Shortly after Passover in 1962, I sat in my small church in Norfolk, Va. with my sermon outline in hand. The last special song was being sung, after which I was to preach. As they were singing, a voice spoke to me. It was as if a man about six feet tall was speaking to me from about three feet to my left, between the congregation and me. The voice said, "Preach barley harvest." I turned toward where the voice had come from, and, with my face lifted toward where his would be, I said, in a low voice like a whisper, "Lord, I don’t even know what Barley Harvest is." I turned back to meditate on the instructions which the voice had given me, and looked up the references to it in the scriptures. I knew almost immediately what the Lord wanted me to preach about, and as they finished the song I went to the pulpit and preached about forty-five minutes on the prophetic fulfillment of the Old Testament allegory of "Barley Harvest."

Earlier that year, February 4th or 5th, 1962, depending on the part of the world in which you lived, there was a total eclipse of the Sun, by the Moon, which coincided with a rare grouping of five of Earth’s planets. (It sounds as if the eclipse lasted two days, because it crossed the international date line.) Grady R. Kent, who was our bishop at the time, published an article in the March issue of our church periodical, "The Vision Speaks," entitled "The Beginning of The End." In that article he asserted that the eclipse was a sign of that beginning. There is a story, in 1st Samuel chapter twenty-five about Abigail going, with her five maidens, to her marriage to King David. I believe that story is an allegory concerning the coming "marriage" of Christ and the Church, at the end of the world. We also have Jesus’ parable about the five wise virgins who went in with Him to the wedding. By this parable, Jesus also confirmed what Paul told us about the resurrection. There will be an assortment of groups at the wedding: the Bridegroom (Sun), the Bride (Moon), and the five Bridesmaids (planets), together with the "guests" (stars) at the wedding.

A Clear and Present Danger

That which I present here should not be taken as just another attempt to explain "End Times." Rather it is presented to enlighten you about "Jesus Christ, the Son of God," and the great effort by Satan to convince the whole world that there is no Son of God.

I have spent my life, since I was ten years of age, searching for the truth of God in the holy scriptures. In my quest, I have discovered that it is not an easy task to "rightly divide the word of truth." Moreover, the task becomes even more difficult when a premise is presented using terms which are not in the text, such as adding the definite article "the" to antichrist. When we do so, we are more likely to hide the truth from ourselves than we are to find it.

Another common practice which tends to hide the truth from us is the erroneous application of a scripture to an unrelated subject. For instance, it is common to hear preachers refer to "the Antichrist in 2 Thess. Chapter two." (I have wondered for many years, how they relate antichrist directly to that passage, although that wicked one is, by definition, one of them.) In support of their assertion they refer to various passages in Daniel or The Revelation of Jesus Christ, but rarely do they make any reference to the passages in the Bible which actually mention antichrist. The scriptures which mention antichrist must be the foundation of any effort to explain the subject.

I do not desire to "make a man an offender for a word." But What better place to begin our approach to any Bible subject than where it is presented in the text? What better term to use than that used by the Holy Spirit himself, as He gave unction to the writer? That is what I shall do in this treatise.