Most of us would rather read a well-written, fast-moving novel than to read a laborious technical writing.  That technical stuff is too much like work.  Many of us would also rather read a simplistic version of the Bible, where they have left out the more challenging things.  For example, some passages which stress the importance of fasting have been left out of some versions of the Bible altogether (Matthew 17:21; Mark 9:29).  One very popular version took out something like 65,000 words.  It looks as if the Christian community has allowed those changes and deletions, because they would rather not read about the tough things the Bible calls upon us to do.

Conversely, Jesus told His disciples, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”  In spite of this admonition, it is almost universally promoted that we should preach only “Jesus Saves.”  When we are eating out, we are far more apt to order a steak than we are to order “cereal and milk.”  Yet, when we go to church, we are far more apt to go where we will hear again a sermon on simple redemption, the milk of the word, than to hear about “the principles of the doctrine of Christ,” the meat of the Word of God.

There are some very interesting prophecies in some of the books of the Old Testament which are read the most, and are in direct contradiction of that promotion.  For instance, in Isaiah 33:1-7, we are told that in the day of the fall of “Mystery, Babylon the Great,” “Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation.”  And, in Daniel 12:1-4, we are told that just prior to the resurrection, “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”  That is, both secular and Bible knowledge.

From the beginning of the industrial revolution, when God “poured out His spirit upon all flesh” in fulfillment of Joel 2:28, the secular world has wonderfully manifested the fulfillment of this prophecy.  Many men and women of the world have prophesied, and dreamed dreams, and have seen visions which have inspired the development of some modern benefit.  One great example of this is the writings of Jules Verne, in the 19^th century.  We have come from the harnessing of electricity to “surfing the web.” We have come from the telephone to world-wide video conferencing.  We have come from the miracle of heavier-than-air flight at the sand dunes at Kitty Hawk, N.C. to “The eagle has landed” on the moon, and beyond.  And that is to name a few.

The wonderful fruit of all of this knowledge has come, primarily in the last 120 years.  As these great leaps of secular knowledge have changed the way the world functions, God was busy in the spiritual world as well.  In 1896, in fulfillment of Joel 2:29, God poured out His spirit “also upon the servants and upon the handmaids.”  That is to say He poured out His spirit on Christians.  God prophesied, in Genesis 6:3, that He would perform all of this in the last 120 years before the resurrection.

The beginning of that “season” was clearly set when Charles E. Duryea began to sell his automobiles in Massachusetts, the USA, in 1893 (1 Thess. 5:1-9).  The prophecy in Nahum 2:1-3 marks more clearly about when the “time” of the preparation for the coming of the Messiah would begin.  He said that the man who would make that preparation would do so in a time when automobiles were fully developed, and highways were wide and straight.  At about the end of that 120-year season, Jesus shall begin to judge the nations.

After World War II, a pursuit of “leisure time,” soon hastened the beginning of the fulfillment of Matthew 25:1-13.  The disciples of Jesus asked Him, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world” (Matt. 24:1-3).  He answered those two questions in chapter 24:29 through chapter 25.  Jesus said “Immediately after the tribulation of those days … then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven” (Matt. 24:29-31).  He started chapter 25 by telling us that just before Jesus comes, all of Christianity would go to sleep, and that just before the Marriage of the Lamb, someone would make a cry that would wake them all up.   And did not Paul say, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching” (Heb. 10:25).

In the light of these Scriptures, how can our ministers, in good conscience, keep telling us that we cannot have any idea about when Jesus’ shall come again.

For many years now, Christianity has been asleep (Matt. 25:1-13).  How true the words, “Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle soul shall suffer hunger” (Prov. 9:15). Unfortunately, very few modern ministers are students, much less scholars, of the Word of God.

We “servants of the Lord” have simply been “too busy” to read the Bible.  Not even the ministers really read and study the Bible enough to learn its true meaning.  Where are those ministers of which God said, “I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer. 3:15).  “Much study is a weariness of the flesh,” but that is no excuse.

We are in very perilous times.  The economy of the world is sinking, and this is not “just another event,” nor will it be “just another trial.”  The final details of a world government are, even now, being worked out.  That government is the infamous “Beast,” with the mark, the name, and the number of his name which we must not take.  The dragon, the beast, and the false prophet are working swiftly to bring us under this much-touted one-world-government (Rev. 16:13).

“An end is come, the end is come: it watches for thee; behold, it is come.  The morning is come unto thee, o thou that dwellest in the land (that is, anyone who is a Christian): the time is come, the day of trouble is near” (Ezek. 7:6-7).  We have but a few months to “search the scriptures,” to find out the will of God, and His plan for our escape.

I know that many of you have been taught that you will escape the wrath of God.  I think you would be wise to emulate “the Ten Virgins,” and stir yourselves to really search the scriptures. The parable of “the Ten Virgins” is about this generation of Christians.  It is written concerning all of the Christians who “while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.  And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him” (Matt. 25:1-13).  It is time for all Christianity to awaken, and search the scriptures.  it may be that we shall be hidden in the day of the Lord’s wrath (Zeph. 2:1-3).

Isaiah well said, “Wisdom and knowledge, shall be the stability of thy times and strength of salvation: the fear of the Lord is His treasure” (Isaiah 33:6-7).  In the parable, all of the virgins woke up, but some were not wise enough to enter before the door was shut.  The wise at least had some oil with which to acquire enough light to find the way in on time.  We must not allow the Enemy to blind us and deceive us any further.

The Church of God of the New Testament had a Table of Showbread, as did the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple.  In the Temple it was a table with 12 cakes of bread.  In the Church, it was the Twelve Apostles, the Altar of Stones (Deut. 27:5-6; 1 Kings 18:29-32).  As long as the Twelve Apostles were functional in the Church, the saints were privileged to “Continue steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42).

After the martyrdom of The Twelve, the light of redemption from sins by Jesus’ death on the cross continued to shine, although it was greatly corrupted by the new source of doctrine.  However the light of the “glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,” had gone out (Jude 1:1-19).  But it had not gone out without prophetic promise that it would be restored.

Jude told us about that influx of another kind of ministers, late in the first century A.D., or early in the second, who had a different “table” of doctrine, and who “turned the grace of God into lasciviousness” (Jude 1:3-19).  For the next 1,400 to 1,500 years, various doctrinal errors began to be preached, and became highly esteemed and widely promoted.  In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, the “Reformation” began, and doctrines changed some, and new doctrines were adopted, some of which, were not Biblically sound.

Jeremiah put it this way, “O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there no profit.”  Our spiritual ancestors came westward in a time of religious and doctrinal evolution.  Very few of them had the time or resources or opportunity to fully research it all.  Consequently, we entered the 20^th century, and now the 21^st century, still preaching things which could not then, nor can they now, be proven.

Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, admonished us to “Prove all things.”  The last half of the 20^th century has produced optimal conditions for us to be able to achieve that.  In 1971, “The People of Truth” began an intensive program of the study of the prominent doctrines which are taught among Christians today.  One thing which we found to be really conclusive is the need for Christians to “Wake out of sleep,” and begin to study the Scriptures as we never have before.  God is working now toward the reestablishment of the Church, and of The Twelve to “feed us with knowledge and understanding,” but we need to be spiritual if we are to understand the spiritual things of God.  We must begin to prepare ourselves for His appearing.

“Behold the Bridegroom cometh, Go ye out to meet Him.”  Trimming our lamps simply means “Studying the Bible.” There are things you need to know if you are to go in to the marriage. “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11).