Message 16 - By Leroy Surface

The Beginning of Sorrows

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.  For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

I Thessalonians 5:1-3

 

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Matthew 24:8

In September 2005 I was preaching a revival in Saratoga Texas.  Only three weeks previously, hurricane Katrina had hit the Louisiana and Mississippi coast with all its fury, literally destroying everything in its path.  New Orleans had been devastated by the floodwaters from Lake Ponchatrane when the levies broke, and the entire area turned into a “cesspool” that would take months to drain even after the levies were repaired.  America had never seen a large city hit with such devastation and simply was not prepared.  Many preachers were stirred to preach sermons to their congregations that Katrina was God’s “judgment” against the sinful lifestyle of the city of New Orleans. I considered that New Orleans had been a moral“ cesspool” for many, many years, and was prepared to tell the people of Saratoga that God, in His righteous judgment had turned the city into a literal cesspool as a sign of His anger against their sin.  As I was praying about the Friday night revival service, God spoke these words from the scripture to my heart: “And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?  I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.  Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?  I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:2-5).  It was at that moment that I realized hurricane Katrina was so much more than God’s “judgment” against New Orleans; it was a “warning” of things to come to the entire nation.  After the service that night I felt strongly that I needed to close the revival on that note.  I had no way of knowing that exactly five days from that night, the church building I was preaching in would be destroyed by hurricane Rita.  I am so thankful that God stopped me from making and preaching a wrong judgment because, in so doing, I would have condemned a faithful pastor and congregation with my words. 

As I read the text in Luke 13:2-5 (except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish), I noticed that Jesus followed this saying with a parable.  Reading the parable, I felt my spirit break within me and I knew God was speaking something that we, “the church,” must hear. 

The Fruitless Fig Tree

He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.  Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?  And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:  And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

Luke 13:6-9

It was not the sinfulness of the sinner that brought such tragedy to those in Galilee and Jerusalem; it was the fruitlessness of God’s “fig tree.” For three years Jesus had come to Jerusalem seeking fruit and finding none.  The “tree” had been pruned, but to no avail.  It had been “digged and dunged,” but still it brought forth no fruit.  The time of pruning was past; it was time to “lay the ax at the root of the tree,” but in the longsuffering of God, Jerusalem was given another year to bring forth fruit. It was in the middle of that fourth year that the Jews at Jerusalem delivered Jesus up to be crucified. Jesus knew this would happen when He made his last journey to Jerusalem for the Passover.  It was after three years of ministering to Jerusalem and Galilee that Jesus gave the parable of the unfruitful fig tree.  Luke 13:22 says, “And he went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem.”  Jesus stopped in every town and village along the road to Jerusalem, teaching, exhorting, healing, and warning the people everywhere of the things to come.  Everything that is written in the thirteenth through the nineteenth chapters of Luke is a record of Jesus’ journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, and the things He taught and the works he did.  Jesus knew the things He would suffer and the death He would die when He reached Jerusalem. Long before he arrived, the passion of His heart was revealed in Luke 13:34-35:“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!  Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”   Weeks later, as Jesus arrived at the Mount of Olives He wept over Jerusalem, saying, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.  For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation” (Luke 19:42-44).  It was another forty years before Jesus’ words were fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem, but the “fig tree” was “cut down” the same day they denied Jesus and delivered Him up to be crucified. 

Crucifying Christ Afresh

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.  For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

Hebrews 6:4-8

It is possible to “crucify the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.”  The result for all who do so will be the same as for those who crucified Him the first time.  It is impossible to “renew them again to repentance.”  This scripture is not speaking of the common “backslider.” A true backslider lives in a constant state of “repentance” which, in this text, speaks of “compunction.”  Their conscience is pricked.  They live in a state of remorse.  As with David in Psalms 51:3, “their sin is ever before them.”  They hate themselves for the life they live, but due to their own foolishness they have sold themselves to be slaves to sin.  The man described in Romans 7:9-24 is a backslider. His testimony is, “I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died” (Romans 7:9).  His reality is, “I am carnal, sold under sin.  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I” (Romans 7:14-15).  His experience is, “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Romans 7:19).  The cry of his heart is, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24).  His only deliverance is, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25).  There is a way home for the backslider; it is the same as for the sinner, “through Jesus Christ.”  The apostle John writes to the church, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (I John 2:1).  In the next verse John adds, “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 2:2).  Oh backslider, do not delay.  Return to the Lord, and He will return to you.

The one who cannot be renewed to repentance is the one who has “apostatized.”  That is what it means to “fall away” as in Hebrews 6:6.  They were “once enlightened;” they “tasted of the heavenly gift;” they “were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,” and they “tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,” yet they willfully turned away from “the truth as it is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21). Many “apostates” still preach “Jesus,” but, just as Paul warned us of in II Corinthians 11:4, it is “another Jesus” that they preach.  Paul identifies these in the thirteenth verse as “false apostles;” they were “apostates.”  They continually “crucify the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame,” all the while they lay claim to be true ministers of Jesus Christ.  Read carefully the second chapter of II Peter for a full description of these.  Sadly, they are filling many churches in America today.  There are also those “apostates” who have turned completely away from Jesus Christ to trust in other means of salvation.  There are those who have “given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness” (Ephesians 4:19), and feel none the worse for it, because they are “past feeling.” Their conscience has been “seared (as) with a hot iron” (I Timothy 4:1-2). This is the sign of an apostate. They have no conscience against whichever course they may take.  They may continue to be very religious with no righteousness other than their “self-righteousness.”  This was the experience of the Galatian churches, which turned to trust in circumcision and the Law of Moses for salvation.  They believed they were more pleasing to God through their obedience to carnal ordinances, and were thus “holier” than others.  Paul remanded them to Christ, warning them saying, “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).

Despising the Birthright

A nation can fall from grace just as a church or an individual.  America is a prime example of a nation that has fallen from grace.  Our nation has “crucified the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.”  America has become an “Esau” nation.  Esau was the eldest of the two sons of Isaac.  As such, he was the “birthright son.”  Everything Isaac his father possessed was his by birthright.  In the case of Esau, it was more than the natural blessing of every birthright son, because Esau was born into the lineage that would bring the promised redeemer, the Son of God, into the world.  Every blessing of God as well as the blessing of Isaac was the right of Esau, but Hebrews 12:16 tells us that he sold his birthright for “one morsel of meat.”  He lost both the natural and the spiritual blessing for a “bowl of pottage” to fill his belly, yet he hungered again within the same day.  Oh how many have sacrificed the eternal, while seeking for the temporal, only to lose both.

Almost fifteen hundred years after Esau made his poor bargain with Jacob, God “hated” Esau.  “I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness” (Malachi 1:3).  Esau found no place for repentance, even though he “sought it carefully with tears” (Hebrews 12:17).  Even so, it was not because of conscience toward God that he wept; rather he wept and pleaded for the blessing of Isaac while he continued in his fornications and profanity (Hebrews 12:16).  In Malachi 1:4, God speaks of Edom, the nation that came out of Esau, saying, “Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever.”  There are no “Edomites” in the world today.  They have completely perished from the face of the earth because of God’s indignation against them.  You can travel to “Petra,” the city carved out of solid rock, and see the ruins of what was once the glory of Edom.  You can read the word of God given to the prophet Obadiah concerning Edom beginning in the second verse:

Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.  If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night, (how art thou cut off!) would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave some grapes?  How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his hidden things sought up! All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: there is none understanding in him.  Shall I not in that day, saith the LORD, even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau?

Obadiah 1:2-8

Read these words again and substitute the word “America” for the words “Esau” and “Edom” which I have italicized, and you will see God’s message to America, and to every other people, nation, or culture that has ever known God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and turned away from Him. How specific must the prophecy be before we can see?  “Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down.”  On July 20, 1969 America “set her nest among the stars as the eagle,” for it was in the landing craft named “The Eagle” that America placed the first man to ever set foot on the moon.  Remember those famous words, “The Eagle has landed?”  From the national pride of that day, we have certainly been brought down.  Line by line, every word of this prophecy has been fulfilled against America.  God’s indignation is against us, because if there was ever a nation on this earth that was blessed by God for a people to know Him and serve Him, it was America.  The scriptures inscribed on our national monuments testify against us. Our money, inscribed with “In God We Trust” testifies against us, as does our “pledge” to the flag, qualified with “…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”  America, no longer “under God” is fast losing her “liberty and justice.”

Three and a Half Years

There are certain “time-periods” which have been given significance in the prophecies of the scripture.  Of these, the one that I see most used is the “three and a half year” time period, which seems to occupy a very significant place in prophecy.  This time period is designated several different ways in the scriptures.  It is spoken of as “a time, times, and a half a times” in Daniel 12:7 and Revelation 12:14; “a thousand two hundred and three score days” in Revelation 11:3 and Revelation 12:6; “forty and two months” in Revelation 11:2 and Revelation 13:5, and as “three years and six months” in Luke 4:25 and James 5:17. Some significant fulfillments of this time period are as follows: Jesus’ ministry lasted three and a half years; it did not rain according to Elijah’s word for three and a half years; the temple and altar was desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes of the Greek empire for three and a half years; and the siege of Jerusalem before it was destroyed lasted for three and a half years, as did the siege of “Masada” shortly afterward.  In Daniel 12:1-7, the angel Gabriel told Daniel that the “time of trouble” would last “a time, times, and a half a time (three and a half years),” ending with the “resurrection of the dead.”  In Revelation 11:2 the angel told John, “the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months (three and a half years),” and in the very next verse we are told the two witnesses “…shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days (three and a half years).”  These three events, Daniel’s “time of trouble,” the “holy city trodden under foot,” and “the prophecy of the two witnesses” will all be fulfilled in the time Jesus called “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). It is important to notice that this period will end with the return of Jesus to earth, and the general resurrection of the dead just as prophesied in Daniel 12:2.  Notice Matthew 24:29-31: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.  And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”  We are fast approaching the final fulfillment of the prophetic “three and a half years.”  If this is so, then we know the return of our Lord Jesus Christ is near. 

The Beginning of Sorrows

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.  And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows. 

Matthew 24:4-8

Rather than seeking to describe the horrors of the final three and a half years on earth before the return of Jesus, I will instead call our attention to the things that are happening right now, things which Jesus called “The Beginning of Sorrows.”  It is interesting to see the definition of the Greek word that is translated “sorrows.”  The Greek word is “odin,” meaning “a pang or throe, especially of childbirth.” Jesus compared the things presently coming on the earth to the first of the “labor pains,” which come upon a woman at childbirth.  They begin as light pains at extended intervals, and increase in frequency and intensity until the child is born.  Paul was speaking in these terms in I Thessalonians 5:3 when he said, “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”  In those days a woman who entered into the travail of childbirth had no escape from the “labor pains” until the child was born.  The only alternative was the death of the mother, which was not uncommon in those days.  We are presently in the “beginning of sorrows;” it is that “travail” which must increase in frequency and intensity until “sudden destruction” fills the earth.  Jesus spoke of “wars and rumours of wars.”  He said, “all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”  He continued, “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom….” Certainly man has fought against man ever since Cain murdered his brother.  The next words of Jesus indicate the “beginning of sorrows.” He said, “and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows.”  

The “beginning of sorrows” is indicated by a vast increase of those disastrous things man has chosen to call “acts of God.”  Consider the earthquake in China and the cyclone in Burma with near one hundred thousand deaths in each.  We remember the tsunami in Indonesia that killed two hundred and fifty thousand.  Reports come continually from around the world of earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, droughts, cyclones, etc, with huge death tolls in other nations.  America has been blessed in that our death toll has been small compared to other nations, but something bad is happening in America.  Terror has come to our land and fear has gripped the hearts of the people.  Turn on the national news and the magnitude of it is overwhelming.  Today, as I write this, over fourteen hundred separate forest fires are raging in California. Recently hundreds of tornados wreaked their devastation on America’s heartland on an almost daily basis, with several small towns being totally destroyed.  Record-breaking floods have come to America’s “bread-basket” states, which have destroyed over twenty percent of our corn and other grain crops.  Numerous small cities have been submerged under the floodwaters as man-made levees have broken.  Earlier in the year, much of the state of Florida was on fire. At least two sinkholes have opened in the ground, one of which is near to us here in Texas, swallowing houses, businesses, streets, and equipment.  Forest fires, floods, droughts, crop failures, mudslides, avalanches, earthquakes, volcanoes, tornados, and hurricanes; it seems all nature is in upheaval against America.  Even the “creatures” are getting involved as we read about the “shark attacks” in California, and the “alligator attacks” in Florida.  Add to these things the cost of energy, with gas for our cars averaging over four dollars a gallon, and with diesel fuel at almost five dollars a gallon.  America’s wealth is flowing, like a raging torrent, to our enemies in Muslim and communist nations.  The news today is that the stock market had its worst month in June since the great depression, losing ten percent of its value.  In the same thirty-day period, fuel prices increased by ten percent. Natural gas prices have doubled in six months time, and food prices have doubled in the past year. We are being brought down, and it is no longer a “slide,” it is a “freefall.” 

America, a Fruitless Fig Tree

In December of 2000 I received several visions from the Lord during that time of conflict concerning who our next president would be.  Remember that President George W. Bush won that election by something over five hundred votes in Florida, and was awarded the presidency by a majority of the electoral votes even though he lost the popular vote nation wide.  Due to that fact, when George W. Bush began his presidency, he was perhaps the most hated man ever to hold the office.  During the weeks before we knew whom our next president would be I wrote a message titled “America in the Balance.”  It was also during that same time that the Spirit of God revealed to me that the first three and a half years of George Bush’s first term would be a “Space for Repentance” for America, as I also wrote in a message by that title. In October 2004, several of us fasted and prayed the entire month for God’s mercy on America because we knew that repentance had not come.  I believe God miraculously extended our time in the 2004 election, but I also knew by the Spirit of God that if America did not repent, it would be impossible for President Bush to succeed in his second term.  Three and a half years of that second term have passed, and America is more deeply divided than I have ever seen.  Our president has perhaps the lowest popularity rating of any president in history while the popularity of congress is even lower.  Our nation has lost her way because she will not repent. In view of these things, let’s look again at the parable of the unfruitful fig tree.

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.  Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?  And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:  And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

Luke 13:6-9

History often repeats itself.  So also do the judgments of God stand unchanged.  It is easy to look back at the life and ministry of Jesus in Israel and understand what this parable meant to that nation.  The parable was given after the third year of Jesus’ ministry. Even though there were multitudes of the common people who followed Jesus, the religious hierarchy refused to accept Him.  In fact, their hatred for him only increased as He continued doing the work of His Father, in saving, healing and delivering the oppressed.  Jesus gave the parable as a warning.  Three years had passed, and God had not received the fruit of righteousness from Israel.  In the middle of the fourth year, they crucified God’s Son, and nothing remained but to cut the unfruitful tree down. 

I know that God has loved America.  He has blessed America beyond measure, but for a full generation America has been rejecting God and our Lord Jesus Christ.  Forty-four years ago the Supreme Court of America ruled that it was “unconstitutional” for our children to be led in prayer in our public schools.  Shortly after that time the Ten Commandments and bible reading were also removed from the classrooms of America, and oh, what a price we have paid.  We now have a generation with no moral values whatsoever. Our authorities have done a much better job of protecting our children from Christian values than they have from drugs, pornographers, and pedophilias.  Many in authority believe that biblical moral values are the greatest danger to our children.  They have given us a generation in which over half of the children are born outside of marriage.  Rape and murder have become commonplace on our college campuses.  We must have policemen patrolling the grounds and hallways of our schools, while nurses, who cannot give an aspirin to a child without parental permission, can give them birth control pills and arrange abortions without the knowledge of a parent.  One high school recently had seventeen girls under the age of sixteen to get pregnant at the same time, and it is believed that they conspired to do so. Words fail me to express the decadence of our American culture.  That which is written in Revelation 18:2 is fulfilled in America: “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”  Demon spirits have filled our land, and it has in fact “become the habitation of devils.” 

God has waited for repentance in America.  It has not come.  It was after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple that it was written in the Chronicles, “Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.  And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.  Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand” (II Chronicles 36:14-17).  Notice those words “till there was no remedy.” I have wept over these words many times during more than forty years of warning the churches of judgment to come; knowing the time would come, if there was no repentance and turning again to the Lord, when there would be no more remedy.  This is exactly what Paul spoke of when he said, “sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” 

God has enumerated the sins that are bringing this “time of trouble” upon us. They are simply and clearly listed in Revelation 9:20-21.

1.  Idolatry 

2.  Murder 

3.  Sorceries 

4.  Fornications 

5.  Thefts

I have written and warned so many times before, and I say again, that if America does not repent of these sins, she will be “cut down” at the root, and destroyed.  America has brought every “false god” into our land, while waging war against the true God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  That is our “idolatry.”  We continue to murder over a million babies a year in our abortion clinics.  That is our “murders.”  Our American “drug culture” is the major industry of several developing nations, and we have made no honest effort to stop it. That is our “sorceries.”  America’s “sex industry” has destroyed the soul of our youth, as well as much of the youth of the entire world.  Hear the prophecy in Revelation 18:3: “For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.”  Is not this America in the twenty first century?  This is our “fornications.”  America has become the greediest of nations.  In fact, it is greed that has destroyed our economy.  Every other bad thing that is happening to America at present is the “fruit” of the “seed” we have sown.  God has said we must eat the “fruit of our own way.”  It is not the sins we judge that angers God; it is the sins we condone.  Greed has made legal thieves of our corporations, our legal, political, and medical institutions, and all too many of our preachers.  These are our “thefts.”  These five sins, so clearly defined by the word of God, have become the American “way of life.”  Many think of them as “our constitutional rights,” and the “liberties” our brave soldiers have suffered and died for.  If that is the case, they have died in vain.  America will so defend these sins that even after one third of all men are slain, and the nation so destroyed she cannot rise again (Revelation 9:18-21), she will even then, not repent.

The Church

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Matthew 5:13

The “Church of Jesus Christ” is the “salt of the earth.”  God has given the church, not only to “reach” the nations, but also to “keep” them.  The church in America is not as those in heathen lands where they are outnumbered fifty-to-one, and suffering great persecution and imprisonment for the cause of Christ.  From the beginning of this nation, the population has been over ninety percent “Christian,” and America, in practice if not by covenant, was a “Christian nation.”  That doesn’t mean that everyone in America was “saved;” far from it, but our laws reflected Biblical morality and justice.  The name of our Lord was invoked in every branch of government, and those politicians that did not honor him needed not apply.  In my high school years we started every school day with prayer, scripture reading, and the pledge to the flag.  I remember when we first learned to say “under God” in the pledge, because Congress had only recently added those words in 1954.  Our teachers were moral and our judges were just, and yes, there were some severe injustices, but our supreme court began to correct them in that same year, 1954. 

Jesus said the church is “the salt of the earth.”  There is a quality in salt that makes it very beneficial as both a preservative, and a seasoning.  That quality is called “savour,” which refers to the smell or taste of a thing. If the salt has lost it saltiness, Jesus said, “it is good for nothing but to be cast out, and trodden under foot of men.”  God has given a special “savour” to His church.  Paul said, “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish” (II Corinthians 2:15). His “church” is both the “smell” and the “taste” of Christ to the world.  Not everyone will be saved, for Paul continues in the next verse, “To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” (II Corinthians 2:16).  The church in its greatest reality will not save everyone, but it will affect everyone. Jesus commanded us to, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.”  To one, the savour of Christ is death; to another, it is life.  It is the same gospel, the same spirit, the same love, and the same power that saves one and damns another on the basis of whether “you repent, and believe the gospel of Christ?”  When the church has lost the savour of Christ, it moves no one.  

The church of this past generation has lost America, and sadly, today I see a church that has lost Christ.  It smells and tastes like the world.  It has made peace with the world.  The apostle John spoke of those he called “antichrists” in I John 4:5; “They are of the world: therefore speak they (they speak) of the world, and the world heareth them.”  The doctrinal test of these is found in I John 4:3 is: “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist….”  I heard a man say that his spirit is clean, pure, holy, and free, while demons possess his flesh.  Does that sound like “Christ is come in the flesh?”  No!  It is the doctrine and the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which Jesus warned against two times in the scripture saying, “which thing I hate.”  It is also the doctrine of perhaps a majority of the church in this twenty first century.  The man I speak of described in detail how twenty-five demons took him completely over, fighting, breaking furniture, cursing, using profanity, and throwing people around the room.  This was not something that happened to him in his distant past life of sin, because he was supposedly saved, spirit baptized, and operating gifts of God when these things took place.  It may be shocking to know, but that man is presently leading the largest “signs and wonders” meeting in the land today, with thousands coming from all over the world to hear and see him.  The man believes that everyone has “demons” in their flesh.  That is not the gospel of Christ.  The apostle Paul said, “…the life I now live in the ‘flesh,’ I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).  The apostle John tells us that those who have sin and demons in their “flesh” are “antichrists.”  That man is no exception.  I have watched as “fad revivals” have swept across America during this generation. Strangely, most of them last about “three and a half years” before fading into infamy, leaving a string of destroyed people and churches behind them.  I tell you, none of them have “smelled like Jesus.”  That certain “savour of Christ” is simply not there.

The Apostate Church

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.  And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.  Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.  For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.  Behold, I have told you before.  Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

Matthew 24:21-26

In July 1969 I received a prophetic vision from the Lord.  Without going into the details of the vision, I saw “another spirit” come upon the church; a “spirit” which claimed to be the Holy Ghost, but was not.  I saw the church receive that “spirit” as the Holy Ghost, which was first evidenced when she began to “exalt herself” before the people.  The “spirit” had come upon a woman (the church) in the form of a bird, and I had heard a voice speaking to the woman saying, “Thou art a son of God.”  At first I was amazed, thinking she had received the same experience as Jesus when the Holy Ghost came upon Him in the form of a dove at the Jordan River.  It was when the woman exalted herself upon an ancient Greek “pedestal” and began to “glorify” herself that I realized something was wrong.  In the vision I cried out to God, “How can she be wrong when it ‘happened to her’ just as it ‘happened to Jesus?”  The Lord answered, “It did not ‘happen to her’ as it ‘happened to Jesus.”  The Spirit continued, “The Holy Ghost came upon Jesus as a dove.  You did not see a ‘dove;’ you saw a ‘bird.’  A voice from heaven spoke to Jesus.  You did not hear a ‘voice from heaven;’ you heard a ‘voice.” I am seeking to give you the exact words the Lord spoke to me in the vision.  Though the Lord has given me many visions over a forty-five year period, this message was the longest I have ever received.  The Spirit continued speaking, and this is what I want everyone to hear, “Always remember, as there are many birds, but only one dove; so there are many spirits, but only one Holy Ghost, and there are many voices, but only one Word of God.” As I came out of the Spirit, I heard these words from Revelation 18:2, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”  I was overwhelmed as I realized I had just seen an “unclean and hateful bird” which multitudes would come to believe to be the Holy Spirit of God.  I spent years weeping and warning of these things, seemingly to no avail, because more often than not in recent years I have seen that same unclean and hateful bird moving among many who claim to be the children of God.

I answered the call to preach in early spring of 1964.  The first prophetic words I received from the Lord were on June 21, 1965. I was attending a wedding at a Catholic Church.  Imagine a young Pentecostal preacher sitting in a Catholic church, seeing the images of the “saints” sitting on pedestals along the walls, and looking at the pictures of the “stations of the cross” portrayed around the ceiling. I visually followed the pictures until I came to the one where Jesus was placed in the tomb.  I looked for the picture that showed Him coming out of the tomb in victory, but I found none.  I had an urge to stand up and shout, “Don’t you know that He is alive?”  I was indignant, but of course, I held my peace.  It was then that the Holy Ghost spoke these words to me in reproof of my indignation, “In the last days a harlot will arise out of Pentecost that will be more vile than the Roman Catholic Church of the dark ages.”  I was shocked.  My mind went immediately to the two sisters, Aholah and Aholibah in the twenty-third chapter of Ezekiel.  God said Aholah, the oldest sister, was Samaria, and the younger sister, Aholibah, was Jerusalem.  He said in Ezekiel 23:11 that the younger sister, Aholibah (Jerusalem) “was more corrupt in her inordinate love” than Aholah (Samaria).   I have lived to see that younger harlot arise.  The Holy Ghost began to be poured out in a revival of Pentecost in America on the first day of the twentieth century, January 1, 1901 in Topeka Kansas.  From its humble but powerful beginnings it swept world wide in just a very few years, and continued basically clean and pure for the first half of the twentieth century with all the manifestations of the book of Acts church.  Early in the second half of the century something began to go terribly wrong.  It began as men sought ways to be more acceptable to the world, but it has become something the world has utter contempt for.  The true Pentecostal experience has always been confirmed as blood sanctified people have been filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues “as the Spirit of God gave them utterance,” just exactly as it happened in Acts 2:4.  The harlot began to arise when people began to “learn how” to speak in tongues, prophesy, heal the sick, cast out devils, etc.  It was carnal, fleshly, and those who had truly received the Holy Ghost discerned the difference.  Ignorantly, in pretending to operate spiritual gifts, many opened themselves up to demon spirits, and devils flooded into their churches, pretending to be the Holy Ghost.  It breaks this preachers heart to say these things, but I saw it before it happened, and I see it while it is happening.  Oh God, wake your people!

On June 11, 1970 I was in Miami Oklahoma making arrangements for a tent revival I would preach. That night I received another vision from the Lord.  I saw the “church” go to sleep, and while it slept, a huge snake with two heads wrapped itself around the church.  The snake actually had the appearance of “love” for the church, and it was only when some few people awoke and tried to escape the coils of the snake that it’s true nature began to be seen.  When they could not escape the snake, which seemed to be playing with them, they finally turned to fight for their very lives against the snake, at which time it rose up with the ferocity of a dragon.  Resisting the snake was futile until they picked up a sword (the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;” Ephesians 6:17), with which they dealt the snake a deadly wound.  Again, thirty-eight years later, I see that multitudes are in the coils of the snake.  When God told me in the first vision, “there are many voices, but only one word of God,” He was speaking about the scriptures.  Don’t listen to every voice! Go to the scriptures!  Let every doctrine, every teaching, every prophecy, every dream, every vision, every voice, and every spirit be judged by the scriptures.  If you can see in the scriptures that Jesus healed the sick and cast out devils by kicking old women in the face, hitting small men so hard their teeth fall out, and using professional wrestling stunts on unsuspecting victims, then you are safe to, as one church sign says, “Come experience Florida.”  If you cannot see by the scriptures that Jesus did such things, then stay away from the show.  If you can see, by the scriptures, that the Holy Ghost came upon the hundred and twenty on the day of Pentecost, and they barked like dogs, squealed like pigs, roared like lions, went into trances and were carried about on the shoulders of men like statues, then you are safe to seek out the “laughing revival,” but if you cannot see it in the ministry of Jesus or in the book of Acts, do not even be entertained by it in the fad revivals of today.  I tell you, the “unclean and hateful bird” has found a place to rest in this generation.

It is interesting to note that when Jesus told us about “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be,” He did not tell us of a political leader, or a broken treaty with the Jews, a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, or any of the things in the popular scenario of “The Great Tribulation.”  The key to what Jesus called “great tribulation (the words ‘The Great Tribulation’ are not found in the Bible)” are His descriptive words in our text: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”  Amazing!  “Great signs and wonders” performed by “false Christs and false prophets” will be the indicator of this “great tribulation” Jesus warned us of. This time period coincides with the “time of trouble” prophesied by the prophet Daniel, which will be a three and a half year bloodbath covering the entire earth, but centering on Jerusalem, during which a third of all men shall be slain.  At the same time the “two witnesses” will prophesy (preach the gospel) for three and a half years, and at the end will be slain just three and a half days before the resurrection of the dead.

The Time of Trouble

Let’s step back and take another look at this last “three and a half year” period.  There will be a “bride,” and there will be a “harlot.” There will be false prophets, and there will be faithful witnesses.  There will be great apostasy, and there will be a true harvest.  Men of God will be divinely protected to preach the gospel to every nation.  The nations will be gathered against Jerusalem, while the “locusts” are swarming worldwide.  During this time, two thirds of the inhabitants of Israel will be slaughtered, but one third will call upon Jesus, their Messiah, and be saved.  One third of all men will be slaughtered worldwide by the locust army of two hundred million.  America, the “land of unwalled villages” will be overrun, spoiled, and impoverished by her enemies.  Cities will burn, while millions worldwide will starve in man-made famines, and upheavals of nature will continue to increase.  The entire world will groan for deliverance, which will not come until Jesus returns, which is, “after the tribulation of those days” (Matthew 24:29-30).

I mentioned that there would be a bride, but where will she be?  In 1987 I received a vision from the Lord in which I saw demon possessed gangs, roaming the streets, raping the women, plundering, murdering, and no one could stop them.  At the same time I saw that I was free to move about freely without fear of these gangs.  Someone asked me, “How can you move about so freely in such a world as this?” I answered, “Because in Him we live, and move, and have our being.”  Then I reiterated, “Not in any denomination, not in any religion man has made, but in Jesus Christ we live, and move, and have our being.”  The “bride” will be in Christ, and she will be safe. The prophet Malachi said that God has a “book of remembrance” in which the names of those who “fear Him” and speak often of Him are written. God said, “They shall be mine in the day when I make up my jewels: and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him” (Malachi 3:17).  What is it they will be spared from?  Read Malachi 4:1-2:“For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.  But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.”

I received another vision from the Lord in the mid seventies.  I was in revival services in Smyrna Georgia at the time. In the vision, I saw enemy airplanes flying over the city.  Fear terrorized the hearts of the people.  I was seeking to reassure and calm the people, but with no effect.  I ran to a nearby hospital, and found the people in the same fear and panic.  I was trying to tell them not to be afraid, because God had promised in the ninety-first Psalm to keep and protect us.  When I could not reach them with my words, I went to the bedside of one of the patients and got the Gideon Bible out of the night table.  I would show them the ninety-first Psalm and comfort them with it.  I searched through the book of Psalms, but in that Bible, there was not a ninety-first Psalm.  I picked up another of the hospital Bibles, but it wasn’t in it either.  It was with horror that I realized, for some people, there is no safe place in the time of trouble.  They have rejected the pleading of the Spirit for years.  God said, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.  Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.  For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.  But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil” (Proverbs 1:24-33).

The idea that we can refuse the Lord throughout our lifetime to walk in our own way and do our own thing, yet run to Him in the time of trouble, is a delusion.  God says in II Corinthians 6:2, “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.”  He gave no option for tomorrow.  It is now that He may be found.  It is now, while the Spirit is pleading with your heart, that you may come.  The countdown to the “time of trouble” has begun.  There is no escape if you wait.  The “birth pains” have begun.  The “beginning of sorrows” is here.  It can only get worse for those without Jesus Christ.  Now is the time to run to Him, to surrender all to Him.  Now is the time to enter the “secret place” of God.  Tomorrow could be too late.  Almost certainly another year will be.

Message 16 - By Leroy Surface - The Beginning of Sorrows

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