We need the direct and intimate relationship with our Lord and Saviour. Only if He can walk and talk with us, as recorded in Luke 24, all will be revealed to us. The searching of the Scripture alone is not sufficient; that is being done in all Christianity. By nature, all mankind bypasses God with their own thinking. Through the Prophet Isaiah the Lord said, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” (Isa. 55: 8). HE asks us to forsake our own thoughts and ways and open up to His thoughts as expressed in His Word. HE alone can make His Word known unto us and show us His ways.
Up till now the enemy has twisted every Word of God in the minds and mouths of the people. The Apostle Peter writes that even in his time men twisted what Paul had written, as they did with the Holy Scriptures (2 Pet. 3: 16). The enemy left nothing in the Church of Jesus Christ as it was in the beginning. Every teaching and practice was changed. The result was a terrible mixture covered with the “Babylonian mantle”. In the state church of the Roman Empire the first Christian organisation was established, but therein absolutely nothing remained as it was in the original Christianity. It became a totally different church, which had nothing in common with the New Testament Church founded upon Jesus Christ. At the beginning of the natural Creation the enemy started with his influence. At the beginning of the New Testament Church he did the same. He began to deceive and to change the meaning and to pull Christianity into his fall. We were all born into the greatest religious falsification. The deception did not take place in the oriental religions, as they did not accept the personal manifestation of God in Christ and had no Bible anyhow. The deception came about in the occidental Christian religion.
Whenever God does something according to His Word even now, it is looked upon by established religion as a direct disturbance. The ministry of our Lord was the greatest disturbance for the spiritual leaders of the established faith of that time. It was the same with the ministry of the apostles in the first century. Even all the reformers and every revival preacher throughout the centuries were looked upon as causing great trouble in their time and were classified by the established churches as heretics; they were rejected and persecuted.
In reference to the Old Testament prophets we are told that God had spoken through them to the fathers and then through Jesus Christ, Who brought us the answer (Heb. 1: 1-3). “The law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” (Lk. 16: 16).
Our Lord made the promise , “Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes ...” (Mt. 23: 34). The Apostle Paul verified that it actually happened, “God hath set some in the church apostles, prophets, teachers ...” etc. (1 Cor. 12: 28; Eph. 4: 11). The book of Acts and the Epistles confirm the apostolic and prophetic ministry as being part of the New Testament Church. It is also certain that God intended to send a prophet like Elijah with a special challenging commission (Mal. 4:
5-6). We must accept this in our minds and believe it with all our soul. For this is one of the main promises for the Church of Christ in our time. There is no sense in bypassing God with our thinking, preaching and singing, as the established Jewish church did, when God made history and John the Baptist introduced the Messiah. We must believe what the Scripture says and respect every promise, for only then can we participate in the blessed fulfilment thereof. True believers are children of promise (Gal. 4: 28), receive the Word of promise (Rom. 9: 8-9) and are filled with the Spirit of promise (Acts 2: 33). Only after one believes the Word of Truth and accepts it, will the sealing by the promised Holy Spirit take place (Eph. 1: 13; 2 Cor. 1: 20-22).
Throughout time God has used someone in His Kingdom to preach the Truth. It is generally that in the course of church history certain men of God appeared on the scene. The different revivals since the time of Reformation, too, are well documented, even the Pentecostal revival which began around the turn of the last century and still continues. In the first part of the 20th century this movement was of no significance, it was rejected, since it was outside the established churches, and not even recognised. Through the mighty revival, which began after World War II, the Pentecostal movement had become the fastest growing religious denomination. Since the II Vatican Council (1962-1965), when its world representative David DuPlessis, called “Mr. Pentecost”, participated as observer, the Pentecostal movement gained the approval of the Roman Church and all the other Christian churches. The writer of this booklet accompanied Mr. DuPlessis personally one day to the Vatican session in July 1964 in Rome.
Now the question arises: Whom did God use as a special vessel to start the mightiest salvation and healing revival that ever happened on earth? Many only heard about those who became known years later or in the »second« and »third revival wave« that included all churches. But how did it begin back in 1946? And what was the original goal? As always, things went wrong after a glorious beginning, but the Truth remained, in spite of all the deception. Whatever God declared from the very beginning He will accomplish. In the four Gospels the writers and the apostles always specifically pointed back to the beginning. They referred to what they had seen and heard from the Word of Life (Acts 1:
1-3; 2 Pet. 1: 16-21; 1 Jn. 1: 1-4 a. o.). Who was the eyewitness in our time? Who was present and saw what God had done at the very beginning of this last revival? Into whose mouth did God put His Word? Whom did He Himself send? The others who started their own ministries later could already have deviated from the original message or even continued with their own inherited teachings.
The main question is the following, “ What does the Scripture say and what is promised therein?” The realisation in the New Testament era began with a ministry of a promised prophet to prepare the way (Mal. 3: 1; Isa. 40: 3). These two scriptures were referred to in the Gospels, especially in the first three verses in Mark. The men of God in the New Testament always went back to what the prophets had said and placed everything according to the Scripture. Altogether, the New Testament refers to the Old Testament 845 times. It is very important that we place everything that is happening in the Kingdom of God now upon the scriptural foundation, because God does all things according to His Word. True faith can only be anchored in the promises, which will come to fulfilment.
In Amos 3: 7 it is written, “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” Whenever something significant was to take place with God’s people, He sent a true prophet with a special message. HE commissioned Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah and others. At the beginning of the New Testament, John the Baptist prepared the way for the promised Messiah. The Lord commissioned Peter, the man of the first hour, to whom He gave the keys to the Kingdom of God, and thereby provided him with Divine authority. HE also ordained Paul with a special assignment in the teaching ministry for the New Testament Church. On the isle of Patmos the Apostle John was allowed to see the entire revelation right to the end-time in visions, which he recorded in the 22 chapters. God has ever done things in perfect order, and the enemy has always tried to disrupt and destroy the divine order.
- Ewald Frank
- The Great Tragedy and God’s Plan of Salvation in the Light of the "Endtime Message"
- download PDF (Acrobat Reader)
- language: english
- other languages: français ; český
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