Who is this Melchisedec #136

The Last Sign – The Judge 

July 10, 2002

 

GENESIS 18:1   And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; 2 And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw [them], he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, 3 And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: 4 Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: 5 And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead [it], and make cakes upon the hearth. 7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave [it] unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. 8 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set [it] before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. 9    And they said unto him, Where [is] Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. 10 And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard [it] in the tent door, which [was] behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah [were] old [and] well stricken in age; [and] it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? 13And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? 14 Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. 15 Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh. 16   And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. 17 And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; 21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.  22    And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.

 

And then for the next several verses we hear Abraham trying to negotiate mercy for Sodom, and asks if there be fifty righteous living there among the wicked, then if there be forty righteous living among the wicked, then thirty, then twenty, and finally the Lord says ,Look, Abraham, if there were even ten righteous in that city I would not destroy it, but there aren’t. And we hear Abraham say those noted Words in verse 25 “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

 

And so we see Elohim showing Abraham his last sign before the destruction, which was discernment of the heart and we see Abraham catching the Revelation and acknowledging the role of Elohim in that hour as The Supreme Judge of the whole earth.

 

Last Sunday we spoke from paragraph 160 where brother Branham said the church has seen her last sign. Then I would like to ask the question, “Why do people still look for more signs to come. They look for this to happen and for that to happen, FORGET IT! We’ve seen our last sign. Don’t think a short quick work is a sign from God. We have seen our last sign. The last sign the gentile world saw in Abraham’s day before the destruction of Sodom was God Himself, Elohim, in the midst of His Chosen people performing a discernment of the thoughts and intents of the heart, showing that it was God, the Word Himself, veiled in a human body.

 

WHO IS THIS MELCHISEDEC 65-0221E 160    Now, look at them down there in Sodom. And there is their messengers down there speaking to them. But then where's that Royal Seed of Abraham? Where is their sign, that He said, "As it was in the days of Sodom," that God came down and was manifested in human flesh, and told what Sarah was thinking back in her heart in the tent behind Him, the last sign before the Gentile world was destroyed by fire? And the church has got it's last sign before the whole world's going to be destroyed, this Gentile kingdom be destroyed by the fire and wrath of God. You believe that? That Melchisedec was flesh, represented Himself in a human body; and then later He was made flesh. And now, tonight He's the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Do you believe it?

 

We have seen our last sign. The last sign the gentile world saw in Abraham’s day before the destruction of Sodom was God Himself, Elohim, in the midst of His Chosen people performing a discernment of the thoughts and intents of the heart, showing that it was God, the Word Himself, veiled in a human body.

 

HEBREWS 4:12 For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things [are] naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

 

Now, notice that God, the Word is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. That’s what David said, and we know that he was a man after God’s Own heart. PSALMS 139:23,  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:”

 

Even Jesus told us that this scene that took place at Sodom would repeat itself again when God would return in the role of The Son of Man.

 

LUKE 17:20 ¶ And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. (In other words, it is not going to be an observable event, because it is something that is spiritual. .II CORINTHIANS 4:18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen [are] temporal; but the things which are not seen [are] eternal.) and since it is not an observable thing, you will not be able to see it in the conventional way of seeing.

 

Now, let’s read on Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Now, Jesus is not telling these Christ rejecting Pharisees that The Kingdom of God  is within them as though within means inside of them. But the word He chose to use that was translated as within is the Greek word ENTOS which means “in the midst of“. And so we find the doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven is that it will not come in an observable manner as though you will see the gates of the kingdom, and the walls of the city etc. What Jesus is saying here is that the King will come, and where He is in the midst of His People, there His Kingdom will also be. Therefore it will take another way of seeing to be able to know that the Kingdom has come, and that is Faith. 

 

HEBREWS 11:1   Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And in the Book of Romans Paul tells us that we will be able to se the invisible because of the way God will make known Himself to us.

ROMANS 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

 

Now, he is not saying that you will be able to see God’s Godhead, or Godhood, because He is invisible. But what Paul is telling us here is that God will do things in a certain way through what he has created or brought into a material fashion or form so that you might have a visible form that will bring understanding to us of things which we can not see with our eyes. He says for instance the creation, where we have new birth in the spring, life through the summer, death in the fall and burial in winter, but then resurrection in the spring where the life comes forth in newness again. And so we see certain attributes and characteristics of God and His Godhood. How would you be able to understand Son-ship if God did not bring forth a Son. How could you understand your own role as son if you had no visible role to follow.

 

In COLOSSIANS 1:15 Paul tells us Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:”

 

Again in I TIMOTHY 1:17 Paul tells us trhat God is not only King, but the Invisible King.Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, [be] honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

 

Now, if God is the Invisible King, then when He comes to set up His Kingdom, it will not, and cannot come, with an observable show, since you can not see Him. But although you cannot see Him, that makes Him no less of a King. For, although you cannot see Him visibly, yet that does not mean He cannot be seen. For, there is a way that we can see those things which are invisible, and that is through Faith.

 

HEBREWS 11:27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. By Faith Moses could see Him who is invisible. It says he did not fear the king (pharaoh),which he could see with his eyes, because there was a greater king who was invisible to pharaoh but not to him, because by faith he could see This King.

 

And we are promised in Scripture that we will come to this experience ourselves when God shall phaneroo Himself to us in the end time. Now trhe word phaneroo means to manifest in his true character.  I JOHN 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And who is He? He is the Word.

 

Now in getting back to Luke 17:22 And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see [it]. 23 And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after [them], nor follow [them]. 24 For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one [part] under heaven, shineth unto the other [part] under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. 25 But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation. 26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 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.

 

Now, let’s go back and see what the days of Noah were like.

GENESIS 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.

 

Notice here we find the scene is such that God is looking upon man and is discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. Therefore, if this is what was taking place with God in Noah’s day, and if God changes not, won’t He have to be here doing the same thing when the Son of Man is revealed? Men like to look at the Sodom condition and the natural conditions of men in the days of Sodom and in the days of Noah, but why won’t they look at the Spiritual side as well. God was on the scene discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. He was there as the Judge, and we know the Word is the Judge, and the Word is God.

 

JOHN 12:48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. 49For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. Notice, that Jesus did not say his own words would judge. He did not claim to have a word of his own. He said the Word which I am giving you now, that same word will judge in the last days because those are the words of my Father and He is The Word. So we see here that it is the Words of the Father that will judge, for God is the Word.

 

That’s why in Revelations chapter three we see Christ the Word rejected and standing outside the church knocking. And that is why James identifies that one who is doing the knocking on the outside of the church, as the Judge.

 

JAMES 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming (Parousia or presence) of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early (teaching) and latter(harvest) rain (doctrine). 8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming (Parousia) of the Lord draweth nigh.  9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth ( The Greek word there is histemi, and it means to bid to stand by or in the presence or in the midst of others,) before the door.

 

Therefore this one who is The Judge is also the same who is The Immortal and Invisible King, and he is standing in the midst of others. Now, let’s get back to  Luke 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; 29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed [them] all. 30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

 

Therefore what we see here is that the scene that will unfold is not just the natural scene where the people are so messed up into a Sodom condition, but also the Kingdom of God will be established in the earth at that same time. So we see that there will be a natural condition as well as a spiritual scene taking place.

 

VOICE OF THE SIGN  64-0313  E-44 Now that sign of Sodom has returned in the natural. And if everything is setting just exactly position-ally the way it's supposed to be in the natural, then how can you dismiss it from your mind that the spiritual isn't here at the same time? Both settings is on the scene. Yeah. Everybody agrees the natural is right. But oh, in the spiritual, they don't want to believe it, because it interferes with their doctrine.

 

Therefore we have seen our last sign, and that is discernment which only the word can do, and that is judgment, showing the Judge of all the earth is here in our midst. Then if he is Judge, He is also the only Immortal, Invisible King, and He is here to set up His Kingdom. Then how late is it really, when the Devil is here also trying to set up His One world kingdom as well. The two powers are here battling it out, but one is a bluff while the other is here to fulfill what He has promised down through the ages to do.

 

Then why do we fear the new world order? We know it is not for us. Even Jesus said, LUKE 12:31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

 

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