De Witt Tabernacle Teaching Series

                                                                         Foreshadowing The End

                                                                C. W. Wood                                      October 2001

I would like to go to the scriptures and read a story there, then type it with current events concerning the terrible tragedy in New York and Washington D.C. There is a definite parallel between what we read in Luke 19:41-44 and in what has just happened in our nation. What should be the attitude of the Bride toward the destruction and deaths we have witnessed? Should we look on it with hard, stony hearts and think, “We told you so; you have been warned.” No! If we are sons of Abraham, we will do as he did when told of the soon destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He immediately began to intercede in prayer. He had family in that valley and some of us have family still outside the circle of safety. We must pray as never before. We have seen the foreshadowing of the end of the greatest nation on Earth.

            Abraham had a real burden for the people, and the Bride has the same burden for America today. They are weeping with those who are weeping and broken-hearted because of what is happening to our nation. They are helping any way they can. In Luke 19:41-44 is the story of our Lord Jesus entering into the city of Jerusalem where He would be welcomed by a few believers but  then be rejected  by the masses, beaten, tortured, and nailed to the terrible Cross. But, first He would take the Passover Supper with His Disciples.

            He has sent His Disciples into the city to “Loose a colt, the foal of an ass” and bring it to Him outside the city. Zechariah had said that Messiah must enter Jerusalem riding upon a colt. (Zech. 9:9) While the Disciples had gone to bring the colt, the Lord stood on the Mt. of Olives and looked down on Jerusalem. Historians say the city, with its temple and steeples, was a very impressive sight from the Hill of Olivet. Ps. 48:2 says it was, “The City of the Great King.” It was the perfection of beauty and the pride of the Jewish nation. What inhabitant of Jerusalem could look upon it without a thrill of admiration coming over him?

            And may I ask, “What American can view our great land, with its mountains, valleys and plains, woodlands and prairies, without a feeling of admiration coming over us.” How blessed we are to have lived in this land of the free and the brave. Amid forgetfulness and apostasy God has dealt with America as a loving father deals with a rebellious son, admonishing, warning, correcting, and still saying in His great loving heart what He once said to Israel, “How can I give thee up?”

            When entreaty and rebuke failed in the years behind us, God then sent His Prophet of Malachi 4:5 and filled him with His Spirit. For over thirty-three years the Spirit of Christ in the Prophet, knocked at the gates of the cities of America. He sought fruit from the Vine He had plucked up from Europe and transplanted to this great land. God had dug about His American Vine. He had pruned and cherished it, and had been unwearied in His effort to save the Vine of His own planting. For thirty-three years, the Lord of Light went in and out among His people. He healed the sick; He comforted the sorrowing, raised the dead, and spoke pardon and peace to the repentant. He gathered about Him the weak and the weary, the helpless and the despondent, and extended to all the invitation to believe the revealed Word as spoken by His Prophet.

            Regardless of indifference and contempt, God anointed this Prophet to take His ministry of love to the American Churches. He pleaded with men to accept the Gift of Life. God subjected His Prophet to privation and reproach, but still He crisscrossed this nation, scattering blessings in his path. But, far too often the waves of mercy were beaten back by the stubborn hearts of denominational people, who chose rather to stay in their systems. Being warned many times that their membership in them would become the Mark of the Beast, they refused to pay the price of separation. The pleadings of God’s love had been rejected, His counsels spurned, His warnings ridiculed.

            And so, the hour of God’s Grace, extended to a nation, passed, and now the hour of Grace for individuals is fast passing. The cup of God’s long-delayed wrath is almost full. The cloud of wrath that has been gathering for the past 60-65 years is now beginning to burst over a guilty nation. He, who alone, could have saved America from her fate, has been slighted, abused, and rejected as He moved by His Spirit, in His Prophet.

            As the Lord Jesus stood and looked down at Jerusalem that day, He was suddenly overtaken by a great sorrow. Luke 19:41, “When He was come near He beheld the city, AND WEPT OVER IT.” While some believers in the city waited His coming, and was about to welcome Him with glad hosannas, and by casting palm branches before Him, He stood on the hill and began to weep. We do not believe He wept for Himself, although He could look not far from where He stood and see the place of His approaching death. On the path that He was soon to walk would fall the horror of great darkness, as He made His soul an offering for sin. But, it was not the thought of suffering and death that cast such a shadow on Him in this hour of the Believers rejoicing.

            As He looked at Jerusalem that day, His eyes saw something quite different from the beautiful, white gleaming walls of the Temple. He saw the city taken, the great Temple destroyed, and over one million Jews slain, many of whom would be praying in the Temple itself. And not only that, but He looked down through the coming ages and saw the Covenant People scattered into every land, like wrecks in a desert place. He saw the destruction of Jerusalem, that was only 40 years away, and that it was only the first draught from the cup of wrath that the people would have to drain to its bottom, and He wept! This writer believes that it was not just a few tears that trickled down His face, but that He wept uncontrollably from a broken heart. It is also this writer’s belief that on September 11, 2001, when the three planes approached their assigned targets, he again wept with the passion of a broken heart. He was again looking down through the future and seeing America a smoldering ruin, nothing but chaos and debris, with no signs of life anywhere! He saw that the destruction of the two Towers and the partial destruction of the Pentagon building was only the first draught from the cup of wrath that has been assigned to America, and that she will have to drain the cup of its last dregs. (Refer to Br. Branham’s 7^th vision in 1933, The Destruction of America.)

            I believe that His great heart was crying out and saying, “Oh that thou, a nation favored above ever nation except Israel, if you had only known the time of your visitation, and the things that belonged to your peace. I have sent you My Prophet and called you to repentance, but all in vain. It was not only My Prophet that you rejected, but the Holy One of Israel, your Redeemer. When you are destroyed, you alone are responsible, for you would not come to Me that you might have life.”

            How exactly Luke 19:43-44 applies to the America of today! “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.” The history of well over 200 years of privilege and blessing, granted to the people of America, was unfolded before the Eyes of God on Tuesday the eleventh of September, 2001. The Lord had made America His Holy Habitation, even as He had done to Israel.

            But, the record of our nation has been that she changed her speech from that of a Lamb to a Dragon, and to rebellion and backsliding. Our spiritual leaders have, for the most part, resisted Heaven’s Grace, abused their privileges, and slighted their opportunities. The Majesty of Heaven in tears, bowed down with anguish at the destruction that His favored America has chosen for herself. She must walk down the path she chose, for the Holy One of Israel will not, yea, cannot change His Word of Judgment.

            The great sin of the Jews was their rejection of Christ, and the great sin of so-called Christian America is the same. They have crucified the Lord the second time, as He walked in the shoe leather of His Prophet, William Branham. The precepts of Jehovah have been despised and set at naught. Millions are in bondage to sin, slaves to Satan, doomed to suffer the second death. Their infatuation with the world has produced a terrible blindness that can only grow darker as they turn further from the light.

            In the days of Jesus, Herod had greatly strengthened the city of Jerusalem by the building of towers, walls and fortresses, and it was considered safe from every enemy. He who would at that time have foretold publicly its destruction would, like Noah in his day, have been called a crazy alarmist. But, Jesus had said, “There will not be left one stone upon another.” He, who would at this time foretell publicly the complete destruction of America, will also be called a crazy alarmist! But, we who believe that the Prophet of Malachi 4:5 has come, also believe his seventh vision given in 1933 which showed America with no signs of life, a place of chaos and death.

            We believe also that this nation which has before times been considered impregnable, was shown on September the eleventh, the foreshadowing of Her end, the destruction of her three great buildings, being only the first great draught from the Cup of Wrath. As the Jews have had to do, America will also have to drain the cup to its last bitter dregs. Because of her sins, wrath has been prophesied against America, and her stubborn unbelief in God’s End-Time Message has rendered her doom certain.

            The Bride of Christ is not being fooled by the sudden Unity we are seeing in our nation and the world. The people of America have united in the government and in the churches. Not only that, but the peoples and the governments of the world have united with us to destroy the terrorist. To the natural eye, this is a great thing, a good uniting, but to those looking through the eyes of the scripture, it is the uniting of all religions and governments in preparation for the take-over of one world ruler. This ruler will be a Pope of Rome, who will then use the Powers of this nation to enforce the deadly Mark of the Beast. The uniting we are seeing is one of religion and patriotism, not the unity that the revelation of God’s Word produces. In the message, “Uniting Time and Sign,” we were warned about the unity we are now seeing between the nations, and also told of the unity that the Revealed Word would produce in the Bride.

            For forty years after the doom of Jerusalem had been announced by Jesus Himself, God delayed His Judgments upon the city and the nation. Wonderful was the long suffering of God toward the rejecters of His Gospel and the murderers of His Son. The parable of the unfruitful tree represented God’s dealings with the Jewish nation. The command had gone forth, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground.” (Luke 13:7) But, Divine Mercy had spared it a little longer. In 1957, the Prophet William Branham had said, “I predict that if America does not turn to God this year, she never will.” Those who have spiritual insight know that, generally speaking, she did not turn. Forty-four years have passed since 1957. How much more time God has allotted to America no man knows, but it is evident that we have just seen the hardest Birth Pain yet, pointing to the birth of a new Heaven and a new Earth.

            On the 14^th of September, after the tragedy, the Greats of Government, Military Might, and Religion gathered themselves together in the National Cathedral in Washington. This writer witnessed the whole of the service as different speakers were escorted to the pulpit. Among those who spoke were Brother Billy Graham and the President. It was a very moving service. Though some may doubt this, the Spirit of the Lord was there, moving through that great congregation of people. Some were weeping, and the make-up on the faces of many great ladies was ruined as tears ran down their cheeks. This writer will believe to his last day that our Loving Father, disregarding past indifference and contempt, moved on that congregation, to pull, as it were, one last brand from the fire. As I watched, and wept with those who were weeping, I prayed that some were turning to the Christ of such great Mercy.

            The theme of each speaker was that America would retaliate and continue to be the greatest nation on Earth. My heart was broken because I knew that these proud boasts would not be fulfilled. As I listened to Brother Billy Graham speak, I remembered that he had known Brother Branham personally, and was aware of at least some of the teaching of the Message. I also remembered that in a public statement to the press a few years ago, he had said, “The Pope has become the Moral Leader of the West.” I saw Ex-President Carter seated with the other ex-presidents, and remembered that in 1979 he had welcomed the Pope on the White House lawn and said, “God has blessed America by sending you to us.”

            As I watched the service, my mind went to another church service that the Priests in Jerusalem had called some 2000 years ago, when they saw their city surrounded by the army of the Roman General Titus.

            QUOTE: THE UNITING SIGN AND TIME, PAGE 14 “It was hard for them Jews to believe (That someone would actually try to attack their great walled city), they said, ‘Now come Brethren, we see that our God is with us, and so we’ll go into the temple. And now we will pray, and let Holy Father so and so lead in prayer. Close the gate (Gates of Jerusalem). And Titus took his stand, and stood right there for about a year or more. See, right on guard, and starved them right out….. and when he went in there and tore the walls down, the blood burst out and run like rivers down there where he slaughtered everything that was in there.” (End quote)

            QUOTE: UNITING TIME AND SIGN, PAGE 15, “They (The Jews) failed to see the sign of that day, and the sign of the Bible’s prophesy was made before them, and they said, ‘Let’s go in now (And pray). Those were Holy men. They were men that you couldn’t lay your finger on their life. They couldn’t be that (Live immoral lives) and then be a Priest. A Priest would be killed; he would be stoned to death for any little thing. So he had to live a clean, holy life. He could not do it, because he was stoned for just anything. And now they were great men, and Holy men in the sight of the people, and yet they went in and said, ‘We’ve got God, the God who’s been with us all through the ages. We will go into His Holy Temple. That was God’s Holy Temple. But, you see, He had been turned down in his Holy Temple…..So all the praying, all the sincerity, all their sacrifices didn’t mean nothing to God. They had done it! And God let this great army unite to destroy it.” (End quote)

            CONTINUE QUOTE: BOTTOM OF PAGE 15, “Now you see where we’re living? The Uniting Time. When we see these things being united, oh, why we fail to see those things. You can look in here in the Scripture and see where that He has promised that, what He would do. Now we see it coming to pass. We see in the Church what He promised to do; we see it coming to pass. We see the nations uniting together. We see the “isms” uniting together. We see the churches uniting together. It’s Uniting Time. It’s the hour of Uniting. That’s the spirit of the age, we’ve got to unite (They are all saying). Everything you talk about has got to be organized; even the Government will receive it. (End quote)