going to be one! The one that proclaimed Jesus Christ to be the substance of His own body, the church, was the last one. Its message is, as a matter of fact, the cure for all division and apostasy. That’s why it was sometimes referred to as the “last reformation.” Those who were originally involved in it understood the true nature of it. They were not responsible for the devil coming along later and diverting men’s focus by smoke-screening it with “another gospel.” Their focus was upon the Plumbline that God set in the midst of His people. Christ, the living Word, revealed to men’s hearts by the unction of the Holy Spirit, is that Plumbline. The Plumbline was what they measured themselves to and measured themselves by. And nobody can proceed any farther into “reformation” or “revival” than that! Some today have deviated so far from the Plumbline that they don’t perceive where they are at. Winds of doctrine and human reasonings have blinded their spiritual perception and diverted their focus. Nevertheless, the Plumbline remains just where God placed it. God is not going to pass by anymore with any further revelation of truth. He has already given us His truth. “What more can He say than to you He hath said?” He set the Plumbline and now He is requiring all to focus on it and measure themselves to it.
All anyone needs to do is just find that Plumbline and then align themselves to it and they will experience a glorious reformation and revival within themselves! “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation [outward show]: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:20b-21.
Committing our souls without reserve to the operation of the living Word and the Spirit of God will measure us to the Plumbline. It is then that we find, as the Word declares, that Zion is a “quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down;
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not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be [or ever has been] removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious LORD will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars [no man-ruled system], neither shall gallant [proud] ship pass thereby.” Isa. 33:20b-21. There are no exalted or arrogant spirits in the kingdom of God. Only “the spirits of just men made perfect” (complete) IN CHRIST! (Heb. 12:22-23.)
By simply returning to the Plumbline, we find ourselves “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God” … and we build “upon the foundation of THE APOSTLES” OF JESUS CHRIST; not some group ruled by an arrogant, self-serving chief apostle, or any other form of humanly controlled church government. The government of the divine church is upon Christ’s shoulder, and of the increase of His government and peace there is no end (see Isa. 9:6-7). In the household of God, we find “Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Corner Stone (and Jesus is the ONLY Chief), in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord: in whom” we “also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” (See Eph. 2:19-22.) As we come, by the ministration of the Holy Spirit, “unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,” we find ourselves “no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love,” we “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” (See Eph. 4:13-16.)
The Basis of Christian Unity
I sometimes hear people bemoan what they perceive to be “the Church of God” all broken up into various groups and schisms. They perceive each group to be a part of the whole. They will say things like, “How I wish all these Church of God groups could just get together and be one.” Heresies, or sects, are just the natural result of backsliding from entire sanctification – not necessarily from the doctrine, or theory, but from the actual experience. “Heresies” are simply “works of the flesh” (see Gal. 5:19-21), or natural outcroppings of carnality, as are variance and strife. They are proofs and indicators of Christians not being baptized with, filled with, and living and walking in THE SPIRIT. The words written by J. C. Blaney in the September 15, 1910 issue of The Gospel Trumpet are so true:
“… To be filled with the Spirit is a safeguard against false doctrine, compromise, or fanaticism. It is because there is a lack of being full of the Spirit of God that people fall a prey to spirits and doctrines that are foreign to the Spirit of God. There never was a soul deceived by a false doctrine while he was careful to keep filled with the Holy Spirit. A soul thus full of God is safe from deception, for when the enemy comes in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord will raise up a standard against him(Isaiah 59:19). If we keep filled with the Spirit, we shall have no difficulty in keeping
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clear of division. The early church was a unit as a result of the fulness of the Spirit. See Acts 4:32.‘Be filled with the Spirit.’ Eph. 5:18.”
Unity is impossible without a complete forsaking of every element that is foreign to Jesus Christ, Who is the substance of the divine church. God has no interest in uniting “groups.” He is interested, rather, in uniting “people” as they appropriate what he offers them in His Son. There must, therefore, be a complete death to the thing that causes division, that is, selfishness, which is carnality. People are going to have to return to the same thing that brought forth the “evening light” reformation in the beginning – “the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he [God] shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior”(Tit. 3:5-6).
D. S. Warner so accurately explains the basis of unity in his book, The Church of God – What the Church of God Is and What It Is Not. He says:
“What experience perfects us in oneness? Answer: Entire sanctification, or perfection.
“In connection with His prayer for oneness, the Savior prayed the Father to sanctify the disciples and all that would believe on Him through their word, which includes us. ‘And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one…’ John 17:22,23. Sanctification, perfection, and the glory of Christ all relate to the same experience, and this makes God’s children one. ‘For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.’ Heb. 2:11.
“‘And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”Eph. 4:11-13.
“‘Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” 1 Peter 1: 18,19.
“The salvation of the Lord, which qualifies us for Heaven, makes one on earth. A religion of divisions will deceive the soul. The chief object of God’s ministers is to ‘perfect the saints.’ And when perfected in love and holiness, they come into the ‘unity of the faith which was once delivered unto all the saints.’ The blood of Christ not only purifies from ‘all sin’ and ‘all unrighteousness,’ but also sweeps away all erroneous doctrines. The Comforter guides into all truth, which involves the removal of all error. It is true that cleansing from error is not as instantaneous as from sin. But the pure in heart have perfect fellowship, even though all previously educated errors have not
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yet disappeared. There is therefore no real cause of division but sin. Therefore, to cry against sects and divisions without first being wholly sanctified, and then leading people into this precious paradise of holy love, is nothing but confusion mocking confusion; or Satan buffeting Satan, as the devil flogged the sons of Sceva. All efforts of union but that of God’s holiness is like pounding cold crooked pieces of iron against each other to make them fit together. The more blows, the more crooks and differences. Put them into a furnace of white heat, and they will lose their cold, stiff, crooked individuality, and flow into one mass. That is God’s way of uniting His people, in the fire of the Holy Spirit. All tinkering up platforms of union is wasted time. Each effort has only molded another sect calf for the people to worship and wrangle over. Freedom from sin knits together in love. But all merely strapped-up unions are bundles bound together to be burned. Bible salvation is all that is needed. This obtained, both union of heart and soul, and harmony in outward worship and life, will follow as a result or fruit of the Spirit. When ‘baptized by one Spirit into one body,’ and made to drink in the one divine Spirit in His fullness, there will be no trouble to ‘worship God in spirit and in truth.’ For all such know the truth, and the truth makes them free. On the plane of Bible holiness, no outward observances are made a test, in fact nothing is made a test of fellowship. For holy men ‘judge not from appearance, but judge righteous judgment.’ ‘If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’1 John 1:7.
“Fellowship is of the Spirit (Phil. 2:1) and exists where heart-purity exists. It is the conscious blending of hearts filled with the same Holy Spirit. One may have been led into all truth, the other not. This does not interrupt fellowship. Nevertheless, it is the duty of such as ‘know the truth,’ in meekness to instruct others who do not. Ignorance of some truth does not destroy fellowship, but resisting the truth does; because it forfeits salvation. We must not sanction people’s errors, but if saved, show our love and fellowship to them, so long as they do not give the evidence that their wrong doctrines have become willful, or they have in some way lost salvation. Then fellowship ends but love and kindness still continue in faithful efforts for their salvation. To ignore fellowship simply because of some doctrinal error is bigotry. To agree to disagree, or to put on an equality truth and error, is babel confusion. To know the truth is our privilege; to teach the truth our duty; but to have fellowship with the pure and upright of heart is an involuntary and spontaneous fact. Sects are the result of carnality; nothing but perfect holiness destroys carnality, and thus removes both sectism and its cause. The fire of God’s love saves the soul, harmonizes all hearts that receive it, leads them into perfect and uniform obedience to all truth, and drives afar all who refuse to pass through its purging fire, and gain the plane of holy fellowship.”
– The Church of God – What the Church of God Is and What It Is Not, pages 17, 18, 19.
But someone says, “I know many people who claim to be sanctified and they don’t have fellowship; they’re not in unity with each other.” That is the difference between theory and reality, in “claiming to be sanctified” and “being sanctified.” Just as there are many people who profess to be “born again” Christians who have never had a real “born
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again experience,” there are likewise those who claim to be “sanctified” who do not understand, realize, and practice what they profess. Also, just as there are those who once had a “born again” experience, but later, lost the essence of it, so it may happen with the grace of entire sanctification.
Sanctification is far more than a “two works of grace theory.” The real experience of “entire sanctification” of which Bro. Warner speaks is the avenue through which we come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. It is how we align ourselves with the Plumbline. It involves our putting on Christ and putting off “self.” In a nutshell, it is receiving “the sentence of death in ourselves” (2 Cor. 1:9) and committing to “bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body … in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:10-11). It involves not only an initial baptism, or infilling, of the Holy Spirit, but it also involves not “quenching the Spirit, proving all things and holding fast that which is good, abstaining from all appearance of evil, and allowing the very God of peace to sanctify, or hallow us completely – our whole spirit and soul and body – preserving our whole being blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the experience that God is calling every Christian to, and He is faithful to do it, IF WE PERMIT HIM TO DO IT. (See 1 Thes. 5:19-24). It is really up to each of us, as Christians, whether, or not, we allow our heavenly Father to make this our experience.
In the experience of “entire sanctification” the consuming, purging fire of the Holy Spirit burns up carnality, the cause of “strife,” “variance,” and “heresies” (works of the flesh), and sheds abroad the boundless love of God in the hearts of the wholly sanctified. “… He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”1 John 4:16. Love “is the bond of perfectness.”Col. 3:14. Love is the primary fruit of the Spirit. Gal. 5:22. Peace, another part of the Spirit’s fruit, rules in the heart and calls us into one body, or unit. Col. 3:15. Unity is all so simple, yet, utterly impossible outside the divine element that produces it. Nevertheless, all those who imbibe the divine element by drinking into the Spirit in His fullness sweetly enjoy it. It is a mystery, but a fact concerning Christ and the church.
Also, it should be remembered that “entire sanctification” is an experience that must be maintained. It is entered into by a definite grasp of faith, but it must also be maintained through obedience and faith. The Spirit of God must be given the full right-of-way to and full control of “spirit, soul, and body” so that God’s will can be expressed in every aspect of the Christian’s life. Think about the following quotation:
“The fruits produced in our lives will manifest the ‘spirit’ that is being given liberty to work within us! And herein lies the secret to the fruit of the Spirit. If we have consecrated our lives to God, allowed His love to be perfected in our hearts and lives, then His love, working in and through us, will cause us to be willing to deny ourselves for the good of others. But this fruit will only continue to bear as long as that consecration is maintained! The real question is, what are we allowing to work in our lives?” – Curtis Williams, Jr., Sapulpa, OK
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Apostle Paul said, “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”1 Cor. 9:27.
Jude said, “But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” Jude 17-21.
Again, Paul said,“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”Eph. 6:18.
Whenever any individual begins drinking of some other spirit than the Holy Spirit, fellowship is automatically broken with those whose hearts are in harmony with the will of God, and who are living in obedience to the above scriptures – wholly sanctified. Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are automatically and spontaneously one! The Spirit makes them so! It’s just a natural law of the kingdom of Heaven! The only thing that prevents the law from operating is when elements exist in the heart that are foreign to the law of the kingdom, which is written in men’s hearts by the Spirit. Those foreign elements are the things that blind men to the real realm of holy fellowship. The blinded would like to see everyone who professes to be a Christian, or “blood-washed one,” incorporated into one fellowship. But that is impossible! The condition of fellowship is having a “heart in which God’s will is done” – a wholly sanctified, Spirit-filled heart. Only such hearts can become “entwined” by “love,” which is “the bond of perfectness.” If we allow ourselves to enter into the realm of “sensual,” that is, living after the flesh or to please the flesh – thinking and acting according to the impulses of the natural man, or carnal mind – we separate ourselves from holy fellowship by thus failing to live and walk in the Spirit. Holy fellowship only exists where spirits, souls, and bodies are kept under the control of the Holy Spirit – wholly sanctified. Zion is the habitation of “the spirits of just men made perfect” (see Heb. 12:22-23).
Sister Jennie Rutty wrote in 1914, “For several years I have seen that many of the saints are not [wholly] sanctified. They are consecrated to a certain point, but not perfectly enough to claim active, living faith for the real experience of cleansing and infilling; and there is a lethargy, a lack of spirituality and power, that is letting in worldliness, little by little. … The future will show us all the things that are now counted evil forebodings and murmurings, for sooner or later, truth will become visible.”
And it did! A lack of “entire sanctification,” as well as a backsliding from entire sanctification, was the root of the problem that produced the turn of events that took place among the Church of God people during the 1910 – 1920 decade. It is yet the problem today wherever Christian unity is lacking. Let us each one ask ourselves personally the questions found in Bro. D. S. Warner’s song, “Fire In the Soul.”
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“Is the Spirit glowing in thy heart? Oh, my brother, can you say
That you feel the burning love of God In thy bosom day by day?
“Do you feel the mighty, living pow’r, Filling all thy mortal frame?
And does all thy heart forever pour Streams of glory to His name?”
Can we answer:
“Yes, ‘tis love, ‘tis burning love divine, Filling all my soul’s desire;
Oh, how sweet its glories ever shine! Now I feel the glowing fire?”
Wholly sanctified people cling to no idols in their lives, but as another song says, they “cling alone to Jesus, as did the saints of yore.” – Evening Light Songs #33, verse 4. They “have left all the world to follow Jesus.” – Evening Light Songs #244. They are people who have lost themselves and then found themselves in Jesus alone. They follow Jesus, not man. While they respect those humble servants of Christ who preach the Gospel, they are not puffed up for one against another, and do not esteem men above that which is written. They have lost their own minds and have taken on the mind of Christ through the Spirit. They judge not from the perspective of human reasoning, but from that of Holy Spirit unction. Without this “unction”(1 John 2:20, 27) nobody’s judgment in religious matters is trustworthy; neither is any man able to “rightly divide” the Word of truth. The wholly sanctified are strangers and foreigners to the world – to natural men. The things which they speak are not “words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” The natural man is not able to receive or understand those things, “for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual (wholly sanctified) judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man [the natural man is unable to judge or discern where he’s coming from]. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”(See 1 Cor. 2:9-16.)“The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (verse 10) and reveals them to the wholly sanctified. Jesus said, “when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak …” “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” John 16:13-15. Those who are wholly sanctified unto the Lord teach no more every man his brother, saying, “know the Lord,” for they all know Him from the least to the greatest (Heb. 8:11).
The wholly sanctified are eating Christ’s flesh and drinking His blood through His Word made alive in their souls by the Spirit. Thereby Christ becomes the substance of their religion and all that they fellowship. They do not fellowship anything outside of Christ. Every spirit that is foreign to the Spirit of Christ they reject. As D. S. Warner stated in another song he wrote, “I see and know no other, and by none else I’m known.” – Echoes from Glory #21, verse 2, (published 1893). Apostle Paul expressed it like this: “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.”2 Cor. 5:16. Christ can only be known now through the Spirit as the Spirit receives of the things of Christ and
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imparts them to us by inward revelation. “And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” 1 John 5:6b. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.” 1 John 5:10a. By the same Holy Spirit “witness” through which we discern and know Christ, we also discern and know Christ’s brethren, the church. All things that disagree with the Spirit’s witness we can be sure are out of line with truth and foreign to the substance of the divine church.
When Christians find themselves on a lower plane than “entire sanctification,” strife, variance, and heresies become prevalent among them, for such is nothing but normal to natural humanity. It is impossible for people to all become likeminded unless they assimilate “the mind of Christ.” And this can only happen as the Spirit inscribes the law of God upon the heart and mind of man. Yet, the Spirit can never thus write God’s law in its completeness until we have died a complete death to “self” – our thoughts, our human reasonings, our desires, our everything! Therefore,
“Let Me Die!”
“O God, my heart doth long for Thee, let me die!
Now set my soul at liberty, let me die!
Die to the trifling things of earth,
They’re now to me of little worth,
My Savior calls, I’m going forth; let me die.
“Thy slaying power in me display, let me die!
I must be dead from day to day, let me die!
Dead to the world and its applause –
To all the customs, fashions, laws,
Of those who hate the humbling cross; let me die!
“My friends may say I’ll ruined be if I die!
If I leave all and follow Thee, but I’ll die!
Their arguments will never weigh,
Nor stand the trying Judgment Day,
Help me to cast them all away; let me die!
“Oh, I must die to scoffs and sneers, let me die!
I must be free from slavish fears, let me die!
So dead that no desire will rise
To appear good or great or wise
In any but my Savior’s eyes; let me die.
“When I am dead, then Lord, to Thee will I live.
My time, my strength, my all, to Thee will I give.
I’ll work with Thee, my blessed Lord;
I’ll be obedient to Thy Word;
I’ll wield with power the gospel sword, while I live.”
– Author anonymous
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It is only in this “wholly sanctified” state that men and women can truly become “laborers together with God”(2 Cor. 3:9; 6:1). It is in entire sanctification that unity finds its natural element. Without it, fellowship fragmentizes and people drift apart, because every man’s way is right in his own eyes. Any attempt to unify outside this Canaan land of perfect love is doomed for certain failure. “Have you made a consecration of yourself and earthly store? Have you died to all but Jesus and His will forevermore?” The abundant life of Jesus springs forth from a complete death. Think deeply about it!
The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). That is why peace, harmony, and unity naturally exists between all those who live and walk “in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-25). Therefore, “Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” 1 Thes. 5:19-24.
Yes, God will do it provided we who begin in the Spirit (by being born again – John 3:3-8) do not quench the Spirit but go on to perfection and become fully immersed in the Spirit. We must offer our whole spirit, soul, and body in such completeness to God that we lose ourselves and find our identity completely IN HIM. This is the state of grace wherein we lose all worldly conformity, our minds become renewed, we take on the mind of Christ, and we begin proving what is “that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (See Rom. 12:1-2.) It was this grace that brought Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Mennonites, and people of almost every other religious background together into one body in the beginning of the “evening light” reformation. It still works the same way today, even for professed “Church of God” people who are willing to lose themselves and find their identity in the real “church of God” element, which is the life and nature of Jesus Christ dispensed by the Holy Spirit. Again, FELLOWSHIP IS OF THE SPIRIT and exists wherever people drink into the Spirit in His fullness. Therefore, let us lose ourselves and find ourselves IN CHRIST. “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” Gal. 4:19. Only when we discover the fullness of Christ in a wholly sanctified state can we understand “the last reformation.” Christ is “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending.” Rev. 1:8. Therefore, let us so yield ourselves to the Spirit that He may conform our spirits, souls, and bodies to the image of Christ. As we all allow the Spirit to form Christ in us, we automatically find ourselves “reformed,” baptized into one body, drinking into one Spirit. Christ is not divided. This is the simplicity of “the last reformation.”
The “Anti-cleansing” Heresy
I feel I must not conclude this book without also focusing more directly on the “anti-cleansing” heresy of 1897 – 1898. Shortly after the death of D. S. Warner in December 1895, the enemy of Christian unity launched an all-out attack against the doctrine of--
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--entire sanctification, the advanced experience of grace that perfects Christians in oneness. E. E. Byrum writes about it in his book, Life Experiences, under the heading “In Contact with False Doctrines.” He says:
“… An attack was made on the doctrine of sanctification. The adherents claimed that sanctification was only the ‘setting apart’ for service as taught in the Old Testament, and not a heart cleansing or experience aside from justification. It was accompanied by a spirit of exaltation, spiritual blindness, and confusion, by which the enemy sought to work division in the church. They spent much time searching the Scriptures and wresting them to prove their points.
“The first intimation we had of the working of this spirit of division in our midst was one day when a young sister came to me and was weeping and in much confusion. For several years she had been living a victorious, sanctified life and her testimonies at prayer meeting were always a flame of inspiration and power. She asked whether we really had the true light on sanctification. She said that three young men who were employed by the publishing company [Gospel Trumpet Company] had been studying the subject and had received new light and it seemed so plausible that she accepted their teaching, but since doing so she had become so confused that she did not know what was right and was very unsettled in her spiritual experience.
“She said she was sure that she had been converted and afterwards sanctified and obtained a real experience which she had enjoyed for a number of years, but these brethren told her that according to their new light on the subject she was mistaken in regard to getting the experience of sanctification after conversion, and they quoted scriptures to prove their assertions, and said that it was all obtained at one time and that there was no heart-cleansing in sanctification after conversion.
“Little by little she yielded to their persuasions until it seemed plausible, but when she accepted it, she became confused and lost her joy and victory and found herself under the binding influence, from which she was unable to break away without help. After having prayer with her she was loosed from the power of that spirit and free from the confusion.
“This was repeated several times and we found others being affected in like manner and a spirit of division working in our midst.
“On Thanksgiving Day about one hundred employees of the publishing plant assembled in the main office of the publishing house to observe a Thanksgiving service. As several present were somewhat confused over the teachings that had been presented to them secretly and privately it became necessary to expose the false teaching and false spirit. As this was done, the Lord poured out His Spirit upon us and there were many shouts of victory, which was followed by a wonderful healing service wherein many were healed, among whom was a lame man, also a woman who had been deaf in one ear for eleven years.
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“A statement was made that the false doctrine and false teaching mentioned would be allowed no place in our midst henceforth. As soon as the services closed, these three brethren mentioned agreed to ‘stick together and not yield or relent.’ As two of them had charge of the subscription department, and the other one was assistant to the secretary of the company, they thought themselves of such importance as to be indispensable. They stepped forward boldly and said:
“‘Well, if you meant what you said, we suppose that means we are to go, as we have no intention of changing our minds or giving up our teaching.’
“‘We mean exactly what we said,’ was the reply.
“‘Alright, that means we will go.’
“‘Then you are now immediately excused and relieved of all responsibilities in connection with your office work and are at liberty to go.’
“This ended our troubles from that time among our office employees where otherwise a less drastic position would have meant constant confusion and division instead of peace and unity of spirit.
“It was only a few days later, however, that a letter was received from a minister in one of the Western States saying that Brother H_____, another minister, had received some wonderful new light on sanctification, and the brethren there were considering it. He said the ‘leading brethren’ were accepting it and warned me not to oppose it, especially through The Gospel Trumpet, until we had met Brother H_____ and had had a private talk with him. Otherwise, there were twenty preachers there ready to take their stand with Brother H_____.
“Having already met the doctrine and subtilty of the spirit accompanying it, I picked up my pen and wrote the heading of an article for The Gospel Trumpet – “Preachers on a Strike.” The article was published, and the preachers went on strike. Later, some of them saw the error of their position and renounced it, while some of the others began to preach for some denominations. Several people fell into the confusion, but the church and doctrine of sanctification shone forth as before.”
– E. E. Byrum, Life Experiences, pages 151 – 154
It is interesting how history often repeats itself. As has already been mentioned in this book, in the 1950’s, Victor Orr, the son of Bro. C. E. Orr, stirred up a fervent revival of this very heresy of which E. E. Byrum wrote. He gathered to himself a following (probably not as large as the one Danny Layne gathered to himself in the 1980’s) and separated them into a group under his leadership. They published a paper called “Church of God Truths.” Our family received that paper for a while also, as we did other publications from various Seventh Seal/Trumpet groups. I remember how many of the articles published in Church of God Truths lashed out against the Faith and Victory--
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--publishers of Guthrie, Oklahoma, accusing them of “compromise” and teaching false doctrine. The Faith and Victory publishers simply ignored them and continued with a Christ-oriented, salvation-oriented focus.
A similar scenario took place when Danny Layne and his followers launched their movement in the 1980’s, but this time on the “seventh trumpet” platform instead of the “one work” platform. Again, the Faith and Victory publishers ignored the accusations of Layne and his followers and continued with a Christ and salvation-oriented focus. The following comments appeared in the June 1997 editorials of the Faith and Victory:
“So what are we to rally around and what is our identity? Our identity is found in Christ. He is our rallying force. Our purpose should be to lift Him up in our daily lives, and in our individual spheres of influence. This we must do so that others will come to Him and be saved. To accomplish this task, we must keep the Holy Spirit fresh within us and our energies focused on becoming more like our Savior.”
This was the focus of the Faith and Victory publishers from the very beginning. As Fred Pruitt, the founding publisher wrote many decades before, “The time has come when men should not say that they are merely in a reformation, but they should say that they are gathered unto Christ and will be led of His Spirit. … In Genesis 49:10 we read, ‘The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. …’ Jesus tells us in the 15th chapter of John that He is the true vine, and we should attach ourselves unto Him and Him only, for there is a multitude of false vines in the world who work hard to get you and me to join them. … Brother and sister, abide in Christ and let the light of heaven shine out [through you] to this dark, sin-cursed world …”
One of the front-page scripture mottos of the Faith and Victory publishers throughout their 90 plus years of publishing, was, “Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be.” Their focus was never diverted from that. That is an excellent track record!
Although the “Victor Orr movement” did not affect nearly as many people, seemingly, as did the “Danny Layne movement” that came 30 years later, there was quite a number of good, sincere people affected by the Victor Orr movement. Among them was Bro. Egbert Allen, my mother’s uncle, brother in the flesh to Bro. Murphy Allen. My grandfather, Murphy Allen, told me that one of the things that made him realize this new (but actually old) doctrine that Victor Orr was agitating was not of God was the fact that the very entertaining and consideration of it in his mind robbed him of his peace. The Word says, “the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 14:17). Therefore, he concluded that anything that was going to rob him of his peace could not be of God. So, he rejected the doctrine. But his brother, Egbert, sympathized with Orr’s agenda and followed him in his defection.
Uncle Egbert told me, in later years, that after following Victor Orr for one year, he knew he had made a mistake. Things began to surface that he knew were not right. He had a close friend, Bro. Edward Atnip, who also had chosen to follow Victor Orr. Bro.--
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--Atnip also realized he had made a mistake. Together they withdrew from Victor Orr and remained somewhat to themselves for several years. But Uncle Egbert continued to come around the camp meetings of the so-called Faith and Victory people. After the passing of time, he became fully convinced that these people had not “compromised” as Victor Orr had led his followers to believe they had. It was evident from the presence and anointing of the Spirit of God in their services. So, in December 1972, he attended the Guthrie, Oklahoma Assembly Meeting and, while there, requested that the ministers have a special meeting with him. In this meeting he confessed his fault and his mistake in separating from the general body of the “evening light” saints and let them know that he wanted to be in unity with them again. He agreed to make a public confession and ask forgiveness for participating in a divisional spirit. This he did during an evening service, I believe. After he said what he felt he needed to say, Bro. O. C. Porter got up, and said something along this line: “Bro. Egbert has made his acknowledgment and asked the saints to forgive him of his error. Now, let everyone who forgives him say ‘I.’” Although, I was not privileged to be in that service and witness it, I was told that the congregation unanimously roared out “I.” He was received back into fellowship with open arms. His close friend, Bro. Edward Atnip, soon followed his example, and later, around 1974, Bro. Atnip became our pastor here at Myrtle, Missouri, for a period of two years.
Unfortunately, the resurfacing and agitation of the “anti-cleansing heresy” did not die with Victor Orr’s movement. Not long after, it also resurfaced in one of the larger Seventh Seal/Trumpet groups, led by Emerson Wilson. All these combinations of heretical doctrines only served in creating a greater maze of confusion for souls. There is no limit to how far off-track people may go when they become carried about with winds of doctrine, theologies, or lines of thought that depart from the simplicity of the gospel experienced through childlike faith in Christ and definite Holy Spirit revelation. Theologies set limits on Christian experience, but “the gift of faith no limit knows, save God’s unbounded Word.”
In conversing with my mother’s uncle, Egbert Allen, about his involvement with Victor Orr and the issues surrounding his objections to sanctification as a second work of grace, he told me that one of the issues was that they viewed sanctification as a cleansing of the will, but not a cleansing of the heart. But he said after considering the matter, he came to realize the will IS a part of one’s heart. If the will is cleansed, or perfected, by a Christian’s consecration and setting himself apart for the service of God, then there must be heart cleansing involved too.
I feel that much of the confusion that has surrounded the doctrine of sanctification has been due to a lack of depths of understanding as well as misunderstanding of terminologies used in defining it. In his book, Holy Spirit Baptism and the Second Cleansing, Russel Byrum compares the matter to three blind men who were asked to feel of an elephant and then give their description of what an elephant is like. One man felt of the elephant’s side and then described an elephant as being like a wall. Another felt of the elephant’s trunk and described an elephant as being like a tree. The other felt of the elephant’s ear and described the elephant as being like a fan. Then they all three argued loud and long about who had the correct description of the elephant. The fact was they--
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(Col 1:17) And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
(Col 1:18) And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
(Col 1:19) For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
(Col 1:20) And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
(Col 1:21) And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
(Col 1:22) In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
(Col 1:23) If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;
(Col 1:24) Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church:
(Col 1:25) Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;
(Col 1:26) Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
(Col 1:27) To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
(Col 1:28) Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
(Rev 1:20) The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
(Rev 3:5) He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
(Exo 32:31) And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.
(Exo 32:32) Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
(Exo 32:33) And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.
(Eph 2:18) For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
(Eph 2:19) Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
(Eph 2:20) And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
(Eph 2:21) In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
(Eph 2:22) In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
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(Luk 17:26) And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
(Luk 17:27) They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
(Luk 17:28) Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
(Luk 17:29) But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
(Luk 17:30) Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
(Luk 18:8) I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
(2Th 2:3) Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
(2Th 2:4) Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
(2Th 2:5) Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
(2Th 2:6) And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
(2Th 2:7) For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
(Rev 8:1) And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
(Num 21:8) And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
(Num 21:9) And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
(Joh 3:14) And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
(Joh 3:15) That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
(2Ki 18:4) He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
(Heb 6:1) Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
(Eph 4:11) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
(Eph 4:12) For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
(Eph 4:13) Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
(Gal 3:3) Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
(1Co 12:13) For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
(Rom 15:16) That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
The Cleansing of the Sanctuary
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(1Co 3:9) For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
(1Co 3:10) According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
(1Co 3:11) For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
(1Co 3:12) Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
(1Co 3:13) Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
(1Co 3:14) If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
(1Co 3:15) If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
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(1Jn 2:20) But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
(1Jn 2:21) I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
(1Jn 2:22) Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
(1Jn 2:23) Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
(1Jn 2:24) Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.
(1Jn 2:25) And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
(1Jn 2:26) These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
(1Jn 2:27) But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
(Rev 1:20) The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
(Rev 11:14) The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
(Col 3:15) And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
(1Ti 4:3) Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
(1Ti 4:4) For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
(Rev 21:14) And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
(Mat 24:29) Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
(Rev 20:7) And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
(Rev 20:8) And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
(Rev 20:9) And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
((Gen 6:1) And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
(Gen 6:2) That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
(Gen 6:3) And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
(Gen 6:4) There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
(Gen 6:5) And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
(Gen 6:6) And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
(Gen 6:7) And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
(Gen 6:8) But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
(Gen 6:9) These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
(Gen 6:10) And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
(Gen 6:11) The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
(Gen 6:12) And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
(Gen 6:13) And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
(Psa 103:2) Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
(Psa 103:3) Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
(Psa 103:4) Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;
(Psa 103:5) Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
(Psa 2:12) Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
(Mat 21:42) Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
(Mat 21:43) Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
(Mat 21:44) And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
(Php 3:21) Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
(Luk 16:16) The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.
(Joh 3:3) Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
(Joh 3:4) Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
(Joh 3:5) Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
(Joh 3:6) That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
(Joh 3:7) Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
(Joh 3:8) The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
(Rev 1:9) I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
(2Co 3:9) For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
(2Co 6:1) We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.
(Isa 9:6) For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
(Isa 9:7) Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
(2Pe 2:1) But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
(2Pe 2:2) And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
(2Pe 2:3) And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
(Act 4:32) And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
(Psa 36:9) For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.
(Rev 10:1) And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
(Rev 10:2) And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
(Rev 10:3) And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
(Luk 19:14) But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.
(Luk 19:15) And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.
(Luk 19:16) Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.
(Luk 19:17) And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.
(Luk 19:18) And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds.
(Luk 19:19) And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities.
(Luk 19:20) And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:
(Luk 19:21) For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.
(Luk 19:22) And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow:
(Luk 19:23) Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?
(Luk 19:24) And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.
(Luk 19:25) (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.)
(Luk 19:26) For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
(Luk 19:27) But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
(Eph 5:3) But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
(Eph 5:4) Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.
(Eph 5:5) For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
(Eph 5:6) Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
(Luk 18:8) I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
(Col 2:17) Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
(Col 2:18) Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
(Col 2:19) And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.
(Col 2:20) Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
(Col 2:21) (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
(Col 2:22) Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
(Col 2:23) Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
(Mat 16:16) And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
(Mat 16:17) And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
(Mat 16:18) And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
(Act 20:28) Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
(2Th 2:13) But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
(2Th 2:14) Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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(2Ti 3:6) For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
(Rev 6:12) And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
(Rev 6:13) And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
(Rev 6:14) And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
(Rev 6:15) And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
(Rev 6:16) And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
(Rev 6:17) For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
(Rev 11:11) And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
(Rev 11:12) And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
(Rev 11:13) And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
(Rev 11:14) The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
(Joh 3:3) Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
(Joh 3:4) Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
(Joh 3:5) Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
(Joh 3:6) That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
(Joh 3:7) Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
(Joh 3:8) The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
MIND THE LITTLE THINGS!
(Volume Two)
A Hindsight View of
NINETY YEARS
OF
SUPPOSED
SEVENTH
TRUMPETING
By Harland Sorrell
P.1
(Eph 3:16) That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
(Eph 3:17) That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
(Eph 3:18) May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
(Eph 3:19) And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
(Eph 2:19) Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
(Eph 2:20) And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
(Rev 14:6) And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
(Rev 14:7) Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
(Rev 14:8) And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
(Rev 14:9) And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
(Rev 14:10) The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
(Rev 14:11) And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
(Rev 14:12) Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
(Heb 12:22) But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
(Heb 12:23) To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
The thousand years?
(2Co 1:9) But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
(Rev 10:5) And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
(Rev 10:6) And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
(Rev 10:7) But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
(1Th 5:19) Quench not the Spirit.
(1Th 5:20) Despise not prophesyings.
(1Th 5:21) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
(1Th 5:22) Abstain from all appearance of evil.
(1Th 5:23) And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1Th 5:24) Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
(Col 3:14) And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
(Act 1:5) For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
(Luk 24:49) And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
(Luk 24:50) And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
(Luk 24:51) And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
(Luk 24:52) And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
(Luk 24:53) And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.
(Act 1:1) The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
(Act 1:2) Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
(Act 1:3) To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
(Act 1:4) And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which,saith he, ye have heard of me.
(Act 1:5) For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
(Act 1:6) When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
(Act 1:7) And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
(Act 1:8) But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
(Act 1:9) And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
(Act 1:10) And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
(Act 1:11) Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
(Act 1:12) Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey.
A look at mistakes made in the history of God’s people that serve as perpetual landmarks of danger. D. D. Johnson once said, “Unless we live in the Holy Spirit, we will make mistakes which will prove the ruin of our souls!” And may we add, “the souls of succeeding generations!”
Table of Contents:
Introduction . . . . . . . . Page 3
A New Seed Is Sown –
Origin of the Seventh Seal/Trumpet Doctrine . . . Page 3
The Opening of the Seventh Seal . . . . . Page 9
The Trumpets . . . . . . . . Page 10
The Seventh and Last Trumpet – The Third and Final Woe! Page 27
Darkened Counsel and Perverted Interpretations . . Page 30
Lawrence D. Pruitt’s Dream . . . . . . Page 40
A High-spirited Horse Pulling a Cart! . . . . Page 50
The Incredible Fruit of a Delusive Spirit! . . . . Page 52
The Constancy of the Divine Church . . . . Page 62
(Act 14:11) And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.
(Act 14:12) And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.
(Act 14:13) Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people.
(Act 14:14) Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,
(Act 14:15) And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein:
(Act 14:16) Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
(Act 14:17) Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.
(Act 14:18) And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them.
(Rev 8:13) And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!
(Rev 9:5) And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
(Eze 4:6) And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
(1Pe 1:18) Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
(1Pe 1:19) But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
(Gal 6:14) But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
(Joh 17:20) Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
(Joh 17:21) That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
(Joh 17:22) And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
(Joh 17:23) I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
(Joh 17:24) Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
(Rom 12:1) I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
(Rom 12:2) And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
(Gal 4:19) My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
(Rev 1:8) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
(Rev 10:1) And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
(Rev 10:2) And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
(Joh 6:45) It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
(1Jn 2:27) But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
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Mind The Little Things II
(Php 2:1) If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
(Luk 9:23) And he said to them all,If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
(Luk 9:24) For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.
(Rev 11:15) And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
(Rev 11:16) And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
(Rev 11:17) Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
(Rev 11:18) And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
(Tit 2:5) To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
(1Co 11:15) But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.
(1Pe 1:12) Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.
(Rev 10:7) But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
(Mat 16:18) And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
(Son 1:7) Tell me, O 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 flocks of thy companions?
(Heb 12:22) But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
(Heb 12:23) To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
(Exo 30:9) Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering; neither shall ye pour drink offering thereon.
(Lev 10:1) And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.
(Lev 10:2) And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
(Eph 2:19) Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
(Eph 2:20) And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
(2Sa 5:24) And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the LORD go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines.
(Rev 11:13) And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
(Rev 11:11) And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
(Rev 11:12) And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
(Rev 11:14) The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
(Psa 2:12) Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
(Rev 11:15) And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
(Rev 11:16) And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
(Rev 11:17) Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
(Rev 11:18) And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
(Rev 11:19) And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
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(Amo 7:7) Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.
(Amo 7:8) And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more: