Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA
In the spring of 1970, in Shreveport, Louisiana, a Pentecostal tent meeting was in progress when the Spirit of God spoke to a young man, "The Bible is an Idol."
Later, in the evening service, this young man held a Bible up in his hand for all of the congregation to see, and while explaining what the Spirit had told him, he proceeded to tear it to shreds. He did this to show his loyalty to the Living God.
He barely escaped with his life, as he ran into the night, to flee the city.
The Spirit then told him, "You tore up and destroyed their God." Shreveport, like all of America, has a paper God.
This man went on to live a long life and to prove many things. One of them being that you cannot have faith in what you can see. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for. That no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
You can read the book of Mormon and become a Mormon. You can read the Koran and become a Muslim. You can read a Bible and become a Baptist or a Pentecostal, but to become a Christian you must be anointed by the Spirit of the Living God.
Using the Bible from the book of Daniel, Miller said that Jesus would return to earth in 1843 and then he said it would happen in 1844. It was called the great disappointment. Many people will be disappointed, depending on what they can see. I believe Miller's followers eventually became Seventh Day Adventist's and other splinter groups.
Some take up serpents (handle snakes) in their services, and more than a hundred have died in so doing. You can make the Bible say just about anything.
Some pray to the old Saints, and to the virgin Mary. Being controlled by the Bible, you can become a snake handler, a deceiver, an Idol worshipper, a pedophile, a murderer, or any number of other things, but never a Christian. Only Jesus, through the Holy Ghost, can make a Christian.
One of the strangest, most profound, and most evaded chapters in the Bible is in the book of Revelation, chapter 10. You can go to church for a hundred years, to a hundred different churches, or a hundred different Bible colleges, and they will never touch chapter 10 of the Revelation. Why? The mark of the beast, that's why.
Now we begin, Chapter 10, The book of Revelation, only eleven verses long.
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head and his face was as it were the sun and his feet as pillars of fire.
And he had in his hand a little book open, and he set his right foot upon the sea and his left foot on the earth.
And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth, and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write, and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, seal up these things which the seven thunders uttered and write them not.
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven.
And sware by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are and the earth and the things that therein are and the sea and the things that are therein. That there should be time no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again and said go take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
And I went unto the angel and said unto him, give me the little book. And he said unto me, take it and eat it up and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth, sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it up. And it was in my mouth sweet as honey, and soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
And he said unto me, thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations and tongues, and kings.
What did the seven thunders say? I believe they said, the little book is the mark of the beast that will deceive the whole world.
Think about it, people go to church every Sunday with a book that has 66 books in it, authorized by a man born in 1566, King James the VI (6th) from Scotland.
Today people are eating this book up and they are going to be bitter. Jesus said, eat my flesh and drink my blood, not a book. Out of your belly shall flow living water, not dead letter. The letter kills but the Spirit gives life.
In the book of Ezekiel, the end of chapter two and the first part of chapter three, he was told to eat the scroll. It was sweet as honey to his mouth. Why didn't it make his belly bitter? Because he lived under the old covenant when all scripture was given by inspiration in his generation.
If a book (the law) could have brought life, then Jesus would not have had to come as a sacrifice to bleed and die on the cross. For the law made nothing perfect.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place should have been sought for the second covenant. For finding fault with them he saith, Behold the days will come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.
Satan could not overcome the Holy Ghost, so he deceived everyone, putting them back under the old covenant. Today people believe that all scripture is given by the inspiration of God. That was under the old covenant. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
In the book of Revelation: Come up hither, and I will show you things which must be hereafter.
At least seven chapters in the Revelation talk about the mark of the beast.
CHAPTER 10: Eat the little book and your belly will be bitter. (And many men died of the waters because they were made bitter. Rev. 8:11)
CHAPTER 13: Count the number of the beast, for it is 666, King James.
CHAPTER 14: If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark (the Bible) in his head or in his hand. Shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, and have no rest day nor night, forever.
CHAPTER 15: And them that had gotten victory over the beast and over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name. Stand on the sea of glass having the harps of God.
CHAPTER 16: And the first angel went and poured out his vial upon the earth, and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast and upon them which worshipped his image.
CHAPTER 19: And the beast was taken and with him the false prophet, which deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
CHAPTER 20: And I saw thrones and they sat upon them and judgement was given unto them: And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
