The Thunders
The Author’s Introduction
In the study of the Scriptures, we find these recordings in the book of Revelation, the tenth chapter, the seventh verse: “In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he begins to sound, the mysteries of God should be finished.”
In the original rendering, the word “mystery” is referred to as “secret,” and so we can say, “The secret of the Lord would be thoroughly understood, or made known,” that is to say, something would be revealed which, apparently, had not been revealed before.
The Bible says, “He that abideth under the shadow of the Almighty shall dwell in the secret place of the Most High.” It appears, then, that the types and shadows of God, which Paul the apostle referred to, are His acts of creation, and through this, Christ reveals Himself to humanity. Like the old Indian sign language, God communicates with us by means of objects or tangible expressions, thus conveying Himself to the human mind, from the secluded enclosure of the invisible infinite which no man can penetrate. Seeing that we cannot get to God except through Christ, then God must come to us.
God, being invisible, as the Scriptures tell us, in that He cannot be seen with human eyes; therefore the only shadow that God can have is His act of creation, inasmuch as all things naturally are a type of spiritual things.
We are told by our great teacher of the Scriptures that all of the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly understood by the things which do appear, even unto the eternal Godhead. So then, we are without excuse before God. Even the heavens declare His handiwork, for the Scriptures tell us that He hath not left Himself without a witness.
Take notice concerning the messenger that was to sound, to bring forth the finishing of the mystery. Beginning in Revelation eight, seven trumpeteers had begun to sound. The last three of the trumpeteers were to be the three woes.
Between the sixth and the seventh trumpet, there came forth a divine intervention, the angel of Revelation ten with the rainbow about his head. The Bible declares that in the days of the voice of the seventh angel (trumpeteer) that the mystery should be finished. Why a voice and not a trumpet? They received the seven trumpets as seven angels, to go forth for the work of Christ. The Bible says, “Lift up thy voice like a trumpet!” That is the reason it is referred to as a voice. It is obvious that it is a message. Why a message? How do we know? We are told, the mystery should be finished. A mystery is not just a sound of a trumpet. It is concealed knowledge, revelated and brought forth.
Revelation ten, verse seven says that he shall sound. Notice very carefully! When does he sound? In the end of the world! How do we know this? Because it is the finishing of the mystery. What mystery? We are told that it is the mystery of God. The Bible says, “Great is the mystery of godliness.” Paul said, “I am a steward of the mysteries.” Why did he say this? Because the revelation of Jesus Christ was made known to him.
What is John speaking of? The first chapter of the book of Revelation calls it “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Can we prove these things? Watch now, as the messenger sounds! Revelation eleven, verse fifteen, the Bible says, “The seventh angel sounded.” What happened when he sounded? Immediately, the voice from heaven said, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.”
Then, all of a sudden, comes forth the expulsion of Lucifer, for the man child goes up to the throne. Satan is personified in the earth as the beast comes up out of the waters and the tribulation begins. It all happens as John saw in Revelation twelve, the woman with her feet on the moon. Revelation thirteen, in the personification of a human form, Lucifer begins his reign of terror.
What was it in Revelation ten that had been concealed when John was about to write, and when the angel refused to allow it? It was the thunders. Seven thunders. Thunders, lightning, turbulence, wind and destruction. Revelation twelve, war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought, Lucifer put out, and the reign of Christ begins, the voice says, “Now is come power” to the church, for the accuser of the brethren is cast out, he that accused them night and day before God.
Look at America! Footprints on the moon; a woman nation; a crown of stars and stripes; stars over her head; stripes which bruised the back of Him that hung at Calvary, the one that the woman shows; a religious nation with the Holy Spirit, clothed with the sun or the righteousness of God. That is, she has His grace. The moon, or the receding world, is at her feet, for the Jewish or apostolic church of the foundation of the prophets is where she dwells, and while she is travailing at this very moment, bringing forth her man child image of Christ, the red dragon of Communist powers, as referred to by Chinese worship, competing in the race for space conquest, staying right there to devour her child as soon as it is born; but will never be able to do it, for as Washington saw the fall and rise of the nation, so shall the church come forth to establish that great millennium world, with Christ, that man child as their leader, caught up to the throne of David to reign forever; the religious woman, going into a tribulation period. But God will preserve that child and protect the true woman, which is the church; and also natural Israel, which travails to bring forth the natural Jesus at the natural appearing to show forth the nails.
As the Bible has said, “Let him that is holy be holy still, let him that is filthy be filthy still,” for that great day of reckoning is at hand. The trump of God shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet Him in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Comfort ye one another with these words. God bless you!
Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
The Thunders
I want to comment just a little bit on the seven thunders that we’ve spoken of in the book of Revelation. Yesterday was of real significance to me, and today is carrying a great significance, even though there would hardly be any way that I know to explain to you just exactly what’s happening or why we do the things the way we do them; and, inasmuch as we are constantly called into question on what we do, there is no way that I know of to really get it over to you, but nevertheless, we still have to do it.
Noah could not get it over to the people in his day, though he preached, and though he had the message of the hour, and though he knew that God had spoken to him, and he knew that destruction was at hand, and he knew that he had to build the ark. Yet the people would not listen to him. No doubt one said to another, “Do you really believe in what he is preaching? Do you believe that it’s right?” Maybe another said, “Why, there isn’t anything to it.” And then another probably said, “Well, he sure is devoted to his convictions. He’s worked all these years.” Another one might have said, “Well, there must be something to it; look at that strange thing he’s building, and look how long he’s worked on it! There must be something!” But, nevertheless, no matter what they thought or what they said, it remained a fact that he did build the ark, and that they did not accept God nor His teachings. Only the little family that believed in him and followed him accepted it. And there’s a good possibility even then, that some of those that went into the ark may not have really accepted it, but in that day, the grandfather, or whatever he might have been, was like an Indian chief. Whatever he said was law, and his family had to abide by it. The Bible says that Abraham would command his family and his household after him. So, that might have been the reason. As a matter of fact, I can go even farther than that, if we had a little time, and show you that really, it was not the family that found favor with God. The family was saved because Noah found favor with God, which is a symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church is not saved because it finds favor with God, but the church is saved because Jesus found favor with God, and in that we are His household, God spares us.
I want to read a little in the book of Revelation, and I’d like to take my time this morning. I may resort back to the chalkboard to try and teach a little, because that is what it may require, and on Sunday morning, you’re more attentive than any other time. Reading from Revelation 10, “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.”
It makes it difficult to be able to find exactly which way to go, but I want you to listen this morning, if you will, as I try to talk with you about some things, and I want you to try to piece them together. If you were not interested in these things, I don’t think you would come to church, but it is a true fact that some come that are not interested, and these are the sons of Satan or the daughters of Satan, and their job is to come and be carnally minded and to think of evil things.
I want you to notice something this morning in the teachings. There are a few outstanding things in this passage of Scripture I’d like to bring to you. One of the things, is that when the angel came down from heaven, the Bible says that this angel was a mighty angel, and he set one foot on the land, and he set one foot on the sea. Now, allegorically speaking, or spiritually speaking, an angel, standing with his foot out here in the middle of the ocean, and then standing with his foot over here in the middle of the earth, would be an awesome sight to see, wouldn’t it? This angel that came down out of heaven would have been a terrible sight; so gigantic, that one foot could stand in the middle of the ocean and one foot stand in the middle of the earth, and yet, John actually witnessed this thing. He saw it! It wasn’t long after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ that John saw this. About 33 AD, they took Jesus, and about 70 AD, they took Paul. Then about 96 AD, we find John, writing this on the Isle of Patmos, and seeing the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which is none other than the last week of Daniel that Daniel had seen in a preview many hundreds of years before, back in the BC. Here John was seeing it, and he beheld this great outstanding thing as he stood with one foot on the land and one foot on the sea, lifting his hand to heaven, and swearing by God, by Him that liveth forever and ever, that time should be no longer.
John sees this great thing as it takes place, and here the angel is, and the Bible says that his face was as the sun. All a-glow like the sun! How many of you remember reading about Moses, as he stood on the mountain? His face was a-glow like the sun, so much so that they had to take a veil and put it over his face so he could look at the people. The veil being symbolic of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which God, the great light, the Shekinah glory, veiled Himself, so that through the mediation of this body, breaking it down in part; or as we say, the great sunlight, coming through the atmosphere and the ionosphere, breaking it down, coming down through the veil, and this great light comes down and becomes a nourishing power to us. God in His three-dimensional act like the great sunlight, reflecting itself over to the moon, and then the light reflecting from the moon down to the earth. God the great light, reflecting Himself down to Calvary, which is Jesus Christ, and turning that into blood, as the Bible says that the moon will turn to blood. Then down from Jesus Christ comes the rays of the sunlight, which we call the Holy Ghost, which comes to us by measure, the Lord Jesus catching the fierce indignation of Almighty God. It’s no wonder that the types and shadows of the revelation of God show that the moon will literally turn to blood. Blood means fire in revelation, and the great light of the sun, which is coming down and is to hit Calvary, and when it hits Calvary, this great light will actually turn the moon into a great ball of fire. A literal burning ball of fire. Someday it’ll happen like that.
When Jesus hung at Calvary, and the great light of God’s goodness came down upon Jesus, it literally turned Him into a mass of blood, so that through Jesus, the glory of God might be reflected onto us, that He might catch the fierceness of the wrath of the indignation of God, and absorb that which could harm us, and then turn it into grace that it might come to us. By means of the law, He caught the fierce impact of the wrath of God. Judged by the law, condemned by the law, and died by the law, though He lived every jot and tittle of the law, but being made our sin, He still had to die for us. He had to be spotless. He had to be guiltless, in that the law could not touch Him, because the Lamb that was offered for sacrifice had to be without spot, wrinkle, or blemish. He still had to die because of your sins and my sins, and so, as the little ram, or lamb, that was caught up on top of the mountain when Abraham offered up the sacrifice which took the place of Isaac, so did Jesus take the place of us, being entangled in the entanglement of sin, and not being able to escape because God ordained it to be that way.
As we see the three-dimensional act of God, we see that there are some great things in it. God the great light, which no man can approach, with Jesus, alone dwelling in that great light, and only through Jesus Christ can we approach the great light. If we brought it down to a more intimate stage, we’d bring it down to the Word, or to a human mind, or to the mind of the Lord Jesus, that God, who is a Spirit, comes to you and I through the mind of Jesus Christ, and we cannot get near that great light except we do it through the mind of Jesus Christ. The Bible speaks of this great light coming down, and we, as beholding ourselves in a glass, are changed from glory to glory, from man’s image or the beast image into the glorious image and liberty of the sons and children of God. By seeing the revealed light or the revealed understanding or the revealed revelation, we are changed from glory to glory, until the outer man is completely consumed, and we stand as the full stature of Jesus Christ. This is a great thing, for God is the Spirit of life. He is the Spirit of heavenly intelligence, and this heavenly Word of light that comes through Jesus Christ is actually life; life that changes us from mortal life into eternal life. It’s actually a life, an eternal life, that is released, that you can’t see or feel or touch, except it come through Jesus Christ. That’s the only way.
I said earlier, as we started reading here, that no one has ever found grace in the sight of God. You might say, “But, Brother Pike, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” But let me tell you something, Noah found grace through Jesus Christ. You say, “But Jesus wasn’t even dead.” The Bible says that He was the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. Jesus was dead on Calvary in the mind of God long before Noah ever came into the world. “Job,” you say, “was a perfect man.” He was perfect through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, as God saw him through the foreknowledge of the Lord Jesus. There never has been one man that ever found grace in the eyes of God except through the shed blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
When we think of God, we think of God as being a great God of grace, and God is a great God of grace, or He would have never prepared a lamb by which He could give us grace, but aside from the fact that we have the atonement, there is no grace in the eyes of God for sin. There is no grace in the eyes of God for your iniquity. When you think carnally, and you do carnally, there is not one tiny bit of grace from God to you. Not one! That’s why Israel was literally swallowed up, because of the wrath of God. The only grace you’ll ever get is through Jesus, and if the Lamb of God was taken out of the way, the God that you think is such a graceful God would consume you in a minute.
He said, “Moses, get out of My way. I’ll destroy every one of them and spare you, and make a nation out of you.” Is that what He told Moses? Every one of them fasted, prayed, and did everything they knew to do, having left Egypt behind. He said, “Get out of the way, Moses, and I’ll destroy every one of them, and I’ll spare just you and make a nation out of you.” Moses said, “Lord, blot my name out of the book and spare these people.” Isn’t that exactly what Jesus did? The prophet like unto Moses, as He stood face to face with God and said, “Just blot My name out. I’ll go to hell that these might be free. I’ll stand here if You’ll spare the people.” But God said, “Moses, I’ll make a nation out of you and those of your seed,” and that is exactly what He did. God never changed His mind. The prophet like unto Moses was seen as He raised up Jesus. He cut off the whole world, and the elders died in the wilderness, and never did get another chance, and God raised up Moses through Joshua, the resurrectional part of Jesus Christ, which was Christ, and from that He made a great nation, and those are the only ones that go into Canaan land. There is no grace from God except through Jesus Christ.
When we examine the things that we’re speaking of, we find that this is for the edification of the church, that the church might be changed from glory to glory into the glorious image of God. That’s what the revelation of Jesus Christ is for! If a person does not get the revelation of Jesus Christ, they will not go in the rapture!
God’s kingdom is not something you go into; it is something that goes into you. An inheritance is something you receive. You’ve got to inherit the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a revelation. John was in the Spirit, and found himself in the kingdom of God, because he believed in the kingdom of God. It’s a translation by faith that comes from a superior knowledge, and that knowledge comes from God. This is the same Word of knowledge that created the world; the same Word of knowledge that made the world what it is. The same, identical Word of knowledge.
Here, at Calvary, we have a three-dimensional act of God. This shows God, the great light, which is the sun; then Jesus Christ, which is the moon; and then the church, which is the stars. Remember that the sun is also a star. The Bible says, “Until the daystar dawns in your heart.” The daystar is the sun. If you’ll study science, you’ll find out that the sun is a star, and it’s the daystar. It’s the star that is to arise within your heart that will completely eliminate all the shadows. That star is the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you following me?
There are three stages to the great light, which is God the Father, then the stages of the moon, which is God the Son, as it is referred to in the world, and then the stages of the church, God the Holy Ghost, which is God by measure, which are the stars of heaven that God refers to. In the church, which is the stars, there are two kinds of stars, or two kinds of people that make up the church. They are the twins. There is one star that is just exactly like the sun. It has its own light. It can burn by itself. It doesn’t depend on anything. Then, there is another star that looks just exactly like the sun. It doesn’t have any light at all, however. It is not relative to the great light, but it is a reflection of the moon, and the moon is only a reflector. These others are only reflectors, which means that, as there is a sun, then there is a moon that is a type of the sun.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, but I want you to listen and try to absorb what I am saying. A woman does not have the power to give life. Now, that is not to degrade the woman, because the woman is very precious, but there is a perspective for her as well as for the man. In the perspective of the man, if you’ll notice, the woman cannot give life. If you go before a judge, the first thing that is going to happen is that the judge is going to give the woman custody over the life, which is the baby, and he’s going to hold to her. The reason is not because she is justified; not because she is righteous; she may be a wretch, and if she disobeys her husband, then she is a wretch, but the thing is, the judge is going to grant it to her for the child’s sake, because it is dependent upon the mother for nourishment in its present condition. We are in the realm of the church at this time. Jesus said to Satan, “This is your hour,” and he uses the woman. This is the woman’s hour. That’s why America is a woman’s world. It’s the woman ruling the world. The church is ruling, but wait just a little bit longer, and when we get over in the millennium, then see who has the rights. It won’t be that way at all. It’ll be completely reversed. Jesus Christ was made a male when He came into this world. He was made in the fashion of a male when He came into this world, to show that man was typically God.
In what I am speaking to you about this morning, it shows that the man has the power to give life. The woman does not have power to give life. The children do not belong to the woman; they belong to the man. Somebody might say, “Prove that by the Bible!” The children do not belong to the church; they belong to God. The church only travails as a carrier to bring the children into the world, and God shows the children with the woman, because she’s willing to travail for the children, but the life, the seed, the blood — everything comes from the male. The woman didn’t have anything to do with it; therefore, in the world to come, it’ll be altogether different. It’ll be a male world, whereas this is a female world. Now, it doesn’t degrade a woman. If a woman will become one with her husband, then she is one flesh. That means that whatever he is, that’s what she is, and she becomes a life-giving substance by the union of oneness with her husband, but if she cuts herself off from the husband, she is altogether a branch that withered up and dries out and is cast into the fire.
There is no hope for the woman to be saved except through her husband. It doesn’t matter how much a woman tells you that she can be; it’s like a mother, a mother knows what to do with the life that comes from the father. She takes the little child, and she caresses it, and she lullabies it, and she sings to it. The same way with the moon. The moon picks up the fierceness of the great wrath, whereas mother always catches the wrath of the dad. Some men are just as wicked and wretched as they can be. They’re always saying something mean to the mother, or something to hurt the mother, or something to tear down the mother. The thing is, the mother catches the wrath of the fierceness of the indignation of dad, that she might lullaby the child. A mean, contrary man is like Satan, and his wife should be a worldly woman, because the world is the bride of Satan, whereas a good man is a type of Christ, and he should have a good woman, which is the church; and not only that, but God will not bind a son of God to a worldly woman. He won’t bind a godly woman to a worldly man. He won’t do it. Now, you might make an agreement to marry and live with them, but the Bible says that a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. God will not form a union between darkness and light. It can’t be! If the unbelieving depart, let them depart.
I want you to see in the teachings, that the great sunlight is the garden of Eden, the sunlight of the whole earth. The great sunlight of God is a life-giving substance. This great sunlight comes down into the moon. By night, the light is shed abroad through the stars. We are in a world of darkness, for God, as I’ve said in the teachings before, reckons time from evening until morning.
From the time that Adam fell from the garden, it became dark, and it’s continued in darkness. It got darker and darker, and it continued to get darker until Calvary, and then the dawn began to break at the cock crowing. You know not whether He comes at the cock crowing or the midnight cry, but it began to break dawn right here. The dawn began to break after midnight, and that’s why Jesus hung until twelve o’clock. Do you understand what I am saying? He hung there from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, which would be from twelve over to three. From there, the breaking down of the midnight and the change over to the world of light; and the world of night, which was the law and the wrath of God went out. That which is old is ready to be folded up and laid away. The first man Adam, who had been life and had gone into the beastly veil, and that beastly veil at last had reached a place of consummation, and here on the big brazen altar, the body was now being burned by the blood and wrath of a consuming God, who is called a consuming fire. This body was suffering without the gates, in that the Old Testament says that the beast’s body was taken outside the gates and burned. It is outside of Jerusalem that Jesus is suffering for us. The big brazen altar stands at Calvary, and we see the Lamb, without spot, wrinkle, or blemish, being consummated, to do away with the veil part that Adam had carried all the way from the garden over to Calvary.
From this, the beast spirit is released; the inner spirit of life that had been in bondage. It’s like when you kill a rat; you release the life that was in bondage by perversion. That’s a type of a worldly man and a worldly woman, the pestilence that destroys. God said, “I’ll destroy them that destroy the earth.” Men that make atom bombs, men that go out and kill animals on a massive scale just for sport, men that destroy morals and take away decency that have lust devils, women that destroy the teachings of Christ because the woman is supposed to obey the man; and women that are contrary destroy these laws. “I’ll destroy them,” God said, “that destroy the earth, that are contrary to My ways of life, and then I’ll bring in a world that will be according to My mode and way of life.”
From Calvary, the daylight began to break. The dawn began to come, but remember, the effectiveness of Calvary is not until after the tribulation period, because Calvary denotes the time of the tribulation. That’s what Calvary is. It’s Daniel’s last week! It denotes the time of the tribulation period, and the dawning of the new day is the millennium, the thousand years’ reign. The reason for this is because man looks on the outward appearance, and whatever God does in the Spirit cannot be recognized in the natural until it takes effect, naturally speaking. But now, remember, spiritually speaking, it has already taken effect for the church. Do you understand what I am saying? God is speaking of Israel when He says the last week of Daniel. He said that these seven days would be so bad in the days of the week of Daniel, that He’ll have to shorten those days. If He doesn’t, the fierceness of the wrath and with what the antichrist does would consume the whole earth and everybody in it.
Israel is God’s elect, but spiritually, at Calvary, it happened for the church’s sake, because we’re the spiritual Jew. Here at Calvary, we have been translated into the kingdom of God. We’re already in heaven. The world is ended, and this is not the world for the church, it’s the church ages, and it’s leading over to the kingdom age. Do you follow me? We’re already in the kingdom. We’ve already been translated in. We’re already spiritual subjects. That’s why Jesus said that you know not the hour nor the day. They asked, “Will You, at this time, restore the kingdom?” He said to the Jews, “It’s not given to you to know when I’ll come back in the millennium and set up a kingdom. I’m not going to tell you when I’m going to do it.” He didn’t use those words, but that’s what He meant. What they were interested in was the restoration of the kingdom of David, and the Bible says that the Son of David would sit on the throne. Jesus was to sit on the throne, but He confounded them by the inner Christ, speaking from within the veil. The outer Jesus was numbered with the millennium and will come back in the millennium, but here, it was to end the life of Jesus. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. Here, it was to end Jesus. Therefore, this Jesus could not continue with the Jews and tell the Jews that He was going to set up a kingdom, because at that particular time, He could not. He knew this was the end of His ministry right here, as far as for that period of time.
The only one that could speak up was the inner Christ, and the inner Christ had to say that His kingdom was not of this world, or else His servants would fight for Him. His kingdom is not given for you to know. He said that the kingdom of God cometh not by observation, but it is within a man. If this had been the outward Jesus speaking; whereas Jesus said, “It is not I that doeth the work, but the Father within Me that doeth the work,” He would have said that, after the church ages, in a short period of time, He’d come back, set up His kingdom in the millennium, and you will be under My control and these twelve apostles are going to be kings that will rule over you. But, it took a change and confounded the Jews. They didn’t understand it. They thought, “What is He talking about, that His kingdom doesn’t come by observation? We’ve never known anything about a kingdom except by observation.” That’s why the Jews could not accept Christ. They were expecting a great king to come by observation, which Revelation 19 records that He will come as King of kings and Lord of lords and they will accept Him. They were not looking for a babe to be born in a manger, who was to be despised and rejected of men. The same Jesus will come back as He said, at the Mount of Olives, saying to the Jews that as they saw Him go, so shall they see Him come back to the Mount of Olives, on the tenth day of the atonement in the seventh month. He left from the Mount of Olives, and He comes back to the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Olives cleaves in half. That’s why this message had to start out from Olive Branch, in its typical sense, and had to come to Bethlehem.
Notice this one thing, that the mountain cleaved in half at Calvary. This was the dividing or the rending of the veil; this was where the angel had one foot on the land and one foot on the sea, which means one foot in the Spirit and one foot in the natural. No one had ever done that. There had never been any living human being that could do that but Jesus Christ. He was a God-man. He was both God and man. He was both in the Spirit and in the world, and we brought out the teachings how that from the time He tried to ascend from here, that in His natural, He was caught up between heaven and earth, to make the door between heaven and earth, and that by doing this, He might be the break that Michael needed in the days of Daniel, when there was war in heaven. Now, don’t forget this! When Daniel had fasted twenty-one days, the angels of heaven came down to answer his prayer, but they were intercepted by the prince of the powers of the air, or the prince of the angels that are in the air, which are spirits that work in your intelligence and cause us all of our troubles. It was these angels that came out.
When the children of Israel were coming from Egypt, they started the pilgrimage, coming down from Abraham, through the wilderness, over into Canaan. When they got to a certain place, if you remember, they sent word and said, “We’re coming through your land.” Esau’s descendants sent back word and said, “You can’t come through here!” The Lord said, “Go through the land of Esau! Don’t bother anything!” It’s like some of you people who write bad checks. You’ll buy automobiles and won’t pay for them, you take clothing and things, and won’t pay the man at the store, you won’t pay for your food. It’s a reproach to God! It numbers you with Esau, because God said, “Pay your way!”
This world is the land of Esau. You say, “How can you prove that it is?” Look at all of the beards coming back! The Bible says that Esau was a hairy man. Look at him! Jacob was a smooth man, which indicates the glorification and cleanliness of God. As they journeyed through the land of Esau, they came out against them, and God got so upset, He said, “Just tear it down! Go on through it! Walk on through it!” When He got to Moab, Ammon, and Edom, He just walked right on through them, because they tried to cut them off. That was symbolic. When the message came from heaven down to man, the angels intervened and cut it off. They came right on through them and cut them off, and when they did, God called for Michael, and that’s when Michael came on the scene, and that’s exactly where we are living today. That’s why we are in this period of time, in this hour when the great barricade started and when they cut them off and they couldn’t break through the lines. Daniel saw this vision that was to be fulfilled all the way over here in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ, where John saw it in 96 AD. It was the battle in the heavenlies between Michael and the devil, where the Bible says that Michael fought, and Satan fought with his angels, but they prevailed not, and there was no longer any place found in heaven, but they were cast down to the earth. This is the battle right now.
That’s why we spoke of the thunders this morning, because that’s where the thunders lay, right in there. In this great fierceness of this great battle that was to go on in the heavenlies lay the thunders. What was the dispute? The dispute was over the body of Moses. The angel stood and said, “The Lord rebuke thee, Satan,” because God said, “I’ll make a great nation out of you, Moses.” The dispute was over the body of Jesus, if you could have seen it, where Satan tried to claim the body of Jesus by saying, “You know that it was made sin,” but he could not claim it because it was not His sin. You might say, “Make that Moses!” The Bible says that it went ill for Moses because of the people, but he was faithful in all of his house. The devil couldn’t touch his body. It was for the cause of Christ that it had to happen that way.
In the dividing, the daylight comes in again, but the daylight isn’t reckoned for until after Revelation 19, which is the coming in of the millennium. It still remained dark after Calvary, over the church age period, and it even went through the Dark Ages. Why? Because that was the natural part, but we’re not children of darkness. We’re not children of the night, or the carnal mind, or the beast mind. At Calvary, we took a change. We’re not in that region anymore; not in the place of the damned. That’s the abyss, the place of darkness, the carnal mind, which is ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. That’s the bottomless pit, the knowledge that goes out into the darkness of infinity. But we’re not there; we’ve been caught away. When Jesus died here, what did He do? He went down into the heart of the earth. Whose earth? My earth! And He got the soul of darkness, out of prison, out of the darkness of the carnal mind of reasoning and understanding. Where did He take it? The Bible says that the earth opened up, and the saints of God got up and walked about the city, and many people saw them. We have been resurrected! Jesus said, “I am the resurrection! I am the life!” We’re out of the abyss, out of the darkness, out of the carnal mind. We are in the world of light. We’re no more children of education and beastly reasoning, but we are children of light, so that that day should not take us unawares, but we know that it will come as a snare upon all them that dwell on the earth, because they are children of darkness, and they are drunken in the night of their own carnal reasoning, and according to the Scripture, not only are they drunken, but they are a bunch of sluggards that know nothing about the message or the kingdom of God.
What is the translation? What was to be done at the thunders? What were the thunders to signify? The finishing of the mysteries of God. It was to bring about the translation. Brother Branham told them, even in his day. He said, “Could it be possible that what you are hearing is the thunders? I’m not saying that they are, but could it be possible that these are the thunders that you’re hearing?” I want you to know that it was more than that, because he knew what he was doing, even though he couldn’t speak precisely, just as Paul said, “We can’t speak of those things in particular,” because they were within the veil. It still is a fact that it was coming forth in the veil; he did bring it forth in the veil.
You might ask, “Where does that come in?” Did Moses have a revelation of John? He did, because the Bible says that he made the tabernacle according to the heavenly things. Look in the Bible and see if the tabernacle of Moses doesn’t perfectly fit the book of Revelation. But it was within the veil. You say, “What do you mean, within the veil?” I mean that God, being in William Branham, walked this earth in the evening time, found the conditions as they were, and the ministers and different ones took the message in the veil. Now, notice this, looking at the veil. It came to Brother Branham within the flesh, stood within the temple of Brother Branham, expressed Himself, made Himself known to the world, and they even took the picture of the light that was over his head and sent it to Washington, DC.
When the angel stood on the land and in the sea, where was Brother Branham in this third dimensional age? He was typical of that angel that stood with his foot in the Spirit and out of the Spirit. Somebody said, “I don’t believe it.” That doesn’t change my thoughts about it at all. Here he stood, Brother Branham, the last dimensional type. Here he stood as Jesus in the earth, God within the veil, connecting men back with God. The God-man. God in his Spirit, man within the earth. I know that you’re a God-man, just as much a God-man as Jesus was, just as much a God-man as Brother Branham was. I know that, but what I’m trying to tell you is that as long as you are children, you differ nothing from a servant, even though you be heir of all. You can’t do anything, because you’re still under tutors, but there is a time appointed of the Father, and that time is the birth of the man child.
Now, this son-ship that we’re talking of, this great man, Brother Branham, being typically the head of the church in the natural perspective (Moses), typifies the head Jesus, as we refer to Calvary. Jesus is the head of the natural Jewish church in the wilderness, while Christ is the head of the mystic church or spiritual Jew, which refers to the spiritual part of man, which is in heaven or Canaan, the mind of Christ. In this we see the exodus of Egypt, which signifies Brother Branham, pulling his people away from the ministers, away from the world, into the tabernacle and into his message. Let us give a simple example here to clarify our statements. Our reference to the spiritual things is forerun by the natural teachings of the Old Testament. I am simply using Calvary as a dividing line between Jesus and the Christ. When we say that the veil was rent in twain, we are differentiating between the Jesus and the Christ; Jesus being compared to Moses and Christ to Joshua.
Martin Luther King was a type of Moses, and at that time, what happened? It was an exodus, but it wasn’t to be effective then, because Moses died at the going into Canaan, which is to be effective now. That’s why the Passover is again with the resurrection.
At this time, we are reminded of the vision that one brother had where we were shown with one foot on the water and the other on the land, catching the souls of men as they flowed down the streams of time, giving them to the ministers which were standing on the bank. We also recollect our vision, where a cloud came down out of heaven over my head, which entered into my body and the ministers who were present. This, of course, is relative to Moses, when his face shone, as the veil of the cloud covered the mountain. Moses, being made God, stood aloft on top of the mountain, as the capstone to the mountain pyramid, in that Israel was under the cloud, and here the thunders made themselves known as the mountain rumbled. The declaration of the thunders indicated that God had, at last, become a man. God incarnate in man, the union of Christ in the church, the restoration of Samson’s seven locks, pointing to Jesus at Calvary, the prophet like unto Moses, where Peter received the keys to the kingdom, which fit the seven locks of Samson, who was Jesus, and unlocked the seven mysteries of the seven church ages. As the beast came forth to announce the church ages, the Bible says that it thundered; Calvary indicating the ark of Noah, everything ready, the cloud over Israel bursting into the latter rain as the thunders uttered their voices. The waters of Noah came down, to be followed by the blood of redemption and judgment, indicating the blast of the atomic blows, eventually revealing the Spirit life (spiritual Jew) of a nation born in one day, a many membered man child, caught up to the throne of God to rule over the nations with a rod of iron, bringing in the glorious millennium with a full restoration of the government and a manifestation of the sons of God.
It is evident that the keys of the kingdom that unlocked the mysteries of Calvary was the revelation of Jesus Christ, which John wrote about, which were to be understood by the church in this last day, being the finishing of the mysteries at the sounding of the thunders, for the last trump that is to awaken the dead is the trump of God Himself, the voice of the resurrection, death being conquered as the mysteries are finished, the church suddenly awakening from her sleep of carnal reasoning and death, where it had been kept all these years.
This reminds us of another vision, where I stood in heaven with my hands outstretched as the Lord Jesus Christ, saying, “Come unto me,” and also the vision where the stars gathered over to one side of heaven, and then the vision where we were passing through the air, as night was falling, and as we passed over the graveyard, we screamed for the people to come out of the graves, and the resurrection took place.
The mysteries being finished, death is conquered, for the faith which brings us into the change, or the new body, comes from the expos‚, of the mind of Christ, which is the mysteries that are given only to the church; Joseph revealing himself to the brethren, while the world of Egypt is shut out.
Notice this one thing: Brother Branham had the thunders, but it was in the veil. Somebody said, “He never saw the thunders,” but he said, “I did see the thunders, and when I saw the thunders, they were in an unknown tongue and I couldn’t interpret it.” You say, “What does that mean?” It was within the veil! It was not interpreted, but he did see the thunders, which means that it did come forth, just like he said. Could this possibly be the thunders? Why was it withheld? Because the hour of the translation was to be in the hour in which we live!
Let us examine it for just a moment. You see, the angel said to John (the church), “See that you write it not, for in the days of the voice.” What voice? The trump of God! He said, “John, don’t write it, though your spirit has received it, for it must be revealed,” because John was the revelator. So then, it was not the spoken word, which was the angel’s declaration, but seeing and not understanding, as Brother Branham said, it remained a mystery. Again we say, it was veiled in the spoken word, but was unveiled in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, for the revealing of the mysteries is the trump of God, when death is conquered, and that which is referred to as “The Faith” comes exclusively to the church.
Then, the change is here! Oh death, where is thy sting, and grave, where is thy victory? For mortality is swallowed up in immortality, and corruption by incorruption, and we are changed from terrestrial to celestial, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trump of God shall sound, the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet Him, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Notice this! In this hour of translation, what is taking place right now? It is not just a type of the translation, it is the translation of God that is taking place! You say, “What do you mean?” When they translated the Bible from the Greek over to the King James Version, what did they do? They took it word by word. When God gets ready to translate, what does He do? God is a Spirit. He translates your spirit from one stage to another. Somebody said, “Well, I’m talking about the body.” The body doesn’t have anything to do with it. Not one thing. You can’t show me in the Bible where the body has anything to do with it. The Bible says that the body without the spirit is dead. It doesn’t have any life. I told you earlier, that the woman has nothing to do with family life; not one thing. She’s just a carrier. The man child is in my heart. My body has nothing to do with it. It’s just the woman. It’s just the carrier. God is the giver of life. The translation is by the Word. It’s the man that gives forth the blood seed; God the eternal Spirit, through Jesus Christ! He’s the one that gave seed into my heart. Paul said, “I travail until Christ be formed within you.” The man child! What is it? It has to do with the thunders! The man child! The translation!
Brethren, look at the situation that the church has gotten into. Some of our church brethren are disputing as to whether the birth takes place at the bottom or the top of the pyramid. We should readily know that the pyramid is the steps of virtue, and that the virtues have to be manifested after the birth. But in reality, the pyramid has nothing to do with the birth at all. The capstone of the pyramid is Jesus at Calvary, therefore, the base of the pyramid would have to be the lively stones of the four corners, coming from the east, south, north, and west, raising up to the headstone, for He said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me.”
Now, let us be reasonable and see what the Spirit has to say about the birth. We know that the head of the child breaks forth from the matrix first. The child doesn’t travail; the mother does. Is not Calvary the head of the child? There is no travail of the mother, except to bring forth the head of the child. That is Christ at Calvary. Jesus is the woman (Israel, the flesh), while Christ is the man child. He escapes the bowels of the earth, coming forth from the water, which is the dust of the earth in composition, of which the flesh is composed, for the body is mostly water according to science. The next part is the blood or fire, which is in the heart of the earth; then, as the child breaks forth from the matrix, which is the open grave, the spirit or breath is revealed. The head penetrates the spheres that are contaminated with death, in that Satan is the prince of the powers of the air, and it breaks forth from the womb of the world into the presence of God. The physicians, or preachers, then take hold of the head, and the angelic forces pull from yonder’s world, until the membership of the body comes forth. The woman, passing through the church ages in a state of relaxation or sleep, as it is shown by the death of the martyrs. The Dark Ages of travail being over, which is shown as Samson, losing his strength, his seven locks being the seven church ages or the seven spirits of God (angelic messengers).
The last stage of the woman is seen as Laodicean, in that she is shown as a sleeping virgin after the travail, the child appearing at the midnight cry, in the middle of Daniel’s week, which is Calvary. Revelation 12 shows it caught up to the throne.
The seven church ages show each part of the child being revealed from mystery to mystery, as it comes forth from the womb, the ten toes being the last thing. God’s Samson loses his locks at Calvary, for the Lord reveals His secret, the revealed mysteries to Delilah, only in the sense of losing his life to give her grace, but the locks, growing back through the church ages, brings a spiritual Jewish replacement of dead Israel, the resurrection of the dead from out of the dungeon, the tribulation period showing the natural Jews, as the seven days of cleansing after the birth of the man child. John, having laid the axe to the root of the tree at Calvary, the fig tree was cut down, for Jesus found no fruit on it.
In the days of Nebuchadnezzar, it was said, “Let seven times pass over it,” that in the spring of the resurrection of life of the tree, she would put forth her buds and we would know that summer is nigh. The resurrection is Israel becoming a nation. We are born at Calvary, through faith in the inner man, manifested at the end of the church ages through the adoption of son-ship (bodily redemption). Although John tells us that we are already sons by new birth in the inner man, yet it doth not appear as to our image in His perfection, but we know that our appearance is in His likeness at His coming; the change at the end of the church ages, caught up to the throne, by riding over the tribulation period, sitting on the throne of David in the millennium. To the spiritual Jew, the revelational mind of Christ is the throne of God, for the capstone is the head where the brain is, while the heart is the mother’s chamber of love and devotion.
Now, notice one thing. Is there a translation taking place? You say, “What do you mean?” I mean that if I can convert your thought pattern by faith, which the ministry is attempting to do, then you have become the woman that John speaks of in the book of Revelation that fled into the wilderness, who has been hid away, the woman that was standing in heaven (Israel). What heaven? The second heaven! Remember, the first heaven is being in this world, in the grace of God. Remember, we brought it out in your one two three: your outer courts, and then we said that the second heaven is the priesthood age, and I have shown you that the Jews have reference to the first heaven which answers to the people that are in the world, the bodily part, those who have never been born again. You say, “They couldn’t be in heaven.” Then tell me one thing; how is it that Jesus said that the dragon was in heaven, if those people that are not born again are not in heaven? You explain it to me! Those Jews were in the first heaven, in that God was in their midst, in the person of Moses.
Let us examine the three heavens for just a minute. The first heaven is the Father in the life of Moses; the law dispensation. The second heaven is God in the life of Jesus, which is accredited to Peter, the father Pope (grace dispensation). The third heaven is Christ, revealed in the life of Paul, which is to the church, the Holy Ghost dispensation (righteousness). So then, we have father Abraham to the Jew, father Peter to the Gentiles, and father Jesus to the church, shown by Washington to the Protestant age.
Let’s take a moment and look at Israel. He spared Israel all of these years, putting them in ignorance. He spared them and never left them without chastisement, but the prophet said that He’d make them pass under the rod. “I’ll put them in My melting pot. I’ll put them in the tribulation.”
How many of you are acquainted with the city of Petra? We brought it out here one night, concerning the tribulation period, how that history says Edom will escape. Edom, Moab, and Ammon were over there when Lot committed fornication with the daughters; he being drunk, not knowing what he was doing when they took advantage. Out of them came the Moabites and Ammonites and different ones back there that caused the trouble. Those lands are supposed to escape. How many of you remember the cities of refuge, three of them on this side of Jordan, and three on the other side of Jordan? They were the cities of refuge, and if you or anybody killed someone or did anything wrong, they could run for these cities. If they could make it to the city, they were safe until they had a hearing, and if the hearing showed that it was a willful thing, then the city of refuge could not hold them any longer. If it was not a willful thing, then they were judged and set free, and so the city of refuge could take care of them until the day that the avenger died out. So it is with the woman. It’s the same thing. That is the place where Israel will hide away, in her cities of refuge.
Now, speaking of the cities of refuge, remember Petra. They say that it is a little place. The passage through is about twelve to forty feet wide, and the sides of it will extend up from two hundred to one thousand feet in the air, and the sides almost come together in some places. There is about a two-mile trail down through there, and when you get inside of it, it’s an ancient ruin of old buildings and all kinds of things, and according to the history of it, around the edges of it, it is honeycombed and excavated back in there, and it’s beautiful, with yellow and purple and red and white and all kinds of colors. It’s real pretty, and in this place, they’ve got about two miles where they can come inside of this thing, and there’s only one entrance to it. Nobody can get to them.
So, through the valley of Petra goes Israel, where He said to Israel to come with Him until the indignation is passed over. The prophet said that it is just for a little while, and then the indignation will be passed over. The prophet gave the prophecy concerning the antichrist, that Ammon and Edom and Moab shall escape out of his hands. All of them will escape from his hand, according to the Bible. This is in the wilderness. Remember Kadesh-Barnea, how that one year after Mt. Sinai they journeyed through there? We’ve got a tape here where we bring out every step of the journey through the wilderness. When they journeyed through there, they went over to this particular place, and they never did go in. Remember? It is in the wilderness that Petra is found. This place, back in the days of Babylon, became a modern place, a market place. It was a modern place of exchange, and then it fell away until about 800 AD, and then it came back in again. Now this place is ordained, as far as we can tell, for the Jews to go in through this narrow passage, and get way back in there to hide away at the time of the catching up of the man child, at the time when the wrath of God will be passing over; Israel going under the rod.
Now notice this, speaking of the change over from the government; not only of the religious government, but the government of the United States. In revelation, if we could bring it out, it positively shows a change. Not only does it show a change of the government, but the standards will be changed from the standards of gold to the standards of oil. It will be changed. You say, “How could that ever be?” It’ll have to change. If you will just stop and consider, remember that the gold standard is gone. Have you stopped to think about it? I made a prediction a few years ago that it would soon be gone, and everyone would be running around trying to get the gold certificates, but the gold standard is already gone, because they’ve changed it to a federal note already. Therefore, you don’t have a gold standard. Besides that, with the devaluation of your dollar, it’s gone!
Now, why is the change coming? It is because gold represents faith. Let’s look at it in the mind of God. When you look up into heaven and see these things happening in heaven, which is the mind of God, what shows us that the change will be like that? Gold shows faith, your faith as gold, tried in the furnace, and we’ve been in the days of evangelism where salvation is by faith. Here, the standards of our money, our money being faith, had to be gold, because gold represents faith. The only assurance of salvation that you have is faith. You say, “Where did you get that?” The only assurance that your money is any good is faith, which is the gold that backs it. The only assurance that your salvation is any good is faith, for the Bible says that faith is the substance of the salvation that’s hoped for. So then, gold is the substance of that which you hope for, the medium of exchange with your dollar.
Now, we’re leaving the eagle age, going into the dove age. We’re making a change over. What is the difference? This is the church government coming in, which is the kingdom government. It is the kingdom age, not America (gold standard), but it is the age of oil coming in. Why? It is because a Christian doesn’t have to have faith to believe in the salvation of God. They are automatically children of God by predestination. Faith was the thing that drew us to it, to make us acquainted with it. It wasn’t faith that made us a Christian, it was grace that made us a Christian. The Bible says, “By grace, through faith,” not by faith. Faith is just the medium. Do you follow me? It’s just the medium of exchange. Then, the changeover is from the world standards to the church standards. “Well,” you say, “why doesn’t the church use gold?” It is because that is not our standard. What is our standard? Our standard is the heavenly oil of God, which is the Spirit. The Spirit is represented by the oil, so the standard has to be oil in the coming nation. You say, “What will that be?” Antichrist! Somebody said, “Now, where did you get that?” Antichrist, which is Babylon, is a type of the church government that is coming in, which was denoted when Jesus was on the earth with the Jews for three and a half years. Are you following me? That is a type of that which must come in during the millennium.
Now, let me show you the transfer over from the Old to the New Testament. In 133 BC Attalus died. He’s the one that was back there in the Chaldean kingdom. We spoke of it being there at the change of the Medo-Persian kingdom, when the Babylonian kingdom was overthrown. It was Satan’s seat, which was Babylon at that time. Then it changed to Pergamos, which was over in Asia Minor. Remember, Paul’s churches were in Asia Minor.
He changed from that, went over to Pergamos, and then he died. All of Jezebel’s ritualistics changed over then, at this period of time. Remember, Rome was started in 30 BC, but we took it on back to about 700 BC, where it really got started, because it goes back to Babylon, and even before that. Then, when it changed to Pergamos, the Etruscans came down from Lydia over into Italy, and it was there that they brought this same Babylonian order that was under Attalus to Rome. I know you remember Julius Caesar, the one that changed the calendar and made it a Roman calendar, and put you under the Roman rules to that extent, because this is the Babylonian government that’s going on out in the world. You might not believe it, but this is God’s government going on here at the church.
Remember this one thing. You’ll see it head up in Atlanta, Georgia. Just wait and see if I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t believe this is God’s message, just keep your eyes on Atlanta, and see what I tell you, and some day God will burn her, too. Watch and see!
Notice this, it changed over when the Etruscans came down from Lydia to Rome. It was about 74 BC, and Julius Caesar, elected as pontiff, took over this Babylonian order, because Rome adopted it, in that Attalus had willed all of its order and riches of wealth to Rome. I think it was about 63 BC that they made Caesar what they called “Supreme Pontiff,” which put him over the whole thing; the emperor and everything else! He was the supreme ruler. This continued on over to about 300 AD, when an emperor by the name of Grecian rejected it. So, they changed the title over to “The Bishop of the Church,” which had been just “Bishop” for about twelve years, and maybe about 366 AD, I believe, the bishop got his strength from the Jezebel operation back there, which was the monks. Some kind of monk college got behind him, gave him prestige, and he became a bishop, following the Jezebel order. Then, when the emperor refused it, they made this bishop of the Church of Rome the head over the Babylonian order.
This is where he became the head of the church, and the church reverted back, went over the emperor and everything else, and became the head of the nation, and then set up a Babylonian kingdom called the Dark Ages, which we refer to as the Thyatira age, from about 606 to 1520 AD. Right after this came the Reformation, which is called the Sardis age, where Luther went over to Wittenberg, Germany, where he nailed the ninety-five theses upon the door, defying the Council of Worms, which changed it to bring in the Protestants. I say that to tie them all together, so you will know where we are at now, but it is believed that even Martin Luther’s struggle was more for a political order than it was for a religious order.
So, we find that Sardis, which was his age, is referred to as the dead church age. What I want you to see here is that after the Pergamos age, when this thing became the church, this is how it got into Protestantism, the daughters of the harlot, at this particular time, being a derivative from 325 AD, where they changed the baptism to trinity and went back to the Jezebel thing. You remember, the next church age refers to her adultery. It refers to the harlot, and her committing fornication, which was the intermarriage of the church and state, in that at this particular time, the bishop took over, and the Babylonian system, which was the Jezebel system, brought all this about Easter, which comes from the queen of heaven that they worshipped, called Ishtar. Easter and Lent all came from the pagan See, when the bishop became the head. Then the bishop instigated all of these things, and brought that Jezebel. You can check every bit of it out with history and go back to a word, “Tau,” which means “Tamaz.” It was some kind of mystery thing that they used in Babylon, and that’s where they got their rosary and the cross system, and Vesta, the virgin, from Rome. The worshipping of Mary and every bit of it goes back to the same head that took over. He introduced it. See, in other words, he pulled Babylon, the Jezebel system that Elijah overthrew, right back in again.
That’s why God had to send Elijah again. If the Jezebel system comes up again, there’s got to be an Elijah again. It’s got to be the same thing. Now you say, “I don’t believe it’s a Jezebel church.” Well, why did they change it into powder and paint like they did? Why did it make the martyr’s blood flow? Why is it in the condition it’s in today?
This is the third great stage of Babylon. America is nothing but a Babylon! You don’t know anything about anything! Somebody said, “I know the law.” I challenge any lawyer to prove to me that he knows the law. There is not a lawyer living that knows the law. He knows something about the law, but he’s just as mixed up as everybody else. There is not a king or ruler in the world, nor a religion, that knows what they’re doing. Not one! Not even the Pentecostal religions. They’re so confused that they don’t know whether you ought to wear your dresses above your knees or below your knees, and they try to level off by saying, “Well, if we get our hair down here, it’ll be too long; if we get it up here, it’ll be too short; we’ll take moderation!” I know the old trend of the Church of God! “We’ll take moderation! We’ll just wear it half! The dresses, if we get down here, it’s too long, if we get up here, it’s too short; we’ll just take moderation. Just wear them up above your knees.” I know how they do, because they don’t know what they’re doing. See, in other words, it’s a modern Babylon. Nobody knows what they are doing.
Look at insurance! You take out insurance, you insure your trailer for eight thousand dollars, and what happens to you? You think you have an eight-thousand-dollar coverage for an eight-thousand-dollar trailer. Live in it for just a year or two and let something happen to it, and the insurance man comes out and starts figuring. He says, “This year’s depreciation, this year’s depreciation!” When he gets through, he says, “We can’t give you but just half,” half of what it’s worth, and there you are, you haven’t even got the thing paid off. It’s confusing! Now, you don’t find one place where the insurance agent will say, “Now, it’s two years old. We’re going to depreciate the premium down a little bit here and there.” He never depreciates the premium. He depreciates your investment, and that’s all he ever does. Crooked! I made the statement, “I back out in the road, and the policemen grabs me for backing out in the road. I go to town, and everybody backs out into the road.” You go to town and everybody gets by as long as they just buy their own whisky and stay within the realms of the law. It doesn’t make sense! They give them whisky, and they put them in jail for drinking whisky. For killing people, they put you in jail; for robbing people, they put you in jail; sell dope, and they put you in jail, and then feed them year after year from the taxpayer’s money. It doesn’t make sense.
They take the troops and send them overseas somewhere in some foreign country, and they’ll take care of five thousand families to have them over there with the soldiers, and they’ll sit over here, in places like Fort Knox, where they might have hundreds of helicopters and maybe thousands of trucks, doing nothing but rotting and rusting, and you’re paying for it, and going hungry trying to pay for it. Because of fear and frustration, however, they won’t ever use them. By the time war is declared, they’ve got some modern invention and they don’t need the old ones, so they push them off in the river or sell them for scrap or something. What are we doing with all those people over yonder? We’ve got five thousand soldiers over yonder somewhere. We feed them and take care of them, while the Army teaches them to gamble and rob; and they’re not a good soldier unless they can turn up a bottle of booze, turn their wives into prostitutes, or turn our cities into a cesspool of iniquity, filled with whoremongers. That’s what it did. I know! I have seen it happen. I’ve been present and saw it happen, and a man can’t do anything about it, and a woman can’t do anything, because of the mass of soldiers; but let me tell you something, while all of this is going on over there, we’re the ones that are paying for it. What can they do? They can’t do anything. In an atomic age, what can soldiers do over there? It’s a waste of money. It’s a waste of time, all because of fear and frustration.
All right, notice this! There’s one thing that’s been taking place. It’s a modern Babylon. Where is it heading up? Look at my son Ricky, when he came out of this place up here called Fort Knox. The resurrection! The typical changeover of the government, when the name went all the way up here to Washington and everywhere, as I wrote the letter. The letter, written by George, from Mount Vernon, went to Mount Vernon, and was received by a man named George. Then, I got word that I’d received a letter from George, and I went up to get the letter and had to pick it up, and I found out that it was signed “George.” It doesn’t make sense, does it? But it happened that way. Why? It denoted a change over from the government.
Look at Nixon: nothing; naught; the government coming to nothing, and then the Watergate, where they were all gathered under one man. Look at what Dean Rusk said, how that he was afraid that Henry Kissinger was getting too prominent, because they were all gathering under one man. Not just the United States gathered, like around our president, but all of them throughout the foreign countries had to come in to the antichrist. The government, I said, would change over to Atlanta, Georgia. Why? Because it’s Rome, and she’s got to control the world. The little stone that was hewn out of the mountain is Stone Mountain, in its typical sense. You might not believe that, but it is. That’s why the great home run king, Hank Aaron, is up there, to draw the people. That’s why they have the finest stadium in the world, you might say, in Atlanta, Georgia. That’s why the dome is covered with gold that comes out of this area. Because of its typical sense. She’s typical of Rome in the third dimensional setting of Babylon. She’s coming in. What will be the downfall of it? The Bible says that tidings out of the east would trouble her, for a man child is going to be born. When Kissinger and these people get this thing under their control, and they’ve got the whole world, and they feel like they’ve got it, there’ll keep being an echo: “Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming! Our Messiah is coming!” And those Jews will just about drive him crazy, and tidings out of the east shall trouble him. The Bible says that he’ll go like a whirlwind against them, gathering all the nations together. God will draw every one of them together against little Israel when she refuses to line up with them.
To begin with, Jerusalem will line up with them, because she thinks that they’re going to make a covenant with her, which is Kissinger going over there, trying to make peace with her. She’ll line up, thinking that Rome is going to come through in the confederation of nations and build back the temple of Solomon over there, but just as quick as they get about middle ways in that thing, the leader that’s got all those nations under his power, the antichrist, will rise up and set himself down in the temple and make himself God. Now watch and see if he doesn’t do it! Then, the Jews will break the covenant, and tidings out of the east will trouble him. He’ll always be troubled, because he can’t get Naboth’s little vineyard. He has everything but Naboth’s little vineyard, but it was a heritage from the Father, and he couldn’t get it. He’ll try to magnify the Jews and set them up to bring them into a field of blasphemy where it will destroy the nation. In the days of Jezebel, there comes also an Ahab.
Here was Kissinger in Atlanta, Georgia. Seventeen nations were supposed to come together with him. That proves that the government’s been changed. We’ve never had a United Nations meeting except in Washington, but why is there a change? Washington denotes the government coming to naught (the gold standard has run out), and every two hundred years, according to history, a government changes. Check it out! We’re coming in to it right now. What is it? It is the oil standard coming in, which is going to have to do with Georgia. I told somebody the other day to just watch and see. If you want to find out about oil, see what Georgia is, and then you’ll know what we’re talking about.
Here it is, Atlanta, Georgia — Rome. You say, “How could that be?” If there is a Little Bethlehem somewhere, there must be a Salem. If there is a Salem, there must be an Athens. If there is an Athens, there must be a Rome. Rome, Georgia is just above Atlanta. It has to be just exactly the way God planned it. If that has to be there, then there has to be a place where the seven church ages are to come together, where the seven governors resided, and where the government is upon His shoulder. It has to be just outside of Rome. Stone Mountain is the headstone. It’s got the stones carved on it. See, the government has changed. The gold standard, that’s Washington. What does that have to do with it? Virgin: let’s look at it and see. Calvary: what was it? It was the virgin Mary. Virginia! Baltimore, the virgin Mary. It was the birth of Jesus. When Christ came, it was a different government. What about this virgin birth? The virgin birth comes into effect later, which is the body. That’s from the Calvary perspective of it, but remember, this Easter denotes the Jews coming in. You say, “What does that have to do with?” The body! See, the translation is taking place now. You are on a journey to another country, shining out across the sea. You are changing from the beast mind, from glory to glory, by the knowledge that’s revealed within Him, the Scriptures say, right on into the heavenlies. You’re being translated, raptured, caught up by the mind of God. The mind of God is creative. All of a sudden, you’re going to realize that you’ve been caught up; that you’re eternal; that you’re in heaven, and old things have passed away. All things are new. God’s chosen you out of this world, and hid you with Christ in God, whom the heavens have received. You are not in darkness. It’s the translation! You’ll hear it, you’ll see it, and you’ll believe it, and because you believe it, that will make it effective.
Enoch was translated by faith, that he should not see death. By faith of the hearing of the Word, the creative Word changes you and puts you in another world. Some people will hear it and say, “I don’t understand it.” They don’t want to understand it. They’ve got an evil heart of unbelief, along with their own personal desires, and they’d rather live their few feeble days down here in the lust of the flesh and satisfy their desires, than to give in to God and listen to what He has to say, and so the devil has blinded their eyes, because they loved the world. The Bible says, “Satan, you love the things that be of the flesh. You savor the things that be of the world.” He loves the world more than he loves God, and God has turned him over to a reprobate mind, to let him believe a lie and be damned, to let him figure it out. Brother Branham said that when you figured it out, then you are wrong. It has to be revealed.
Now, notice the theme of our subject. Can anybody say that Atlanta is not as wicked as Rome was? My brother, she’s far more wicked than Rome was. Rome, at least, had some standards of decency. Atlanta doesn’t have anything. That’s why they’ve got the underworld or “Underground Atlanta.” They say that they sat there and drank their beer, and guzzled it down while the tornadoes were knocking the buildings and different things down, and laughed and made a joke out of it.
Why, at this time, has America put her foot on the moon? Why is she called a woman nation? Why is it, at this time, that the red dragon, which is Red China, is coming in with us? Why is it that the first plane from Japan, the sunrise land of the east, came over here on our fields? Why is it that the Pope of Rome pleaded for Red China to come into the United Nations? It is because, at this hour, it is a type, to show that Revelation 10, where the angel came with the covenant, was to be manifest. Who is the angel of Revelation 10? The Bible says that he is the messenger of the covenant. Revelation 10 did not say that he had a rainbow over his head. It said that he had a rainbow upon his head. You probably say, “Well, I don’t see the difference.” Well, who was he? He was the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at Brother Branham. He walked around and the pillar of fire hung over his head. It was there! He predicted the end by 1977 in the year of 1933, and when you go back to 1933 (the death of Jesus at that age), from the death over the church ages, in his typical type was Brother Branham. It was forty years in the wilderness. Figure up the time. It was seventy years of Babylon. In our day, it comes out the same way. Figure up the types, run it out from 1960. It happens exactly the same.
Look at China, the red dragon, Revelation 12, the woman. Who was the woman? Notice this now, Israel is the woman. Israel means America, the woman nation, which is the woman in heaven, because Israel is a type of the body. If Israel is coming in, it’s the redemption of the body. Somebody said, “You can’t prove it.” Jesus said, “That which is born of flesh is flesh.” Now, you know that your first birth was flesh, but He said, “That which is born of Spirit is spirit.” Somebody said, “I’m not a spirit.” Well, you need to get born again! Here is the angel. Notice this in Revelation 10. This angel coming, then he said that in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, the mystery of God shall be finished. What was the mystery of God that was to be finished? It was the seven thunders which were given, because the Bible says that seven thunders uttered their voices, and this angel said to John, “Don’t write them.” Seal them up for now. But, he said that in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, then the thunders will be made known and the mysteries would be finished. It’s like Brother Branham said, that if you reveal the mysteries, then the church will be translated. God bless your poor hearts. God help you that are blind. You missed it! It went off and left you, and you’re still sitting down here in the world, and the wrath of God is on you, and only a few of you understood it and got it. That’ll be made manifest in a short while. Some of you preachers didn’t get it. You thought you did, but you didn’t. That’s why I had the vision the other night when God sent me to four preachers that were to lose their lives. How did this have to do with the mysteries of the thunders? Because here at Calvary, when this thing took place right here, it was the rent veil. When the veil was rent, the testimony of the tabernacle was opened, and the Bible says that seen within the tabernacle was God’s own testimony.
Where do the thunders come in? Let’s look at them just a minute, and we’ll see. I said that the thunders came in the days of Michael, because the Bible says there was war in heaven, and Jesus, being the Michael of that hour, said, “I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven.” When the thunders roared, Moses was on the mountain, like unto Jesus. With all of the noise, the earth opened up and swallowed them, and when the angel spoke from heaven, they said it thundered, which indicates that a thunder is a voice, which has to be a message. It was something that was said, which was, “This is My beloved Son, I’m pleased in Him. Hear ye Him!” And when the thunder uttered its voice, He spoke over there and made the statement, “I have glorified My name, and I will glorify My name,” and at Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus said, “Father, Thou hearest Me always,” and the grave opened up, because Jesus spoke.
Let’s just look at it for a minute. What are the thunders? It’s when the hot and cold air comes together. It’s when those clouds over yonder that have the bright silver lining come together with these fierce clouds over here that are evil and dark. It’s the rumbling, the mumbling, the grumbling. It’s the clashing together. You say, “Why?” Because in the latter times, the Jews were to have a war with the natural people, which means that the spiritual people of the church, which are the spiritual Jews, are to have a war with the natural religious bodies of the world.
That woman was up in heaven (the church world, the antitype). I know it was Israel, giving birth to Christ, the man child, but the church world is giving birth to the sons of God, the many membered body of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of all the philosophy, the fussing, the arguing, and all of these things that are going on.
Look at it! Here are the thunders. Seven thunders uttered their voices. John couldn’t write them. They weren’t in the Bible, as far as being written, because God said, “John, don’t write them.” If He had said to write them, they would have been in the Bible, but they are comprehended within the mind of God, from which the Bible is composed, which means the entire Revelation of Jesus Christ is within the Bible, but it has to be spiritually understood and spiritually discerned. Those thunders were a message. I brought it out on tape one time, building up to some of the things that we’re saying now, of what the thunders were, how that God had given them, what they meant and how they were placed within the bosom of the church. They were written on the tables or tablets of the heart, for John received them in his heart as the church, but nobody else received them. Why? Because if anybody else had received them, they’d have been translated. It was the message of translation that was hidden on the inside. Somebody said, “Brother Pike, you can’t prove that.” I can prove that, because He said, “John, don’t write anything about the thunders, but in the days of the voice, the mystery will be made known.” Somebody said, “But how do you get that out of it?” Because the Bible says that the mysteries will be finished.
The thunders are a mystery. Nobody knows anything about them. If the thunders are not made known, then the mysteries are not finished. Brother Branham believed that his preaching was the finishing of it. He believed that he made known the thunders with the teaching he brought forth, but if it was made known and it was out of the veil, why wasn’t the church raptured? Only a type of the church was raptured, which was his people. We predicted his death, and it happened that way.
Now, what are the thunders in the heavens? Let’s see if we can tie them together for a few minutes, and see if this makes sense. Up here in the heavens, when these clouds come together, scientists will tell you that there’s a hot and a cold air that comes together. When it starts trying to turn into a lukewarm thing, God spews it out of His mouth. When the world tries, with their knee-high dresses, to mix with God’s church, it turns into a lukewarm thing and God spews it out of His mouth. If the world will stay cold, God will let the world go on. If the church stays hot, God will let the church go on; but when they come together, it’s just like the intermarriage of the races. God’s against that. Somebody said, “I don’t believe it!” My brother, He’s against it, because it brings in a mulatto people that are not healthy nor well. I know there is the typical thing that comes in, where God raises a superman, but it’s not right to do that. When we come together, just like you come together here, the church, at this time is trying to mix with the world. The world will say, “Well, we’re wearing miniskirts, but if you’ll come on in, we’ll drop them two inches if you’ll just raise yours up two inches,” and finally, they will say, “You’ve been a little extreme, anyway,” and the church will say, “Well, you’ve been a little extreme, too. You ought to be more religious.” The world answers, “Oh, we’ll be a little more religious if you’ll be a little more worldly. After all, we’ve got psychiatrists that tell us that we’ve got to be balanced. We’ve got to have basketball! We’ve got to take our little boys out to the ball games, and train them up in the ways of the devil. We’ve got to send them to college, and get them a bathing suit! They need the exercise.” You call yourselves Christians? You ought to be ashamed to even name the name of Christ.
Let me tell you something! When the world starts mixing in with the church, my brother, you can believe the thunders are on. There’s going to be a clash when it comes about. Those heavens are a type. Everything is set there for a sign. Notice it! Here comes these cold clouds in. The world is cold; here it comes in. Here come the spiritual clouds; hot, burning with the fervency of God. Here they come together, and they start mixing and mingling, with a big, big explosion. A lukewarm mess, and God might say, “I can’t have a black black anymore; I can’t have a white white anymore; I can’t have a buttermilk buttermilk anymore; I can’t have a sweetmilk sweetmilk anymore, because they want to mix it up in a mess.” So He spews it out of His mouth. He says, “Away with the world! If you can’t stay out there and be natural, away with you!” Church, if you can’t be hot and on fire for God, He’ll spew the whole thing out of His mouth. He just does away with the world and the church and everything else.
See, in the days of the voice, when that last angel sounded, the Bible says that as quick as he sounded, then the voice came forth and said, “Now, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and His Christ.”
Notice this, when those clouds come together, there is a roaring, there is a thunder, and there is a friction. This is where your lightning comes from. When you mix hot and cold, there’s a rumbling, there’s a noise like a tornado. That’s what these tornadoes represent. I told Brother Taylor when we came across the six-thousand-mile tour, when we crossed over at El Paso, and when I saw that turmoil come in there, like I did in a vision, that it had to do with the rapture of the church, when I cried out, “My Father, My Father, and the horsemen thereof,” and then it came down and swept the earth. It’s the thunders! It’s the lightnings! Listen to the thunders in the heavens when a tornado comes over. It’s like a freight train. It just rumbles and rumbles, because it’s the thunders, the hour of the thunders. Now you say, “Brother Pike, you can’t prove it.” You must be deaf! Listen, I don’t say this to the children of God. I know that they have good understanding. I’m talking about these people that cause me so much trouble. Listen! Why isn’t it the hour of the thunders? The woman has got her feet on the moon, and the red dragon was there when the thunders came. Isn’t it the hour that we’re living in right now? The red dragon is just waiting: Communism! Let me prove that! You know that the book of Revelation is the prophecy of Daniel, don’t you? It’s the fulfillment of it. Daniel sealed it up until the end time, and then it was unsealed to John. To us it is unsealed.
Look at Daniel for just a minute. I’m not going to go into all the beasts which represent it, because we’ve got some tapes on it. Cut down the tree! Let seven times pass over it. Do you remember us speaking about that? If this was Daniel’s image, the head of it was gold, and then the breastplate was of silver, and then the thighs were of brass, and the legs of iron.
In 364 AD, the legs of iron came in, the dividing of the kingdom, western and eastern. Rome! One becoming Greek, and one a papal church. Splitting it up, not too far away from 325 AD and the Nicene Council. Notice this, after the iron legs, came the toes. Now, listen real close. The feet were made out of iron and clay, and the prophecy said that iron and clay won’t mix. Now, what does it mean? It means that Communism and Catholicism will not mix.
Here we have Khrushchev, whose name means clay. Brother Branham mentioned that. Communism! Clay! The toes, which are the confederation of the ten kingdoms that are coming out of Europe through a communistic policy. They’re coming out, and what are they going to do? They’re going to run into the Catholic Church. Somebody said, “It’ll never be.” It will be.
Rome always rules with a rod of iron. You say, “Can you prove that Rome is a nation of iron?” I sure can. Her chariots were always made of iron. Her spears and breastplates were made of iron. She believes in ruling with a rod of iron. She builds her buildings out of cement and iron. If you don’t believe it, just go over to the monastery near Conyers. She rules with a rod of iron. She believes in an indefinite rule. When the Communists think they’ve just about got the government, then those ten nations come up, and the rod of iron is coming up, because the Bible says that those ten nations will give themselves to the antichrist, but they’ll hate her. The ten horns that were on that beast that came up are the ten nations. All the world wondered after the flesh, which is the beast. It’s the constitution of the nations, because the Bible says that they’re brute beasts, made to be taken and burned. That was shown back there in Daniel’s prophecy in the visions he had, when the ten horns came up, and out of the ten horns came the little horn that magnified itself above all the horns. It was the antichrist. Look at Daniel’s visions and John’s visions. They are one and the same. Who was the antichrist? Out of the ten confederated nations comes up the papacy, the ruling of Rome. That’s why we brought it out about Attalus. As it comes up, the Babylonian order comes in again, centering around Atlanta. She’s going to be a modern place like the Greeks; Six Flags and all of it.
Now, notice this. The little horn comes up out of the middle of the ten, and we said that we’ve got a tape where we went back to Calvary, the Ten Commandments, and what it had to do with Christ, and the ten lost tribes that got lost in 721 BC down in Syria, and how that I brought it in with the Joseph nation in America, and then with Israel, which is Benjamin. Out of the ten tribes is where the antichrist comes from, out of the tribe of Judah. He came up out of that, stood up, and magnified himself. Do you remember Thrace, Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt, the four generals that came up out of Alexander the Great, in Daniel’s vision with the four horns? The Bible says that the ten toes came up and gave themselves to the antichrist, but they hated the antichrist, and some day would burn his flesh with fire; his flesh being his people, casting them into the tribulation period, into a bed of adultery. That’s what she’s been doing, committing spiritual adultery. She won’t take the name of Jesus, and anybody that won’t take the name of their husband is a whore. Her children are bastard children because they don’t have a father’s name, and Jesus is the Father’s name. So, He said, “Cast them into great tribulation.” That’s the period that is coming, and He burnt them with fire (His wrath), the explosion of the bombs. Her desolation is coming in one hour.
Let’s tie that in with Rome. Look at Brother Branham’s teachings. Didn’t he say he saw America, which includes Atlanta, Georgia, a heap of ashes by 1977? Her desolation is come in one hour. Didn’t I tell you that Atlanta would get a waterway, where it said that her merchants sat off and said, “The great city, the great city!” God’s one-two-three; first heaven, second heaven, third heaven.
So then, here it is in Atlanta. Here is the woman with her foot on the moon. Here are the thunders rolling through the air, rolling, tumbling, jumbling here as the whirlwind catches Elijah, the church, up. Here it is! You say, “It doesn’t have anything to do with it!” Then why did I say “My Father, My Father, and the horsemen thereof”? Because I represent the church, which is Elisha, which is the double portion. What’s that got to do with it? The body! The change of the body, the translation, the seven thunders! These thunders bring in the Jews. What happened? When the thunders came together, they began to rumble, and then, with the rumbling, there was war in heaven. What were the thunders? Do you remember the vision I had, where the angel came down from heaven, and we brought it out that these are the last days, and we said that John’s vision in 96 AD was the same as Daniel’s vision, and that vision, or prophecy, would be fulfilled in our day. What Daniel saw was what John spoke about, and what John spoke about was the war of Daniel, where Daniel, being like the church, calling on God, and the angels couldn’t get through. God has always wanted to bless His people. He’s never been satisfied with you being cut off down here, but it’s been darkness. He couldn’t do anything until Michael the archangel, which is shown over here at Calvary, broke through by setting a door in heaven. He broke through the middle wall of partition, where Satan was, between heaven and earth; rejected of the Father up here because of our sins, and rejected of the world down here because He did not fit in.
Where did He win the war? That’s Michael, winning the war. He set a door between heaven and earth, took His angels and fought against Satan from Calvary, and hung it right there between heaven and earth. He made a door through the darkness, that the sunlight of glory could come down into this world, and we could go in and out by the door to the green pastures, for He said, “I am the door.” In this doorway, Michael and his angels fought Satan and his angels. The dispute was over the body of Moses. The Bible says that there was no longer any place found for Satan in heaven. Somebody might say, “Brother Pike, it looks like to me that if Satan was up there in heaven, then heaven would be defiled.” No! He wasn’t in that heaven, the third heaven, which is where God is. He was between heaven and earth, in the second region. That’s why Jesus went between, because that is Satan’s kingdom. Somebody might say, “Prove that!” America, one heaven, the millennium, another heaven, and the celestial earth, the third heaven, where the Ancient of Days comes in. Where’s Jesus? Over here in the millennium. Who tries to overthrow Him? Satan, because that’s the kingdom he was after. He tried to make that kingdom here in America, or Babylon. So then, hanging between heaven and earth, here is the door. Jesus made the door at Pentecost, where Peter got the keys and John saw it in heaven. This door is the mind of Christ. To get into the spiritual world by translation is the door, which is the mind of Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ. Faith!
Here is the war in heaven. The war started and Satan couldn’t stay there. Where was that war? It took place in the second heaven. The priest made the change in the middle court, while Jesus made the change in the middle age. The war is in the church, because that’s where the church is at. Israel was in the first heaven.
Where was the battle? It’s not in the spirit. It’s not in the body. Where is it? It’s in the soul! It’s the intellectual concept. That’s where the intellectual tree of knowledge is. That’s what overthrew him. The battle is in between. Where is the door? Up in heaven! The soul that sinneth shall surely die. I stand at the heart’s door. Where is Michael and where is this war that is going on? It’s in the heavens. Where is Satan cast out from? It’s the heavens. Where are the heavens? If grace is the second heaven, where are you? Somebody might say, “The woman was in heaven when the child was born, and then she went into the wilderness.” It doesn’t say she was cast out of heaven, but it said that Satan was cast out of heaven. How could the woman still be in heaven and Satan be cast out? It’s easy when He makes it known.
If Satan got into heaven by grace, then how does he get out of heaven? When the blood comes off of the mercy seat, it only atones for the woman. She’s still in heaven, so she goes into the wilderness for a time, times, and half a time, which is the tribulation period; but as for Satan, grace is cut off from him and his followers. He’s cast out into the earth, which means the carnal realm. Then he personifies himself. Do you see the battle? “I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven,” Jesus said. When you see all of these thunders, things happening in heaven, these clouds coming together, what does it represent? It represents the battle between Michael and Satan and those angels. How does that have to do with anything in what we’re doing? Because it’s at this time that the red dragon is coming in. That means that Michael has got to be in the land somewhere, and the thunders have got to start, for the battle is on between the hot and the cold, when the world tries to come in and take over the church.
The devil tried to come in the other day, when those women came up here with their skating skirts on. The battle in the heavenlies was going on, and when I raised up against them and wouldn’t have it, I said I would close the church doors before I would allow that. Where is the battle? It’s between the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and the image of Satan. They’re trying to force their way into the church. The streakers, the miniskirts, the bebops, the Jezebels; every filthy, lowdown thing there is, they are trying to come in, and the hot and cold are coming together. It brings on the thunders. What does it start? A mumbling and grumbling. That’s your thunders! Mumbling and grumbling and roaring; roarings that are being fulfilled, the sanctuary becoming a desolation and an abomination before God. Daniel said that it would be this way in the end time. Here it is! Roaring and roaring, coming together! Here’s the war!
Look at Brother Branham. Every denomination in the world, just about, hit him. A battle! Here it is, a battle is going on. Michael is about to stand up for his people. Here, in this hour, the thunders are coming. Why? What makes the thunders? It’s the hot and cold coming together. A brother will sit down here on the campgrounds, and me up here preaching, and me saying, “Glory to God! Hallelujah! Do you believe what I am telling you?” He’s sitting down there saying, “Ah, there’s nothing to it.” See, we’re bumping together, a rumble and a mumble! Do you understand what I’m saying? The thunders are coming together. Then, where’s the lightning? It’s the friction. Friction! That’s what lightning is. When you rub something together. You can rub two stones together and get sparks. You rub two people! Somebody said, “You rubbed me wrong. I’ll spark off right quick.” Somebody, if they want to get at a woman, will say, “Boy, I can spark her.” God will spark you someday in hell, too!
Here they come together. The rumbling. The thunders coming together. What is it? The mystery of the seven thunders is being revealed. When the thunders come together, there’s a mystery coming forth at that time. It has to be! What is the mystery? The finishing of the mysteries of God has to come together for what is happening. It is in that time of the translation. Somebody might say, “Where did you get that?” The days of Noah, when the great floods came, and the ark raised up. Waters are people. Jesus separated the waters from the waters; that which was above the firmament from that which was below the firmament. Here at Calvary, the firmament comes in between them; the dividing, the rending of the veil, the separation of the church and the world, and then back in tribulation, where they all come together again, which is the integration of the races; when this comes, what is it? Thunders! When they come together as a war, with fighting. Thunder! Killing! Burning! Murder! Somebody said, “Well, the black man did it.” No more than the white man. That wasn’t it. God is just using types.
In the church, the war is on, for Satan shall blaspheme the tabernacle of God, which is you, the name Jesus, and with his trinity teachings, he’ll call you Jesus name people, holy rollers and everything else. Look at it. A war that’s going on. Why? Satan is in the trinity realm. The denominational world is being overthrown. The little spiritual Jesus name people are a type of Jerusalem, when all nations gather in around Jerusalem, then Jesus comes in, and when all of the powers of hell gather in around the church, Jesus comes in, which is the Word of revelation, for He shall suddenly appear within His saints, not in the heavens up there, but in the heavens out here. We see the sign of His coming. If you can’t see it, you must be blind. Why? Because I said the moonlight, the sunlight, and the starlight, and you’re the stars. Satan was to make his nest among the stars, which is the church, the moon realm, because that’s the twilight realm. It’s the change over from God’s mind to man’s mind, and it’s the place on the moon where they set their foot; the nest. It’s in the twilight realm that he makes his nest among the stars. Why does he do that? Because he makes himself Jesus, and he stands at the threshold of eternity. He stays right there. How do you know him? He’ll learn everything he can about the world, with all of the education that he can, then he’ll learn everything he can about religion. He’s standing at the threshold. The moon is the changeover place. Satan wants to make his door between heaven and earth. That’s why the satellites form a cross when they go up there. That’s why the Lord said that He’d turn the moon to blood, because it would be Satan’s place of habitation. Set it on fire! Because they built that place between heaven and earth, the labs and the different things. He knows he can’t conquer and rule the world down here, so he’s got to do it there. That’s why America has been in the space race like she has.
Notice this now, the ten kingdoms. The days of the rumblings. What was said in the days of the ten kingdoms, or the ten confederated nations? It said, “And in those days, there shall be a stone that shall be hewn out of the mountain, not made with hands, and in that day, it will come rolling down through Babylon, and it’ll tear down every kingdom of the world.” That’s exactly why that at Fort Knox, the authorities, the law, and the military forces had to take a back seat when I stood right up in the court and said, “You can say what you want to say, but it is not going to be that way,” right in the face of the lawyers, there in the courtroom. Why? Because God showed me that it wouldn’t be that way, and we defied the entire government of the United States right there, and they’ve got it on record. They caught it on tape, where I told them that they needed to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin, that this was God’s kingdom coming in, and I told the general and the majors that their kingdom had gone, and we had won out over it. The judge told me to start with, that he couldn’t change it. It was already on record in the court, but in this case, he thought that he could change it. I thought he could, too. The general didn’t think he could change his mind, but in this case, he did. What does it represent? The thunders are clashing, and as they clash, the revelation is coming forth; the mystery, the revelation of Jesus Christ. The thunders are rolling. Look at them in the heavens. The lightning, which is the friction when hot and cold come together; what does it mean? Sharp, cutting words of arrogancy. Somebody said, “He cut me to my heart.” Sharp, frictional, cutting words coming forth. At that time, Lucifer goes out.
When you dispute with a man, you use the sword of your mouth. The Bible says that Jesus will come back with the armies of heaven following Him on white horses, all arrayed in fine linen, to free the church; the sons of God marrying them to come back to the Jew after the tribulation. I wish we had time to go in there and break down every step of that, because it’s so beautiful. He’ll come back with the sword of His mouth. The blood will run up to the horses’ bridle, and all of them gathered in around Jerusalem.
The Bible says that this angel came out, and one said, “Cast in your sickle.” He was sitting on a cloud. Why clouds? Because clouds represent people. People are waters in revelation, vaporized up to the heavens, coming out of the massive body of humanity, which are the lakes and oceans, vaporized by the heat of God and made hot, and they are brought up here in the heavenlies. They are heavenly born up here. Somebody said, “But, there are dark clouds up there, too. Where did they come from?” They’re up there, but they got in without a wedding garment. That’s not their place of habitation. They got in by grace. See, as the sun draws, it draws both. It draws little eggs up and turns them into frogs. The frogs, the unclean prophets, the unclean spirits coming back down. You see them falling back down to earth, when He goes to melt down these heavenly clouds of the latter rain. Pray in the time of the latter rain, that I’ll make bright clouds, clouds of the latter rain, to bring a revelation, a reproduction for these things of the earth.
Now, notice the thing that’s taking place. Here are the clouds, these frictions coming, the lightnings cutting and cutting, always the preacher saying sharp things, the congregation saying sharp things, wrestling together. Never before have they done this. People used to say, “Well, you just believe what you want to believe, and I’ll believe what I want to believe, and that’s it.” But the church and the world are trying to mix, which is the thunders. Satan cast out of heaven as lightning. I beheld him fall from heaven. What is it? When grace is taken away, knowledge comes in and the blood comes off the mercy seat, because we know to do good. Satan can’t stay in heaven when the blood comes off the mercy seat, because he is only up there by grace, and so he’s cast out at the knowledge of the coming of the Lord Jesus, and we change worlds.
God doesn’t let him get down there in the world until He takes us out of the world. God let him have that place up there, so He could get us out of the world. When we get out of the world, then He says, “Woe unto the inhabitants of the world.” But you’re not in the world. “I’ve chosen you out of the world,” Jesus said. So, Satan comes down to personify himself, but God has raptured us out. The rapture, or translation, has taken place by the revelation or the revealing of what you are and who you are.
If I say you’re healed when you’re not healed, and if you believe it, then you are healed. It’s just a matter of you making it effective. You can’t make it effective until it comes, and it can’t come until the season. When the season comes, everything’s all right. Now, somebody might say, “Brother Pike, that means that everybody that hears this revelation will make it.” No, it doesn’t! Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith unto the church. How many of you know that Pharaoh followed Moses? He finally got the revelation, but when he got down to the Red Sea, it swallowed him up. Everybody hears? No sir! That’s not it at all. That is the twins, but to everyone that believes it; Enoch was translated by faith. You can’t believe it until you hear it. That’s why the church hasn’t been translated, because they never have heard the mysteries, and they couldn’t believe it. Jesus said, “It is not given to the world to know the mysteries, but to you, My disciples, it is given.” That is going to be the deciding factor right there.
All right, listen real close. Here are the thunders. Here is the friction in the churches going on now. In this audience, there is more than one mind. Satan’s out there right now. He just can’t stand it. Those carnally minded men and women that are sitting out there, he’s in them, and he can’t stand it, and it’s about to drive him crazy. Why? He’s losing his kingdom. He’ll wear out the saints of God, and then the saints will get a vision, and they’ll rise and take the kingdom, and that is what they are doing right now. They’re taking the kingdom, because the kingdom is within them, and they are taking it by faith. They are realizing, recognizing, and accepting; and they are rising, taking the kingdom, overthrowing every kingdom of this world, because in the days of the ten toes, the stone was hewn out of the mountain. That’s Stone Mountain. Somebody said, “I don’t believe it.” But it is Stone Mountain, right up here in its type. That’s why it has centered around Atlanta. It was once traded for a shotgun; worthless! They called Jesus a bastard child. He came out of Nazareth. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? But, the Bible says that it filled all the world. It’s becoming one of the seven great wonders. Here, it’s really going to be a wonder, because the king is here. Look at your type, Hank Aaron, the homerun king, and all of these things that are happening here in this area. Everything’s coming! The eyes of the world are on Monroe. It is because of Atlanta. What’s taking place? Looking at the suburban areas; it is going to be the biggest place in the world, the way it is shaping up. There could not be but one thing to come, and that is the “Hell’s Angels.” They had to come to Atlanta. Somebody said, “How can that be?” But they came!
Notice this one thing now. What actually took place? The thunders, the frictions, because as I saw the angel Michael stand for His people in that hour, they did not have the revelational strength of faith, or perseverance, to overcome, but in that hour, the thunders were to be revealed, and they were to receive the mysteries, and realize who they were and what they were and where they are at, and rise up and walk over the others by taking the kingdom, and like the slingshot of old, not miss it a hair’s breadth. They know what they’re speaking of, not guessing like the world is. One preacher with ninety days of fasting, who was a giant among the people, saw the church stand up, and yet, even he is waiting, travailing for what God has blessed us with. See, it’s not given by works. It is God’s divine ordination. So, we have the thunders and frictions.
When the angel went to cast in his sickle, here’s what he said, “Cast in thy sickle, reap the grapes, take the vintage of the vine,” like we said, “Going through the grapevine,” put it in, the harvest is over. Take it, throw it into the winepress of the wrath of the Almighty God, where we said that the Jews were the winepress. Pull all nations in around the Jews, get them into the winepress! What is it? It is the spiritual Jew, the sons of God. Pull all the religious parties in, raise them up, and watch them walk on every one of them and trample them to death, the blood up to the horses’ bridle. You’ll see it in a little while. The nations are getting together right now. That’s what Kissinger is doing. He’s getting every one of them together, and Israel is going right along with him, until they realize the broken covenant, and when they do, all the nations will go in there to destroy them, because she is not going to link up with them, and the antichrist is not going to be satisfied until he has control of everything, including the Jews.
If this isn’t the finishing of the mysteries of God, I’d like for somebody, somewhere, somehow, to come to me and tell me what it is. Tell me what has been left out. Tell me what it is. Bring it to me and show me what it is. Somebody will come along and say, “I’ve got a revelation,” and that is wonderful, if it’s a true revelation from God. That’s good! But, all you did was go by the vine and pull a grape off. You’re thrilled over it, and that’s wonderful, you ought to be, because it’s from glory to glory that you are changed. But brother, I’m speaking of the Revelation of Jesus Christ that comes right from the book of Genesis all the way down to the book of Revelation, and goes from Russia over to China, over to the United States, into your life, your marriage, and everything; that reveals the order, not only of the nations, but of the family, and the order of everything in the earth, showing the perverted side and bringing out the other side of it.
Listen to those thunders, those frictions. Satan is cast out of heaven. China will be rejected by the United Nations in time to come. Now watch and see! She’s had her place among the United Nations, but she will be rejected because everything will look well until they find out. It’s like when the Pope came over here and said, “We want China to come into the United Nations;” then they will realize that China will never subject herself to the antichrist, but that China intends to rule. Once they realize this, out she goes, because the Pope is going to be the antitype of the man child, and he’ll never have her in there, because she intends to rule. Her religion is different. She believes in a Buddha, a Confucius, and everything else, and she’s not going to bow down to a Catholic religion. She knows what happened in the Dark Ages to the Roman powers and she’s out to take over the world. You can believe that. Look at how she allied with America to get them to fight with her against the Japanese, and then turned right around, and what did she do? She turned on America. See, she’s her own nation. She’s an individualist, and it’s going to be that way with her.
The thunders are taking place. The rumbling in the elements, the war in heaven, and that’s what a storm represents. It shows Michael standing for his people. Satan, having been cast out into the earth, and grace being over, he can’t find any other place. You ask, “How can grace be over?” Because a person that becomes a Christian does not need grace. They’ve got righteousness. A person does not need a covering of dispensational grace; they’ve got the grace of God, and salvation is on the inside, and when God lifts it, after the child is born, the woman with her feet on the moon, Revelation says that just as quick as it is born, it is caught up into the revelation. It goes up to the throne, right here. That’s why America is going out. The days of the Gentiles are over. The blood’s coming off the mercy seat and the government is changing over to the eastern world. You’ll find out that Kissinger was more lined up with them than he is with us. Just wait and see. The Arabs love him. Why? Because they are the bondchild. It’s the antitype of the antichrist, where all the world of magic comes from.
The dispensation of the Gentiles is over. That’s why the Jews are coming back in at this hour. That’s why you have heard so much about the Catholics. It came as Jew, Catholic, Protestant. When it went out, it went back Protestant, Catholic, Jew. It was Catholic on television; now it’s the Jew, the last part, which means the resurrection of the body, the redemption of the soul, the confederation of churches, the confederation of nations; all of them coming in. Everything coming into a cluster, God choosing this area over here as the last and final place. It’s like Brother Branham said, 1977 and back to the east.
Remember, I said that antichrist would start revealing himself this year, because he’s going to have a reign. Didn’t the paper state, in big letters, that the stars had just crossed? Uranus coming into Scorpio shows that Satan has now come on the scene, and he’s starting his seven-year reign. God said that there would be signs in the heavens. He set them for signs, Jesus said, for types and shadows, so that at that time, the thunders were to start, because if he is coming to the earth, and there’s a reign of seven years in the earth for Satan, then that means that he has been cast out of heaven. That means he has got to go into a personification, which means there had to be a revelation somewhere that has excluded him, which means that the mercy seat had to be cleared of the blood. The days of the Gentiles are over, and we’re on the verge of every bit of it; the woman with her feet on the moon, the red dragon, everything taking place right here at this particular time. That’s why we need to watch and pray. You don’t know where you are standing. God sees your mischief and your evil, and because of that, He prepares your heart to be in that place, before the world ever was, to carry out His types, and do what He’s going to do.
So then, we’ve been caught up. The thunders, the rumbling, the whirlwind, the rapture, everything is over. The mysteries of the seven thunders, what are they? It was to rapture the church. What comes after that? Satan goes out of heaven and starts his reign in the earth. The Jews come in and the woman flees into the wilderness, because there is a place prepared for her. Just as quick as the man child is born, which man child is coming forth right now, he is caught up to the throne. Remember, after Calvary, the man child went up. The name went up to the president, the government was overthrown, the new millennium government came in, the standards being changed.
It is a positive fact that when Satan starts his seven-year reign, which is when all the thunder and lightning starts, then the rent veil comes open, and they look inside of that rent veil and see the revelation, which is the ark of His testament. They saw it. That’s why J. T. Parnell said in this building right here, “No matter what my tent is, I saw that ark in this building right here.” That’s why his tent was like a cloud by day and a fire by night. That means we’ve come down to the end of the way. It’s the end of the trail. The thunders are rumbling. Things are taking place. Something is happening.
Every little thing, typically speaking of it, is the Lord screaming at you, saying, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the church.” Then, after hearing it, some wife will go home and say to her husband, “Do you believe that?” You don’t even know what you’re saying. See, you never did hear anything to start with. How could you ask him if he believed that, because you don’t even know what that is? You’re just all mixed up, because you never heard it nor had an ear to hear it. Do you know why? It’s because you are to treasure up to yourself, with that impenitent heart you’ve got, the wrath of God, because it is coming. You wouldn’t let the Word penetrate your heart, but the sword of His mouth is the Word of revelation that was to destroy all nations, and the brightness of His coming is the light that will destroy the beast’s image and take away the shadows of night, bringing in the world of light and the very image itself, bringing it from the dark room, being the light in which all the nations shall walk, because it’ll become a government. All nations will walk in this knowledge, this understanding, this mind. In the days of the ten kings, the little stone came out of the mountain and tore down everything in the entire world.
What are the mysteries of the seven thunders? They are the battle in the heavenlies; Daniel’s vision being fulfilled; Michael standing for his people; the rent veil; the revelation; and the ark of the testament being revealed. What comes after that? Remember, after the trumpet sounded, then came the vials. There are your earthquakes! There are your plagues! There, my brother and sister, are all of these tornadoes that are striking. Do you understand what I am saying? At the sounding of the last trumpet, the mysteries of God should be finished. Somebody would say, “Something is going to take place.” Something did take place. You missed it, my brother. When God came and said, “Let there be,” there were things happening all of the time. You could see that, because it was natural, but the wicked shall not see when good cometh. The world that He is speaking into existence now, you don’t see, but it’s being constituted. Somebody would ask, “Where is it?” It’s a mind! Once a mind is fully constituted, the world makes itself known. It’s constituting the mind of God, that the world of God can come into view. He’s speaking this world of types and shadows out by the voice of Him that speaketh, whereas, it’s not you that speaketh, but it’s Him that speaketh. It’s His mind revealing Himself, changing and transformating.
Today, I’m preaching on the thunders. Easter, the woman said that Jesus had come, or the resurrection. Why? Because, when the thunders are made known, doesn’t Jesus come? Isn’t that the translation? Wasn’t that what He said? Read it in the book of Revelation. As quick as they were made known, it was over.
That means that something has happened, my brother and sister, but the wicked don’t see it. The Bible says that the wicked will say, “Well, I don’t see anything different. The world has gone on just as it has since the fathers fell asleep.” The Bible says, “This they are willingly ignorant of,” but I’m glad that he that hath an eye to see and an ear to hear, can understand what has been going on. Something is happening.
If we had time to go into it, we’d hit lightly on the blood stream. Blood is one life and spirit is another life, and the blood of sex life is trying to swallow up the spirit life. That’s the reason your carnal reasoning is like it is. That’s why fasting helps. See, that’s one world. That’s what Jesus spilt at Calvary. That blood is what caused the trouble. That’s why it had to be spilt on the altars of atonement, but see, that change is coming back now. The blood life is over. We are going back to spirit life. He that is born of Spirit is spirit. Somebody said, “Well, I know we shall be.” Tell me where it said we shall be. It said, “He that is born of Spirit is spirit.” It didn’t say anything about “shall be.” Somebody would say, “Well, I know that means this inner man.” It didn’t say that. It said, “He that is born of the Spirit.” God works by foreknowledge. We just wait until everything matures, that’s all. Pick a pumpkin. It might be green, but just leave it out there. It’s yellow. Just give it time and you’ll see that it’s a yellow pumpkin. Pick a green tomato. Somebody said, “That tomato is not red.” It is red! Just leave it there. You just haven’t seen it yet, that’s all. See, all the red is on the inside. Somebody said, “What are you talking about?” The redemption of the body. Something happened at Calvary, and it’s been taking place ever since.
Don’t you want to get real peachy? My Dale had a dream of having a battle with a great ugly sort of a thing that was trying to tear down everything we were doing. About that time, the president came over in his plane. It was called “Peachtree Peachy.” She said he landed and helped us; Michael standing for his people. They speak of the state of Georgia and the peaches, you know, and they used to refer to girls that way, but you get so sweet, so ripe, not hard. Peaches are hard when they first come on a tree, but they get so ripe, so mellow, so sweet, that everybody that comes by takes a bite of it. The Lord said, “Taste of Me and see if I’m good.” Get real peachy! You’ll be so sweet. If somebody doesn’t come by and pick and preserve, the next stages of it is that it begins to rot and wither up. That’s what a human being does. He gets young, full of oil, and plump, and then he begins to wither up and lose his sweetness, and gets old and grumpy. Some people get older and sweeter. Some of them, when you lay them down, are so sweet that they are resurrected in another world. Some are grumpy. But see, it rots. When it rots, Paul said, “Lest a seed fall in the ground and rot, it abides alone,” but once it rots, then the inner seed is revealed. Plant it! The next time, you are not a peach, but you are a tree. You’ve got lots of peaches. Jesus said that we could bear much fruit. That’s the Father’s good pleasure.
What I speak to you might sound hard, but I’m not trying to scold you. I’m just trying to snap you to attention, and I’m crying out against Satan, who is weaving his web around you. You can’t change the ordination of God. You can’t make crooked what the Lord has made straight. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin and the leopard cannot change his spots, neither can they which are accustomed to do evil change to do good. There’s no way. God creates the good and the evil. He works all things after the counsel of His own will. The church was made to love, to ripen, to be preserved. The Bible says that brute beasts were made to be taken and burned.
Father of heaven, as we come to the close of another service, we thank You for the kind patience of these people, that have listened, Lord, and may they understand. Many things we’d like to have said about the thunders this morning, and about the other things, Father, but at the end, it seemed like that the people were growing weary, but God, I pray that Thou, who art able to make them to understand all things, will quicken, ripen, open, and astound them with their own revelation of Christ as it breaks forth in their hearts, as they knit those things together and read concerning the two prophets and what is to come. May it be so, in the lovely name of Jesus Christ. Amen!
In essence, of the many things we have spoken, the summary of it is that the atomic warfare, the bursting of the bombs, along with the mighty earthquakes that are to befall the nations, greatly have to do with “The Thunders.”
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord