It was a drastic, terrible time in Russia from 1933 on. Many millions of people died. The Lord saved them from the great war and the second world war which took twenty million people from Russia and the Ukraine. That's a big number. Six million died in the Ukraine from starvation in 1933.
Whatever the Lord promised them, everything came to pass. He delivered them from their country, from starvation and from those troubles which the Lord promised, even from the war.
They did not hear about it until the late forties, because there was no communication. There was no radio. There was no mail going through China to those very desolate areas in the mountains. They never knew there was starvation in Russia which took away many millions. They never even knew. They never heard there was a war until the letters started to come and some communication when the communists came to China in 1948.
Russian trucks started to come to China. They became friends and then the news came. There was starvation in Russia and in the Ukraine and there was war which took many lives. But these simple people were protected, and saved of the Lord, and led out from the area of calamity, and were saved, and were living a very, very, blessed life. They were in the land of plenty, because it had very rich soil and the Lord blessed the fruits of their labor. Of course they weren't rich in the way of American standards. No! They were still simple farmers, but they had their cattle and they had their milk.
That brother who lost his house, built a good house in China, and he had lots more cows, and lots more horses. So the Lord, for his obedience, returned much more than he lost in Russia. He would have lost it the next night, anyhow, except for obedience to the Lord and His voice. He was repaid richly because the Lord is faithful and willing to bless His people, if they obey His voice and follow Him.
So then, this was just very brief. I'm omitting many, many events, many miracles and situations which happened in Russia, which happened in China, which we were a witness of.
While our people were in China, while it was yet free, while it was before communism, the Lord was speaking to our people already. "My children, China is only a stopping station for you. I will lead you out into a country of milk and honey. I'll lead into a free country where milk and honey is flowing and there you will meet many people who bear My Name, but do not serve Me as they ought, according to My commandments. And you will testify of My power and My commandments and of My Will for them."
That was the Lord saying to our people as they were praying that the Lord will be leading them out to another country yet. The Lord also said that the government will change in China. The Lord said there will be great trouble yet in China also. The Lord said that His people should prepare to move out.
So by 1947 the Lord moved out from China, most of those five hundred members to the Philippines. They went across from west China to east China, then to the Philippines, and then to Paraguay and then to America. Most of the group left by the next commandment of the Holy Ghost to move out and to carry on the Gospel.
There were about thirty families left in China and our family was one of them. In 1948, a year after the first group left, the revolution took place and China became red. They became friends with Russia. Then, of course, the same thing that was in Russia, started in China. In Russia it took sixteen years for the communists to get strong, to confiscate peoples properties, to crush the people's will. But in China it took a very short time.
Within four or five years they forced the majority of the population onto collective farms. They confiscated properties and there were many shootings and many killings. If you had four cows, you were an enemy of the people. You were gone. They just take you on a truck and take you outside of the village and just shoot you. As simple as that. Life was very cheap in China and in Russia.
So of these things, we were a witness, and of what was taking place in China during the hard times. And of course, the number one thing, again the same as in Russia, was that they started to fight against God, because that was their main ideology. We will build a happy society. We will build a new world without God. We don't need God. There is no God. The number one thing that they started to do was to persecute the church and faith of Jesus Christ.
Our brethren were subjected to severe persecutions and most of the ministers were taken into concentration camps; camps of hard labor; camps going deep into the mines, and working on small rations. Being harassed, being beaten, and some of them were given a life sentence.
The communists said, "We will never let you go any place." Our people had said to authorities and to the people, "God is going to lead us out to a country of milk and honey. We will not stay here. We will go away from here."
Of course, unbelievers were mocking our people and the authorities said, "We will never let you go because you're in our hands. We'll do what we want with you. We'll never let you go. We'll rot you in prison. We'll kill you all, but we'll never let you go."
But our people said, "We will trust the Lord. We'll trust our Living Lord who promised us and He'll lead us out."
People had to go through very big trials and persecutions in China. There was poverty, there was rations and there was a very big need economically, and of course our people were also in very dire need. To receive 800 grams of oil for one month per person, that's all you could get, and a very meager ration of rice. People just could not survive on that ration but thanks to God our people were able since it was a mountain area.
Our people were able to go into the mountains and hunt. They were bringing some fowl and they were bringing some wild game, so nobody starved in China in spite of starvation and death of the Chinese and Turkish population and many other people. But the Lord preserved. People were praying in China nightly. There were prayers all over town. There was a praying church in China, because brethren would get up quite often at four or five o'clock in the morning and gather for prayer. They'd pray for a couple of hours and then by eight o'clock they'd go to work. And then at night they'd pray right through town.
They'd gather in home groups and pray and seek face of the Lord. "Help, Lord. You promised us. Lord, you deliver us, Lord you'll help us." And the Lord was comforting them. The Lord was revealing to them what the authorities will do and what will happen. So the Lord, by the Holy Spirit was revealing the things to come and the people were comforted. Eventually, slowly, people were comforted by the Lord.
As the time drew on, the Lord moved our people across China by groups, or by a single person, or by a single families. He moved them about seven thousand kilometers into the city of Shanghai, which is about a ten hour ride by train from Hong Kong, if you've heard of Hong Kong. So that's where Shanghai is. It's eight million people.
So the Lord slowly led all the people across into the city of Shanghai, and of course on the way the Lord led them too, as it wasn't allowed to travel. It wasn't allowed to leave town even as I shared. You had to have four stamps on a piece of paper, the reason of going, where you were going, and when you would come back. All those have to be stated on paper, and you put your signature down. You have to go to four different offices before you leave town.
Yet, the Lord led our people out on foot, on horses, and then later on, by trucks and on trains. From the middle of China people traveled to the city of Shanghai and eventually everyone of those who were people of faith, people of prayer, people who wanted to walk closer to the Lord; every one of them left to the free world.
That is, they left to Hong Kong and then they were released by the authorities, even though they were threatened. The Lord opened up the doors of the bamboo curtains and every one of them was led out, including the brethren who were prisoners! They were released and they were taken to Shanghai and released to the free world. So our people came to a country of milk and honey.
Yet that wasn't a stopping place for us, because way back in China during the persecution time when my mother was fasting and praying, God told her that we will be in Canada. That was fifteen years before it took place, so we knew that eventually our family will be in Canada. We were there in the city for several years. We left China in 1959 and came to Australia. Ten years later, in 1969, the Lord told us to go to Canada. We landed in Vancouver as we came by ship from Australia to Canada.
There were many, many things on the way as the Lord led, miraculously provided, protected and saved, right across China. To travel across China, the communists watch after you, catch you and then they send you back. They threaten you with prison and they harass you. It's a very difficult thing to do without God. But with the Living God that was all possible. Every one of them was led out into free world.
Read chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians. This Scripture is for our instruction, for our admonition, and for our warning also. What happened with Israelites? They were an example for us. But this is all written for us who will reach the end of an age as believers of the new Christian era. And so the Lord said that they did this and they perished. They did that and they perished. Remember like the apostle Paul, being moved by the Holy Ghost, he related what the Israelites did, how they went to idol worship, how they murmured, how they fornicated, how they did the different things that they perished for. So God said through the Holy Ghost, through the apostle, for our Christian age, that it is possible, by being the people of God, it is possible by being a believer, it's possible by being led by God yet it's still possible to fall away even to the extent that your name maybe and can be stricken out from the book of life. There is such a danger for believers!
So then, what happened with our people as they came to the free world. Their eyes were really running in all directions - what a blessed country, what abundance.
We lived on meager rations in China on the verge of starvation, even though our people did not starve. They lived in very big need, but never starved. When they gave only one meter, if I remember correctly, one meter of material, that's about three and a quarter foot of material for the whole year. That's all you can get. When everything was rationed and you have a great need, all of a sudden when you come to a free world, your eyes run in all directions. Now what is this?
This is paradise on earth. Such a blessed country, such an abundance of things, such an abundance of materials, and you name it - like food and whatever else.
Our people were really excited and they started to build their houses. They started to get jobs and they started trying to get the dollar and things like that. Slowly, bit by bit, those everyday prayers started to be less and less, and less frequent, and the church, as such, lost the spirit of prayer. Eventually, as people of God became more rich and more blessed by the Lord, which the Lord promised to them (but Lord did not tell them to do what they did).
The Lord told them to still be engaged in the Word of the Lord and be a living witness and testify and share the Gospel with all those who were in those countries of freedom; in countries of plenty. That was the commission the Lord had given them. But of course they forgot the commission and they got caught up with the cares of life. With building good houses, beautiful houses. Before that house wasn't big enough anymore. They would build a bigger house with more bedrooms, with more carpet, with more beautiful ornaments.
Before you knew it, the things of the sisters became very, very colorful; very beautiful. What happened to the church of Russia and China in free world? I'll share with you very openly, what happened. God commanded His people to walk in the old commandments and subjects of the Word. Our sisters were very, very modest. Walking soberly and shamefaced in Russia and in China. And I remember how my grandmother was adorned. She was a very plain woman. She was dressed very modest. One color dress and that was commanded by the Lord. She had a head covering, and the brethren were very modest.
But in this country of plenty there was such an abundance, such a variety, such beauty; the Babylonian beauty. And before you know it, our sisters started to get more modern and their covering moved back and back and back.
Very soon there was just a little fluffy thing here on the back of the head. A little net, kept with two pins to the hair. Then one of those days our sisters eventually lost those pins someplace in the drawer. The wind blew this latest covering away and our sisters were left without the covering and they loved the world.
The brethren loved the world. Before you know it, they went into a very modern way of life, more or less equal to the western world. Australian and Canadian churches more or less mingled and totally mixed with the world. But what happened?
The Lord was warning our people even in Australia and in Canada, "My children, you walk in My Obedience, in My Holiness, as I have taught you by the Holy Spirit and by the Word. Walk in it and be obedient, and repent!"
The Lord was calling our people to repentance by the Holy Ghost, by visions, by revelations and all those things. Out of many people, a few were still faithful to the Lord, like the older generation. Our grandchildren are out of the fourth generation now. As generations went on people drew away from the Lord and eventually what happened? The Holy Spirit departed from most of our churches in the free world. The miracles and wonders departed; the spiritual presence of the Lord; the glory of the Lord. The glory of the Holy Ghost, and manifestation of the Holy Ghost, departed. The nine gifts of the Holy Spirit, which were operating in Russia and in China, departed. The church lost everything.
Of course, God always had in Bible days of old, a remnant church. Not everyone, but the majority of people, loved this world. The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes took control and our people actually happened to repeat the example or the experience of the Israelites which came to the promised land, the land of plenty.
As we read in the Bible, while Joshua was there and the elders, those people who remembered the miracles of the Lord, the Mighty Hand of God, Who led them out from Egypt, through the wilderness with miraculous leading, while they were alive, they were teaching and bringing the people to remembrance. While they were teaching the nation, the people were walking with the Lord. They knew the Lord.
When Joshua died, when the old people died, when we read that there were several generations past, then there came a generation which knew not the Lord. They started to love this surrounding world. They started to love the things of this World. They started to bow to those gods of the surrounding nations and they bowed to Baal and Astoreth. And so, basically that's what happened with most of our people.
God has pronounced many times, a severe judgment on our people if they will not obey, if they will not obey the Lord. If they will not repent. God will judge them in this country of milk and honey.
As it stands, in the majority of the churches, the work of the Holy Ghost and the signs following have more or less ceased. It just became a regular church, with many programs, and with many, many different activities, busy up to here; turning this big religious wheel of man-made activities, man-made rules, and stuff like that. They brought many traditions into the church which were not in the Word of God at all. They thought they could fill the void. We lost the presence of the Holy Ghost. They try to fill the void with activity and big commotion and big noise.
Some of the churches, are trying to supposedly show that the presence of the Lord is with them. They started going to commotion and some of them, our people, even move around and dance and jump and clap their hands and make a big noise.
Now that's nothing to do with the reality of Scripture. That's nothing to do with the real presence of God. That's nothing to do with the real power of the Holy Ghost.
Just read Christ's teaching. Just read the apostles experience. Now did they have flesh? Did the apostles jump around in the flesh and try to fake the experience. No they didn't! They were busy. They were empowered of the Holy Ghost. Yes! There were signs and wonders; real signs and wonders of Holy Ghost, but they had no time for fleshly things.
So, I don't find my Christ jumping around and clapping in the temple or whatever. I don't find the apostles in the worshipping place jumping around with the flesh and clapping and dancing. I don't find that in scriptures, because the authority of Christ's teaching or the apostles is the final authority for me.
To make long things short, our people have repeated most of the experiences of the Israelites when they were brought into the promised land. We were some of them. We were young people yet. I was 19 and my wife was 18 when we came to Australia. We were full of life and energetic. We were working in the church very hard. We were busy up to here. Then, so slowly, what happened?
The brethren took care with building one house, two houses, and then two jobs, and then sent their wife to work to get more dollars. They get better carpets and this and that, and before you know it, they have all been caught up in the materialistic efforts.
Their prayer life went and was replaced by meetings, and conference, and this and that, and church activities. And I was busy too. Yet the Lord, by His mercy, was calling. He sent His prophets to my family and the Lord rebuked me and told me, "Repent. Start searching the scriptures and turn to the narrow way." The Lord was warning me personally, several times in Australia. I had no time to search the scriptures because I was busy doing church work. I was busy supposedly doing God's work. I was an ordained minister and I was doing this and that. I was a secretary. I was a youth director. I was leading the choir. I was mixed up in printing, and things like that. I was busy. I had no time for prayer. I had no time for repentance. I had no time for Word of God. So finally, Lord caught up with me in Canada.
Canada is more plentiful even than Australia. So, we happened to be on a farm and we got into a big farm and got into big debt. We were working eight hours on the farm and eight hours in construction. I'm a carpenter by trade, so we were really trying to make a big dollar very fast, sixteen hours a day, trying to really get going in this country of Canada. Even my mother said "you have a good base".
The Lord then sent me one last warning. The Lord sent a prophet from another city, a person who was still walking close with the Lord. The Lord brought that person from far off. Then while we were praying for the night, the Lord told me specific things that I was guilty of, like we had become very worldly. The Lord revealed the secrets of my heart and the Lord told me the last warning. A stern warning to repent, and if not, He was going to judge me.
Then that person went away. I find in the Bible that the Lord sent prophets of old to nations. He sent to individuals, to warn them and to call them to repentance, and I find that Biblical. Even today God is a Living God. He's still on the throne, and He can still teach people of God. He can rebuke them and call them to repentance.
He's the same Living God which was working in Russia and in China. He's still living in Canada and America and all over the world. If we are only willing to actually believe the Bible.
I was still very busy and that didn't help. Then one night the Lord showed me a warning; showed me a vision that I was walking on a broad road. It's a very wide road, and I see that road was going down. It was getting darker and darker. Then I see there was a turn to the left a bit and then as I walking, I see myself walking down that road, and I understood that road - a broad road to hell.
With being busy, and doing all the church work that I did, it didn't matter to the Lord. I was walking a broad road, because I loved the world, and I was living more or less a way of my own doings, a way of my own will.
I had no time for prayer; searching like people in the apostolic days. They were in prayer daily. They sought the face of the Lord. They were sent by the Holy Ghost. They did the will of the Holy Ghost.
We read that Peter went by the Holy Ghost to certain places. Philip was sent by the Holy Ghost to different places. Philip dropped the big revival in Samaria and he went to the empty road. Who did it? The Holy Ghost told him to go. God told him to go to the empty road. The work of the Lord was done.
Look at the apostles Paul and Barnabas. While they fasted and prayed, the Lord sent them off to the mission field. It was the acts, not of the apostles, but the acts of Holy Ghost, as I read in my Bible.
The problem is that when people depart from the Lord, they start to replace the work of the Holy Ghost with their own works; with their own supposed programs and so on.
And so the Lord did not care how busy I was in church work. Like many churches I had a man-made program; so busy with missions, with printing, with radio, with this and that, but I lost my prayer life.
There are no prayers in the churches. There's no prayers in the houses. There is no real, Bible-like presence of the Lord. There is no real Bible-working of the Holy Spirit in the churches today. Why? Because the churches are asleep today in America and Canada. And I was one of them.
The Lord had mercy upon me. He showed me that, and then all of a sudden, there was a Voice as I saw myself walking down that road. There was a Voice coming down, if I'll just proceed on and turn around the corner that'll be a point of no return for me. And then I saw myself throw my hands in the air and crying, "Have mercy upon me Lord." Then I turned around and then that's finished.
So the Lord had given me a final warning for my life, because I had had several warnings in Australia. One warning, and very stern warning and call to repentance to go on back to the narrow way. The narrow way, brethren, is a narrow way, that I'm going to share that with you very briefly. It's a really narrow way if you want to taste it. It was a very narrow way for Christ, for the apostles. If you want to mean business with God, it becomes a very narrow way, here in America and in Canada. But many people will not want to pay the price of the narrow way in the churches.
Then the next day, I should have been killed. God wanted to judge me. Only by the mercy of the Lord am I still alive. I was working on a steep roof. My brother and I were building cottage homes and A-frames for people on construction. It was already getting close to winter time and sometimes there was snow on the roof. We were roofing with shingles. It was a very steep A-frame roof. We were young and strong and we were very able and smart and we were working like monkeys on the roof. We did not build scaffolds like normal carpenters do. They build scaffolds around and they build scaffolds as they go up. We didn't. We just nailed a two by four on the edge of the roof. On the edge which is only about an inch and a half wide and we would walk on those two by fours like running back and forth and doing the roof shingling.
We have piles of shingles here on the little rope on the dolly from the pitch of the roof. Then we pull it up as we go up, and we nail another two by four right across the roof and we just walk on it and nail the shingles.
We came in the morning. It was quite slippery. There was snow on the roof and so when I was working along, I was quite high on that roof. It was a two story building. When I turned to take some shingles I slipped. My leg slipped and then I was falling face down.
The owner of that lot had cut down the trees around the foundation of the house leaving stumps four or five feet high and five to six inches in diameter. Usually when we cut down trees in British Columbia we cut them close to the ground. I do not know for what reason he left them high. Maybe it was specifically for me.
When I slipped and was falling, I saw I was falling right on one of the stumps. I remember I was crying, "Lord have mercy upon me!" My hands were up like I saw myself in the vision, then I remember no more.
I struck that stump with the full force of my chest. By the law of physics, with that height and with my weight I should have been killed. I should have been pierced with that stump. It was only the mercy of the Lord, which was a miracle of God, that I was left alive.
I passed out and my brother told me he dropped down and he looked at me. I didn't have signs of life and I was out for a little while. Then he called for an ambulance which took me to the hospital. When they X-rayed me, there was just a big, black spot, but no ribs were broken. Nothing was damaged inside. I knew it was only the mercy of the Lord and His miracle that saved me from death! It was His last warning. His last call to me to repent and to come on the narrow way. That was the turning point for myself and my family.
God told us to go into the Word and to pray daily. We had morning prayers, studied and searched the Word of God in the morning for an hour or more, and in the evening for quite a long time. The Lord told us to repent of many things as we searched the Word and found what we were guilty of. The Lord opened our eyes.
After we repented, and then only, the Lord started to talk to us personally. The Lord started to talk to us in visions, in dreams, with a voice and He talked from the Bible, instructing us, teaching us, correcting us, and bringing us to that narrow way and narrow walk.
We found out that the Christian life is not just a life of going to church. It is not just dropping a few dollars in the collection plate. It will involve all your life. Nothing less. It will involve your pocket book. It will involve every area. It will involve your hidden parts. Your pride, your haughtiness, your thoughts. It will touch your tongue, it will touch your tastes in life, it will touch your desires. It will touch your habits. It will touch the whole inner life.
The Lord taught us also that it has to touch the outside. Many Christians say, "Oh! I'm saved, praise God. The Lord is with me. I'm filled with the Holy Ghost, and it doesn't matter how we look on the outside."
No! That's the preaching of the devil. Just read the New Testament and find out. There's a strict commandment of the Lord that we are living epistles, being read of all men. (2Cor. 3:2) Men do not read our hearts. They say that we are under grace, that we are not under law, therefore it doesn't matter how we appear outside as long as we are pure in heart.
Yes! It matters! It is a commandment of the Lord in the New Testament. The Lord told us by revelations that it is His will. That we had better change our outside appearance.
We had to clean our house of many things, the worldly things. We had to clean our garments. My wife had to change her garments; myself also, and our children.
It was no problem for our daughters to wear mini skirts. No problem. Why? Our daughters were eleven and twelve when we came to Canada. It was a known thing - everybody was doing it. America was doing it. America is a Christian nation. America is supposed to have the Holy Ghost in the churches, everybody claims.
In the apostolic church they believe the Lord. They believe in the Holy Ghost. God is with them. They are saved and on the way to heaven. They are to be raptured at any time. That's the claim of all the churches.
I found in the Word of God that we are saved by grace. (Eph. 2:5) That is true. We are saved by grace for the holy works, for the holy deeds, for the holy life, for a life of righteousness, for a life of separation from this world, from lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes.
My wife had to find a covering for her which flew away in this free world. I had to change my garments. She had to also. The Lord showed us we had to be separate from the world, inside and out.
I was really pleased when we visited one church. I saw of some of the girls very modestly covered, right to the feet. That's how God showed me when we were reading and praying. Sometimes the Lord teaches us in visions.
I prayed, "Lord, our people are backslidden. Lord I don't know what the difference is now. Lord show me how holy woman should be dressed." And Lord showed me that the holy woman was covered from top to bottom. Not any length of the legs to be exposed. Man also - man is not to walk in shorts or whatever.
Yes! Much is written about nakedness. Much written about shamefacedness and sobriety. It covers all areas of life.
The Lord was teaching and instructing us. After several years, the Lord started to send us to different churches and then to different countries to share the message of repentance, the message of the last days. The warning to the sleeping church. The church must wake up and get ready to meet the Bridegroom because He is coming. The church is not ready. She's asleep and she needs to wake up!
The church has to start repenting, if need be, in sackcloth and ashes. Let's try the Old Testament method. If we don't, we cannot really repent. Let's try that for a while. Just put old, torn clothes on us. Let us put on ashes from the woodstove. Let's try that. See if we can really repent and really dedicate our life to the Lord.
The churches today need repentance. They need the cleansing of the Holy Spirit, cleansing by the word. They need a holy, dedicated life for the Lord. That is the message that we've been sharing for many years now since the Lord turned us to Himself.
As soon as we turned to the Lord we started to walk differently and talk differently. Now our relationships, our companionships and our taste in conversation has all changed.
Our people started to say, "Oh well! You're so special! You're so holy! Your wife looks like a grandma. What's happened to her?" and on and on. The whole force of hell were let loose on us and our family when we spoke the Word of the Lord, saying this is the will of the Lord and we need to repent.
We talk about the mercies of the Lord. The Lord has spared us only by His grace and mercy. I'm nothing. If the apostle Paul was a sinner, the filthiest sinner of all, then I'm one also. The Lord has shown us that there is a place in His Will for us to be; to be sanctified by the Word and by the power of the Holy Ghost; to be cleansed and be a living epistle, being read and known of all men.
Therefore as we go around different churches and places in the countries ministering this message of repentance, the message of holiness, the message of separation and dying to the world, the message of reviving prayer in the churches.
The message of waking up is not a very popular message. Very few people will receive the message. But there are a few people who receive, accept and they start to think about it. They start a prayer life. They start reading the Word of God. They start to check their homes, and they start to check their lives. Even for the sake of a few, I think that it's worth it to share the message of the last days.
Whenever the Lord tells us to go and minister, we go and share the Word wherever the door is open. Denomination has no barriers for me. We go to any church that invites us to minister and share the message.
The Lord says that the midnight hour is upon us. The Bridegroom is coming! Wake up and trim the lamp! Get ready to come out and meet the Bridegroom! That's the message of the last hour.
The hour is coming also when great tribulation is coming upon the world. This time, not only Russia, but the whole world is going to experience this great shaking and sifting. I'm sharing with the American people.
Brethren, do you really believe the Bible? Do you ever ask for the Holy Ghost? I mean in the Bible way? I'm sharing with you brethren. Get ready for the big shake up and persecution. There'll be great sifting on the threshing floor as our Lord Jesus Christ will come to threshing floor. He'll start shaking that wheat. He'll start separating the wheat from the chaff.
We, who were in China, know what that means. When we were harvesting the wheat, workers would bring in a very large pile of many sheaves. It was brought to the threshing floor on a horse cart. My father prepared a big circle on the floor. We would roll it down with a very smooth roller and we would pour water on the dirt. We did this over and over until it was a rock hard, bone dry, threshing floor.
My father then broke the sheaves apart and laid them about a foot thick all across the circle of the threshing floor. Then my father put me or sometimes my brother on a horse that was harnessed to a kind of drum with corrugated sides. The drum was made out of stone, about a ton and a half in weight. We rode on that horse round and round and that corrugated stone drum beat the wheat and knocked the kernels of wheat from the sheaves. It takes lots of beating for this to happen.
Then my father used a pitchfork to separate the chaff and the straw from the wheat kernels. A big pile of straw is put to one side. There is still a big pile of chaff and wheat mixed. This he leaves in a big pile to the side of the threshing floor.
At four o'clock in the morning, when the breeze starts to blow, he gets up. He takes his wooden shovel, a very wide shovel, and he scoops up this chaff and wheat together. He throws it in the air and, as the wind blows the chaff away, the pure wheat falls on the ground.
That's what is going to happen according to my Living Christ and His Word. That is going to happen in the last days with the church. Many, many, many sheaves are going to be brought to the threshing floor and there'll be a great beating and shaking. Finally a great wind will blow away the chaff.
Only the pure wheat, the elect ones, will be gathered into the storehouse of the Lord. That's how it is. It will not be the majority. It will be a minority, because from that big pile which was harvested from the field, only a small pile was left on the threshing floor.
That's exactly according to the Word. According to the Holy Spirit and according to the revelation of the Holy Spirit. That is what is going to happen with many churches which are going to be shaken by the Lord in the last days.
So therefore, this is the message concerning the last days as the Lord tells us to share. It is the message of repentance. The message of waking up. The message of trimming the lamp and getting ready.
In China, of course, we did not have electricity. It was a very simple life. So we have bear fat in the saucer or some kind of a lard. Then mother would twist a wick, a roll of wick, on the bottom of saucer and then on top of that she puts some lard or fat. Then she smeared the end of the wick into the lard or fat and then she lights it. That's how we had light. Our homes worked with that light from the small saucer with the wick burning.
Eventually from the burning of the fat and lard a residue forms. It becomes longer and longer. Before you know it, that oil cannot come through that black tar stuff and then the light starts to get dim, to flicker, and eventually if we didn't trim the lamp, it extinguished itself. So to me it's a very clear message that the church of God today has to repent and to trim the blackness, the blackness of sin; the blackness of corruption; the blackness of modernism; to trim the lamp. That means to repent and clean up the life inside and out, and get ready as a holy church, without spot or wrinkle to meet the Lord. That's the call in the Word of the Lord.
As we go about we share this with people, with whoever will receive us. We also have a cassette ministry, we have over a hundred cassettes, ninety minute tapes in the Russian language that we share with the Slavic population all across the land, in many lands including Russia. We send quite a few to Russia and many people are thanking the Lord that they have a message about the last days.
That message of the last days and the message of repentance, and preparation for the church is not a popular message, but there are people who appreciate it and they say please send us more. Russia is starving for the real message of the last days, and so as much as we can, we share with the people in Russia.
Even though we did not go personally to Russia we have many friends there. We have good communication with people in the underground church in Russia who are suffering persecution.
So brethren, we read the Scripture here in Luke, chapter 18. This particular parable has several messages. In the last days the people of God have to come to the point of such fervent prayer that they cannot be denied. They have to really bombard heaven with their prayers. The churches in America have to organize house meetings all over the place; prayer groups bombarding heaven. "Lord, Lord, talk to us Lord. Teach us Lord. If need be, chastise us Lord. Lord teach us and get us clean. Lord, clean your church and get us ready. Lord empower us with your power of the Holy Ghost that we will be able to stand in those very terrible days to come."
In Russia, even though that church was knocked out, it had to learn the power of prayer in order to withstand the onslaught of the enemy. Only by the power of prayer, by the power of fasting, the holy life and separation, the underground church of Russia was able to survive.
Many churches are dead in Russia. They have had a form of godliness but deny the power. They compromised because there was great pressure they couldn't take. They compromised and became co-workers and collaborators with the KGB. They were kind of a smokescreen for the western world. They served as an illusion that Russia had freedom of worship and that there was no persecution, because America could see the churches. But, the churches were full of government workers.
A brother with whom I was traveling one time was sharing about all of this and much more. He said that the KGB literally installed their workers as pastors and ministers in those dead churches who had form of godliness but had no power of God. And they could not stand - and it's no surprise.
Remember Peter when he was only in the flesh? He was with Christ, he was taught of Christ, he had seen miracles - but Peter was yet in the flesh. In the flesh he could not stand the pressure and he was afraid. He got scared when the real heat came on.
When Christ was taken as a prisoner, the apostles dispersed. They ran around all over the place. Peter said, "I don't know Him. No! No! I wasn't with Christ." Why? He had no power of the Holy Ghost in him.
Christian churches here, if they don't pray through; if they won't go into sanctification by the holy Word and the Holy Spirit, and if they don't get into the experience of the Living presence of God like in the days of the apostles, they will not be able to stand.
The Holy Ghost told to us in Canada that many people, and many churches, will deny God left and right when the great tribulation comes. People will deny the Lord, because they are playing too much church - Churchianity. They are playing religion, but they have no power from the Lord. They will not be able to stand when the time comes. So therefore this is the message that the Lord is telling us here in this particular parable.
The very fervent prayer represents that widow. She just kept on pestering the judge to protect her and help her. And God says, "If the judge can do so, will not God do so if His elect will cry to Him day and night?"
Today we need a church which will be a crying church. Brethren, teach your people to cry. Teach your people to weep before the face of the Lord. My Christ wept. The apostle Paul wept with many tears. The men of old, they wept. They cried. Jeremiah cried. Isaiah cried. The church in Russia during revival cried. The church in China, I remember, the brethren cried at nearly every prayer. That was not only a praying church, but it was a crying church, which really means business with the Lord. They were really pouring their hearts out.
America does not want to cry. People want to laugh in churches. Sadly the preacher stands there and makes jokes and anecdotes from the pulpit and people grab their stomachs and they laugh to their hearts content. At the end of the service they praise the Lord. The Lord blessed us. The presence of the Lord was with us. I'm sorry, it was more like the presence of the devil, because the devil has his own - those comics on TV, and all over the place. Now the devil has comics right in the churches. Everybody wants to laugh. They want have fun. They want to have laughter. Nobody wants to cry anymore in churches.
So this is the call of the Lord. We read, "Will not God," just before Christ comes, "Will He not defend His elect, those who cry to Him day and night?" Yes! He will definitely defend them. So then this is the will of the Lord for the church for last days before the coming of the Lord.
If you believe the coming of the Lord is close, if you believe the coming of the Lord is at hand, then this is the message. Church of God, let's learn to pray. Let's learn to cry out to Him day and night. The Lord will then be able to visit God's people. He will empower them with the power of the Holy Ghost like in days of apostles. He will get that church ready.
I read in my Bible, in chapter 25 of Matthew, when the time has come for the wife to meet the Bridegroom. I read that she made herself ready. She was working on the earth and she had a job to do. Yes! That will be the church that will enter in. That will be the elect. There are many that God has called in the churches, but only the elect will enter in to the Holy Supper. I read this in the parables as well as in the book of Revelation.
This is the call of the Lord to me, to my people and if you will, it's the call of the Lord to American churches. People of God, find your priorities. Either your God is a Living God, the God of the apostles or your god is a god of the dollar or a god of the belly. You have to decide.
So many people do not like my messages, but it's not of me. God told me to speak straight. I share this with everybody. The Lord told me to speak straight and not to beat around the bush so that people may not misunderstand me.
So then God calls us to repentance and to revival. God calls us to prayer. God calls us to watching and praying all because Christ said for the last days, "Watch therefore and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all those future tribulations and to stand before son of man." Luke chapter 21 verse 36.
So then may the Lord God bless you and may the Lord help all of us as people of God to really find our priorities. Really mean business with God and come into the Living presence of the Lord, the God of the prophets of old, and the God of the apostles. That's the only true faith that we read about in the Bible and find with the exact same experience that the Lord wants His people to have in the last days and in the last generation.
So may Lord bless you and help us all.
In my infirmity I invite you all to prayer. Let us bow down before the face of the Lord and cry unto Him, "Lord." If you can, do it the apostolic way, let us pray with one accord. If you cannot, if you are ashamed, it's your business. I'm not pushing anybody, but the church in Russia, the church in China prayed with one accord, with one voice, "Lord, help us. Lord, deliver us. Lord, bless us. Lord visit us."
The Lord was faithful to fulfill His word and did visit the church in Russia and China when they were willing to pray and be obedient. So may the Lord God bless you abundantly and richly and stir up the spirit of prayer in churches as you minister. So let us bow down before the Lord.
Parables Blog: www.parablesblog.blogspot.com
Mailing Address:
Joseph Herrin
P.O. Box 804
Montezuma, GA 31063
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