On Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings during my youth I would routinely join my religious counterparts in singing a song which asked the lost soul among us “Why not tonight?” This would follow the inevitable warning from the pulpit that, because Jesus could come before he/she could make it home, should he/she not “get saved” in the next few minutes and thereby make certain that the fix was in. Why take the chance on being “left behind” when Jesus came to snatch “the church” away to heaven in an instantaneous “rapture?” According to the false prophet speaking to us, the disappearance could take place even before the next word exited his lips. We assumed that the words we were hearing were divinely inspired–from God’s heart to the preacher’s lips. Because we were the product of the religious system known as Catholicism/Protestantism, we had no doubt that what we were being told was true because our “minister of righteousness” said it was. But was it?

In Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 we are told that a series of events must take place before Jesus returns to the earth to establish the Kingdom of God. And notice Jesus’ warning that, even after these events take place, “the end is not yet.” Serious Bible students will also notice His additional Words on the subject, that when these prophesied events begin to take place, the generation of mankind living at that time will witness His second coming: “… when you shall see all these these things (signs), know that the end is near …. Verily I say unto you, this generation (that sees these signs) shall not pass (away) till all these things (signs) be fulfilled” (Mat. 24:33,34).

Religious man is known for missing the signs God has provided to let him know where he is time-wise. Recall that following the arrival of the magi from the East with news of the birth of the King of the Jews, Herod asked the priests in the Temple about it. Because the signs of the King’s birth were prophesied throughout the Old Testament, the priests had a ready answer. They knew everything God had said about the birth of the King of the Jews. But because the circumstances of His birth did not fit their belief system, they did not believe the signs God had given them.

Three decades later a group of unbelieving Pharisees and Sadducees were found asking Jesus for a sign that would prove that He was Who He said He was. The episode is recorded in Matthew 16:1-3 and 12:39,40. After calling them “hypocrites” and “an adulterous generation” for not believing the signs God had provided them in the Scriptures, Jesus gave them (and us) a special sign–“the sign of the prophet Jonah.” This sign would prove beyond a doubt that He was the Son of God. JUST AS Jonah had been three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, SO the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. His detractors did not believe Him them; neither do His detractors believe Him today. Instead, they believe Satan’s sign that identifies his false messiah–Tammuz. The Institutional Church worships a false messiah who was supposedly killed on Friday and raised on Sunday–one day and two nights. When the women arrived at the tomb at daybreak on Sunday, Jesus had already risen at sundown the day before, “AS HE SAID.” The women believed what Jesus had said. The Pharisees and Sadducees did not, and neither do their spiritual descendants. THE FALSE CHURCH (CATHOLICISM/PROTESTANTISM) WORSHIPS A FALSE GOD (SATAN) AND A FALSE MESSIAH (TAMMUZ). As a result, professing Christendom’s religion is false, her gospel is false, her salvation is false–all are counterfeits. Catholicism/Protestantism is a two-headed Counterfeit Church system–an abomination in the eyes of the Biblical God and His Son. To be continued. L.J.