By C. Eldon McNabb

Oh yes, I know, it happens all the time; every day, actually.  We meet friends and ask, “What’s new?”  To which the other replies, “Oh you know, the same old thing.”

We may casually say something such as that, but today’s “same old thing” is certainly not what it was fifty years ago.  It has gradually been getting darker and darker in America and around the world.  Christians have been busy fulfilling the prophecy of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25.  They have gone to sleep, spiritually.  Oh they are busy: reading Christian and non-Christian fiction stories, and watching movies which are merely fables about Bible stories.  There have been a few Bible-based movies which, I believe, were not particularly offensive to God, and some with enough truth to stir some people to have faith in God. However, there has never been one which was altogether true, and some have actually been abominable blasphemy.  The Bible, however, is true, with a possible “typo” on rare occasion.

As time and spiritual idleness has progressed, most Christians have accepted the notion the Jesus will not be back soon, if at all, in their life time.  But they are always talking about that mythical time when Jesus is to come and take them off to heaven, in accordance with the “Rapture” myth.  They are talking in their sleep!  This condition began to trouble me in the early 1960s, at which time I realized that this doctrinal error was Christianity’s great sleeping pill.  Today I challenge you to shake yourself awake, and begin to read the Bible, because God has told us in the Bible what is about to happen, both before Jesus comes and when He comes. 

It is written, in the day of air travel, “Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people” (Isaiah 60:1-8).  “The darkness [God] called night” (Genesis 1:5), and “They that sleep, sleep in the night” (1 Thess. 5:7), and “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).  And of the Church, God said, “Her candle goeth not out by night” (Prov. 31:18); “Therefore let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober”   (1 Thess. 5:6).

It is amazing to me how the shelves of, what I would call, “misnamed Bible book stores” have very few real Bibles.  Most of the “Bibles” they sell have been revised to say what they want us to believe, instead of us believing what God and His Emissaries actually said.  Furthermore, the majority of the stock on the shelves is so-called “Christian Fiction.”  It is a great tragedy that very few Christians today are actively pursuing the Truth.  They hardly have time, because they are consuming the blatant doctrinal errors which they are reading in, admittedly, “fiction” books.

What about you?  Have you ever read all of any version of the Bible?  If you hope to go to the “Marriage Supper of The Lamb,” you need to get the light of the Word of God shining into you life.  In John 6:63, Jesus told us, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”  There is only one place to find those words: in an unabridged, un-paraphrased, uncorrupted copy of the Holy Bible.  In John 6, Jesus asked his disciples if they were going to leave Him as the rest of the crowd had done.  “Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”  If you are expecting to “make it through” on a born-again experience alone, you will soon find yourself in dire straits, as the wrath of God begins to be poured out upon Christianity.  There will not be any “quick trip” to heaven and back to save us from that trouble, which He has prepared specifically for Christians who would rather have some glittering idolatry than to have Jesus and the “the Feast of Harvest,” and “the Feast of Ingathering, which is in the end of the year” (Exodus 23:16).  Jesus translated that to mean when all of righteous Christianity is gathered into “one,” at the end of the world: the end of the Grace Age (Matt. 13:37-43).

In 1963, darkness began to settle down in this country when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed Christian prayer and Bible reading in the public schools.  Only one Christian organization rose up to protest: The Church of God at Jerusalem Acres in Cleveland, Tenn., under the knowledgeable, anointed leadership of the Prophet Grady R. Kent.  I rejoice that I was privileged to participate in that unique demonstration at the White House that day in 1963.

For several years now, this country has reaped the fruit of that tragic societal error.  For the Psalmist David prophesied, saying, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”  More and more, the students at our schools, having no god and no moral guidance, have become open and unconstrained adulterers, rapists, and murderers.  And the people who control what is allowed to be taught in the public schools seem to believe that the nation is better off with the rampaging hedonism which they have infused into their children, and ours, than when we were under the gentle constraint of the words of our loving and caring Creator.

In the ensuing years since 1963, Christians have, in ignorance, let their spiritual lights go out, and have dozed off.  If they do not awake and repent, God’s punishment will come upon them, just as surely as it will upon the ungodly.  In fact, God will pour out judgment, with great persecution, upon Christianity, before He judges the ungodly (1 Peter 4:17).  Paul admonished us that we should “not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”  We are watching world events, but especially the progressive fulfillment of the prophecies which concern this brief space of time preceding the coming of King Jesus (2 Peter 1:19-21).

Somewhere between the relatively docile 1950s and today, the “Nation of Islam” decided it was “their time,” and they began to take over the world a piece at a time.  They go forth worshipping the “god of war,” and slaughtering non-Muslims and Muslims alike, as they live and promote “the way” of their god.  In so doing, they are fulfilling the prophecy in the allegory of Ishmael in Genesis 16:11-12.  The angel of the Lord said unto Hagar, “Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction.  And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.”  If you have read the Koran, and followed what news has been available, you know that love and mercy are not an issue with those who live and die by the “holy book” of Islam.  It appears that God has plans to use the “House of Islam” as one of His tools in the pouring out of His wrath upon the children of disobedience. 

Actually, they picked a bad time for their push.  They did not start early enough, because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is going to begin to take over the world in the Fall of 2011.  That will be a confrontation which we call “no contest.”  Whatever Islamists are able to gain in the next three or four years will soon be lost to the King of the Kingdom of God on Earth. 

The darkness of ignorance, unbelief, and rebellion against God has been steadily increasing in this great country among Christians and non-Christians alike.  The American government began to take on the characteristics of a “beast” after September 11, 2001.  Even as early as 2000, the push to eliminate any Christian or Biblical public displays had already begun.  However, by the Fall of 2008, some in the government of the United States will begin to see the mistake which is being made, in that respect, and they will try to reverse the trend, but it will be too late.  In the process, they will make a huge effort to save what Christians they can, before the onslaught of “the Beast” wipes out Christianity altogether.  They will thus fulfill that saying in Exodus 12:33, “The Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste.”

A new day is beginning to dawn.  God has begun to accelerate the increase of the enlightenment of Bible truth through the ministry of His holy apostles and prophets, and has begun to increase the growth of His Church, which will ultimately become The Kingdom of God.  He has charged us to make the necessary preparations for the coming of the Bridegroom, and we are moving in obedience to that charge.

We are beginning to see the fulfillment of Isaiah 21:11-12.  The Lord said, “He calleth to me out of Seir, ‘Watchman, what of the night?  Watchman, what of the night?’  The watchmen said, ‘The morning cometh, and also the night.’”  We have had quite a long night since 1963, but the morning is upon us, and I adjure you by Jesus Christ that you stir yourself, and come together with us, to do what must be done in preparation for the arrival of the Bridegroom.  This new time of enlightenment is dependant upon the labors of a group of holy, righteous, and “peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14).  There will be no one in the Bride the Lamb’s wife who does not fit that criterion.

If I seem to be disturbing your comfortable Christian walk, it is because that is what I am trying to do. This knock on your door is one of love and friendship.  It is a call to try to get you to begin to look at what is going on around you, and to begin to “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they that testify” of Jesus Christ and the events which will immediately precede His second coming (John 5:39).

Jesus said, “Many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”  If you do not know of at least three or four false prophets, then you probably have no idea how to recognize one.  Do you know what a false prophet sounds like?  How would you know if you were to encounter one? 

Paul described today’s false teachers, saying, “I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine [of Christ] which ye have learned; and avoid them.  For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. … Yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.  And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” (Rom. 16:17-20).

So those “many prophets” who are among us today promote sectarianism.  They do not want us to “come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God.”  They do not want us to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”  What they are earnestly pursuing is their personal carnal welfare.  Usually they have lots of money, and they are really good speakers.  They love to tickle your ears by telling you all of those good things that you so love to hear, and they are busy deceiving the unsuspecting.

Paul was not like that.  He labored to make us wise unto that which is good, and to cause us to be simple concerning evil.  The Apostles Paul and John both stressed the importance of our knowing and walking according the Oracles of God: the Doctrine of Christ (Heb. 5:11-6:3, and 2 John 1:9).  Paul admonished Timothy to “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in so doing thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.”  Paul was not referring to redemption, but to the way we can assure our being able to endure to the end, and to miss the wrath of God which is soon to be poured out upon wayward Christianity (Zeph. 2:1-3).

You need to find someone who can teach you the Doctrine of Christ.  I am speaking specifically of the “oracles of God, the doctrine of Christ” which Paul so diligently conveyed to us in Hebrews Chapters 5 and 6.  We will send you a copy upon request, but you will probably still need some tutoring on some of it.  God spoke of the Doctrine of Christ in Zechariah 4, saying, “Who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel.”  “The Doctrine of Christ” is that measure of uprightness.

In the late 1970s, God inspired me to search out the Doctrine of Christ.  I did so, and published that work, and sent it to thousands of ministers and churches in the mid 1980s.  At that time there was apparently no interest among those to whom we sent this precious truth.  It is my earnest desire that now, in these final days of the Grace Age, all of you will take a serious look at the Doctrine of Christ and let it help you to save yourselves from this crooked and perverse generation.  If you do not want to take advantage of the labor which I put into this effort, please do an extensive study of the “Principles of the Doctrine of Christ” for yourself. 

The light of truth – the knowledge of the Lord – is beginning to fill the earth in this time of the blowing of the seventh trumpet in fulfillment of Exodus 19:19, Isaiah 11:19, and Habakkuk 2:14, “When the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. … For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.”

That glorious light will shine very brightly, but it will not shine for very long.  When this cry goes forth, you will not have five or ten years to decide what you will do.  You will have only a few months, at best.

The light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will cease to shine by the Fall of 2010.  Long before that, “the Beast” shall make war with the “two witnesses” and with the remnant of the seed of the woman.  The prudent Christians shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time (Amos 5:13).  The Beast, with his mark, shall wear out the saints of the Most High, but the two witnesses shall carry the woman to a place of safety, away from the face of the serpent, and to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

The seven Angels with the seven last plagues shall soon pour out their vials upon the seat of the Beast, and GREAT DARKNESS shall be upon the seat of the Beast.  The morning comes, but swiftly comes the night.  Do you have oil in your lamp?