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Title: Four Churches that will definitely be in the Tribulation!
Edward McKinney
This Newsletter Commentary, #9 Part a, was written August 4, 2008 by Edward McKinney.
Dear Prophecy Student:
This is the free Newsletter Commentary you requested from either www.researchliterature.com or www.twoprophets.org .
I have made this newsletter interactive. I used [brackets] to refer to certain verses in the Bible and you are challenged to remember the verses and/or look them up. We will see just how much you study the Word of God. If you do not recall the messages to the Churches in Revelation 1-3, do a quick read in order to follow along better.
Four of the seven Churches are going into the Tribulation. Are you in one of them?
There is a conspicuous absence of scholarly books on Church history because the descriptions in Revelation simply do not match the history of Catholic and Protestant Churches. So, scholars have given up. Or, they made the audacious claim that the Book of Revelation was not divinely inspired. Wow, such insolence! Why can’t scholars honestly admit that they don’t understand? I guess that they are blinded by egotism.
The obvious reason that Catholic and Protestant scholars are locked out of Church history in the Book of Revelation is that they cannot admit that God’s messages to the Churches are only to Sabbath-keeping Churches that date back to the Jewish/Christian Church in Judea, 30 AD. God only addresses Sabbath-keeping Churches that are the continuation of this particular Church. After a scholar resigns himself to this reality, God’s messages have perfect matches with Sabbath-keeping eras down through history.
Even so, the messages still apply to you if you attend a Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox Church. This is because people in every Church reflect the societies that they live in. And, every Church, regardless of the day it observes, is part of God’s Church. So, God’s messages relate to every Christian.
The Book of Revelation describes seven Churches (chapters 1, 2 & 3). These are Church eras. They exist at different times in world history. Your Church branch began in one of these Church eras. Which one are you in? There is a book about Church history that can help you identify your Church as it is described in Revelation. You will be able to evaluate your personal worthiness to escape Armageddon by identifying your Church as it is described in the Book of Revelation.
There is only one book in existence that comes close to identifying the seven eras of the Church that have existed from the day God created the Church on Pentecost, 30 AD. That one book is A History of the True Religion by Dugger & Dodd. You can buy your copy through our Bookstore at:
Order your book here! (Scroll down the list)
You can also read a free version on the Internet at the web sites of the Jerusalem Church of God and the Church of God 7th Day:
http://jcog7day.org/the-history-of-true-religion.html -or-
http://www.cog7day.org/about/pdf/truereligion.pdf
This priceless book was first published in 1936. It is not complete because it gives Church history ONLY up to 1936. The authors were not able to identify every Church that would go into the Tribulation because the Philadelphian and Laodicean [chapter?] eras had not come into existence as of 1936. You need to know how you will fare in the Tribulation. This book, along with the Book of Revelation, will give you vital information about the four Churches that will go into Tribulation. This information will mean life or death to you.
WARNING! In my opinion, Herbert Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, plagiarized this book. So, when you look for the original book written by Dugger & Dodd, don’t confuse it with the plagiarized version by Armstrong.
The Menorah & the Church
God created the Menorah for the Tent of God at the time of Moses. It was a symbol of the Church. It was a prophecy of the Church of God that God would create after Jesus’ resurrection in 30 AD.
I believe that the very first Menorah was a small dead tree in Adam’s tent. Adam used it to light up his tent at night. He put small oils cups on it to burn olive oil in.
Adam’s tent was recreated as God’s Tent. It also had a tree that served as a lamp stand. God's tree also had oil cups that were lit in order to produce light. The tree in God's Tent became known as the Menorah. The Menorah in the Tent of God looked like a tree because it was a representation of the forbidden Almond Tree that was in the Garden of Eden. Almonds are poisonous and God warned Eve that she would die if she ate them. This is a subject that I will persue at another time. [Update 2-28-2011: The Forbidden Tree was an Olive Tree, and unprocessed olives are poisonous. Even so, Almond buds from the Tree of Life were grafted into the Olive Tree, as God explained to Moses when the Menorah was first created.]
For now, I will mention that the word Al-mond can be broken down to be "God's Mountain." The word Men-o-rah can be broken down to be "Men of God" and "Men of sunlight." I mention this because Jesus took "Men of God", or Men-O-Rah, (who were James, Peter and John) up a high "Mountain", or Al-Mond, to be with two other men of God, Moses and Elijah.
That event was prophetic in that it described God's Church/Menorah. Because of that event, we can associate James, Peter, John, Moses, Elijah and Jesus with the seven eras of the Church of God - and the seven eras were/are represented by the seven oil cups on the Menorah. I hope this is not a confusing concept to you because it will help you to understand the diagram of the Menorah I created for this newsletter.
The Menorah had seven branches and each branch supported an oil lamp. The lamps burned olive oil. Raw olives, like raw almonds from wild trees, are poisonous and a person could die if he ate them. Raw almonds and olives need to have their poisons neutralized before they are safe to eat. The point is that a little knowledge is dangerous. Knowledge has to be correctly processed in order for it to be safe and beneficial.
Regardless, the Menorah represents true knowledge. The seven eras of the Church of God have shone true knowledge for the world for 2000 years.
Church history according to the Menorah - vertical perspective
The Menorah represents Church history from more than one perspective. First, the Menorah can be seen as Church history from the bottom up. Half way up the trunk, there is a graph mark. This illustrates that the Christian Church was graphed into the Jewish Congregation [verse?]. James, as the first leader of God's Church, was the Church leader at that time in history.
Eras of the Church are illustrated by the Menorah in both a vertical and horizontal perspective. When we view the vertical perspective, we see that there have been seven basic branches of the Church. In the East, there have been the Orthodox branch and the Lutheran branch. In the West there have been the Catholic branch and the Calvinist branch. In American there have been Sabbatarian branches that include the Seventh Day Adventist branch and the Church of God Seventh Day branch. The middle branch has been the Church of God under the Armstrong family.
Jesus is the main branch of this tree. He is the branch of the root of Jesse [verse?]. So, when you look at the Menorah, visualize Jesus as the main branch from which all the other branches have sprouted. Like Jesus said, He is in the midst of the Church [verse?].
Visualize this Menorah as a lamp that covers the face of the earth as we look at the Western Hemisphere. The base of the Menorah is set in Jerusalem. It grows northward to Nordic nations.
Let us start at the base of this tree, which is in Jerusalem. We proceed up the Menorah to the first crotches of the tree. These crotches illustrate the sprouting of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches off the Church of God. The Byzantine Empire championed the Orthodox branch of Christianity to the East. The Catholic branch of Christianity championed Christianity to the West.
Keep in mind that Jesus is the main branch in the middle and all the branches of the Christian Church have branched off Him. In other words, the Catholic Church did not branch off the Orthodox Church. Likewise, the Protestant Church did not branch off the Catholic Church.
We proceed northward up the Menorah to Germany. A German priest named Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation, which was illustrated by the next pair of crotches in the Tree. One crotch was the branching off of Lutheran Churches to Germanic nations in the East. The other crotch was the branching off of Calvinist Churches in the West, mainly Britain.
To sum up so far, the Menorah’s lower branches represent the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. The Protestant Reformation is represented by the next set of branches on the Menorah.
At this point, it is important to mention that Peter was the head of the Orthodox and Catholic branches of the Church of God. Peter was a violent man who carried and used a sword [verse?]. So, it is not surprising that his Churches have been violent and have used the sword. But, this is not a bad thing because Orthodox and Catholic armies have protected Europe from foreign invaders that had anti-Christian religions. Every Christian is indebted to Orthodox and Catholic men that fought to keep the Christian Church alive.
Because the Orthodox and Catholic branches of the Church are related to Peter, the capital cities that have championed these branches are named after Peter. These capitals are St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Petersburg in Russia.
John was also a Church leader. John was different from Peter. John was always close to Jesus [verse?]. During meals, John was always reclined on Jesus [verse?] so that they appeared to be one. So, this intimate relationship is illustrated by the Menorah. The smaller branches of the Menorah, which are closer to the main branch, represent John’s Protestant Churches. While the Catholic Church is more formal and ritualistic, Protestant Churches are characterized by individual freedoms that make closer personal relationships with God possible.
Inset- At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Church of God continued as the main branch. This section of the main branch was the Thyatiran era. The Thyatiran era saw the migration of isolated pockets of the Church of God to the New World. In the free environment of Northern America, the Thyatiran era sprouted three more Sabbatarian Churches. These will be identified as the Sardis, Philadelphian and Laodicean Churches.
As we move up the Menorah’s main branch, we have only three branches that remain. These illustrate the last three branches of the Church described in Revelation [chapter-verses?]. These are the Churches of Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.
The Philadelphian Church is praised as the one that is closest to God. That is why it is in the very middle of the Menorah, where also Jesus is [verse?].
Church history according to the Menorah - horizontal perspective
Think of the Menorah as a line or succession of lamps. Church history according to Revelation is also about a succession of eras. The first era was Ephesus [verse?]. The seventh era is Laodicea [verse?].
The horizontal perspective shows the Thyatiran era to be in the midst of the Menorah. This is because the Thyatira Church crossed the Atlantic Ocean during this era. A congregation in London met at the Mill Yard Church of London. They called themselves the Seventh Day Baptist Church.
The succession of oil lamps on the Menorah illustrates the succession of seven eras of the Sabbatarian Church of God described in Revelation 1-3. In Revelation Jesus does not directly speak to Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant organizations, but His messages would be relevant for them down through the centuries.
That congregation eventually dried up because all the families migrated to North America. But that was only one of thousands of isolated bands of Church of God people that were spread all over Europe. And they basically went by the name Church of God, although hate-filled Catholics and Protestants referred to them as Waldenses, Albigenses, Vaudois, Cathars, Paulicians, Anabaptists, Puritans, heretics, witches, etc.
So, the first three eras of the Church of God, which were the first three branches of the Menorah, were to the East of the Atlantic Ocean. The last three eras, which are the last three branches of the Menorah, are to the West. The Thyatiran era was in the middle because Puritans were in the Atlantic Ocean. Waldenses were in frail wooden ships that crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the Promised Land of North America. Members of the center branch were migrating to the New World in order to escape persecution and massacre- as soon as they gathered money for passage.
Descriptions of the individual eras
1.) Ephesus- The Church of Ephesus was the community of Christian Jews in Judea. One of the main issues at that time was the repudiation of predators that wanted to use the story of Jesus to pass themselves off as apostles [verse?]. They then gathered followers in order to extract tithes in the name of God. Tithing was not practiced by the True Church and preachers worked for their living [verse?]. Jesus forbade His disciples from paying into the Temple/Levitical/Priesthood system [verse?].
Another issue that faced the Church was the concept of a formal and dictatorial religion (Nicolaitan) with yet another elitist priesthood. (God had destroyed the Levite priesthood in 70 AD, but religious predators recreated it as a Christian priesthood in order to extract tithes from followers, to gain fame as religious leaders, and to exert dictatorial control over oppressed believers.) The Nicholaitan priesthood was replacing the one-on-one relationship with God that characterized the true religion. Jesus was the "first" love whom the Church jilted for a pompous Nicholaitan priesthood.
The term "Nicolaitan" is prophetic in this verse because evil Bishop Nicolas would be active after the Roman Empire became Christian. "Nicholaitan" refers to the brutal and pompus Roman Bishop Nicolas, who physically beat down other Bishops who would not submit to his self-proclaimed supremacy and his apostate beliefs. The brutal and dictatorial Nicolas personified the elitist Levitical priesthood that reinvented itself as a Christian priesthood. Satan used Nicolas and other "trinitarians" to infiltration the Church. In that way, Satan gained a strong governing position in God's Church, and Satan thereafter commenced a war on nonconformists, so that conforming and docile Christians could be used as mindless pawns in the evil schemes of Satan.
In time, God removed the candlestick (oil cup) from the area of Judea when the Church was relocated out of Judea. God had removed the oil cup from Judea in 70 AD and in 135 AD so that Christians would be saved from the slaughter of Judeans by Roman armies in the times of Titus and Hadrian.
The issue of Nicholaitans would arise again when Roman Church leaders began their persecution of unregimentated Christians at the time of Bishop Nicholas of Rome after the Roam Empire embraced Christianity as a state religion (after 300 AD).
2.) Smyrna- This era suffered poverty and persecution at the hands of Roman leaders. If I recall correctly, there was a ten-year period of intense persecution and slaughter as Rome tried to stamp out Christianity. The persecution served to spread the Church northward into the wilderness of Europe. In the European wilderness, the Church of God prospered until Roman Church leaders began hostile takeovers of their Church buildings, and genecidal massacres of Sabbatarians. In time, there was no place left for Sabbatarians. Many ecked out existence in isolated valleys in mountainous areas. They became known as "valley people" or "Valdensens" or "Vaudois." When North America opened up to immigration, Sabbatarians like the Valdensens/Vaudois fled there in search of religious freedom.
3.) Pergamus- During this era, the Church of God was headquartered in Asia Minor, which is now Turkey. At that time, the capital of the Roman Empire, East, was also located in Asia Minor. It was headquarters for the Roman Caesar that ruled the eastern half of the Roman Empire.
The man referred to as "Antipas" was Polycarp, who was head of the Church after John the Revelator died. The word Antipas means anti-pope. Polycarp preached against a priesthood. A new generation of Church leaders in Rome was challenging the leadership of Polycarp. Roman Church leaders were recreating a predatory and elitest priesthood that was very much like the Levitical Priesthood that God destroyed and would not allow followers to pay into.
So, it was natural for Polycarp to speak out against the elitist Pope system that was being created in Rome. Roman Church leaders conspired with Caesar against Polycarp and had Polycarp executed in front of Caesar (where Satan dwells) [verse?].
Church leaders in Rome were comparable to Baalim [Old Testament chapter, verse?] because they began to come up with policies aimed at extracting tithes and indulgences from followers. Also, Roman Church leaders created an isolated and elitist priesthood that separated Christians from God and the Word of God.
In time, Christians were forbidden from owning and reading the Bible. Church services were spoken in Latin so that nobody understood what priests read out of the Bible. Sabbatarians fled to wilderness areas of Europe in order to simply read the Bible. They were called Vaudois/Valdens/Valdensens because they lived in wilderness valleys that nobody else wanted to live in. They later came to be known as Waldensens because of the famous Sabbatarian leader Peter Waldo.
-Edward D. McKinney
Continued as Four American Churches in the Tribulation- doomed or protected?
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