A LIVING ENTITY by
Stephen Benton
"For the word of God is quick, and
powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword,..."
The scriptures are a living entity. The literal meaning of any given text will not
change, but the
angles and intensity of spiritual
light being shed on a passage
are constantly changing. That is especially true of prophetic
scripture. The very day itself allows
prophecy to be seen in a different light
as time goes by. Because we are living in the final years of the last days,
most of the dark passages of prophecy are now shining
with a brilliance never
before seen. As we move closer to the end of the last
days the few remaining prophecies that
are yet blurred will continue to come
into focus.
For example, the book of Revelation
speaks of the "mark" of the beast and that no man
will be able to buy or sell unless he has the
mark in his right hand or in his
forehead. When I was a teenager, those
who taught on that topic had no idea of
how the mark would be placed or identified. In the last 20 years technology has
given us bar codes and scanners
which in turn have allowed us to
better interpret the possibility of
Revelation's mark. With the development
of the
micro-chip, a device that stores
million of bits of information on a
surface the size of a fingernail, we can easily comprehend how invisible marking on the skin or implants
just under the skin can carry an entire case history of an
individual. Scriptures that
seemed muddy a few decades ago may now be seen clearly because so much more information is now available to us.
Even Daniel did not understand
all of the prophecies he wrote about.
He was writing about things that went far beyond his day and they
stretched his imagination to the limit.
God didn't explain all of them to him either:
"And
I heard, but I understood not: then said I, 0 my Lord, what shall be the end of
these things? Go thy way, Daniel: for
the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." Dan.12:8-9
When the apostle John wrote the book of
Revelation, God told John not to seal
the book because the time of the events
was at hand. Because Revelation,
written centuries after Daniel, was not sealed,
the seal that was once placed on
Daniel's prophecy has also been broken.
Because we are at the end of this
age it is logical that God will
continue to reveal more
of his secrets to those who are fervently searching
his word. Furthermore, God will
actually reveal more of his plans to us because we are his friends.
Abraham
was the only Old Testament character recognized as God's friend and as such he
is the prototype of our friendship with God. There is a general impression that
Moses was called a friend of God but that is not so.
God spoke with Moses face to face "as a man speaketh unto his
friend" [Ex.33:11,) but Moses
was never called the friend of
God. Three times Daniel is called "greatly beloved" but never was he
called God's friend. To the Church Jesus
says the following:
"Ye
are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth
I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth:
but I have called you friends; for all
things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." Jn.15:14-15
Before
destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, God told his friend Abraham what he was about to do because
God had promised the land to
Abraham and also because Abraham's
nephew was living there.
As
believers, we are not only Jesus' friends, we are also the sons of God and
Jesus is our older brother. As our
brother, he will not keep us in the dark regarding our Father's plans. I'm sure that the Father has made known to
the Son the day of the Rapture. When Jesus promised the Holy Ghost to his
disciples he said the following:
"Howbeit
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:
and he will shew you things to come." Jn.16:13
I
am fully persuaded that God has shown this generation, those who will be alive
at the time of the Rapture, when that day will be. In these last days, God is still revealing
secrets to his prophets before he acts.
God has always conducted himself that way. He does not keep secrets from his people.
This
book will examine the scriptures that reveal the message to the Church for the time of the Rapture. It will also look at some of
the signs in the heavens that have been placed there for the
express purpose of confirming that our redemption is at hand.
{excerpt
from the forward of
1997...at the last trump! by Stephen Benton}
(available
on this page: Google+, GOD'S FINAL MESSAGE TO
HIS CHURCH!)
