The Daily Word of Righteousness

Who Is "He Who Now Restrains"?, #5

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: (Revelation 3:17)

How many Charismatic churches of today would tolerate someone who proclaimed to them that only those among them who had forsaken the world, had taken up their cross and were following Jesus, were the true Christians? How would they receive an individual who kept on warning them that the so-called "prosperity message" is coming from the False Prophet?

How would they treat a prophet if the President and the governors all were "Christians" and "deplored" the shortsightedness of this weird individual who kept on insisting that it is not of God that His saints be "successful" and at home in the present world; that the world is the enemy of the saint?

As is true today, the churches will have lost their separation from the world, like Samson of the Old Testament, and as a result, their strength. Here is Laodicea—the church without the Spirit of God, the church of "the rights of people." Laodicea is "rich and increased with goods" because it is subsidized by Antichrist so that it may work with his government in the establishing of world peace.

The fiery testimony of the Holy Spirit no longer is present in these "Christian" institutions. They are dead!

. . . I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. (Revelation 3:1)

"And art dead"!

Concerning Antichrist:

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. (Revelation 13:7)

Before the witnessing power was decreased the saints could not be harmed (Revelation 11:5). When God removes the Power that is hindering Antichrist, Antichrist then will be able to seduce many of the witnesses, and also their converts, and to bring the fullness of lawlessness into the lives of the inhabitants of the earth. There no longer will be any power that can restrain him.

Our fifth reason for not believing the Holy Spirit will be withdrawn from the earth (along with today's crop of immature believers) is that the Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached through at least part of the tribulation period, and it is not possible to preach the Gospel of Christ apart from the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God.

And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days. (Daniel 11:33)

Daniel, as was true of all the Hebrew Prophets, was writing concerning the Christian saints, whether they are Jews or Gentiles by natural birth. It is we Christians who are the "saints," the "holy ones" of God. The term saint is used in the Christian Epistles to refer to God's elect. Paul always wrote to the "saints," to the "holy ones" of God, not to the "Christians." The term Christian is employed only three times in the entire New Testament and never once by the Apostle Paul.

The present-day doctrine of God removing the Gentile part of His Church to Heaven, while the Jewish segment is left on the earth to face the wrath of Antichrist, is indeed contrary to the writings of the Apostle Paul. Hopefully the Jewish believers will recognize the anti-Semitism in the doctrine of the division of the one Church and reject it, for the teaching is not of God. Christ still loves His chosen people.

To be continued.